The Royal Wizard (12 page)

“They ask for shelter and our assistance in their quest.”

Nia addressed the knights. “I have seen Synealee. You have come quite a distance from the land of eternal summer. What is it you seek this far north?”

The one in the middle looked askance at the king. “Your Majesty,” he said uncertainly, “surely this is a matter to be discussed among men.”

“Sir Frederick duChamp,” the king said by way of introduction, turning his head toward Nia without looking away from the knights. “He speaks for this lot.”

Nia nodded to the knight. He was the elder of this company, a man whose pride kept his shoulders back despite his gray hair and weathered face. The simple clasp securing his cape was a circle wreath with a hand brandishing a sword in its center. They all wore a similar symbol, but his was the only one etched in gold.

“The wizard is my right hand,” Saeran told the knight, daring him to argue. “You will show her the same deference you show me.”

“Answer to a woman, by the grace of god inferior in every way?” Sir Frederick said, his face turning red.

“Tread carefully, knight,” Saeran said. It was the only warning he would give.

Rather than leash his tongue, the knight stood. “Boys, we have come to the wrong place! The king’s woman rules this land; we should have gone to her instead!” As the onlookers hummed in displeasure, Sir Frederick turned on Nia. “And where would we have found her, I wonder? In the king’s bed, perhaps?”

Saeran rose from his throne, and all those with sense backed away from the dais and the man who had just incurred the king's wrath.

Nia stood her ground and held the knight’s gaze without saying a word.

“Do you please him well,
wizard
?”

Rather than roar his fury, Saeran quietly dared, “One more word.”

Sir Frederick sneered. “Harm a hair on my head and you will have the armies of Synealee descending on you to avenge me.”

It was the worst thing he could have said. The guards filed in, arms raised, but they looked to Nia and Saeran for orders. Both shook their heads to keep them back.

All of the knights were on their feet now, trying to reason with their companion. He would hear none of it. Shrugging off their hands, ignoring their warnings, he toed the very edge of the first step. “We came to you out of courtesy, not need,” Frederick declared. “This insult will not be borne. I will not yield to a boy’s fancy, nor woman’s whim!”

Saeran drew his dagger, but Nia stayed his hand. She brushed past him, her robes pushing him back. The gathering retreated more with every step she took, all but the foolish knight who thought himself above a king. Nia descended three steps and looked Sir Frederick in the eye to see his soul.

She wasn’t gentle, and she didn’t hold back. Arrowing through the haze of red temper, she found his pride and fear. Deeper still, she followed a path of determination to the heart of him, where all that he was and would ever be resided. There she found his quest, a dream of touching godhood in its purest form.

His obsession with a lone god’s son, neither human nor divine, but both at once made no sense to Nia. This man worshipped what she could only call a wizard, yet he scoffed in the face of another. He sought a holy object with the power to grant eternal life. Nia had never heard of such a thing. To find it would mean great honor to him and all his descendants, a blessing he hoped to prove he deserved. Only one whose soul was worthy, blessed by his god, would be allowed to touch it, and he desperately wanted to be such a man. To fail in this meant an eternity of fiery torment at the hands of demons, but to have come this far gave him hope and made him believe he was their better.

Baffled, Nia left where Frederick was headed and sought where he’d come from. The knights didn’t move while she searched him; she didn’t allow them such freedom. They stood frozen, watching, waiting for her judgment while Frederick shivered before her, wide eyed, terrified of being found out.

 “He lies,” Nia declared. “A reckless old fool. They have no supplies left and the journey has drained them. This one is an outcast from his own lands. The others hold allegiance to no one. They seek a treasure far to the north where even our own people rarely venture. Their legends led them here, and they require a guide to go the rest of the way.”

Nia released him and raised her head high as everyone present sighed in unison. Saeran issued the signal to bring the guards closer, but it was her honor the knight had impugned and she would be the one to pass judgment over him for his insolence.

Free of her spell, Sir Frederick clutched his chest as his aging heart shuddered and slowed. As with the poisoned wolf, Nia felt the knight’s pain as if it was her own. She schooled herself not to show it.

“Foolish old man,” she said, keeping her voice soft. “Your god has no power to protect you here. This is Woden’s realm, and his children do not take kindly to such insult.”

Sir Frederick dropped to one knee, sputtering, dying. Nia descended two more steps and held her hand out over his form huddling at her feet. Closing her eyes, she droned a hum and then gave it words: a healing spell which drew on the earth’s nurturing magic to mend the flesh of man. It wasn’t a forceful order, but rather a prayer, a petition. The earth, as all living things, could choose whether to obey. The knight stilled, breathed in deep, then straightened and stood, his eyes wide. He had finally run out of words.

“I saved your life this day,” she told him. “Think twice before you slander me again.” Turning away from him, she returned to her place at the king’s side. “They are no threat to us, my liege. The treasure, if there is one, has value for them alone. The sooner we help them find it, the sooner they’ll leave.”

“What of him?” Saeran asked, indicating Frederick with a nod.

The knight still staring at her traced a cross over his chest and knelt, bowing his head. “Bless my soul,” he said reverently. “Forgive me for not recognizing the great Lady of the Lake. My life is yours if you ask it.”

Nia and Saeran looked at each other, equally confused.

“Lady of the Lake,” the rest of them echoed, kneeling along with him, and once again those present hummed with gossip.

Saeran despised gossip, yet he always seemed to find himself in the midst of it, its subject or its audience. By tomorrow, some great fable about Nia would be making its way across Frastmir and this time he would have no explanation for what she’d wrought. Who were these knights, casting judgment one moment and then prostrating themselves the next? What utter drivel would the nobles invent about what they’d seen?

Saeran didn’t like this sudden shift, didn’t trust it in the least. He found himself wary of them. They were fervent in their beliefs, fanatic in their quest for what they themselves had admitted might not even be there. Such steadfast faith could be a powerful thing.

Even now, though he showed humility to Nia by kneeling, Frederick still raised his head to gaze upon her with unnerving reverence, and Saeran knew without question Nia would rather be anywhere in that moment than standing there before him.

He looks at you as if he sees a goddess given form,
Saeran thought, willing the words to her. He didn’t expect her to hear him, but she answered all the same.

More fool he. A goddess would pluck his eyes out for daring to meet her gaze.

Her disgruntled voice in his mind soothed Saeran.

But then he noticed the knight at the far right of the company who, much like Frederick, didn’t have the sense to drop his gaze. This one was different. There was something very familiar in his eyes. Saeran had worn that selfsame look many a time when Nia either didn’t notice or chose not to see. Saeran’s fingers curled tighter around the dagger he hadn’t yet sheathed.

Nia stepped closer but said nothing. Saeran held their lives in his hand. Knowing she would stand by him no matter the judgment made it harder to choose but easier to carry the burden of choice. Saeran leaned to the side a little to brush shoulders with her. She reciprocated, elbowing his dagger arm. Scowling, he sheathed the blade and resumed his seat.

“Beltaine comes in two days’ time,” he said. “There will be no talk of quests until it passes. For now I will choose to overlook the affront you’ve caused. Have a care, I will not tolerate another.”

“We understand,” one of them said. “Our thanks, your Majesty.”

Saeran waved the guards to lead them out and clear the great hall. The court session was over. “I do not trust those men,” he told Nia when they were all gone. “Keep away from them.”

“As you command, your Majesty,” she replied.

He looked up at her where she stood. “I mean it, Nia.”

“Why do they bother you so?”

Saeran thought of the way the younger knight gazed at Nia and dread settled in his bones. He couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow, someway, these knights would rob him of something precious. The maddening sense of portent hovered just out of reach, as visions always did each time he sought them.

“You are the one with magic Sight. What does it tell you?”

Nia tilted her head and looked off into the distance, no doubt seeing many things Saeran would never glimpse. “It tells me we are nearing a fork in the path.”

 Saeran reached for her hand and squeezed it tight. Whichever path the gods chose for him, he would walk it with Nia by his side. Or not at all.

CHAPTER 12

Sir Frederick was pacing. He’d smoothed his shaggy hair six times since he’d come out to the courtyard, and it still wasn’t tidy enough to him. If he didn’t stop, he would smooth what little hair he had left right off his head. Arnaud shifted in his seat, made nervous by his fussing. Frederick must have seen dozens of pagan ceremonies in his life, he ought to be used to the sights.

Ah, but this one would be attended by the Lady of the Lake, and that was no ordinary thing.

The night the royal wizard had healed him, Frederick had told them all what he had seen. He described the lady Nia without the human mask he said she wore. He said he’d seen her shining from within, draped in a glittering pearlescent gown. He’d seen her beneath the surface of a deep lake, with fish and water nymphs paying her homage. But as she was in King Saeran’s court, Frederick said she’d also been out of place in the lake. Honored and revered, yet somehow greater than the nymphs around her. One of them, but separate. Her eyes, he’d said, had been like that of a doe, not a fish. A creature of land as much as water, and both at the same time.

Did she have the sword of kings, they all asked. Frederick hadn’t seen one in his vision. Did she say anything of the cup, they asked next. Hanging his head, he again answered no.

What was Arnaud to make of that?  If it was a vision from God, it was one that seemed to serve no purpose. If it was the workings of evil, why would it have healed Frederick when it could have so easily killed him instead? The wizard didn’t lack for acolytes, and there was no service a wandering group of knights could render to one like her, so what reason could she have for deceiving them with a false vision?

Arnaud’s faith in God was unshakable. He’d seen the face of his Savior and would do whatever He commanded to see it again when his life in this world came to an end. His faith in Frederick’s vision was far less. They’d all been exhausted by their journey here, pride alone keeping them on their feet before the pagan king and his wizard. What Frederick had seen could have been nothing but a dream. Arnaud would not be swayed to believe otherwise unless he saw evidence of it for himself.

Tapping his foot, he chose to leave his companions to stroll about, lest he begin to pace as well. He’d heard talk in the village about this so-called festival. Despite the mystery surrounding the ritual itself, it seemed to him the rest of this day’s importance lay in the fervid coupling these people seemed to look forward to with more than a little impatience.

When he’d come out to check on his mount this morning, he’d found a young maid already being chased by the hostler in the stables. Arnaud had made a hasty retreat into his sanctuary for prayer.
God give me strength to remain true.

He was tempted, increasingly so as the sun dipped lower and torches were lit, casting shadows all around. Wickedness lurked in those shadows, wearing the face of innocence. Temptation dressed in revealing gowns, smiling with open invitation. So many beautiful wenches brushed past him with ill concealed intent that he was hard pressed not to avail himself of one of them. Yet each time he came close to succumbing to such sweet temptation, he closed his eyes and saw the golden one. The lady who’d swept into the great hall on a summer breeze and faced them with sunshine in her hair and lightning in her gaze. Sir Frederick’s Lady of the Lake.

Arnaud had never seen her equal. In beauty, poise and bearing, she surpassed any queen he’d ever glimpsed, and he was ashamed to admit, if only to himself, that he was smitten. His weakness in the face of a pagan sorceress reminded him of his pitiful humanity. No matter how he strived to be pure of thought, devoted to his God and his quest alone, lady Nia had become a constant spectre in his mind, beguiling him, tempting him. He ought to hate her for it, yet everywhere he went, people loved her and sang praise enough to make a martyr blush. She was a healer among them, in every possible way. She mended bodies and minds, reconciled friendships, birthed children and cared for the old. She was their priestess and midwife, advisor and confidant.

Whether she was the Lady of the Lake the legends spoke of was irrelevant. Here, in this enchanted land, the wizard was a legend in her own right. And she was the true ruler of these people, Arnaud knew, for the king was no more immune to her beauty than the rest of them. She would guide his hand with a single word or gesture.

A child pushed through the crowd and barreled into him in his haste, dropping a handful of polished stones. “No!” he cried, diving for them, heedless of the feet so close to stomping him to death. The boy’s dark eyes were wide and brimming with tears, and his wee hands shook as he gathered the stones.