The Witch & the Cathedral - Wizard of Yurt - 4 (30 page)

"Rise, my daughter, and govern well," he said, and handed her back the sword.

She returned to her place, squeezing in between Paul and me, and then it was the turn for the king of Caelrhon. The ceremony was repeated with our duchess, then Caelrhon's dukes, then the counts of both kingdoms, followed by the castellans and the lords of manors. It occurred to me as the ceremony progressed that it would be very easy for an unscrupulous lord to use the opportunity to plunge his sword into the bishops heart.

But everything progressed with perfect correctness. When the last lord had returned to his place, and I was starting to wonder if we might still escape without a magical attack, Joachim rose and stepped forward.

He was now only a few feet away and I was sure he saw me, though he gave no sign of recognition. Instead he raised his arms to bless the congregation.

But I did not hear his words. I stared instead at the sleeve of his robe.

It was a brand-new robe, clearly made just for him since he was taller than any of the other priests. Worked across the bottom of the scarlet sleeve were intertwined roses and crosses. They were done in a distinctive stitch, where the embroidery thread crossed three threads, slapped one, and crossed two more. That was Theodora s embroidery.

Theodora was alive and free in the city.

III

We poured out of the cathedral into the noon sunshine. "A fine ceremony, a solemn ceremony," said the young chaplain of Yurt as though he had been personally responsible.

"He's a fairly young man to be elected bishop; we may not see very many more Episcopal elections in this city in our lifetimes."

"Have you invited him to my coming of age ceremony?" Paul asked his mother.

"He'd accepted when he was still dean," she said, "but he may not now be able to get away from his new duties."

"'Were you surprised he was chosen?"

"He was an excellent chaplain," said the queen with a smile. "You would not even have been born if he hadn't saved your father's life. I think he'll be an excellent bishop."

I hardly listened to their conversation. I scanned the skies for some new monster and the crowd for Theodora, seeing neither.

Several minutes passed, and nothing happened. Might the wizard be saving his next attack for Paul's coronation? The duchess and her tall husband, Prince Ascelin, came over to talk to us. "I haven't seen the royal family of Caelrhon in months," Ascelin said with an almost shamefaced grin and a glance in their direction. "I wonder if Prince Lucas is still not talking to me."

"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 witch 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've 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 gorges, 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.

I followed her, landing more gracefully, and we walked together to the center of the grove where the spring still played and the emerald grass grew long. The air was still permeated with unfocused magic, but not nearly as strongly as I had remembered.

"Let's sit down," she said in a different voice than she normally used. "I want to tell you something." She sounded as sober as Joachim.

I had been about to take her in my arms but hesitated. We sat down next to each other, not touching. "What is it?"

"I am going to bear a child."

There was a long pause. I put a hand over my eyes and called myself all the insulting names young wizards use for each other; the list was fairly long. A second-year wizardry student would have known better. But when I took my hand down I still had to ask, "And—it's mine?" "Yes," said Theodora, less soberly, "yours— She'll be yours and mine."

"It will be a girl? You're sure?" A small smile had again reached the edges of her lips. "Of course I'm sure. After all, I'm a witch."

This certainly ended the vague plans I realized I had been making about somehow having both her and my position in Yurt. Whatever institutionalized wizardry tolerated in its wizards, it was not being the fathers of families. "Theodora, you know I want to marry you. I'll be happy to live wherever you like."

The smile was gone again, and she took my hand. "But I never intended to marry you."

Christ, this was bad. I had thought my self-esteem had suffered so many blows over the years that I was fairly immune, but I had been mistaken. I had never loved the queen as much as I loved this woman.

"Theodora, I—" I tried to find some way to phrase it delicately so it would not be an insult, and ended up not finding any and saying it baldly. "So you made me fall in love with you deliberately, not interested in me at all, only—only using me the way the nixie wanted to use us!"

"Daimbert, it wasn't like that," she said mildly.

But now that I had started I couldn't stop, "Once you had what you wanted, you didn't need me and didn't care to see me again." I had jumped up and was pacing back and forth while she sat quietly, listening. "You managed to hide from me with your damned ring of invisibility, and when I left the city you were delighted, hoping I wouldn't come back. If you hadn't opened the door for your cat without taking the precaution of peeking out first, I never would have found you."

"I'd always hoped to see you again."

But I wasn't going to be interrupted. "Of course you didn't tell me, then, that you didn't love me. You had to be sure you were pregnant first, because if you weren't you needed to lure me back for one more try."

I threw myself on the grass, my back to her. In a moment I felt a hand stroking my hair. As she'd stroke her cat, I thought bitterly.

"Daimbert, I do love you."

"Odd that you never mentioned it before," I said, but less bitterly.

There was a catch in her voice that, in a moment, made me sit up and turn around to look at her. Her cheeks streamed with tears. To my questioning look she said at last, "I feel so bad to have hurt you!"

I turned away again. This wasn't helping. The women I loved could never love me. All I could do was to make them cry when they realized how deeply I was wounded.

There was another long pause, then she began tugging at my shoulders. I allowed her to pull my head into her lap, where she continued stroking my hair, but I kept my eyes shut against her.

"Let me tell you how it appeared from my side," she said at last, her voice somewhat calmer. "I wanted to meet you from the first time I sensed your mind here in the city. And before you say anything, let me make clear that I was not planning from the beginning to seduce you. I just wanted to get to know a wizard."