She leaned her chin on her fist, faced I assumed, for one of the few times in her life, with a problem which her rapid mind and forceful nature could not readily solve. “Should you get some help from that school in the City?”
“No, I really can’t. My old instructor visited me this fall to check on how I was doing and to remind me that, once we leave the school, we have to solve our own problems. My predecessor at Yurt told me it was my problem now, and he was right.”
“How about the chaplain, if the demon is afraid of him?”
“That’s part of the reason I couldn’t ask for his help. We might be able to chase the demon around the castle forever, but at some point someone has to talk to it, someone trained in wizardry.” I was amazed to hear the calm tone of my voice, as though I actually believed I was going to do it. “I don’t think the demon is afraid of the chaplain personally, anyway, but only of the aura of the saints. If the chaplain was able to put off that aura long enough that the demon was willing to approach him, he would be destroyed-he doesn’t know magic, and he wouldn’t know the words to say.”
“Are you sure, in that case, that another wizard couldn’t help you?”
“When the chaplain saved the king’s life, he didn’t ask for help from the bishop. When I go against the demon, I have to be able to do it alone.” I lowered my wineglass, which I had finally emptied, and stood up. “Thank you, my lady. I think, from talking to you, that my mind is clearer.” Not that it could have been any more confused than it already was!
She rose as well. I put my hands on her shoulders, bent down, and kissed her gravely on the cheek.
As I went down the broad staircase from her chambers to the great hall, I noticed that almost everyone else had gone to bed. But Dominic and the young count were sitting in front of the fire, talking intently. As they heard my step, they looked up hurriedly, even guiltily.
But I had too much on my mind to worry about them. All I had to do, before the twelve days of Christmas ended and everyone decided it was time to go home and start repairs on the castle, was to read the Diplomatica Diabolica properly at last, learn to deal with a demon as I had boasted to the chaplain when I first came to Yurt that I had been trained to do, find out somehow who had summoned the demon in the first place, and discover if that summons had involved asking the demon for the special advantages in this world which will destroy one’s soul in the next.
II
The sunrise brought a clear and cold day, perfect, several of the knights assured me, for a boar hunt. The morning also brought the departure of the old count and his wife.
“At our age, all this excitement and upheaval become a little wearying,” the countess explained to the duchess as they pulled on their gloves in the great hall.
“But we’re still willing to have everyone come after New Year’s, if you want!” the count assured the king. “Just send us a message so we’ll expect you.”
No one in fact believed this, and it was not meant to be believed. I was fairly confident that the duchess would be able to keep the party here for another week, through Epiphany, but at that point the king and queen would insist on returning home. Considering that I had been wondering since summer who had been practicing magic with evil intent, a week did not seem very long to discover who had summoned the demon and how to send it back again.
The old count’s departure caused some shuffling in rooms. The Lady Maria, as royal aunt, took the chamber the count and countess had shared for herself, while some of the ladies who had been squeezed in together took up the space that she vacated. The ladies insisted that they had to be along to see the boar captured, so the hunt did not actually leave until mid-morning.
“Don’t expect pork for supper even if you do catch it,” the cook said darkly. “Game’s got to be hung at least a few days, as I hope you know, or it will be too chewy to eat.”
“We’ll have it for New Year’s, then,” said the young count.
I rode out with the hunt because almost everyone healthy enough to ride was going, and I had some vague hope that someone might reveal his or her evil nature in the excitement of the chase. The duchess was wearing a disreputable man’s cloak, already stained with the blood of scores of hunts. The queen, as if in response, mounted her stallion wearing an extremely elegant scarlet riding habit that I knew she had ordered packed in from the City.
We were joined by several men from the village, both mounted and on foot. The duchess’s hounds were loosed and raced off across the stubble and into the woods, sniffing intently. I wondered absently if it would be possible to breed a hound who would have a nose to sniff out black magic.
For half an hour almost nothing happened. Then I discovered I was riding next to the young count, who was wearing a beautifully-tailored riding jacket and whose very horse seemed to be looking at mine with scorn.
But he spoke without scorn. “Look, Wizard, we’ve been talking, and it’s clear you need some help.”
My first thought was that the duchess had betrayed me. “What kind of help?” I said as casually as I could. I certainly did not want the young count trying to meddle with the demon.
“Prince Dominic told me your problem,” he continued. At least, I thought, I could retract my bitter thoughts about the duchess. “He said there’s a renegade wizard back in the royal castle.”
I had, I remembered, told the knights of Yurt that the stranger was some type of wizard, but I had hardly expected Dominic to start telling the young count about it.
“He told me you’d been having some trouble with it, and we guessed that it might even have summoned the dragon.”
I didn’t like the way his guesses were getting closer and closer to the mark, and I especially didn’t like the slightly patronizing air in which he said it, an air calculated to stop far short of the insult that might bring on another transformation but present nonetheless. I tried to adopt an air of mysterious wisdom and nodded in silence.
“Well, do you want my help, or don’t you?” he said. My silence was beginning to irritate him.
“Wizards can only be combatted by other wizards. Surely Prince Dominic understands the powers of magic even if you don’t.”
“Well, I hope you don’t mind my saying this,” in a tone that implied that he certainly hoped I did mind, “but Sir Dominic suggested that you were still a fairly inexperienced wizard, which was why you hadn’t been able to make any progress against this other wizard. So my plan was to go to Yurt and catch him.”
“Go to Yurt and catch him?” I repeated idiotically.
“Of course,” he said, clearly thinking Dominic was right about me. “It was my idea. Even a wizard won’t be able to stand up against an army of knights!”
“You’d be surprised at what a wizard can do. Did Dominic tell you that he and the other knights already spent most of one day chasing that ‘wizard’ without being able to catch him?”
He dismissed this with a wave of his elegant hand. “This time, I’ll be leading. There’s no need to thank me; as the king’s loyal vassal, I’m always eager to assist.” He kicked his horse and rode away, toward the baying of the hounds, before I could answer.
Last month, I thought, the demon had only showed itself to us because it wanted to taunt me. If a body of knights suddenly tried to roust it by force from the cellars, it would be furious, furious enough that I would never be able to negotiate with it, even assuming I knew what to say. And a non-cooperative demon was going to be the least of my problems. If the count led a band of knights toward Yurt tomorrow morning, I was quite sure they would all be dead by night.