The rest of the royal party and the guests stood or sat near the fire, chatting while the servants cleared the tables. The king was talking to the two counts and the duchess with great animation, but I noticed the queen sitting by herself, near the base of the Christmas tree. I took a chair and went to sit next to her.
She looked up at me with a smile. "I hope you realize we are very happy with you as Royal Wizard," she said, "even if you don't do illusions like your predecessor!"
I personally thought that my dragon and giant had been at least as impressive in their own way, even though they had lacked the visual solidity of the old wizard's productions, especially since I had created them entirely on the spot. But I looked into the emerald eyes and knew that this comment had been meant to be reassuring.
"I'm very happy being at Yurt, so I'm glad you think that," I said. We were far enough from the rest of the party, and everybody else was talking loudly enough, that our conversation was highly private. I had drunk quite a bit of wine with dinner. "You know, " I said, "I'm very much in love with you."
This confession was met with a pleased laugh. She clearly did not believe a word of it, but she did take and squeeze my hand. "When you turned the count into a frog," she said, "he really was a frog, wasn't he? That wasn't just an illusion."
"No, he really was a frog. If I hadn't changed him back, or another wizard changed him back, he would have stayed a frog for the rest of his life. Of course, inside, he would still be himself. He just wouldn't be able to talk or make insulting comments about wizards."
She laughed again. "You are a fine wizard, but it's probably just as well you changed him back."
"Could I ask you something, my lady?" I said. I actually wanted to ask if she could ever love me too, but I was fairly sure I already knew the answer to that. "I'm afraid it's a fairly personal question."
"Well, what is it?"
"I want to know why you decided to marry the king."
If it hadn't been for the wine, I would have been quite shocked at my boldness. She did not seem shocked, however, but looked fondly toward him, as he talked to his subjects in front of the fire.
"Was it to keep him from marrying the duchess?"
She turned back toward me, laughing again. "Oh dear, is it that obvious? No, I don't think he was ever in danger of marrying her, so that wasn't the reason. I just fell in love with him."
I did not reply. This answer seemed quite inadequate.
But she had drunk quite a bit of wine at dinner as well. "You know I'm my parents' only child," she said at last. I nodded, waiting for her to continue. "They were of course eager to see me married. And of course, like parents everywhere, they wanted me to marry well, marry at least a castellan like my father, but preferably a count or duke."
I thought I could guess what was coming.
"They kept on introducing me to young men from throughout the western kingdoms. Maybe my Aunt Maria was the worst. She always tried to make the young men seem romantic, charming, wonderful, to the point that I already despised them before I met them. I actually enjoyed being introduced to lots of young men, because there were all sorts of opportunities for dances, for hunting parties, for buying new clothes, but I couldn't imagine actually marrying any of them. They were all, frankly, silly, vain, or shallow—or all three.
"We'd exhausted several kingdoms already before we came to Yurt. The last man they tried was the young count of Yurt." She nodded in his direction. The green had by now worn off his skin.
"He wasn't count yet, as his father was still alive four years ago, when my parents tried to persuade me to marry him. But his personality was already—shall we say—fully developed." She went into a series of giggles at this point that made several people look in our direction.
After a moment she regained her composure. "I told my parents I was going to become a nun, that I would enter the Nunnery of Yurt and spend the rest of my live in prayer and pious devotions. They were horrified, of course, and as I look back I'm quite horrified myself at my determination. I almost managed to do it."
"I have trouble seeing you as a nun, my lady."
"So do I, now. But I told them they had one final chance, to introduce me to a young man I would like before I took my vows of chastity. We were on our way to meet somebody, I don't even remember who, now, when we stopped at the duchess's castle—her mother and my mother were second cousins.
"As it turned out, the royal family of Yurt was visiting the duchess at the same time. I think my father had some idea of making a match between Prince Dominic and me, which would certainly have been more advantageous than whoever, in the next kingdom over, he had originally chosen for his final effort—Dominic is, after all, royal heir to Yurt.
"But my father reckoned without the king! He fell in love with me, and since nobody at all was trying to persuade me that he was young and gallant and charming, I fell in love with him! He actually is more gallant and charming than anyone I've ever met."
She looked toward him dreamily, even though he appeared at the moment to be telling an especially hilarious joke to the duchess. I was quite sure she would never call me charming and gallant.
"That's a wonderfully charming story," I said. This seemed to put a final end to the theory that she had put an evil spell on the king, and I was delighted to see the theory go.
"What are you two laughing about over there?" called the king. "Come here, my dear. The countess says she has some very interesting news you would like to hear, some gossip from the City."
The queen gave me a quick smile and sprang up, and in a moment she and the old count's wife were talking with their heads together. I guessed that the interesting news was about the new winter fashions, since the countess drew out a newspaper folded open to a page of sketches.
I sat back, my feet stretched in front of me, and did my best, in a spirit of Christmas-time charity, not to suspect Joachim of almost having killed the king. It seemed ironic that the queen and the chaplain, the two people in Yurt whom I liked the most, were the two people to whom my thoughts kept returning whenever I wondered who might have become involved with renegade magic.
Just before midnight, we all started up the narrow stairs to the chapel. I was worried that the old wizard would take the opportunity of being alone to slip off to the north tower, but to my surprise—and I think almost everyone else's—he said he would join us at service. "I've been wanting to see these lamps you told me about, young whipper-snapper," he said affectionately.
For Christmas Eve, even the chapel was decorated with evergreen boughs, and some of the candles on the altar were red and green as well as white. Everyone in the castle was there, crowded together companionably on the benches. The chaplain's vestments were brand new, brought up from the City on the pack train with all the constable's orders just a few days ago. He read us the Christmas story, which while we all knew well was always worth hearing again, before proceeding to the service itself.
The only way I could suspect him was to assume that he had done something truly evil, such as dealing with a demon, but that he had then just as truly repented, because otherwise his prayers would not have healed the king. But if he was truly repentant, he could have nothing to do with the stranger, and his presence could not be related to the sense of evil I still sometimes felt. I was left being forced to think that the stranger was someone totally foreign to the castle, who had come here to practice black magic—perhaps in our cellars—for his own purposes, but this was a very unsatisfactory explanation. The queen had come to Yurt, the king had grown ill, the old chaplain had died, and the present chaplain had arrived, all within a year, and there had to be some connection.
"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" we all told each other as we separated after service. The stars were bright and incredibly distant in a black and icy sky. I watched as the old wizard, his face holding the same determinedly skeptical expression it had had throughout the service, went toward his room. He showed no sign of going to inspect th
e north tower. "Sweet dreams of presents!" somebody called, and there was a general laugh as the guests retired to their chambers and the castle party to theirs.
PART SIX - CHRISTMAS
I
Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. Since there were so many guests in the castle, rather than having the serving maids bring us our breakfasts individually we all assembled in the great hall. Here the cook had produced another masterpiece. Whole hams, platters of steaming sausages and eggs, donuts, crullers, and giant silver teapots were set out on the tables. Everyone was in a jolly Christmas mood; I even saw the chaplain smiling at a joke.
Once we had eaten, it was time for the presents. Packages wrapped in red and green paper, presents from the king and queen to everyone in the castle, were piled under the Christmas tree. The queen distributed these with smiles and laughter. Most of us received gifts of gold coins, or rings, or clothing. I received a new velvet suit, of midnight blue, which I wished I could try on at once. Even our guests received small presents, and the old wizard had to smile when he pulled out a gold ring shaped like an eagle in flight, holding a tiny diamond in its beak. The calico cat played in the scattered ribbon, chasing and biting it.
Then the husbands and wives and lovers gave each other gifts, some of them apparently jokes that they wouldn't let the rest of us see, although they giggled quite a bit. I tried unsuccessfully to spot what was in the box Jon gave Gwen, though it made her smile and blush a most becoming pink before she slammed the lid back on. Most of the ladies received such a present, though not the Lady Maria.
At this point on Christmas morning, it was usually time for Father Noel to come in with presents for the children, except that we had no children in the royal castle of Yurt. The serving girls and stable boys, even the boys being trained in knighthood, were all old enough that they would have been acutely embarrassed to receive a gift from Father Noel. But I knew someone who would love such a gift.
I slipped out while the knights and ladies were still teasing each other over their presents. In my room, I hastily put on my old red velvet pullover, stuffed the stomach round with socks, and draped a piece of rabbit fur I had gotten from the constable's wife around my neck. A little illusion made my eyebrows and beard bushy and white.
"Ho, ho, ho, boys and girls!" I cried as I reentered the hall. "And have you all been good little boys and girls this year?" They recognized me at once, in spite of the disguise, and everyone except one of the boys, who clearly thought he was about to be embarrassed publicly, laughed heartily.
"I've just got one present today, for an especially good little girl," I said, in my best jolly tone. "Let's see, there's a tag on this present, it will tell you who's the lucky girl!"
I made a major production of reaching into my sack and slowly pulling out a large box wrapped in red. "Let me see," reading the tag, "I think this says the present is for, let me be sure here, for someone named Maria. Is there a very good girl named Maria here today?"
She laughed with delight, as I knew she would, and came forward for the box. I let the white bushy beard fade back to my own beard as we watched her open it.
Inside the first box, which she opened with giggles of anticipation, was, not the present she was expecting, but another box, this one wrapped in green. Inside the second box was a much smaller one, this one golden. But inside the third box was the present.
She drew it out slowly, unfolding it to gasps of appreciation from the other ladies. It was a white silk shawl, printed with irises, which I had had packed up from the City earlier in the week. It was big enough to drape over her entire upper body, but delicate enough to be folded into a bundle smaller than her hand.
She put it over her shoulders at once. "Thank you, Father Noel! This is the nicest present this good little girl has ever gotten!"
With general laughter and more joking, people now stood up to go outside, to catch a little fresh air and try to find some sort of appetite for the noon dinner that the cook was already preparing. I hurried back to my chambers to take off the pullover and put on my new blue velvet suit. It fit perfectly. As I turned in front of the mirror, I thought that even if I didn't look mysterious in it, at least I looked dignified.
Back in the courtyard, several of the ladies had begun singing Christmas carols in three-part harmony. It would have been more effective if one of the knights hadn't been teasing them, which made them keep stopping, laughing, and losing their place, but the sound of their high, light voices in the frosty air was very pleasant. As I leaned on the parapet, high above the courtyard, looking out across the snowy hills of the western kingdoms, I thought this was a morning of perfect peace.
A gloved hand closed over mine on the railing, and I discovered the duchess beside me. I had not seen her come up. "Merry Christmas," she said. "I'd been thinking I ought to have a special present for you this morning, but after you gave that shawl to the Lady Maria I realized I'd be wasting my time."
She was teasing me, of course. "Oh, I can love any number of different ladies at the same time," I said airily, gesturing with my free hand. "After all—"
Her grip tightened, but I realized she was not listening to me. "Look, over there. What's that?" she said in an entirely different voice.
I looked. Beyond the forest, high above the hills, a dark cloud was coming rapidly toward us out of the north. But it was flying too low and moving too fast to be a cloud. For a moment I wondered if it might be the air cart, bringing someone to visit from the wizards' school, even though it was coming from the wrong direction. But as it approached, I realized it was much too big to be the air cart.
It was a dragon.
The duchess and I were not the only ones up walking on the parapet, and several other people had seen it too. One lady screamed, but several other people looked toward me questioningly, and one even laughed a little. They thought it might be another illusion.
This was, unfortunately, no illusion, but a real dragon. "Get down!" I yelled. "Get inside!" I grabbed the duchess in my arms and leaped off the edge of the walkway, flying us down and landing in the courtyard with hardly a bump. "Don't let it catch you outdoors!"
Although for a second I was afraid that blind panic would replace complacency, as all the ladies began screaming at once, I did manage to get them herded into the center of the hall. "Keep them calm," I told the duchess. "I've got to try to stop it."
I ran back to the high door out into the courtyard. The dragon had arrived.
It flew to the castle with extreme purposefulness, but now that it was here it seemed to be contemplating its next move with leisurely interest. It was perched on the top of the north tower, looking around with apparent curiosity. Then it looked down at me like a cat observing a mouse. It was too big to fit in the windows or even the door, but if it had wished it could easily reach in a clawed foot to grab us. I was almost gratified to see that it quite closely resembled the illusory dragon I had created last month, down to the emerald scales, even though mine had had six legs and this one four. But the red eyes did not glow with magic: rather, with active intelligence.
What was I going to do with a dragon? My mind seemed incapable of thought. For a moment the dragon and I locked glances, then it shot out a thin tongue of flame from its nostrils, and I had to jump back.
I found Joachim at my elbow. He had his crucifix before him and a grim expression on his face. "Don't go out," I said. "It's not evil; it's just a dragon."
"But it could kill us all!"
"Of course it could, and it probably will. It's doubtless very hungry after flying for thousands of miles, down from the northern land of magic. In a few minutes it may decide to start dismantling the castle with its claws. But it's still not evil incarnate, just the wild forces of natural magic, unchecked by any wizardry."
If Joachim was startled to hear this calm, academic statement he gave no sign. I was fairly startled myself to discover that my mind was compensating for a lack of good ideas by the repetition of a phrase f
rom a half-forgotten lecture.
But why was there a dragon in Yurt? The dragons never, or almost never, left the northernmost land of wild magic. I caught a glimpse of the old wizard from the corner of my eye and remembered him saying that he thought that too many wizards practicing magic had worn the channels of magic so smooth that anything might come slipping in.
But surely my own magic was rough enough not to invite a dragon! The wizard at any rate did not say, "I told you so." He stood next to the chaplain and me, while we looked out at the dragon and it looked at us, and both sides tried to think what to do next. Until such time as it decided to start ripping the walls down, we were fairly safe, because I did not think it could reach all the way to the center of the great hall, in spite of its size.
The dragon was truly enormous. Its feet were planted on top of the north tower, its long scaly neck stretched far across the courtyard, and its spiny tail hung nearly to the ground. Its red eyes darted to and fro, and its wide mouth lolled open, revealing hundreds of teeth and a long forked tongue. It seemed to be wondering which ones of us to eat first.
The old wizard attacked. Suddenly, zipping around the dragon's head, there were a cloud of red bubbles, which darted, touched him, and sprang away again. But if this was intended to distract the dragon or even drive him away, it was ineffective. Clinging to the doorpost, thinking this had to be a bad dream and that Gwen would wake me soon, I watched as the dragon batted the bubbles of illusion away with one clawed foot and looked down at us with growing irritation.
There was a commotion behind us, and then Dominic and the duchess pushed past us, leading a group of knights. They were all armed with swords, spears, and shields, and several carried bows. Dominic may have bolted in terror from my illusory dragon, but he seemed to have no hesitation in facing a real one. I was ashamed that he, at least, seemed to have an excellent idea what to do.
With a roar from Dominic, the small war party charged. They ran up the stairs toward the parapet, trying to get closer, and the first archers set off a flurry of arrows.
C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 01 Page 19