As I rubbed the dye into my beard, which stung, I absently wondered if the Lady Maria had to do this every day. In all the meals sitting next to her, I had yet to see a grey hair or root.
There was a sharp knock on my door. "Just a minute!" I called, finished rubbing in the dye, rinsed it out, and went to answer the door with my chin in a towel.
It was Dominic. He always seemed to be crouching to fit into my chambers, even though there was plenty of headroom. "Please have a seat," I said brusquely and retreated into my inner chamber to finish drying my beard, trying to retain some of my dignity.
When I emerged again a few minutes later, I was amazed to see that he had taken my copy of the Diplomatica Diabolica down from the shelf. It was still closed, but he was holding it in his huge hands and staring at it.
I whisked it away from him and returned it to its place. "Don't you know how dangerous it is for those not trained in wizardry to look at magic's spells?" I said, trying to hide my fear behind anger.
He dropped his head in almost comical embarrassment at being found out. The old wizard, I thought, must have caught him doing something similar, and that was why he had been so reluctant to want to teach his form of magic to anyone else.
"Have you still not learned your lesson, Sir Dominic?" I said very gravely. "You first tried to interfere with the forces of magic four years ago, and in spite of the warning you received then you have begun again."
This speech had a much better effect than I had hoped. Dominic, who was shorter than I when sitting down, looked up with what seemed genuine terror in his eyes.
"If you value the kingdom of Yurt," I continued, seizing the advantage while I had it, even though I wasn't sure why I did, "or even your own life, you won't try to interfere in magic processes again."
"All right," he said, almost grudgingly. He shot me a look that was part fear and part resentment of my authority over him. I decided to leave the topic.
"So what can I do for you?" I said in a more normal voice.
He leaned back, as though casually. "Since the queen is coming home today, I wanted to find out what progress you've made in your duties, finding out who's put a spell on the king. Or haven't you gotten anywhere yet?"
This last, though said in the same light, conversational tone as the rest, was clearly meant to be a jab.
"Actually I have made significant progress," I said, wondering how much I dared say to him; I still hadn't ruled out an illicit love-pact between him and the queen. I hurried on became he looked dubious. "There is definitely an evil influence here in the castle, but it's not tied to any one person. I'm going to need a complete list of all visitors to the castle in the last four years. It's possible a spell was put in place by someone who's now gone."
For a moment he looked as though he were going to object. But then he nodded slowly. "That's a very good idea. You should ask the constable; I'm sure he can provide it for you. Since it's clear that no one in the castle wishes to harm the king, it must be someone from outside. Although," and here he paused for a look at me, "if you found it too difficult to examine four years of guests, maybe it would be easier just to get rid of the evil spell, without worrying where it came from." He lurched to his feet. "Well, I won't keep you any longer from your special preparations to meet the queen."
With this last jab, he opened my door and was gone. I stared thoughtfully for several minutes at the inside of the door. I hoped I would not in fact have to go through a long list of visitors to the castle; I had suggested it primarily to see how Dominic would react. He clearly believed that this evil influence, which I was quite willing to accept as real, came from those now at the castle—if one included the queen. If he believed it, so did I.
But in the meantime, the fact that I had been able to frighten him, even momentarily, made him resent me. I had felt all along that he would not be comfortable to have as an enemy, and I feared that now I was going to find out just how uncomfortable that could be.
Later that morning, I stood outside the castle gate with everyone else. A chair had been brought for the king, but the rest of us stood on tiptoe, walked around, peered into the distance, and tried to listen through the sounds of conversation and the whisper of the wind for the sound of distant hooves.
One of the boys who was training for knighthood had the sharpest eyes. "There she comes!" he shouted. There was a surge forward, and several of the younger servants made as though to run down the brick road, but the constable motioned them back. In a moment all of us could see the little procession, emerging from the woods and starting up the hill toward the castle.
There was a crowd of white horses, with one black horse in the middle. White pennants, emblazoned with a bright pink rose, fluttered above them. As the horses ascended, a trumpeter with a long silver trumpet came to the fore and blew a swirl of notes. The riders kicked their horses into a run for the last hundred yards, and then they had arrived.
They were all around us, knights and ladies on horseback, servants leading the pack animals, everyone swinging down from their mounts and laughing and shouting at the people from the castle, who were laughing and shouting back at them.
I spotted the one I thought was the queen, a delicate, pale blonde, with a beatific smile. But as she pulled up her white mare, one of the knights from the castle took the bridle with a smile of delight all over his face, and she slid from the saddle and into his welcoming arms.
And then I did see the queen, and wondered how I could have been so mistaken.
Based on the features of the Lady Maria, her aunt, and on the white rose bush which the king had planted on their wedding day, I had expected someone blushing and fragile. But she looked no more like the Lady Maria than she looked like the old woman I had thought her to be when I first arrived in Yurt.
She was riding a black stallion, and her hair was the same midnight black. Her eyes were a brilliant and startling emerald beneath dark lashes. A crimson cloak swirled around her as she tossed the reins to one of the servants and leaped off. She and the king met with outstretched hands, much too dignified to kiss in front of all their subjects, but looked into each other's eyes with joy.
I had been wrong in the old wizard's valley. This was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She made the illusory unicorn lady seem rather insipid in comparison. As she leaped from her stallion, I had for a moment thought her a hard woman, but her face when smiling was the sweetest thing I had ever experienced.
She turned that smile toward me. "The new wizard!" she cried in what seemed genuine delight. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here to greet you when you arrived! My parents had been counting on my coming ever since last summer, and the old wizard retired so abruptly that it was too late to change my plans. Has everyone been treating you well? If I know them, and I do, I'm sure they have! Are you happy in Yurt?"
I stammered that I was very happy in Yurt. I was in love at once.
While I stood staring at her—besotted, the old wizard would have said—I thought that here truly was a creature of fire and air, finer than anything illusion or imagination could create. She was beautiful, energetic, and loving-hearted. She took the king's arm; I was relieved to see that he showed no intention of trying to fly for her benefit, being too happy to see her to think about anything else.
We all started up the last slope to the moat and the castle gates. The king and queen, arm and arm, were beside me. "The king has been telling me in his letters that you're developing a telephone system for us!" she said, the perfect hostess, complimenting her guest on his accomplishments.
This brought me back somewhat to reality. "I've been working, but it's proving more difficult than I expected," I said, realizing it had been some time since I had had my glass telephones down from the shelf and resolving to start with them again tomorrow, or even today.
The royal pair kept moving, as she spoke a few words to first one person, than another. I found myself near the back of the group, walking with Joachim, as we entered the castle c
ourtyard.
"Why didn't you warn me?" I said.
"Warn you against what?"
"The queen!"
"But there is no evil in her."
I gave him up. "It's a good thing you're a priest," I said, left him wondering what I meant, and went into my chambers.
I pulled down one of the books I had not tried yet, because it was all advanced spells that assumed you already understood the basics without having to think about it. This seemed like the best place to start anew on the problems of the telephones.
But I had trouble concentrating on the pages. I kept thinking about those emerald eyes. Since I wasn't a very good wizard anyway, maybe I could give up magic altogether when the king died, and then she and I—
This was clearly an unprofitable line of thought. I wished I had had the sense to watch Dominic, to try to judge his reaction to her homecoming. But I had been too busy staring at her, doubtless open-mouthed, to pay attention to anyone else.
Neither the king nor queen was present at the table at noon or again in the evening. The queen, we were told, was resting from the fatigues of her journey, although she had appeared to me to have too much energy ever to be fatigued. I didn't want to think what the king might be resting from.
Instead I talked animately to the Lady Maria. Everyone at both tables was delighted to have the queen home, so she was the chief topic of conversation, except for the couple further down my table who were just delighted to see each other again.
Lady Maria was happy to discuss her niece. "That's right, she and I came to Yurt together when she was a bride, a mere child really. Her mother is a cousin to the duchess, or maybe they're second cousins. Haven't you met the duchess? You will, I'm sure. Yurt has two counts and the duchess. Anyway, the king was visiting his subjects, and he came to the duchess's castle at the same time as the queen's family was visiting, including me. Of course she wasn't the queen then. But as soon as the king met her he started making his plans, you can be sure!"
There was a sort of grunt from behind me where Dominic was sitting. He had not spoken to me again all day.
"Dominic remembers," the Lady Maria said in a teasing voice. "I think my brother, that's the queen's father, of course, had some hope of marrying his daughter to the royal heir, when he first heard the royal party would be visiting the duchess's castle at the same time we were. Did the royal heir have some plans that way himself, Dominic?"
She laughed, a light, tinkling laugh. I turned my head just in time to catch an extremely surly look from Dominic. I felt much more affectionate toward the Lady Maria than I ever had before.
"But imagine our surprise," she continued, "when it turned out the king's plans were quite different! Everything worked out so beautifully. Except," she paused, looked around, and dropped her voice. "Except," so low that only I could hear her, and I thought for a moment that she was going to say, except that she had never been able to make the hoped-for match with Dominic herself, "except that the queen has so hoped to provide the king a little prince, and she hasn't been able to."
"What are you two whispering about?" one of the ladies called to us from down the table. I realized that we had our heads bent together as though engaged in intimate secrets, certainly more secret than what everyone else must have long have guessed about the king and queen. I sat up almost guiltily and caught the chaplain's dark, sober eyes on me.
"We're talking about the telephones!" I said gaily. "Now that the queen's back, I'm sure she's eager to be able to telephone her parents, and I have some ideas for the next step to try. The Lady Maria has graciously agreed to assist me again." If anyone giggled, they were polite enough to turn it into a cough.
V
I stayed up late that night with my books and was up again after only a few hours sleep, and was almost too engrossed in the spells to hear Gwen's knock. But I heard it the second time and went to answer. This morning the breakfast tray held hot cinnamon crullers as well as my tea.
"Sir, could I speak with you?" she said somewhat timidly.
"Of course!" I said, motioning her to a chair. Gwen hadn't seemed to want to talk to me since the first days I had been in Yurt. She now seemed subdued, not at all inclined to laugh at me. Maybe seeing me gaping at the queen had had the salutary effect of making her jealous.
Her first words destroyed any hope I might have had in that direction. "Sir, do wizards make love potions?"
"Love potions! My dear, why would anyone so charming as yourself need a love potion?" I realized I sounded as though I were her uncle and about forty years older than she was, but I couldn't think of what else to say.
She ignored the compliment if she even noticed it. "No, I don't need a love potion myself. But I'm afraid Jon is going to use one on me."
"Jon?"
"You know him. He's one of the trumpeters, and he also does the glass-blowing. He made you your glass telephones."
"He does very good work, too," I said, wondering why she would need a love potion used on her. "He seems a very nice young man." Now I was sounding like an uncle again, trying to persuade the coy niece to accept her gallant suitor.
"I like him, sir, I really like him a lot. But he wants to get married, and I'm not sure I'm ready. Maybe not ready to marry anybody, and certainly not to marry him. He gets so jealous! Can you imagine, when you first came he even was jealous of you? He made me promise not to speak more to you than absolutely necessary."
This, of course, was devastating. At first I had thought someone had warned her against me, and had speculated whether this might have something to do with the strangely distant yet evil touch I felt in the castle. Then I had decided she had had to restrain her affections before her heart broke. And now it seemed it was all due to a jealous glass-blower, who she thought should have known better than possibly to be jealous of me!
"I guess I'm breaking my promise talking to you now, but I really do feel I have to."
"If you're worried he'll use a love potion to make you marry him," I said with as much dignity as I could, "where do you think he'll get it?"
"At first, of course, I was worried he'd get it from you, that he might even have asked you for it the day he blew that glass for you. But a month has gone by, and I know he hasn't tried to slip me a potion yet, and I haven't seen him talking to you again, except a few words in front of a lot of other people."
"I don't make love potions," I said honestly. "That's not something they teach us in the wizards' school. That's more something for magic-workers at carnivals than real wizards."
"I think the old wizard, your predecessor, might have made love potions."
This was entirely possible, but I didn't say so. "I don't, at any rate, so you need fear nothing from me."
"But he might get it somewhere else, then, at a carnival, or even from the old wizard. How can I tell if he's put it in my food?"
A good question, and the same question I was wondering about the king. A wizard can recognize another wizard at once, but since magic is a natural force, someone simply carrying a magic potion is not particularly obvious. If someone could poison the king, then Jon could try to make Gwen love him.
"Don't ever eat or drink alone with him," I said, which was not a particularly useful answer, but was all I could think of. "He wouldn't mind taking the love potion himself, since he's already in love with you, but I don't think he'd dare have anyone else fall in love with him." Gwen looked at me skeptically, as though disappointed that such obvious advice was all I could give. "And smell your food," I said. "Love potions are made of herbs and roots and usually smell rather nasty."
"Thank you, sir," she said, rising and taking my now-empty tray.
"Thank you for the crullers!" I called after her. "They were delicious."
A little later that morning, I sat with the Lady Maria in my outer chamber, the curtains drawn, and the telephone instruments before us. I didn't really need her for what I was trying, but after what I had said at dinner I felt I ought to include her. Besides
, she had been talking to Dominic in the great hall when I went to find her, and he had given me an almost furious look when I interrupted and asked her to join me. If Dominic had turned against me, I wanted him as uncomfortable as possible.
"Now keep perfectly silent while I work this spell," I said. "I'm trying something different this time. It's a far-seeing spell, and extremely difficult. They never even taught it to us at the wizards' school." They might have taught some of the other students, but they most certainly had never taught me. "I'm going to try to attach it to the telephone."
The Lady Maria did as she was bid, even breathing virtually without a sound, as I checked the spell one last time in the book, put it away, and closed my eyes to begin. The heavy syllables of the Hidden Language rolled from my tongue. It was a long spell.
I opened my eyes and looked at my glass telephone in the dim light of the room. It looked exactly the same. I was about to try speaking a name to it, to see if it might respond, when I was almost knocked from my chair by the surprise of another voice speaking the Hidden Language.
It was the Lady Maria. Her eyes closed, she was resting her hands on the telephone instrument in front of her and repeating the long spell I had just given, word for word.
In ten minutes, at the last syllable, she opened her eyes and gave me a saucy look that Gwen could not have equalled. "There! You probably didn't think I could work magic."
"But can you?" I cried, flaggergasted. I hadn't thought anyone could say a spell, except one of the very simple ones, without actually learning the Hidden Language, knowing what the words meant as well as how they were pronounced. And I was quite sure there was no way to learn the Language other than a lengthy apprenticeship or years in the wizards' school.
"If your spell works, mine should too," she said complacently. "I just said everything you'd said, the same way you said it."
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