Wizard of Wisdom: An Epic Fantasy Series (Wisdom Saga Book 1)

by W. C. Conner

  “Excuse me, sir,” she said, “but Mertine has requested me to tell you that she understands it is late but she begs you attend her briefly before you retire.”

  Looking to the page as if hoping for an excuse to not go, Tingle at last shrugged and turned to follow the comely handmaiden once again.

  “She is, after all, the one I was sent to see,” he said aloud to himself as he walked.

  The handmaiden glanced at him while he spoke, a look almost of childish hurt on her face. “I was merely doing as I was instructed,” she said.

  Tingle smiled at her sympathetically. “I understand that, Miss.” He considered her words and tone of voice for a moment as they walked, a thoughtful look on his face. Her life was so different from his own; she was required to wait on others while he was the master of his own life as he traveled from town to town, selling and talking, drinking and wenching. He had known many serving people – both male and female – and most of them found little ways to rebel, to assert their individuality. “Do you always do what you are told?” he asked, wondering whether or not she had the spark of rebellion within her.

  “Yes,” she replied, her voice becoming heavy as if fighting the words coming from her mouth, “always. It is my station in life. I am compelled to do exactly as I am instructed.”

  Tingle cocked his head at the manner of her reply. It seemed almost that a battle had gone on within her as she answered and there was a hint of despair in her eyes before her face smoothed and she turned a captivating smile toward him. “I will await you here, sir,” she said. “If you need me for anything you have but to ask.”

  Once again, Tingle cocked his head at her slight emphasis on the word “anything” just as she opened the door and showed him into Mertine’s apartment.

  Mertine sat primly, watching Tingle as he balanced his cap on his knees, trying his best to appear at ease. He thought for perhaps the tenth time within the space of a minute that he would have been far more comfortable if the handsome woman sitting opposite him had met him in the kitchen or the stables or, most preferably, at an alehouse somewhere outside the castle walls, and even more preferably, on the morrow. But it was not to be. She had looked him over carefully as he entered her room, then dismissed the handmaiden who had escorted him.

  “Would you care for some sherry, Tinglesser?” Mertine asked without preamble, her intense brown eyes appraising him with obvious interest.

  “Tingle, please, ma’am,” Tingle said in reply. “Just plain Tingle works best for me. And, no thank you, I prefer not to drink at the moment. I had all that I need when I dined with the Prince.”

  Mertine stood and walked to a side table where she picked up the cut glass carafe sitting on it and poured herself a generous glassful of sherry. Turning back to Tingle, she lifted the glass in salute and took an impressive swallow, then looked at him meaningfully over the rim of the glass. “Well, I need some, Tingle,” she said. “I truly do need some.” And she took another drink, though not as deeply as before, then took the carafe and restored the sherry in her glass to its original level.

  Tingle relaxed almost visibly, aware that his only marginally deserved reputation as a roué often preceded him, attracting lonely women to him. “I think I understand, Mertine.” He looked quickly at her. “I may call you Mertine?” he asked.

  “That is my name,” she allowed. “Now to the business at hand. The letter you bore indicated you have a message for me.”

  “I do. I have but recently left the Princess and Mitchal in Wrensfalls. They have traveled back and forth between Dunlivit and Wrensfalls disguised as disabled beggars, searching for two different people.” Mertine’s eyebrows lifted slightly, but there was no other indication of surprise. “Her Highness’s ‘missing arm’ holds a dagger inside her shirt, and Mitchal’s eye patch hides a perfectly serviceable eye. Her disguise was so complete I didn’t even recognize her as a woman until she spoke to me.” He winked at Mertine. “And that’s a pretty good trick because I’ve been particularly successful at separating the grain from the chaff in the past when it comes to women, if you know what I mean.”

  She frowned at him but it was not a totally disapproving frown. “You do have a reputation for a discerning eye, it is true,” she said. She brushed back a wisp of hair just showing some traces of gray in what could easily be called a coquettish manner. “Is that all?”

  “Not at all,” he replied. “She particularly wanted you to know that they travel to meet The Key and that Kemp is already on his way there. In fact, he should have reached there some time ago.” Tingle smiled with satisfaction as Mertine sighed loudly and sat down heavily on a divan.

  “That is news beyond our wildest hopes,” she said, bringing the glass of sherry back to her lips. After taking another generous drink she looked up, the effects of the sherry now showing clearly in the glow of her cheeks, and Tingle suspected the glass she had poured herself on his arrival was not her first. “Where, then, are they bound?” she asked.

  “That is the one piece of information that the princess requested I not share at this time. ‘It is enough,’ she said, ‘that those of our cause know The Key is found and that Kemp joins him.’ And I counseled her in the same wise. Knowledge of his location must not go beyond those directly involved at this point.”

  Mertine smiled crookedly, the sherry having dulled her motor controls. “Oh, my silly little princess,” she laughed, the tears of relief starting down her cheeks, “you have done what you said you would do.”

  She looked to Tingle and he realized she was having trouble focusing, but she winked at him just the same and patted the divan in invitation for him to move over and sit beside her. “Why don’ you stay for some ... some food. We could have some, um, food.” She started to say something more, but stopped before she could start.

  “I think I‘ll jus’ lie down here for a minute or two,” she said as she leaned sideways across the divan. By the time her head touched the bolster against the armrest, her breathing was already heavy and even.

  Tingle stood and walked over to where she slept, a bemused expression on his face. He gathered her skirts around her legs and lifted them up and onto the divan, then covered her with a light blanket that hung over a rod against the wall.

  “That’s certainly all right,” he whispered to be certain he didn’t wake her, “I wasn’t really hungry, you know. No, no, don’t get up. I’ll let myself out. Sweet dreams,” With the bemused look still on his face, he opened the door and backed out of the room. When he turned, he found the handmaiden awaiting him in the hallway as she had promised.

  “Dear lady,” he said, giving her the smallest bow, “it seems that Mertine has indulged herself too generously in some sherry. I will need a bit of help finding my way back to my room for I am quite turned around.”

  “Oh, sir,” she responded, “you honor me, but I am no lady. I am but a handmaiden to the princess when she is in attendance. I would find pleasure in showing you the way to your room, and so much more.” She blushed deeply at her own boldness. Tingle tried to make sense of the paradox of this young lady, seemingly near Caron’s age, who appeared on the one hand to be embarrassed by her actions and on the other to be deliberately enticing him. “Had she not indulged herself so freely of the sherry to which she is not accustomed, Mertine would likely not yet be finished with you.”

  Tingle grinned. He felt no closer to making any sense of her actions but he found himself suddenly drawn to her. A girl she almost seemed, but it certainly appeared that she well knew the nuances of the sparring that goes on seemingly without end between the sexes and he found it aroused him. She smiled back, the dimples at the corners of her mouth bringing to mind other dimples on the female form that he found so fetching.

  “I would see you alone before I leave the castle if I may,” he said so boldly he surprised even himself.

  “You may count on it,” she breathed, leaning into him slightly and pressing her bodice against his arm. His head felt light a
s if he had consumed some of the sherry himself.

  “Your name?” he asked.

  “Nicolette,” she replied, her face a study in contradictions: Sensuous, eager, self-conscious, embarrassed, fearful.

  Delivered to his own room, he closed the door behind him and shook his head to clear it of Nicolette’s memory, then walked over to the window, drew back the heavy curtains and swung the two panes open to allow the crisp night air to relieve some of the smoke smell that permeated the room from the low burning fire in the large fireplace. He stood for several minutes looking up at the moon as it played hide and seek with the clouds that scudded across a silvery sky and wondered that he was actually a welcome guest in the Castle Gleneagle.

  He smiled at the irony of the situation. The last time he had been here he had been unceremoniously thrown bodily out the back door. So very different this time, he thought. Not only had he been welcomed almost as an equal by the prince himself, but the suggestive welcomes he had been given by the two women he had dealt with so far was beyond his ability to explain.

  Had I known the women of Castle Gleneagle were so randy, he thought, I wouldn’t have cut it the wide berth that I have ’til now. Mertine is a very fine looking woman, but Nicolette...

  At the thought of her name, Nicolette’s face sprang up within his mind, her eyes heavy lidded with desire, her tongue moving over her teeth and lips in sensuous invitation. He shook his head to clear the vision as his own eyelids became heavy with fatigue.

  After stepping back and closing the window panes, he crossed to the bed and sat heavily down, shrugging out of his shirt as he did. Reaching down to remove his boots, he was startled by movement behind him and the pair of arms that slid around his bare torso. The touch of two points of warm bare flesh, silky soft against his back, awakened his interest immediately and he realized he was going to have to remove his breeches very shortly or suffer considerable discomfort until he did so.

  “Nicolette?” he breathed.

  “Shush,” she whispered. “No words. Not yet.” He started to turn, but she stopped him. “Let me help with these,” she said, pulling at the ties of his breeches. Her hands grazed his risen manhood as she worked.

  Tingle was no stranger to the arts of love, but he found himself breathing heavily, feeling much like a schoolboy groping about in the dark in ecstasy and near panic at his first conquest. Her fingertips criss-crossed his firm stomach and whispered softly over his nipples which stiffened at the touch. She purred deep in her throat as her lips moved over his shoulders and neck while her fingernails ran softly down his spine and back up his stomach and chest, sending involuntary shudders through his body. She pulled him down onto his back and stood over him with a foot on either side of his hips. Her firm young body fairly quivered in the wavering light from the fireplace.

  Tingle stared up at Nicolette who suddenly looked so much older and far more worldly than she had when he had first seen her in the marketplace as she delivered the message from Mertine. His desire overwhelmed him and he could hear his heart pounding in his ears as he reached for her.

  “Relax and enjoy, Tingle,” she whispered huskily as she settled down on him.

  He awoke in the morning, sated and lazy, smiling at hazy memories. Turning over he found that he was alone in the room. The fire had long gone out and he could tell by the position of the sun that it was bidding fair to be noon shortly. I certainly didn’t intend to be such a slug-a-bed, he thought as he swung his legs over the edge of the feather mattress, but after my long day, and most particularly last night... A smile crept across his face at the memory of Nicolette’s enthusiasm in his bed.

  Food had been left on a little table next to the fireplace. Tingle slipped his legs into his breeches and tied them closed, then sat down to eat facing the windows that looked out into a small courtyard. His mind replayed the events of the previous night and he wondered that he could remember no pillow talk, no empty terms of endearment or passion, no parting words. There was the physical passion only. Upon reflection on the intensity of that passion, he decided it was enough in and of itself.

  There came a knock at the door while Tingle ate, followed by a youthful face that peeked around the edge of the jamb. “Good morning, sir,” he said. “You have slept well and long indeed. I pray the food isn’t uncomfortably stale. I’m sorry to bother you, but Mertine has asked about news of you several times already this morning.” With a bob of his head, the boy withdrew and closed the door.

  After finishing his meal Tingle put on the rest of his clothing and opened the door to his room, intending to ask whomever he found outside to direct him to wherever Mertine might be, but there was no one in attendance. He was a more than a bit surprised that the young man who had stuck his head in earlier wasn’t waiting for him, and mildly disappointed to find that Nicolette was not waiting patiently as she had outside Mertine’s door the previous night.

  Pulling the door closed behind him he started down the long corridor to the right, glancing into open doorways to see if he could find someone who could give him the information he sought. As he walked, the unmistakable cooing of pigeons coming from a room at the end of a short branching hallway drew his attention. Curious that there would be pigeons in one of the bedrooms he peered around the edge of the door where he found Nicolette standing with her back to him. Her hair was still a bit mussed from her night in his bed and he smiled slightly at the memory. As he watched, she finished attaching a message tube to the leg of one of the birds which she then released out the window.

  “Nicolette?” he softly called to her.

  She turned slowly and looked toward him. Once again she appeared to be the young handmaiden who had delivered Mertine’s message to him the day before, but without either the air of innocence about her there had been then, nor that of the wildly licentious woman who had flirted outrageously with him in the hallway and shared his bed with such passion just a few hours past. In fact, there was no animation in her face at all. Had he not seen her on the previous occasions he would have taken her as simple-minded, so bland was her expression.

  “What were you doing with that pigeon?”

  “Pigeon?” she said, looking up at his face.

  At the emptiness within that look, Tingle became suddenly uncomfortable. “Can you take me to where the Prince is?” he asked.

  “Prince?” she repeated vacantly. It was obvious something was seriously amiss with her mind. Taking her by the hand, he led her unresisting out of the room and down the hallway in the direction from which he had come. Unseen by him, a figure detached itself from the shadows of a doorway in an intersecting hallway after they had passed and moved quietly in the opposite direction.

  In no more than two minutes they ran across a serving boy who pointed him in the direction of Gleneagle’s study. At his approach, the door guards came to attention.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the older one said, looking curiously at Nicolette. “The prince is in conference with Mertine and his chamberlain and said he is not to be disturbed.”

  “Mertine has been asking for me,” he said. “Would you please tell them Tingle has important information for the Prince that cannot wait?”

  With a bow, the guard left the younger of the two with his largely ceremonial spear held diagonally before him as an unnecessary reminder they could not enter. The older guard returned almost immediately with Mertine in tow.

  “There you are, Tingle. Come in,” she said, raising her eyebrows at the presence of Nicolette. “The prince is anxious to see you, as am I.”

  After having been introduced to Geoffrey, Tingle turned to the prince. “Your Highness, I understand this young lady serves your daughter when she is in attendance. However, I suspect she is not what she seems. When she brought Mertine’s message to me in the marketplace, she seemed young and very chaste. Then last night, she flirted with me as she led me to Mertine’s room, and later I found her awaiting me in my bed. Her bedroom skills could not have come from that seemin
g innocent who gave me the message.”

  As he talked, Nicolette stood silently, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped tightly before her.

  “A short time ago, after I left my room and went looking for someone who could direct me to where I could find Mertine, I happened upon a small pigeon cote in an otherwise empty room at the end of a hallway. Nicolette was affixing a message to the leg of one of the pigeons which she then launched through the window as I watched.”

  The prince had been observing Nicolette the entire time. As Tingle finished speaking he addressed her. “What have you to say, Nicolette?” he asked. His attitude was not unkind, but his concern was apparent in the tone of his voice.

  She looked up, an innocent young woman once again. Hopelessness was written on her face as tears trickled down her cheeks. “I...” she began, then abruptly stopped as her entire body spasmed and her eyes rolled back in their sockets.

  Before anyone could react she collapsed on the floor as blood spurted from a hole at the base of her skull. With the three of them watching in horror, a pale green worm as thick as a thumb dropped from the hole along with the pulsing red flood and twisted about on the floor as if looking for a way to return to her brain. When Geoffrey’s boot came down squarely on the revolting creature, Mertine gagged and ran to the window which she clung to as she vomited noisily into the garden below.

  “By all the powers,” Tingle breathed, swallowing to control his own rising gorge, “what manner of horror was that?”

  There was a moment of silence during which the only sound to be heard was Mertine’s retching. At length Geoffrey spoke. “I read of such a worm during my misspent youth,” he said. “I was fascinated by the dark magics in those days and I happened across some spell books in the library at university. As a matter of curiosity, I attempted one or two of the simple ones that I tried to direct at one of the instructors who was a particularly vicious disciplinarian, but since I have no powers myself, none of the spells worked for me.