C. Brittain - A Bad Spell in Yurt

There was a crowd of white horses, with one black horse in the middle. White pennants, emblazoned with a bright pink rose, fluttered above them. As the horses ascended, a trumpeter with a long silver trumpet came to the fore and blew a swirl of notes. The riders kicked their horses into a run for the last hundred yards, and then they had arrived.

They were all around us, knights and ladies on horseback, servants leading the pack animals, everyone swinging down from their mounts and laughing and shouting at the people from the castle, who were laughing and shouting back at them.

I spotted the one I thought was the queen, a delicate, pale blonde, with a beatific smile. But as she pulled up her white mare, one of the knights from the castle took the bridle with a smile of delight all over his face, and she slid from the saddle and into his welcoming arms.

And then I did see the queen, and wondered how I could have been so mistaken.

Based on the features of the Lady Maria, her aunt, and on the white rose bush which the king had planted on their wedding day, I had expected someone blushing and fragile. But she looked no more like the Lady Maria than she looked like the old woman I had thought her to be when I first arrived in Yurt.

She was riding a black stallion, and her hair was the same midnight black. Her eyes were a brilliant and startling emerald beneath dark lashes. A crimson cloak swirled around her as she tossed the reins to one of the servants and leaped off. She and the king met with outstretched hands, much too dignified to kiss in front of all their subjects, but looked into each other’s eyes with joy.

I had been wrong in the old wizard’s valley. This was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She made the illusory unicorn lady seem rather insipid in comparison. As she leaped from her stallion, I had for a moment thought her a hard woman, but her face when smiling was the sweetest thing I had ever experienced.

She turned that smile toward me. “The new wizard!” she cried in what seemed genuine delight. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to greet you when you arrived! My parents had been counting on my coming ever since last summer, and the old wizard retired so abruptly that it was too late to change my plans. Has everyone been treating you well? If I know them, and I do, I’m sure they have! Are you happy in Yurt?”

I stammered that I was very happy in Yurt. I was in love at once.

While I stood staring at her-besotted, the old wizard would have said-I thought that here truly was a creature of fire and air, finer than anything illusion or imagination could create. She was beautiful, energetic, and loving-hearted. She took the king’s arm; I was relieved to see that he showed no intention of trying to fly for her benefit, being too happy to see her to think about anything else.

We all started up the last slope to the moat and the castle gates. The king and queen, arm and arm, were beside me. “The king has been telling me in his letters that you’re developing a telephone system for us!” she said, the perfect hostess, complimenting her guest on his accomplishments.

This brought me back somewhat to reality. “I’ve been working, but it’s proving more difficult than I expected,” I said, realizing it had been some time since I had had my glass telephones down from the shelf and resolving to start with them again tomorrow, or even today.

The royal pair kept moving, as she spoke a few words to first one person, than another. I found myself near the back of the group, walking with Joachim, as we entered the castle courtyard.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I said.

“Warn you against what?”

“The queen!”

“But there is no evil in her.”

I gave him up. “It’s a good thing you’re a priest,” I said, left him wondering what I meant, and went into my chambers.

I pulled down one of the books I had not tried yet, because it was all advanced spells that assumed you already understood the basics without having to think about it. This seemed like the best place to start anew on the problems of the telephones.

But I had trouble concentrating on the pages. I kept thinking about those emerald eyes. Since I wasn’t a very good wizard anyway, maybe I could give up magic altogether when the king died, and then she and I-

This was clearly an unprofitable line of thought. I wished I had had the sense to watch Dominic, to try to judge his reaction to her homecoming. But I had been too busy staring at her, doubtless open-mouthed, to pay attention to anyone else.

Neither the king nor queen was present at the table at noon or again in the evening. The queen, we were told, was resting from the fatigues of her journey, although she had appeared to me to have too much energy ever to be fatigued. I didn’t want to think what the king might be resting from.

Instead I talked animately to the Lady Maria. Everyone at both tables was delighted to have the queen home, so she was the chief topic of conversation, except for the couple further down my table who were just delighted to see each other again.

Lady Maria was happy to discuss her niece. “That’s right, she and I came to Yurt together when she was a bride, a mere child really. Her mother is a cousin to the duchess, or maybe they’re second cousins. Haven’t you met the duchess? You will, I’m sure. Yurt has two counts and the duchess. Anyway, the king was visiting his subjects, and he came to the duchess’s castle at the same time as the queen’s family was visiting, including me. Of course she wasn’t the queen then. But as soon as the king met her he started making his plans, you can be sure!”

There was a sort of grunt from behind me where Dominic was sitting. He had not spoken to me again all day.

“Dominic remembers,” the Lady Maria said in a teasing voice. “I think my brother, that’s the queen’s father, of course, had some hope of marrying his daughter to the royal heir, when he first heard the royal party would be visiting the duchess’s castle at the same time we were. Did the royal heir have some plans that way himself, Dominic?”

She laughed, a light, tinkling laugh. I turned my head just in time to catch an extremely surly look from Dominic. I felt much more affectionate toward the Lady Maria than I ever had before.

“But imagine our surprise,” she continued, “when it turned out the king’s plans were quite different! Everything worked out so beautifully. Except,” she paused, looked around, and dropped her voice. “Except,” so low that only I could hear her, and I thought for a moment that she was going to say, except that she had never been able to make the hoped-for match with Dominic herself, “except that the queen has so hoped to provide the king a little prince, and she hasn’t been able to.”

“What are you two whispering about?” one of the ladies called to us from down the table. I realized that we had our heads bent together as though engaged in intimate secrets, certainly more secret than what everyone else must have long have guessed about the king and queen. I sat up almost guiltily and caught the chaplain’s dark, sober eyes on me.

“We’re talking about the telephones!” I said gaily. “Now that the queen’s back, I’m sure she’s eager to be able to telephone her parents, and I have some ideas for the next step to try. The Lady Maria has graciously agreed to assist me again.” If anyone giggled, they were polite enough to turn it into a cough.

I stayed up late that night with my books and was up again after only a few hours sleep, and was almost too engrossed in the spells to hear Gwen’s knock. But I heard it the second time and went to answer. This morning the breakfast tray held hot cinnamon crullers as well as my tea.