A Bad Spell in Yurt woy-1

by C. Dale Brittain

  “Your rooms are all prepared, my lord and lady,” she said. “My constable will show you and your companions. Dinner will be served as soon as you’ve had a chance to rest from your trip.” As we all followed the constable out of the great hall, I glanced back to see her looking after us with a wide grin.

  There were a number of different courses at dinner, all elaborate, but none, I thought, as good as those produced by the cook at Yurt. I also missed the brass choir before dinner. The chaplain sat across from me, as at home, next to the duchess’s chaplain. But he did not meet my eye. I myself was surreptitiously watching the queen. I had wondered more than once why she, a woman of fire and air who should have been able to marry anyone in the western kingdoms, had married the king of Yurt.

  Now that he was no longer ill, he did seem much younger than he had when I first met him, but he was still undeniably more than twice her age, and no taller than she. Here in the duchess’s castle, as the lady Maria had been reminding the chaplain this afternoon, was where the king and queen had first met, and I wondered if I might find some clue here.

  We finished up with spicy cakes frosted in vivid colors, and while I was trying to decide if I liked them or not, the duchess called to me down the table. “Wizard! I hear you do excellent illusions. Would you care to entertain us?”

  “He’s tired, as we all are,” said the queen quickly. “Maybe ask him another day.”

  I was surprised to find her suddenly so protective of me, and when I looked toward her I saw that she was not smiling. But the duchess’s eyes met mine in an amused challenge.

  “All right,” I said, putting down the half-eaten cake which I had decided I did not like at all. “But I warn you, my illusions may be frightening.”

  “I don’t frighten easily, Wizard.”

  But the lords and ladies from Yurt were nudging and smiling at each other, clearly hoping that the party here, who had not seen my dragon, would be as frightened of it as they now pretended not to have been. Several of the duchess’s attendants, seeing the winks, did indeed begin to look uneasy.

  I went to stand by the fireplace, thinking quickly. I didn’t want to become repetitive by doing another dragon, and although the magician at the carnival had not hesitated to make an illusory demon, I didn’t want to terrify myself with my own magic. Besides, I only wanted to titillate the duchess and her lords and ladies, not send them screaming from the hall as I had almost done at Yurt.

  I decided on a giant, one about twenty feet tall, which would leave his head (or heads-I rather liked the idea of a two-headed giant) only a short distance below the ceiling. I worked quickly, sketching in the different parts but not yet giving them substance, so that a ghostly pair of legs, a nearly invisible club, and a suggestion of massive arms took shape between me and the fire.

  I glanced at my audience. The queen’s eyes were dancing, and the duchess continued to look amused. The last detail was the double head, one smiling horribly, and one suffused in fury. The second head, even while half invisible, looked I realized a little like Dominic, but it was too late to try to change it. With a few quick words in the Hidden Language, I gave my giant visual solidity and put it into motion.

  The giant spun around from the fire to face the table and raised its enormous club. The mouth of the furious face opened in a silent roar. The club swung downwards, and the king, showing an agility I had not realized he had, sprang from his chair just before the club passed down through the chair and the table.

  There was a cacophony of noise, chairs scraping and falling backwards and the duchess’s people shouting. The party from Yurt was doing fairly well, in that none of them were screaming, but they still sprang from the table as they giant started down it. The enormous hairy legs were buried almost knee-deep in the table, through which it seemed to wade like a man wading through water. The club descended again and again, passing without effect through glass, china, and wood, as one head roared and the other laughed. The only person who did not move was Dominic, who sat stone-faced, his arms folded, as one of the giant’s thighs passed directly through him.

  I stopped the giant just short of the duchess. She, like the others, had jumped up, but she was watching its approach with a broad smile. I had the giant stop roaring and grinning, drop its club, and go into the full bow before her. The effect was a little spoiled by the fact that, as it went down on its knees, much of it disappeared under the table, but the duchess still began applauding wildly as soon as the double head was lowered. I said the words to end the illusion.

  The duchess ran to grab me by the hands. “Well, Wizard, I can see that, with you there, Yurt must be a much livelier place than it ever was before!”

  People were straightening their hair and clothing and coming toward the fire with as casual an air as possible. The castle servants, who had been watching open-mouthed from the passage to the kitchen, disappeared again.

  “I told you we had a fine wizard!” said the king. “Maybe you ought to send to the City for one yourself!”

  “But I couldn’t be sure of getting one like this one!” she said with a laugh. She was still holding both my hands, which was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t think we’ll have any more entertainment to top this tonight.”

  As though this were a signal, the lords and ladies of her party immediately started to leave. The king and queen glanced at each other. “If you don’t mind,” said the queen, “we’ll retire now. We’ve had a long ride today.”

  “But you,” said the duchess, looking at me, “you I’d like to take to my chambers for a final drink.”

  III

  The queen turned sharply toward the duchess, as though about to say something, then changed her mind. “Good night, then,” she said, leaving on the king’s arm. For a moment I even hoped she was jealous.

  The servants returned to clear the table as both parties dispersed. The chaplain was almost the last to go, and before he went he fixed me with a burning stare that might have been a warning.

  The duchess had released my hands, but I seemed to have no choice but to follow her, up the wide staircase at the end of the hall to the great ducal chamber.

  To my relief, she stopped here and motioned me to a seat. A small fire was in the grate; she added first some small sticks, then a log, and soon had it burning brightly. I felt I ought to help, but she seemed to want no help.

  With the fire now burning, she went to a cabinet for two glasses and a bottle. She poured us each an inch of golden liquid and brought me mine, then sat down in the chair opposite me, one booted leg hooked over the arm.

  I took a sip. “Excuse me, my lady, but this isn’t wine. It’s brandy.”

  “Yes,” she said, as though wondering at my dimness.

  “But brandy is a medicine.”

  “It’s also an excellent after-dinner drink, as I discovered some time ago.”

  I took another sip. It was extremely powerful. “Very nice,” I said.

  She smiled, her face, which was close to being the queen’s face, lit up by a smile that was not the queen’s. “Enjoy it. There aren’t many I invite to share a glass of brandy with me.”

  I started talking, in part to take control of the atmosphere, in part because that way I had an excuse for drinking more slowly. “This is the first time since I came to Yurt that I’ve accompanied the king on a visit to his subjects. It’s hard to tell in the dark, of course, but as we came in it seemed that you had a beautiful little castle. I hear there are two counts in the kingdom as well. Are their castles as lovely?”

  “The king’s castle is of course considered the best in the kingdom of Yurt,” she said, as though taking my inane comments seriously. “But the ducal castle, mine, is not rated far behind. Tomorrow I can show you all its features, inside and out. I don’t have a rose garden like the king’s, but if it were summer I could show you the flowers I do grow.”

  With any luck, I thought, we could talk about gardening until I could decently make my
excuses and leave.

  But she took control of the conversation back from me. “Wizard, I have a proposal to make to you.”

  I had been taking a sip from my glass and ended up swallowing suddenly much more than I meant to. “Indeed?” I said as blandly as I could, once I had stopped coughing. My eyes were drawn, against my will, to the door at the far end of the great chamber, that must lead to her bedroom.

  “I know you wizards don’t take oaths, but what I’m asking may still be hard for you.” She was watching me, a look of amusement playing on her features.

  “Indeed,” I said with dignity. She seemed to be saying that we wizards did not take oaths of chastity, as did priests, which was true, but she also seemed to be insulting me.

  “I know that, as short a time as you have lived in Yurt, your affections may already be fully engaged.”

  How did she know I was in love with the queen?

  “Although,” she said thoughtfully, “I would have thought a wizard with your flair wouldn’t want to live his entire life ruled by someone with as soft a disposition as your queen.”

  Being too amazed to reply properly, I said nothing.

  “Given a tempting opportunity, one’s affections may change their focus,” she continued with that same almost detached look of amusement.

  “Possibly,” I said, as noncommittally as I could.

  “Therefore a woman may have to make her proposal as attractive as possible to woo a wizard,” she continued, swinging her foot down and standing up.

  I watched her approaching, almost in panic.

  “That’s why, Wizard, I need you to tell me what you like best.”

  She was standing directly in front of me, hands on her hips. I tried to buy time by seeming to drink my brandy, but it was gone.

  “If I can offer you something the king does not offer you, then maybe I can woo you away from your affection for his castle and household and persuade you to give up being the royal wizard of Yurt and instead become my own ducal wizard.”

  In my relief at realizing that she was only offering me a position, not making an indecent proposal, at first I could only stammer. Then I caught her eye and realized she had been doing it deliberately.

  “I am very happy as the royal wizard,” I said, searching desperately for the remains of my dignity. Someone like the old wizard, someone who actually seemed to personify mystery and darkness, would not have been teased like this! “I’m not interested in alternate- proposals.”

  “But I’m quite serious, Wizard,” she said, with a smile that was merely friendly. “I know it might seem like a step down to leave a king for a duchess, but I can offer you whatever you have now, and even more-your own tower, assistants to help gather herbs, freedom to come and go as you please.”

  For a brief moment I wondered what would happen if I left the king to become the duchess’s wizard. Yurt would need a new royal wizard, of course, and this time they might be lucky and get someone competent. I would never have to deal with whatever evil force was lurking in the cellars.

  Of course, they might get someone even less capable, and even a competent wizard wouldn’t know about the empty north tower, about Dominic’s veiled warning, or about the king’s illness and recovery. The new wizard would resent anything that seemed like interference and certainly would not welcome hints from me.

  Besides, Zahlfast would think I was running away. “I’m sorry, my lady,” I said, “but even though I haven’t taken an oath of loyalty to the king, I still feel that I am his man.”

  She nodded a little ruefully. “I’d been afraid you’d say that. I’ve been thinking for some time my duchy needed a wizard-my father’s old wizard, whom I barely remember, was not I believe very highly qualified, but he had not been trained in the wizards’ school. I was therefore very eager to meet a young wizard from the school, but as soon as I met you I realized there can’t be many like you. Are there?”

  She had, to my relief, gone back to her own chair. “Probably not,” I said, “although the teachers at the school would tell you that’s just as well.”

  “Maybe I’ll advertise and see who answers,” she said thoughtfully. “But that was a wonderful giant! And was it deliberate that its second head looked just like Prince Dominic?”

  I laughed and denied any such intention. After a few more minutes’ conversation, I felt able to rise and tell her how tired I was after a long day.

  She took my hands affectionately. “Thank you for sharing a glass of brandy with me. Think about my offer, if you grow tired of the royal court.” Though not the queen, she certainly was an attractive woman. I wondered briefly what she would have done if I had taken what she seemed to be offering literally and had immediately begun to act on it.

  “Thank you, and good evening, my lady,” I said gravely, then left her great chamber to return to my own room. As I went, I wondered if the queen had, at least in part, decided to marry the king to keep him from marrying the duchess.

  Since the duchess’s castle really was smaller than the royal castle, and since it was already full of her own household, there had not been much room for the rest of us, after the king and queen and a handful of their closest companions had been lodged in a suite of rooms which apparently were always kept ready for them. As royal wizard, however, I had been given the dignity of a room of my own, the room the old ducal wizard had used thirty years earlier, which had apparently scarcely been used since then.

  As I spiraled up the narrow tower stairs toward the room, ducking my head and wishing either for my predecessor’s or my own magic lights, I thought I might look at the ducal wizard’s old books for a minute before going to sleep. I had noticed a few books in the room before dinner and hoped that he might have written down some interesting spells that had never been known in the City.

  As I came around the last turn, I was surprised to see the door of my room standing half open, and candle light flickering within. I pushed the door slowly open and faced the deep black eyes of the chaplain.

  He put down the Bible he had been reading and stood up. “Close the door,” he said, as though this were his room, not mine.

  I closed the door. “Look,” I said. “What I said this afternoon. I realize I didn’t make it clear enough”-this was an understatement! — ”that I didn’t think you were responsible for the king’s illness.” Most of the time this was even true. “I wish you’d given me a chance to explain. I really am sorry that I sounded as though I was accusing you.”

  But he didn’t seem to be listening. “I don’t enjoy doing this,” he said, “but I have to. I’m afraid you’re forgetting your duties, and I have to remind you of them.”

  “My duties?” I said in surprise. It would have seemed like a joke except that there was not even the hint of a smile on his face.

  “Sit down,” he said. “I didn’t want to tell you this when we spoke this afternoon, but the bishop was very unhappy about the possible influence on me from a wizard my own age.”

  I sat down obediently on my bed, as he had the chair.

  “I told him what you had suggested to me in conversation, that the organization of the wizards’ school is patterned on the organization of the church, and that, like the church, organized wizardry hopes ultimately for the salvation of mankind.”

  I knew I had never actually said this, but it was close enough to what I myself considered the goals of wizardry that I only nodded.

  “That’s why I have to speak to you now. I had to take responsibility with the bishop for your soul.”

  “I thought my soul was doing well,” I said in a small voice, over-awed by those burning eyes. I could not break my own glance away from them.

  “If it were only playing with magic, I might not have to speak,” he continued, unhearing. “Even when you used magic not to help but to terrify, as you did both at the royal court and again here tonight, tact kept me from speaking. But now!” He leaned sharply forward, as though wanting to make sure he had my full attention, alt
hough he had had it since I came in the room.

  “I will not accuse you of immorality. Only the saints and God can truly judge a man’s soul. But when you began to behave as though you have a licentious freedom, using casuistic reasoning to argue with yourself that a tradition against wizards’ marrying is not enough to stop a man who has never had to take an oath of chastity, then I realized that you were in danger of applying this casuistry to other areas, to-”

  At this point I had to interrupt him. “Stop. Wait. You don’t understand.”

  “I fear I understand all too well.”

  “You don’t. The duchess and I had a small drink together.”

  “And that was all?” he demanded.

  “She told me that she admired my illusions so much that she wanted me to leave the royal court of Yurt and come be her ducal wizard. I turned her down.”

  Joachim sat back in the chair as though deflated. “And that was all?”

  “That was all.” I myself found the situation quite amusing. He must have sat in my room for close to an hour, waiting for my return, preparing both the accusations and the spiritual counsel he would give to me, and then he found out that, at least at the moment, I didn’t actually need any spiritual guidance. But a look at his face told me he didn’t find any amusement in the situation.

  “Then I will apologize for disturbing you,” he said stiffly. “I hope you sleep well.” He rose and left the room, taking the candle with him.

  I started to protest, then realized it was undoubtedly his candle, brought from his own room. I turned on my belt buckle to get enough light to find a candle of my own. I stared gloomily at the flame, once I had it lit, wondering how I was going to become friends again with the only person in Yurt who seemed to have the potential to be my close friend. At this rate, he’d soon be suspecting me of having poisoned the king.