Is This Apocalypse Necessary? - Wizard of Yurt - 6 (21 page)

It is hard to turn down somebody's heartfelt plea, especially somebody looking up with eyes glittering with tears. In retrospect, I admired both Gwennie's and Margareta's ability to stay steadfast against Paul's proposals.

I took a deep breath and attempted to sound calm and rational, talking to Hadwidis as though she were an adult— and most indubitably trying to talk her out of it. "You scarcely know me—if you want to give yourself to a man, Hadwidis, wait until you find the one you'll love for all your life. I'm not going to force you back to the nunnery, no matter what, but if you fall into sin there are some people who will say that that is an especial reason for you to return, so you can do penance there. And besides—" when none of my arguments seemed to be reaching her at all "—you should know that we wizards don't form liaisons with every girl we meet."

"You're lying," she said, angry now, her eyes flashing in the firelight. "

Lots
of wizards take lovers. I've seen them do it!" Naurag, highly interested, curved his neck around so he could watch.

"As a matter of fact," I said brightly, "I do have a lover— but she's also my wife! So I'm afraid I'm really not available." I knew as I spoke that it would have been better to bring Theodora up immediately. To mention her now sounded like a pathetically false excuse.

"You
can't
be married," she answered stubbornly. "Wizards are supposed to be wedded to magic itself. Even in the nunnery we knew that.

If nuns are brides of Christ, wizards are bridegrooms of magic! You just think I'm not attractive because I don't have any hair," she continued bitterly, her voice breaking. When I tried to deny this, she snapped, "Then prove it! Lie with me to
prove
you think of me as a woman! Or else you're going to be sorry in another year, when you come into Caelrhon and find a beautiful tavern waitress with luxurious hair who won't even give you the time of day!"

"Hadwidis, listen," I said, still trying to be reasonable though she was now sobbing. "I'm not one of those wizards who goes around seducing women—" And then I froze, the rest of the sentence unspoken, though I doubted she had heard me anyway.

I had just realized what the Cranky Saint wanted me to know.

"Hadwidis," I tried again, more gently. "You mentioned yesterday that you had a little brother. What is his name?"

She was startled enough at this sudden change of topic that she sat up, rubbing her eyes with her knuckles. "Walther. Prince Walther. He's the heir to our kingdom." She glared at me from under her brows. "He's not going to come after you for seducing his sister, if that's what's worrying you."

It wasn't. "He's not really your father's son, is he," I said quietly.

Hadwidis gaped at me. "But how did you know?"

"And that's what made you decide to become a nun in the first place—seeing the Royal Wizard of your own kingdom with your mother, back when you were still a girl. You decided you didn't want to live in a world that had that kind of deceit in it. And when you left the nunnery again it was your most vivid image of worldliness, the one you unfortunately set out to repeat: a woman in love with a wizard."

"I'm not a thing like my mother!" she snapped, but she said it sitting a few inches back from me, her arms resolutely folded across her chest.

"You see," I said, still quietly, "I know your Royal Wizard. His name is Elerius. You may not have heard this, tucked away in the nunnery, but he's acting as regent of the kingdom until your brother grows up. At that point he intends to tell the boy who he really is, so they can govern institutionalized wizardry and the Western Kingdoms together, as father and son."

"Walther doesn't know he's only my half-brother," she said slowly. "I don't think my father ever even guessed—or anyway I hope not."

"So how did
you
guess?" I asked, delighted to have distracted her from her designs on me.

"It should have been obvious to anyone who looked," she answered darkly, but her anger now was turned against Elerius instead of me. "I'm blonde—or would be if I had any hair—as were both my parents when they were younger. I think their parents were blonde too—though one of my grandmothers may have been a red-head. But Walther's got night-black hair—just like our wizard!"

"Well, hair coloring's not an absolute marker of family ties," I interrupted. "Dark-haired people have blonde children all the time. I hope you haven't based everything on your brother being darker than you are."

"Of course not," she retorted, scornful of my limited understanding.

"And I used to tease little Walther about his hair, without thinking anything of it. But the time that my father was out of the kingdom, and I woke up with a bad dream in the middle of the night, and slipped into my mother's room the way I had when I was much younger—"

She paused, lips tight together, but I could imagine the rest. Finding her father's supposedly loyal Royal Wizard in her mother's bed would have been a shock to any well-brought-up young princess. Naurag nuzzled her shoulder sympathetically.

"Did your mother say anything to explain herself?" I asked after a moment.

"Well, she sent me back to bed so fast she probably hoped I hadn't seen anything," Hadwidis said reluctantly. "And in the morning, first she denied everything, then she tried to say that he was there to cast some sort of spell to keep out malignant forces, and finally she told me that this was something for adults, that I was too young but would understand better when I grew up, and that I shouldn't say anything to Father— maybe she thought he was too
old
to understand!"

"Does your abbess know?" I asked, wondering how far this might have spread.

Hadwidis turned her face away, but I heard her say, "No," very quietly.

"I told her all my sins, but this wasn't about me. This was about somebody else."

I touched her arm and could feel her shaking. I put my cloak over her shoulders. "I'm afraid it's not just about your mother anymore," I said gently. "It's about your whole kingdom. Without a legitimate brother, you're first in line for the throne."

Hadwidis gave a strangled sob. "Did you think I didn't know that?" she demanded.

"In the nunnery, of course," I continued thoughtfully, "you couldn't possibly become queen. You could concentrate on your prayers, without worrying about women who deceived their husbands, and also without worrying about how and when you should tell your brother he had no real claim to be king. If you were out of the way among the nuns, and your mother falsely swore at your brother's coronation that he was your father's true son, then you couldn't possibly do anything about it."

"But Saint Eusebius drove me out," she retorted, sobbing in earnest again.

There didn't seem to be any doubt about it. The Cranky Saint wanted her to become queen.

I shivered involuntarily. Elerius would have thought he had nothing to fear from Hadwidis as long as she was isolated and silent in the cloister, but I didn't like to think what he might feel was necessary if he learned she was out. I put a comforting arm around her without thinking, but it would have been too obvious to take it away again immediately, and she didn't seem inclined at the moment for more romantic overtures.

After a moment she caught her breath and lifted a tear-stained face toward me. "So you see, Wizard, that's why I have to become a tavern wench. I can't very well show up at court, making my mother think I'm about to expose her— and maybe really doing so, and taking away the throne from my little brother, when I'm sure he wants it so much. If I can't stay in the nunnery, I have to go someplace where they'll never, ever think to look for me. Who would think to look for the heiress to one of the largest of the Western Kingdoms working in a tavern in Caelrhon?"

Elerius might. He certainly knew where Hadwidis had gone when she announced her intention of becoming a nun, and he could even now be checking to be sure she was still safely there. When he found out she was gone—especially if he got any hint from the abbess that the Cranky Saint might have his own plans for this girl—she would be in as much danger as I was.

"Well, Hadwidis," I said reluctantly, "you may need to postpone your career in the tavern. Because I'm going to take you with me."

Her head came up so fast that she bumped Naurag on the nose. "Really, Wizard? You mean it?" she cried in delight, though the firelight still reflected on rivulets of tears running down her cheeks.

"I mean it," I said, even more reluctantly. "But you're coming as my daughter, not my lover. In fact, it might be good if we had a chaperone." I could feel her tensing angrily under my arm, so I hurried on. "You need to think this through, Hadwidis. Whether you end up as queen or as a nun again, you'd be better off as a pure maiden. For that matter," with a very forced effort at a chuckle, "don't you think the taverns in Caelrhon would be more interested in hiring on a fresh young girl than someone a wizard had discarded?"

She was starting to make angry muttering sounds, so I pulled myself away from her and leaned my head against Naurag's warm flank. "Try to get some sleep. We'll be starting before dawn, and we have one important stop to make before we leave this region."

I could hear her settling down behind me. Just as I was starting to doze she suddenly said, "By the way, where are we going?"

"To the East," I murmured sleepily. "To find an Ifrit."

"This will be great," said Hadwidis definitively.

Dawn was just washing out the eastern stars when Naurag swept up the hill toward the royal castle of Yurt. I left him and Hadwidis in the old king's rose garden outside the walls—the late roses were all past, even the famous blue rose, but it was still too dark to have seen the colors anyway.

Invisible, I flew over the battlements and down the courtyard, to where a few stone steps led up to Gwennie's chambers. I paused outside her door, listening, but everything was silent. Cautiously I tried the handle. Gwennie had slid the bolt across inside, but a small spell quickly slid it back. Slowly I opened the door, almost silent on well-oiled hinges. Letting my invisibility spell dissolve, I snapped my fingers and said the two words to light the candle on her bureau.

She stirred at the sudden light on her eyelids. "Gwennie," I whispered.

"Wake up."

She was awake in an instant, as any good castle constable should be, ready to face whatever emergencies arise. "What is it?" she said, blinking and sitting up.

Then she recognized me. I saw the scream coming and stopped it just in time, with a tiny paralysis spell to her vocal chords. I didn't dare use too much magic, for fear of alerting Elerius if he were still around, but I also didn't want a dozen knights crashing in on us.

"I'm not a ghost," I said quickly. "I'm not even dead." I let her have her voice back. "But I need your help."

Her breath came fast, but she managed to answer fairly steadily. "Then if you aren't dead, why did your air cart come back all covered with blood and dragon bites?"

"It's a long story," I said, listening again to hear if anyone else was stirring. "If you come with me I'll tell you the whole thing. In fact, that's why I'm here. To ask you to come with me."

"Come where?" she asked suspiciously. I knew what she was thinking, only half a minute awake and facing a man whose funeral she had just attended. I had heard the same stories when I was a child, of the spirits who return in the darkest part of the night, just before dawn, to draw the living away with them—

"Take my hand," I said, offering it. "Feel how solid I am. It was all a mistake."

And then she leaped up, smiling radiantly, and not only took my hand but hugged me hard, a startling experience since she had nothing on but a thin nightgown. "Theodora's right here in Yurt! You'll want to see her at once, though maybe you should try to surprise her less than you did me.

And the bishop too! He'll be so pleased—"

I was starting to feel a desperate need of haste. Even after as exciting a day as yesterday, not everyone in the castle would linger long in bed, and I wanted to be out of here before anyone else arose. But Gwennie had pulled on a dressing gown and was dragging me out the door, toward the guest chambers where my wife and daughter would be staying.

I managed to stop her. "Please, Gwennie, I don't have time to explain, but I can't tell Theodora I'm alive. It would put her in horrible danger. I need you to come with me."

"Why?" she demanded, starting to be suspicious again.

"There's a princess who needs someone to supervise her— and not the Princess Margareta!" I added hastily, seeing Gwennie's face begin to go hard. There was no good way to explain it. "Please," I said desperately.

"Get some clothes on and come with me. I'm going to the East to find an Ifrit," hoping this would be as appealing to her as it was to Hadwidis.

"And we'd be gone a long time?" she said slowly.

"It might be a very long time," I agreed dully, wondering how long it would take to find Elerius again even if I did somehow manage to make an Ifrit obey me. All the stars were gone now, and from the kitchen, at the opposite end of the courtyard, I could hear the first faint clanking of pans.

Gwennie gave a sudden wicked grin. "Then His Most Royal Majesty King Paul will just have to deal with life without a castle constable for a while. Give me five minutes."

She closed her door behind her, leaving me standing on the steps. Far across the courtyard I could see a small figure advancing rapidly toward me.

I donned my invisibility spell again at once, but a voice spoke inside my head. "It's no use trying to hide. I'll just spot you again with Mother's magic ring." It was my daughter.

She raced across the courtyard and sprang into my arms as soon as I was visible again. For a moment I just rocked back and forth, oblivious to everything else in the pleasure of holding her again when I had thought I never might. But then I pulled my face away from her soft hair to look at her. "Antonia," I whispered, "how did you know I was here?"

She smiled quickly but proudly as she whispered back, "I figured out how to set up a spell to detect someone entering the castle, and then I calibrated it specifically for Elerius and for you." She must have felt my start of surprise, because she added as I released her, "He's not here, if that's what you're worried about."