This was far too flimsy for him. “As I told you once before, I know you better than you think I do. You put me off then, but I can’t bear to see you like this any longer. Something terrible has wrenched your soul, and if I’m supposed to guide the souls of this diocese I can’t leave my oldest friend to suffer unaided.”
I tried not to meet his eyes. “You don’t need to hear all this. Half of it you wouldn’t understand, and the other half you’d just say I was receiving a sinner’s just reward.”
“And are you?”
I looked up in spite of myself. “Joachim, I don’t even know anymore.”
“Then why not try to tell me?”
I took another bite of lamb-it really was very good-then pushed my plate away. “This may take a while.”
“We have a while.”
I took a deep breath. “It starts back when I first came to Yurt. I’ve tried to tell you this several times, but you never seemed to understand. Until this summer, I’ve always been in love with the queen.”
V
I knocked on Theodora’s door just before dawn. “Theodora. It’s me.”
She opened the door looking extremely charming in a white nightgown, her hair tousled and her cheek still bearing a crease from the pillow. “What is it?”
“I’ve come to invite you to Prince Paul’s coming of age ceremony.”
“But-” I gave her a good-morning kiss while she tried to object. “They won’t want me there-they don’t even know me. And Daimbert!” with an exasperated laugh. “What will the neighbors think if they see me standing here in my nightgown, kissing someone at this hour of the morning?”
“Then I’ll come inside,” I said cheerfully, closing the door behind me. The cat rose from the hearth, stretching itself to twice its normal length and yawning widely. “I hope you realize the neighbors will start thinking all sorts of things in a few months anyway. But don’t worry about the cathedral. They won’t think of you as a loose woman, but more as a woman who has been sinned against, so you’ll continue to get commissions from the priests.”
She rubbed her eyes and sat down, pulling a shawl across her shoulders. “What’s happened to you? You look almost feverish. Did you even go to bed last night?”
“No,” sitting down beside her. “I’ve been talking to the bishop.”
“The bishop! You’ve been telling him about me-”
I smiled at her concern. “I certainly told the bishop the most important details, such as that you are the most wonderful woman in the world, and I love you. I didn’t tell him you’re a witch-the Church has long experience in dealing with sin, but even Joachim has always had trouble with magic.”
“So you let the bishop condemn you as a sinner?”
“Joachim thinks of everyone as a sinner, starting with himself. He’s never held it against anyone.”
She started to look amused in spite of herself. I put my arm around her. “If it’s any comfort,” I said, “he thinks you’re right, that I belong in Yurt and you here. Both of you are wrong, of course.”
“Then why do you seem so happy this morning?”
“Maybe the Church has a point, that confession is good for the soul. But I think the real reason is my relief that I’ll finally be able to find the renegade wizard; Joachim has a plan to draw him out of hiding.”
“What’s his plan?”
Looking into her intelligent amethyst eyes, I realized that Joachim had actually been quite vague about his precise intentions. Last night, after he had listened to my long, disjointed story about the queen and Theodora, once I finally told him my suspicions of a renegade, he had said with calm assurance that locating him would not be a problem. At that point, emotionally drained, I had been glad to believe whatever he told me.
“It involves Paul’s coming of age ceremony,” I said, feeling light-headed. I knew I remembered the bishop saying that. Did the plan also involve Norbert? No, I was quite sure it didn’t, although I had confessed my involvement in that to Joachim along with everything else. He had placidly refused to attribute any worse motives to the cathedral cantor than misplaced distrust of magic and a rather sad and petty jealousy, though he said he expected that the wizard who had sold the Norbert the book, the wizard who had fostered his jealous plot, was still here in the city.
“The only problem with the bishop’s plan,” I extemporized when Theodora seemed to be expecting more, “is that it depends on me being as good a wizard as Joachim thinks I am, which is better than I think I am. That’s why I need you to help me at Paul’s coronation. I’m a member of the royal court of Yurt and can invite anyone I please.”
“But I can’t- How would I-”
“You’re going with the episcopal party,” I said. “It’s all arranged. The bishop will provide a horse for you. And be sure to attend morning service at the cathedral, an hour from now. Joachim will be giving his inaugural sermon, and it’s going to be highly interesting.”
“If there’s a dangerous renegade wizard loose,” she asked, “shouldn’t your school be able to help?”
“That’s one of the wizard’s best ploys. By having his gorgos appear on the new cathedral tower originally, he’s made it appear this is something in which the school should be reluctant to be involved. By waiting until the Royal Wizard of Caelrhon had died, he hoped there would be no one here with the magic to oppose him.”
I kissed Theodora and stood up to go. “The queen and prince are riding back to Yurt this afternoon. I need to go with them.”
A smile she tried to suppress twitched the corners of her mouth. “It’s odd that you never told me your queen was so lovely.”
I sat down again. “Theodora, you have to understand that-”
She gave up trying to hide her smile. “Of course I knew there was a queen of Yurt, even though you never mentioned her. And I’d seen her several times over the years, and I’d certainly noticed she was very beautiful. That’s why, when you very carefully never referred to her, I knew there was a reason.”
“But there’s never been any-” I protested.
“I knew that all along.” She smiled at me, amethyst eyes dancing. “When the king of Yurt was still alive and they came here together, she and he were inseparable. Now that she’s been a widow for several years she might be willing to start looking at other men, but she’d be looking for a prince or another king, not a wizard. This was all clear to me, but I could never be sure if it was clear to you.”
If I had spoken to Theodora several months ago, I might have saved myself a lot of anguish. But then I hadn’t known her several months ago-and might never have if it weren’t for that anguish.
“It put me in a difficult position,” she continued thoughtfully, “because I didn’t know if you loved the queen while knowing it was hopeless, or if you’d deluded yourself that you might someday have a chance with her. I would hate to see you deluded, but on the other hand, once I found myself falling in love with you, it made it easier if I could reassure myself that your real affections were already engaged elsewhere.”
There didn’t seem to be any way to answer this.
“What I am truly sorry about, Daimbert,” she added, “is that I never realized, not until I saw you sitting with your royal court yesterday, that you’d discovered for yourself that your love was hopeless. For a witch, it’s embarrassing to have to admit I overlooked something that evident.”
“You mean- It’s so obvious that I had loved her but she could never love me that someone could spot it across a crowded church?”
She gave me an amused look. “Remember that witches understand all sorts of hidden feelings that ordinary mortals-and even wizards-can’t know. Besides, I know you better than anyone else does.”
Enough people seemed to know me better than I thought they did that soon I wouldn’t be able to have any secrets at all. “But if you knew all this yesterday-you didn’t say anything about the queen then!”
“Of course not. You were too upset already. But I don’t know,” she continued, “exactly what happened between you and your queen to make you realize your love for her was hopeless.”