Daughter of Magic - Wizard of Yurt - 5 (7 page)

Justinia rose from the couch and came to meet me. I managed to loosen Antonia’s arms from around my neck and gave a reasonable approximation of the formal half-bow. “I trust you are finding everything satisfactory, my lady?” I said. From what Gwennie had said, she had better be. “Now that I hope you’ve had a chance to settle in, I’d like to learn more of why you had to leave Xantium.” She waved me to a chair and reseated herself but did not seem immediately interested in talking about her affairs. Antonia perched on my knee. “That cold meat at luncheon, O Wizard,” Justinia asked,

“prepared in a most bland style: was it perhaps beef?”

“Of course it was,” Antonia provided, with an air of showing off her own superior knowledge.

Justinia smiled. “Know then, my child, I have had but brief acquaintance with beef. It is eaten rarely in Xantium.” Antonia thought this over. “How about chicken? How about bread? How about onions?”

But I interrupted before they could go into culinary comparisons of east and west “Since the mage entrusted you to me, my lady, I hope you wil alow me to ask what foes forced you to leave home, and what likelihood there is that they wil folow you here.”

Justinia gave a flick of her graceful wrist, jangling her bracelets as though to dismiss such dangers as unimportant. “It is the old controversy between my grandfather and the Thieves’ Guild, of course,” she said in a bored voice. “It was destiny’s decree that the controversy arise again. Al believed it settled a great many years ago, when I was but very smal, back when—” and for a moment her voice became faint

“—back when they assassinated my parents.”

“What’s assassinated?” Antonia asked, but I shushed her.

“My grandfather the governor declared that the thieves were becoming far too frequent on the streets of Xantium, even in the harbor which was forbidden them, and that he would shut down the Thieves’

Market if they could not conform to their earlier agreement. The Guild replied that they could not be responsible for the doings of non-Guild members, and that the governor’s taxes on their Market had risen most exceedingly. Tensions were such that— Wel, my grandfather did not desire the lives of any of his family again used as negotiating tokens.”

“I understand, my lady,” I said gravely, glad Yurt had never had anything like this deadly political maneuvering. But then the wizards of the western kingdoms would never alow it to come to this. “But why did you come here?”

She had been playing with her rings while she talked, but now she turned to look at me over a half-bare shoulder with her dark almond-shaped eyes. “It is very far from Xantium. Or if I may speak boldly, from anywhere else.”

This was reasonably accurate; Yurt, one of the smalest of the western kingdoms, would not normaly be a place of which anyone in the East had heard. But our quest fifteen years ago had alerted a number of powerful people, not just the mage Law-algin, to the existence of Yurt. I hoped that none of them would be people in contact with the Thieves’ Guild.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I thought the mage operated out of the Thieves’ Market himself. Why should your grandfather trust him?” I had no intention of being manipulated into being part of a devious double-edged plot against a lovely young woman.

“When one’s life is in most dire danger,” she said in a tone that sounded not young but very old and weary, “one trusts no one.” She nodded toward the automaton. “That is why I brought him with me.” And the mage had doubtless made the automaton as wel. I had been able to work with him in the East because our purposes coincided, and we had eaten his salt—I wondered how long the beneficial effects of that were supposed to last.

As I left the Lady Justinia’s chambers one of the castle servants met me. “You have a telephone cal, sir,” he said, looking anxious. “I think—I think it’s from the bishop.”

“Tel him I’l be right there!” I darted across the courtyard, delighting Antonia, who was riding on my shoulder again, and opened the door to my chambers. “Stay here,” I told her. “I’l be back soon. Don’t leave for any reason.”

“Al right, Wizard,” she said agreeably. “Or should I cal you Daimbert, the way Mother does? Would you like that better?” I closed the door without answering and hurried to the telephone. Whatever the bishop had to tel me, I did not think Antonia should hear it. But I immediately began to imagine the harm she could do to herself in my rooms, starting with puling down a bookshelf on top of herself.

The bishop was actualy smiling. “I must apologize,

Daimbert, for bothering you yesterday. The man has returned, and I believe al my questions have been answered.”

“Wel, that’s wonderful,” I said in amazement. “But— What happened?”

“He came up to me in the cathedral after the noon service,” said Joachim. “As you can imagine, I was quite surprised.” So was I, but I almost dared be encouraged. A demon would not, I thought, enter a consecrated cathedral to talk to a bishop. “He told me he wants to be a priest.”

“A priest?” First Celia and now the Dog-Man. I tried unsuccessfuly to tel from the tiny image of Joachim's face if he actualy believed this or was only trying to persuade himself of it.

“He told me he has powers in himself he does not fuly understand, but he feels God has caled him and he wants to be trained to use those powers to help others.” I myself didn’t believe a word of it. If what I had sensed down by the docks was accurate, this man had the highly unusual combination of magical abilities and contact with the supernatural. A holy man who could heal a wounded dog, maybe. A magic-worker who had the power to fix broken toys, just possibly. But this man had, if the stories were right, begun to kil just to restore life, and he did not dare talk to a wizard.

At least Antonia was safely in Yurt. “That’s good to hear, Joachim,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say without more information. “Let me know how it al works out” As I returned to my chambers I thought that this man, whoever he was, seemed to have found the one certain way to defuse the bishop’s suspicions.

His questions might al be answered, but mine were just beginning. I found Antonia sitting in my best chair, legs straight out in front of her, poring over a book as though actualy reading it. I smiled and reached for my copy of the Diplomatica Diabolica.

Leafing through it was not encouraging. I sneezed from dust; it had been a long time since I had had this volume off the shelf. It confirmed what I already knew, that a demon in human form would not be able to wander, unsummoned, into a cathedral. But a person who had sold his soul to the devil, who was using the black arts for supernatural effects, would stil be able to do al the ordinary things, like enter churches, that the rest of us did, those of us who might wel be damned but didn’t know it yet.

The book, being written by and for wizards, did not directly address the question the bishop might have asked, whether someone who had sold his soul could stil save it by becoming a priest. But it was not encouraging. The book didn’t offer any way out at al for such a person—short perhaps (and only perhaps) of skiled negotiations by a demonology expert.

I reshelved the volume slowly, wondering if a demon would have too much sense of self-preservation to let the person who had summoned it spend time in close association with the saints who always clustered around churches. Saints, I told myself hopefuly, should be perfectly capable of returning a demon to hel al by themselves, no matter what the book said.

‘What’s this word, Wizard?” asked Antonia.

I realized with a start that she was not just pretending to read but was actualy reading Elements of Transmogrification. “It’s the Hidden Language,” I said, scooping the book from her lap and returning it to the shelf. “Your mother and I wil teach it to you when you’re older.”

She jumped down from the chair, indignant. “I was reading that! Give it back!”

“No, no. I’m sorry, Antonia, but it’s realy not suitable for you.”

Tears started from her sapphire eyes, and she stamped a foot hard on my flagstone floor. “It’s not^air! You can’t just take my book away! Where’s my mother? I want my mother!” I picked her up, trying to soothe her, but she wiggled free and began to cry in good earnest. “I was reading]”

“You’re just cranky because you didn’t have your nap,” I said encouragingly, feeling panic set in. “Maybe if you have your nap—”

“I am not cranky]” she shouted, tears pouring down her cheeks.

I gave up trying to calm a distraught little girl and lifted her from the floor with magic, startling her so much she stopped crying for a moment, and flew across the courtyard with her to the twins’ suite.

They were both there, Hildegarde wearing her leather tunic and sword belt but sitting disconsolately in the window seat, and Celia reading her Bible with an aggrieved angle to her chin as though finding things in it different from what the bishop had told her.

“You haven’t seen Paul, have you?” Hildegarde asked me, but not as though she realy cared. “The king realy liked Justinia’s dress,” she added over her shoulder to her sister. “Maybe you should get one like it, Celia, if Father ever takes us to Xantium as he keeps saying he wil,” but even this teasing sounded halfhearted. “Here,” to Antonia. “Stop crying and I’l let you hold my knife.” I was horror-struck, but Antonia gulped back her sobs and reached for the knife. Hildegarde closed the girl’s smal fingers around the handle. “Hold it very carefuly,” she said, “so nobody-gets hurt.”

“The wizard wouldn’t let me read my book,” said Antonia, looking at me from under lowered eyebrows and holding the knife in a way I would have caled threatening.

I stood back a safe distance. “I think the king went riding after lunch,” I said to Hildegarde. Paul tended to react to anything which he had to think over by taking his stalion out for a miles-long run. Even if he didn’t end up exploring some ruined castle or scenic waterfal, he might be gone for hours, occasionaly even days. No one, not even the queen mother, had ever been able to persuade him that a king should have an escort when galoping around the countryside. Besides, no other horse in the kingdom could keep up with Bonfire.

“Earlier he’d said he was going to show me some exercises. But I guess,” Hildegarde added with a deep sigh, “that he was just humoring me. He doesn’t drink I can be a knight any more than anybody else does.”

Either that, I thought but did not say, or Lady Justinia’s arrival had distracted him so much he had forgotten everything else.

“I was going to be a wizard,” said Antonia with a dark look for me, “but now I think I’l be a knight too.”

“Knights need their naps,” said Hildegarde, unfolding herself from the window seat. “Don’t I remember tucking you in over an hour ago, you little scamp? And then,” with a laugh, “I looked up and saw you out in the courtyard with the wizard!”

“What’s a scamp?A asked Antonia.

“Scamps are mischievous people who have a mind of their own,” said Hildegarde. “I used to be a scamp myself.” I was surprised she put it in the past tense.

Antonia alowed herself to be taken off to bed in a much better mood than I could have anticipated a few minutes ago. Hildegarde casualy slid the knife from the girl’s hand back into her own belt.

“Celia,” I said when the others had left the room, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Of course, Wizard. Do you need to leave the girl with us again while you go somewhere?”

“No,” I said slowly, “but I would like you to go somewhere for me. Down in Caelrhon there’s a man— someone whose name I don’t know but who has been nicknamed the Dog-Man—who wants to be a priest too. I wish you would talk to him.”

Celia put her Bible down very slowly. “Is this a joke, Wizard?” she asked as though not quite sure whether to be irritated. “I remember the tricks you used to play to amuse Hildegarde and me when we were little. Because if you think you can make me forget—”

“No, no,” I said before she could make this any messier than it already was. “I’m absolutely serious.” Some of the tricks I had played on the twins had been pretty good, I recaled; I should try them on Antonia if she was stil speaking to me. There was the one where I pretended to snip off a girl’s nose with my fingertips, then presented a plausible ilusory nose for her inspection, or the one where I tossed a butter knife in the air, went to catch it, gave a bloodcurdling yel and presented my arm with the hand “cut off,” that is made magicaly invisible. . . .

But I shouldn’t be distracted. “This man, Celia, has apparendy persuaded the bishop that he has been touched by God, but I’m suspicious of him. He’s hiding from me—which is part of the reason I’m suspicious. So I need someone who has a pure religious vocation, but someone who doesn’t automaticaly agree with, the bishop on everything, to find out more about him.”

“More about him?” said Celia, sounding bewildered.

“Find out why he’s suddenly appeared in Caelrhon, how he’s doing what look like miracles—but maybe aren’t—learn how deep are his religious convictions: al the things the bishop is unwiling to ask him.” She gave me a level stare. “You’re asking me to do something behind His Holiness’s back?”

“Wel, yes, I guess so. But I can see,” I added hastily, “that it was probably wrong to ask you, that—”

“I’l do it, Wizard.”

“You wil?” I said, startled.

“Women often understand people, both men and women, better than men do,” she said firmly. “This way I may be able to help the Church if your suspicions are accurate.” She suddenly grinned. “And if I can show the bishop my powers of spiritual discernment, he may realize he’s made a big mistake. Now, tel me more about this man.” An hour later Celia rode away from the castle toward Caelrhon, teling me she hoped to be back in a few days and would send me a pigeon-message in the meantime if she discovered anything interesting.

Hildegarde decided at the last moment to go with her, announcing that no future duchess should ride across two kingdoms without an armed warrior to accompany her and protect her. The twins had ridden up from the ducal castle unescorted, and Celia had dismissed my suggestion that a few of the castle’s knights ought to go with her to Caelrhon, and without Paul there to back me up there was no way I could change her mind.