It was going to be dark soon, and I didn't have time for this. I gathered some fallen wood without saying anything, stacked it to burn against the cold and the night, and used a quick spell to light it. Only then did I remark, "So I gather you remembered during the day the information the saint wants me to have?"
She wanted to say that she had, she wanted to tease me some more, but she had been an absolutely honest nun far too long. "No," she mumbled, head down. "But I might if you took me along!" she repeated defiantly.
"How about if you tell me everything you do know," I suggested, "relevant or not, and maybe it will be in there somewhere."
Somehow I had imagined there wasn't a lot to be known about a nunnery and the women who lived there. It turned out I was mistaken. Hadwidis was more than eager to tell me all sorts of things that I would doubtless have found fascinating if I had been planning to take the veil myself. One thing she never said explicitly but I could figure out easily enough: nuns weren't supposed to talk most of the time, remaining silent to be able to concentrate on their prayers. For a lively young woman coming out of years of enforced silence, being invited to speak at length was as refreshing as being given water would be to a thirsty man.
I learned the history of the nunnery of Yurt, which went back to the days of the long-dead Empire, centuries before the Black Wars, long before the Western Kingdoms even existed as independent entities. I learned the names—both the original names and the names they took as brides of Christ—of all the other nuns in the house. I learned which ones had come there as widows, which as young girls offered by their parents, and which ones, like Hadwidis, had decided for themselves in girlhood that they wanted to avoid the world—the decision she had since regretted. She told me which psalms they sang at which hours of the day on the different days of the week and offered to sing me all of them; I declined, saying I could look them up in the Bible if they turned out to be relevant.
Hadwidis had started off sitting across the fire from me, but after a short time, shivering, she came around and sat close beside me, both our backs against Naurag's warm flank and our shoulders together. As she detailed the differences between fast days on which one was allowed lentils and fish broth and the ones where one was allowed only bread and water, my mind started wandering. The principal conclusion I had reached so far was that the life of a nun disciplined the body and the mind so that a woman would not be distracted from God by the affairs of this sinful world, but that I personally thought a young woman ought to be given a little more scope for action. It was impossible to imagine Antonia in the situation Hadwidis described.
It was also impossible to imagine sending Hadwidis to stay with Theodora and Antonia while her hair grew out and she decided how to break the news, both to the abbess and to her family, that she wasn't going back. So far I hadn't heard anything about her family during her monologue, but I felt sure that would be coming soon. Antonia knew I was still alive, and if the two girls got together it wouldn't be long before Antonia extracted enough information from Hadwidis to realize that she knew me too—and to tell her that the wizard with whom she had spent a couple of evenings was Antonia's missing father. At that point, everyone would know.
I glanced up at the stars, wheeling slowly overhead. "It's getting toward midnight," I said, breaking into an account of how to measure a nun for a new habit. "I'm afraid this isn't going to work after all. We need to get some sleep."
Hadwidis stopped in the middle of a sentence, then pressed herself closer against me. "It's cold," she whispered. "I don't want to sleep on Naurag's other side from you."
"He's a lot warmer than I am," I started to say, then stopped dead. Hadwidis had taken one of my hands in both of hers and started to kiss it passionately.
Gratitude? Loneliness, or a fear of being left alone? I desperately attempted to come up with innocuous explanations, all the time trying to ease my hand out of her hers.
It didn't work. She had me in a grip like iron and had climbed halfway into my lap. Her cap had fallen off again, and her bare scalp brushed my cheek. "Hadwidis, don't be silly," I said, much too loudly. "It's been lovely getting to know you the last day or two, but—"
"Don't, Wizard," she murmured, halfway between sensu-ousness and tears. "Don't push me away from you. Don't treat me like a child."
"You're young enough to be my daughter!" Pretty weak, but it was all I could think of. A quick jerk, and my hand was free.
So instead she threw both arms around me. "Lie with me," she whispered into my beard, and I realized that she had been planning this ever since I left that morning. Apparently I wasn't responding the way I was supposed to in her plan. "Lie with me and show me what it's like to be a woman—and make sure I never have to go back to the nunnery."
Joachim was right. Man was born to trouble as the sparks to fly upward.
I managed to get a grip on her shoulders and pushed her back so I could see her face in the flickering light. "Hadwidis, this is a tremendously flattering offer you're making. But you're being far too hasty." She shook her head hard and tugged at me again.
It is hard to turn down somebody's heartfelt plea, especially somebody looking up with eyes glittering with tears. In retrospect, I admired both Gwennie's and Margareta's ability to stay steadfast against Paul's proposals.
I took a deep breath and attempted to sound calm and rational, talking to Hadwidis as though she were an adult— and most indubitably trying to talk her out of it. "You scarcely know me—if you want to give yourself to a man, Hadwidis, wait until you find the one you'll love for all your life. I'm not going to force you back to the nunnery, no matter what, but if you fall into sin there are some people who will say that that is an especial reason for you to return, so you can do penance there. And besides—" when none of my arguments seemed to be reaching her at all "—you should know that we wizards don't form liaisons with every girl we meet."
"You're lying," she said, angry now, her eyes flashing in the firelight. "Lots of wizards take lovers. I've seen them do it!" Naurag, highly interested, curved his neck around so he could watch.
"As a matter of fact," I said brightly, "I do have a lover— but she's also my wife! So I'm afraid I'm really not available." I knew as I spoke that it would have been better to bring Theodora up immediately. To mention her now sounded like a pathetically false excuse.
"You can't be married," she answered stubbornly. "Wizards are supposed to be wedded to magic itself. Even in the nunnery we knew that. If nuns are brides of Christ, wizards are bridegrooms of magic! You just think I'm not attractive because I don't have any hair," she continued bitterly, her voice breaking. When I tried to deny this, she snapped, "Then prove it! Lie with me to prove you think of me as a woman! Or else you're going to be sorry in another year, when you come into Caelrhon and find a beautiful tavern waitress with luxurious hair who won't even give you the time of day!"
"Hadwidis, listen," I said, still trying to be reasonable though she was now sobbing. "I'm not one of those wizards who goes around seducing women—" And then I froze, the rest of the sentence unspoken, though I doubted she had heard me anyway.
I had just realized what the Cranky Saint wanted me to know.
II
"Hadwidis," I tried again, more gently. "You mentioned yesterday that you had a little brother. What is his name?"
She was startled enough at this sudden change of topic that she sat up, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles. "Walther. Prince Walther. He's the heir to our kingdom." She glared at me from under her brows. "He's not going to come after you for seducing his sister, if that's what's worrying you."
It wasn't. "He's not really your father's son, is he," I said quietly.
Hadwidis gaped at me. "But how did you know?"
"And that's what made you decide to become a nun in the first place—seeing the Royal Wizard of your own kingdom with your mother, back when you were still a girl. You decided you didn't want to live in a world that had that kind of deceit in it. An
d when you left the nunnery again it was your most vivid image of worldliness, the one you unfortunately set out to repeat: a woman in love with a wizard."
"I'm not a thing like my mother!" she snapped, but she said it sitting a few inches back from me, her arms resolutely folded across her chest.
"You see," I said, still quietly, "I know your Royal Wizard. His name is Elerius. You may not have heard this, tucked away in the nunnery, but he's acting as regent of the kingdom until your brother grows up. At that point he intends to tell the boy who he really is, so they can govern institutionalized wizardry and the Western Kingdoms together, as father and son."
"Walther doesn't know he's only my half-brother," she said slowly. "I don't think my father ever even guessed—or anyway I hope not."
"So how did you guess?" I asked, delighted to have distracted her from her designs on me.
"It should have been obvious to anyone who looked," she answered darkly, but her anger now was turned against Elerius instead of me. "I'm blonde—or would be if I had any hair—as were both my parents when they were younger. I think their parents were blonde too—though one of my grandmothers may have been a red-head. But Walther's got night-black hair—just like our wizard!"
"Well, hair coloring's not an absolute marker of family ties," I interrupted. "Dark-haired people have blonde children all the time. I hope you haven't based everything on your brother being darker than you are."
"Of course not," she retorted, scornful of my limited understanding. "And I used to tease little Walther about his hair, without thinking anything of it. But the time that my father was out of the kingdom, and I woke up with a bad dream in the middle of the night, and slipped into my mother's room the way I had when I was much younger—"
She paused, lips tight together, but I could imagine the rest. Finding her father's supposedly loyal Royal Wizard in her mother's bed would have been a shock to any well-brought-up young princess. Naurag nuzzled her shoulder sympathetically.
"Did your mother say anything to explain herself?" I asked after a moment.
"Well, she sent me back to bed so fast she probably hoped I hadn't seen anything," Hadwidis said reluctantly. "And in the morning, first she denied everything, then she tried to say that he was there to cast some sort of spell to keep out malignant forces, and finally she told me that this was something for adults, that I was too young but would understand better when I grew up, and that I shouldn't say anything to Father— maybe she thought he was too old to understand!"
"Does your abbess know?" I asked, wondering how far this might have spread.
Hadwidis turned her face away, but I heard her say, "No," very quietly. "I told her all my sins, but this wasn't about me. This was about somebody else."
I touched her arm and could feel her shaking. I put my cloak over her shoulders. "I'm afraid it's not just about your mother anymore," I said gently. "It's about your whole kingdom. Without a legitimate brother, you're first in line for the throne."
Hadwidis gave a strangled sob. "Did you think I didn't know that?" she demanded.
"In the nunnery, of course," I continued thoughtfully, "you couldn't possibly become queen. You could concentrate on your prayers, without worrying about women who deceived their husbands, and also without worrying about how and when you should tell your brother he had no real claim to be king. If you were out of the way among the nuns, and your mother falsely swore at your brother's coronation that he was your father's true son, then you couldn't possibly do anything about it."
"But Saint Eusebius drove me out," she retorted, sobbing in earnest again.
There didn't seem to be any doubt about it. The Cranky Saint wanted her to become queen.
I shivered involuntarily. Elerius would have thought he had nothing to fear from Hadwidis as long as she was isolated and silent in the cloister, but I didn't like to think what he might feel was necessary if he learned she was out. I put a comforting arm around her without thinking, but it would have been too obvious to take it away again immediately, and she didn't seem inclined at the moment for more romantic overtures.
After a moment she caught her breath and lifted a tear-stained face toward me. "So you see, Wizard, that's why I have to become a tavern wench. I can't very well show up at court, making my mother think I'm about to expose her— and maybe really doing so, and taking away the throne from my little brother, when I'm sure he wants it so much. If I can't stay in the nunnery, I have to go someplace where they'll never, ever think to look for me. Who would think to look for the heiress to one of the largest of the Western Kingdoms working in a tavern in Caelrhon?"
Elerius might. He certainly knew where Hadwidis had gone when she announced her intention of becoming a nun, and he could even now be checking to be sure she was still safely there. When he found out she was gone—especially if he got any hint from the abbess that the Cranky Saint might have his own plans for this girl—she would be in as much danger as I was.
"Well, Hadwidis," I said reluctantly, "you may need to postpone your career in the tavern. Because I'm going to take you with me."
* * * *
Her head came up so fast that she bumped Naurag on the nose. "Really, Wizard? You mean it?" she cried in delight, though the firelight still reflected on rivulets of tears running down her cheeks.
"I mean it," I said, even more reluctantly. "But you're coming as my daughter, not my lover. In fact, it might be good if we had a chaperone." I could feel her tensing angrily under my arm, so I hurried on. "You need to think this through, Hadwidis. Whether you end up as queen or as a nun again, you'd be better off as a pure maiden. For that matter," with a very forced effort at a chuckle, "don't you think the taverns in Caelrhon would be more interested in hiring on a fresh young girl than someone a wizard had discarded?"
She was starting to make angry muttering sounds, so I pulled myself away from her and leaned my head against Naurag's warm flank. "Try to get some sleep. We'll be starting before dawn, and we have one important stop to make before we leave this region."
I could hear her settling down behind me. Just as I was starting to doze she suddenly said, "By the way, where are we going?"
"To the East," I murmured sleepily. "To find an Ifrit."
"This will be great," said Hadwidis definitively.
* * * *
Dawn was just washing out the eastern stars when Naurag swept up the hill toward the royal castle of Yurt. I left him and Hadwidis in the old king's rose garden outside the walls—the late roses were all past, even the famous blue rose, but it was still too dark to have seen the colors anyway.
Invisible, I flew over the battlements and down the courtyard, to where a few stone steps led up to Gwennie's chambers. I paused outside her door, listening, but everything was silent. Cautiously I tried the handle. Gwennie had slid the bolt across inside, but a small spell quickly slid it back. Slowly I opened the door, almost silent on well-oiled hinges. Letting my invisibility spell dissolve, I snapped my fingers and said the two words to light the candle on her bureau.
She stirred at the sudden light on her eyelids. "Gwennie," I whispered. "Wake up."
She was awake in an instant, as any good castle constable should be, ready to face whatever emergencies arise. "What is it?" she said, blinking and sitting up.
Then she recognized me. I saw the scream coming and stopped it just in time, with a tiny paralysis spell to her vocal chords. I didn't dare use too much magic, for fear of alerting Elerius if he were still around, but I also didn't want a dozen knights crashing in on us.
"I'm not a ghost," I said quickly. "I'm not even dead." I let her have her voice back. "But I need your help."
Her breath came fast, but she managed to answer fairly steadily. "Then if you aren't dead, why did your air cart come back all covered with blood and dragon bites?"
"It's a long story," I said, listening again to hear if anyone else was stirring. "If you come with me I'll tell you the whole thing. In fact, that's why I'm here. To ask you to com
e with me."
"Come where?" she asked suspiciously. I knew what she was thinking, only half a minute awake and facing a man whose funeral she had just attended. I had heard the same stories when I was a child, of the spirits who return in the darkest part of the night, just before dawn, to draw the living away with them—
"Take my hand," I said, offering it. "Feel how solid I am. It was all a mistake."
And then she leaped up, smiling radiantly, and not only took my hand but hugged me hard, a startling experience since she had nothing on but a thin nightgown. "Theodora's right here in Yurt! You'll want to see her at once, though maybe you should try to surprise her less than you did me. And the bishop too! He'll be so pleased—"
I was starting to feel a desperate need of haste. Even after as exciting a day as yesterday, not everyone in the castle would linger long in bed, and I wanted to be out of here before anyone else arose. But Gwennie had pulled on a dressing gown and was dragging me out the door, toward the guest chambers where my wife and daughter would be staying.
I managed to stop her. "Please, Gwennie, I don't have time to explain, but I can't tell Theodora I'm alive. It would put her in horrible danger. I need you to come with me."
"Why?" she demanded, starting to be suspicious again.
"There's a princess who needs someone to supervise her— and not the Princess Margareta!" I added hastily, seeing Gwennie's face begin to go hard. There was no good way to explain it. "Please," I said desperately. "Get some clothes on and come with me. I'm going to the East to find an Ifrit," hoping this would be as appealing to her as it was to Hadwidis.
"And we'd be gone a long time?" she said slowly.
"It might be a very long time," I agreed dully, wondering how long it would take to find Elerius again even if I did somehow manage to make an Ifrit obey me. All the stars were gone now, and from the kitchen, at the opposite end of the courtyard, I could hear the first faint clanking of pans.
Gwennie gave a sudden wicked grin. "Then His Most Royal Majesty King Paul will just have to deal with life without a castle constable for a while. Give me five minutes."
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