The Witch, the Cathedral

color of her eyes. “The fanged gorgos, 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.”

IV

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.”

“You were already friends with the old magician, and if you’d wanted you could have met the royal wizard of Caelrhon any time before his death.”

“I told you, Daimbert, you aren’t like other wizards. Old Sengrim would have had nothing to offer me-if he’d even cared to get to know me. I knew at once that you were the only one I’d ever come across who might be at all interested in teaching a witch his magic.”

“Magic first, children second,” I mumbled.

“And once I met you,” she persisted, “I realized that I could gain from you far more than I’d hoped. And not what you’re about to say! What I gained from you was friendship.”

“Friendship,” I repeated. It seemed a weak enough word.

“You’re the only person I’ve been able to talk to about magic since my mother died. You were even interested in learning my magic, which I won’t teach anyone again until our daughter is old enough to understand. And you’re funny, and affectionate, and enthusiastic, and treated my ideas with interest and respect. Is it any wonder I fell in love with you?”

“Odd you never mentioned it before,” I said for the second time.

“That’s because I was hoping you weren’t in love with me,” she answered. “I knew you were Royal Wizard of Yurt, and I knew wizards don’t marry. If I made it clear how strongly I felt about you, you would feel compelled to resign your position, and I also knew the conflict would destroy you emotionally.”

“As opposed to feeling like this,” I said with intentional sarcasm. But I did open one eye for a quick glance at her face. She wasn’t crying any more but looked down at me affectionately. I closed the eye again.

“Your stay here, I knew,” she continued, “would not last long. You’d been Royal Wizard for years, but you’d only known me a short time. Before many more weeks had passed, I realized, you’d solve the cathedral’s problems and go home to Yurt. I’d always hoped to have a daughter, and I knew I couldn’t find anyone better to be the father.”

“Then having gotten what you wanted from me, why did you hide?”

“Because you asked me to marry you.”

“And you certainly didn’t want to do that!”

“No,” she said, very quietly, “because I did. If you had asked me again I probably would have agreed.”

“And would you agree now?” I asked, sitting up and compelling her eyes to meet mine.

But she shook her head. “I’ve had a month to strengthen my resolve. Please forgive me.”

I could manage no better answer than a snort.

“I’d hoped you’d forget me. Well, no, not hoped. I always wanted to see you again, and I certainly had to tell