A Bad Spell in Yurt

would take the opportunity of being alone to slip off to the north tower, but to my surprise-and I think almost everyone else’s-he said he would join us at service. “I’ve been wanting to see these lamps you told me about, young whipper-snapper,” he said affectionately.

For Christmas Eve, even the chapel was decorated with evergreen boughs, and some of the candles on the altar were red and green as well as white. Everyone in the castle was there, crowded together companionably on the benches. The chaplain’s vestments were brand new, brought up from the City on the pack train with all the constable’s orders just a few days ago. He read us the Christmas story, which while we all knew well was always worth hearing again, before proceeding to the service itself.

The only way I could suspect him was to assume that he had done something truly evil, such as dealing with a demon, but that he had then just as truly repented, because otherwise his prayers would not have healed the king. But if he was truly repentant, he could have nothing to do with the stranger, and his presence could not be related to the sense of evil I still sometimes felt. I was left being forced to think that the stranger was someone totally foreign to the castle, who had come here to practice black magic-perhaps in our cellars-for his own purposes, but this was a very unsatisfactory explanation. The queen had come to Yurt, the king had grown ill, the old chaplain had died, and the present chaplain had arrived, all within a year, and there had to be some connection.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” we all told each other as we separated after service. The stars were bright and incredibly distant in a black and icy sky. I watched as the old wizard, his face holding the same determinedly skeptical expression it had had throughout the service, went toward his room. He showed no sign of going to inspect the north tower. “Sweet dreams of presents!” somebody called, and there was a general laugh as the guests retired to their chambers and the castle party to theirs.

PART SIX–CHRISTMAS I

Christmas morning dawned bright and clear. Since there were so many guests in the castle, rather than having the serving maids bring us our breakfasts individually we all assembled in the great hall. Here the cook had produced another masterpiece. Whole hams, platters of steaming sausages and eggs, donuts, crullers, and giant silver teapots were set out on the tables. Everyone was in a jolly Christmas mood; I even saw the chaplain smiling at a joke.

Once we had eaten, it was time for the presents. Packages wrapped in red and green paper, presents from the king and queen to everyone in the castle, were piled under the Christmas tree. The queen distributed these with smiles and laughter. Most of us received gifts of gold coins, or rings, or clothing. I received a new velvet suit, of midnight blue, which I wished I could try on at once. Even our guests received small presents, and the old wizard had to smile when he pulled out a gold ring shaped like an eagle in flight, holding a tiny diamond in its beak. The calico cat played in the scattered ribbon, chasing and biting it.

Then the husbands and wives and lovers gave each other gifts, some of them apparently jokes that they wouldn’t let the rest of us see, although they giggled quite a bit. I tried unsuccessfully to spot what was in the box Jon gave Gwen, though it made her smile and blush a most becoming pink before she slammed the lid back on. Most of the ladies received such a present, though not the Lady Maria.

At this point on Christmas morning, it was usually time for Father Noel to come in with presents for the children, except that we had no children in the royal castle of Yurt. The serving girls and stable boys, even the boys being trained in knighthood, were all old enough that they would have been acutely embarrassed to receive a gift from Father Noel. But I knew someone who would love such a gift.

I slipped out while the knights and ladies were still teasing each other over their presents. In my room, I hastily put on my old red velvet pullover, stuffed the stomach round with socks, and draped a piece of rabbit fur I had gotten from the constable’s wife around my neck. A little illusion made my eyebrows and beard bushy and white.

“Ho, ho, ho, boys and girls!” I cried as I reentered the hall. “And have you all been good little boys and girls this year?” They recognized me at once, in spite of the disguise, and everyone except one of the boys, who clearly thought he was about to be embarrassed publicly, laughed heartily.

“I’ve just got one present today, for an especially good little girl,” I said, in my best jolly tone. “Let’s see, there’s a tag on this present, it will tell you who’s the lucky girl!”

I made a major production of reaching into my sack and slowly pulling out a large box wrapped in red. “Let me see,” reading the tag, “I think this says the present is for, let me be sure here, for someone named Maria. Is there a very good girl named Maria here today?”

She laughed with delight, as I knew she would, and came forward for the box. I let the white bushy beard fade back to my own beard as we watched her open it.

Inside the first box, which she opened with giggles of anticipation, was, not the present she was expecting, but another box, this one wrapped in green. Inside the second box was a much smaller one, this one golden. But inside the third box was the present.

She drew it out slowly, unfolding it to gasps of appreciation from the other ladies. It was a white silk shawl, printed with irises, which I had had packed up from the City earlier in the week. It was big enough to drape over her entire upper body, but delicate enough to be folded into a bundle smaller than her hand.

She put it over her shoulders at once. “Thank you, Father Noel! This is the nicest present this good little girl has ever gotten!”

With general laughter and more joking, people now stood up to go outside, to catch a little fresh air and try to find some sort of appetite for the noon dinner that the cook was already preparing. I hurried back to my chambers to take off the pullover and put on my new blue velvet suit. It fit perfectly. As I turned in front of the mirror, I thought that even if I didn’t look mysterious in it, at least I looked dignified.

Back in the courtyard, several of the ladies had begun singing Christmas carols in three-part harmony. It would have been more effective if one of the knights hadn’t been teasing them, which made them keep stopping, laughing, and losing their place, but the sound of their high, light voices in the frosty air was very pleasant. As I leaned on the parapet, high above the courtyard, looking out across the snowy hills of the western kingdoms, I thought this was a morning of perfect peace.

A gloved hand closed over mine on the railing, and I discovered the duchess beside me. I had not seen her come up. “Merry Christmas,” she said. “I’d been thinking I ought to have a special present for you this morning, but after you gave that shawl to the Lady Maria I realized I’d be wasting my time.”

She was teasing me, of course. “Oh, I can love any number of different ladies at the same time,” I said airily, gesturing with my free hand. “After all-”

Her grip tightened, but I realized she was not listening to me. “Look, over there. What’s that?” she said in an entirely different voice.

I looked. Beyond the forest, high above the hills, a dark cloud was coming rapidly toward us out of the north. But it was flying too low and moving too fast to be a cloud. For a moment I wondered if it might be the air cart, bringing someone to visit from the wizards’ school, even though it was coming from the wrong direction. But as it approached, I realized it was much too big to be the air cart.

It was a dragon.

The duchess and I were not the only ones up walking on the parapet, and several other people had seen it too. One lady screamed, but several other people looked toward me questioningly, and one even laughed a little. They thought it might be another illusion.

This was, unfortunately, no illusion, but a real dragon. “Get down!” I yelled. “Get inside!” I grabbed the duchess in my arms and leaped off the edge of the walkway, flying us down and landing in the courtyard with hardly a bump. “Don’t let it catch you outdoors!”

Although for a second I was afraid that blind panic would replace complacency, as all the ladies began screaming at once, I did manage to get them herded into the center of the hall. “Keep them calm,” I told the duchess. “I’ve got to try to stop it.”