Song of Sorcery (25 page)

“You’d better make out that I’m fasting, as well, then,” replied His Highness, “I’m not much for knives or forks these days.”

* * *

It was odd coming into a town again after being in the woods and mountains for so long. There seemed to be too many buildings and too many people moving too quickly. The self-preoccupied looks on the faces of the townspeople as they brushed past the travelers forced Maggie to keep reminding herself that their own business was just as important and they needn’t keep giving way before people. Though Dragon Bay was small, it was still much larger than a gypsy camp, where the bear had spent his last few years, or Maggie’s home at Fort Iceworm. Many of the hurrying people were driving geese, ducks, cows, and pigs through the streets, so that the noises of those animals were mixed with the cries of their drivers and the general conversation of day-to-day commerce.

Careful to keep the bear as far as possible from the larger animals, Maggie looked around for a point of reference. “I’m not sure how to do this, now that we’re here,” she told the bear. “I feel so silly just walking up to someone and saying Excuse me, sir or madam, would you be so kind as to point the way to the nearest evil sorcerer?’ I mean, how could they admit knowing someone like that? It would show they kept bad company.” The bear nodded, but had no suggestions to offer.

Most of the structures along the shore street were fishermen’s huts with boats docked at the front doors and nets set out to dry and mend. Several landings down from Maggie and the bear, some of the animals were being loaded onto a barge While they stood staring at the activity, a cow being driven down the street behind them came too close to His Highness’s wild-smelling person and bolted, causing several other animals to engage in a miniature stampede.

The Prince pulled Maggie away before she could be run down by a flock of frantically bleating sheep, and the two of them fled up a narrow side street to avoid being trampled. When they had put another street between themselves and the bustling dock, Maggie collapsed against a building to catch her breath.

Regaining her composure, she slowly opened her eyes again and found herself staring into the open door of the establishment on the opposite side of the street. Her hand went to the bear’s shoulder. “Your Highness, isn’t that the inn from the vision?”

“Hmph?” asked His Highness, allowing his snout to protrude slightly as he stood more erect. “I can’t tell for sure. Haven’t seen many inns lately, and, to tell the truth, we bears are a trifle near-sighted, but I’d say it is.”

Maggie took a deep breath and held up crossed fingers to the bear before they entered the common room of the inn.

“Good day, good folk,” said the same woman who had been so polite to Uncle Fearchar, sounding as though neither they nor the day actually met her specifications. She cast a critical eye over the scruffy girl and the great, hairy pilgrim, sniffed, and continued in a businesslike manner to set the table for her lodgers’ evening meal. When she had finished and they still stood there, she said, “If you’re looking for a place to stay, I’d think the Lorelei would be more to your liking. It’s cheaper, and anyway, we’re full up.”

That was a fine way to talk to an enchanted prince and a semi-powerful witch, Maggie thought. She certainly hoped the woman would display more courtesy to other peculiar-looking travelers, or in this country she might find out how difficult it was for a toad to polish cutlery. At least she had been polite to Uncle Fearchar, which reminded Maggie of why they were there. “Thank you for your counsel, ma’am,” she said with all the mildness she could muster, “but actually we were looking for a relative of mine.”

“Oh?” said the woman. “We have few strangers here. Who is this relative?” She set down the rag and pitcher she had been using to clean the table and placed a fist on each ample hip, devoting her full steely-eyed attention to the bothersome intruders.

“My uncle, Fearchar Brown. I—er—was told he had been stopping here.”

“Master Brown is a relative of
yours?
” The woman’s lower jaw dropped as recognition of the common familial characteristics between niece and uncle began to redden her face. “Oh, do pardon me, Miss. As I say, we get so few strangers!” She hurried around the table to pull out a bench. “Pray, seat yourself and rest. I’ll bring you a mug of tea and a bit of bread I baked this morning and send my boy around for Master Brown.”

She called to the boy, who came running with much show of adolescent knees and elbows, and sent him on the errand, then turned anxiously back to Maggie and the bear, saying, “I’m sorry there’s no butter today. Like all else in this town it goes bad very quickly. It’s a pity the food we have to waste! There was a good catch this year, too, but how we’ll get through the winter I don’t know, I’m sure…”

“Doesn’t salting and drying keep it well enough?” Maggie asked, more to stop the woman’s babbling than because she was really interested.

“Salt!” snorted the wife, whose stare regained its former piercing severity. “I wouldn’t poison my family and customers with that! It wrecks one’s health, didn’t you know that? And it has that horrid aftertaste, besides.”

“It does?” Maggie’s opinion that the woman was extremely peculiar and changeable and generally not much worth bothering about was confirmed. Even the bread she baked was absolutely tasteless, no doubt due to the woman’s prejudice against salt, and with no butter to put on it Maggie thought she might have as well eaten a piece of the table instead. “You wouldn’t happen to have a place where my companion and I could wash, would you?”

The woman’s grimace of distaste said that no number of celebrated kinfolk could make up for the mess they would leave her washing all the grime from themselves. Of herself Maggie thought that that was probably correct, but it was unfair in the bear’s case, since none of him was visible outside his cloak. “I’d have to charge you, Mistress,” the woman said finally, “as that would require the use of one of my rooms.”

“I’ll trade you a preservative spell for it then,” Maggie offered with exaggerated patience, “to keep your dismal fish fresh.”

Making sure that Maggie kept her end of the bargain first, the woman supplied her with a bowl, pitcher, towel, and a scrap of homemade soap. She did not offer to heat a kettle of water, so Maggie had a wash no warmer than those she’d had since Castle Rowan.

She realized she had given the innkeeper’s wife far more than fair value for her facilities, but she felt better when she came down the steps and saw the boy escorting a man into the room. The bear joined her silently at the foot of the steps and together they stepped forward to meet Fearchar Brown. Like Granny Brown and Sybil and Maggie herself, Fearchar was clothed in brown, but with a difference.

His britches and jacket were of the finest cocoa-colored velvet, lavishly trimmed with gold embroideries of intertwined and elongated animals and intricately interwoven knots and lacings. His shirt was a shining cinnamon silk. Maggie and the innkeeper’s wife curtsied. The bear pulled at the hood of his garment as though he were tipping a cap.

“The boy said a lady was inquiring for me, claiming to be some relation of mine,” began Uncle Fearchar, speaking to the innkeeper’s wife. She nodded at Maggie. Fearchar crossed to meet her, a smile lighting his face as he took her hands in his own well-kept and lavishly jeweled ones. “She is most certainly kin of mine! You must be the baby Bronwyn was about to have before I left!” he cried. Maggie thought she saw pleasure in his preliminary survey of her.

“Yes, Uncle. Maggie, sir.”

“I gave them my best bread and tea,” chirped the proprietress, “and they’re all washed and rested and comfy.”

Fearchar turned to her coldly. “You may leave us now, madam. But a bottle of wine to celebrate our reunion would not be amiss.”

They sat sipping the wine while they talked. His Highness drank nothing, but did join them at the table, slumping somewhat, as his bear’s anatomy was not well suited to formal dining. As Fearchar began to talk, Maggie had been surprised to hear the beginnings of a growl rumble within the cloaked figure.

“Now then, dear girl, what brings you so far from Fort Iceworm? Your—ah—your mother and father are well, I trust.”

“My mother is dead, Uncle.”

“I’m so sorry to hear it. Your Grandmother? How is dear Maudie?”

“She’s fine, Uncle. Actually, what we came for I mean—I—” she was distracted and forgot what she was going to say as the growl from the bear built to the point that Uncle Fearchar tried to peer into the cowl.

“Excuse me, good pilgrim. I didn’t quite catch that?” he said.

The prince threw back his hood and jumped up on the bench, grabbing Fearchar by the jacket with his great front paws, “Prepare to die, varlet, or hand over my boy’s heart! For eight long years your hateful voice has been ringing in my ears.”

Maggie tried to drag the bear off her uncle by pulling on the cloak the bear wore, but it came off as she pulled, and she fell backwards.

Uncle Fearchar seemed to have regained control of the situation, though the bear still had him in hand, or paw. “I beg your pardon, my dear bear,” he said into his Highness’s snarling maw. “Would you perhaps be the Prince of Ablemarle come after the remedy for your enchantment?”

Maggie thought that even His Highness felt the strong, compassionate sincerity in her uncle’s voice, for he was lowering him to his seat even as he growled, “Come to you for one last drink of the marrow of men’s bones if you’re not quick enough about doing as I say, sorcerous scum.”

Unruffled, other than his clothing, Uncle Fearchar smoothed his lapels and clucked over a wine stain where his coattails had dragged in his cup when he was hoisted aloft. He returned his attention to the bear. His expression was one of mingled martyrdom and pity.

“My dear bear, it is true that I cast a spell upon you and procured for Xenobia the spell to remove young David’s heart, but let’s be gentlemen about this, shall we? You must realize that even a sorcerer of my stature has a living to earn.” The bear’s growl had died down to a grumble again but he didn’t appear particularly impressed. The sorcerer continued. “It was for your own character development that you had to be transformed; surely you can see that now? In abusing the faith of poor Xenobia, you transgressed, betraying not only a woman who loved you, but your own principles. In your feckless fickle state you would hardly have made a good ruler for your country or a decent father to your son. I simply aided the lady in providing you with an object lesson. The removal of Davey’s heart was part of the plan. Through the whole procedure we were only thinking of the ultimate personal growth you would achieve by the time you got to this point. We felt that in observing Davey relating to others with no regard for their emotional safety, you would come to understand how reckless and unworthy such behavior is. Obviously we were correct, or you would not be here now, waiting for me to institute the last of my remedial conditions to the spell.”

To Maggie’s surprise, the bear had by now ceased growling, and after listening quietly for a moment or two had begun nodding happily. “Yes, yes, I see it all now. How stupid of me to think that there was anything wicked in such a valuable lesson. Are you sure I’m quite worthy now to regain my human form?”

Fearchar nodded gravely. “You can be helped, yes. If you and my lovely niece will be so kind as to accompany me…”

The bear brushed his snout with a front paw. Maggie recognized the gesture as one of embarrassment. “Of course. Whatever you say. Hope I didn’t hurt you there, sir,” he added sheepishly, for a bear.

“Wait a moment,” Maggie said, bewildered at all the revelations and sudden attitude changes taking place. “Maybe both of you understand all of this, but…” Her uncle turned a look of deep concern and interest on her, mingled with avuncular pride, and she stumbled through the rest of her phrase. “If you’re the sorcerer who has caused all of his problems, then you must be the one who’s caused mine too, and you must know where Winnie is, and…”

He patted her hand and looked deeply into her eyes, smiling reassuringly. “Of course I know where she is, dear child. She is at my home, an honored guest. She will be so thrilled to know you’re coming to see her. When my trusted servant, known to you as Hugo the Peddler, found the poor girl in her sad state, he naturally brought her to me.

“Although Lord Rowan and I are, as you may or may not know, both contenders for the throne, Lady Amberwine is, after all, related to my family. I wished to spare her further pain and humiliation, and let her have her baby far from those who would chastise her for her girlish folly. Hugo feared if she knew he represented me, she would not come with him, so he instead allowed her to believe he came from your father. I hope we were in time. Hers is a delicate nature, and I fear her recent experiences may have caused her lasting harm.” He tapped his head with a forefinger.

Maggie found herself nodding agreement and promising to do whatever she could to help. She could see now that Fearchar had only been trying to save her sister, and a lucky thing it was, too. “That was so kind of you, Uncle. When is she to return to Lord Rowan?”

“To Rowan? Oh, Maggie, surely you must realize by now that while I bear him no malice, I do feel that Rowan is a dangerous and unpredictable man. I had hoped you would help me persuade your sister to accept the hospitality of my castle until her babe is born and they are in condition to travel with you to your father’s home again. Perhaps you, too, would grace my castle for a while? To keep His Highness company?” His Highness bowed, and Maggie nodded her head.