“Let’s not stand here being irritated any longer,” Theodora said with a sudden smile, taking my arm. Market day was finishing, and we had been pushing through the jammed streets on our unsuccessful search. “Let’s walk outside the walls and think about something completely different. Then if he thinks he’s safe and lets his guard down, we’ll have him.”
In the weeks I had known Theodora, the season had passed from spring to summer. The early wildflowers were over, but the flowers that bloomed in the high grasses of summer were crowding toward the sky. While we normally had the Romneys’ old campground to ourselves, today because of all the people in town for market the area was scattered with carts and tents. Even market stalls had spilled out from the crowded streets.
She settled herself among the sun-baked blades and I flopped beside her, pulling her down so that her head was pillowed on my shoulder. It was very easy like this not to think about the wizard. The late afternoon sun cast shadows across Theodora’s face. She had unfastened the neck of her bodice, and with my free hand I stroked the side of her neck, then the line of her collar bone.
She smiled up at me through a veil of nut-brown hair. I wondered what she would do if my hand kept going. While wondering I started to kiss her and she kissed back, pressing herself close against me. Her fingers caressed my face, then slipped lightly across my chest and down my side and hip. Once again, it seemed, events were happening faster than I could plan or control them, and once again I seemed about to have a remarkably interesting series of experiences.
I drew back to catch my breath and look into the amethyst eyes so close to mine. There was no hesitation there, only affection. “You know,” I said, “nothing like this has happened to me since- Well, not for longer than I can really say.” Yurt was much too small a kingdom for private romantic interludes, and, besides, for close to twenty years I had been in love with the queen. I started kissing Theodora again.
This time she drew back, a smile flickering on her lips. “This isn’t exactly the most private place in the kingdom.”
I sat up abruptly, distracted and pulling bits of grass out of my beard. She was quite right. Although lying down we were hidden from view, several groups of people were walking or standing within twenty yards of us.
“Come on,” I said, standing up and holding out a hand for her. I didn’t know where we were going, but I did know I had never been so excited in my life.
Theodora straightened her skirt and rose. She took my hand and led me purposefully. Having trouble focusing on anything but her, I staggered along as well as I could.
She took a short-cut between two large silken tents. Although there were voices all around us, the narrow space between the tents was sheltered from view. I clasped Theodora to me and kissed her face, her neck, her shoulders, murmuring endearments I had not realized I knew. My blood was rushing through my head so fast I felt half blind.
Then I could feel her shoulders shaking, and I pulled myself away in alarm, incoherent pleadings frozen on my lips. But she was laughing. “Do you just not like privacy?”
“This is private!”
“Until someone else decides to take the same short-cut. Come with me; I told you I knew where to go.”
Once again she led me by the hand, away from the market stalls, the tents, and the people. I passed my free hand over my brow. It felt fevered, in spite of the breeze dancing around us.
We walked a mile toward a small grove of trees, at the edge of which black berry bushes created a nearly impenetrable tangle. Theodora had started to pull long, thorned stalks back to make a path when I remembered that I was a wizard and flew both of us up and over the brambles.
Beyond the briars enormous trees stood tall and still. Very little underbrush flourished in their shade. Theodora kept on walking. The grove felt permeated with magic, the same wild mix of unfocused magic that could have concealed any number of spells as in the valley of the Cranky Saint back home in Yurt. But I had no attention to give to spells.
“No one comes here,” Theodora said. The trees opened out suddenly, and a spring bubbled out of the ground in the center of an emerald stretch of grass. I saw that someone had built a little springhouse, but the stonework looked ancient. Beyond the spring, looking out of place, was a jagged boulder twenty feet high. “My father knew these woods,” she continued, “and he used to bring me here to practice climbing when I was very small.”
I was not interested in her youthful climbing experiences. I turned her toward me. “Is this then finally private enough for you?”
She gave me a long look from beneath her lashes. “I should certainly think so,” she said with a smile, and I took her in my arms at last.
V
Afterwards we lay on the soft grass and watched the sun turn red beyond the trees. I felt happier than I ever had in my life. “Will you marry me?”
Theodora had been lying with her head on my chest. Now she sat up and scrambled around to face me. For a second she seemed almost alarmed, then she smiled, although somewhat tentatively. “This seems an odd time to ask!”
“I mean it. I’m just sorry I didn’t ask you before.”
She lay down beside me again, one arm across me and her lips grazing mine as we talked. “But everyone knows wizards don’t marry.”
I was getting tired of hearing this. “Don’t you know I love you, Theodora? This isn’t just a pleasant interlude during an extended visit to town. I don’t want to go on unless you’re beside me.”
Her amethyst eyes again looked troubled, but then she smiled. “Aren’t you going to have trouble explaining this in Yurt? No king wants to have a Royal Witch alongside his Royal Wizard.”
“It won’t be a problem. I should have told you this long ago. When I left Yurt, I resigned as Royal Wizard.”
“But what will you do?” she asked in what sounded like genuine distress.
“I thought we could have a caravan like the Romneys. If an old magician can make a living doing magic tricks at fairs, we should certainly be able to as well-after all, our magic is a lot better!”
She was silent for a moment, and I could sense a tension in her that I had not expected at what seemed to me a delightful proposal. But in a few seconds she relaxed and smiled.
“Let me give you my eagle ring, then,” I said, encouraged, and started tugging at it.
She forestalled me with a hand on mine. “I can’t wear a wizard’s ring that’s too big for me!” she said with her usual amused look. “Besides, I already have a magic ring of my own. What I have from you is much more valuable than any ring. Come on! We’d better get back to the city soon, and it won’t be fun scrambling through the briars once it gets dark.”
With clothes neatly arranged and hair smoothed, we walked through the silent trees like a decorous couple coming home from an innocent ramble. Once again I flew us over the briars. Outside the woods the breeze found us, cool now that the sun was setting. A mile away, the last of the sunlight glittered on the cathedral towers. I put my arms around Theodora and kissed her thoroughly. Her firm, slim body in my arms seemed like a gift: not mine by right, but given to me.
“You still haven’t said you’d marry me,” I said, smiling down at her.
“Isn’t a woman supposed to have a little time to consider a proposal?” she said with a teasing look. “After all, it seems that if I accept you I’ll be accepting a caravan and a pony.”
“We can work something out,” I said comfortably as we strolled back toward the city. “We could have a donkey or a horse instead of a pony.”
It was nearly dark by the time we reached Theodora’s house. She paused with her key in the lock. “Well, good-night.”
“What do you mean, good-night? I can’t leave you now!”
She stretched up to kiss me. “Your friend the dean will be horrified if you spend the night with a witch.”