I tiptoed past him and went into the room where I had been staying. The only thing I could do was leave at once. I gathered up my clothes and books and packed everything neatly in my box.
But where could I go, and, even more importantly, where was Theodora? Maybe she had had a fit and died in the night. Maybe the old bishop, in dying, had reached out a demonic hand to take her soul with his.
This last was too unlikely, even in my worried state. But I did not like my other ideas any better. Had she been kidnapped and dragged from the city? Had an evil wizard ambushed her and taken her to wherever he and his nefarious magic were hiding?
Or, most devastating of all, did she not want to see me?
“No,” I said aloud. I could not think of this as the most devastating, no matter what it did to my self-esteem. I would rather have her alive and furious with me, for reasons I could not begin to fathom, than to have her in dire captivity or even dead.
Had Theodora felt violated by my attentions? I found it hard to accept this; it was she who had led the way to the grove. Since I was a wizard, not a priest, I had, as I had told her, not sinned against institutionalized magic by being with her. But if I had somehow, unintentionally but horribly, frightened her or hurt her, I had sinned against Theodora herself. As I thought again of our walk back to the city last night, it became more and more clear that she did not want to marry me.
Had she all along been the sort of witch I had feared when I first met her, only interested in men to satisfy her mad lusts? Maybe the woman I thought I had come to know and love this summer had all been a facade.
“Theodora!” I shouted inside my mind. “Where are you?” Any wizard or witch within five miles should have been able to hear me.
There was no response, but I had expected none. After sitting glumly on the bed for a few more minutes, I stood up abruptly to go out. Joachim had not moved. I closed the door quietly behind me as I stepped into the street.
The rain had let up. As I came around to the front of the cathedral, I saw that the numbers of townspeople coming to pay their final respects to the bishop had grown.
I headed out through the city gates and wandered through the long, wet grass, finding no clues and not even sure what I was seeking. I stared out along the road leading from the city, and, in the distance, could see a galloping horse coming toward me.
It was a red roan stallion, and in a moment I could see that the rider was Paul. No one was with him, and he rode as though pursued by demons. My heart felt as though a hand had clutched it.
With Theodora either held captive by an evil wizard or furious with me, and with Joachim lost to me forever, I had been thinking that nothing worse could possibly happen. But now I knew it could.
PART FIVE — THE FUNERAL
I
Paul reined in the stallion and leaped off lightly. The sun broke from behind a cloud at the same time. “Wizard!” he cried with a smile. “I’ve come to look for you!”
I went weak in the knees as I realized that nothing could be as horribly wrong in Yurt as I had feared. “But why are you alone?” I managed to ask. “And why were you riding so fast?”
“Bonfire loves to run,” he said nonchalantly. Indeed, the stallion did not seem at all winded by the gallop. “I must have left the other knights some miles back.”
“It’s dangerous,” I said sternly, “for a prince to ride around unprotected.”
Paul smiled again. I had not remembered that he was half a head taller than I. “I’ve got my sword and shield,” he said, “and I know how to use them. And Bonfire can outrun any bandits in the western kingdoms. Besides, I don’t think there even are many bandits anymore-haven’t you wizards from the school gotten rid of most of them?”
I would have been interested in Paul’s thoughts about the wizards’ school, but not now. “You haven’t said why you’re here.”
We went in through the city gates, the stallion’s reins looped over Paul’s arm. He saw the black ribbons along the street. “Has someone important died?”
“Yes, the bishop. But why are you here?” I persisted.
“Mother wanted to find out how you were doing, and she said she didn’t like to telephone the cathedral to ask about a wizard. Did you find their monster?”
“Not yet,” I said cautiously, wondering what intention of the queen’s might lie behind this terse message.
“So the bishop died,” said Paul. “He was very old, wasn’t he? I wonder who the new bishop will be.”
I realized we were walking briskly through the city streets as we talked. “Where are we going, anyway?”
“To the castle, of course,” said Paul in surprise. “That’s where I’ll be staying.”
“But Prince Lucas is there.”
Paul was even more surprised. “Prince Lucas? Mother mentioned that she’d sent him permission to make a brief stay, but he should have been gone weeks ago.” He grinned disarmingly. “Well, we’re both royal princes, but I’ll be king of Yurt in not much more than a month, whereas he may not be king of Caelrhon for years, and it is, after all, our castle!” He continued on, apparently looking forward to putting Prince Lucas out by force if necessary.
I hurried behind him. “I’ve never known,” I said as I caught up again, “why only the king of Yurt has a castle here in the cathedral city when the city is located within the kingdom of Caelrhon.”
“Did you never study the history of Yurt?” asked Paul.
“Of course not,” I said in exasperation. I felt myself fortunate to know what little I did about the history of wizardry.
“Well, Father taught it to me. It’s actually quite interesting now, with Mother planning to marry Vincent, because-”
He stopped without finishing the sentence. Before I could do more than note that he now seemed capable of speaking of his mother’s marriage without despair, he reached into his pocket. “I’m sorry, I almost forgot. Mother said to give this to you.”
It was a large white envelope, sealed with the queen’s crimson seal, and much too heavy to have been sent by the pigeons. The image on the seal was a tiny picture of a crowned woman, and around the edge ran the inscription, “Regina Regensque Yurtiae,” Queen and Regent of Yurt.
I tore the envelope open while Paul stood a short distance away, trying to appear politely uninterested in my correspondence. At first I thought the letter was shaking, and then I realized it was my hands.
In spite of Theodora, I realized as I saw the familiar black sprawling handwriting, I was still in love with the queen. A very faint scent came from the letter; it must have been a perfume she always wore of which I had never before been consciously aware.
The message was brief. “I don’t know what you have thought or what you have imagined, but you are still Royal Wizard of Yurt. Come home as soon as you can. Give our love to Father Joachim.” At the bottom of the page, squeezed in as though an afterthought, were the words, “Paul and Vincent and I all need you.”
I was still wizard of Yurt, even if she sent her love only to Joachim and not to me. I didn’t know if I was glad or not. I looked up and met Paul’s inquiring eyes. “Your mother wanted to make sure I was back for your coming of age ceremony,” I said.
He smiled. “But I told her you’d promised to be there! And of course,” he added casually, “you’ll be there for the wedding the next day.”
I caught my breath between my teeth. “Her wedding?” I said slowly over the hard pounding of my heart. “I thought she didn’t plan to marry for months and months!” I was the cause of this, I thought. My impetuous avowals had made the queen move up her wedding to avoid anything similar in the future.
“That’s because she and Vincent had originally planned to be married in the cathedral here,” said Paul. He spoke without concern, but for a second I thought I spotted behind his calm words a determination not to make a childish fuss over something he could not change. “But then they realized that as soon as I’m king, there will be nothing improper about the queen-mother marrying the prince of the neighboring kingdom. So they’ll have the ceremony when everyone is already assembled at Yurt for my coronation.”