The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic

“Let me go this instant,” she said.

“Don’t be so stiff, girl,” he slurred. “Everyone knows you’re the wizard’s whore.”

Not again, she thought angrily. “I am no man’s whore.” The hot soup arced out of the bowl, rearing up like a snake, and splashed right in the man’s stupid face. He yelped and dropped her arm, railing at her.

Another figure loomed in the darkness. Nora heard a blow, a groan, and the impact of a large, drunken man hitting the ground. “Lady Nora, are you all right?” It was Perin’s voice.

“I’m fine, thanks.” Nora tried to sound composed. “I’m just going back to the party. We’re out of soup now, unfortunately.”

“Ah, you threw it at him.” He laughed suddenly. “Quick thinking. He deserved a soaking.”

She hadn’t thrown the soup—not the way Perin meant. But she had helped make that soup, and when she asked it, it did her bidding in a jiffy. Aruendiel would be pleased with how she used magic to get out of that particular jam.

The wizard’s whore. Except, she thought, I can never tell him.

Chapter 46

The peace talks lasted several days. Vulpin was willing to agree to almost any restrictions on magic practiced outside the Faitoren lands, but he held a firmer line on magic practiced at home. “We are magical beings,” he said, clasping his stubby hands on the table. “We are willing to forswear magic for certain ends, but I cannot promise that we Faitoren will not do magic. Such restrictions would kill us.”

Aruendiel was unimpressed by the last argument, but with some reluctance he assented to the eventual compromise: The Faitoren were prohibited from casting glamours on any living thing—including themselves—in their own domain or out of it. “So there will be no more hiding people in books or camouflaging sheep as ladybugs or disguising kidnapped young women, is that clear?” he growled at Vulpin. Yes, very clear, Vulpin said mildly.

As for reparations for the livestock that the Faitoren had stolen over the years—Luklren’s main concern— there was less haggling. Vulpin agreed to a number only slightly lower than the one that Luklren first named.

The reason, Nansis Abora explained to Nora, was that both sides knew that there was small chance that the Faitoren would ever be able to pay the reparations. Almost any figure named would be essentially fictional. “Their land is very poor,” he said, shaking his head. “And none of them is a real farmer, from what I can tell.”

“But that’s just asking for trouble down the road, setting up unrealistic expectations the Faitoren can’t meet,” Nora said. She was thinking of the Treaty of Versailles.

“I’m afraid you’re right, my dear. As the dog said when he bit the serpent’s tail, this will lead to nothing good. Well, neither side really has a choice. The Faitoren are in no position to argue—but really, what leverage do we have? We can’t do much more to them, short of putting them all to the sword, and then the reparations will never be paid. At least Lord Luklren has had his claims acknowledged. But bad bargains like these,” he added, “are why I got out of politics.”

Nansis Abora was Nora’s main source of information on the negotiations—filling her in when he came down to the kitchen in the afternoons for a goblet of hot sheep’s milk and whiskey. If Aruendiel was not in the talks with Vulpin, he was closeted with Luklren or the other magicians, or taking one of the watches over the Faitoren. Nora spent almost all of her time with Lady Nurkasa, struggling with an embroidery needle. Perin came in a few times to visit, for which Nora was grateful, although under Nurkasa’s eye, he talked only about the weather and his hostess’s cousins near Semr, whom he knew slightly.

Sometimes Nora thought that she had enjoyed herself more on the frozen desert of the Ivory Marshes.

After Vulpin went back to the Faitoren to get their approval for the treaty, the magicians continued to meet by themselves—arguing about the new protection spells to install around the Faitoren domain. “Dull stuff,” Nansis Abora said, although Nora wished that she could sit in. It would be a good part of a magical education to witness this kind of debate, and she was slightly hurt that Aruendiel had not included her.

Euren the Wolf had already left. “He wants to get back to his pack,” said Nansis Abora. “He doesn’t mind the fighting, it’s the talking afterward that he can’t stand.”

Nora finally asked the question that she had been wondering about since meeting Euren. “Is he a werewolf?”

“Oh, no!” Nansis Abora seemed both horrified and amused by the question. “Not at all. No, Euren is a man—a man who prefers to live as a wolf.”

“What is the difference?”

“There’s a world of difference, my dear. For one thing, Euren won’t bite you. Well, he did bite Aruendiel once,” Nansis added vaguely, “but then he was provoked.”

At the end of the third day Nora finally heard from one of Luklren’s servants that the Lord Aruendiel would be pleased to have a word with her. With relief she put down her embroidery needle and followed the servant. Aruendiel was in the room that Luklren called a library, although there were more weapons in it than books.

As she approached, the door opened and Vulpin emerged. He bowed. “Princess Nora.”

“No one calls me that anymore.”

“I wasn’t sure who you were at first,” Vulpin said. “You know, I never saw your real face before. I was happy to see that you recovered from your injuries.”

“Really?” Nora said. “I don’t recall you showing much concern before, when I was bleeding to death.”

Vulpin’s tusked face was masklike, but she heard him sigh. “It was difficult, you know. Ilissa treated us badly, too.”

“She didn’t kidnap you or marry you to her monster son, did she?” Nora demanded. Then she sighed, too. “Well, I don’t want to stir all this up again. You were more decent to me than the others, and all of us are here to make peace, aren’t we?”

“Yes.” He paused. “There is one thing I was wondering about—whether you have any intention of asserting your claim to the Faitoren throne.”

“What? My claim? You mean, because I was married to Raclin?” Nora laughed. “Gods, no! I have no interest in your throne. Your people are more than welcome to govern yourselves. But there’s something I want to ask you, too. I still have Raclin’s horrible ring on my finger, and no one can remove it. The one time someone succeeded, I almost turned into a marble statue. How do I get it off—without dying?” She showed it to him.

Vulpin shook his head regretfully. “That is Raclin’s magic—the unitary ring. It is a sort of glamour, but not one of our usual Faitoren glamours. There appear to be only two rings.” Seeing Nora’s blank look, he went on: “Your ring and Raclin’s ring are the same ring, and only he has the right to take it off your finger. The best thing to do, I think, would be to ask Raclin.”

“He’d never do that.”

Vulpin shrugged. “Who knows what Raclin might do. It is funny”—Vulpin nodded again in Aruendiel’s direction—“he asked me the same question, about your ring. Well, good-bye and good fortune to you, Your Highness.”

“You can stop calling me that.”

With a flash of his old debonair manner, Vulpin said, “But you will always be a princess to me, no matter how long the Faitoren rule themselves.” He raised his small hand and went down the corridor.

Nora laughed a little sourly and pushed open the door of the library. Aruendiel was sitting at a table near the fire, reading a scroll. Glancing up, he gestured for her to take a seat opposite him, then returned to the scroll.

After half a minute he asked: “And how are matters with you, Mistress Nora? The head you bruised, is it healing properly?”

“It’s fine.”

“And your health otherwise, and your spirits? You are keeping yourself sufficiently occupied while these damnable negotiations drag on?”