I had the King’s suite, it wouldn’t be worthy of you.”
No…no, it wasn’t a draft. Now it wasn’t a shivery feeling, it was a feeling of warmth. She found herself smiling at him. He smiled back. Behind his spectacles, his eyes twinkled.
“I think you’re giving me more credit than I deserve,” she said awkwardly.
“And I think you’re giving yourself too little.” He winked at her. “But let’s not argue. Let’s see what the Godmother has to say.”
16
THE GREEN FACE HAD NO INFORMATION FOR THEM, but as Sebastian had suggested, he was one of the sources for the Godmother’s information. He promised that he himself would contact them when he had gathered as much as he could in the next day or two. Eric did not appear at supper, which did not surprise Sebastian.
“He’ll have stayed in the city. He generally does when he has a reason to go there,” Sebastian explained. “He gets money from our Factor in the city, and uses the Ducal town house — don’t get excited about that, I’ll bet it’s much smaller than your father’s house. I only keep on a Housekeeper there, but he won’t care; he eats at the taverns, anyway, and he visits the — ” Sebastian stopped, flushing a bright crimson. “There are women,” he said, after a long pause. “He might be gone a couple of days, maybe longer. It’s been a while since he went to the city. He’s been working really hard since my little…escape. He could stay a week and I think he deserves it, if he needs it.”
“Ah,” she replied, without comment. “Well, would you like to listen to some music tonight? I’m going to — I asked Sapphire to tell the others.”
“Really? Yes, I would!” He brightened considerably. “Very much so! I haven’t — well, I haven’t had any music that wasn’t my own bad singing in years.”
“Have you taken any thought to what I suggested about going back to Court at least in the middle of the month?” she asked, pointedly.
“I’d rather wait and see what the King and the Godmother say,” he demurred, looking uneasily down into his soup.
“Now, is that because you don’t want to go, or — ”
He interrupted her. “I want to go. I miss people. I miss music and libraries and talking and dancing. I even miss the ridiculous maneuvering at Court — since I was never a part of it, it was all pretty funny to watch. But…at the same time, it terrifies me. Everyone knows, or will know, that I’m a wizard now. I’m afraid people will be as afraid of a wizard as they would be of the beast.”
She pursed her lips. “Well…what did they think of you before?”
He shrugged. “Not much. I suppose I was sort of an amusing non-entity. Nobody bothered to trouble me because I wasn’t important enough to be a threat. I suppose at some point a desperate mother — or someone like your stepmother, anxious for any sort of title for her girl — would have started throwing a daughter at me, but it hadn’t happened yet. People liked me well enough. I know how to tell an amusing story, and even better, I know when a story isn’t amusing and I don’t tell it. I dance passably. I hunt well, and ride well. I don’t get into quarrels or, God forbid, duels. I play cards, but not for high stakes, and I’m not very lucky or very unlucky. I do — or did — have good discussions with the few folks who have scholarly inclinations, and some of the older people at Court. I’m a good listener.” He spread his hands wide. “There you have me. Such as I am. Quite forgettable.”
“Eat your soup and stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she said, a little sharply, because it did look as if he was about to mope. “You might not have made any fast friends, but it doesn’t sound as if you were trying. And unless someone at Court is responsible for your current condition, you didn’t make any enemies, either.”
He gave her one of his odd, sideways looks. “You really are a most unnatural female.” Strangely, that didn’t sound as if he meant it as an insult, or even a criticism. “I like that.”
“I’m glad someone does, since that is Genevieve’s chief complaint about me,” she replied. “Look, I just don’t see any point in obfuscation when there’s no need for it, and there isn’t, here. You are afraid that people will be afraid of your wizardly power, but that doesn’t necessarily have to happen. Now, weren’t you just telling me that people found you amusing?”
“More or less,” he admitted.
“Then keep being amusing, but add a few tricks,” she told him. “You know, silly little things. Nothing enormous. And when people ask you, just say modestly, ‘Oh, I can do a few things for parties.’ Not every wizard can call down lightning, after all! And yes, I know you can — ” she said, stopping him before he could interject that, “ — but they don’t have to know!”
He blinked at her. She had come to the conclusion that he blinked while he was thinking hard, not because she had baffled him or said something that made no sense. “I was an amusing fellow to have about because I had no real power and was not a threat. I will still be an amusing fellow to have about, perhaps even more amusing with a few petty tricks in my pocket, because they will think that I still have no power.” He smiled a little. “That all I am, you might say, is anecdotes and fireworks.”
“Can you do fireworks?” she asked, curiously.
He looked offended. “Of course I can. Every wizard can. The kind with charcoal and saltpeter, and the kind with Illusions. It’s rather expected of us. The Tradition demands it.”
She had to laugh at that. “So are you going to be the bumbling wizard?”
He blinked some more. “No…I’d rather not. The absentminded one would suit me better. The one that forgets he has a frog in his pocket.”
“Perhaps not a frog,” she suggested. “Not the best guest at a party.”
“Singing bird, then.” He pondered that. “I had better make friends with some birds.”
“Cake crumbs,” she told him, out of a wealth of experience of being bored at outdoor galas and feeding a myriad of hungry songbirds with an endless stream of crumbled cakes.
“I’ll take that under advisement.” He finished his soup and looked at the next course curiously. “What in heaven’s name is that? It looks like one of those meat pies you get at taverns, only…elongated.”
