Wizards (16 page)

"You saved the kingdom and you didn't kill anybody. You're a hero, Jake."

"I don't feel like a hero. Salice wouldn’t have been attacked if it hadn't been for the Master and he wouldn’t have ruled Salice if it hadn't been for me."

"The King sees it differently. He came by last night to offer his thanks. He wants to give you a medal or something. There's going to be a big ceremony he wants you to attend."

I turned to face my girlfriend. "You told him that I most certainly won’t be going, didn't you Jenny?"

"I told him you'd be delighted to go. I believe Grimaldi will be arriving later with an appropriate set of clothes."

Moaning seemed a totally inadequate response, but it was all I had.

Grimaldi turned up much later in the day. Jenny and I had washed, changed and even managed to visit our convalescing dragon before we received a knock on the door.

"My friend, it is so good to see you again." Grimaldi tried to reach up and kiss me on the cheek, but I stepped back before he could complete the maneuver. Bletty and Helda grabbed hold of me and managed to place kisses on my cheeks before I could stop them.

"Thank you … for everything," Helda whispered as she planted a wet kiss by my left ear.

Jenny grinned at me through the whole thing. She seemed to find it all very amusing.

Grimaldi knew my size well enough to have done all the work on the clothes, except for the final fitting. I must admit, I found the clothes he brought rather cool. The best way to describe them is to say I ended up looking like Zorro, complete with a black cape on my shoulders. Thankfully, he left out the hat, which I wouldn’t have worn, even had they provided one.

"Is this some kind of uniform?"

"And you thought your last outfit was gay." Jenny giggled.

"This," Grimaldi countered putting an immense amount of dignity in his delivery, "is the clothing of a gentleman wizard."

"You missed the posing pouch," Jenny said as she looked me over critically.

Grimaldi handed me his large hairbrush and looked meaningfully at Jenny.

"A woman should know her place, Wizard Morrissey. Would you like us to withdraw?"

"Oh no, I think you and the girls should stay and watch," I told him as I advanced menacingly towards Jenny.

"I surrender. No more comments, even if they get you to wear pink underwear."

I put down the hairbrush to the evident disappointment of my audience.

The rest of the fitting session went fairly smoothly. I chose to ignore the way Helda kept patting my bottom at every opportunity, not to mention giving me suggestive winks.

The King was waiting for me in the ballroom, which seemed to serve as the main meeting room in the palace. Two liveried servants waited outside the closed doors to let Jenny and me in. She chose to wear her ball gown and looked lovely.

When we were standing appropriately in front of the door, and might I add the servants kept moving us until we were, they then opened the doors wide.

I think those two grinning bastards had positioned us so it would be difficult for me to run. I suspect every person in Salice was in that room, leaving only a narrow passageway between the crowd, just wide enough for the two of us to walk down. An amazing cheer went up that threatened to deafen me and the orchestra started to play something that sounded like an anthem.

I gave Jenny a look that should have fried her on the spot and she grinned back at me. Since I had no other choice, we started to walk between the cheering masses towards where the King stood waiting.

The other kings, queens and noblemen were up on the stage. King Petre the 12th and his wife Janti at the center. Princess Esmeralda stood at her father's right hand. There were steps lined with red carpet leading up to the stage and Jenny and I followed our narrow path all the way up them until we reached the King. The orchestra stopped playing and the crowd hushed as they waited for the King to speak.

"It is not often that a wizard chooses to help a kingdom without thought of reward and yet Wizard Morrissey has done just that three times for the Kingdom of Salice."

The King's voice boomed out across the room. He sounded more regal than I ever heard him sound before.

"Such selflessness cannot go without a suitable reward. I have talked long with my wife Queen Janti and my daughter Princess Esmeralda to find something appropriate to show our gratitude and bind Wizard Morrissey and our people closer together."

There was an expectant silence. The old guy surely knows how to play an audience I thought with admiration. If I had known what he was going to say next, I would have hopped back home before the words could have been uttered.

"Following the ancient tradition that wizards may take more than one wife, I am delighted to give the hand of my daughter Princess Esmeralda to Wizard Morrissey. May their union be blessed with many children in the years to come."

The room exploded with cheers and applause.

Chapter Nine
: Wizards War

"Y
our wing looks fine," I told Fluffy. We were standing in the Bat Cave and I had just examined both sides of his wing. There wasn't a trace of a scar.

"Meep." [It itches.]

"That will teach you not to take on any more armies."

"Meep, meep, meep." [Or to go into glim faster next time.]

"There won't be a next time," I said firmly. If I had my way, I’d never return to Salice. There was a bride waiting for her groom over there and as far as I was concerned, she could wait forever.

"How's Retnor," Jenny asked as she approached with two mugs of hot tea. Since my girlfriend became a regular visitor to the cave, it has become much more domestic. We now have a small camping stove complete with kettle, bottled water and powdered milk, where before I hopped back to my parents' house if I was in urgent need of a cuppa.

"Meep, meep." [It itches. Jake doesn't care about me.]

"Poor Retnor." Jenny put down the cups to rub Fluffy's head. "That Jake is such a nasty boy. Leaving his betrothed in Salice without a second thought. It's only me that cares about you. Would you like me to rub it better?"

"Meep."

"She isn't my betrothed. I never proposed. And you sent me back while you had a private chat with her and when I came back she was hiding under the sheets in her bed. What exactly did you do to her?"

"That's a private matter between Esmeralda and me," Jenny said primly.

"Well, so is me returning to Wales." I didn't say 'so there' but, by God, I thought it.

"Jake, you can't humiliate Esmeralda like that. What I did was between the two of us and private. Everybody in four whole kingdoms will know if you stand her up at the wedding."

"I thought both parties had to agree before they get married."

"She's a princess and they do things differently with royalty. Look at Charles and Camilla."

"So you want me to marry her?"

"If you do, don't bother coming home. Retnor and I will manage on our own."

"Meep, meep." [Jenny rubs my neck much better than you.]

"Traitor," I retorted, without venom, at my grinning dragon. "Then what am I to do?"

"You're a wizard. You must find a way to get yourself out of the marriage without shaming Esmeralda."

"I could tell them I'm gay?"

"It would certainly be believable if you wore your wizard clothes and cape."

"I quite liked them."

"It's getting more believable by the minute. But you can't do that, because I want to go to Salice again and no one is going to believe you're gay if you turn up with your girlfriend. You will have to think of something else."

"Fine, I'll tell them that you have cannibal ancestry and you'll eat me if I marry Esmeralda."

"The only way I'll ever eat you is in your dreams. I'm from a respectable family, unlike some people."

"I give up."

I walked away from Jenny and Fluffy in disgust, Fluffy's silent dragon laughter ringing in my head as I went. Hopping back to my bedroom I sat on my bed and tried to sort things out.

After an hour or so of fruitless thought, I hopped back to the cave and took Jenny home. We stood awkwardly outside her parents' house in the cool of the evening. Since coming back from Salice, Jenny hadn't let me into her house or into her bed. It had been over two weeks and I was getting twitchy. I tried to kiss her goodnight but she pushed me away.

"Not while you're betrothed to Esmeralda," she said determinedly. "And stay away from her without me with you, or it will be never again."

"That's hardly fair."

"You should have thought of that before you got yourself betrothed."

"I wanted to come home. You made me stay."

"You had to do the right thing, Jake. It's not my fault you screwed it up."

I keep swearing to myself I'll stop arguing with women, but I still find myself doing it. They cheat and you can't win. If you say red is a nicer color than green and prove it, they claim you don't love them. I looked up an order of silent monks on the Internet the other day. I must go and give it a try one day.

"Besides which, it looks like you have bigger problems."

"Huh?"

"Look up there." Jenny turned me around and pointed up into the sky.

On an otherwise clear evening sky, words were forming. The sentence Jenny had seen first read. 'Beware Jake the Wizard.' Just forming below it were the words, 'I bring your doom!'

"Impressive exclamation mark," I murmured.

"I'm going inside," Jenny said quietly. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek and ran into her house. I stared up at the skywriting and wondered what I was supposed to do. Since nothing sensible occurred to me, I settled for doing something silly.

Turning away from the writing towards the pristine sky on the other side, I caused the following words to form in the sky.

'Have your own personal message up here. Contact Jones Skywriting Ltd.'

Given that every other surname in Wales is Jones, I was sure somebody would be grateful for the business.

"Well, if it isn't Jake the Wizard," Malcolm Jones called out as I entered the small office of Griffiths Woodyard. "Wizard at skiving, I'd say."

"I didn't know you were in the skywriting business, Malcolm. No, my mistake, it can't have been you as all the words were spelt correctly."

Malcolm stood up as though he was going to fight, but Mr. Griffith entered the room before any trouble could start.

"Yaki-da, boyo," Mr. Griffith cheerfully greeted me. It was typical of him to take the piss out of us Welsh, as he was an Englishman born and bred.

"Mam said you called."

"I've got a little bit of work for you and I know how you always need the money. Are you still seeing that posh student girl, Penny, or whatever her name is?"

"Jenny Owen. And yes, Mr. Griffith, I still am."

"Then you'll be in need of a few quid I expect. And there will be no need for us to involve the taxman, now will there?"

"If you don't tell them, neither will I," I said grinning. It was much cheaper for both of us if we didn't get involved in employment forms, and the odd fifty pounds in cash in my trouser pocket never went amiss.

Mr. Griffith put his arm on my shoulder and led me out of the office and into the yard. I could feel Malcolm's eyes boring into my back as we left.

Griffith's Woodyard had received a large consignment of oak beams which needed to be properly stacked under cover before the Welsh climate ruined them. I say climate, but what I actually mean is torrential rain. We have a lot of it most of the year.

Stacking was a skilled job with a fork-lift because the beams were easy to damage if you didn't know what you were doing. An old tarpaulin had been draped over the top of them, but they were stacked on the ground and still vulnerable to water running over the yard.

It was the kind of work I enjoyed. I would be working outside and get to feel sun, rain and wind on my face. Nobody would be telling me what to do and I could do everything in my own time. On top of which, I got to see a pile of timber slowly move from an ugly stack on the ground to neatly stacked up on boards. Most importantly for me, I would get to bask in the thought of a job well done.

Mr. Griffith was paying me for the job, not how long it took and so I chose to take my time, savoring the opportunity to do something useful for a change.

I had just moved the last beam into place when I noticed a man standing watching me. That wasn't unusual as the yard had lots of customers and they often liked to stop and watch people working. However, this man wore a black cape that looked similar to the one made for me by Grimaldi.

I parked the truck neatly between the yellow lines on the tarmac and got down from the cab. The man stood a few hundred feet away and he stayed there staring at me. I began to walk towards him, wondering who he was.