the first place, and then when he met the queen he had decided not to take the one cousin when he could not get the other. The king, hoping for a little son of his own, would have stopped worrying about finding a wife for his nephew.
So was that the answer to why the queen had married the king, that she wanted to get away from her father’s plans to marry her to someone suitable, when some of these suitable persons might have been even worse than Dominic? It seemed a plausible answer, but it did not answer the real one: who in Yurt had been practicing black magic?
PART FIVE — THE STRANGER
I
I was relieved to be heading home again. The queen seemed also to be glad to go, although the king, bidding the duchess an affectionate farewell, appeared to have enjoyed his visit thoroughly. I guessed that he had no idea the cousins were not highly fond of each other. But while the queen was merely happy to be leaving the duchess behind, I was eager to get back to the castle of Yurt and reassure myself nothing had happened in our absence. We had received no messages via the pigeons, and had not expected to, but if the castle had been swallowed by a giant hole in the earth they might not have had time to release the pigeons.
Packed in my saddlebags were the books I had found in the room of the old ducal wizard. I had quite brazenly stolen them, reassuring myself that it was not theft to take something no one wanted. They had clearly been undisturbed for thirty years, and if the duchess did indeed hire someone from the wizards’ school, as she had threatened to do, he would probably throw them out immediately.
At dusk we came out of the woods and up the hill toward the castle. A chill wind mixed with a little sleet whipped about our ears, and our horses were eager for the stables. I looked up, expecting to see welcoming lights shining out, and instead saw only the castle’s dark shape against the dark sky.
“The constable knew we were coming home today,” said the queen in surprise.
“Everyone may just be sitting warm in the kitchen,” said the king.
A chill had gone through me far colder than the sleet. I looked toward Joachim and saw that a similar fear had gripped him, for he had reached into his saddle bag and taken out his crucifix. He too, I thought, must have been feeling that elusive sense of evil in the castle, and he must have been worried about it in ways that he never told me.
“At least the drawbridge is down,” said one of the knights. The king’s optimism was not shared by the rest of our party.
For a brief moment we hesitated by the bridge, looking in through the gates toward the dark and silent courtyard. Then the king said cheerfully, “They’ll light the lights as soon as they hear us. Just don’t let your horses slip going in!” He led the way, the rest of us following single-file behind.
No one spoke as we crossed the bridge and then the courtyard toward the lightless stables, but our horses’ hooves on the cobblestones and the bells on their bridles made a sound that should have awakened any sleeper. There was an abrupt clattering sound from the direction of the great hall, then to my intense relief I heard the constable’s voice. “On!” he shouted, and all the magic lamps in the hall blazed into light.
More lights came on then around the castle, and the constable ran out to meet us, disheveled and embarrassed. “Forgive me, sire,” he said, holding the king’s stirrup while he dismounted. “I don’t know what happened to me. I must have fallen asleep. I didn’t mean for you to come home to a dark castle.”
Everyone else was now talking and dismounting, and a stable boy started taking the horses. The others seemed to have dismissed whatever fears they had felt looking up at the lightless bulk of the castle against the twilight sky. But the chill I had felt then was still with me. I caught Joachim’s eye and knew that he too was not completely satisfied.
The cook came rushing into the hall from the kitchens, highly flustered, at the same time as we came in from the courtyard. She spoke quickly to the constable and rushed out again. “We’ll have a hot dish for you very quickly, my lords and ladies,” said the constable apologetically. “The cook somehow had let the fire go out, but she’ll have it going again in just a minute.”
The hall fire too was quickly built up again. We all stood around it, warming ourselves after the ride, waiting for supper. While we waited, I wondered what could have happened to cast everyone in the castle into slumber, and what had wakened them again. Only a small part of the staff was there, as the rest-including Gwen and Jon- would not be back from their vacations before tomorrow, but it was certainly not natural for all of the staff present to have been overcome with sleep at the same time.
And had it merely been the sound of our horses that wakened them? I put my coat back on and slipped away, taking one of the magic lamps with me. As I went by the kitchens, I could hear loud clattering and the cook giving rapid orders, and could smell supper cooking, a smell so delightful after a long day’s cold ride that I had to stop myself from going in for a sample bite.
Instead I went down the dank staircase behind the kitchens, forcing my unwilling feet forward and doing my best to ignore the plausible reasons that kept popping into my mind why it would be much better to wait until morning.
It was as I feared. The rusty iron door was still shut, but my magic locks were gone, and the debris with which I had blocked the small window in the door had all fallen to the ground.
I went back up the stairs much faster than I intended and crossed the courtyard to my own chambers. To my intense relief, the magic lock on my door was glowing softly, undisturbed. I went inside to be out of the wind while I found my composure again. If this lock too had been gone, I would have had to believe there was a demon loose in the castle.
But a new thought also struck me. Someone who knew very powerful magic had apparently been at work while we were gone. This person had his or her headquarters in the cellars, a place where spells were cast and books and herbs kept. When I locked the cellars with magic, he or she had had to break my locks to get back in.
And this person, I reasoned, would have to be someone on the castle staff, the constable and his wife, the cook, the stable boy, or the kitchen maid, the only people who had been here when we arrived. But why would one of those five have put the others to sleep and pretended sleep himself or herself? I shook my head, realizing it could have been any other member of the staff, who would have perhaps come back “early” from vacation, entered the castle without any challenge, put the rest into a sleep that would make them forget he or she had been there, and left again. In this case, the sleep could have been intended to insure there were no witnesses to whatever the person was going to do-or people to hear the screeching of the iron door being opened.
I left the lights on in my chambers and hurried back to the hall, arriving just in time for a light supper of soup and omelet, served with some of the cook’s excellent bread. Hungry and tired, we all ate without more than the briefest snatches of conversation. As the food was being served, I had briefly considered trying the spell that had turned the king’s soup green before his recovery, but I did not have the heart to do so, fearing what it might show. Besides, I was almost too hungry to care.
But in the morning, after chapel service, I went to talk to Joachim. He looked surprised to see me. We had barely spoken two words since he had nearly accused me of seducing the duchess. But that all seemed distant and trivial now.
He was sitting in his room, drinking tea and eating a cinnamon cruller. Since the kitchen maid had only brought me a cake donut this morning, I was wildly envious, but I forced myself to overlook it. I had something more important on my mind.
“You and I both know,” I said, “that someone has put an evil spell on Yurt. It doesn’t seem possible that such a charming castle should be touched by evil, but it is. I don’t know who has cast the spell, but you and I have to do something about it. I don’t think it was you, and I hope you don’t think it was me.”
“I try not to accuse anyone of evil, even in my thoughts.”
“Tell me: How soon after you came to Yurt did you begin to feel the presence of an evil mind?”
He put down his teacup carefully. “I have never felt an evil presence here.”
