Daughter of Magic

unsummoned, into a cathedral. But a person who had sold his soul to the devil, who was using the black arts for supernatural effects, would still be able to do all the ordinary things, like enter churches, that the rest of us did, those of us who might well be damned but didn’t know it yet.

The book, being written by and for wizards, did not directly address the question the bishop might have asked, whether someone who had sold his soul could still save it by becoming a priest. But it was not encouraging. The book didn’t offer any way out at all for such a person-short perhaps (and only perhaps) of skilled negotiations by a demonology expert.

I reshelved the volume slowly, wondering if a demon would have too much sense of self-preservation to let the person who had summoned it spend time in close association with the saints who always clustered around churches. Saints, I told myself hopefully, should be perfectly capable of returning a demon to hell all by themselves, no matter what the book said.

“What’s this word, Wizard?” asked Antonia.

I realized with a start that she was not just pretending to read but was actually reading Elements of Transmogrification. “It’s the Hidden Language,” I said, scooping the book from her lap and returning it to the shelf. “Your mother and I will teach it to you when you’re older.”

She jumped down from the chair, indignant. “I was reading that! Give it back!”

“No, no. I’m sorry, Antonia, but it’s really not suitable for you.”

Tears started from her sapphire eyes, and she stamped a foot hard on my flagstone floor. “It’s not fair! You can’t just take my book away! Where’s my mother? I want my mother!”

I picked her up, trying to soothe her, but she wiggled free and began to cry in good earnest. “I was reading!”

“You’re just cranky because you didn’t have your nap,” I said encouragingly, feeling panic set in. “Maybe if you have your nap-”

“I am not cranky!” she shouted, tears pouring down her cheeks.

I gave up trying to calm a distraught little girl and lifted her from the floor with magic, startling her so much she stopped crying for a moment, and flew across the courtyard with her to the twins’ suite.

III

They were both there, Hildegarde wearing her leather tunic and sword belt but sitting disconsolately in the window seat, and Celia reading her Bible with an aggrieved angle to her chin as though finding things in it different from what the bishop had told her.

“You haven’t seen Paul, have you?” Hildegarde asked me but not as though she really cared. “The king really liked Justinia’s dress,” she added over her shoulder to her sister. “Maybe you should get one like it, Celia, if Father ever takes us to Xantium as he keeps saying he will,” but even this teasing sounded half-hearted. “Here,” to Antonia. “Stop crying and I’ll let you hold my knife.”

I was horror-struck, but Antonia gulped back her sobs and reached for the knife. Hildegarde closed the girl’s small fingers around the handle. “Hold it very carefully,” she said, “so nobody gets hurt.”

“The wizard wouldn’t let me read my book,” said Antonia, looking at me from under lowered eyebrows and holding the knife in a way I would have called threatening.

I stood back a safe distance. “I think the king went riding after lunch,” I said to Hildegarde. Paul tended to react to anything which he had to think over by taking his stallion out for a miles-long run. Even if he didn’t end up exploring some ruined castle or scenic waterfall, he might be gone for hours, occasionally even days. No one, not even the queen mother, had ever been able to persuade him that a king should have an escort when galloping around the countryside. Besides, no other horse in the kingdom could keep up with Bonfire.

“Earlier he’d said he was going to show me some exercises. But I guess,” Hildegarde added with a deep sigh, “that he was just humoring me. He doesn’t think I can be a knight any more than anybody else does.”

Either that, I thought but did not say, or Lady Justinia’s arrival had distracted him so much he had forgotten everything else.

“I was going to be a wizard,” said Antonia with a dark look for me, “but now I think I’ll be a knight too.”

“Knights need their naps,” said Hildegarde, unfolding herself from the window seat. “Don’t I remember tucking you in over an hour ago, you little scamp? And then,” with a laugh, “I looked up and saw you out in the courtyard with the wizard!”

“What’s a scamp?” asked Antonia.

“Scamps are mischievous people who have a mind of their own,” said Hildegarde. “I used to be a scamp myself.” I was surprised she put it in the past tense.

Antonia allowed herself to be taken off to bed in a much better mood than I could have anticipated a few minutes ago. Hildegarde casually slid the knife from the girl’s hand back into her own belt.

“Celia,” I said when the others had left the room, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Of course, Wizard. Do you need to leave the girl with us again while you go somewhere?”

“No,” I said slowly, “but I would like you to go somewhere for me. Down in Caelrhon there’s a man-someone whose name I don’t know but who has been nicknamed the Dog-Man-who wants to be a priest too. I wish you would talk to him.”

Celia put her Bible down very slowly. “Is this a joke, Wizard?” she asked as though not quite sure whether to be irritated. “I remember the tricks you used to play to amuse Hildegarde and me when we were little. Because if you think you can make me forget-”

“No, no,” I said before she could make this any messier than it already was. “I’m absolutely serious.” Some of the tricks I had played on the twins had been pretty good, I recalled; I should try them on Antonia if she was still speaking to me. There was the one where I pretended to snip off a girl’s nose with my fingertips, then presented a plausible illusory nose for her inspection, or the one where I tossed a butter knife in the air, went to catch it, gave a blood-curdling yell and presented my arm with the hand “cut off,” that is made magically invisible …

But I shouldn’t be distracted. “This man, Celia, has apparently persuaded the bishop that he has been touched by God, but I’m suspicious of him. He’s hiding from me-which is part of the reason I’m suspicious. So I need someone who has a pure religious vocation, but someone who doesn’t automatically agree with the bishop on everything, to find out more about him.”

“More about him?” said Celia, sounding bewildered.

“Find out why he’s suddenly appeared in Caelrhon, how he’s doing what look like miracles-but maybe aren’t- learn how deep are his religious convictions: all the things the bishop is unwilling to ask him.”

She gave me a level stare. “You’re asking me to do something behind His Holiness’s back?”

“Well, yes, I guess so. But I can see,” I added hastily, “that it was probably wrong to ask you, that-”

“I’ll do it, Wizard.”

“You will?” I said, startled.

“Women often understand people, both men and women, better than men do,” she said firmly. “This way I may be able to help the Church if your suspicions are accurate.” She suddenly grinned. “And if I can show the bishop my powers of spiritual discernment, he may realize he’s made a big mistake. Now, tell me more about this man.”

An hour later Celia rode away from the castle toward Caelrhon, telling me she hoped to be back in a few days and would send me a pigeon-message in the meantime if she discovered anything interesting. Hildegarde decided at the last moment to go with her, announcing that no future duchess should ride across two kingdoms without an armed warrior to accompany her and protect her. The twins had ridden up from the ducal castle unescorted, and Celia had dismissed my suggestion that a few of the castle’s knights ought to go with her to Caelrhon, and without Paul there to back me up there was no way I could change her mind.

As I watched the twins’ horses disappearing, I hoped that the bishop would not be too insulted at my sending a woman to prove him wrong.

Antonia, still partly asleep, came out with me to see them off, trailing her doll behind her. “Before I took my