He took a step backwards. “I? I know nothing about them!” He was so obviously staggered that it was hard not to believe him. However, I was successful in doing so.
“They were summoned by a wizard,” I said shortly, “with whom you have been plotting to overthrow both the Church and organized wizardry and, incidentally, to seize the kingdom of Yurt for yourself.”
Vincent stared at me with a complete lack of comprehension. Then he shook his head, as though not sure whether he should smile, and sat down, his arms resting on his knees and his hands hanging loose. I remained standing. It seemed I had spent much of the summer accusing people of sinister plots.
But I got a very different reaction from Vincent than I had from his brother. “Paul’s been trying to tell you that you stand in the way of his real development as a king, is that it, Wizard?” he asked sympathetically. “Believe me, I never intended to turn him against you personally.”
“Then what did you intend?” I demanded.
“Sit down,” he said, gesturing. “We can talk more easily. Lucas came back from your trip to the land of magic all full of accusations about how I was plotting against everybody-him especially-but I hadn’t expected you to believe it too.”
I hesitated, then sat down beside him. The midday sun was bright on our heads and made his copper hair gleam. The lizards, frozen in positions of attack with their clawed hands upraised, stood before us.
“Sometime this winter,” Vincent said, “our late wizard started playing on Lucas, telling him that there was no longer room for courage and character in the western kingdoms, because the wizards and priests between them had ended most wars and adventures. Lucas has always been worried, you see, that he was going to grow old, like Father, without ever having done anything. I myself was not so sure that the old wars were ever as glorious as they seem in the legends, but I knew better than to try to tell my brother that.”
He had been staring at the lizards as he spoke, but now he turned to look at me. “One thing did seem strange, that our wizard seemed to be trying to discredit the wizards’ school, pointing out such things as that there were now wizards in more and more courts, and talking about a plot to wrest control from the kings. It didn’t make any sense to me for someone I knew had graduated from the school.”
It didn’t make any sense to me either. I remained silent and let Vincent continue.
“I guess I just never took him seriously-or I felt that if princes should distrust wizards, I would start by distrusting him. Then he died, of course, which made it all moot. But it certainly made a good story, and I must admit I told it to your Prince Paul.”
I gave Vincent my wizardly glare, but he was looking away. As he sat here, talking in a half-amused, half-apologetic manner, I thought that, if he were not planning to marry the queen and murder Paul, I would find myself liking him quite a bit. “Paul believed you,” I said.
He smiled ruefully. “That’s your real problem, isn’t it, Wizard.” It wasn’t, but I did not answer. “I’d been trying all spring to win his friendship, and it occurred to me that to give him a share in a secret, something we princes could work against together, might make him a little less distant toward me.”
“You bought his friendship with the red roan stallion.”
Vincent chuckled. “Come on, Wizard. You and I don’t need to be rivals for Paul’s affection.” We had actually been rivals for the queen’s affection. This conversation was getting more confused by the moment. “And I wouldn’t say I ‘bought’ his friendship. I knew he wanted a red stallion, and when the Romneys had the horse for sale I thought I’d better buy it at once. There can’t be many others like it. They knew it too-they certainly charged enough! I’d also thought, of course, that Paul was a little timid and deferential for someone who was going to be king so soon, and that if I said a few things to make him rely on himself rather than others’ counsel it might help a bit. But from what Lucas told me, your trip up north did much more for him than my hints and suggestions ever could!”
Ever since Joachim first telephoned me at the wizards’ school, to tell me there were twinkling lights at night on his new tower, I had been creating and disposing of a long series of theories to account for the events in Caelrhon and Yurt. Long after I knew that the original problem had been Theodora practicing climbing and fire magic at the same time, new crises and diabolical plots kept appearing. The only two points on which I was now firm was that a renegade wizard, who hated the Church, had brought a gorgos to the cathedral city, and that Vincent was trying to seize Yurt for himself.
A quick glance at the sky still revealed no dragons. “I want to ask you about that stallion,” I said.
Vincent gave me a look of genuine amusement. “Lucas told me you thought the horse was a trap. It’s an intriguing theory, but it’s certainly not true.”
“Where did the Romneys get the stallion?”
He shrugged. “You don’t ask horse-traders where they get their horses. But the Romneys are right here if you want to try.”
I was not yet ready to give up my suspicions of him. “If you didn’t intend the horse as a trap,” I asked, “how were you planning to murder Paul?”
Vincent jumped to his feet. Shock, fury, and then incredulity passed across his face in a series of waves of white and red. I saw him ready to attack me, then remember both that he was unarmed and that a sword wouldn’t do much good anyway. Very slowly, he sat down again, staring at me. “Are you serious?”
It was exactly what I would have expected him to do if I was wrong. “How else did you plan to become king of Yurt?”
Both of us sat in silence for a moment, trying to sort out our thoughts. Vincent continued to stare. Below us, the constable’s men were finishing preparing the lists for the tournament. A number of the knights already had their armor on and were walking back and forth between the tents, showing off for each other. The horrible certainty that I had just created a diplomatic crisis between Yurt and Caelrhon grew on me.
V
“Well,” said Vincent after a minute, “maybe I had that coming, for spreading rumors about a wizardly plot against princes. But I do want to reassure you I never intended to be king of Yurt.”
“Then why are you marrying my queen?” I demanded.
“Because I love her, of course,” said Vincent with a smile. “I know you wizards never marry, so you probably haven’t noticed, but she’s the most beautiful and the most delightful and desirable woman in the western kingdoms.”
The one positive thing I might be able to salvage from this conversation was the knowledge that the queen had never told Vincent about my proposal to her.
“I hope you appreciate how ironic this is,” said Vincent. “My brother is terrified that when I marry your queen, Yurt may make it an excuse to take over Caelrhon. And now I find out that you have been expecting the exact opposite!”
I felt I ought to apologize but didn’t know what to say.
“Look, Wizard,” Vincent went on. “Let’s be reasonable about this. The queen and I both want you to stay on as Royal Wizard after we’re married, and I’m certain Paul really does too, even if I may have inadvertently turned him against you for the moment. When you were off at the school this spring, the queen wondered whether she might have to get a new wizard if you ended up staying there, but she also told me she hoped that you’d be back. So let’s forget all this and forgive each other. All right?”
He started to rise, taking my agreement for granted, but I was not through with him yet. “A wizard brought a gorgos to the cathedral city last month, and brought these creatures here today. What do you know about him?”
He paused on one knee. “I don’t know anything about this. Lucas refused to hire a new wizard after Sengrim’s death, and the only other magic-worker I’ve spoken to since then is you.” He stood up. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to get my armor on.”
Without waiting for an answer, he started back toward the bridge into the cast
le, whistling. Just before he reached the bridge, I called him back. “Prince Vincent!”
He turned back slowly but not, I thought, particularly grudgingly. If I had been a prince instead of a wizard, I really would have wanted to be just like him. “Can it wait?”
“I have a quick favor to ask you.” He came back and stood before me, hands on his hips. “Could you see if you could find the Romney from whom you bought the horse? Even though”-I just barely kept myself from phrasing it as “Even if”-”you have no plots against Paul, it’s possible someone else does.”
He shrugged. “All right. But I don’t want to be late for the tournament!” He went off through the tents, greeting the knights and joking with them as he went. In a few moments, I saw him reemerge from beyond the tents and this time go directly into the castle. At least, I thought, I had not actually created a diplomatic rift between the twin kingdoms.
A Romney man walked slowly toward me, not uncertainly but as though he wanted me to realize that he moved at his own pace, not mine. I swallowed my impatience and waited.
He sat down next to me and adjusted his red kerchief. “A lot of the knights of Caelrhon have horses they bought from me,” he said casually. “Were you thinking of buying one yourself? I’m afraid we don’t have much with us right now, but I could find you a good steed by next week.”
I had to admire the Romney’s ability to turn any opportunity into a potential sale. “I wanted to ask you about the red roan stallion you sold Prince Vincent at the beginning of the summer,” I answered. “I might want one like that-no ordinary horse for a wizard!”
He gave me a shrewd look from intensely black eyes. Neither one of us believed for a minute the talk about buying a horse. “It might be hard to find one just like that,” he said. “Horses that good are scarce, as you realize. I might be able to have one in a few weeks. If you gave me a down payment now, it might make the search easier.”
I abandoned the pretense of wanting a horse like Paul’s. “You got that horse from a wizard, didn’t you.”
He looked at me in apparent disappointment, though I wasn’t sure if he was disappointed at losing a sale or just at cutting our sparring short. “Well, I did,” he admitted, “though I trained the horse myself. A beautiful animal it was when I got it, but wild.”
“Have you seen the wizard at all recently? Might he be bringing more horses from wherever he got that one?”
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “I haven’t seen him in months. Though of course I didn’t tell him I’d buy anything he found, I think he realizes I would if they were like that stallion.”
Vor, Norbert, and the Romneys had all been able to see this wizard-why couldn’t I? And, I thought with a surge of jealousy, he must have an air cart of his own, to be able to transport horses from the borderlands. If I was somehow able to overcome him maybe I could have it for my own.
But this was an unprofitable line of thought. Much more pressing was whether the horse might still be trap, though to be triggered by the wizard himself, not by Vincent. “Thank you for the information,” I said. “Do let me know if you have any horses like the red stallion again.”
The Romney man returned to his caravans without pressing the issue of a down payment. At the bottom of the hill, ladies and attendants were already trying to find the best seats in the stands.
The chief outcome of my conversations was that I knew I had to find the wizard. But I seemed no closer to doing so. He must be here, but he was still thoroughly concealed. I realized uneasily that it had been some time since Theodora had gone to look for him….
A trumpeter appeared in the lists below. Lifting the horn to his lips, he blew a single long blast, then began a lively tune with the rhythm of horses galloping. To general shouts, the knights around the tents mounted their horses. Paul came out of the castle, riding Bonfire. His new armor shone like silver, and he carried a plumed helmet in one crooked arm. For the tournament all weapons were to be blunted. Only the new king himself wore a real sword.
He was halfway down the hill when Vincent came out of the castle, pushing his horse to a trot. He waved as he went by. I had already seen Lucas going down, riding easily with no sign of pain from his ankle. A number of the castle staff, young Gwennie among them, hurried to join the lords and ladies in the audience.
In a few minutes the tournament was underway. The Romneys, stood on the sidelines. From where I sat with the lizards, I had a clear view of the sky. I kept looking and kept seeing nothing but birds.
I heard a step beside me, jumped, and turned to see Joachim. He regarded the lizards curiously for a minute, then sat down on the grass beside me, arranging his robes around him.
For a second I considered ordering him back into the safety of the castle, bishop or no bishop, then realized he was probably deliberately making himself visible in order to bring on a wizardly attack. “These are the creatures that were moving stones around on your new tower,” I told him. “They can’t do any harm now, as long as they’re paralyzed, but if I leave them the wizard will probably break my spell at once.”
In the field below the castle’s hill the first event began, a horse race. I noted that Paul had had the good taste not to participate; Bonfire could easily have outrun any horse there.
“I’ve just talked to Prince Vincent. I’d believed all summer that he and a renegade wizard were planning a joint attack, but I realize now that this belief wasn’t the product of wizardly insights, only of jealousy. Everything I saw as signs of a despicable plot-the way he and the queen behaved toward each other, the fact that Yurt and Caelrhon were once one kingdom, even Vincent’s gift of a stallion to Paul-had a simpler and more innocent explanation. All my suspicions were so incomprehensible to Vincent that he decided I must in fact fear he would turn the young king against me. He forgave me. But while I’ve been wasting my time worrying about an attack on the queen and on Paul, the wizard may be doing something horrible down in the City.”
I told him about the mass exodus of the teachers from the school. Joachim nodded slowly. “But these lizards show he’s not ignoring Yurt,” he said. “He may be attacking on two fronts.”
The wind cut silver paths through the long grass on the castle’s hill and the fields below. The area of the tournament was already becoming trampled and muddy.
“But where is he?” I burst out. “Is this all? If he’s here, what will he do next?”
The knights in the tournament lists were now preparing for the tests of skill; mounted men would gallop at top speed toward a ring dangling from a thread and try to thrust their lances through it.
“Theodora’s looking for him,” I added, then stopped, realizing that I couldn’t tell him more without revealing that she was a witch.
“I was glad to have a chance to talk to her yesterday while we were riding,” said Joachim. “At first she seemed shy of me, almost awe-struck. I had hoped that if I became bishop I could make people realize that bishops are not like princes, men of authority and command. Rather, we are shepherds, sinners ourselves but chosen by God to help and guide other sinners. But I’ve been bishop for over a week, and I’m still being treated as a lord of men.”
This was much too complicated to try to explain to him now. Shouts from the base of the hill showed that one of the riders was doing very well; it appeared to be Vincent.
“Theodora reminds me somewhat of you,” Joachim continued, “especially you twenty years ago, when I first knew you. You both have the same sense of humor, where it’s often difficult to tell if you’re making a joke or not.” Normally I would have been afire with curiosity to know if they had talked about me, and what they had said, but now I was too worried to care.
“What’s my priest doing?” said Joachim in quite a different tone. I looked down toward some of the spectators milling around at the edge of the lists. The young priest who had come with the bishop was in the middle of a crowd of Romneys. I didn’t know what it looked like to Joachim, but to me it looked li
ke he was placing a bet.
“Maybe I should go down there for a little while anyway,” said the bishop. “I cannot approve of battles, even mock battles, but I do not want to appear to be avoiding the festivities deliberately.” He brushed himself off and walked quickly down the hill.
I watched him go, feeling increasingly uneasy about Theodora. But then I saw a dark lilac dress approaching rapidly from the direction of the deserted Romney caravans. At the same time a servant in Yurt’s blue and white livery shot out of the castle and over the bridge. He was running and reached me before she did.
“Come right away!” he cried. “It’s a telephone call from-from someone named Zahlfast! He said he must talk to you at once, about the safety of the wizards’ school!”
“Theodora!” I shouted to her, jumping up. “Stay here and watch these lizards!”
“Wait! I have to tell you-”
“Tell me when I get back.” I flew straight up and over the castle wall, the quicker to reach the telephone.
PART NINE — RENEGADE
I
Zahlfast’s face looked as haggard as I had ever seen it, and he breathed hard. He stared at me blindly; he must be calling from a telephone without a far-seeing attachment.
“Thank you,” he said. “I wanted to tell you we got the warning in time.”
“What warning?” I appreciated the thanks but I had no idea what he was talking about.
“When I got back to the school from dinner last evening, the young wizard relayed your message that the phone in the watch-station up in the borderlands was broken. That fool hadn’t told us, of course,” meaning good old Book-Leech. “Instead he thought he’d try to fix it himself, though he’s not competent to do so.”
Zahlfast paused, then continued in something closer to his normal school-teacher tone. “Maybe we should make a series of courses in technical magic a required part of the curriculum, rather than an elective option. Because I’ve never found that kind of magic congenial myself, I’m afraid I haven’t pushed for it, but in modern times all young wizards really should know modern magic.”
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