C. Brittain - A Bad Spell in Yurt

My second mistake was going down alone to face the demon, when I could no longer ignore its presence. With the duchess’s assistance, I doubtless could have persuaded the Lady Maria to stay safely inside, at least for a few days, and the knights to delay their attack. That should have given me enough time to send a message to the City, to ask for help from one of the experts in demonology. Someone else might have been able to persuade the demon to leave in return for far less than a human life. In retrospect, this had probably not been one of the “little problems” that Zahlfast had said I would have to solve on my own.

Finally, even if it was going to take a human life to return the demon to hell, I should have demanded at least a short period of grace. If I had had a day or two before what had almost been my death, I might have been able to use my own natural charms to win many more kisses from the queen.

Gwen came in at this point in my deliberations. She did not meet my eyes. “I’d like about that much again,” I said, handing her the empty breakfast tray.

She took it with a little duck of the head, not with a saucy look, not even with the smile an elderly uncle might deserve. I realized she had not said anything or even looked at me directly when she brought me my food originally. She was treating me with the same reserve she showed the king.

“You can talk to me, Gwen,” I said, holding onto my end of the tray until she had to look up. “I’m not so weak that I must have absolute silence.”

Her eyes were very wide when they finally met mine. “Excuse me, sir, I don’t want to seem rude,” she said hesitantly. “But- I never knew anyone who miraculously returned from the dead before.”

I hadn’t either, of course, but I saw no reason that she should treat me with awe on that account. “That has nothing to do with me personally,” I said hurriedly. “It was the chaplain’s prayers that worked the miracle.” I realized I was as anxious as Joachim to disavow any personal merit-with the important distinction that he was wrong to do so and I was right.

“But how did you know I was dead?” I asked when she remained silent. “Were you out there in the courtyard last night-or I guess it was night before last?” She stared at me without speaking, so I smiled and said, “All right, Gwen, I’ll ask you something simpler. Sit down-you can bring the chair closer than that! How about if you tell me why all of you left the duchess’s castle to come back here?”

She examined one of her thumb nails with apparent fascination but spoke clearly. “We realized something was wrong when our chaplain took the queen’s stallion from the duchess’s stables. The stable boys couldn’t stop him. They ran to tell the constable, and he told the king. Nobody could imagine why he’d done it. They asked me if I knew anything, since I had just been up for the chaplains’ trays a few minutes’ earlier, and when I said that you’d been with him, they realized that you were gone too.”

“But how did you know we’d come back to the royal castle?” I prompted when she fell silent.

“Sir Dominic and the young count guessed it,” she continued with a quick glance at me. “They said there was an ‘evil wizard’ here in the castle, who had summoned the dragon. And they said that you must have gone back to fight him all by yourself, even though they’d offered to help you. And the count said- I really would just as soon not repeat it, sir.”

“It’s all right, Gwen. Go on.”

“-he said,” she paused, then went on defiantly, “he said that you would make matters with the evil wizard even worse through your ‘incompetence’! I knew you weren’t incompetent, sir. But they wouldn’t listen to me. The count started to gather the knights at once.”

“But they listened to the duchess?”

“That’s right,” she said in surprise. “How did you know? She told them it wasn’t another wizard at all, but a demon in the cellars! She said that you and the chaplain must have gone without telling anyone because you were afraid that the knights would imperil their souls by trying to fight it without realizing what it was.”

I considered this for a moment. “Did she say where the demon had come from?” I asked casually.

“Well, from hell, I assume,” Gwen said in confusion and fell silent.

So the duchess had not revealed everything I had told her. With luck, no one else had guessed that demons were unlikely to appear without reason in one of the smallest of the western kingdoms. I thought very affectionately of the duchess. Someone would have to have a long and private conversation with the Lady Maria; I would ask Joachim to do so. Maria might guess her own role in bringing both the demon and the dragon to Yurt, I thought, but I did not want to say anything to her myself. Besides, matters of the soul’s salvation were the chaplain’s responsibility.

“It’s back in hell now,” I said to Gwen, who was giving me a wide-eyed stare again, “and I’m alive and still own my soul. But you haven’t told me yet why you’re all here.”

“It was the king and queen. They said that if the two of you were fighting a demon to save their kingdom, it was their responsibility to be here with you. In the end, everyone came, though we had to leave the boar and the Christmas tree in the duchess’s castle. It was late evening when we got here.”

“And what happened then?” I asked when she fell silent.

She shook her head as though to shake off a strong emotion. “The castle was dark and empty, and strange-the stones were all oddly warm, and there were rats and bats and roaches all over the place-”

She gave a shiver of disgust. I nodded; I knew exactly what it had been like.

“I think the count would have gone straight into the cellars after the demon if he could have, but he couldn’t even get down the stairs. There were big yellow clouds pouring out of the cellar door; the duchess’s chaplain told us it was brimstone, from the demon.”

I didn’t know whether to admire the young count’s courage or wonder at his foolhardiness-he had prudently stayed inside during the dragon’s attack.

“Jon and I found our royal chaplain. He was lying in front of the altar in the chapel, and for a minute we were afraid he’d been killed! But when Jon touched him on the shoulder, he sat up suddenly-I’ll never forget the way his eyes looked.”

It sounded as though the castle had been an exciting place while I was dead. I was sorry to have missed it.

“He said-” Her voice dropped so low I could hardly hear it. “He said that you were dead, sir. And then he said that, in the name of Christ, we had to leave him alone to pray for you, and not to go into the cellars if we valued our immortal souls!

“Jon and I told the king and queen at once. The duchess’s chaplain wanted us all to leave the castle immediately, but they said they wouldn’t run away, and besides it was too dark and too cold to go anywhere else. We didn’t even know if the demon was still in the cellars, or if you had been able to defeat it before it killed you, but there wasn’t much we could do but wait.

“Nothing happened for most of the night. We were all too sad and frightened to go to bed. We sat in the kitchens or else went out in the courtyard to see if anything had changed. Even when the clouds of brimstone started to clear, we didn’t dare do anything. Then suddenly, toward dawn, our chaplain appeared in the courtyard. He was carrying the big silver crucifix from the chapel altar, and he went right by us as though we weren’t even there. When he came back from the cellars, an hour later, he was carrying you.”

She fell silent, and I lay back in bed. This explained the faces and voices I had half perceived in the courtyard.