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

"Don't tell me," I said bitterly. "The holy hermit has decided that being the head of the most important diocese in the West is much too active a life for somebody who wanted to devote himself to solitary prayer.

Especially
since an angel has been showing up, telling him it's fine to step down: an angel with a black beard and illusory wings."

The sun was a glint in Joachim's dark eyes. "I do not believe Elerius has been quite that blatant. But when the hermit indeed did, as might have been expected, return to his hermitage a few months ago, the cathedral chapter was faced with resolving the same internal split they had been unable to resolve two years ago. And Elerius, expressing what he says is a deep yearning for the wizards' school and the Church to work together for the betterment of humanity, has thrown his support behind one of the candidates."

"Where is he
getting
these ideas?" I demanded.

For a moment Joachim looked amused. He could find amusement in the strangest places. "He may have gotten this idea from you and me."

If Elerius intended to turn even my friendship with Joachim into part of his schemes, there was nothing he would not do. "So is it too late?" I asked quietly.

The bishop stopped smiling. "His candidate has not yet prevailed. Too many of the cathedral priests are uncomfortable either with the man himself or with his backing from the wizards' school. As much as I myself believe that some of my colleagues are too quick to dismiss the idea that any good can be found in a wizard, in this case their caution is salutary."

I didn't answer. For all I knew he was being amused again.

He turned his enormous black eyes on me. Even after all these years, I still sometimes found Joachim's gaze disconcerting. "So, Daimbert, what are you planning to do to stop him?"

First the Master, now the bishop. What had I ever done to make the two men I respected most think I might somehow be able to stop the best wizard ever to come out of the school? "I'm not going to do
anything
," I snapped. "You priests can try to find a way to keep his influence out of the Church, but there's nothing I can do to keep him out of the direction of the wizards' school. I guess there's still a chance that the citizens of the City will have too much sense to elect him mayor, and maybe King Paul and some of the other western kings can prevail upon his royal family to have someone else act as regent there, but all the faculty at the school will be delighted to have him as their new Master."

"I can see this will be very delicate," said Joachim thoughtfully. "I am sure you wizards don't think of God as speaking through the electors, as cathedral priests do when they elect a new bishop, but it may still be difficult, at least at first, to persuade others to join you in opposing a man whom they have just chosen to head organized wizardry."

"Didn't you hear me?" I burst out. "I just said I
wasn't
going to oppose him. Even if I didn't know perfectly well that any magic I tried against him would blow up in my face, at least I'd recognize the horrible danger—to Theodora and to Antonia, and for that matter to everyone in Yurt, as well as to me. I'm going to stay quietly at home and hope he doesn't think about me at all."

"Yes," said Joachim as though I had made a different comment altogether. "I understand that you might not want to trust even me with your plans, at least at this early stage. Secrecy may be vital, though I rather doubt Elerius has spies here in the cathedral. But I do want you to know that I shall always pray for you and will help you in any other way that I can. All you need do is ask."

It was a good thing, I thought as I flew home to Yurt, that I hadn't told Theodora all of Elerius's plans. Normally I hated to keep things from her, but this was different. She— and for that matter Antonia—would probably have offered their help too in what could only be a suicidal effort. The thought of Antonia trying to oppose Elerius, armed only with a few transformations spells he had taught her himself, made my blood run cold.

But it wouldn't hurt, I thought grumpily as the air cart banked over the castle, to take a look at the ancient wizard's spells. Then, once it was conclusive that what the Master seemed to think was my only hope was instead completely impossible, the issue would stop nagging at me.

King Paul met me in the castle courtyard as I carefully set my air cart down outside my chamber doors. "How is your wife?" he asked with what seemed unusual enthusiasm. "It must be delightful to be married—being with the one you love best, acknowledging your love to all."

"Theodora is fine, thank you," I said, wondering what could have caused this sudden interest. He had been a witness, standing next to me at a side altar in the cathedral when Joachim married Theodora and me, but he had never before burst into paeans in praise of matrimony.

"You wizards probably don't know what it is to be afraid," he added in an apparently abrupt change of topic.

"Actually I have an excellent idea," I said testily, but he gave no sign that he'd even heard.

"I'm going to do it, Wizard," he continued with a rather forced grin.

"But I may want you there in case I start to get cold feet."

I didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about and told him so, just barely keeping full-blown irritation out of my voice. He still didn't seem to notice.

"It's wondering what Mother is going to say about my choice that's the worst," he said. It slowly dawned on me through my own concerns that my liege lord was extremely nervous about something.

And the most likely explanation was that he had finally decided to get married. Ever since Paul had become king of Yurt, over ten years ago, there had been a steady parade of princesses and well-born ladies who just happened to be traveling through our part of the Western Kingdoms and stopped to visit the royal family. The existence of a handsome young king with emerald eyes and an excellent temper was bound to attract attention.

Some of the young ladies had stayed a few days, some a few weeks. Paul was friendly to all of them, gave balls in their honor, and waved cheerfully from the battlements as they rode away at last. His mother was equally friendly to all, but her own candidate for new queen of Yurt remained Princess Margareta of Caelrhon. Margareta had been selected as queen of choice when she was not much older than Antonia, and while waiting for Paul to make up his mind she had grown into an elegant and languorous young woman.

"It's silly to be this nervous," said Paul, wiping his hands on his trouser legs.

I didn't want to worry about my king's romantic life on top of everything else, but I reminded myself firmly that it was of primary importance to everybody else in Yurt. And since wizards, even incapable wizards like me, lived longer than anyone else, if I was going to stay holed up here forever it should also be important to me who would give birth to the king I would serve after Paul. "Your mother must have figured out by now that you're not interested in the Princess Margareta."

"It's not that," he said, stepping back and forth from one foot to the other. I saw him realize what he was doing and make himself stop. He clenched his fists and looked full at me for the first time. "Wizard, I'm going to marry Gwennie."

"Well, I guess that's wonderful, sire," I muttered, since some answer seemed called for. Inwardly I was much more stunned than I dared show.

It was one thing to think in the abstract about two young people who suited each other very well, another to imagine what the kings of the surrounding kingdoms—and for that matter the masters of the wizards'

school—would say if Gwennie actually became queen of Yurt. "I hope you'll be very happy together."

"She said she'd meet me here," he said, glancing from side to side. This time of the day my end of the courtyard was generally deserted. "So I'm going to ask her now." "Then I'll just step into my chambers and—" But he caught my arm. "Keep your window open. I'd really feel better if I knew you were right there."

I obediently tied the air cart to a ring outside my door and went inside, where I could look out and watch Paul fidget. Even with the window open I was fairly well screened by climbing roses. I had previously thought myself that he ought to marry Gwennie, but now that it came down to it all the reasons why it would be an incredible social gaffe rushed to my attention. And I could certainly appreciate why he was nervous about telling his mother.

There was a rapid click of heels, and Gwennie came around the corner.

Blonde like the king and exactly the same age, his childhood friend, his trusted assistant in everything to do with the functioning of the castle, Gwennie was the daughter of the castle cook and was castle constable in her own right. "Sorry I'm late, Paul, uh, sire," she said with a smile, pinning back stray tendrils of hair. "That messenger from Caelrhon brought a whole pile of tradesmen's bills this morning, and I'm sure some of them can't be right. For example, you didn't have a jeweler set a diamond into a ring last week, did you?"

"Um, well, actually, Gwennie, I did." There was a brief pause.

"Gwendolyn."

"You did?" She sounded surprised. "In that case, I won't send the jeweler the rather sharp message I've just been composing. But I wish you'd told me."

Paul seemed momentarily unable to continue. In many ways he was still the same good-hearted, reckless, perennially cheerful young man he had been when he assumed the throne, so easy-going that it sometimes seemed that the only thing to stir his passion was his stud stables. His mother focused on the need for a royal heir to the kingdom; I kept thinking instead that he ought to become more sober and regal—more like his father, except that his father had already been very old when I knew him. A nagging voice in the back of my mind liked to point out that I hadn't been any more mature when I was Paul's age, but I had an answer to that one: I'd been a brand-new graduate from the wizards' school, whereas Paul was a king.

"The ring was supposed to be a secret," he brought out. "A splendid secret."

Through my curtain of roses I could see Gwennie stiffen. "Shall I be the first, sire," she said in a formal and artificial voice, "to wish you and the Princess Margareta joy?"

"No, no, no," said Paul quickly. "I'm sorry, Gwennie. I'm going at this altogether wrong." He took her arm and dropped it again. "But you don't need to worry about Margareta."

She raised one eyebrow quizzically. "Then what
do
I need to worry about?"

Paul floundered for a second, then threw himself resolutely onto his knees at her feet. "Gwendolyn," he said in a high voice that didn't sound anything like him, "Gwennie, dearest, I want to ask you to be my queen.

The ring, this ring," fumbling it out of his pocket, "is a symbol of the love and harmony we shall share together." After a moment he added, as if reciting a lesson, "A diamond, the hardest of all the minerals, stands for the permanence of our bond."

Gwennie seemed unable to speak. Paul rose to his feet and dusted off his knees. "Here, go on, put it on your finger," he said in his normal voice.

Gwennie's hand closed around the ring but she did not put it on. "Glad that's over!" he continued conversationally. "I'm sure you're surprised.

After all, you've doubtless loved me for years, but you believed I thought of you as just the castle constable and my oldest chum."

Gwennie started to say something but Paul was still speaking, and she drew back a step without interrupting. Her lips narrowed into a straight line I would have found ominous, but the king wasn't paying attention.

"Didn't you ever wonder why I never married any of the young women who've been thrown at me?" He sounded cheerful now, confident of the answer she had not yet given. "I realized a long time ago that none of them could ever be the same comfortable companion you've always been. And yet it was obvious I couldn't very well marry my own cook's daughter! And I didn't want to insult you by asking you to be my mistress. So I thought I might be like Father, who didn't marry anybody until he was so old he should have been a grandfather! In the meantime you and I could still be friends, and by the time we were old maybe no one would care anymore if we did get married."

From my window I could see a furious red working its way up Gwennie's cheeks. Paul didn't notice, and I had a feeling that my suddenly shouting out to him that he was doing this entirely wrong, and had to stop before he made it even worse, wouldn't help the situation anyway.

"So you're probably wondering why I'm asking you now. Too surprised to say anything?" he added, as though realizing for the first time that she was standing stiff and silent. "Well, I've decided that Mother has a point, I really do need an heir, and besides I've always liked kids myself. So I concluded it probably wasn't a good idea to wait too long if I was going to marry you eventually anyway. Then I had an idea: I can ennoble you! The royal chancellor over in Caelrhon just retired after serving two kings for years and years, and King Lucas gave him a patent of nobility as a reward for his faithful service. So I decided if I did the same for you, then nobody could throw your parentage up at us. Would you rather be a countess or a duchess—before, of course, becoming queen?"

Gwennie took a deep breath and found her voice at last. "Let me thank you," she said in a low tone, "thank you warmly for the honor you have done me. I'm sure it required considerable ingenuity to find a way that we might be married without your totally embarrassing yourself. But it will, I am certain, still be a considerable relief to you when I refuse."

Paul had been listening, his head tilted to one side, a smile on his lips.

When she paused, it took several seconds for the smile to dissolve. "What do you mean, refuse?" he demanded then.

Gwennie took his hand, pressed the ring into it, and stepped away. "I mean I will not marry you," she said. Her voice trembled for a second, but she steadied it. "And therefore you need not worry about making me a countess or a duchess or anything else. But I shall always be grateful for the thought."