C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 04

by The Witch;the Cathedral

  The royal party headed back through sunny valleys and hills toward the royal castle of Yurt. Paul rode his red roan stallion, but he had acceded to my concerns enough to stay within sight of the rest of us.

  My eyes were starting to feel gritty from lack of sleep, and even though I knew I would be stiff at the end of the day from jouncing on an old mare, I still preferred to let her do the work of trans­ porting me home. There was a spell I could use against fatigue, but I hesitated to use it; after its effect wore off, I always felt worse than before. I hoped Joachim would be alert enough to attend to his new duties today. But maybe people with pure minds needed less sleep.

  At the moment, my thoughts kept me from dozing. I was extremely fond of the queen, I told myself, as I was of Paul, and for that matter of everyone else in the court of Yurt. The queen was just as lovely as she had always been, her nature as spirited and as affectionate. But nineteen years of daydreams about her seemed gone as though they had never existed. Even the memory of kissing her in the twilight in the fields outside the castle seemed so far away that it might have happened to different people.

  Partly my daydreams had been driven out by Theodora's reality, I reasoned, and partly my unspoken imaginings had been dissipated by telling Joachim about them. But it made it much easier than I could have expected to ride next to the queen and to talk to her.

  Now, if it had not been for Theodora, I told myself, I could have imagined nothing better than continuing as Royal Wizard of Yurt. I thought I would even have been able to think approvingly of the queen's marriage to Prince Vincent, if I hadn't been so sure that he was only using it as an excuse to get into Yurt and seize it for himself.

  I tried to sound her out, to see if she might know something that would help me even if she did not realize she knew it. "Why did you decide to move up your wedding, my lady?" I asked casually.

  She looked up sharply, the sunlight gleaming in her emerald eyes. In spite of her easy and natural manner, I thought, she did remember our last real conversation. But what she saw seemed to reassure her. I wasn't sure if this meant she too knew me better than I thought she did, or if it meant she didn't really understand me at all. She answered without awkwardness or embarrassment. "We just couldn't bear to wait any longer."

  The sudden constriction of my chest made no sense, I chided myself, because I was now ready to hear her talk of such things without pain.

  "It seems," she continued, "that all I've done recently is prepare for the two ceremonies: Paul's coming of age and my own wedding. It would have been easier, of course," she commented wryly, "if he'd been in Yurt during the last month. I let him go to the cathedral city for a few days, and next I know you've kidnapped him!"

  "I apologize for taking him with me," I said, thinking that it could not indeed have been easy to make preparations for a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony when the key person in that ceremony wasn't even there. "But if it hadn't been for Paul, the rest of us might still be up in the border of the land of magic."

  She looked thoughtfully toward the red stallion and its rider, running long loops next to the road while the rest of us proceeded more sedately. "He tried to downplay it when he told me about it," she said, "but I could tell that he had been responsible for finding a way for you all to escape. Of course, I know perfectly well, Wizard," she added generously, "that you would have come up with something of your own in not much more time."

  "He got to know Prince Lucas much better during the trip, too," I said, hoping to work the conversation back to Lucas's younger brother Vincent. "It's good that the two future kings of Yurt and Caelrhon should be friends."

  "He tended to gloss over the dangers of the trip," said the queen with a smile, "but I could tell there were at least a few places where you might all have been killed. That's not the sort of thing a mother likes to hear about, but, now that it's all over safely, I can reassure myself that maybe he needed a little real adventure. We've always tried not to spoil him, but there's no question that he's been somewhat sheltered."

  So far I was no closer to finding out anything about Vincent. I could talk indefinitely to the queen about Paul, even though he would be exasperated to know we were talking about him like this. But I still needed to know if she had observed anything about Vincent. "When I came back from the City and first met the prince, my lady," I began, "there was something about the way that the two of you treated each other which I can only characterize as odd."

  She gave me a surprised look, as well she might, but said nothing.

  "You and he seemed happy to be together," I plunged ahead, "but I had the strangest feeling that I was watching a play, that you had rehearsed what you told me about your whirlwind courtship."

  The queen blushed most becomingly and tugged at a loose stitch on one of her riding gloves. I let the silence stretch out, knowing she would have to answer eventually.

  Having exhausted the possibilities of her glove, the queen glanced around to be sure no one else was within hearing distance, cleared her throat twice, and gave what I had to call a giggle. "I hadn't realized it was that obvious," she said. "Maybe we were acting in a play, although I hadn't thought of it that way. But it would have been rather embarrassing to admit that I had been courting him!"

  "You were courting him," I repeated.

  "I wouldn't tell anyone other than you," she said, which I presumed was meant as a compliment. "But this winter, when I realized that my baby boy was going to be king very soon, and it had been six years since King Haimeric had died, I decided I would remarry. I was never meant to be a nun."

  I nodded but did not trust myself to speak.

  "Even you going back to teach at the wizards' school," she continued without looking at me, "made me realize that the years were passing, and that if I wanted another husband I should choose him soon. Going over the possibilities, I quickly picked out Vincent. That's why I invited him to come stay in Yurt this spring."

  I rode in silence without answering. It all sounded cold-hearted and calculating to me, not at all like the queen.

  "It sounds very cold-hearted when I put it like that," she went on, as though reading my thoughts. "But I wasn't deliberately planning to marry him, because I didn't know if I would love him. Rather, I thought I would review my options, to see if I could come to love someone else after the king."

  She gave me a quick glance, as though wondering if she should apologize again for never having considered me as a candidate. If so, she decided against it. "Vincent seemed from the beginning the most likely of the lords and princes I knew."

  "So he doesn't mind that you picked him out?" I managed to ask.

  "Not at all! He was highly flattered. He was just a little irritated with me at first for inviting him to Yurt to see if he might be the man I would want as a husband, and then being so slow to make up my mind. You see, he'd always been secretly in love with me." She gave a dreamy smile that I would gladly have missed. "His only problem was his family; he said his older brother kept suggesting that this might be a chance for Yurt to take over Caelrhon. Vincent, I'm afraid, has always felt somewhat stifled living under his brother's shadow. He has no use for politics himself, of course."

  This time she fell into a silence that she seemed to have no intention of breaking. I did not believe a word of it.

  Or at least I did not believe what she had said about Prince Vincent, even if she thought it was true herself. Her own motivations, I thought reluctantly, might make sense. This was, after all, the same woman who had threatened her parents with becoming a nun many years ago, when they had tried to marry her to someone she did not like. If the young chaplain had started pressuring her to join the Nunnery of Yurt, her immediate reaction would have been to marry again.

  And she had always loved parties and dancing. If nothing else, working her way through the eligible men in the adjacent kingdoms would have promised several seasons of festivity.

  She pulled her horse over to the side of the road and called to her son. "
Paul! I think you've tired your horse until mine can match him. I'll race you to the woods!"

  Watching the two of them gallop ahead—the queen had always been an excellent horsewoman—I felt a profound if irrational certainty that Vincent had much more in mind than the kisses of a beautiful woman.

  II

  I came home to Yurt as though I had been gone for years. The trees and grass around the castle had the rich dark green of late summer. I happily reshelved the thoroughly battered books of spells that I had taken with me to the cathedral city, and from there to the borderlands, to Vor's valley, back to the cathedral city, and back home again. Now that I was apparently once more Royal Wizard, I thought I might be in control of at least parts of my life again—except for finding the renegade wizard.

  Activity in the royal castle of Yurt was frantic. The staff were busy cleaning and airing all the guest rooms, as well as decorating the great hall; the knights were preparing for a tournament such as had not been held at Yurt for years; and the cook was constantly getting in and preparing the food for days of festivities. The queen's parents arrived the day after we returned, to be there for their grandson's coming of age.

  Trying to stay out of everyone's way, I worked long and late on my spells, setting up magical protective barriers so that no creature could land on the walls or the tops of the towers, not even something invisible, without triggering alarms. But I wished I knew something, anything, about the wizard who had brought a gorgos to the old bishop's funeral and might be showing up in Yurt to attack the new one.

  My only possible lead was the cantor Norbert, who had certainly obtained the old book of spells from a magic-worker, a fairly young, dark-bearded wizard according to his account to Joachim, a wizard wearing the same star-studded jacket Vor had described. But it had always been hard to see the scholarly old priest behind the gorgos, and he would scarcely have told the bishop all about the wizard from whom he obtained the book if he was still conspiring with him.

  I took Paul quietly aside to warn him that we might see another monster at his coronation. He grinned, intrigued by the possibility. When I asked if he thought we should scale back the festivities, he only laughed. "We can't very well cancel the ceremonies unless a dragon is actually on us!"

  "I don't want you out in the open when the wizard brings on his next monsters."

  "But you wouldn't have me begin my rule as king cowering timidly inside," replied Paul. "Especially if it comes during the tournament we'll be ready for it, since all the knights will be in armor. Maybe this time I'll even get a chance to fight it myself, since you didn't let me last time." At least he didn't seem bothered that I had not tried to incorporate any of his and Lucas's elaborate plots into Joachim's plan to lure the renegade wizard into the open.

  The rest of our guests arrived at Yurt the day before Paul's birthday: the royal family of Caelrhon, the duchess and the two counts of Yurt with all their families, and all of Yurt's manorial lords. The stables were packed, the guest rooms full and overfull; and most of the visiting knights ended up pitching tents beyond the moat.

  There was a surprise when the royal family of Caelrhon rode up, for the king was not with them. The queen of Caelrhon was accompanied by her sons Lucas and Vincent, Lucas's wife and children, and a dozen knights, but not her husband.

  "He's staying in the cathedral city," Vincent told my queen, holding her hands and looking at her in adoration. "Father thought he'd better be at the cathedral to defend it from attack."

  If the king of Caelrhon had passed up Paul's coronation to protect the bishop's church, I thought, I hoped he would not be too disappointed when nothing happened—assuming, of course, that Joachim's plan worked.

  The bishop's party arrived last of all. It was just growing dark when we saw a small group of horses, led by a banner with a cross, emerging from the woods. Fireflies winked in the grass by the road as I went out to meet them.

  The young chaplain came with me, all aflutter in brand-new vestments. I wondered how he would hold up during his first spiritual examination by the new bishop.

  Joachim, Theodora, a young priest and two knights rode up the last rise to the castle. Their horses were the only ones to arrive all day without the tinkling of harness bells. The riders listened while the chaplain rattled through his speech of welcome, full of phrases from the Bible and expressions of hope that the bishop would not find this small castle too unworthy of his attentions. But my attention was distracted. Emerging from the woods and starting up the brick road toward the castle were several caravans, lanterns swinging from them as the horses labored in the final climb.

  "The Romneys," I said out loud, too startled to realize I was interrupting the chaplain until I had done so.

  "That's right," said the priest who had come with the bishop, in tones of disapproval. "We passed them on the road late this afternoon. They said they wanted to be here to see the prince crowned."

  This was something I had not counted on. There should be nothing wrong with the Romneys being here, and yet all my calculations were built on knowing exactly who was going to be where at all times. I shook my head at myself. I was already as tense as a bowstring, and some of the other guests were bound to do something innocent and unimportant that would throw me into a panic.

  The chaplain had trouble finding the thread of his welcoming speech again. Joachim thanked him and shook his horse's reins, and his party moved across the drawbridge into the courtyard. The Romneys pulled their caravans off the road a little distance short of the tents of the visiting knights.

  The queen came out to welcome the bishop, both more sincerely and more simply than the young chaplain had. Paul stood beside her, looking extremely solemn. He stepped forward as the bishop's horse was led away to the stables.

  "Holy Father, I have a request to make," he said, speaking rapidly, as though afraid the bishop would walk away before he could say it. "As you know, I will be spending tonight, the night before my coronation, in prayer in the chapel. It is traditional that a priest come to counsel me at some point, and I would be honored—very highly honored—if you could do so."

  The young chaplain looked surprised; I expected he had been busily preparing spiritual counsel himself for the new king.

  "I would be delighted," Joachim said gravely.

  A smile lit up the prince's face. "Wonderful. Come around midnight."

  The queen turned to greet Theodora. The two women looked at each other for a long moment; Theodora, I expected, wanted a good look at the other woman who had refused my proposals, and the queen wondered who this young woman could be although she was much too tactful to ask.

  The last available room in the castle, at my request, had been reserved for Theodora. It was a small room at the top of a flight of stairs, but in the morning the windows would look into the dawn sky. With the queen's permission, I had cut some late roses from the king's garden and arranged them in vases.

  "I wanted to let you know," said Theodora as I set down her bag in the room, "that the old magician is with the Romneys."

  "The old magician? You mean the man who was so furious that I might be interfering with his ‘making an honest living,’ the one to whom you taught a little fire magic?"

  "That's right. I hadn't seen him since the beginning of the summer, since even before I met you, but when we caught up to the Romneys he was riding on one of the caravans."

  I nodded slowly. "I hope the worst he'll do is to make some scandalous illusions at an inappropriate time in the ceremony, but while I'm waiting for the renegade wizard this magician's magic may prove distracting."

  "This is the closest I've ever seen your queen," Theodora continued. "Have you told her all about me as well?"

  "Of course not!" I started to protest indignantly, then realized she was teasing me. "I just told her that you were an important lady from the cathedral city," I added with dignity, "who I wanted as my special guest."

  "Then you'd better go out with the others," she said with a smi
le, "before they all start wondering just how ‘special’ a guest I am!"

  But she kissed me before I left. As I went back down the stairs, I realized that in her own way she was as little concerned about public opinion as Joachim. She would always do exactly what she wanted, rather than what she thought others would want her to do, but as a single woman, one without any authority whatsoever, she had to avoid attracting attention to herself that might keep her from her privacy or what she had been intending.

  One of the servants found me as I came back out into the courtyard. "There's a phone call for you from the City."

  My heart pounded rapidly as I picked up the receiver and looked at the face of one of the young wizards of the school. "Zahlfast said that you'd asked us to call you if there was any unusual activity up in the land of magic," he said. "I wasn't sure I should call you, since nothing came of it, but then I decided I'd better."

  "What is it?" I asked impatiently. The wizard who had summoned a gorgos to the cathedral city would not be casting spells from which nothing came.

  "We had a call about an hour ago from the wizard who's posted up at the borderlands. He said a very small dragon had suddenly started south, but he was able to fly down and get ahead of it and put a magical barrier in front of it. When it bounced off his barrier, the dragon turned around and went straight back. I wouldn't have bothered you for such a trivial event, but Zahlfast told me you'd been very insistent."

  I thought rapidly. "Do you know if the school ever got that telephone fixed?"

  "The telephone? You mean the one up in the borderlands? I didn't think it was ever broken."

  I took a deep and ragged breath. "Is Zahlfast there?"

  "No, I think he went out to dinner. Shall I have him call you?"

  I hesitated a moment, then shook my head. When I had spoken with Zahlfast the day before, he had seemed miffed that I was still worrying myself over what he considered the Church's problems. I was not going to get any help from him. "Just tell him that phone is broken." I rang off. I didn't need any more phone calls to tell me what would happen.