“But how did you know we’d come back to the royal castle?” I prompted when she fell silent.
“Sir Dominic and the young count guessed it,” she continued with a quick glance at me. “They said there was an ‘evil wizard’ here in the castle, who had summoned the dragon. And they said that you must have gone back to fight him all by yourself, even though they’d offered to help you. And the count said- I really would just as soon not repeat it, sir.”
“It’s all right, Gwen. Go on.”
“-he said,” she paused, then went on defiantly, “he said that you would make matters with the evil wizard even worse through your ‘incompetence’! I knew you weren’t incompetent, sir. But they wouldn’t listen to me. The count started to gather the knights at once.”
“But they listened to the duchess?”
“That’s right,” she said in surprise. “How did you know? She told them it wasn’t another wizard at all, but a demon in the cellars! She said that you and the chaplain must have gone without telling anyone because you were afraid that the knights would imperil their souls by trying to fight it without realizing what it was.”
I considered this for a moment. “Did she say where the demon had come from?” I asked casually.
“Well, from hell, I assume,” Gwen said in confusion and fell silent.
So the duchess had not revealed everything I had told her. With luck, no one else had guessed that demons were unlikely to appear without reason in one of the smallest of the western kingdoms. I thought very affectionately of the duchess. Someone would have to have a long and private conversation with the Lady Maria; I would ask Joachim to do so. Maria might guess her own role in bringing both the demon and the dragon to Yurt, I thought, but I did not want to say anything to her myself. Besides, matters of the soul’s salvation were the chaplain’s responsibility.
“It’s back in hell now,” I said to Gwen, who was giving me a wide-eyed stare again, “and I’m alive and still own my soul. But you haven’t told me yet why you’re all here.”
“It was the king and queen. They said that if the two of you were fighting a demon to save their kingdom, it was their responsibility to be here with you. In the end, everyone came, though we had to leave the boar and the Christmas tree in the duchess’s castle. It was late evening when we got here.”
“And what happened then?” I asked when she fell silent.
She shook her head as though to shake off a strong emotion. “The castle was dark and empty, and strange-the stones were all oddly warm, and there were rats and bats and roaches all over the place-”
She gave a shiver of disgust. I nodded; I knew exactly what it had been like.
“I think the count would have gone straight into the cellars after the demon if he could have, but he couldn’t even get down the stairs. There were big yellow clouds pouring out of the cellar door; the duchess’s chaplain told us it was brimstone, from the demon.”
I didn’t know whether to admire the young count’s courage or wonder at his foolhardiness-he had prudently stayed inside during the dragon’s attack.
“Jon and I found our royal chaplain. He was lying in front of the altar in the chapel, and for a minute we were afraid he’d been killed! But when Jon touched him on the shoulder, he sat up suddenly-I’ll never forget the way his eyes looked.”
It sounded as though the castle had been an exciting place while I was dead. I was sorry to have missed it.
“He said-” Her voice dropped so low I could hardly hear it. “He said that you were dead, sir. And then he said that, in the name of Christ, we had to leave him alone to pray for you, and not to go into the cellars if we valued our immortal souls!
“Jon and I told the king and queen at once. The duchess’s chaplain wanted us all to leave the castle immediately, but they said they wouldn’t run away, and besides it was too dark and too cold to go anywhere else. We didn’t even know if the demon was still in the cellars, or if you had been able to defeat it before it killed you, but there wasn’t much we could do but wait.
“Nothing happened for most of the night. We were all too sad and frightened to go to bed. We sat in the kitchens or else went out in the courtyard to see if anything had changed. Even when the clouds of brimstone started to clear, we didn’t dare do anything. Then suddenly, toward dawn, our chaplain appeared in the courtyard. He was carrying the big silver crucifix from the chapel altar, and he went right by us as though we weren’t even there. When he came back from the cellars, an hour later, he was carrying you.”
She fell silent, and I lay back in bed. This explained the faces and voices I had half perceived in the courtyard.
“We knew then that his prayers had been answered,” she continued quietly after a moment, “and that you had been returned to life. All day yesterday, he sat with you and wouldn’t tell us anything, except that thanks to God you were alive. I think the duchess may have tried to speak to him briefly, but everyone else, even the king, stayed away from your room. But this morning, before service, the chaplain stopped at the kitchens to say you were better.”
Gwen suddenly jumped up. “I’m sorry to keep you talking, sir. I’ll get your food right away.”
“Maybe ask the cook for a cheese omelet this time, to go with the crullers,” I said. “And bring another pot of tea. By the way, are you ever going to tell me what Jon gave you for Christmas?”
She shook her head, blushing, and hurried out.
Joachim came in as she was leaving, taking the door from her. “There were a lot of people at chapel service this morning,” he commented.
“I’m not surprised,” I said. “I’ll go tomorrow myself if I can walk that far, or the next morning for sure.”
He sat down on the bed next to me and gave me a long look from under his eyebrows. “Whenever you can come to chapel, I’ll celebrate a special thanksgiving service for your return to life. You already look better.”
“I feel better. Could you hand me the wash basin and a comb?”
I scrubbed my face, getting the last of the aura of brimstone off, and looked critically at the roots of my beard and hair while I was combing them. Three days ago, at the duchess’s castle, I had seen chestnut colored roots starting to appear and had thought I would have to apply the grey dye again once I was home. But I had no dark roots now. My hair and beard were coming in white.
“But how about you?” I asked Joachim. “Haven’t you let anyone else sit with me?
He shook his head. “I’m responsible for you.”
“Have you even gotten any sleep in the last two days?” Several times, during the day and the night that I had slept, I had awakened, but always to see him sitting nearby, to hear his voice saying something, although I had always been asleep again before he had completed the sentence. Now his eyes looked as peaceful as I had ever seen them, but the skin was drawn tight over his cheekbones.
“A little. I dozed in your chair last night. But I didn’t want to leave you.”
“You should go get some rest now,” I said. “I’ll be all right by myself.”
He stood up, yawning. “Maybe I will.”
“But there’s one thing I want to ask you, before Gwen comes back. Since I’ve already died once, with a pure heart, does that count? When I die again, will they have to assess my soul again, or will the previous assessment still stand?”
He smiled, even though I had been perfectly serious. “Maybe some day I really will understand your sense of humor. To answer your question, I don’t think enough people have ever come back from the dead to make this point theologically clear. There are things that none of us will ever know on this earth. But if you’re asking for my opinion, not the theologians’ position, as long as you live you can do good and you can sin, and your soul will be judged accordingly.”