A Bad Spell in Yurt

by C. Dale Brittain

  “I talked to your chaplain right away, of course,” she continued, “just after he’d brought you back from the cellars. I wanted to be sure that he knew someone here had been working with a demon. He gave me the strangest look—he’s so dour, you can’t tell half the time what he’s thinking.”

  I let this slur on Joachim pass without comment.

  “All he’d say was that the person who had summoned the demon had done so unintentionally, without evil purpose, and that that person’s soul was now safe. So I’ve had to work it out for myself. I remembered that King Haimeric first became ill within a year of his marriage, about the same time his old chaplain died. So my first thought was that the new royal chaplain must have been responsible. But then I realized that since he’d been able first to heal the king and then bring you back to life, he couldn’t possibly be in league with the devil.”

  I was interested to see how the duchess’s reasoning had paralleled my own. It had taken her much less time than it had taken me, but then she had the advantage of knowing from the beginning that there was a demon involved.

  “So I started thinking who else it might be, and it didn’t take me long to realize that it had to be the queen!”

  “No!” I said involuntarily.

  The duchess looked at me appraisingly. “Not my cousin, eh? You’re certainly quick enough to defend her.” I wondered how much she guessed of my feelings for the queen. “But the problems all started not long after she moved to Yurt. And it occurred to me that the demon might not have summoned the dragon all by itself, but rather that someone here might have been silly enough to think that a dragon would be fun. She’s become more level-headed since becoming queen, I’ll give her that, but she always did do just what she wanted to do.”

  She paused and looked thoughtfully out the window. Then slowly she started to smile, as though seeing something that made everything clear. “Of course! It wasn’t the queen at all. I should have realized at once! It was the Lady Maria.”

  I didn’t answer, but the duchess took my silence for assent. “Good. I couldn’t have gone home without knowing. Don’t worry—I won’t say anything to Maria, or to anyone else. At least I can be sure, knowing her, that she didn’t do it out of evil intent. It was only because she didn’t know any better!”

  The duchess slapped her knees in satisfaction. “Now I’ll leave you alone, as soon as you tell me one more thing. Did the demon kill you while you were fighting with it, or did you have to offer it your life to save Maria?”

  There didn’t seem to be any way to get rid of her without answering. “You can’t fight demons, my lady,” I said. “All you can do is negotiate.”

  She stood up. “Now I really will let you rest. It looks like my knights and chaplain are ready to go. But if you ever decide you’d rather be ducal wizard than stay on here, let me know immediately.”

  The door slammed behind her as she left, and in a minute I could hear a clatter of hooves and farewells being called as the duchess’s party left.

  But just as I was fluffing my pillows to settle down properly, there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I said wearily. At this point more awe and respect seemed highly desirable.

  My door opened to admit the Lady Maria.

  Except for my white silk shawl, she was dressed entirely in black. I remembered now that she had been in black for church service. She was not a naughty schoolgirl now, but rather a melancholy and penitent matron, looking back in sorrow at a life ill-led. Her golden hair was pulled tight into a severe bun; there were quite a few gray hairs at the temples.

  But even though I was sure she had enjoyed picking out a suitably repentant outfit to wear, there were quite genuine tears at the corners of her eyes. She sat down next to my bed, pulling off her black gloves, apparently unable to speak at once. I sat up, rubbing my aching forehead with my knuckles, and waited.

  “I wanted,” she said at last, a catch in her voice, “I wanted to thank you, and I wanted to ask you if you could ever forgive me.”

  “Certainly I forgive you,” I said, speaking very seriously and holding her eyes. “I didn’t go to deal with the demon either hoping for thanks from anyone or feeling the need to forgive anyone. I went because it was my duty as a wizard.”

  It sounded horribly self-righteous in my own ears, but it seemed to be what she wanted to hear. It was also true. She wiped her eyes with a black-trimmed handkerchief and attempted a smile. “Then you and I can still be friends?”

  “Of course we can.” With any luck I could have her out of here in a few more minutes.

  But she had much more on her mind. “Then if you’re my friend,” she said intently, “I need you to tell me something. Are they— Is everyone— Is everyone laughing at me?”

  “Laughing at you?” She was entirely serious. “Maybe it’s just part of the penance I need to bear, but I nave to know! Is everybody chuckling behind my back at the silly Lady Maria, who didn’t even recognize a demon when she summoned one, and who happily sold her soul just so she could act girlish for a few more years?”

  “Certainly not,” I said without hesitation. Joachim did indeed seem to have explained matters to her most clearly. “The chaplain and I are the only people in the castle who know that you summoned the demon, that it didn’t just appear in Yurt by itself.” I told my conscience that this was, strictly speaking, true; the duchess was by now well out of the castle.

  “Then you didn’t have to tell the king and queen—” Dominic, I remembered, had known all along that she had summoned the demon originally, even though he had not wanted to give her away, and even though he did not realize the demon had broken out of the pentagram that he and the old wizard had drawn to imprison it. But since he was highly unlikely to say something now, I felt safe in not mentioning him. So much for my pure soul!

  “I didn’t say a word to the king and queen about you. Everyone was just too delighted to have the demon sent back to hell to worry very much about how it got here in the first place.”

  The tears appeared at the corners of her blue eyes again. I pretended to be looking out my window; I had quite a nice view of much of the courtyard. If the Lady Maria had been standing in a doorway, waiting for the duchess to leave before she came to talk to me, the duchess would have had no trouble spotting her. Perhaps her clever guess had not been as clever as I had thought.

  “I tried to explain something to the chaplain,” Maria said after a moment, bringing out the black-trimmed handkerchief again, “but I think he’s too high-minded to understand something so foolish, so I’d like to try to tell you instead.”

  Oh, well, I thought. It was too late to become awe-inspiring anyway.

  “Of course it was silly to want to be young again—even I knew that. But it was fun to think about what I might do if I were to be young, even more fun actually to find myself growing younger. Of course, Yurt doesn’t offer much scope, but when the queen and I went to the City I was able to go to the dances as a participant, not as a chaperone. I had more fun three winters ago at the City balls than I’ve ever had before or since in my life! And then you came to Yurt.”

  “Of course you, my gallant knight! Not that I had any real intention of making you fall in love with me!” she added hastily, as an expression I tried to suppress must still have appeared on my face. “I knew wizards never marry, and you knew that I was quite a bit older, even though I liked to imagine we looked about the same age.”

  Apparently the gray beard had fooled no one at any time. Maybe I could do better now that my beard was coming in white.

  “And then, of course, it quickly became clear that you had given your heart to my niece. But still I—” you

  I interrupted her. “You knew I was in love with the queen? Was it that obvious? Does everybody in Yurt know?”

  She looked at me with her head cocked to one side, then a surprising and quite genuine smile appeared on her face. “ You’re as worried about everybody laughing behind your back
as I am!”

  “I’m afraid so, my lady,” I said ruefully. “But do they all know?”

  She gave a tinkling little laugh. At least I had been able to cheer her up. “No, they don’t all know. Certainly my niece has no idea—she’s never had eyes for anyone but Haimeric. And I don’t think anyone else has guessed, either. There are advantages of being single and forty-eight—one has had plenty of practice in spotting both romance and unrequited love.” I said nothing but felt very sheepish. Maria returned to her thread, much more cheerfully. “Even though I knew you would never fall in love with me, I truly enjoyed the opportunity of having someone to flirt with, and of looking young enough that my flirtations would not simply seem pathetic. I’ve been in Yurt for four years now, and I presume I’ll live here for the rest of my life, and I’m not going to get very many more opportunities for maidenly amusements.

  “I know it was wrong to deal with a demon, even if I didn’t realize then that was what I was doing. And I know it was wrong, as the chaplain told me in great detail, to want to get extra years rather than being profoundly grateful for those years God does give us. But—maybe you can tell me—it’s not wrong, is it, just to want to have fun sometimes?”

  I took both her hands in mine. It was no use referring her back to Joachim on this issue. “Maria, I’ve always been extremely fond of you, ever since I came to Yurt, and, no, it’s not wrong sometimes to want to have fun.”

  She smiled rather complacently. “I knew you liked me. I knew you didn’t just think of me as a silly old woman. Otherwise you wouldn’t have let me help with your telephones, wouldn’t have tried to teach me that hard old Hidden Language, wouldn’t have given me this beautiful shawl for Christmas, and wouldn’t have been willing to lay down your life for me.”

  I kept hold of her hands and looked deeply into her eyes as I spoke. I wanted to make sure that she understood exactly what I was saying, that she recognized my genuine sympathy while having absolutely no seeds of possible future romance planted in her mind.

  “You’re right that I’m in love with the queen, even though I know perfectly well she’ll never look at me, and you’re right that wizards never marry anyway. But I hope that you and I can continue to be good friends over the years. After all, I’m going to be living in Yurt too, and I like to have fun sometimes myself?”

  “I will try to act more mature and wise,” she said thoughtfully. “In fact, I may not have to try very hard. Coming this close to losing my soul has made me—well, think about things I never used to worry about. I think I’ll start going to chapel every day.”

  I remembered the demon saying that in two years she would fall into horrible and mortal sin. Even in the cellars, it had seemed a probable lie. Sitting in my warm room, I wondered how I could have even half believed it.

  “If you notice me falling into sin again,” she said, “do let me know.”

  “I will if I notice,” I said, sitting back and releasing her hands. “But this time I had no inkling, until just a few days ago. I suspected almost everybody in the castle at one time or another of working black magic, but I never suspected you.”

  I smiled then and stood up. As I hoped, she stood up too. “Over the months to come, some people in the castle might wonder if you had something to do with the dragon, but no one will ever suspect you of evil intent. You’re just going to be the mature, wise—though fun-loving—Lady Maria.”

  I bent to give her cheek a very chaste kiss and opened the door for her. She waved with her black-trimmed handkerchief as she hurried away.

  I turned back to my room, reaching for my curtain to draw it shut so I could take a nap at last, but instead I stood at the window for several minutes, looking after her even when she was out of sight.