A furious series of yes-or-no questions on Artemisia's part quickly revealed that the faithful Phrenk had managed to slip the young man into the palace and was presently awaiting word from his queen that the coast was clear before attempting to bring him up into the royal apartments. Artemisia made a few arrangements, then sent Mungli off to fetch the men. Now she could do nothing more than wait.
A footstep sounded in the hall outside—several footsteps, in fact. The Gorgorian guards did not challenge the queen's guests—Artemisia had merely mentioned that she was expecting a visit from her dear son, Prince Arbol, and for some reason all the guardsmen at the same time discovered that they had very urgent business elsewhere. It was a remarkable coincidence, but better a coincidence than an unscheduled trip headfirst down a flight of stairs.
The door opened and Phrenk and Mungli came into the queen's presence. Between them they dragged a weakly struggling young man in a hooded mask. He was wearing the very clothes Artemisia had sent along with her messenger, and at first glance his build did indeed resemble the lithe, selectively muscular body of the prince.
So did the bodies of about three-quarters of Prince Arbol's chosen Companions.
“Leave us," said Artemisia. Her voice was hoarse and tense. Phrenk and Mungli bowed, then cast inquiring eyes at the queen’s bedchamber door. “Oh, yes, yes, go ahead if you must," she replied impatiently. The pair sprinted off, slamming the gilded door behind them hard enough to send glittering flakes to the floor.
"Where did Myngli go?" Wulfrith asked wistfully.
"Never mind," the'queen snapped. "Sit." She pointed stiffly at a stool which sHe had set nearby on purpose.
Wulfrith did as he was told. The same texts from which he had learned so tantalizingly little about damsels had been remarkably clear when they spoke of kings and queens. Even the highest of high-ranking wizards obeyed when a king or queen gave them an order. Not one of the wizards in the old books ever stopped to ask why he—presumably capable of turning the royal personage into something small, green, and hoppy on a moment's notice—was taking the orders instead of giving them.
Of course, Wulfrith reasoned, the books all took place in palaces, and hadn't Phrenk said that common sense always got left on the palace doorstep with the extra kittens?
Sensible or not, Wulfrith now knew one thing with all the certainty of his heart: He wanted to stay in the palace. It had nothing to do with Mungli. His body had been sending him so many confusing and upsetting signals lately that he was fed up with all twinges, throbs, shivers, and tingles of unknown origin.
Ah, but his mind was another story! His mind knew what it liked and what it wanted and, more importantly, how to get it.
What his mind wanted was the Royal Library. All of it. Now.
When they had first entered the palace, Phrenk had whisked him straight into the Royal Library because it was the one place no self-respecting Gorgorian would ever go. Wulfrith took one look at the racks and stacks and shelves and piles of wonderful books and fell in love. That was why, when Mungli came scampering back to fetch him into Artemisia's presence, he had dragged his feet and struggled. He didn't want to go. ..
He would do anything it took to stay.
"What is your name?" Artemisia asked.
"Wulfrith, ma'am," he replied. "Only Phrenk calls me Dunwin all the time. I know he works for you and all, but if you don’t mind my saying so, he's a few vermin short of a plague, if you know what I mean."
"To be sure, to be sure," said the queen. She was only half-listening to the lad. His voice! It was not the exact duplicate of Prince Arbol’s—that would be too much to ask—but training might overcome that. The tone was close, and it was only slightly deeper.
"Can you keep a secret, Wulfrith, dear?" she asked.
"Yes, ma'am." Wulfrith restrained an impulse to snort derisively. What sort of wizard's apprentice would he be if he couldn’t keep a secret?
"You have been brought here on my orders. I hope you don't mind." Artemisia batted her eyelashes at him in her most fetching manner. She felt rather awkward about flirting with someone who might well turn out to be her own son, but she was desperate.
"Oh, I don’t mind, ma'am. I like it here," Wulfrith said sincerely.
He looked like a man bewitched. I’ve still got it, the queen thought with some satisfaction. Artemisia had no way of knowing that all of Wulfrith's tender yearning was not for her, not for Mungli, but for, among others, a first folio copy of The Elements of Elementals which he had glimpsed in the Royal Library.
"I'm so glad," she cooed. "Well, since that’s settled and we're such good friends, why don't you take off that mask of yours?" She tried to sound offhanded about it.
"May I?" Wulfrith jumped at the suggestion. "I was told that unless I work here at the palace, I have to stay masked while I'm in your apartmepts."
"Well, then we’ll just have to find a job for you, won’t we?"
"I’d make a good librarian," Wulfrith suggested.
"How sweet." Artemisia's laugh was brittle. "I’m afraid we have no use for a librarian in these sorry times. Take off the mask, dear. I can often tell which job a person is best suited for by examining his face."
"But if I got the library into better shape, more people would use it and then .
“Take it off!” the queen shrieked, as the suspense finally got the better of even her iron self-control. Poor Wul- frith almost wrenched his wrist yanking the mask off so quickly.
Then for a long moment he sat, blinking at the queen, wondering just what was really going on.
Artemisia stared. There could be no doubt: Here was one of her long-lost babies come home again. It was a miracle. Her lips were parted, but it was an effort to breathe. She thought she was going to burst into tears and knew that she must not. Years of training and centuries of breeding came to her rescue. She took a deep breath and smiled.
"Oh, how charming!" she remarked lightly. "What a funny coincidence. You look ever so much like my own darling son, Prince Arbol. Such a surprise! Well, that certainly settles the matter."
"Yes, ma'am," Wulfrith replied, a little dubiously. "I’m glad it does. What matter?"
"Your job, dearest." Try as she did, the queen could not help allowing a tinge of real feeling to seep into her words as she gazed hungrily at Wulfrith. "You shall be Prince Arbol's official food taster. Oh, don't fret—it's purely a ceremonial appointment. Hardly anyone tries to poison the heir to the throne these days. But your real job will be to serve as the prince's companion. If I know Arbol, the prince will be just as enchanted as I am by the truly amazing coincidence that has no other connection with reality which makes the two of you look so similar."
"Oh," said Wulfrith. He had heard of food tasters. He had also heard of Prince Arbol. "Yes, ma'am. Um, this job of mine—does it mean I get to live in the palace?"
"Certainly."
"And I can go anywhere I want?"
“Within limits, you naughty boy. And only when you aren't serving the prince.’’
Wulfrith’s eyes shone.
“There’s only one thing,’’ said the queen. Wulfrith looked worried. “You have to wear the mask. It’s traditional for Royal Hydrangean Food Tasters. If their identity is hidden, traitors can’t seek them out with bribes and foul conspiracies. There is also the advantage that, should one food taster suffer an—ahem—occupational setback, he may be replaced without anyone being the wiser.’’
“Occupational . . . setback?’’ Wulfrith echoed, a trifle shaky.
To his utter amazement, the queen threw her arms around his neck and exclaimed, “Oh, but that will never happen to you! It mustn’t! I won’t allow it! Oh, please say you'll accept the job, dearest Wulfrith. Please, please, please!’’
Wulfrith was thoroughly confused now. Nothing he had ever read prepared him for Artemisia’s outburst. Did queens always conduct job interviews like this? To use one of Clootie's favorite sayings, she didn’t seem to have her cauldron on the fire.
Then
he thought of the library.
He pulled the mask back over his head and announced, “What do I taste first?''
Chapter Sixteen
As Clootie watched Dun win recede in the east, in hot pursuit of his vanished Bernice, it occurred to the wizard fairly quickly that perhaps, if he had himself mistaken Dunwin for Wulfrith, old Odo had mistaken Wulfrith for Dunwin, and had dragged the wrong boy home to do his chores.
In that case, Wulfrith might be in Odo's cottage at this very moment. Accordingly, the sorcerer marched up the mountainside.
Odo's cottage was chiefly distinguished from the surrounding mud by virtue of having windows; the rocks and mounds of earth around it were not equipped with shutters, and the holes in them were generally dark and lifeless, while the faint glow and rancid stench of a sheep-fat lamp emerged from the openings in the cottage wall.
Clootie stepped up, and, seeing nothing he immediately recognized as a door, called through one of these openings, "Hello in there! Odo!"
"Go 'way," someone called back.
Thus encouraged, Clootie located a piece of wood that he assumed to be a door and knocked loudly thereupon. He continued to do so until at last the exasperated Odo flung the portal wide and stared out.
"What do you want?" he demanded.
"I'm looking for Wulfrith," Clootie explained.
Odo spat. "Not my name," he said. "My uncle Wulfrith was hanged years ago." He started to step back inside, but Clootie held up a restraining hand.
"I know that," the sorcerer said. "Your name’s Odo, right?"
Odo glared suspiciously. "It might be," he admitted.
"Yes, well, Odo, I was wondering if you’d seen Wul- frith."
"My uncle Wulfrith was hanged years ago," Odo repeated. "Tole you that a'ready."
"Not your uncle, the other Wulfrith."
Odo considered this for a long moment. "What Wulfrith would that be?" he asked at last.
"Dunwin’s brother."
"That was my uncle that ..."
"No, the other Dunwin. The young one. I mean the Wulfrith that's his brother."
Odo puzzled at that for a moment, and finally worked it out. "Oh, that Wulfrith!" he said.
"Yes, that Wulfrith," Clootie agreed.
"I sold him," Odo said. "Years ago." He squinted at the wizard. "Come to that, war’n’t you the one that bought him?"
"Yes, I was," Clootie said, "but I've lost him—mislaid him, anyway—and I was wondering if he'd come back here."
Odo shrugged. "Not so I've noticed."
"He looks almost exactly like Dunwin," Clootie explained. "I wondered if maybe you'd thought he was Dunwin and brought him back here with you."
Odo eyed him suspiciously. "Are you asking for your money back?" he asked. "Because you’ll not be gettin' it. You bought Wulfrith fair and square, and you’re stuck with 'im, and besides, it’s spent long since.v
"No, no—I want Wulfrith back!"
"I ain't got 'im."
"Well, that’s what I wanted to ask—are you sure you don't have him?"
"Of course I’m sure!"
"You don’t have someone here you think is Dunwin?"
Odo scratched his head, dislodging assorted arthropods. "If I did have someone here I thought was Dunwin, it'd bloody well be Dunwin!" he said. "Wouldn’t it?"
Clootie coughed. "Well, no, it wouldn't, I'm afraid."
"And why not?"
"Because Dunwin's run off after Bernice."
"That's naught new," Odo said. "He's run after her plenty of times. He’ll catch her soon enough."
Clootie explained, "But this time Bernice was turned into a dragon, and she flew over the fence and got away."
Odo glowered wordlessly at him.
"Really," Clootie said, weakly.
"Bernice what?”
"She turned into a dragon. Or rather, I turned her into a dragon."
Odo spat a gob of something green off to the side. "You what?"
"I turned her into a dragon."
"How'd you do that?"
"By magic—I'm a wizard, remember?"
"You’re no wizard," Odo said. "You're too short."
Clootie sighed. "I'm in disguise," he said.
"No, you're on my mountain."
Clootie was determined not to argue his wizardhood again, and furthermore, he had no idea what Odo was talking about. He attempted to drag the conversation back on course. "Look," he said, "is there anyone here besides you? Dunwin, or Wulfrith, or anybody?"
"Not just at this minute," Odo admitted. "I sent Dunwin into town, and he should be back any minute now."
"Well, that's what I was telling you," Clootie explained. "He was on his way up here when I turned Bernice into a dragon, and now he's run off after her. So he won't be home."
"Then why'd you ask if he was here?"
"Because if he was here, he'd be Wulfrith."
Odo stared silently at the wizard, and Clootie ran his last statement over again in his mind.
It didn’t really make much sense, did it?
"Oh, never mind," Clootie said. "It's been a pi. . . I've enjoyed . . . it's been a challenge talking to you, Odo."
"Same to you, I’m sure." Odo turned and stamped back into his cottage, slamming the door behind him.
Clootie turned away in disgust. That was one place Wulfrith wasn't.
Unfortunately, there were plenty of other places to look.
Over the next few days, the magician searched the environs of Stinkberrv village quite thoroughly, all without finding any trace of Wulfrith; toward the end, when word of what he was doing had leaked out, he endured the taunts of the villagers as they watched from a safe distance.
"Some wizard! Can't find his own apprentice!"
"Couldn't find his own backside if it wasn’t attached."
"Probably turned the boy into a newt while he was drunk, and forgot all about it!"
"I never saw a newt drunk," old Berisarius, somewhat confused, replied to this sally.
"No, when the wizard was drunk, numbwit!" Fernand retorted. "He got good and drunk, and the lad sassed him, and the wizard turned his own apprentice into a newt— that’s what I'll wager happened!"
"I’ll take that wager if you give me three to two . . ."
Clootie tried very hard to pay no attention to any of this, but he couldn't help hearing it, and it added considerably to his growing annoyance.
Even in the convoluted and refined arts of Old Hydrangean sorcery, Clootie thought, there was probably some relatively simple, easy spell for locating lost apprentices; it was, after all, a common enough occurance, an apprentice being mislaid, and such a spell would be private—there would be no public display of functionality, with the consequent loss of face.
Unfortunately, Clootie had no idea at all what the spell might be. He had never expected to need it. The boy had no call to disappear like this. If he'd gotten himself kidnapped . . .
Well, the boy was a wizard—if the truth be known, Clootie admitted to himself, the boy was probably a better wizard than his master. He could take care of himself.
He would have to take care of himself, since Clootie couldn't find him.
It had been rather odd, running into Wulfrith’s brother Dunwin like that, the little wizard thought; how had they managed to avoid meeting, all these years? Clootie supposed the fact that he hardly ever left his cave might have had something to do with it.
Maybe Wulfrith had met Dunwin, and had gone off with him, and the whole encounter with Dunwin and Bernice, and the argument with Odo, had been an act. That didn't really fit the facts or make very much sense, but as a theory it had a certain perverse appeal.
In that case, Wulfrith had left of his own free will, and to one of the more baroque hells with him.
In fact, whatever had become of him, Clootie thought, to one hell or another with him. To hell with everybody. He was a wizard, possibly the last surviving true Old Hydran- gean wizard, and he didn’t need to put up with a lot of half
-witted teasing from a bunch of smelly villagers. He didn’t need to spend hours climbing mountains to argue with imbecilic shepherds. He didn’t need an inconsiderate, oversized apprentice making his life difficult. He didn’t need anything from the outside world at all. He would just go home to his cave and be a hermit henceforth.
And Wulfrith could go live with Odo and Dunwin, if he wanted, if that was what he was doing.
Clootie rather hoped that was where the lad had gone. At least the boy would be out of harm’s way.
And he hoped that Wulfrith’s brother, that Dunwin, hadn’t gotten himself hurt chasing after the dragon. He supposed that the boy would have given up and gone home after a few hours.
Odo, too, hoped that Dunwin hadn’t gotten himself hurt. He didn’t know whether the boy had given up his hunt for Bernice; he did know, though, that he hadn’t come home.
Some days after Dunwin's departure in pursuit of Bernice, Odo looked unhappily around his home and sighed loudly.
He had tried to clutter the cottage up, to make a nice, comfortable mess of the place, but he just couldn't do it. He didn't have that natural flair for untidiness and sloth that teenage boys have. Ever since Dunwin had left, no matter what he did, the place didn't have that same familiar a- tomado-came-through-here-probably-several-times look to it that it had always had when Dunwin lived there.
It didn’t really make very much sense, Odo told himself. He had gotten along just fine for years, living by himself, before Ludmilla had come and died on him. He had been eager to get rid of one of the boys. Why should it bother him that the other one had left?
And it wasn't as if Dunwin had simply disappeared; that funny little man who wasn't really a wizard but who could do magic anyway had explained all that. The boy had gone off looking for Bernice, who had been turned into a dragon.
Right at the moment, Odo wasn't really very clear on what a dragon was. He had forgotten, though he had known once—wasn't a dragon a sort of soldier, or something like that? Of course, the funny little man had said something about Bernice learning to fly, and soldiers didn't usually fly, except if you meant "run away," which soldiers did a lot, and which some people called flying. But it wouldn't get you over fences, would it?
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