might be able to have one in a few weeks. If you gave me a down payment now, it might make the search easier.”
I abandoned the pretense of wanting a horse like Paul’s. “You got that horse from a wizard, didn’t you.”
He looked at me in apparent disappointment, though I wasn’t sure if he was disappointed at losing a sale or just at cutting our sparring short. “Well, I did,” he admitted, “though I trained the horse myself. A beautiful animal it was when I got it, but wild.”
“Have you seen the wizard at all recently? Might he be bringing more horses from wherever he got that one?”
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “I haven’t seen him in months. Though of course I didn’t tell him I’d buy anything he found, I think he realizes I would if they were like that stallion.”
Vor, Norbert, and the Romneys had all been able to see this wizard-why couldn’t I? And, I thought with a surge of jealousy, he must have an air cart of his own, to be able to transport horses from the borderlands. If I was somehow able to overcome him maybe I could have it for my own.
But this was an unprofitable line of thought. Much more pressing was whether the horse might still be trap, though to be triggered by the wizard himself, not by Vincent. “Thank you for the information,” I said. “Do let me know if you have any horses like the red stallion again.”
The Romney man returned to his caravans without pressing the issue of a down payment. At the bottom of the hill, ladies and attendants were already trying to find the best seats in the stands.
The chief outcome of my conversations was that I knew I had to find the wizard. But I seemed no closer to doing so. He must be here, but he was still thoroughly concealed. I realized uneasily that it had been some time since Theodora had gone to look for him….
A trumpeter appeared in the lists below. Lifting the horn to his lips, he blew a single long blast, then began a lively tune with the rhythm of horses galloping. To general shouts, the knights around the tents mounted their horses. Paul came out of the castle, riding Bonfire. His new armor shone like silver, and he carried a plumed helmet in one crooked arm. For the tournament all weapons were to be blunted. Only the new king himself wore a real sword.
He was halfway down the hill when Vincent came out of the castle, pushing his horse to a trot. He waved as he went by. I had already seen Lucas going down, riding easily with no sign of pain from his ankle. A number of the castle staff, young Gwennie among them, hurried to join the lords and ladies in the audience.
In a few minutes the tournament was underway. The Romneys, stood on the sidelines. From where I sat with the lizards, I had a clear view of the sky. I kept looking and kept seeing nothing but birds.
I heard a step beside me, jumped, and turned to see Joachim. He regarded the lizards curiously for a minute, then sat down on the grass beside me, arranging his robes around him.
For a second I considered ordering him back into the safety of the castle, bishop or no bishop, then realized he was probably deliberately making himself visible in order to bring on a wizardly attack. “These are the creatures that were moving stones around on your new tower,” I told him. “They can’t do any harm now, as long as they’re paralyzed, but if I leave them the wizard will probably break my spell at once.”
In the field below the castle’s hill the first event began, a horse race. I noted that Paul had had the good taste not to participate; Bonfire could easily have outrun any horse there.
“I’ve just talked to Prince Vincent. I’d believed all summer that he and a renegade wizard were planning a joint attack, but I realize now that this belief wasn’t the product of wizardly insights, only of jealousy. Everything I saw as signs of a despicable plot-the way he and the queen behaved toward each other, the fact that Yurt and Caelrhon were once one kingdom, even Vincent’s gift of a stallion to Paul-had a simpler and more innocent explanation. All my suspicions were so incomprehensible to Vincent that he decided I must in fact fear he would turn the young king against
I told him about the mass exodus of the teachers from the school. Joachim nodded slowly. “But these lizards show he’s not ignoring Yurt,” he said. “He may be attacking on two fronts.”
The wind cut silver paths through the long grass on the castle’s hill and the fields below. The area of the tournament was already becoming trampled and muddy.
“But where is he?” I burst out. “Is this all? If he’s here, what will he do next?”
The knights in the tournament lists were now preparing for the tests of skill; mounted men would gallop at top speed toward a ring dangling from a thread and try to thrust their lances through it.
“Theodora’s looking for him,” I added, then stopped, realizing that I couldn’t tell him more without revealing that she was a witch.
“I was glad to have a chance to talk to her yesterday while we were riding,” said Joachim. “At first she seemed shy of me, almost awe-struck. I had hoped that if I became bishop I could make people realize that bishops are not like princes, men of authority and command. Rather, we are shepherds, sinners ourselves but chosen by God to help and guide other sinners. But I’ve been bishop for over a week, and I’m still being treated as a lord of men.”
This was much too complicated to try to explain to him now. Shouts from the base of the hill showed that one of the riders was doing very well; it appeared to be Vincent.
“Theodora reminds me somewhat of you,” Joachim continued, “especially you twenty years ago, when I first knew you. You both have the same sense of humor, where it’s often difficult to tell if you’re making a joke or not.” Normally I would have been afire with curiosity to know if they had talked about me, and what they had said, but now I was too worried to care.
“What’s my priest doing?” said Joachim in quite a different tone. I looked down toward some of the spectators milling around at the edge of the lists. The young priest who had come with the bishop was in the middle of a crowd of Romneys. I didn’t know what it looked like to Joachim, but to me it looked like he was placing a bet.
“Maybe I should go down there for a little while anyway,” said the bishop. “I cannot approve of battles, even mock battles, but I do not want to appear to be avoiding the festivities deliberately.” He brushed himself off and walked quickly down the hill.
I watched him go, feeling increasingly uneasy about Theodora. But then I saw a dark lilac dress approaching rapidly from the direction of the deserted Romney caravans. At the same time a servant in Yurt’s blue and white livery shot out of the castle and over the bridge. He was running and reached me before she did.
“Come right away!” he cried. “It’s a telephone call from-from someone named Zahlfast! He said he must talk to you at once, about the safety of the wizards’ school!”
“Theodora!” I shouted to her, jumping up. “Stay here and watch these lizards!”
“Wait! I have to tell you-”
“Tell me when I get back.” I flew straight up and over the castle wall, the quicker to reach the telephone.
PART NINE — RENEGADE
I
Zahlfast’s face looked as haggard as I had ever seen it, and he breathed hard. He stared at me blindly; he must be calling from a telephone without a far-seeing attachment.
“Thank you,” he said. “I wanted to tell you we got the warning in time.”
“What warning?” I appreciated the thanks but I had no idea what he was talking about.
“When I got back to the school from dinner last evening, the young wizard relayed your message that the phone in the watch-station up in the borderlands was broken. That fool hadn’t told us, of course,” meaning good old Book-Leech. “Instead he thought he’d try to fix it himself, though he’s not competent to do so.”
Zahlfast paused, then continued in something closer to his normal school-teacher tone. “Maybe we should
