the duchess called to me down the table. “Wizard! I hear you do excellent illusions. Would you care to entertain us?”
“He’s tired, as we all are,” said the queen quickly. “Maybe ask him another day.”
I was surprised to find her suddenly so protective of me, and when I looked toward her I saw that she was not smiling. But the duchess’s eyes met mine in an amused challenge.
“All right,” I said, putting down the half-eaten cake which I had decided I did not like at all. “But I warn you, my illusions may be frightening.”
“I don’t frighten easily, Wizard.”
But the lords and ladies from Yurt were nudging and smiling at each other, clearly hoping that the party here, who had not seen my dragon, would be as frightened of it as they now pretended not to have been. Several of the duchess’s attendants, seeing the winks, did indeed begin to look uneasy.
I went to stand by the fireplace, thinking quickly. I didn’t want to become repetitive by doing another dragon, and although the magician at the carnival had not hesitated to make an illusory demon, I didn’t want to terrify myself with my own magic. Besides, I only wanted to titillate the duchess and her lords and ladies, not send them screaming from the hall as I had almost done at Yurt.
I decided on a giant, one about twenty feet tall, which would leave his head (or heads-I rather liked the idea of a two-headed giant) only a short distance below the ceiling. I worked quickly, sketching in the different parts but not yet giving them substance, so that a ghostly pair of legs, a nearly invisible club, and a suggestion of massive arms took shape between me and the fire.
I glanced at my audience. The queen’s eyes were dancing, and the duchess continued to look amused. The last detail was the double head, one smiling horribly, and one suffused in fury. The second head, even while half invisible, looked I realized a little like Dominic, but it was too late to try to change it. With a few quick words in the Hidden Language, I gave my giant visual solidity and put it into motion.
The giant spun around from the fire to face the table and raised its enormous club. The mouth of the furious face opened in a silent roar. The club swung downwards, and the king, showing an agility I had not realized he had, sprang from his chair just before the club passed down through the chair and the table.
There was a cacophony of noise, chairs scraping and falling backwards and the duchess’s people shouting. The party from Yurt was doing fairly well, in that none of them were screaming, but they still sprang from the table as they giant started down it. The enormous hairy legs were buried almost knee-deep in the table, through which it seemed to wade like a man wading through water. The club descended again and again, passing without effect through glass, china, and wood, as one head roared and the other laughed. The only person who did not move was Dominic, who sat stone-faced, his arms folded, as one of the giant’s thighs passed directly through him.
I stopped the giant just short of the duchess. She, like the others, had jumped up, but she was watching its approach with a broad smile. I had the giant stop roaring and grinning, drop its club, and go into the full bow before her. The effect was a little spoiled by the fact that, as it went down on its knees, much of it disappeared under the table, but the duchess still began applauding wildly as soon as the double head was lowered. I said the words to end the illusion.
The duchess ran to grab me by the hands. “Well, Wizard, I can see that, with you there, Yurt must be a much
People were straightening their hair and clothing and coming toward the fire with as casual an air as possible. The castle servants, who had been watching open-mouthed from the passage to the kitchen, disappeared again.
“I told you we had a fine wizard!” said the king. “Maybe you ought to send to the City for one yourself!”
“But I couldn’t be sure of getting one like this one!” she said with a laugh. She was still holding both my hands, which was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t think we’ll have any more entertainment to top this tonight.”
As though this were a signal, the lords and ladies of her party immediately started to leave. The king and queen glanced at each other. “If you don’t mind,” said the queen, “we’ll retire now. We’ve had a long ride today.”
“But you,” said the duchess, looking at me, “you I’d like to take to my chambers for a final drink.”
III
The queen turned sharply toward the duchess, as though about to say something, then changed her mind. “Good night, then,” she said, leaving on the king’s arm. For a moment I even hoped she was jealous.
The servants returned to clear the table as both parties dispersed. The chaplain was almost the last to go, and before he went he fixed me with a burning stare that might have been a warning.
The duchess had released my hands, but I seemed to have no choice but to follow her, up the wide staircase at the end of the hall to the great ducal chamber.
To my relief, she stopped here and motioned me to a seat. A small fire was in the grate; she added first some small sticks, then a log, and soon had it burning brightly. I felt I ought to help, but she seemed to want no help.
With the fire now burning, she went to a cabinet for two glasses and a bottle. She poured us each an inch of golden liquid and brought me mine, then sat down in the chair opposite me, one booted leg hooked over the arm.
I took a sip. “Excuse me, my lady, but this isn’t wine. It’s brandy.”
“Yes,” she said, as though wondering at my dimness.
“But brandy is a medicine.”
“It’s also an excellent after-dinner drink, as I discovered some time ago.”
I took another sip. It was extremely powerful. “Very nice,” I said.
She smiled, her face, which was close to being the queen’s face, lit up by a smile that was not the queen’s. “Enjoy it. There aren’t many I invite to share a glass of brandy with me.”
I started talking, in part to take control of the atmosphere, in part because that way I had an excuse for drinking more slowly. “This is the first time since I came to Yurt that I’ve accompanied the king on a visit to his subjects. It’s hard to tell in the dark, of course, but as we came in it seemed that you had a beautiful little castle. I hear there are two counts in the kingdom as well. Are their castles as lovely?”
“The king’s castle is of course considered the best in the kingdom of Yurt,” she said, as though taking my inane comments seriously. “But the ducal castle, mine, is not rated far behind. Tomorrow I can show you all its features, inside and out. I don’t have a rose garden like the king’s, but if it were summer I could show you the flowers I do grow.”
With any luck, I thought, we could talk about gardening until I could decently make my excuses and leave.
But she took control of the conversation back from me. “Wizard, I have a proposal to make to you.”
I had been taking a sip from my glass and ended up swallowing suddenly much more than I meant to. “Indeed?” I said as blandly as I could, once I had stopped coughing. My eyes were drawn, against my will, to the door at the far end of the great chamber, that must lead to her bedroom.
“I know you wizards don’t take oaths, but what I’m asking may still be hard for you.” She was watching me, a look of amusement playing on her features.
“Indeed,” I said with dignity. She seemed to be saying that we wizards did not take oaths of chastity, as did priests, which was true, but she also seemed to be insulting me.
“I know that, as short a time as you have lived in Yurt, your affections may already be fully engaged.”
How did she know I was in love with the queen?
“Although,” she said thoughtfully, “I would have thought a wizard with your flair wouldn’t want to live his entire life ruled by someone with as soft a disposition as your queen.”
Being too amazed to reply properly, I said nothing.
“Given a tempting opportunity, one’s affections may change their focus,” she continued with that same almost detached look of amusement.
