The Witch & the Cathedral - Wizard of Yurt - 4 (34 page)

Watching the two of them gallop ahead—the queen had always been an excellent horsewoman—I felt a profound if irrational certainty that Vincent had much more in mind than the kisses of a beautiful woman.

I came home to Yurt as though I had been gone for years. The trees and grass around the castle had the rich dark green of late summer. I happily reshelved the thoroughly battered books of spells that I had taken with me to the cathedral city, and from there to the borderlands, to Vor's valley back to the cathedral city, and back home finally. Now that I was apparently once more Royal Wizard, I thought I might be in control of at least parts of my life again—except for finding the renegade wizard.

Activity in the royal castle of Yurt was frantic. The staff were busy cleaning and airing all the guest rooms, as well as decorating the great hall; the knights were preparing for a tournament such as had not been held at Yurt for years; and the cook was constantly getting in and preparing the food for days of festivities. The queen's parents arrived the day after we returned, to be there for their grandson's coming of age.

Trying to stay out of everyone's way, I worked long and late on my spells, setting up magical protective barriers so that no creature could land on the walls or the tops of the towers, not even something invisible, without triggering alarms. But I wished I knew something, anything, about the wizard who had brought a gorgos to the old bishop's funeral and might be showing up in Yurt to attack the new one.

My only possible lead was the cantor Norbert, who had certainly obtained the old book of spells from a magic-worker, a fairly young, dark-bearded wizard according to his account to Joachim, a wizard wearing the same star-studded jacket Vor had described. But it had always been hard to see the scholarly old priest behind the gorgos, and he would scarcely have told the bishop all about the wizard from whom he obtained the book if he was still conspiring with him.

I took Paul quietly aside to warn him that we might see another monster at his coronation. He grinned, intrigued by the possibility. When I asked if he thought we should scale back the festivities, he only laughed. "We can't very well cancel the ceremonies unless a dragon is actually on us!"

"I don't want you out in the open when the wizard brings on his next monsters."

"But you wouldn't have me begin my rule as king cowering timidly inside," replied Paul. "Especially if it comes during the tournament we'll be ready for it, since all the knights will be in armor. Maybe this time I'll even get a chance to fight it myself, since you didn't let me last time." At least he didn't seem bothered that I had not tried to incorporate any of his and Lucas's elaborate plots into Joachim's plan to lure the renegade wizard into the open.

The rest of our guests arrived at Yurt the day before Paul's birthday: the royal family of Caelrhon, the duchess and the two counts of Yurt with all their families, and all of Yurt's manorial lords. The stables were packed, the guest rooms full and overfull; and most of the visiting knights ended up pitching tents beyond the moat.

There was a surprise when the royal family of Caelrhon rode up, for the king was not with them. The queen of Caelrhon was accompanied by her sons Lucas and Vincent, Lucas's wife and children, and a dozen knights, but not her husband.

"He's staying in the cathedral city," Vincent told my queen, holding her hands and looking at her in adoration. "Father thought he'd better be at the cathedral to defend it from attack."

If the king of Caelrhon had passed up Paul's coronation to protect the bishop's church, I thought, I hoped he would not be too disappointed when nothing happened— assuming, of course, that Joachim's plan worked.

The bishop's party arrived last of all. It was just growing dark when we saw a small group of horses, led by a banner with a cross, emerging from the woods. Fireflies winked in the grass by the road as I went out to meet them.

The young chaplain came with me, all aflutter in brand-new vestments. I wondered how he would hold up during his first spiritual examination by the new bishop.

Joachim, Theodora, a young priest, and two knights rode up the last rise to the castle. Their horses were the only ones to arrive all day without the tinkling of harness bells. The riders listened while the chaplain rattled through his speech of welcome, full of phrases from the Bible and expressions of hope that the bishop would not find this small castle too unworthy of his attentions. But my attention was distracted. Emerging from the woods and starting up the brick road toward the castle were several caravans, lanterns swinging from them as the horses labored in the final climb.

"The Romneys," I said out loud, too startled to realize I was interrupting the chaplain until I had done so.

That's right," said the priest who had come with the bishop, in tones of disapproval. "We passed them on the road late this afternoon. They said they wanted to be here to see the prince crowned."

This was something I had not counted on. There should be nothing wrong with the Romneys being here, and yet all my calculations were built on knowing exactly who was going to be where at all times. I shook my head at myself. I was already as tense as a bowstring, and some of the other guests were bound to do something innocent and unimportant that would throw me into a panic,

The chaplain had trouble finding the thread of his welcoming speech again. Joachim thanked him and shook his horse's reins, and his party moved across the drawbridge into the courtyard. The Romneys pulled their caravans off the road a little distance short of the tents of the visiting knights.

The queen came out to welcome the bishop, both more sincerely and more simply than the young chaplain had. Paul stood beside her, looking extremely solemn. He stepped forward as the bishop's horse was led away to the stables.

"Holy Father, I have a request to make," he said, speaking rapidly, as though afraid the bishop would walk away before he could say it. "As you know, I will be spending tonight, the night before my coronation, in prayer in the chapel. It is traditional that a priest come to counsel me at some point, and I would be honored— very highly honored—if you could do so."

The young chaplain looked surprised; I expected he had been busily preparing spiritual counsel himself for the new king.

"I would be delighted," Joachim said gravely.

A smile lit up the prince's face. "Wonderful. Come around midnight."

The queen turned to greet Theodora. The two women looked at each other for a long moment; Theodora, I expected, wanted a good look at the other woman who had refused my proposals and the queen wondered who this young woman could be although she was much too tactful to ask.

The last available room in the castle, at my request, had been reserved for Theodora. It was a small room at the top of a flight of stairs, but in the morning the windows would look into the dawn sky. With the queen's permission, I had cut some late roses from the king's garden and arranged them in vases.

"I wanted to let you know," said Theodora as I set down her bag in the room, "that the old magician is with the Romneys."

"The old magician? You mean the man who was so furious that I might be interfering with his 'making an honest living,' the one to whom you taught a little fire magic?"

"That's right. I hadn't seen him since the beginning of the summer, since even before I met you, but when we caught up to the Romneys he was riding on one of the caravans."

I nodded slowly. "I hope the worst he'll do is to make some scandalous illusions at an inappropriate time in the ceremony, but while I'm waiting for the renegade wizard this magician's magic may prove distracting."

"This is the closest I've ever seen your queen," Theodora continued "Have you told her all about me as well?"

"Of course not!" I started to protest indignantly, then realized she was teasing me. "I just told her that you were an important lady from the cathedral city," I added with dignity,

"who I wanted as my special guest."

"Then you'd better go out with the others," she said with a smile, "before they all start wondering just how 'special' a guest I am!"

But she kissed me before I left. As I went back down the stairs, I realized that in her own way she was as little concerned about public opinion as Joachim. She would always do exactly what she wanted, rather than what she thought others would want her to do, but as a single woman, one without any authority whatsoever, she had to avoid attracting attention to herself that might keep her from her privacy or what she had been intending.

One of the servants found me as I came back out into the courtyard. There's a phone call for you from the City."

My heart pounded rapidly as I picked up the receiver and looked at the face of one of the young wizards of the school. "Zahlfast said that you'd asked us to call you if there was any unusual activity up in the land of magic," he said. "I wasn't sure I should call you, since nothing came of it, but then I decided I'd better."

"What is it?" I asked impatiently. The wizard who had summoned a gorgos to the cathedral city would not be casting spells from which nothing came.

"We had a call about an hour ago from the wizard who's posted up at the borderlands. He said a very small dragon had suddenly started south, but he was able to fly down and get ahead of it and put a magical barrier in front of it When it bounced off his barrier, the dragon turned around and went straight back. I wouldn't have bothered you for such a trivial event, but Zahlfast told me you'd been very insistent"

I thought rapidly. "Do you know if the school ever got that telephone fixed?"

"The telephone? You mean the one up in the borderlands? I didn't think it was ever broken."

I took a deep and ragged breath. "Is Zahlfast there?"

"No, I think he went out to dinner. Shall I have him call you?"

I hesitated a moment, then shook my head. When I had spoken with Zahlfast the day before, he had seemed miffed that I was still worrying myself over what he considered the Church's problems. I was not going to get any help from him. "Just tell him that phone is broken." I rang off. I didn't need any more phone calls to tell me what would happen.

They had put Joachim in his old room off the chapel. He looked up soberly as I came in. "A monster from the land of magic is heading toward Yurt," I said without preamble.

"How close is it?" he asked quietly.

"Not close, not yet," I said, sitting down. "But if it hasn't left yet, it will be doing so shortly." I told him quickly about the strange problem with the wizard's telephone in the northern mountains, the phone which could make only one call a day.

"I should have realized then that it had been deliberately broken," I said. "And I should have insisted that it be fixed. Someone summoned a dragon earlier today, but without using a particularly powerful spell. The wizard up there turned it back, but because he then called the wizards’ school to tell them about it, he won't be able to make any other calls for another twenty-four hours. In that time, anything else could—and surely will—come over the border, without his being able to give warning."

"How long will it take the monster to reach us?"

I noticed that Joachim was gripping his crucifix. That's not going to be very useful," I said. "I know I've explained this to you before: the forces of wild magic are not the powers of darkness."

"And I have explained to you before," he said with a lift of one eyebrow, "that there is plenty of evil in the world that is not embodied in demons."

He was right, of course, but this seemed to me a situation where magic was going to have to be opposed by magic. "It's at least three thousand miles up to the edge of the land of magic," I said. "It took us a week in the air cart, although I'm sure a monster could fly far faster than that I presume it will reach here sometime tomorrow."

"If it indeed is heading for Yurt," said Joachim, and I knew he was thinking of his cathedral.

"You've left your church well protected. Besides the king of Caelrhon and various knights, you've got Vor and his workmen."

"We're even better protected here," said Joachim. "You're an excellent wizard." I didn't have the heart to tell him he was wrong.

"Well," I said, "we'd been guessing something like this would happen. Maybe we should just be glad we were right. Do you think we should have them cancel Paul's coming of age ceremonies?"

Joachim shook his head. "Your renegade wizard seems to have excellent information on what's happening in Yurt and Caelrhon. If we hide, he will too. We have to get him out into the open."

I stood up. "I'm going back to my room to work on my spells. If you're working on your prayers this evening, pray for me."

The castle was up at dawn on a beautiful late summer day. I had only dozed fitfully after finally putting away my books. I walked out over the drawbridge for a look at the northern sky.

The grass was damp with drops of dew glinting in the rising sun. Bird songs reached me from the meadows and the woods below the hill. The knights' tents were still quiet, but I saw smoke starting to rise from the Romneys' camp. The clear sky was absolutely empty, and the fresh air seemed to promise a morning in which nothing evil could possibly happen.

When I walked back inside a few minutes later, the courtyard had already filled with lords and ladies, dressed in their best finery and talking excitedly. The frantic preparations the constable and his men had been making the last few days seemed to pay off. Soon we all found ourselves eased unobtrusively into rows according to our stations. Gwennie, the constable's daughter, grown-up and formal in blue and white starched livery, helped arrange us.

I caught Theodora's eye and smiled. Regal in lilac silk, she was attracting both curious and admiring glances.

A clear passage was left down the center of the courtyard. Talking died away as two men came out from the great hall, unrolling a long red carpet. They stretched it out through the gates and over the drawbridge, then onto the hilltop beyond. The castle's brass choir began to play, clear, bright notes, a song of triumph and joy.