Daughter of Magic

by C. Dale Brittain

  DAUGHTER OF MAGIC

  by

  C. Dale Brittain

  Copyright © 1996 by C. Dale Brittain

  PROLOGUE

  She was slimy, streaked with blood, squalling, and so small I could hold her in my cupped hands. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

  The midwife whipped her away from me, washed and dried her tenderly, then laid her, wrapped in a blanket, on Theodora’s breast.

  “Thank you,” said Theodora weakly. Her face was pale with exhaustion, but she looked, if possible, even happier than I felt. “You can take a rest now.”

  The midwife looked at me distrustingly, as she had for the last two hours, but closed the door behind her as she left. I sat down beside Theodora, brushed the sweaty hair away from her forehead, and kissed it gently. Our baby found the nipple, stopped crying, and began to drink.

  “We’ll call her Theodora,” I said, touching the baby’s impossibly small fingers with one of my own.

  Theodora smiled but shook her head. “We’ll do no such thing.”

  “But I thought that was your mother’s and grandmother’s name before you.”

  “And further back than that. But if our daughter and I both have the same name, either you’ll call her Theo or some such foolish nickname, or else you’ll start calling me Mother. That’s what happened to my parents.”

  I laughed. “I’m unlikely to start thinking of you as my mother. But we’ll name her whatever you like.” I handed Theodora a cup of water, and she drank deeply. “I thought childbirth was supposed to be easy for witches.”

  She looked at me in amusement over the rim of the cup. “I’m never going to persuade you I’m not a witch, am I. But I gather you have never seen any other woman give birth?”

  “Of course not. And the midwife almost didn’t let me be here.”

  “Fathers aren’t usually welcome. But this was an easy birth in comparison to most. Even with the best magic, neither birth nor death will ever be painless.”

  I nodded. “Death I know about.”

  “And now you know about birth.” Our baby was drinking more slowly now, and her eyes were half closed. Theodora stroked her tiny tuft of hair as if in wonderment. “Her hair’s going to be lighter than mine, almost chestnut colored.”

  The same color, I thought, that mine would be if it hadn’t turned white when I was twenty-nine.

  “I hope her eyes stay blue,” added Theodora.

  I had a vague sense that babies’ eyes, like kittens’, changed color in a few weeks, but I didn’t say anything.

  “We’ll name her Antonia,” said Theodora.

  “An excellent name,” I agreed. I would indeed have agreed happily to anything. Such an obviously perfect child would have given beauty even to an ugly name. I imagined for a moment all the wonderful things that Antonia would do while growing up. “We’ll have the bishop baptize her.”

  Theodora too had almost started to doze, but at this she opened her eyes and frowned. “I don’t think the bishop will want to baptize an illegitimate child himself.”

  “The bishop and I have been friends for twenty years, and he likes you. He’ll be happy to.”

  “And aren’t you worried about what the wizards’ school will say if one of their graduates publicly acknowledges his liaison with a witch?”

  Since I had no intention of worrying about what the school did or did not think appropriate, I stayed with the topic of the bishop. “It’s certainly not Antonia’s fault that her parents were heedless. And—” I hesitated, not wanting to put pressure on Theodora while she was weak. But I had to say it. “We can still be married.”

  I needn’t have worried about putting pressure on her. She just smiled and leaned back against the pillows, closing her eyes. “We’ve already been through all this, Daimbert. I can’t let you destroy your career as a wizard by marrying me.”

  I should have known she would say that. I kissed her on the cheek. “Just remember I love you,” I whispered, but both mother and baby were already asleep. Carefully I adjusted the blanket around them. I had no way of anticipating that five years later I would decide I had to kill a rival for Theodora’s affections.

  PART ONE - MIRACLE-WORKER

  I

  The clash of swords shattered the night stillness. For a second I tried to incorporate the sound into my dream, but then I sat up abruptly to hear the clang of steel on steel with waking ears. My casement windows opened onto the castle courtyard, and the sound came from the direction of the gate.

  In a second I was out of bed, my heart pounding wildly, fumbling with numb fingers at the door latch. We never had armed violence here in the kingdom of Yurt. The night watchman had for years been only a formality, but this sounded like real fighting.

  But by the time I was out in the courtyard, the cobblestones cold and hard underfoot, the clashing had stopped. The night and silence were ominous.

  I flew through the courtyard toward the gate, shaping a paralysis spell for whomever I would find. A lantern burned where the night watchman should be standing, and by it was a large indistinct lump. A cloaked and hooded man bent over it, apparently tying it up with a cord.

  “Who are you?” gasped the indistinct lump in the night watchman’s voice.

  Two more seconds and my spell would be ready. But the hooded man spoke first, as though in mild surprise, and at his voice the watchman gave an amazed laugh. “I am Paul, your king. I thought I was well known to you.”

  I dropped to the ground, abandoning my spell, caught between anger and relief. The watchman seemed to feel the same way. “But, sire! Why didn’t you tell me who you were rather than attacking? I might have killed you!”

  “Yes indeed,” said King Paul cheerfully, pushing back his hood. “The king of Yurt came very near to being killed by his own watchman! And very pleased with you I am, too. But you probably don’t want to lie there bound all night.”

  He saw me then. “Good evening, Wizard,” he said, looking up from undoing the knots he had just finished tying. “I decided not to spend another night at that old ruined castle I’ve been exploring but to come on home.”

  I took and let out a deep breath. “I hope you realize, sire,” I contented myself with saying, “that you came very close to being trapped at best by a paralysis spell—or even transmogrified into a frog.” The problem with being Royal Wizard was that I was supposed to have mature wisdom to offer my king but was not in a position to spank him as though he had been twenty years younger.

  “Then I have both a competent wizard and a competent night watchman,” Paul said cheerfully. “Have you ever been to the ruined castle, Wizard? It’s over in the next kingdom, but I think you’d find it very interesting. I’ll just take care of my horse; I left him outside the moat. Good-night.” And he disappeared back out the gate.

  I helped the watchman up. He rubbed his wrists where they had been chafed by the cord and retrieved his sword. “And I helped train him myself,” he said with pleased pride.

  This was not my own reaction. Paul had been king only a few years, and if he thought testing his castle’s defenses by putting his own life in danger was nothing more than a joke, then he needed to find more to do to keep himself occupied. Either that, the thought struck me with depressing force, or else the castle’s main source of mature wisdom was going to have to teach him some.

  But my first thoughts the next morning were not for Paul. “My, uh, my niece would like to visit me here at the castle, my lady,” I told the queen mother. “That is, if it’s all right with you.”

  She looked at me, puzzled, her head cocked to one side. “I don’t think I knew you had a niece, Wizard.” I willed her to understand though not daring to say more. The queen knew about Antonia
—or should. “How old is the girl?” she asked.

  “She’s five.”

  The queen blinked, long lashes over emerald eyes. The matronly mother of the king, she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever met, much more lovely than Theodora although with none of her intelligence and wit.

  “Oh,” said the queen in sudden comprehension. “Of course, Wizard. We would be delighted to have your, uh, your niece visit the castle. The duchess’s daughters will also be visiting this week, although I myself will be away. Does the girl have a nurse of her own or should I ask the constable to engage one for her stay?”

  “Oh, she won’t need a nurse,” I said. And I hurried up to the pigeon loft to send Theodora a message that I would be coming in two days to see her and pick up our daughter.

  Theodora lived, as she had since I first met her, in the cathedral city of Caelrhon, in the next kingdom over from Yurt. She had Antonia all dressed in a new blue dress when I set the air cart down in the narrow street outside her house two mornings later. The air cart was the skin of a long-dead purple flying beast, which would still fly if given magical commands. I tethered it to a ring by the door and ducked inside.

  “I’m all ready,” said Antonia gravely. “I packed my bag all by myself.”

  I hugged her and kissed Theodora, who sat at her sewing. She gave me a one-armed embrace but did not get up. Her curly nut-brown hair was even more tousled than usual. “We don’t have to leave right away,” I said.

  Theodora used her teeth to rip out some basting thread. “I’m supposed to have these dresses ready by tomorrow,” she said distractedly. “I’m glad you’re taking Antonia now.”

  “But I could help you pin seams,” said the girl. “I’m very good at pinning seams,” she explained to me as though it were a great secret.

  Theodora smiled. “I know you are. But go with the wizard. They’ll all think you’re beautiful in your blue dress when you reach Yurt. Aren’t you looking forward to living in a castle for a week?”

  It was the castle that decided it for Antonia. She had never been to Yurt. She marched out toward the air cart, then darted back in to grab her bag and, somewhat belatedly, kiss her mother good-bye.

  Theodora kissed me too. “I’ll see you both next week. She really is a good girl, Daimbert,” she added, “but make sure she gets enough sleep. She’ll keep herself awake for hours if you let her.”

  And so, rather abruptly, rather than having a pleasant day with the woman I loved, I found myself leaving for home with the daughter with whom I had never before spent more than brief periods alone. A moderately skilled wizard, with access through the Hidden Language to the same forces that had shaped the earth, I felt at a loss before this serious-eyed young girl. I wanted this to be a wonderful week, an opportunity to gain the affection and confidence of someone who might not even be certain I was her father.

  Boys I thought I knew about, from memories of my own childhood and from watching Paul grow up, but girls, I thought with something approaching panic, must be different. It was all very well for Theodora to say that she needed to get to bed on time, but what was involved in getting a girl to bed? Nightgowns and toothbrushes, I was sure, played a role in this, but how about her hair? Did I brush it? Was I supposed to rebraid it at night or in the morning? And did I even have the slightest idea how to braid hair?

  I lifted Antonia into the air cart, climbed in myself, and gave the command to lift off. Her self-possession cracked for a moment as the cart rotated and rose above the twisting streets of Caelrhon. She clutched my leg and looked up at me—was it supposed to sway like this? When I smiled and the air cart’s flight leveled out, she smiled back, reassured.

  She stood on tiptoe to look over the edge as we soared above the construction for the new cathedral and across the green hills toward Yurt. Our shadow darted up and down the slopes below us.

  “When I grow up and become a wizard I’m going to be able to fly like this myself,” she said confidently. This had been something else I had been hoping to discuss with Theodora today—the question of when and how the daughter of a wizard and a witch should start learning magic. “Why do you think Mother always makes me wear blue?” she added.

  “Because it looks so good with your eyes,” I suggested. Antonia’s eyes had in fact never changed color, remaining a brilliant sapphire blue.

  “I don’t think so,” she said, thinking it over. “I think it’s only because Mother’s own favorite color is blue. My favorite color is yellow. What’s yours?”

  “Blue,” I said, thinking I would have to buy Antonia something yellow to wear.

  I had expected that she would sleep on the couch in the outer room of my chambers, but Gwennie would not hear of it. “A little girl alone with a wizard?” she said. “You’d probably have a nightmare and turn her into a frog by mistake. Of course, you’d be very sorry in the morning, but think how she’d feel!”

  Antonia, holding my hand, looked up at me and laughed, but with the slightest questioning look, as though wondering if Gwennie was right and she might unexpectedly find herself an amphibian.

  I had the vague feeling that Royal Wizards in other kingdoms were treated with more awe and respect than to be accused by the castle staff of doing transformations by accident. “I wouldn’t do anything to harm her, Gwennie,” I tried to argue. This would have been easier if I had dared tell anyone Antonia was my daughter, but the queen was the only person in the castle who knew. “And you can’t very well put a little girl like this in a room by herself.”

  “I sleep in a room by myself at home,” Antonia piped up.

  Gwennie, daughter of the cook and the castle constable, had been destined for the kitchens by her mother, but herself had always intended to replace her father. Indeed, since her father had been so sick the past winter, she had taken over more and more of his duties, supervising the other servants, arranging accommodations for visitors to the castle, and keeping the accounts and the ledgers. Senior members of the staff had smiled indulgently, assuming it was only a temporary situation. Knowing Gwennie and her determination, I knew better.

  “I’ll put her in the suite with the duchess’s daughters,” she announced, forestalling further argument—besides, the duchess’s daughters probably knew all about hair brushing. “They’ve just arrived, and they were very interested to learn you had a niece. And I’ve already told you, Wizard,” she finished loftily, “that in carrying out my duties I prefer the name of Gwendolyn.”

  The duchess’s twin daughters, three years younger than King Paul, were delighted when I brought Antonia’s little bag to their suite—a doll’s smiling face poked out of the top of the bag. “We already said we could take care of the girl,” the twins told me. “So you don’t need to worry about your niece at all, Wizard. Oh, Gwennie, before you go, we’re going to need more towels.”

  “Of course, my ladies,” she said with a respect she never showed me.

  “We know an old man, set in his ways, doesn’t want youthful female companionship!” they added, going into giggles that I found highly inappropriate.

  Antonia held onto my hand, looking up at them gravely. They had grown into handsome women in the last few years. Both the twins had inherited their father’s height, being very tall, but physically the resemblance between them stopped there. Hildegarde was blond like her father, whose principality she would someday inherit, and Celia was slim and dark-haired like her mother, after whom she would one day be duchess of Yurt. They had always shared a unanimity against outsiders, which when they were little had even taken the form of a secret language, but I had the feeling that as they grew up their personalities had begun to diverge.

  “What an adorable little girl,” said Hildegarde. “It’s hard to believe she’s related to you, Wizard.”

  “Where did you get those big blue eyes, sweetheart?” asked Celia.

  “I was born with them,” said Antonia very seriously, which made both the twins start laughing again.

  “
I’d better warn you, Wizard,” said Hildegarde with a grin for her sister, “that if you leave the girl with us too long Celia may make her into a nun, of much too pure a mind to want to associate with some magic-worker.”

  “And who was it,” Celia shot back with an answering grin, “who was saying just today how much fun it would be to teach a little girl to use a sword?”

  Antonia looked up at me again. “I haven’t seen any swords yet,” she said in anticipation. “Will I see a dragon too?”

  “I’ll keep the girl with me though dinner,” I said and escaped.

  As we walked back across the courtyard, Antonia asked thoughtfully, “Do you love other ladies besides my mother?”

  “Of course not!” I replied, shocked.

  “Those ladies are very pretty,” she said in explanation.

  I had tried to tidy my chambers for her arrival, but she immediately clambered onto my desk and started leafing through papers, telling me she was looking for good magic spells. When I lifted her down and threw the papers into a drawer she crossed straight to my bookshelves and started to climb, working the toes of her small shoes in between the volumes.

  “Here, I want to show you something interesting,” I said quickly, taking hold of her again and planting her in a chair. “And, Antonia, I don’t want you on my shelves.”

  “But Mother likes to climb,” she objected.

  “Not on shelves. It’s very dangerous. She’ll be angry at me if you hurt yourself.”

  “What are you going to show me?”

  “A unicorn,” I said, throwing the spell together as quickly as I could.

  II

  And so I spent much of the afternoon working a series of magical illusions that I hoped would amuse a girl. She watched very seriously without commenting at all, but she did snuggle up next to me while I told her a few stories from my experiences in the fabled East and in the borderlands of the wild northern land of magic. However, she kept being disappointed at the absence of dragons in my stories.