C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 04

by The Witch;the Cathedral

  I had him. Highly startled, the wizard stood within my trembling spell, his magic stripped from him. His barrier around the lists collapsed, and with it many of the people who had pressed against it. I dropped to the ground, Theodora in my arms. Her eyes were shut but she was still breathing.

  "It won't work, Daimbert!" roared Sengrim. "I may not be able to work magic while I'm standing here, but I can walk right out of your spell!" And he proceeded to do so.

  But he had not counted on Paul. The young king's long, stealthy advance had finally reached its goal. He sprang forward, naked sword in his hand, and thrust it with all his strength into the wizard's back.

  Blood spurted over Paul's silver armor. He wrenched off his helmet; a stripe of red across his eyes showed where the blood had penetrated the visor. He slowly pulled his sword back out of the wizard's body and wiped his face with the other hand.

  Clasping Theodora against me, I went to look. The wizard lay without moving. It all came back to me why I had taken Paul to the borderlands: I had wanted his sword arm between me and danger.

  The flow of blood from the hole in the wizard's back slowed to a trickle and stopped. I turned him over with one foot. He flopped lifeless, his eyes open and empty. "Thank God," I said. "He's dead."

  "My God," said Paul, his face under the blood completely white. "I've killed him."

  II

  The constable had, of course, arranged for a doctor to be present at the tournament. I dragged him away from attending to our guests. Due to good fortune and to Paul, none of the knights or spectators had been killed, although most had burns, bruises, or at least badly strained muscles. The worst off were two knights who had been less quick than Paul at getting off their spooked horses—one had cracked ribs and another had a crushed leg where his horse had rolled on him.

  "She's going to be all right, I should think," the doctor said sourly, looking at Theodora lying stretched out on the queen's bed, absolutely still except for the faintest rise and fall of her chest. "She got a bad scare and a bad knock on her head, but her skull's not cracked, and I don't think her neck is broken. Sleep's the best thing for her. Now, if you'll excuse me—" He escaped back to the wounded knights before I could say anything else.

  I had already flown madly around the castle's hill, ripping up whatever leaves and twigs seemed at all promising for herbal magic, and had made a poultice which I put on the bump on her head. The doctor had shaken his head at it but said nothing.

  I took her hand. "Theodora," I said, both aloud and directly to her mind. "It's me, Theodora." There was no response.

  Joachim put his head in, as sober as I had ever seen him. "How is she?"

  "The doctor claims she'll be all right. But I'm not so sure." I seized him by the arm. "Please, will you pray for her?"

  He opened his mouth to say something but stopped. Instead he nodded.

  "I know what you're thinking," I said desperately. "You heard Sengrim call her a witch. You think a witch is something evil, but it's not—it's only what wizards call women who know a little magic. She does know magic, a little magic, but she's not evil. You talked to her. You must know that. Please, Joachim."

  He took a deep breath and eased his arm out of my grip. He looked at her for a moment, then turned his enormous dark eyes on me. "I realized all along that she knew magic," he said quietly. "I told you she reminded me of you. All I had been going to say was that I was already praying for her."

  I sat down on the bed next to her. "Will you stay with us?" I asked timidly.

  "I can't. Your royal chaplain has just told me that Paul's up in the chapel, lying sobbing on the floor in front of the altar. I've got to go talk to him." He was gone before I had a chance to answer.

  The queen sat with me later that day, watching Theodora. It was still daylight, though it felt like the middle of the night. The rest of the festivities had been cancelled. The castle around us seemed silent as a tomb.

  "Her color looks a little better," said the queen, though I hadn't noticed any change myself.

  "Suppose she never wakes up?"

  "She will," said the queen positively, though she had no basis on which to be so positive. But I appreciated the gesture and tried to smile. "Thank you for saving us all again—especially me," she continued. But then she remembered that in saving her I had let Theodora tumble down the crevice. She became silent, rubbing absently at a bruised arm.

  "How's Paul?" I asked after a moment, because staring at my clasped hands seemed fairly fruitless. "Have you talked to him?"

  "Only very briefly. The bishop spoke with him at some length. He's never killed anyone before, of course—and as a mother I'd hoped he'd never have to. When I talked to him, he was both horrified that he'd killed the wizard and deeply distressed at the blow he thought he'd done to his honor by attacking him from the rear. He's asleep now—sleep can do a lot when someone is eighteen."

  I spared Paul some sympathy. I had never had to kill anyone either, although I had come extremely close to my own death a few times. I wondered if the latter might even be preferable. Whatever Joachim had told Paul, it was unlikely to be that the sixth commandment did not apply in cases where a wizard had lost his mind.

  Neither the queen nor I said anything more for a few minutes. I took one of Theodora's hands. It was warm and completely unresponsive.

  "She is very dear to you," said the queen then. It was a statement, not a question, but I could hear the intense curiosity behind it.

  "I met her in the cathedral city this summer," I said in answer to the question she had not asked. "It was after I'd briefly stopped off here, after teaching at the wizards' school—the visit when you told me you were marrying Prince Vincent."

  She nodded, understanding what I had not explicitly said.

  "Yes," I said, "she is very dear to me."

  What had once been an elegant silk dress was now stained and tattered. I thought inconsequentially that if Theodora woke up she would find this highly irritating.

  "I understand that your wizards' school doesn't want its graduates to marry," said the queen after a moment.

  "That's right," I said. I saw the sympathy in her emerald eyes and considered sobbing with my head in her lap. "And not just the school. It's a tradition that goes back to the beginning of history. Wizards are supposed to be wedded to magic." I stroked Theodora's hand for a moment in silence. "Besides," I said at last, "she doesn't want to marry me."

  The queen took my other hand in hers. She started to say something and changed her mind. But I knew what it would have been. She, like Theodora, had been going to say, with great sympathy and absolutely no offer of help out of my sorrow, that no one should have to be refused twice in one summer.

  The queen was too tactful to ask more, but talking to her was better than sitting silently, watching Theodora's face for nonexistent signs of returning consciousness. "She told me she would miss her independence if she was tied to someone else, but that's not the only reason. The other reason, and I think the real reason, is that she knows that I couldn't be a professional wizard if I was married to her, and that I wouldn't be happy working illusions at fairs. She's right, but I'd be delighted to sacrifice all that to be with her. The problem is that she decided to sacrifice herself before giving me a chance to do so first."

  "It sounds like she loves you," commented the queen.

  I nodded. "She does, almost as much as I love her. But I know that if she recovers, she'll want to go back to the cathedral city and leave me here. I still refuse to accept this arrangement." I glanced toward the queen and wondered if what I was saying was a speech of resignation.

  "She may give you no choice," said the queen, which might have been an unwillingness to accept my resignation.

  She stood up suddenly to turn on the lamp. Daylight was fading at last behind the drawn curtains. The magic globe of light made what had been a dim, sad room almost bright and cozy. I could even imagine that a little pink had returned to Theodora's pallid cheeks.r />
  "Even if she won't marry me," I said, to make sure the queen knew that I would not renew my proposals to her, "I will always consider myself to belong to her."

  The queen looked at me, blinking in the bright lamplight. She realized there was more and waited to see if I would tell her.

  I knew this was the final conversation like this I would ever have with the queen. If I was indeed going to stay on as wizard of Yurt we needed to have everything open between us, so that we could be comfortable and natural with each other and never have to discuss it again.

  "There's one more thing you should know," I said at last. "She's carrying my child."

  The queen went completely still, not even breathing for five seconds. Then she gave my hand a final squeeze and reached over to stroke Theodora's brow.

  What had been one of the happiest and most private moments of my life, I thought, that afternoon in the grove outside the cathedral city, now threatened to become public knowledge. I reminded myself that having the queen and the bishop know about it was not the same as having it known to everyone in the twin kingdoms. I just hoped Theodora would see it that way.

  This topic seemed to have run its course. "You started to ask me earlier," I said into a silence that threatened to stretch out indefinitely, "about my conversation with Prince Vincent." The queen looked up in surprise, then remembered. "I hope he told you I don't suspect him any more."

  "Yes," she answered slowly. "He did feel he'd answered all your concerns. But to suggest that he planned to murder Paul!"

  I looked away. "Maybe I just have a suspicious nature. I know now I was highly mistaken. But when I learned that the wizard of Caelrhon was planning an attack here"—I felt no necessity to explain that I had not realized the elusive renegade wizard was Sengrim until he actually appeared before me—"I thought that the prince of Caelrhon might well be implicated. After all, wouldn't it make sense for someone who would otherwise never be king to want to gain a wife and a kingdom at the same time? I know now how wrong I was!" I added hastily.

  "You do realize, Wizard," she said after a minute, "that I am going to marry Vincent tomorrow, and we intend to live in Yurt."

  "I know," I said. "And therefore I feel I must offer you my resignation."

  There, I had done it at last. This time there was no ambiguity. When Theodora learned I was no longer wizard of Yurt, she would have no choice but to marry me.

  "You can't offer me your resignation," she said with the faintest trace of a smile. "I'm not regent anymore."

  "Then I'll tell Paul I'm resigning."

  "He would never accept your resignation. He thinks much too highly of you."

  "He'll accept my resignation if I tell him I've grossly insulted his mother and her future husband."

  She shook her head. The faint smile was still there. "And I'll tell him that you only imagined the insult. No, Wizard, both Vincent and I would ask you to stay on, even if Paul were not here, even if Vincent really was going to become king of Yurt. All I ask is that you and Vincent seek to be friends. We couldn't let the wizard get away who had saved us all from renegade magic. I can't force you to stay, of course, and she" —with a nod toward Theodora's still form—"may still change her mind. But please. I want you to be Royal Wizard as long as I live in Yurt."

  There didn't seem to be any way to refuse this. It was at any rate unambiguous.

  The queen left a little while later to go sleep in Theodora's room. I offered to move her, but the queen dismissed my suggestion. "I told you to bring her in here so you wouldn't have to carry her up those stairs. I'll be fine. And I think she'll be fine by morning." She was gone with this statement of what I considered unwarranted optimism. I stretched out next to Theodora and slept a little myself.

  Toward dawn, I awoke abruptly from vague and depressing nightmares to feel a stir next to me. "Daimbert?" came a sleepy voice.

  I was too overcome to answer. I put my arm tight around her and buried my face in her pillow.

  When she spoke again, it was with the slightest hint of her customary teasing tone. "Are these your chambers? From what I can see, the room looks much fancier than I had imagined. Don't you think everyone will be shocked when we come out to breakfast together?"

  I sat up and turned the lamp back on to look at her. "These aren't my chambers; they're the queen's. She had us bring you here. Do you remember what happened?"

  Theodora closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. "What happened to the wizard?"

  "He's dead. Paul killed him."

  She lay quietly for a minute, then reached for my hand. "Please believe me, Daimbert. I taught him a little fire magic a few years ago, when I just thought he was an old spell-caster, but I never taught him that."

  "I know you didn't," I said. "But do you remember how you came to be knocked unconscious?"

  "It's a jumble," she said after another long pause. "But— The last thing I remember is a crevice opening in the earth under my feet. And at the same time, I think—I think the same thing happened to your queen!"

  She gave a jerk and tried to sit up. I pushed her gently back down. "But the queen!" she said. "If these are her chambers, what's happened to her? Did he kill her?"

  "No, no," I said reassuringly. "The queen is fine. I already told you, she suggested herself that we put you here." But now I had come to the one thing I had dreaded about Theodora's waking. "I saved her. The two of you were in opposite directions from me, and I had only a fraction of a second, not time to save you both." I had my face in the pillow again. "I swear before God," I said indistinctly through the feathers, "that I love you more than I do her."

  "I know, I know," she said and tentatively stroked my hair.

  "But you don't know," I said, pushing myself up again. "I didn't even choose—there wasn't time. Afterwards, I had to ask myself why I turned to her, rather than you. And I realized"—I hoped this didn't sound like an accusation—"I realized it was because I believed you could fly."

  Theodora thought about this for a moment. "I don't think I'm as good a pupil as I should be. I would have needed a few seconds to put the spell together. I can't remember even trying."

  She reached a hand slowly up to the bump on her head. "Did I hit a stone? I can almost remember falling. One thing climbing teaches you is how to fall. I must not have gotten my arms over my head in time." She was irritated with herself at this lapse. "I seem to have completely ruined my dress, too," she said ruefully. "Could you help me up so I can change?"

  I held her down with a hand on each shoulder. "You can't change here, unless you were planning to put on something of the queen's. And I don't want you to move at all until I have the doctor back in to look at you again. Even if your head is all right, I want to be sure about your back and your neck. And," after a pause, "our daughter."

  She smiled somewhat sleepily. "She's fine. Babies are fairly well protected the first few months. And you know I'm a witch, Daimbert," to my worried expression. "This is something I can be certain about." She yawned. "It isn't really morning yet. If you won't let me up, I'm going back to sleep." She smiled, closed her eyes, and proceeded to do so. I turned off the lamp and sat next to her while outside it gradually grew light.

  III

  The queen and Vincent were married by the bishop in a quiet ceremony the following morning, and our guests began to leave in the afternoon. No one really had the heart to continue the festivities. The cook said darkly that she hoped that those of us who stayed had good appetites, or a lot of good food was going to go to waste.

  Paul stood at the gates, thanking each person individually for coming and apologizing for their burns and bruises. Lucas slapped him on the shoulder in good fellowship. "Now watch yourself, young king," he said with just the faintest hint of jealousy. "You have to realize it can't all be like this. You're not going to turn eighteen, be crowned king, and have a chance to save your kingdom from peril all on the same day again!"

  I thought Paul recognized the irony of hav
ing the departing guests treat as a glorious deed out of legend something that he himself considered the worst experience of his life. But he said nothing about this. Some people, however, may have wondered why he did not seem to smile.

  The Romneys were already gone. They had guessed all along, I thought, that Sengrim and the ragged old magician were the same person, and they didn't care to answer questions on this topic. They also did not want to discuss the telephone call one of the Romney girls had placed to the royal court of Caelrhon of behalf of the "magician," and they did not want any further discussion on the topic of the red roan stallion. Sengrim had given it to the Romneys as a bribe or a reward for their silence, I realized, knowing that they would love the opportunity to tame such a superb horse and that they would be able to get a substantial sum from the right buyer. Vincent, I thought, must have paid them a good half of the spending money his father allowed him in a year.

  We buried Sengrim in the castle cemetery, where kings of Yurt and servants of Yurt had been buried for generations. The young royal chaplain read the service with what I thought exaggerated seriousness. Paul listened while staring expressionless into the distance, then tossed the first shovelful of dirt onto the coffin and went back to the castle without waiting for the rest of us.

  By the end of the afternoon, the bishop's party were the only guests left. I went up to the chaplain's old room to talk to Joachim.

  "Do you think Paul will be all right?" I asked. "I hope you haven't told him that he's irretrievably damned for eternity for killing the wizard." When Joachim didn't answer, I continued, "Come on, I know that in the past you've felt the bishop wouldn't approve if you revealed the secrets of the confessional, but you are bishop now."

  He took a deep breath, and his mouth moved slightly in what might have been a smile. Joachim had always taken the oddest things for jokes. "I still wouldn't reveal the ‘secrets of the confessional,’ as you put it," he answered, "but I can tell you that I most certainly did not tell your king that he was damned for eternity. To kill is always a sin, but this world has been imperfect since the Fall, and one cannot always make a choice between good and evil. Sometimes the only choice is between one sin and a worse one. The worst possible sin for a king, sworn to defend his people, is to let them be killed. He has a stain on his soul, but he should be able to recover from it."