Daughter of Magic - Wizard of Yurt - 5 (19 page)

“Of course,” I said. I should tel her that I was trying to get in contact with Xantium. Now that I had met Cyrus, perhaps it would be possible to find out if she knew anyone like him who might be involved in the plot against her. And perhaps I could persuade her, even if I could not persuade the king, that she realy needed a wizard with her whenever she ventured outside the castle wals.

As we left the hal together, I glanced back to see Paul glaring after us. If he had not just told me he had no romantic interest in the Lady Justinia, I would have said he was jealous.

V

Justinia’s automaton had a fire blazing, even though I would have caled the evening warm. She seated herself gracefuly on the carpet by the hearth and motioned me to join her. I recaled as I lowered myself much less gracefuly that this was a flying carpet, although at the moment it showed no sign of going anywhere.

“I’ve been trying to find a way to talk to the mages in Xantium,” I said. “But the City merchant I reached this morning assured me there are stil no telephones in the East. He was rather huffy about it, feeling it was somehow the wizards’ fault. Now, I know that some of the eastern mages communicate through images in deep pools of water, so I was thinking that if I was able to telephone someone in the furthest east port where the western merchants have telephones, then I might—”

But she interrupted with a look of horror. “Thou must not attempt to contact anyone in Xantium! Any magic would be traced in a moment, and then my enemies would pursue me even unto Yurt!” Her automaton rose at the alarm in her voice and approached me in slow, silent menace.

“Al I want to do is talk to Kaz-alrhun,” I said in surprise. “He already knows you’re here.”

“But he remains the only one.” She leaned toward me and gripped my hand. “Even my most trusted slaves did not learn my destination. Please, I beg thee in God’s name, do not play at chances with my life!”

“Wel, I think I could find a way to cal without it being traced,” I started to say, then trailed off. The automaton retreated again. Justinia leaned closer, stil holding my hand, close enough that I was almost overwhelmed by her perfume.

“And I was also going to say,” I continued quickly, trying to keep from babbling, “that it may be dangerous for you to leave the castle without an escort. I know the king never takes any knights with him when he rides, but if I came with the two of you—”

Her red lips curved into a smile. “This is better. Let us speak no more of Xantium, where my enemies are and I am not. Let us speak of Yurt and of the king.”

“Wel,” I said, feeling flustered and wishing she would release my hand, especialy since her rings were starting to bite, “he doesn’t seem to think he needs any magical protection. But since I don’t want to play at chances with your life any more than you do, I would appreciate it if you would ask him yourself next time if I could accompany you.”

“Or perchance there may not be a next time,” she said, shifting on the carpet so that our knees touched.

I drew my knee back fractionaly and she pressed hers forward fractionaly. “I would fain persuade thy young King Paul that he would do far better to take his woman vizier as his concubine than to pay his attentions to me.”

“You said this to him?”

“Of course not,” turning her head on its fine neck in a scornful attitude. “Men wil do naught, are they not persuaded they have thought on it themselves.” And what did she hope I would think of myself?

“But he has awakened through my presence to his manhood and his position, and I trust that he wil now find the strength to tel the old women that he wil ne’er marry the little maid.” It took me a second to realize she meant Princess Margareta, not Antonia. “I think my hints have already made him aware of the vizier’s wilingness to share his bed.” I had no reply. She,gave me her slow smile again. “Now, al I must do is persuade him that he need not pay quite so much attention to me, that my own feelings may not be as immediate and as warm as his.” I had never had a chance, I recaled through rising panic, to tel Theodora about the Lady Justinia. First I wished she was here, then I was just as glad she wasn’t.

“So wilt thou join me in my plan, Wizard,” she asked, stil smiling and brushing my shoulder with her black hair as she leaned even closer, “to convey to thy king, obliquely of course, that he should pay me no more attention?”

I had to get out of here. She was so close now that I could feel her breath on my cheek. Neither my relations with Theodora nor with my king would be improved in the slightest by giving the eastern princess a passionate embrace, and her automaton had come silently forward again, staring at us voyeuristicaly with its flat metalic eyes.

“Gracious!” I cried, wrenching my hand out of her grip and leaping to my feet. “I’d lost track of how late it is! I have to go say good-night to my daughter.” Justinia looked up at me in silence, blinking iridescent eyelids, as it dawned on me what I had just said.

I stood silent and stiff, waiting for her to say something. In a moment Justinia rose to her feet in a single smooth motion and took my hand again, much less tightly. “Why didst thou not tel me at once, O

Wizard?” she said, to my relief looking amused. “Antonia, is that not her name? I understand, then, that the maid’s mother is someone most precious to thee, and here is the reason thou hast always been so awkward in my presence.” I wouldn’t have put it that way, but I was at the moment incapable of speech. “Is the mother here in Yurt? Does King Paul know of thy love?” I found my tongue again. “Nobody in Yurt knows Antonia isn’t my niece,” I said, looking at the floor. That is, for the moment no one else but the queen mother knew. It didn’t seem worth asking Justinia not to tel anyone; she either would or would not as she chose. “The girl’s mother does not live here, but yes,” lifting my eyes determinedly, “she is very precious to me.”

‘Then I must choose another if I desire the king to wax jealous,” said Justinia lightly, “or would convince him that I at least wil ne’er be his concubine. I feel foolish now, not to have guessed that little Antonia was thy daughter. I ween that the purpose of her visit here is to commence teaching her magic? It is regrettable, O Wizard,” she added with something between a chuckle and a sigh, “because thou art passing handsome. Thy face and form are yet those of a young man, in despite of thy white beard, and dry wisdom and authority are of surpassing attractiveness in themselves.”

“Um, I realy do need to kiss Antonia good-night,” I said, backing away.

“Of course, Wizard,” she said agreeably as the automaton, with a suspicious look, opened the door. Had she tried this on Elerius, too, I wondered, or would his much greater powers have put her in awe of him?

“Do not be shy to sit thee again by my side in spite of thy awkwardness this evening,” Justinia added. “Give the girl a kiss from me, and be assured that thy secret is safe.” She gave a slow smile. “I am wel schooled in the keeping of secrets.”

I spent that night and much of the next morning composing conversations with King Paul, in which I combined plausible and nonchalant explanations for why I had never told him I had a daughter with assertions— assertions that never, of course, seemed forced or defensive—that my silence on this matter in no way implied embarrassment or shame about my relations with Theodora. None of these conversations seemed to come out right.

And yet, I reminded myself, I had brought Antonia to Yurt in the first place partly because I hoped to find some way to end the secrecy. This just didn’t seem the best way to do it.

If the Lady Justinia said anything to Paul, he gave no indication to me. He went riding by himself in the morning while I took a strol with Antonia.

Her hair had been curled and ribboned elaborately by the Princess Margareta, who seemed to be treating her as a substitute for her broken china dol. Antonia s Doly too had a pink ribbon around her cloth neck. I realized, walking through sunlit meadows with my daughter’s smal hand in mine, that her visit to Yurt was nearly over.

“Maybe I should take Celia and Hildegarde home with me,” she told me thoughtfuly.

“Take them home?” I asked with a smile. “What wil you and your mother do with them?”

“Here in Yurt everybody is always teling them they can’t do what they want to do. Mother wouldn’t tel them that.”

“She doesn’t let you do everything you want,” I said, amused at Antonia’s concern for the twins. Larks sang around us, and I was able to push to the back of my mind the voice which was trying out,

“Wizards, of course, traditionaly keep their private and their professional lives separate, so I therefore never happened to . . .”

“But Mother never told me I can’t be a wizard,” said Antonia. “Is that better than being a witch, by the way? And nobody wil let Hildegarde be a knight, and now Celia thinks she’l have to be a nun because she can’t be a priest. Maybe I should find out who keeps teling them al these things and turn him into a frog. What’s a nun, Wizard? Is it fun to be one?”

“No, I don’t think it’s fun to be nun,” I said, deciding to ignore the question about the relative values of wizard and witch—and even more so the issue of frogs. “But I’m afraid the twins were just down in Caelrhon, and they got the same answers there they got in Yurt.”

“Then I’l have to find a better place for them to go,” said Antonia in determination.

We walked for a moment in silence. “Do you like my hair like this?” she asked then, turning sapphire eyes on me.

“Wel, the bows are very nice,” I said cautiously, “but I like you in simple braids too.”

She nodded emphaticaly. ‘That’s what I decided. But I don’t want to hurt Margareta’s feelings. She broke her dol by accident, and now she has no one to play with but me. And this makes four different rooms in the castle I’ve slept in! I can’t wait to tel my friend Jen. Margareta’s unhappy because she doesn’t think the king loves her.” I wondered whether Princess Margareta had told her this, or whether Antonia, with her mother’s quick insight, had worked it out for herself.

“I know what I can do, Wizard!” she said with a sudden skip. “I can take them al to see a dragon!”

“Wel, since school-trained wizards are considered wedded to magic, it seemed best...” said the voice in the back of my mind with forced casualness. I pushed the voice away again and smiled at my daughter. Everything, the pain of being separated from Theodora, the deception, the embarrassment now that that deception seemed about to be found out, was worth it because of her. “Where wil you find a dragon? I don’t think your mother has any around.” \

“I’l find one someplace,” she said confidently and enthusiasticaly. Then Hildegarde can be a knight and kil it, but first the dragon wil hurt Margareta so that she’l be sick in bed and the king wil realize he always loved her, and Celia wil give the last rites so that she can be a priest”

“It’s a complicated scenario,” I said, trying to keep from laughing.

“What’s a complicated scenario?”

“Your plan. While you’re at it, why not take Gwennie along too? I must say I’d never realy considered, Antonia, that al that these women need is a trip someplace to see a dragon.”

“That’s right,” said Antonia. “Gwennie is sad too. How about Justinia?”

I thought about the lady’s self-possession. “She’s in fear for her life—reasonably wel concealed—but I wouldn’t cal her sad. But while you’re trying to find ways to help people trapped by their circumstances and other peoples expectations, how about King Paul?”

Antonia appeared to be turning over my bigger words in her mouth for a moment, but rather than asking about them she said, “I don’t think Paul needs to go see dragons. He could see them anytime he wants al by himself. After al, he’s king!”

I found myself wondering if Cyrus, in whom the bishop saw no evil and who had, at least for a moment, turned on me a smile brimming with goodness, had somehow found himself trapped by circumstances.

But I didn’t want to think of him sympatheticaly.

Antonia plopped herself down in the grass by the path. “I’m getting tired of walking. Could you carry me—maybe carry me with magic? Or could you teach me to fly?” Princess Margareta took Antonia off with her after lunch while I settled down for some serious magic. I could find traces of no one else’s spels anywhere in the vicinity, but just at the edge^of my attention I could occasionaly catch hints of something in the distance, in the direction of Caelrhon. A demon, of course, with access to supernatural forces, would have no trouble hiding from me. I circled the outside of the castle, making sure that the big white lumps of chalk, surrounding us with a giant pentagram, were stil in place. It was ironic, I thought, that the pentagram had originaly been set up to confine a demon, but could now be just as effective in keeping one out.

Back in the courtyard, I spotted the Lady Justinia talking animatedly to Princess Margareta while Antonia watched and listened with interest. Margareta made only a few awkward comments of her own but seemed to be observing Justinia with even more thorough attention than my daughter. The princess, I thought, couldn’t seem to decide whether the eastern lady was someone glamorous to model herself after or a dangerous rival for the king’s affections.

Antonia waved to me but I just waved back and kept walking toward my chambers, feeling reluctant to speak to Justinia again just yet.

Sitting by my window, leafing through the Diplomatica Diabetica in an unsuccessful attempt to find something more useful to do, I saw Antonia dart away across the courtyard, but as I reached my chamber door, wondering what was happening, she returned to the others, puling Hildegarde by the hand. Celia trailed behind her sister. The whole group disappeared into Justinia s chambers.

I smiled as I went back to my books. They could use the distraction. In a day or so Hildegarde’s message would reach the duchess, relayed through several sets of pigeons, and then there would be no more time for the twins to play with Antonia. I ought to telephone Evrard, the Royal Wizard of Caelrhon, I thought, to tel him there was a demon loose in his kingdom—unless of course there wasn’t. But at least I would be able to tel him my doubts and uncertainties more easily than I could tel the wizards’ school, though he would be just as displeased when I told him the demon seemed involved with the cathedral.