Wood Nymph and the Cranky Saint- Wizard of Yurt - 2 (2 page)

The old wizard, who had been Royal Wizard of Yurt for a hundred and eighty years before me, through

five generations of kings, was stil alive. He lived by himself with his magical roots and herbs in a little green house down in the woods. Although when I first came to Yurt I had negotiated a truce with him, which is about the best one can hope for between young and old wizards, and he had taught me some of his herbal magic, there were stil a large number of things about him I did not know.

But the Lady Maria moved on to other topics. As dinner ended, people rose and stood talking around the fireplace. The evening air, coming through the hal doors laden with the scent of roses, was just cool enough to make the fire’s warmth welcome.

The king said to me, “How about some of your ilusions to round out the evening, Wizard? I may not get a chance to see many more of them for a while.” So he realy did mean to go. As I put together the words of the Hidden Language to shape my spels and produced a few simple but effective ilusions—a golden egg that pulsated with fire and hatched into a phoenix and then a twenty-foot giant who strode the length of the hal while waving its club and roaring silently—I wondered how he could bear to leave. I couldn’t imagine wanting to go anywhere else.

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And yet I also surprised myself by envying him. Wherever the king was going, he would see new people, new sights. Yurt was a wonderful place, but sometimes I had to admit, very quietly to myself, that it could be a little dul.

I went to talk to him the next morning. Every morning that the weather was fair King Haimeric spent a few hours in his rose garden outside the castle wals, weeding, pruning, trimming off faded blossoms, examining the bushes for slugs and insects, and planning which varieties to plant or breed next. It was hard to

imagine the castle without the king in it. As I came across the drawbridge, I saw that the barred garden gate was swung open and could hear his and the queen’s voices at the far end of the garden. I proceeded slowly along the grassy paths, taking time to admire the roses.

Some bushes were tal and robust, others propped against tiny trelises. Some blossoms had scores of petals and were as big as saucers, while other bushes were covered with tiny blooms no bigger than my thumbnail. Every shade of white, pink and red was represented. At the far end, where the voices came from, was a section of yelow roses. The king had begun his rose garden when a young prince, but he had only started on the yelows within the last eight or ten years. The mingled scents from the different blossoms were almost overwhelming.

I spotted the king and queen sitting together on a bench. He looked happy and not at al regal, with a broad-brimmed straw hat on his white head and grass stains on his knees. A bowl of cut roses and his garden shears were beside him. The queen had put the baby prince down on a blanket, but he kept crawling off it. As I watched, he reached for her skirts to try to pul himself upright. She reached down and lifted him into her lap with a smile of affection and maternal solicitude that made my heart turn over.

I had been in love with the queen since the first moment I saw her. As a mother, she seemed even more beautiful to me than ever. However, this was certainly something I had never felt appropriate to tel the king. For that matter, my feelings had also never been something to tel a woman so obviously in love with her husband as the queen—even if he was more than twice her age.

“I thought I saw you come in, Wizard,” said King Haimeric. “Come join us. We were just talking about our trip. And look at my new bush; the buds started opening today.” It was one of his yelows, with pale blooms almost the color of parchment but tinged very delicately with red on the edges. I bent down to get a faint whiff of scent. “So where are you going?”

“To visit my parents,” the queen answered. “I think Baby Buttons here is old enough to travel safely.”

The castle without the queen in it would be even worse. “Why can’t your parents come visit us?” I asked.

The queen laughed. “They visited here last year when their grandson was born. And you know they hate traveling. I think they got their fil six or seven years ago, going around the western kingdoms trying to find someone appropriate to marry me to—until I found someone myself r with a smile for the king.

“I’m stil a little concerned about my garden,” said the king. “You know, I’ve never been away from the roses in June. Some of the bushes haven t bloomed yet, and I’m starting to worry about them.” The little prince looked up at me from his mother’s lap. He had startlingly bright emerald eyes, the same shade as hers. He gave an unexpected chortle. “Giz-ward,” he said.

“Did you hear that?” asked the queen, so quickly that I almost wondered if he might not have said what had seemed so clear. “He just said ‘Wizard’!” In spite of the king’s concerns about leaving his rose bushes in June, the trip almost immediately became something for which the whole castle was preparing. The king and queen would travel with a relatively smal party: the baby’s nurse, the queen’s Aunt Maria, a few ladies, and a half dozen knights. The king was leaving his chaplain and me behind, although we had often accompanied him on short trips.

“You’d be bored sily in two days,’ he told me with a conspiratorial smile. “The queen’s parents are very dear people, but ... besides, I trust you to keep an eye on Dominic.” Since they planned to be gone over a month, the king took the precaution of appointing his burly nephew as regent. Prince Dominic listened to the announcement without any apparent emotion. He merely nodded and slowly twisted the ruby ring he always wore on his second finger. The ring’s setting was a golden snake, with the jewel resting on its coils, and I had always felt it would be a much better ring for a wizard than for a prince. This regency, I thought, might be the closest Dominic would ever come to being king of Yurt, and I would have expected more reaction from him.

I had sometimes wondered at Dominic’s calm acceptance of the birth of his young cousin. After al, the royal nephew had probably spent most of his life, until the baby was born, assuming he would someday be king. I wondered if he planned to revolutionize the running of the castle while the king was away and rather hoped he didn’t, for, if so, I might be the first to go.

Less than two weeks after the king and queen first announced they were going, they were gone, riding off in the cool of the early morning accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets. Tne whole party rode white horses with bels on their harnesses.

Everyone had come out to say good-bye and, for several minutes as the riders mounted, there was a great deal of laughing and caling final messages and instructions. The baby prince, riding in a pack on his nurse’s back, frowned at us al. Dominic alone stood stolid and dignified, as though already feeling the weight of his responsibilities and wanting to be sure we al knew it.

The king reined in his horse just as they al started down the hil. “Be sure to cut the roses every day,” he told the constable. “As I already told you, it’s better to cut them in the bud than to have the blossoms al fade on the bushes.”

“Yes, you already told me, sire,” said the constable respectfuly, but with a hint of an indulgent smile.

‘Al right, al right,” said the king, who did smile before hurrying to catch up to the rest.

They reached the edge of the woods below the castle’s hil and disappeared from sight with a final ringing of harness bels. The morning suddenly seemed extremely quiet and extremely empty.

“Wel, it looks like you’re in charge of the castle now, Prince Dominic,” I said to break the silence. “At least until the royal family comes back.” The regent was juggling something heavy in his hand which I recognized as the royal seal of Yurt. “But it’s not my castle, and they’re not my wife and child,” he growled, turned on his heel, and stomped across the drawbridge into the castle.

The staff and the Knights and ladies who were staying behind drifted back inside, but I didn’t feel like going in yet. The day had gone flat, and it would be at least three more days before we could expect a telephone cal, teling us that the royal party had arrived safely at the castle of the queen’s parents.

My biggest wizardry accomplishment since coming to Yurt had been the instalation of magic telephones. They were not like the magic telephones common down in the great City, but then, very little of my magic seemed to be like anyone else’s. This was largely due to the fact that I often had to improvise to compensate for al the courses at the wizards’ school where I had not paid proper attention—in this case I had managed to avoid courses in the technical division completely—but I preferred to think it demonstrated my unique flair and creativity.

In the meantime, I didn’t want to mope for three days, waiting for the telephone to ring, imagining the royal family attacked by bandits or dragons without their wizard there to protect them.

“Joachim,” I said to the chaplain, who was also stil

looking off across the green fields of Yurt, “let’s go sit in the king’s garden for a moment.”

He gave a start, as though he had forgotten my presence, but answered calmly. “Al right, Daimbert.”

We were the only people in the castle who used each other’s names, being Father and Wizard to everyone else. We didn’t always understand each other and I had long since despaired of giving him a proper sense of humor, but we had managed to become friends, at least most of the time, though traditionaly priests and wizards do not get along at al. For that matter, wizards don’t usualy get along with other wizards.

We sat on the bench by the king’s yelow roses. The king had been up at dawn, pruning everything one last time before he left, so the only blooms on the bushes were the buds that were just opening.

“Do you know what’s bothering Dominic?” I asked. “I’d expected he’d be delighted to have a chance to act as king of Yurt.”

“I think that’s his problem precisely,” said the chaplain. “He loves the little prince—everyone must love him—but Dominic had been heir apparent to the kingdom his entire life, and now he isn t. Being named temporary regent must emphasize for him that the future he’d always thought he was preparing for wil never come to pass.” If Dominic was undergoing some sort of emotional crisis, I just hoped he didn’t bother me with it. “Wel, at least it’s not us,” I said cheerfuly. “What shal we do first while the king is gone? How about if I try to discover a spel to raise up armed men from dragons’ teeth?”

Joachim stretched his long legs out in front of him and glanced at me from deep-set eyes. “I’m afraid we have no dragons’ teeth,” he said, perfectly serious. “But I have a task of my own. I received a message from the bishop yesterday, asking me to investigate

the situation at a hermitage at the far eastern end of the kingdom.”

This sounded deadly dul to me. One advantage of being a wizard rather than a priest was that the wizards’ school wasn’t always giving us the responsibility of carrying out uninteresting tasks.

But something about this message had bothered Joachim. There was a faint note of concern in his voice that no one who did not know him as wel as I did would have noticed. “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t understand why the bishop asked me,” he said, turning his huge dark eyes fuly on me. Even after two years, the effect was stil intimidating. “Why didn’t he just send one of the priests from the cathedral?”

“Maybe because the hermitage is here in the kingdom of Yurt,” I suggested, puzzled why this was important. “You’re Royal Chaplain, but the cathedral is located in the next kingdom.” Joachim shook his head. “That shouldn’t make any difference. Both kingdoms are in the bishop’s diocese.’

“Maybe the bishop thinks you’d do the best job.”

He frowned at this. “The bishop should realize I have no special merits.”

I expected the bishop thought the exact opposite but didn’t say so. I was stil wondering why being asked to do something which sounded simple and dul should bother Joachim so much, when the constable appeared, walking briskly down the grassy path between the roses.

“I thought I’d find you here, Wizard,” he said. “A message just came in on the pigeons for you. It’s from the count.” I took the tiny cylinder from him, al that carrier pigeons could handle. Since the royal castle stil had the only telephone in Yurt, the rest of the kingdom had to communicate with us via pigeons. I unroled the little piece of paper. Yurt had two counts and a

duchess; this message was from the older of the two counts. The message was, by necessity, brief.

“Have strange magical creature here. Don’t think it represents immediate danger, but wish you would look at it, soon as possible.” I read it again. It made no more sense the second time.

“Look at this,” I said, handing Joachim the piece of paper. “What do you think he means? If they ‘have’ a magical creature, does that mean that theyve captured it? Or does he mean that some nixie is flitting around the castle at night? Any magical creature poses potential danger, yet he claims this one doesn’t—or at least not immediately. But if it’s not dangerous, why was he concerned enough to write me?” Joachim shook his head, with no better idea than I.

‘The count’s castle is over at the eastern end of the kingdom,” I said, “so it must be quite near your hermitage. If we go together, we can investigate both at the same time. Al right then,” turning to the constable without giving Joachim a chance to object. “Send the count a message to expect us. We’l leave for his castle as soon as I tel the regent we’re going.” If nothing else, this certainly solved the problem of what to do while waiting to hear from the king and queen.

in

We sat under a beech tree, eating bread and cheese. Our horses, their saddles off, grazed before us. If I had been going alone, it would have been faster to fly, but flying is hard mental and physical work, and I stil wasn’t as good at it as a qualified wizard realy ought to be. Besides, I was glad of Joachim’s company.

“You had been starting to tel me about this hermitage,” I said, brushing crumbs from my lap and leaning

back against the tree trunk, which rose smooth and white above us.