“When will he be coming to Yurt?”
“That’s the real surprise-here he is!”
She turned and beckoned, and someone broke away from the small group by the fire, who I had assumed without looking were all members of the count’s court. This one was no young lord-this was a wizard.
I was struck first by his hair. It was so thoroughly auburn that it glowed nearly carrot-colored in the firelight. His cheeks were spattered with freckles below wide-set and very light blue eyes. At first I thought he was clean-shaven, as are most wizardry students, but then I spotted a few rather half-hearted red wisps on his chin. He wore a black velvet jacket, embroidered all over with moons and stars.
“Evrard,” said the duchess, “I’d like to introduce you to Daimbert, Royal Wizard of Yurt.”
He turned to me with an amazed grin and wrung my hand. “You’re Daimbert? Of course you are! What an honor! We learned all about how you invented the far-seeing telephone, and within just a few months of taking your first post-let me tell you, it’s a real inspiration to the rest of us!”
I smiled modestly.
“Especially you’re an inspiration to all of us who’ve never worked very hard, because we know that you spent as much time in the City taverns as with your books. And of course in transformations class old Zahlfast always uses your experiences that time with the frogs as a warning!”
My smile faded.
He looked at me with his head cocked for a minute. “I knew who you were-or thought I did-when you were still at school, even though I’m not sure I ever talked to you. But I don’t know if I would have recognized you now. You look a lot older than the person I thought I remembered.”
“I remember sometimes seeing you in the halls,” I said, “but I’m afraid that’s it. You probably don’t recognize me because of the white beard.”
He tugged in disgust at one of the wisps on his own chin. “Your beard looks very wizardly. Mine is coming in red, so I’m afraid I’m going to look more like a bandit than a wizard. If it ever grows in, maybe I’ll try bleaching mine too.”
My hair and beard were in fact not bleached; they had turned white overnight, six months after I first came to Yurt, but I didn’t want to go into that rather harrowing episode now. “How is Zahlfast?” I asked instead.
“Doing fine. He and the rest of the teachers always seem to be above the problems and the worries of all the students. He warned me, which I’d expected, that I was on my own now, that I couldn’t expect the school to come help me with ‘every little problem.’ He did ask to be remembered to you and said you’d probably see him later this summer.”
Every year or so, one of the teachers would visit the young wizards at their posts throughout the western kingdoms. With luck, I would be able to present Zahlfast when he arrived with a tidy solution to the problem of the great horned rabbits.
“You know,” Evrard continued, “I’ve always rather liked old Zahlfast, but after what happened to me in the transformations practical I didn’t dare meet his eye for the rest of the semester.” In spite of being highly curious about what had happened to him, I didn’t dare ask for fear he’d allude to the frogs again, and in more detail. “Therefore I was shocked when he called me in to tell me he had a post for me-I’d been afraid he was going to tell me the school had decided to take my diploma back!”
We both laughed. “But I did pay more attention in my classes this last year,” continued Evrard. “Did you know, Elerius came back to teach a course?”
“Elerius? You mean they’ve put him on the faculty already?” Elerius, three years ahead of me, was generally rumored to have been the best student the school had ever had.
“No, no, he’s still Royal Wizard in that big kingdom way off at the base of the eastern mountains. He just taught the one course. It was very interesting, some of the old-fashioned magic of earth and stone the school doesn’t teach any more. He said he’d learned it from an old magic-worker who lived high up in the mountains, and who taught it to Elerius just before he died.”
I was jealous at once. I had thought I was rather unusual in learning herbal magic from my predecessor at Yurt, and here Elerius had not only learned some of the old magic, but was actually being invited to teach it.
But I couldn’t say that to Evrard. “So have you just arrived here in Yurt?” I asked.
“No, I’ve been here for two weeks.”
I turned to the duchess, who was following our conversation with her hands on her hips and a pleased expression on her face. “Why didn’t you tell me, my lady?”
“I scarcely needed permission from the Royal Wizard to hire my own wizard, did I?” she said with a laugh. “Besides, I wanted to wait until after King Haimeric had gotten safely off on his trip before I distracted the royal court with anything else. So, how do you like my wizard? As someone who’s been in Yurt longer, do you have any recommendations? Are there certain books I should buy? Should I get in some crucibles and pestles and special herbs?”
“Ask Evrard himself what he needs,” I said, but the smile froze on my lips. This likeable young wizard had been in the kingdom for two weeks. Could he be responsible for the great horned rabbits?
I did a little very rapid magic probing, which I hoped he wouldn’t notice, and felt my shoulders relax. If he had made the rabbits, it was certainly not with supernatural aid. I could understand a school-trained wizard, even one I had barely met, better than anyone else, and there was nothing about Evrard which suggested a plunge into black magic.
At this point, dinner was announced. As we moved toward the table, I noticed the chaplain standing by himself. I had almost forgotten him.
“Joachim,” I said, “let me introduce you to Evrard, the duchess’s new wizard.” His dark eyes had been distant, but at once they came back into focus. “Evrard, this is my very good friend, the Royal Chaplain of Yurt.”
“I am glad to meet you,” said Joachim gravely, shaking Evrard’s hand.
The young wizard winced; Joachim’s grip was strong. “I’m happy to meet you too,” he said.
Joachim smiled then, which he had not done when he first met me. “I think Daimbert will be pleased to have another young wizard in the kingdom.”
At dinner, the count asked us about our trip up to the high plateau. I merely mentioned the Holy Grove, because I wasn’t sure how much of the situation Joachim wanted generally known, talked a little more about the horned rabbits, and did not mention at all the strange footprint or the spell I had sensed.
I would have expected that the duchess would be most interested in the horned rabbits, especially since she had come here at the count’s request to hunt them, but instead she started talking about the shrine. “That’s where the toe of Saint Eusebius, the Cranky Saint, is kept, isn’t it?” she said. “He’s not a saint to trifle with! Who was that man,” turning to the count, “your great-grandfather?”
“Great-great-grandfather,” he said as though embarrassed.
“Anyway,” continued Diana, “our present count’s ancestor was a noted rapscallion and sinner.” It was hard to imagine anyone related to the white-haired count as a rapscallion. “But when he was dying, he started worrying about his soul at last, and he asked to be buried in the Holy Grove, near the shrine. But the Cranky Saint didn’t want someone with so many sins on his soul buried that close. So he rerouted the river so it flowed between the grave and his shrine!”
Everyone but Joachim laughed. The count nodded sheepishly. “That’s right. That count’s son, my own great-grandfather, was so embarrassed he had him dug up and reburied in our castle cemetery. The next day, the river was back in its normal bed.”