Voice for Princess (v1.1)

by John Morressy

  “Oh, no, master, I’ll delay no longer. My good lord awaits your response eagerly,” the messenger said, rewinding his scarf and pulling on his mittens. “I must leave at once.”

  “Good lad. That’s loyalty for you. Vosconu deserves no less,” said Kedrigern warmly, slipping a coin into the messenger’s pocket and pressing a slab of cheese and some buttered bread into his mittened hand. “Must keep up your strength. You’ve a long hard road ahead,” he said, ushering the youth from the room.

  When he returned, beaming happily on Princess and Axpad, he said, “What a wonderful day! It’s a whole new day dawning—I can feel it!”

  Axpad stared out the window for a time, then turned to Kedrigern and said, “It’s early in the afternoon, and the weather is terrible.”

  “Only out there.” Kedrigern thumped himself on the chest.

  “In here, it’s the first day of spring. A lovely day. Everything’s coming to life again. Winter is over, the clouds have passed, the gloom is gone. Come, Axpad, to work! The guild must have its treasury.”

  Princess nodded reassuringly to her uneasy guest. Axpad rose and accompanied Kedrigern to his workroom, where they labored into the night to finish their cataloguing. Kedrigern was as brisk and chirpy as a sparrow through it all, and showed no sign of hunger or fatigue when Axpad slipped the last book into place and collapsed in the wizard’s chair with a great sigh.

  “Well, that’s done,” said Kedrigern, rubbing his palms together eagerly. “Now I can get to work.”

  “Now, Kedrigern?” Axpad asked in dismay.

  “No time to waste. First I’ll need the book with the spells for summoning up things. If Quintrindus is getatable, that book will give me a spell to get at him.”

  “It’s after midnight!”

  “Best time to work. No distractions. Princess understands—she won’t be annoyed.”

  “Kedrigern, I can barely move!” Axpad wailed. “My eyes feel like hot pebbles. My bones have turned to slush. I’m ready to collapse.”

  “Good. That’s fine,” Kedrigern muttered, oblivious now to everything but the task at hand. He plucked the black book from its new niche, opened it to the instructions for summoning up an essence of known identity but uncertain location, and set about his preparations. When Axpad began to snore loudly and distractingly, he interrupted his work just long enough to carry the sleeping wizard to the guest room and dump him on the bed, then returned with swift purposeful steps to his workroom, where he remained. And remained. And remained.

  Days passed. Spot carried Spartan meals to the workroom and left them outside the door without knocking. Each morning it removed the empty tray, but there was no trace of Kedrigern.

  Axpad, who knew too well that no one, not even a wife or colleague, disturbs a wizard in the midst of spelling, tried to control his impatience and stay out of the way. Ordinarily not a sociable man, he sought to engage Princess in polite conversation whenever their paths crossed, which was frequently, but could initiate nothing more than a series of monologues, he doing the talking, she responding with smiles and nods, or frowns and shakings of the head, according to the drift of his talk. He wondered if Kedrigern had married a mute, or if Princess had, for some reason, vowed a life of silence; but he vaguely remembered Conhoon’s remarking on the sweet voice and astonishing eloquence of Kedrigern’s wife. Was this, perhaps, a new wife? If so, what had become of the eloquent one? Or was Conhoon exaggerating; or, perhaps, Axpad’s own memory slipping? It was a great perplexity. Too many things about Kedrigern were a perplexity. His wife was a mystery, his behavior was eccentric, his house-troll was grotesque, his dweling remote. On the other hand, his wine was excelent, his table abundant, and his guest bed comfortable. Axpad bided his time, assuring himself that Kedrigern’s protracted sequestration would end in the resolution of all his puzzlement.

  On the morning of his ninth day of seclusion, Kedrigern appeared at the breakfast table looking like a man delivered from long hard servitude on a poor diet. He was pale and noticeably thinner, and his eyes had the grainy red-rimmed look of long waking and close watching. But he was in the best of spirits, and had the appetite of a family of active giants. With a quick kiss for Princess and a word to Axpad, he began at once to devour a breakfast consisting of heroic amounts of porridge, eggs and rashers, bread and jam, more eggs and rashers, sausages, most of a plate of muffins, a few griled kidneys, and two more slices of bread and jam, washed down by a large pitcher of milk. When the last morsel was gone, he leaned back in his chair, sighed with repletion, covered a single elegant belch with his fingertips, smiled lazily on his wife and guest, and said, “Marvelous breakfast. Best I’ve had in forty-three years. The muffins were superb, my dear. And your strawberry jam…! Ambrosial, positively ambrosial. And Spot has never fried an egg so expertly.” He shut his eyes and sighed again in utter contentment. “A marvelous breakfast.”

  “I’m sure you’ve earned it,” Axpad ventured.

  “You bet I have,” said Kedrigern without opening his eyes.

  “You have?”

  “Yes.” Kedrigern yawned a long, wrenching yawn and settled deeper in the chair. He neither moved nor spoke, but a satisfied smile spread over his face.

  “The treasury… is it found? And Quintrindus?” Axpad asked in a low, anxious voice.

  Kedrigern drew himself slowly up out of the chair, yawned once again, and smiled benevolently on his fellow wizard. “The guild will get its treasury back, and Quintrindus will never bother anyone again.” Raising his hands to dam the flood of Axpad’s questions, he said, “I’ll tell you the details when I wake up.” Turning to Princess, he asked, “Were there any messages while I was working, my dear?” She shook her head, and he said, “If any should arrive, please don’t wake me. They’ll just have to wait.”

  With a farewell kiss for Princess, he plodded off to bed and slept through the day and night.

  When Kedrigern and Princess appeared for breakfast the next morning, the wizard’s appetite was on a more human scale: he had only a large helping of everything, no seconds. Axpad nibbled impatiently at his muffin and egg, darting eager curious glances at his host and hostess every few seconds. Kedrigern ate methodically and silently. When he popped the last morsel in his mouth and pushed back his chair, Axpad could contain himself no longer. “What happened?” he cried.

  “To whom?” Kedrigern replied coolly.

  “To the guild’s treasury! To Quintrindus!”

  “Oh. Oh, yes, I promised to tell you, didn’t I?” Kedrigern said, shaking his head as if bemused by his lapse of memory. “Well, it wasn’t all that difficult, really, once I found out—may I have a muffin, please?—once I learned about Quintrindus. That was the puzzling part. And Jaderal. Jaderal was the key to the whole thing. He’s the one to watch out for now. Thoroughly rotten, that Jaderal.”

  “The dog?” Axpad asked, pressing the muffin dish upon Kedrigern.

  “That’s right. Would you pass the jam, please? It seems that Quintrindus agreed to despell Jaderal in return for his help in distracting the guild members from too close attention to the lead-into-gold process. I assume he did a lot of barking, and nipping at hands and ankles—that sort of thing.”

  “Yes, he did. He was a terrible nuisance. But you say he was under a spell?”

  “Jaderal was once an apprentice of mine. He didn’t work out at all. I finally had to turn him into a dog. Thought it might improve his character—teach him loyalty, that sort of thing—but apparently it didn’t. When Quintrindus despelled him, Jaderal played a very nasty trick on Quintrindus. He sent him off to another plane on a one-way spell. That’s why no one could find any trace of him. You should have been looking for Jaderal.”

  Kedrigern took up the bread, which he had been spreading thickly with Princess’s strawberry jam, and bit off a sizeable chunk. Axpad was silent for a moment before asking, “How did you ever find this out?”

  Mouth filled, Kedrigern winked and said, “Uh hum muh wudd.”
/>   “You what?”

  Swallowing, Kedrigern said, “I have my ways. The hard part was getting a fix on them after all this time, and with Quintrindus gone elsewhere.”

  “The treasury! Did you locate the treasury?”

  “Certainly.” Turning to Princess, Kedrigern said, “May I have the pitcher, please, my dear?”

  “Where is it?” Axpad cried.

  “Right over there, by the bread,” Kedrigern said, pointing.

  “No, the treasury! The treasury!”

  “Oh. The treasury is hidden in a stable. I had to put a quick spell on it to deceive Jaderal, but I’ll give you the counterspell. It’s a very simple one.” As Kedrigern began to pour the milk, a loud knock came at the front door.

  “Yah! Yah!” Spot responded from a distant room.

  “Answer the door, Spot. Take your time about it,” the wizard called, beaming at Princess and Axpad and raising his milk-filled mug, as if in a toast.

  Another knock came, then the sound of Spot’s huge feet slapping in the flagstones of the hall, the creaking of the door, the customary startled cry of the visitor at the sight of Spot, and then a babble of deep voices. Half turning in his chair, Kedrigern shouted, “Show our visitors in, Spot!”

  Four large men, heavily armed, wearing the colors of Vosconu the Openhanded, entered the room, respectfully removing their helmets at the sight of Princess. Their leader saluted Kedrigern and stepped forward, looking uneasy.

  “Have you a message for me, Captain?” the wizard asked.

  “I do, Master Kedrigern,” said the guard captain, ducking his head and blinking nervously. “My lord Vosconu the Openhanded sends his profound thanks for your loyal and faithful assistance in his hour of need, and his assurance that all who converse with him shall hear of the wisdom and great power of the matchless wizard Kedrigern of Silent Thunder Mountain,” he recited in a loud monotone, red-faced with the strain of remembering.

  “Well said, Captain. Anything else?”

  “Yes, Master Kedrigern. You are to disregard my lord Vosconu’s previous message, which was written in great heat and under the baneful influence of jealous and suspicious men.”

  “You may inform Lord Vosconu that I have forgotten it completely,” said Kedrigern with a smile and a casual wave of the hand.

  “And I’m to give you this, Master Kedrigern,” the captain said, drawing from his tunic a pouch about the length and thickness of a man’s forearm and placing it in Kedrigern’s hands with a solid clinking of coin against coin. “And I’m to advise you that as soon as the snows are melted and the roads are passable, my lord Vosconu is sending you forty casks of his choicest wine as a token of his gratitude and esteem.”

  “My lord Vosconu outdoes himself in generosity. Please assure him that I am ever ready to assist him. And now, Captain, perhaps you and your men would like a flagon of ale and a light repast to fortify yourselves against your return trip. If you’ll just follow my house-troll, it’ll see that you and your men have your fill, and it will pack a nice lunch for the road,” said Kedrigern, rising and gesturing toward the doorway, where Spot awaited.

  “Yes, Master Kedrigern. Thank you,” the captain said, backing out, and his men joined their expressions of gratitude to his.

  Turning to Axpad, who sat in awed silence, Kedrigern said, “It’s always so nice to receive good news at breakfast, isn’t it? Lovely way to start the day.”

  Axpad nodded slowly. He could think of nothing to say.

  With his mission fulfilled, Axpad was eager to leave, and the prospect of an armed escort made it desirable to go this very day, when he could set out with Vosconu’s men. He needed only the counterspell to restore the guild’s gold, and Kedrigern copied it out as Axpad rolled up his few belongings. Vosconu’s men were gratefully packing bread, cheese, and dried meat and filling their water bottles for the journey. Their hearty voices could be heard at the front door, where the two wizards stood.

  “I’m grateful, Kedrigern. We’re all grateful. It was most kind of you, after the way we… after what…,” Axpad said awkwardly, trailing off into an uncomfortable silence from which he emerged with, “You had every reason to bear a grudge.”

  Clapping him on the back, Kedrigern said, “As you reminded me, old friend, we’re in this together. We must stand shoulder to shoulder. Do our bit.”

  “About the spell you put on the treasury,” Axpad said. “What exactly did you do?”

  “Oh, that. I disguised it. Camouflage, you know. Didn’t want Jaderal to recognize it.”

  “Very farsighted of you. How did you disguise it?”

  “I had to act quickly, you understand. It was in a stable, and I thought… well, to put it simply, I turned it into horse manure. It just… blended right in.”

  “Brilliant! And all we need do is recite the counterspell, and it will be gold again!”

  “That’s all there is to it. Practically all,” Kedrigern said, looking away. “As I said, it… it blended right in… with the real thing.”

  “Blended?” Axpad repeated dubiously.

  “Well, you know how stables are. All that moving around, and… mixing together,” said Kedrigern, with a vivid churning gesture, adding cheerfully, “Once it’s cleaned up, no one will ever suspect where it’s been. You’ll just have a few unpleasant moments separating… the wheat from the chaff, as it were.”

  Axpad gazed at him blankly. “The wheat… from the chaff,” he repeated in a dull voice.

  “In a manner of speaking. Ah, here come Vosconu’s men! And Princess, to see you all off. What a fine brisk morning to be traveling! Spring is just around the comer, no doubt about it,” said Kedrigern, breathing deeply of the keen air as he steered Axpad to the gate.

  “Good day to you, Master Kedrigern, and our thanks for your hospitality,” said the guard captain. His men raised their hands in a salute to the wizard.

  “Our pleasure, Captain. Please convey to Lord Vosconu our warm friendship and our deepest gratitude,” said Kedrigern, pressing a few coins into the man’s hand, adding, “A little something for you and your men.”

  “We’ll drink to your health, Master. And to yours, my lady,” said the captain, bowing to Princess. He turned to Axpad. “We’ll be leaving now, sir, if you’re ready.”

  “Look after him, Captain. He’s an old friend.”

  “I will, Master Kedrigern.”

  They walked off into the bright clear morning, turning at the crest of the hill to exchange one last wave of farewell with their host and hostess. When they dropped from sight, Kedrigern took Princess’s hand and raised it to his lips.

  “You’re a gracious hostess, my dear. And patient, as well.”

  “Brereep,” she said, smiling.

  “You’re too modest. Axpad can be trying, especially if one is left alone with him for days. Sorry about that, but I couldn’t interrupt the spell once it was working.”

  “Brereep,” she reassured him.

  “Thank you, my dear. It’s been a busy fortnight for us both, but a most rewarding one.” He looked out benevolently over the shrunken snowfields, where here and there a patch of ground showed through. “Oh, my, yes, a very rewarding one for all concerned.”

  “Brereep?”

  “Well, my colleagues in the guild have learned the consequences of trusting an alchemist. Vosconu’s herds have been saved, and he’s learned not to write accusing letters in the heat of the moment. And I have my library in order at last—which means that I can finally find the proper counterspell for you. I’m going to concentrate on herbal remedies. Spring is almost here, and I’ll soon be able to gather good fresh materials. Believe me, my dear, you’ll be speaking in a very short time,” he said, squeezing her hand.

  She smiled at him noncommittally. He waited, but she was silent.

  “Surely you have no more doubts. You do trust me now, don’t you, my dear?” he asked.

  “Brereep,” she said.

  Eleven

  a rarebit of magic


  The sun was warm, but not too warm for comfort; bright, but not dazzling to Kedrigern’s overworked and slightly nearsighted eyes. Birds sang, but not too loudly, and every note rang clear. The mild breeze was freighted with rich fragrance. It was a perfect spring day.

  Kedrigern made his unhurried way along the forest path, humming a little wordless tune which he made up as he walked to where his horse awaited. He was in excellent spirits and at peace with the world. In plain fact, this spring day had filled him with the ebullient, unfocused glee of a small boy on holiday, and he was in a mood to do handsprings and cut capers right here on this green-roofed pathway. Only the pouch at his side, filled with freshly gathered herbs of great virtue, prevented him. The herbs were much too delicate to withstand gymnastics.

  On an impulse, he set the pouch down gently at the foot of a tree. He sprang into the air, tapping his heels together.

  Selecting an open patch of green beside the path, he did a headstand. At last, laughing for pure joy, he tumbled onto his back and lay looking up at the sunny sky through the tapestry of new leaves.

  And then he heard a distant moan.

  He sprang up quickly and brushed himself off. His expression became somber. It would not do for ordinary citizens to see a respected wizard bounding about the woods like a silly lamb. Taking up his pouch of herbs and simples, he proceeded in the direction of the mournful sound, guided by frequent repetitions which became louder and more distinct as he pressed on. His gait was stately, but rapid, and before long he came upon a huddled figure by the wayside.

  It was a young man, dressed in once gaudy finery which now was much stained and worn from travel. He sat with his back to a flat rock, his bare feet stuck straight out before him. His hands were limp and forlorn in his lap, his head slumped forward in a posture of desolation.

  Looking about, Kedrigern saw a single boot lying a good way down the road, as if it had been vehemently flung away. Something unusual was going on here, he thought, and resolved to find out what it might be.

  He cleared his throat, and in his most disarming voice said, “Good morrow, traveler. Is all well with you?”