The Wizard King (21 page)

“Well?” the Sage asked, cocking an ebony brow. “What is so important that you must tear me away from my devoted subjects?” His tone was limned with mockery.

“News from the capital, your Grace.” Couric cleared his throat and fixed his gaze on a prickled weed at the side of the path, loath to deliver his unpleasant message. “It appears… that is, it—”

“Bad news, indeed, to foul
your
slippery tongue.”

Couric drank deep of the sweet-scented air, steadying himself as if with wine. “King Durek and Princess Athaya have formed an alliance.”

The Sage reeled backward as if he had stumbled into the confines of a binding spell. He glared at his companion with distaste. “If this is your idea of a joke,” he said, his voice a low and threatening growl, “then it’s a damned poor one.”

“No, your Grace. A trusted agent in Delfarham heard the news from the king’s own criers this very afternoon and relayed it to me directly. The princess and her brother have made peace with one another.”

The Sage’s cheeks flushed crimson with rage, matching the color of his cloak. “But that’s impossible! They
hate
each other! It’s—” Then he broke off, staring into pastel-colored space.

Couric ventured a step closer. “Your Grace?”

“No. It can’t be…”

The Sage clutched the trunk of a nearby dogwood tree as if his world had suddenly tilted sideways. His eyes took on a pained and glazed expression.

“Your Grace? Are you ill? Shall I fetch—”

“Dameronne’s prophecy…”

Slowly, the Sage paced a circle around the tree, speaking with a flat and faraway voice. “Our time will come when a woman blessed by both heaven and earth comes forth to lead the Lorngeld into glory. She will live among the high and the low and will wield powers unseen since the days of the ancients. She will obtain aid in her endeavor from an unexpected quarter, and in so doing will usher in a golden age of a great wizard king…”

The Sage did not finish his recitation. “Aid from an unexpected quarter,” he repeated, staring blindly into the dying sun. “Aid from an
unexpected quarter
! Dameronne foresaw this… but I did not.” He struck a blow at the dogwood tree, harming his fist far more, and then, rage spent, his eyes clouded over with disgrace. “God’s greatest servant should not make mistakes such as this.”

“Your Grace, that line of the prophecy was not at all specific. Do not take it—”

“Enough, Couric.”

The Sage squared his shoulders, as if regaining dignity lost by a clumsy fall, and proceeded toward the manor. “This alliance complicates matters,” he conceded. “Still, it cannot stop us. A wizard king is destined to rule this land, and that discounts both the princess and her oldest brother. But our future conquests will not come to us as easily as Eriston or Nadiera.” He shook back his mane of hair, whisking the last cobwebs of shock from his brain. “Prophecy or no, it would have served us better to keep those two quarreling with one another.”

“If the princess would rather be the king’s ally than yours, then it is proof that she will never join us.”

The Sage paused a moment before replying. “Not willingly, no.”

They passed through the manor gates barely acknowledging the crisp salutes from the guardsmen on duty.

“Your orders?” Couric asked.

The Sage halted in the center of the courtyard, surveying the area as he had upon first arriving as the manor’s new lord. “I have been in Nadiera long enough, I think. Tomorrow you will appoint someone to hold this manor for me in my absence. It will be yours, as I have promised,” he reminded his trusted friend, “but until I am the undisputed ruler of this land, I want your clever head with me.”

Then he glared up at the limestone towers of the manor, showing little pride in his possession of them. “Perhaps it is time we turned our attentions to the south. I understand that the princess has a large following in the city of Kilfarnan. If we move quickly, we could be there in a matter of days. And if the wizards of that city do not join us,” he went on, shifting his gaze to Couric, “then at least we can keep them from going to the princess’ aid. Or the king’s.”

Couric nodded, pleased with his lord’s decision. “Yes, your Grace.”

The Sage drew his cloak closer about him; the sun had slouched below the horizon and the air grew chill in its absence. “Inform my officers that we will depart in the morning. And don’t spread this about any more than you have to,” he added, setting off toward his private room in the north wing. “Best to strike at Athaya’s allies before they can prepare for our coming.”

“I refuse to listen to the advice of a… a
wizard
,” the earl of Tusel cried in frustration, pointing his finger at Athaya like one child accusing another of tattling. “It’s unnatural!” He wiped a sodden handkerchief miserably across his brow, his once-cheerful disposition curdling rapidly in the stifling heat of mid-July. The temperature in the council hall had risen steadily since the king’s advisers convened that morning, and the topic of discussion only worsened already cranky tempers.

Durek’s glare was incongruously icy. “You will listen, sir, or you will be dismissed from this council. Permanently.”

Defiance evaporated from the earl’s youthful face and he promptly sank into moody silence.

Athaya tucked a sticky lock of hair back inside her beaded chaplet and tried not to explode. She had been an unwelcome fixture in the council hall for ten days now, and the strain of the council’s obstinacy was mounting. Even Durek’s demands for their cooperation helped little, as most of his advisers were of the unspoken opinion that it was far riskier to deal with wizards than to resist their king’s commands—commands they suspected he issued simply because his sister bewitched him to. She fervently wished that Mosel Gessinger was here and not halfway to Ath Luaine; he was the sole member of Durek’s council who knew firsthand of the Sage’s threat and might have been able to sway them where she could not.

Unlike the great lords of Caithe, Athaya’s following in Kaiburn proved cautiously willing to embrace this newfound alliance. Not that the wizards were quick to trust their king—Ranulf had expectorated his skepticism quite clearly when Athaya had made the announcement—but a practical assessment of their plight forced them to realize that they could not defeat the Sage without assistance. And even if Durek rescinded the temporary concessions he had granted, it was generally accepted among the residents of the camp that the Lorngeld of Caithe couldn’t possibly be worse off than they were now.

“As I was saying,” Athaya went on, giving her brother a subtle nod of thanks for his intercession with Tusel, “the Sage has likely heard of our alliance by now and will be making his next move quickly. We’ve already received scattered reports of armed men moving across the shires southeast of Nadiera. We can’t sit around this table any longer and debate the best way to proceed; we have to
do
something even if it turns out to be wrong.” She jabbed a finger at the gilt-edged map unfurled across the table. “Again, I propose that we concentrate no fewer than seven hundred magicians throughout the central shires to block the Sage’s progress eastward.”

“I don’t want all those spells going off in
my
shire,” one of the older lords grumbled—one whose lands rested in the lush countryside of central Caithe—then retreated back into silence at Durek’s potent glare of warning.

“Using wizards to defend ourselves will only make things worse,” complained the man to his left. “Country soldiers would just as soon kill our wizards as the Sage’s. They won’t see the difference. Assuming there is one,” he added, barely audible.

“The lords of the land will never stand for any of this,” Lukin declared. He stood apart from the others, keeping near the window to reinforce his profound disapproval of Athaya’s presence among them. Not a drop of sweat shone on his brow, and Athaya speculated that the archbishop was simply too stubborn to perspire and thus admit he was just as human as the rest of them.

“They’ll damn well stand for it if I tell them to,” Durek pointed out sharply. “If they refuse, they are freely declaring themselves enemies of the Crown, and I can revoke their titles and lands in reprisal.”

Athaya noticed a few of Durek’s advisers shifting in their seats, suddenly recalculating the risks involved in resisting their king’s wishes. Earning his anger was one thing; suffering tangible retribution was quite another.

“Many of Caithe’s lords are more willing to help us than you might think,” Athaya pointed out. She addressed the archbishop directly but he refused to look at her, unwilling to acknowledge that she was present, much less that she existed at all. “I spoke with several of them over the past year and most only refused to aid me out of loyalty to Durek—and fear of the Tribunal.” That earned her a quick and venomous glare. “But now that those two obstacles are gone, albeit temporarily,” she added for Durek’s benefit, “they should assist us gladly.”

“And betray their God at the same time,” Lukin muttered. He turned on Durek in a blur of black wool. “I cannot sanction any of this! As spiritual lord of this land, it is my sworn duty to shield your subjects from sorcery.”

“As it is mine to see to their survival.”

“Is that more important than their
souls
?”

Durek’s gaze frosted over with austerity. “Jon, do not defy me in this—”

“Shall I then defy God? It is
His
judgment that will be the harsher.” Despairingly, he closed his fist around the silver Saint Adriel’s medal he wore around his neck. “I am glad that our sainted Bishop Adriel is not alive to witness this travesty.”

“Damn it all, Jon—”

Before the quarrel could escalate further, a crimson-clad sentry knocked softly and slipped into the council hall. “Sire? You asked to be informed the moment Prince Nicolas arrived. He and his escort are waiting in the Great Hall.”

“Good,” Durek breathed, grateful for the interruption. “Bring them here at once.” The king rose to his feet. “We’ll continue this later,” he announced, dismissing his council with the timbre of his voice. As the men filed out of the hall—rather eagerly, Athaya noted—Lukin drifted to the king’s side and lingered there like an unpleasant odor.

“Sire, I do not think it wise to have the prince within the walls of this castle.” He flicked his eyes meaningfully toward Athaya. “After what he did—”

“
Tried
to do, Jon,” Durek replied without looking at him. “And you’ve already made your opinion on the matter more than clear… and with great frequency.”

Lukin’s expression of bitter defeat was not lost on Athaya. She doubted that her brother had ever defied his archbishop as staunchly as he had these past few days, and the suspicion that he was not as influential as he liked to think must be eating at the cleric’s innards like maggots on spoiled meat. Athaya felt Lukin’s acerbic eye upon her as they waited for Prince Nicolas’ arrival, convinced that she was behind the whole of the king’s stubbornness. He never dared to consider that perhaps Durek was simply showing a bit more of Kelwyn’s spirited blood than he had in the past and was gradually growing more comfortable with kingship after a somewhat precarious start.

Jaren and Nicolas entered the room first, closely trailed by the ever-watchful Captain Parr. Jaren’s eyes went right to Athaya, warming with surprise as he surveyed her attire. Having reclaimed her old wardrobe, Athaya had forsaken her tattered peasant’s kirtle for a simple but elegant gown of pale blue silk trimmed with silver thread. The infant alliance with Durek was shaky enough at it was, and she did not want to appear to be baiting his Majesty’s council by dressing in rags when better garments were available to her.

I haven’t seen you look so beautiful in a long time,
he sent.

Thank you,
Athaya returned, frowning good-naturedly at the backward compliment.
I think.
She flicked a studious glance at her brother.
How is he?

Her query was answered instead by the entrance of Master Hedric. He greeted her only fleetingly, keeping his attention fixed upon the prince to ensure that he remained well under control of his compulsion in Durek’s presence. Waiting in the doorway behind Hedric was the unexpected figure of the earl of Belmarre. Durek gave the earl an ambiguous nod, aware that he should remember him from one court function or another but unable to match a name to the face. As for Hedric, the king glanced to him without a wisp of recognition.

“I am Hedric MacAlliard,” Master Hedric supplied graciously, stepping forward and offering Durek a shallow bow. “High Wizard to King Osfonin of Reyka.”

Durek concealed his surprise well; only a slight twitch of the lip betrayed him. He knew of the title and of the man who held it—this was the wizard who had first told Athaya of her destiny, the wizard who had trained her to her fullest level of magical potential, the wizard whom, were Durek in a more petulant and vengeful mood, he could blame for all that had befallen his kingdom of late. He appraised the old man with regal impunity, studying the wizened eyes, the cut of his robes, and the gnarled cherrywood staff, and finding him a far more benign sight than expected. Archbishop Lukin, standing near Captain Parr in the corner, glared at the old wizard with a unique form of abhorrence normally reserved for the beggars that forever polluted the steps of Saint Adriel’s Cathedral. If he, as prelate of Delfarham, was God’s favored servant, then Master Hedric, the most accomplished of magicians, was surely the Devil’s.

“I am sorry our arrival was delayed,” Hedric said, propping his staff against the council table. “We should have been here days ago, but we had to take a slower pace so as not to upset the prince. Travel seems to worsen his condition. I am the prince’s caretaker, you see,” he explained, trying to banish some of the confusion clouding the king’s face. “With the Sage’s spell still threaded in his thoughts, he needs constant care to avoid lapsing back into madness.”

“Threaded in his… what?”

“I shall explain at your leisure. But now,” he said, prodding Nicolas forward like a child, “I think his Highness has something he wishes to say to you?”