A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking

by T. Kingfisher

  The Duchess put an arm around my shoulders. “I know,” she said softly. “I know. We’ll give him a hero’s burial. But we can’t do it tonight. It won’t do him any good, and if we don’t act now, we’ll waste what he did for us.”

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. She was right. I tried to cram the sad bits into a ball and squash them into the hollow place inside my chest. Later. I could cry about this later.

  The gingerbread man, who had lost most of his buttons but was otherwise unharmed, reached up a hand and patted my face. The Duchess squeezed my shoulder and let go. “Joshua, how many guards are still loyal to me, personally?”

  “Almost all of them, Your Grace,” said Joshua immediately. “The ministers and lords I can’t speak for, but the guard is yours. Oberon’s personal guard would fight for him, but there aren’t many else.”

  The Duchess nodded. “Lords and ministers we’ll deal with later. Go and assemble the guard, Joshua. Get as many men as you can and do it quietly. Bring them to the great hall. You have thirty minutes.”

  “But—Your Grace, I can’t leave you alone!”

  She sighed. “Go and get Harold from my chamber guard, then, and send him here.”

  Joshua fidgeted inside his armor. “Your Grace, that would still leave you alone for a few minutes, and with this” —he nudged the Spring Green Man with his boot—“and no one to protect you. What if he comes to?”

  The Duchess reached under her dressing gown and pulled out a knife. It was as long as the big butcher knife that Aunt Tabitha used to cut up pork for our pork buns. She sat down next to the Spring Green Man and held the knife a few inches from his throat.

  “Whoa,” said Spindle, with obvious approval. I blinked. This was a side of the Duchess I had not expected.

  Joshua wrung his hands. “He’s a wizard.”

  “So is Mona,” said the Duchess. “Joshua, go. The sooner you go, the sooner this is all over and the less chance that he’ll wake up.”

  Joshua went.

  If you have never tried to make conversation with a monarch, over the hog-tied body of an evil wizard, with a dead man in the next room, it is not easy. Talking about the weather didn’t seem appropriate, and “So, do you think this will work, or are we all going to die?” didn’t strike me as very good either.

  “Think this’ll work, or are we all going to die?” asked Spindle, who was not troubled by social niceties. I sighed.

  “Normally, I would say something reassuring,” said the Duchess dryly, gesturing with her knife, “but you are not ordinary children, are you? So—I don’t know if it will work. We have already gotten farther than I expected. I am hoping that if a troop of the guard throws Oberon bodily out of the city tonight, we may buy ourselves time enough for the army to return.”

  “If Oberon’s gone, though, that’s it, right?” I asked. “It’s over. We got the Spring Green Man. We don’t need the army.”

  The Duchess exhaled. “I don’t know, Mona. I hope so. But Oberon has allies. That’s why I don’t dare kill him outright.” She smiled, but it was an unhappy, twisty smile and it looked like it hurt a little. “I know that he should be allowed a fair trial and all that, but I will be honest, my dears—I would have him executed without any of the niceties if I dared. I have seen enough to convince me of his wickedness. But the lords and ministers that have allied themselves with him might rise up in revolt.”

  This was depressing. I had thought that if we just got rid of Oberon and the Spring Green Man, everything would go back to normal. It hadn’t occurred to me that we might be able to throw Oberon out and still have more problems.

  There was a knock on the door. I jumped. Spindle got up and opened the door a crack, leaning his whole body against the wood to keep it from being thrown open. “Who’s there?” he growled, trying to make his voice sound deeper.

  “Harold, for her Grace.”

  The Duchess nodded. Spindle opened the door, and the other guard from her chamber door came in. He looked from Spindle to me to the Duchess to the trussed-up Spring Green Man, and back to the Duchess. His expression didn’t change in the slightest. “Your Grace,” he said.

  “Still the best poker face in the kingdom,” said the Duchess warmly.

  The new guard, Harold, sat down next to the Spring Green Man and drew his sword, laying practically on top of the mage’s neck. It looked rather absurdly like a knighting. The Duchess stood up and began prowling around the room. I found some tea, still with a little warmth left from Gildaen’s spell, and that made me cry again, but I did it in the corner and I don’t think anyone noticed.

  Harold was even less talkative than Joshua. The Duchess chewed on her lower lip and stared through chairs and bookcases, looking at something only she could see.

  It’s kind of sad when you’ve got an evil wizard tied up at your feet, a dead man in the next room, the monarch of the kingdom pacing the floor and you’re waiting to instigate a coup that will throw out a traitor to the kingdom…and you realize you’re bored.

  Waiting is never very interesting, I guess. I was feeling a sick dread at the thought that I might have to see Oberon again, or that he might win, in which case we were probably all going to die or end up in the dungeons and then die—but I was still restless. If I left my mind alone, it wanted to start replaying Master Gildaen’s death over and over. Minds are not our friends.

  I wandered over to the bookcase and ran my fingers over the row of spines, wondering if there was something to read. Most of them were thick, heavy, leather-bound books that looked even more boring than waiting. My fingers left long trails in the dust and I had to wipe grime off. (Not on my clean tunic. I used the too-small pants. I was starting to get a real loathing for those pants.)

  On the third shelf, eighth book in, my fingers stopped. The binding was just as dusty as all the others, but it had an interesting pattern of leaves and spirals on it. Also, it was a lot thinner. I pulled it down.

  The title said Spiraling Shadows: Reflections on the Use of Magic. An embossed fern wove in and out of the letters. There was no author listed.

  I looked around. Harold was glaring at the Spring Green Man, who had started—unbelievably—to snore. Spindle was flopped over in a chair upside down, picking at a bare spot on the arm of the chair. The Duchess gave me a vague smile in passing and kept prowling.

  So. Nobody was stopping me. And it would probably be too dense to read anyway. I was an okay reader—I mean, compared to somebody like Spindle, who couldn’t read a broadsheet—but mostly for recipes and stuff like that.

  I’m not sure why I hesitated. It’ll probably sound weird to say that the book felt different in my hands. Not hot, not cold, not even really magic, just…kind. It felt like a cup of tea on a cold day, or a warm scone left by the oven. Could a wizard’s books feel like that? I’d never really thought about a wizard’s library much. Mine was all cookbooks and none of them were magic. A real wizard’s library would presumably be much grander, and have books with curses on them that you had to chain to the shelves or they would blast any mortal who touched them.

  I glanced along the shelves. None of them were chained. Most of them just looked old and tired, rather like Master Gildaen himself had. Spiraling Shadows was the only one that seemed different. Would a cursed book really feel kind when you held it?

  Well, if I were going around cursing books, it would probably be a lot easier to get people to pick up one that felt nice rather than one covered in skulls that you had to chain to the shelf.

  I couldn’t imagine Master Gildaen keeping cursed books lying around, though. He hadn’t seemed like the type. And Elgar seemed less interested in curses than in knives.

  I cracked open the cover. The first few pages were blank. I flipped to a page at random and read:

  …I say again, giving magical life to inanimate objects is not a function of size but of intelligence and duration. The life force of an elephant is no greater than that of a mouse, merely it lasts longer and is greater in i
ntellect. If you would give life to the unliving, it matters not whether it is as large as a mountain or as small as a housecat, the spark of life differs not in power. The weakest may command a mountain, if they have the gift of it, but the mountain will be mindless and remain living only a moment’s time.

  The text was old and had some odd confusion between the f’s and the s’s, and a couple of the words gave me trouble—“inanimate” doesn’t come up often in cookie recipes. Still, it was readable. I just wasn’t sure it made sense.

  Was it saying that if you were making something come alive, it didn’t matter how big they were?

  And what did it mean by “alive”…was it talking about things like my gingerbread man?

  If that was what it meant, did that mean I could make a gingerbread elephant come alive?

  I grinned despite myself. That couldn’t be what it meant. I mean, I’d never tried to make a full-size gingerbread elephant, but surely that was impossible. Otherwise minor talents like me would be setting gingerbread monsters running through the streets…wouldn’t we?

  Not that I would.

  Probably.

  Well, maybe one. Just to see if I could.

  Can that be right? The breadcrumb circus took a lot less power than my little gingerbread friend here, and they were so much smaller.

  Although the breadcrumb circus hadn’t been intelligent at all. They could only do one thing each. The little bread lion tamer waved his little chair and that was it, and the little tigers paced around and jumped on the little platforms, but that was all. They only did more elaborate tricks if I was actively directing them. It had gotten better when I used the single loaf of bread apiece, but they still weren’t smart. But my gingerbread man was pretty smart, and he’d lasted a really long time, whereas the circus had probably fallen apart an hour after I’d left.

  Hmm. Did it matter that I’d baked his dough myself? Had my hands in it? The unbaked dough had been a lot more responsive to me, too. And I’d always known that I might make the gingerbread men dance when I made up a batch. If I mixed up a load of dough, knowing what I wanted to do with it…

  Oh, probably this was ridiculous. But I suddenly found myself wanting access to a really big mixing bowl and an oven the size of a house, just to see if I could make a gingerbread elephant.

  The door rattled. Harold jumped, and Spindle sat up in the chair. The Duchess froze, and even though she was still an ordinary-looking middle-aged woman, she reminded me suddenly of a tiger—a real one, not made of breadcrumbs. A tiger waiting to pounce.

  I was proud of her, but strangely, it also made me angry. Why couldn’t she have been like this before any of this happened? Why had it taken two kids and a wizard so old he could barely stand to make her find her courage?

  Why hadn’t anyone done anything?

  The door opened. It was Joshua.

  “Your Grace,” he said, and bowed low. “Your men await.”

  Twenty-Four

  I really didn’t want to be around when they arrested Inquisitor Oberon. The Duchess said that she was going to throw him out of the city, and that sounded like a great idea, except that there was a whole lot of city between here and the gates and what if something went horribly wrong?

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that even now, somehow, Oberon could win. And that meant that I had to go with the Duchess, because however bad it would be if something did go wrong, it would be a lot worse to not know about it until the guards broke in and Spindle and I got dragged down to the dungeon. (Not by Joshua and Harold, of course. Other guards. The constables, maybe. Joshua seemed more like the Duchess’s bodyguard than like a constable. I was never going to be easy with constables again, no matter how many scones they bought.)

  Speaking of dungeons, the Spring Green Man was already on his way there. Harold was carrying him like a sack of meal, and he was still snoring occasionally. I don’t think it’s very safe to sleep when someone has hit you over the head really hard, but I confess, I was having a hard time dredging up any sympathy for the assassin. Besides, they said that they had cells to keep mages in, but I wasn’t sure how that would work, and if Elgar woke up woozy and concussed, it was probably safer for everybody if he was in someplace where he couldn’t do anything terrible.

  Come to think of it, even if he woke up in a great mood and full control of his faculties, it was probably safer for everybody that way.

  Spindle, who never had mixed feelings about anything, was delighted to come along with the guards and see Oberon “get it,” as he put it. The Spring Green Man might have killed Tibbie, but Oberon had been the one to set him loose, and Spindle was thrilled right down to his toes.

  “Maybe he’ll resist, and the guards’ll whack ’im!” he hissed to me, as we followed Joshua down the hallway.

  “Maybe he’ll say something political and grown up and the guards’ll turn around and whack us,” I whispered gloomily back.

  “Well, ain’t you a bright ray of sunshine…”

  I sighed. Spindle’s natural distrust of authority seemed to break down a bit when authority was fighting with itself, or maybe the Duchess had won him over when she pulled out that knife. I stared down at my not-standard-issue-for-pages shoes. My pants still didn’t fit, but I’d wedged the book Spiraling Shadows into my belt, and something about the cover pressing against my belly made me feel a little better. I was still half-sick with terror—what if Oberon sees me? What if he recognizes me?—but it was a walking around and doing stuff terror, not a curl up in the corner and whimper terror. I guess that’s something.

  “How many men did you bring?” asked the Duchess, as we turned toward the main hall.

  “Thirty-seven,” said Joshua. “Nearly all the palace guard. There were four or five who were not…quite right in their reaction. Almost, but not quite. We locked them in a pantry. They may be innocent—I think it likely that some are—but I would not be surprised if one or two of them are in Oberon’s pay, and it seemed better that they not have a chance to carry tales.”

  “Thirty-seven should be enough,” said the Duchess. “The nobles have their own guards, but they cannot keep all of them in the palace. Oberon has no more than six men of his own, and he must see that they cannot stand against so many.” She chewed on her lower lip. “I hope that he must see…”

  Joshua pushed open the door to the great hall.

  Thirty-seven men doesn’t sound like a lot, but they can really fill a room.

  Most of them were wearing armor and carrying swords, and a couple had those big halberd things that look like an axe and a spear got together and had really scary babies.

  Spindle and I both stopped in the doorway. That’s a whole lot of guys with swords, and no matter how much I liked the Duchess, up until a couple of hours ago, people like that had been trying to capture me and throw me in a dungeon. I guess Spindle felt the same way. He shoved his hands in his pockets and said, “Cor!”

  The Duchess sailed into the room, and every man put his fist over his heart in salute to the monarch. It was amazing to watch her. Suddenly the tired, timid woman we’d met was—oh, not gone, but covered in a kind of shell. She smiled at them, and I bet every single one of them thought that she looked him specifically in the eye when she smiled. I guess that’s something you learn when you’re royalty, or maybe that’s why some people get to be royal and the rest of us make bread or carry halberds for them.

  “My friends,” she said, in a low, carrying voice. They all leaned forward, just a little, when she spoke. “I realize how strange it is that you have all been called together in private here. But we go tonight to roust a traitor from our kingdom, a man who wishes to—” she paused, “—to overthrow me and set himself up as ruler of our city.”

  A low growl rose from the guards, like a great dog on a chain. It was obvious to everyone that overthrow wasn’t the word that she had planned to use. Somebody wanted their Duchess dead, and the guards were not happy.

  “I cannot tell you, my friends,
how grateful I am for your loyalty. In these times, it is the only coin in our kingdom of any worth, and I thank you, from the bottom of my heart.” She put her hand over her own heart and saluted them, and I swear that every guard in the room stood an inch taller when she did.

  “Ain’t that somethin’.” said Spindle softly.

  Joshua stepped in then, and took command of the operation. “Halberdiers to the fore. Every man look to the other members of your watch. We go to confront a traitor, and treachery spreads like wildfire. Let no one slip away unnoticed. I trust you all, or I would not have called you here, but the life of the Duchess and the welfare of the kingdom is too important to place on my judgment alone.”

  I saw nods here and there, and set expressions. Spindle and I weren’t going to be able to leave, even if we wanted to.

  “Move out!” called Joshua, and at the head of a column, with the Duchess striding on his left hand, they turned and made for our doorway.

  We fell in with the column, next to the Duchess. There didn’t seem to be any other option. Spindle gave me a look I couldn’t read and I shrugged helplessly—we were in this way too far to pull out now.

  The Duchess reached out and took both of our hands.

  “What happens now?” I asked. I nearly had to shout over the tramp of booted feet.

  “Now we throw the dice,” she said.

  It didn’t seem like a very stealthy approach. Half the castle had to have known we were coming. I saw a couple of maids peeking around a corner at us, their mouths hanging open. But we arrived at a door that looked like any other door, and four halberdiers lowered their weapons and stood in a semicircle with the blades pointing at the doorway. The Duchess stood behind them, with Spindle and I on either side of her, and Joshua stepped forward and hammered on the door.

  The door opened a crack and Joshua threw his shoulder against it and said “Duchess’s business. Open up!”