It was a good thing, I thought, that he didn’t hear some of the more inappropriate things I had refrained from saying about the organized church.
“And then this evening,” Joachim went on inexorably, “it’s as though some new and very strange ideas had come to you. I’d assumed you were as worried as all of us about the magical apparitions, but I soon realized that was not all. What then is it?”
This was the one question I felt I could not answer. I knew he would be shocked if I told him I had tried to propose to the queen, even if I could make him understand why I had and why her refusal was so devastating. And I certainly couldn’t tell him that I had just met an extremely intriguing witch, even though, I reminded myself firmly, our relationship was completely innocent and was going to stay that way.
“I’m more upset about your cathedral than I think you realize,” I prevaricated, still not looking at him. “It’s a blow to my self-esteem as a wizard not to be able to find out yet who or what caused the bat-winged creature to appear. And the wizards at the school specifically warned me about threats to wizardry from the priesthood. I know it’s not you, but it makes me uneasy to be surrounded by so many priests without knowing what’s behind the warning.” I dared at last to look up; I had been clasping my empty glass and staring into it. Joachim reached for the bottle and poured both of us more wine.
“And you think this goes beyond the general fear by wizards of becoming involved in religion,” he said, “where all the shortcomings of wizardry will be revealed?”
“I’m not sure how seriously to take it,” I answered, relieved to have distracted him from his original question and deliberately ignoring the second half of this statement. “And then your bishop tried to suggest that the wizards are trying to get a toehold in all the cathedral cities. Do you know where he got that idea?”
The dean shook his head without answering.
“And did you know that Prince Lucas, Prince Vincent, the royal chaplain of Yurt, and apparently a lot of other people are talking about a wizardly plot to dominate the aristocracy?”
Joachim cocked an eyebrow. “The chaplain accused you to your face of this plot?”
“Forgive me,” I said, “but I don’t like that young chaplain. He gets on my nerves somehow-maybe because he’s so unlike you.”
“I didn’t appoint him,” said Joachim, “but I had thought you’d be pleased to have someone else at court who enjoys a hearty laugh.”
“Lots of people in Yurt already enjoy a good laugh,” I said, “from the queen and Paul down to the stable boys. But I wouldn’t call the chaplain’s laugh ‘hearty.’ This may sound odd coming from a wizard, but I like to see a chaplain with more moral depth.” What I would really have liked, though I knew it was impossible, was to see Joachim back in Yurt again.
The dean looked at me with raised eyebrows, considering. “I am afraid that too many seminary students these days do use the knowledge that the world is God’s creation as an excuse to enjoy it too fully, without considering their ultimate responsibility to save human souls. It would certainly be possible to give the royal court of Yurt a different chaplain, but I would not do so without a better reason than personal antipathy from the Royal Wizard.”
But then, I thought, I wasn’t Royal Wizard of Yurt anymore. “Paul thinks he has an impure mind.”
Joachim looked alarmed. “What does that mean?”
“I think it means that Paul distrusts the discussions the Lady Maria has with him.”
“I believe the Lady Maria can defend herself from impure thoughts very well,” said Joachim. If he was making a joke he looked perfectly sober. “Perhaps you should discuss this wizardly ‘plot’ with Prince Lucas,” he continued, “while you are both here in Caelrhon.”
“He won’t want to talk to me. He almost attacked me today.”
“Maybe some way could be arranged for the two of you to spend time together,” said the dean thoughtfully.
I took a sip of wine and leaned back in my chair. “Did you ever think,” I said, changing the topic abruptly, “that it might be nice to give all this up?”
“Give what up?”
“These responsibilities. I know you feel the burden even more than I do. We’re supposed to be responsible for the young wizards and the young priests, for organizing and carrying out the important functions of our institutions, but after a while who wants the aggravation?”
“What are you suggesting we do instead?”
“I think the Romneys have the right idea,” I said, pushing my glass forward for more wine. “When they get tired of being in the same place too long, they leave. I know they’re rumored not to be Christians, so you might not want to travel with them, but we could have our own caravan, drawn by our own pony.”
“And what would we and our pony do?” asked Joachim. A faint smile hovered near his lips.
“We could go from town to town, see all of the different cities and castles-and even the pilgrimage churches-in the western kingdoms, and when we had finished with those we could start on the eastern kingdoms.”
“What would we live on?”
“I could do magic tricks, and you could work a few simple miracles, and people would pay us.”
Joachim poured out the last of the wine. “You realize of course,” he said, “that that’s your most inappropriate suggestion yet.” But the smile had reached his eyes.
PART FOUR — THEODORA
I
During the following weeks I saw Theodora every day. The first morning I strolled through the city for several hours, probing for wizards or magical creatures and seeing no one I knew except Prince Lucas, who turned deliberately away. Finally I spotted her coming out of a garment retailer’s. But after that I abandoned all pretense and we arranged our meetings.
I did not telephone the school again. Zahlfast thought I should be home in Yurt, and I was unsure how to tell him I had resigned. And, at least so far, my presence did seem to be keeping monsters away from Caelrhon. And it was easy to find excuses to stay in the city now that I had met Theodora.
We usually got together late in the afternoon, when the light was poorer for close hand-sewing. After a few hours every morning of searching in an increasingly desultory way for a powerful wizard I did not particularly want to find, or of going through my spells once again in a fruitless search for one that might work against monsters, I was gladder each day to see her. Strolling in the fresh air outside the city walls or sitting in the grass, thick with wildflowers, where the Romneys had camped, Theodora and I discussed magic. She explained fire magic to me, and I taught her some of the magic of light and air.
“You call it the Hidden Language?” she asked. “My mother simply called it the language of magic. She said it had no grammar, only words and phrases to be memorized, but I’ve long suspected it must have an internal logic of its own. Otherwise, you couldn’t create new spells.”
I felt vaguely uneasy teaching magic to a witch. The Master of the wizards’ school, I suspected, would disapprove. I rationalized that I was no longer Royal Wizard of Yurt, and that I would not want to return to the school either if they persisted in their belief that I would be good at teaching in the technical division, and thus I was not bound by the practices of institutionalized magic. Besides, this was not some witch in the abstract: this was Theodora.
The grass grew so tall around us that someone else would have spotted us and stepped on us at the same time. She sat with her legs tucked demurely under her while I sprawled back on my elbows, looking up at her. The breeze blew tendrils of hair across her face, half obscuring it. “And have you created any new spells of your own?” I asked.