“But what’s the problem?” asked the queen, concerned.
“We were here in Caelrhon this spring at the same time as he was. Lucas was talking about his wife-justifiably, I’m sure! — about all her beauty, skills, and accomplishments. Not to be outdone, of course, I started talking about the duchess,” with an affectionate glance toward his wife. “I told him there was no one in the twin kingdoms, man or woman, who could compare to her in riding or hunting.”
I paused in scanning the sky to feel briefly sorry for Lucas. When he was already feeling royal power diminished, it must have been bitter to hear himself compared unfavorably to a duchess.
“He seems to have taken it as an insult to the crown princess,” Ascelin continued, a smile crinkling the tanned skin by his eyes. “He challenged me to a sword fight-a bad idea, since I would have disarmed him immediately. Fortunately his wizard stopped the fight before it even started: paralyzed him where he stood and took the sword from his hands. Lucas transferred all his fury from me to his Royal Wizard, and I was able to escape, calling apologies over my shoulder, while the prince was starting to tear into his wizard for lack of respect.”
I didn’t wait to hear any more. “Excuse me,” I said to the queen. “I’ll see you at the castle a little later.” To the young chaplain I added, “I hope Joachim outlives you.” And I hurried away.
Cutting around the cathedral’s hill, I headed for the artisans’ area to the east, the area where Theodora lived. I kept passing groups of townspeople, all in their Sunday finery, talking about the election. Normally I would have been interested in their reaction to their new bishop, but now I brushed past.
At the foot of Theodora’s street I paused. I could see her door and the upstairs window. It looked dark. A black and white shape darted in front of me: Theodora’s cat. I bent down, made clicking noises, and held out one hand. The cat hesitated, then recognized me and came to rub against my hand. It, at least, was happy to see me.
After a minute’s petting, the cat turned and trotted purposefully up the street. At its door, it sat down and began to meow. I came up quietly behind it. The door opened. “All right, kitty, come on in.”
The cat walked in, tail high. I took hold of the door to keep it from closing and found myself looking at Theodora.
Before I could think, I had clasped her in my arms and buried my face in her hair. Not until she pulled back a little, trying to wipe the tears from my cheek with one hand, did I realize I was crying.
“Daimbert?”
“Dear God, Theodora, for the last month I’ve thought you were dead.” I seized her again as though my embrace would make her immortal.
“But I’m not dead,” she managed to say, with the light, almost teasing note I knew so well. After envisioning so many horrible things, including that I had only imagined her existence, the feel of her in my arms was even better than I remembered.
“Or I thought you’d been captured by the wizard-or, or had even joined him.”
“What wizard?”
We were standing just inside her half-open door. I released her enough to be able to see her face in the light from the street. “I have two very important questions for you. First, will you marry me?”
“I told you before,” she said with a half smile, “a girl needs time to consider.”
And a month had apparently not been long enough. I knew the answer with the certainty of a blow to the stomach.
But I still managed to bring out my second question. “Last month there was a powerful wizard in the city, someone you could sense but I couldn’t. Is he here now?”
She turned her head away, slipping for a moment into her own magic. Then her amethyst eyes met mine. “No. If he’s here, he’s shielding his mind as effectively from mine as he is from yours.”
So perhaps I need not fear an immediate attack. Looking at Theodora it was almost impossible to imagine her working with an evil renegade. I dismissed him from my thoughts. “If you don’t want to marry me, would you consider living with me, even for a little while?”
She smiled. “I suspect this conversation may take a while. If we talk here, we may be interrupted. How about if we go to the grove outside of town?”
I was naturally intrigued by this suggestion, even though I realized she had not answered my question. I rubbed my eyes with my fists, and Theodora got her key to close the door behind us. As she stepped into the street, I noticed for the first time that she wore a black and gold dress with a bright red apron and shawl.
“You were at the new bishop’s enthronement,” I said with sudden comprehension, “sitting with the Romneys.”
She gave me a sideways smile. “I saw you with your royal court, but I was fairly sure you didn’t recognize me. I was wearing a head-scarf, too. I thought the pew with the Romneys an appropriate place for a witch. Was that extremely good-looking young man your Prince Paul?”
I nodded and reminded myself not to be jealous. Whatever reason she had for not wanting to marry me had nothing to do with Paul.
She tucked her arm through mine as we walked, one more couple out for a stroll on a fine afternoon after the episcopal election. Her earrings moved in and out from behind her hair in the charming way I remembered. “Isn’t the new bishop your friend the dean?”
“That’s right.”
“He looks very intense,” she said, “as though he doesn’t worry about the things that worry ordinary people, but always tries to look through to spiritual issues.” I nodded again; it seemed a good assessment. “But tell me-does he ever smile?”
“He’s been known to,” I said, smiling myself. “But not often. He’ll be an excellent bishop, but I’m afraid some of the young priests will find him hard on them.”
“You’ve been away for weeks,” she said. “Where have you been?”
It occurred to me only then that she might have been as worried about me as I was about her. “And where do you think I’d been?” I said teasingly, using her trick of answering a question with another question.
“I knew you defeated the monster that appeared right after the old bishop’s funeral,” she said. “Everybody in the city was talking about it.” Maybe I wasn’t being blamed for as much as I’d thought. “But the rumor was that something was still wrong, or the monster wasn’t fully defeated, and you had to go thousands of miles to find out where it had come from.”
“Close enough,” I said. “I’ve been up at the border of the northern land of wild magic.” The borderlands seemed much less interesting at the moment than the shape of her mouth, the way she held her head, and the color of her eyes. “The fanged gorgos, the monster, came from there, and I had to take it back to destroy it.”
Somehow she had me talking easily again, as I had always talked with her. While we walked through the city, out the gates, and past all the crowds and the tents and the Romney caravans toward the little grove a mile away, I gave her a quick overview of our adventures. The grass that had been long and green when we last walked here together had been browned by the summer’s sun and trampled by many feet.
She was, as I had expected, fascinated by my account of the valley where everyone lived in houses built into the cliff. She was also very interested in the nixie’s barrier that specifically would not let humans pass. It was good to talk about magic with someone who understood it, and who I did not feel was in competition with me.
“So what would you have done,” she asked with a laugh, “if your prince hadn’t been able to attract those horses? Would you have given in to the nixie’s charms at last?”
I didn’t reply-in part because I did not know the answer. We had reached the edge of the woods, and I prepared to fly both of us up and over the blackberry tangles.
But she forestalled me. “I’ve been practicing while you’ve been gone. Watch!”
Slowly and deliberately, her lips moving silently, she rose into the air on her own magic, went over the tops of the brambles, and disappeared from view, a delighted grin on her face. From the thump and the sudden laugh on the far side I knew she’d come down faster than she intended.