A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

by T. Kingfisher

  I’d never even seen the Duchess close up. When she goes out for parades, there’s always a crowd and lots of guards around her.

  Bring the prisoner.

  How had this even happened?

  Who was the dead girl in the bakery?

  A large hand opened the door. It was attached to a guard, who was wearing shiny armor and looking very military. He reached the other hand inside the coach and made a beckoning gesture then clicked his tongue, as if I were a dog.

  I looked at Constable Alphonse. He looked as bewildered and uncomfortable as I felt.

  There was another, slightly more impatient tongue click.

  I held out an arm, and was grabbed, not unkindly but very firmly, and lifted out of the carriage.

  Inquisitor Oberon was tossing out orders on the other side of the courtyard. Most of them went by without making any sense. I caught the last one though—“Take the girl to a waiting room. She will be judged at the afternoon audience.”

  I disliked “judged” only slightly less than I disliked “prisoner.”

  Come to think of it, I wasn’t all that keen on “girl” either, when it was delivered in that tone of voice. Aunt Tabitha is allowed to call me “girl.” Weird men in robes who think I’ve murdered someone aren’t.

  The guard in the shiny armor took me through a pair of doors set in the wall of the carriage yard. It seemed very dark after the brightness outside, and the hand on my arm was hurrying me along, so all I saw was a blur of doors and corridors with shiny tile floors that clattered under my boots. The guard’s feet didn’t clatter. Maybe they wore soft-soled shoes so they wouldn’t scuff the tile, or maybe they took lessons in how to walk without sounding like they were wearing horseshoes.

  “Prisoner for the afternoon audience,” said the guard holding my arm.

  There was that word again.

  I blinked a few times. My eyes had adjusted enough to see two more guards standing on either side of a small door. The door was bright blue. The guards were not bright blue, although the one on the right looked awfully grumpy.

  The guard on the left opened the door. The hand on my arm turned into a hand between my shoulder blades, which propelled me firmly into the room.

  It was a small, nondescript room, with a chair and a door opposite the one I’d come through. No windows. There was a small table, and two wall sconces that provided light. And that was all.

  The door behind me started to close.

  “Hey!” I said, startled into protest. “Hey, wait—what do I do?”

  “You wait,” said the grumpy guard.

  “Someone will come for you,” said the less-grumpy guard.

  The door closed. I heard a loud clacking as it was locked from the other side.

  It probably says something about the difference between royalty and commoners that they have waiting rooms that lock from the outside.

  Still. This could be worse, I told myself, looking around the featureless room. It’s not the dungeon. There’s a chair. And light. And no bars or rats or anything.

  The chair wasn’t very comfortable—there was straw coming out of the seat, and it made sitting rather poky—but at least it was a seat. They didn’t give you seats in prison, did they?

  And sure, the doors are locked, but it’s okay, it’s not like you have to pee or anything.

  As soon as I thought it, I realized I’d made a mistake. You can’t think that sort of thing without immediately having to go.

  Uh-oh.

  Well, it’s not like I’d had a chance to go, during all the confusion, and then there was the carriage ride, which had not been exactly easy on the ol’ bladder, and I’d had two cups of black tea this morning, and what goes in must come out, after all.

  A quick search of the room proved that there was no chamber pot. Neither were there ornamental vases, potted plants, or even a window to hang one’s posterior from.

  Oh, dear.

  I tried to ignore it. I counted the tiles on the floor—forty-six, if you counted each of the half-tiles on the far wall as one—and the rafters on the ceiling—eight, and then I counted them all again, just in case I’d missed one. I hadn’t.

  Nobody came to get me. I counted everything again, from the other direction. Extra rafters did not spontaneously leap into existence.

  Those two cups of tea were really starting to make themselves known.

  I wiggled in my chair. It poked me.

  At least in the dungeon, they gave you a chamber pot, right? Or you just went in the corner. I eyed the corners of the room speculatively.

  Nah, somebody’d notice. They already suspect you of murder, let’s not add public urination to the list.

  It was amazing. Terror cannot actually stand up to a full bladder. I was about to be hauled up on murder charges, and all I could think about was oh god I have to go so baaaaad…

  I got up and pounded on the door.

  “Hey! Hey!”

  No response.

  “HEY! I have to pee! Unlock the door!” I rattled the handle futilely.

  There was a clattering in the lock, and the door opened an inch. A dark eye peered down at me. “What’s all this racket?”

  “I have to pee!” I begged the guard. “Please!”

  “Not my problem,” said the guard, starting to close the door.

  “Hey!”

  “Oh, come on, Jorges,” said another voice. “She’s just a kid. Take her to the privy already.”

  “You take her,” said Jorges irritably, apparently to the other guard. “I’m eating breakfast. I didn’t get a chance before work.”

  “Fine…” A creak of leather, and the second guard pushed the door open. Jorges stomped back to his post on the far side.

  The new guard smiled in a friendly fashion—I’d guess he had kids my age or something—and gestured in front of him. “Come on, m’girl, there’s a privy down this way.”

  “Thank you,” I said with heartfelt and genuine gratitude, and hurried out into the hall.

  He led the way. As we passed the surly Jorges, I glanced down at his lunch, which was black bread and cheese.

  You’re feeling really dry, I suggested to the bread. Really stale. Hard as a rock. Usually I have to be touching something in order to make it do anything really impressive, but for just going stale, as long as I can see it, I can work with it. It wants to go stale. Bread is very accommodating that way.

  Then I scurried into the hall after my benefactor.

  The privy was a privy. There’s a limit to what you can do with privies, even in a castle. Oh, there was a very nicely sanded seat, it was as nice as one could make it, but still, it’s basically a board with a hole in it.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for a board with a hole in it in my life.

  On the way back, Jorges the guard was coughing and working his mouth, looking disgruntled. Apparently his bread and cheese hadn’t agreed with him.

  I had very little time to savor my victory, however, because barely a minute after my guard had ushered me back into the waiting room, Inquisitor Oberon came back for me.

  “Up,” he said, gesturing with one hand. Again, people treating me like I was a dog. I had an urge to snarl and go for his ankles, but I couldn’t see that it would improve the situation, however satisfying it might be.

  “What’s happening?” I demanded, not getting up from my chair.

  He made the hand gesture again, and his eyebrows drew together.

  I didn’t quite have the nerve to disobey. I got up. “What’s happening? Where are you taking me?”

  I could actually see him weigh the annoyance of telling me against the annoyance of listening to me ask questions. “You have an audience to be sentenced for your crime,” he said finally.

  “But I haven’t done anything!”

  “Such is for the judges to decide.” He beckoned again, and I got the impression that I had reached the end of his patience.

  What could I do? I went.

 
; Five

  I expected the audience chamber to be huge, full of echoes and intimidation. I hadn’t ever seen one, but it stood to reason that it would be like that, something built to the scale of the vast courtyard, or the sanctuary of the great cathedral. Something like that.

  It wasn’t. It was a bare room, and it was at a scale I could understand. Big, but no bigger than, say, the common room at the tavern down the street. There were tapestries on the walls, and they were beautiful, but it was a utilitarian sort of beauty.

  A ratty little man, dressed in a less dramatic shade of purple than the Inquisitor, sat behind a desk in the center of the room. Behind him, at the far end of the room, sat a large table and behind it, in a large padded chair that was definitely a chair and not a throne, sat a middle-aged woman that I recognized from past parades.

  The Duchess was about Aunt Tabitha’s age and had much the same build, except that she was a good six inches shorter. Our ruler wasn’t a warrior queen or a teenage princess or anything like that. We’re not that kind of city. She was just a woman, rather pudgy, with tired eyes and deep lines carved into her face.

  It’s a funny thing, though, even having seen her in parades before, even seeing her now without the veil and thinking that she looked like a normal person, like somebody who might come into the shop and buy muffins…even that was no preparation for being in the same room with her. My knees felt like melting ice, and my ears were ringing for no apparent reason.

  “We are hearing a case involving an occurrence at a bakery on Gladarat Street.” said the little man in purple, in extremely bored tones. “Inquisitor Oberon, presenting report.”

  There were several other people at the table. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t see most of them. I had a vague impression of bodies, and some guards behind the Duchess’s chair, but the only other presence in the room that I really saw was a man in saffron broadcloth sitting next to the Duchess.

  I knew immediately who it was. Lord Ethan, the Golden General. The wizard who led Her Grace’s armies into battle.

  Lord Ethan.

  He was famous.

  He had singlehandedly won the battle of Wightbarn and they say when the Carex mercenaries were raiding the outlying farms a few years ago, he captured their leader and hung him upside down over a cliff-edge in a fist made of clouds.

  You may think that I’m being ridiculous, mooning over how famous a man is when I’m being accused of murder, but—well—it was Lord Ethan. The closest we had to a living legend, like one of the heroes in the old stories who slew monsters. He had a chiseled jaw and wavy hair the color of melted butter and dark eyes like cinnamon and broad shoulders and—look, I’m not doing this well at all, he sounds like a pastry when I do it. He looked heroic, let’s leave it at that. He looked like he should wear gleaming armor and carry a sword that sang.

  More than that, he looked nice. His lips were quirked up in a smile, as he leaned to the Duchess and murmured something into her ear.

  I wished he’d speak to me. It didn’t matter what. “I’d like to buy a dozen blueberry scones,” would have been just as good as “Follow me! We’ll save the kingdom together!” Better, in fact, because I at least knew what to do when somebody bought blueberry scones.

  It occurred to me that the Inquisitor was talking. He had probably been talking for some time, but I’d been woolgathering about Lord Ethan and scones. However, he’d just uttered the word “murder” which is a remarkably good word for focusing one’s mind.

  “This girl was found with the body,” the Inquisitor continued, sounding bored.

  “I found the body,” I burst out. “I wasn’t found with the body!”

  The man in purple gave me an annoyed glance that said very clearly that I was holding up the process. If I would just hurry up and be guilty, they could get this over with. By refusing to cooperate, I was wasting everyone’s time.

  That made me angry. It might just be work to them, but it was my life to me! I buried my hands in my apron and clenched them into fists.

  “Found the body,” said the Inquisitor with a sigh. “Very well. Obviously suspicion in this case is sufficient—”

  “Excuse me,” said a woman’s voice.

  The Duchess was speaking.

  The Inquisitor looked startled. Did she not usually speak during these procedures? Was everything conducted between the two men in purple, and the Duchess just sat there?

  I’m fourteen. Politics aren’t my strong suit. Still, that didn’t seem right at all.

  “Tell me, child,” said the Duchess kindly, “do you parents know where you are?”

  “My parents are dead, ma’am—” No, not ma’am, you’re talking to the Duchess, not a customer! “—err. Your Grace.”

  “Do you have no family to live with, child?”

  “Oh, no! Err, I mean, yes, I do—I work for my Aunt Tabitha at the bakery, ma’a—er, Your Grace—” I actually lived in my own little room over the top of the glassblower’s shop, six doors down, because the bakery didn’t have any spare rooms and nobody thought it was a good idea to sleep in the basement with Bob. I spent seven days a week at the bakery anyway, so it was nice to have someplace else to go, and the room over the glass kilns was nice and warm, if you didn’t mind the occasional shattering sounds. And Aunt Tabitha was good friends with the glassblower’s wife, and she brought me soup whenever I got sick.

  All of this seemed entirely too complicated to explain to the Duchess. Fortunately she didn’t seem interested in asking any follow-up questions.

  She turned and consulted in a low voice with Lord Ethan.

  The Inquisitor’s hand came down on my shoulder and squeezed so hard I jumped. I wondered if I dared to worm away. Would he hurt me in the presence of the Duchess? Would I look like a mistreated girl, or a troublemaker?

  I clenched my fingers tighter in my apron and gritted my teeth.

  “Tell me, child,” said the Duchess, “are you a wizard?”

  “No, Your Grace. I mean—not a real wizard—not like—” The Inquisitor’s fingers dug brutally into my shoulder. I tore my eyes way from Lord Ethan and looked hopelessly at the Duchess.

  She smiled a little. I hadn’t expected that. It gave me the courage to go on.

  “I can magic bread, Your Grace. Make dough rise, or keep the muffins from burning, or make sure they come out of the pan clean. Just bread, though. I can’t do anything but bread. Well, icing, sometimes, a little, but it’s harder—”

  I was babbling. I stopped. Lord Ethan leaned over and murmured in the Duchess’s ear again.

  “Could your magic kill someone?” asked the Duchess. Her voice was quiet, but stern. “You must forgive me for asking, child, but you must understand that those of us who have no magic do not always understand how it works for those of you who do.”

  “No!” I took a step forward involuntarily, and the Inquisitor had to release me or get dragged forward. I don’t think either of us had expected that. I could feel him glaring at the back of my neck, but at least he wasn’t squeezing the blood out of my shoulder any more. “I mean, no, Your Grace. I don’t—I mean, it’s bread. How do you kill someone with bread?”

  Lord Ethan laughed and covered his mouth with his hand. I hoped that meant he agreed with me.

  The ratty man in purple rolled his eyes.

  “It is not the purpose of this inquiry—” began the Inquisitor.

  “I think,” said the Duchess, in a carrying voice, “that in your—hmm—understandable zeal, Oberon, to get to the bottom of this rash of murders, you have mistaken an innocent bystander for one of the wrongdoers. Please release the girl with our apologies.”

  There was an exhalation of breath behind me, almost a huff, and then the Inquisitor stepped forward and bowed smoothly to the Duchess.

  “As Your Grace commands. My sincerest apologies for my error, and for taking Your Grace’s valuable time.”

  She was letting me go. The Duchess was letting me go. She knew I was innocent, or Lo
rd Ethan had told her…

  I pried my fingers out of my apron and tried to make a curtsey, realized too late that I was wearing trousers, and settled for an awkward bow. When I straightened, the Duchess was looking down at her papers, and seem to have forgotten that I existed. I stole a glance at Lord Ethan and met his eyes.

  He smiled at me. Really honestly smiled. The Golden General, smiling at a bakery girl.

  My insides melted like butter.

  * * *

  “Fine,” said the Inquisitor, over my head. He did not sound as if it were fine. He sounded nettled, in fact. It was surprising to recognize an emotion that shallow in his voice.

  He hadn’t spoken in the entire trip from the audience chamber to the outer hallway, and I had been too busy alternating between relief—I was free! They were letting me go!—and elation—the Golden General noticed me!—to say anything either.

  What happened next wasn’t that surprising, I suppose, although it surprised the heck out of me.

  I got mad.

  “What? Fine? That’s it?”

  He looked at me, really looked at me, instead of over me or through me or at some spot on the back of the inside of my skull, for the first time since we’d reached the palace. “Did you expect something else, child?”

  One of the guards made a stifled noise.

  It occurred to me that I was talking back to an Inquisitor, a man who had just had me dragged up in front of the Duchess, who could probably order me thrown in the dungeon for contempt of—I don’t know, inquisitors or something—and the mad went away and left the rest of me holding the bag.

  “You could at least apologize,” I mumbled.

  The Inquisitor’s eyebrows went up. He leaned forward, and for an instant I could see something dark and hot at the bottom of his eyes, like coals glowing in a dark oven.

  The mad bit came back enough to lean forward in response, despite the fact that the rest of me was trying to cower away.