The Bohemian Magician

by A. L. Sirois

  “Phillipa,” he said softly. She looked up, startled at first, but then a smile bloomed on her face.

  “My lord.” She hurried to the bed, and sat on it, reaching out a hand to caress his hair.

  “Now, why are you not in your tower chamber? You are always saying that the light is better there.” He grinned.

  “Do not tease,” she said, smiling more broadly. “Or I shall call in the children to jump on you.”

  “They’ll be doing that soon enough,” he said. Sitting up, he gathered her to him.

  “And I would be up there, my dear, to get some privacy, had it not been for your arrival. You have spoiled my day, rather.” She kissed him.

  He broke off the embrace with a huge yawn. “What is the hour?” He squinted at the window. “Afternoon, by the light.”

  “Yes, it is shortly after nones,” she replied. She absently picked up the foot-long spindle with which she had been drawing out the fibers from the bunch of wool on the short distaff in her left hand. “I have heard it said that Saracen women do their spinning by means of a wheel mounted on a frame. Is this true?”

  He swung his legs off the bed. “What? I don’t know, I did not sit in with any spinsters.” A cold draught blew in through the window. He’d not been cold for so long that he shivered. A hint of snow came in with the breeze, and could not be dispelled by the heat emanating from the small fireplace.

  She said, “The mistrals are cutting deep this season.”

  “Yes, soon the Yule will be here.” He stomped around the room gathering clothes, tugging them on hastily in front of the fire. The logs snapping on the hearth brought memories of Yuletides past to his mind. “And well happy am I of it! Guilhem is old enough to take joy in the holiday, is he not?”

  “Oh, yes. Cateline babbles of it already, but I do not think she truly remembers last year—she but repeats what others tell her of it. Still, it is sweet to see her tell tales to him. She claims she remembers the Yule-log being brought into the kitchen, while all sing ‘Joy, Joy, Joy!’ the while.”

  Dressed now, he sat on the bed to pull on his boots.

  “I knew you would be home, yesterday before your arrival,” she said in a softer voice. “I have missed you, you know.”

  “And I you. But how could you know? I sent no emissary, no message before me to alert you.”

  “You know I often consult the Bible for guidance concerning the will of Heaven.”

  “To be sure, I do.” She did this, he knew, by opening the book to a random page and, without looking, placing her finger on the paper.

  “Yesterday my finger fell on Luke 15:32.” She eyed him. “Do you remember it?”

  He sighed, knowing well her disapproval of his lack of interest in religious matters. “Kindly refresh my memory, my lady.”

  “Hmph. ‘It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.’ It is the ending of the parable of the prodigal son.

  “I understood at once what it signified: He who was gone will return. I knew then you were coming home.” She nodded once, a trifle smugly.

  He knew, with secret amusement, that she was well satisfied with herself. You prideful wench, he thought, though fondly.

  “And then, almost at once, I heard a horse’s hooves on the drawbridge. I went to the window but you—of course, I did not know it was you, but I believed it to be—had already passed out of my view.

  “I came down the narrow stairway to the main floor, and my heart leapt to see you standing there, in conversation with Aubin.” She smiled demurely. “I could have killed him for waylaying you on your way to see me.”

  Guilhem laughed. He remembered turning from Aubin, his seneschal, to look at her in delight.

  “And you know what I thought as you walked across the flagstones to me?” she inquired. “I thought, We are creatures very alike. And then you said, ‘Countess,’ just the one word in greeting, and took my hand. Yours was rough and very tan from the southern sun, but your touch made me quite warm in my middle.”

  Guilhem smiled, remembering the passion of their private homecoming later that night, before he so ingloriously fell asleep on her. But, it seemed, that rude act was forgiven.

  He wondered if she would forgive his returning with no booty, no plunder. Dressed now, he pulled a chair over to the bed, facing her, and sat.

  “We have much to discuss, you and I,” he said.

  * * *

  Phillipa’s face was aloof and unfriendly. “You’ve brought nothing back? Nothing?” She stared coldly at him. “All that time away, and you do not even return with the men with whom you set out? Where are they?”

  Red-faced, he glowered at her. “It is difficult to explain. I was fortunate to come back with my life, lady. Many of those with me were not so lucky. I faced death any number of times.” Seeing the storm gathering in her eyes, he hastily switched tactics. After all, she could not understand what he had been through. She was but a woman, and knew nothing of the horrors of modern warfare. He would spare her the descriptions of torn flesh and howls of agony—and he wasn’t about to tell her of the fairies and gnomes and ifrits. “All that kept me going mad in those dark times were thoughts of your fair face and sweet words. I have been ever pure and devoted to you, all the time I was battling for the honor of the Cross.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance. “Your words were ever honeyed, my Duke,” she said more gently.

  “With thoughts of you to inspire me, they could be naught else,” he replied, relieved that his flattery seemed to mollify her temper. Though he would have liked to have returned home with gold and jewels, he was more than content to have not been maimed or crippled. “But I have in truth brought back something, a discovery more precious than all the riches in the Orient.”

  Phillipa tilted her head to one side, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. “And what is that?”

  “New forms of verse that I learned in the lands of the Saracens. Most intricate. I have sought to set them to music, and all, I say all, in your honor. You see, I will write songs, new songs, verses all mixed with love and joy and youth. Now, you must excuse me... I have not got my lute with me and must sing without accompaniment.” He grinned at her. “Yet do I think that my voice will win favor with you.”

  He cleared his throat, and began his song:

  “Joyous in love, I make my aim

  forever deeper in Joy to be.

  The perfect Joy's the goal for me:

  so the most perfect lady I claim.

  I've caught her eyes. All must exclaim:

  the loveliest heard or seen is she.

  You know I'd never base my fame

  on brags. If ever we're to see

  a flowering Joy, this Joy, burst free,

  should bear such fruit no man can name,

  lifting among the others a flame

  that brightens in obscurity.”

  He paused. “Do you like it, my lady?”

  “My lord, you do surprise me,” she said, in such a soft tone that he knew he was forgiven. “Those are sweet words indeed. And you thought of me all the while? I inspired the sentiment?”

  “Each minute, each second, of each day—when I was not fighting for my life, that is,” he added with a smile.

  “Is there more?”

  “Not of that one, no, but I have written another in a similar vein.”

  She clapped her hands together. “I would hear it now!”

  He bowed his head. “Very well. I warn you, it’s longer.

  “Great the joy that I take in love,

  A joy where I can take my ease,

  And then in joy turn as I please,

  Once more with the best I move,

  For I am honored, she’s above

  The best that man can hear or see.

  I, as you know, small credit take,

  Nor for myself claim any power,

  Yet if ever a joy should flower,

 
This one should, and overtake

  All others, Earth from shadows wake

  Like the sun in a gloomy hour.

  No man can fashion such a thing,

  By no wish of his, no desire,

  Nor by thought or dream aspire

  To such joy, as she will bring,

  All year I could her praises sing

  And not tell all before I tire.

  All joys are humbled, all must dance

  To her law, and all lords obey

  My lady, with her lovely way

  Of greeting, her sweet pleasant glance,

  A hundred years of life I’d grant

  To him who has her love in play.

  Her joy can make the sick man well,

  And through her anger too he dies,

  And fools she fashions of the wise,

  And handsome men age at her spell,

  And status, wealth she can dispel

  And raise the beggar to the skies.

  Since man can find no better here,

  That lips can tell of, eyes can see,

  I wish to keep her close by me.

  To render my heart fresh and clear,

  Renew the flesh too, so the sere

  Winds of age blow invisibly.

  If she’ll grant her love in measure,

  My gratitude I’ll then declare,

  And conceal it and flatter there,

  Speak and act all for her pleasure;

  Carefully I’ll prize my treasure,

  And sing her praises everywhere.

  I daren’t send this by another,

  I have such fear of her disdain,

  Nor go myself, and go in vain,

  Nor forcefully make love to her;

  Yet she must know I am better

  Since she heals my wound again.”

  Upon his finish, she sat silent for some moments. “There are a few bits in there that remind me of the other one,” she said at last.

  He dispelled a quick flash of irritation. Instead he inclined his head in acknowledgement. Her ears were as sharp as her eyes. “How not? When you are the subject of both.”

  “You flatter me, Guilhem. I wonder how you did any fighting at all,” she said, with a sly smile. “Clearly you were spending much of your time composing romantic verse. Yet I grant you that my heart responds.”

  “My countess, that is all I could ever hope for. But believe me, I was not in the Holy Land simply gazing at the moon,” he said. “I faced death any number of times.”

  “Yet you are not wounded.”

  “I am a fighting man, my lady.” He struck a proud pose. “Those who draw steel against me live to regret it. Though not, I warrant, for very long.”

  “This is good to hear,” she said. She lay a finger against her cheek. “And yet I wonder...”

  “What is it, my lady?”

  She fixed him with a fierce eye. “I wonder how it is that you dare to have betrayed me behind my back?”

  He blinked, conscious that his heart had dropped down to somewhere near his boots. She knew! How in the name of the devil—? “‘Betrayed’ is a strong word,” he said, stalling for time. “Of what can you be speaking?” He began pacing the room, back and forth.

  “My lord, you must think me a great fool. Or is it that I, your wife, a mere woman, lack the wits to see through a scheme so transparent?” She scoffed. “I remember that Pope Urban II was a guest at our court at Christmas in 1095. I was there, as you must recall, and huge with child. The pope urged you then to take the cross and leave for the Holy Land, but you were more interested in the territories of Toulouse.”

  He snorted. “As were you.”

  “I do not deny it. Yet your father thought he had a claim to those lands, and so do you think they are yours to do with as you will.”

  “This is not—” Guilhem started, angrily, but she lifted a small hand and he fell silent.

  “You promised my cousin Bertrand to relinquish all claims to our land in return for money to go on crusade,” she said. “When you knew all along that I am the rightful regent of Toulouse. You yourself placed me in the position!”

  “Of course I knew it,” Guilhem said. “Listen to me, Phillipa. You and I both know that you haven’t got a prayer of getting your lands without an army of some sort. And where are you going to get that, eh? I’ll tell you where: from me.” He tapped his chest. “Without my help, you will never be landed. You will spend your days up in your chamber spinning wool while the world passes by outside.” His words had struck home, he knew. Fury distorted her beautiful features. “And yet I would help you, as was ever my intent.”

  “You amaze me, sir,” she said after a moment. “You go in an instant from the sweetest love songs I have ever heard to the most devious machinations with which ever a man sought to bind a woman.”

  “They are not machinations.” He stopped pacing and took a step closer to her, forcing her to look up at him. “Well, all right, perhaps they are, to some extent. But listen you, Phillipa: together there is no limit to what we can accomplish. We will drive your cousin off those lands, and you will then rule them in fact as well as in name, and the entirety of the Aquitaine, because you are my wife. Because you will also have my lands, and they are rich.”

  “This is not the sort of marriage that a woman lies in bed dreaming about,” Phillipa said after a moment. But a faint smile played on her lips.

  “Listen to me, Guilhem. I know well that our alliance is to our mutual benefit. Why else do you think I remained unattached and chaste while I waited for you to ask for my hand? I admit to disappointment that you have not returned with gold and glory... nevertheless, I rejoice simply that you have returned. It is as you say; your life is more precious than riches.”

  “Then we can set to work on a scheme against Bertrand.”

  “I think—” She paused at a knock upon the panels of the door. “Hark.”

  “My lord?” came a muffled voice from the corridor outside. “I would make my report to you, if it is a convenient time.”

  “That is Aubin,” Guilhem said, and sighed.

  “Yes. Heavy hangs the head of state,” she said, smiling.

  “I am merely the lord of a small holding, no more. Yet a state in my name it is, I suppose. Pray excuse me, my love; we will continue this discussion anon, I trust.”

  She inclined her head in agreement.

  * * *

  Guilhem sat in his map room, which, untidy and disorganized though it was, served as more of a library. Begun by his father when Guilhem was still an infant, by now it housed some hundred and fifty books and scrolls, many of which he had collected or purchased over the years during his travels. He had been home now for two days, the first one of which he’d mostly slept through, waking groggy but refreshed, Phillipa having been good enough to keep the children away from him.

  Now, with papers and charts spread out before him on the old wooden table, he was studying the records of his holdings with Aubin the seneschal: crops planted and harvested, taxes levied, repairs required, and births and deaths. Though Aubin’s numbers were up to date and clearly displayed, Guilhem was finding it a bit hard to shift his thinking away from battles and mystic doings to the picayune affairs of running an estate.

  After a short while he pushed the pile of documents aside. “I never had a good head for figures,” he grumbled.

  “I assure you, lord, that all has run smoothly in your absence.” Aubin, a pasty-faced man in his mid-twenties, had lank colorless hair and vague colorless eyes but was a superb administrator with little ambition beyond ensuring that his columns of figures added up properly.

  Aubin also had a love of cats. Guilhem had grown up hating the animals, which he regarded, like most people, as being consorts of witches and heretics. Everyone knew that the Devil had the power to transform himself into a feline. But during his time in the Middle East Guilhem had noted the high regard with which many Saracens viewed cats. They even had them as pets. Though he had previou
sly banished cats from Aubin’s room, on his return from the Holy Land Guilhem said nothing more about it. After all, he reasoned to himself, the blasted creatures did keep the castle’s rodent population in check. And Aubin’s skills were so worthwhile that Guilhem could overlook his unsavory interest in the animals. It had, in fact, been Aubin who had suggested that the castle’s cat be allowed free access to the map room to control the damage mice were doing to the duke’s valuable books.

  “If, as you claim, Aubin, all has run smoothly, what am I to make of these reports of a werewolf terrorizing the outlying villages? Two men assaulted on their way home from a tavern; a woman ripped apart while chopping wood. A baby snatched from its crib.”

  Aubin looked uncomfortable. He adjusted the flat black hat he customarily wore, winter and summer. “It’s not clear that it is a werewolf,” he said.

  “Oh? Well, you tell me what else could rend a woman to bits, as it says in this account.” Guilhem tapped a paper in front of him.

  If there was a werewolf terrorizing the land, he, as a man of arms, might have to confront the unholy thing himself. He was by no means anxious to do that. Werewolves, though supernatural beings, were at least half man and because of their essential human nature might not honor the dubious privileges Guilhem enjoyed as a fairy friend.

  It might well be, he noted sourly to himself, that the monster could take one sniff of me, lick its chops and leap to the attack.

  “I sent a bailiff to investigate but he found no trace of the beast,” said Aubin.

  Guilhem placed his hands flat on the table. “Well, he wouldn’t, would he! It’s a werewolf, Aubin—a man by day, a wolf by night. Even now the thing in its human guise may be laboring in the fields, or perhaps working in the kitchen of this very household as a scullion! I want to know who in the area has not been home of a night. I want the bailiff to go around to every peasant and noble house, including this one, and make inquiries. See to it at once.”