“How will marrying Hebraun reward you, Father? I thought you enjoyed having me at Peach Knob.”
“Oh my!” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. “You're the Fates' own gift to me and having you with me has been my greatest joy. If you were to stay with me the rest of my life, I'd never tire of your company. You must understand that.”
“I do,” she said as she laid her head on his shoulder. “I've always known that.”
“I'm to be 'Wizard of the Crown.' Henry even wants me to move into the tower of Castle Niarg.”
“But what about Peach Knob?”
“Oh, we'd never let go of that, but I don't have to be there every minute to run it.”
“Sounds like you've practically accepted the king's offer,” said Minuet as she slipped off the bed and went to the window. A robin flew to the apple tree below and began singing.
“Well,” said Razzmorten after studying her for a moment, “speaking only for myself, I can't imagine not considering it. And as far as the two of us are concerned, it's some opportunity, indeed. It would remain safe for us to practice magic... Oh dear! You don't look enthused. I would never force you to marry, in spite of what opportunities there might be in it for me. If you're uncomfortable with any part of this you must tell me.”
Minuet whisked at the dust and dead flies on the sill. “Well, what about Prince Hebraun? Would he want to marry a commoner?”
Razzmorten rose and went to Minuet at once. “My dear,” he said with a soft chuckle, gently turning her about by the shoulders, “Henry got the idea from Hebraun.”
“Hebraun told the king he wanted to marry me?”
“He didn't say that, I don't think, but every time Hebraun's been to Peach Knob for oil, he keeps going on and on about you being the most gorgeous young woman he's ever seen, bright and poised, don't you know. And he seems to think that you might possibly feel the same way about him.”
“Prince Hebraun said that?” she gasped. “He thinks I'm interested in him? What about Leeuh?”
“Now I'm lost. What about Leeuh?”
“Don't you remember me telling you about her having designs on Prince Hebraun? She might even think she's in love with him.”
“Mercy!” said Razzmorten, staring out the window.
“Well she's quite infatuated with him, at the very least. If I marry him, she'll hate me forever.”
“Remember (and I can't imagine how you couldn't) that I once promised that I'd let you choose whom you marry? I told you that my gift to you was that you could marry for love. Well, this might be it, don't you know. So do you really want your sister to ruin it for you? If you let her, do you really fancy that she'll be grateful to you for your sacrifice? And I'll bet you two whole crowns that if you don't marry him, he won't marry her, either.”
“Maybe you should just tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it.”
“Shame on you! That would completely undo my gift to you. This is your decision.”
“I know. And I love you for it, too, Father. So when must we give King Henry his answer?”
“He wants to announce the betrothal before the trial.”
“My word! That would almost convict them without our testimony.”
“Sure would,” he said, “but they are guilty, don't you know. And you, my dear, are not.”
Minuet stared out into the crown of the apple tree for a very long time before turning away from the window. “Father,” she said, throwing her arms around him, “tell King Henry I'll marry his son.”
***
“Ocker,” said Urr-Urr as she shared her last tidbit of meat with her squirming brood, “I'm exhausted. These pink mouths are running me ragged.”
Ocker opened his eyes where he sat on the ledge by their nest, shook his toasty warm feathers and thrust out a foot under one wing.
“I don't know what's happened to the wolves, now that Razzorbauch's come here,” she said, “but you have to hunt forever to find any to make a kill for you. I usually can't find a wolf anywhere, nor any trace of a kill they've made. Hit's just been old rabbits all morning. Now, I rather like the maggots and sexton beetles myself, but these rabbits are really old, and the pink mouths just won't keep their meat down very well if it has too much of a metallic taste.”
“I'll see what I can do,” said Ocker as he sprang into the air with his stick tight in his talons. He climbed in great sweeping circles until at last he began a long slow glide out over the woods, well beyond Razzorbauch's great keep, where he soared for a good long while, riding the updraughts. “Peccaries!” he awked at last. “A whole swyving drift of them.” At once he dove into the woods far below, where he landed on the low horizontal limb of one of
Razzorbauch's twisted trees to perch with one foot on his stick, quietly studying the rooting herd of hogs. “There's a good one,” he thought, pointing himself like a compass needle as a lavender bolt of fire shot from his beak to the hog with a deafening pop. The peccary collapsed sizzling into the leaves as the heard scattered in terror, woofing and belching.
“Dampne hit!” he rattled, shaking his ringing ears. He swooped at once from the limb to the carcass, set his stick in the leaves and began yanking at bites of steaming meat to take back to his brood. Suddenly he stopped short. He was certain he was being watched, but for the life of him he saw no one at all. He dropped his meat, fluffed up and sleeked down.
“Well good morning!” came a voice from an altogether different place than he had expected, giving him a frightful start in spite of his already being alert.
Ocker trotted to his stick and hopped on. “A deal's a deal!” he awked, feathers bristling.
“And a deal hit was,” said Meri with a flicker of emerald eyes, as he sat up out of a deep blanket of leaves.”
“Yea?” said Ocker, gripping his stick. “Then what are you doing here? I thought you were off to find Celeste.”
“Oh I was indeed, but Razzorbauch first did get there.”
“Yea? How could you possibly know hit was him?”
“When I got there, a lingering signature there was. Actually, hit was his signature which unto me where Celeste and them had been did tell.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“I am about a wee trace of magic left behind where Razzorbauch cast his spells a-talking.”
“So now that you've seen me use my stick, would you know my signature?”
“Oh, better than by your face I do you recognize.”
Ocker had an urgent need to preen the feathers in one of his wings. “So what are you doing here?” he said, switching to the other wing. “I can't imagine that you came here to see how I was doing with my stick.”
“Not at all. I did not think you would be able anything at all with your stick to do.”
“What? You thought you gave me an ordinary stick?”
“Oh no. I knew Longbark's twig hit was, but as hit thought to me, you had no skill for to use hit.”
“That was stupid. I told you that Demonica gave me the power of a hedge wizard.”
“Indeed,” said Meri with a wide-eyed nod. “And that be the very reason your magic I did doubt.”
“You thought she lied to me?”
“I know she lied unto you, for no one with magic can ever unto one who has none give magical powers.”
“Yea?” said Ocker with a saucy snap of each wing. “So how'd I just now cook this hog?”
“Shrewd you may be,” said Merri with a shake of his twinkling eyes, “but you no match in the least for Demonica do be. She saw you a-coming and your services got for nothing. She that you did not know about your own magic could see, so she merely to give you some did pretend.”
“You mean I had my powers all along?”
“Is that not what I just said?”
“That stinking quiente! She played me for a fool!”
“Those your words do be.”
“You pissen me right smart! Here you thought I had no powers at all and you gave me
a magic stick anyway. How's that any different than Demonica?”
“And how any different does hit be than your telling both Razzorbauch and me where Celeste and her kin were?”
Ocker stumbled backward across his stick, landing in a heap of feathers, flapping into the air in a swirl of leaves to land properly on his feet. “What makes you so swyving sure I told Razzorbauch?” he awked.
“Oh, just the watching of you. You very easy to read can be, as sly you may be.”
“You trapped me!”
“You the trap did set,” said Meri with a shrug..
“All right, green toute!” shouted Ocker, growing immediately quiet at the sound of his own words. “If you didn't come for my stick, what are you here for?”
“To know where Razzorbauch be.”
“His keep is up the hill yonder, through the trees, as I can't believe you don't already know...”
“I'm not after him now,” said Meri, studying Ocker keenly. “And for you I have a deal. Find Celeste, Alvita, Nacea and Rodon, and you how to use your stick I'll show. Now. A hungry brood you have to feed, my dear enterprising raven. Good day.” And with that, Meri Greenwood vanished into the brush.
Chapter 13
The room crackled, flickering lavender a moment before the deafening boom of thunder which made Minuet and Bethan jump. “It's raining in,” said Minuet.
“Oh I'll mop it,” said Bethan. “It's not soaking anything but the floor. I've got to have the light to see to your hair.”
“We're five storeys up,” said Minuet as she squirmed on her stool in the steady roar of the rain. It was still difficult for her to sit still with her injured ribs, even with them tightly wrapped. “It makes me plain giddy to look out the window. I'd just as soon not have to close a sash. When we were upstairs in Father's apartment, I looked out and nearly reeled. I had to back away from the window and sit down. I can't believe his top floor is seven whole storeys above the ground.”
“Now I've never been this far up in my life, but I can't imagine you'd any nearer topple out than down on the ground,” said Bethan around the hairpin in her mouth, “but you need to sit still. I'm a-trying to braid, here.” She tied the plait and tucked it behind Minuet's ear and delicately ran her brush down her cascade of fiery tresses to well below the top of her stool. She carefully wiggled seven wee rosebuds and seven pearl headed pins into the plaits along Minuet's hairline and stood back with a cluck of her tongue. “Oh honey dew drop! You're the prettiest thing I ever saw, and there's not a prince alive who'd disagree. Here,” she said, holding out a looking glass. “Have 'ee a look.”
“My word!” said Minuet as she stood and carefully peered into the mirror. “That's me?”
“Nothing but you and your pretty yellow kirtle and coathardie with its sleeves a-hanging nearly to the floor. You look just like a princess. And no one can see the bandage on your arm.”
“Well I do see why Father sent away the ladies-in-waiting. You certainly do know what you're doing...”
“Have I spoilt something?”
“Not in the least. It's just that I look so very much like a princess, that I wonder if I might not seem a bit pretentious to some, don't you know. I am a commoner, after all, just a farm girl. Do you think I might look like I'm putting on airs?”
“Well not to me. You've always been my princess...”
“And you've been a dear mother to me,” said Minuet with a sniffle as she gave Bethan a sudden hug. “And my very best friend...”
“And do I look like I'm putting on airs?” said Razzmorten, appearing behind them like a phantom in the noise of the rain.
Minuet gave a gasp and wheeled about to see. “Why no,” she said, looking him up and down in his purple robes and jeweled belt. “You're about to be made Wizard of the Realm.”
“And you're about to be made princess,” he said. “Besides, Prince Hebraun thinks that you're the most gorgeous young lady in all of Niarg (and he's right, of course), so I'd say that you can get away with looking like a princess all you want.”
“Fiddlesticks! You have to say that. You're my doting father who looks so handsome himself, that he'll be mobbed by all the spinsters at court.”
“Nay!” he said, throwing his head back with a laugh. “Not a soul will notice, for every eye in the place will be on you.”
“Keep slathering on the butter, Father, and directly you'll have me as vain as Leeuh,” she said, as a shift in the wind began drenching the room, sending Bethan in a rush to close the sashes.
“Poop, dear,” he said as he sat on the stool she had been using. “In all your years, I've yet to see something go to your head. But speaking of what you make of things, now that you've had a day in the tower here, what do you make of your new apartment?
“Oh, it's right fancy I guess.”
“Well they won't mind in the least if you change things around any way you want.”
“I know that,” she said, pacing back and forth. “It's just not home.”
“It certainly will be when you're married. Maybe not here in the tower, but this castle will be home.”
“I know,” she said as she stopped short and took up his hand. “But until then, if no one minds, once this banquet and horrible trial are done, I'd like to go home and savor my last days at Peach.”
Suddenly there was a knock. Minuet opened the door to a page boy who hesitated, looking her over from head to toe.
“I've been sent to remind the Wizard Razzmorten and the Mistress Dewin, that it's four o' clock and that the guests have arrived...” Suddenly he went wide eyed. “Could you be the very Mistress Dewin?”
“I am...”
“I do beg your pardon!” he said, bowing immediately. “I...”
“Didn't expect the mistress herself to be answering the door with the help on her knees, mopping the floor, aye?” said Bethan from across the room as she stumped to her feet. “But don't you worry, boy. These folks are salt of the earth to work for.”
“Well then,” said Razzmorten, “it's time.”
“Oh Bethan,” said Minuet. “I wish you could come...”
“Mercy, girl!” said Bethan. “That would be something. A commoner not only betroths royalty, but brings her hired help to the party like an equal. Now shoo! Both of you. You'll be late.”
The rumbling storm gave way to the clatter of stony echoes as Razzmorten and Minuet trotted down the stairs inside the curve of the tower wall, her kirtle gliding over the steps behind her. At the bottom they followed a narrow passage to the castle proper.
When they came to the corridor to the great hall where the banquet was being held, Minuet hiked her skirts in order to make time. “We're not that late,” said Razzmorten. “You probably don't want to be out of breath when we get there.”
With a nod and a heave of her breast, Minuet dropped her skirts and took his arm again, but they still made their way in too much of a hurry for conversation. At the far end of the corridor, the sounds of the great hall reached out to meet them with a roiling murmur of the guests and the occasional screech of a chair.
“Now you're not nervous, are you?” said Razzmorten as they reached the vestibule.
“Why? Do I look terrified or something?”
“Oh, not enough for a stranger to notice, but you're digging your fingers into my arm.”
“Mercy!” she said, letting go at once. “That's a good start on the evening.”
“You're worrying too much, dear,” he said, whispering into her ear. “The whole castle will be completely mesmerized by you. And before you know it, the evening with be over.”
“Well my gut's in knots. They probably already know about me. What if all the nobles in here hate me...?”
“The right honorable Wizard Razzmorten Dewin and his daughter, the Mistress Minuet Dewin,” crowed the doorman at the sight of them entering the hall.
“I don't know about mesmerized, Father,” said Minuet from the side of her mouth, “but every single eye in the place is loo
king right at us.”
“Why, I can't imagine anything less,” he said with a nod, as he led her through the parting crowd to the great table that nearly ran the length of the enormous room which was hung throughout with bright banners from the trusses overhead. At the far end of it, he stopped before the beaming Prince Hebraun himself, who bowed and offered her his arm.
Minuet caught the look in his eye and went quite breathless. “Fates!' she thought. “Here I am, positively scarlet for everyone to see!”
Presently the king and queen took their places at the head of the table. Hebraun and Minuet sat to the king's right as Razzmorten was seated across the table to the queen's left. By the time the last guests were being seated down at the far end, a score of great silver bowls of newly ripened pears and peaches were brought to the table, followed by grapes and cottage cheese, honey and steaming bread made from wheat scarcely shocked and threshed when the plague first appeared.
Hebraun strung honey over his bread and licked his fingers, eagerly turning to Minuet with things to say which she kept missing altogether for trying to steal glances at him.
Minuet looked up to see two orderlies scurrying her way on either side of a platter, bearing a huge steaming roast hog. “Forgive us!” cried one. “Here we come!”
At once she and Hebraun sprang to their feet, pulling aside their chairs to make room. Once the orderlies had mopped up after their burden, bowed and departed, they returned to their seats sharing giggles.
“This is Hebraun's hog, Minuet,” said Queen Helena, leaning over. “He shot it only yesterday morning, up in the woods. It put up quite a fight, I believe.”
Minuet nodded demurely and blushed, turning quickly to Hebraun. “This is yours?”
He nodded.
“It smells wonderful.”
“I'm delighted. I shot it for you. I wanted to impress you. I want it to be the best roast you ever ate.”
Minuet touched his arm and stole an even better look at him. She could see that he truly meant it. She could also see that he was indeed the most handsome and dashing young man she had ever seen. She had actually known this from the beginning, but she had never dared to think about it. The pork was good. She made certain that she ate it to show her appreciation, but she wasn't interested in eating at all. The orderlies brought quail and squab, speckled gravy, aspic and pickled eggs, carrots, rhubarb and bowls of tender beans. She was now feeling much more at ease and felt free to look at him more and more. Could this be a dream?
Heart of the Staff - Complete Series Page 14