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The chaplain and a few of the ladies had chambers from which one could reach the great hall without going out into the courtyard, but everyone else arrived for lunch dodging through the rain, and a line of wet umbrellas stood against the wall.
I still wasn’t hungry and took only a little soup and none of the meat pie. Gwen gave me a concerned look from the servants’ table, but I had no attention to spare for her. I was trying, as I had promised Dominic, to pay attention to the duchess and Nimrod.
I had to admit that Dominic was right. Nimrod and Diana sat with their heads bent together, talking about topics unrelated to whatever the rest of the table was discussing. In pauses in their conversation, when the duchess was addressing a remark to someone else or just busy eating, I saw the giant huntsman’s blue eyes fixed on her almost caressingly.
The duchess had flirted with me as well when we first met, and my first thought was that this was just more of her teasing. But if so, it didn’t seem fair to Nimrod, who was taking it quite seriously. She had never married because, as far as I could tell, she had never met a man who could keep up with her. I had sometimes wondered if Diana realized that her tendency to keep those around her off balance, to do or say things just to see the reaction she got, was in its own way highly predictable.
But now her behavior seemed oddly out of character even for someone as determined to be outrageous as Diana. There had always before been limits. She enjoyed being a member of the aristocracy, as much as she enjoyed behaving like no other duchess in the western kingdoms, and would no more have given up her castle and her authority than I would have given up magic. Dominic was right that Nimrod could not possibly aspire to be her social equal, despite his surprisingly cultivated speech and good manners. For that reason, I tried to reassure myself, whatever the regent might think, her obvious affection for a hunter without status or family would never lead to any permanent liaison or even anything seriously harmful to her reputation.
As everyone stood up from lunch, I went over to her chair. It was one thing dealing with magical challenges in the king’s absence, but it really would become complicated if I had to deal with everyone’s personal problems as well. “Could I have a private word with you, my lady?”
Diana agreed at once. Nimrod smiled at her and walked away-I assumed things hadn’t proceeded so far that they shared their chambers. Dominic caught my eye and nodded, an abrupt motion with his chin. For once he approved.
The rain had let up enough that the duchess and I, our umbrellas spread over us, were able to walk rather than run to the door of her chamber and arrive relatively dry. “Have a seat,” Diana said, taking off her cloak. “It’s chilly enough that I’m going to start a fire.”
She knelt at the hearth, put some twigs and wood shavings together against the front of a large log, and soon had a small blaze going-the duchess would never bother calling a servant for something like this. She added some slightly thicker twigs, and in a moment the log was glowing red. Sitting down next to me, she said, “There. That should take the chill off the afternoon.”
The fire had provided only a momentary distraction. I pushed aside my reluctance to speak. “I’d like to ask you something, my lady, and hope I don’t offend you.”
“You haven’t managed to offend me yet,” she said cheerfully.
“You seem to have become very friendly with Nimrod, considering that he just appeared out of the woods a few days ago. What have you learned about him?”
Her gray eyes narrowed slightly, but she was determined not to be offended. “I haven’t been quizzing him about his ancestry and family wealth, if that’s what you mean,” she said, smiling to keep the comment mild. Something about the way she phrased it made me wonder if she might already have a good idea of his ancestry and family. “I know he’s very intelligent as well as very handsome, and he’s a far better hunter than anyone I’ve ever seen. You probably haven’t had a chance yet to see him use that enormous bow of his, but he’s an absolute dead shot.”
I had heard too little of Nimrod’s conversation to be able to tell if he could keep up with her humor and often biting wit, but as a hunter I was sure she had met an equal.
“In fact, I even-” She stopped without finishing what might have been a very interesting sentence. Instead she looked at me with a frown. “Your question doesn’t really sound like you. Did Dominic tell you to talk to me?”
I nodded ruefully, rather glad in fact that she’d guessed the truth.
Fortunately, she seemed to find this highly amusing. “So he’s worried that a member of the high aristocracy, the queen of Yurt’s own third cousin, is flirting outrageously with a nobody? I ought to become really outrageous about it, just to teach Dominic a lesson.”
“I’m sorry, my lady, I wouldn’t have said anything if he hadn’t insisted. In fact- Well, Dominic himself has been acting a little strangely lately.”
“In what way?”
“After the royal family called the other night, he was talking about the baby prince and asked me if I’d ever thought of getting married!”
She unexpectedly became serious. “So it’s bothering Dominic too,” she said, which made no sense. But then her eyes twinkled. “I presume you told him that even an adorable little blond prince wasn’t going to make you forget that wizards never marry?”
I took a deep breath. “The regent’s going to ask me what you said.”
She looked down her aristocratic nose. “Tell him,” she said with a smile twitching the corner of her mouth, “tell him that I was deeply offended at your insult to my honor, and that I told you I would always behave in the most honorable way possible, and that, since I was sure of that point, I would always do exactly what I wanted.”
Back in my own chambers, I found Evrard wearing my best dressing gown and sitting in my favorite chair with his feet up, leafing through the first volume of my copy of Ancient and Modern Necromancy.
I sat down across from him. “I need to talk to you.”
“Fine,” he said brightly. “I was just reading again about the Black Wars.” When I cocked an eyebrow at him, he continued, “Surely you remember the end of the Black Wars.” He waved the book in his hand. The first volume of Ancient and Modern Necromancy, which I’d never read very closely, was almost entirely devoted to history.
“I’m afraid I’ve never given very much attention to the history of wizardry,” I answered. I was trying to remember if the Black Wars had come before or after the period in which Saint Eusebius was eaten by the dragon-after, I decided.
“You haven’t? But I love history! Didn’t you want to study all about how the wizards ended the fighting in the western kingdoms? Isn’t that what made you decide to study wizardry in the first place?”
“No,” I said sheepishly, thinking that maybe I could skim the book this evening after he was asleep. But I didn’t want to be distracted by history. “You’ve taken courses at the school more recently than I, and some of them were different. I want to show you a spell I found this morning and ask if you’ve ever seen anything similar.” I pulled the heavy volume onto my lap and found the place. “I don’t think it is written down entirely correctly, but this gives the general outline.”
“What is this book?” asked Evrard, sneezing from the dust.
“It used to belong to your predecessor, the old ducal wizard, thirty years ago,” I said with a sideways glance. “There are four volumes. If you want them, you can have them, once we’re done.”
“I guess so.” He wrinkled his forehead at the handwriting. “I’d rather have a nicely printed book, but-” He stopped, and his forehead cleared. “But this is the same spell-”
“Yes?” I prompted.
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Nothing. I thought I recognized it, but of course I don’t.”
He sat back with a cheerful smile. I looked at him in silence, putting several things together. “In fact,” I said at last, “I think you do.”
At that moment we were interrupted by a hard knock on the door. Dominic, I thought resignedly, rising to my feet. “Yes, I talked to her,” I started to say even before I had the door fully open.
But it was not Dominic. It was the chaplain, standing under an umbrella. In his hand was a small white square. He must have heard again from the bishop.
He turned to me without seeming to notice Evrard. “The priests are coming here to Yurt.”
“Which priests?”
“Priests from the church of Saint Eusebius, the church that asked for his relics.” These were the ones, I recalled, whom Joachim almost suspected of trying to make the Cranky Saint cranky enough that he would leave the hermit’s grove. “They want to examine the situation at first hand, according to the bishop.” He glanced at the paper in his hand. “They’re already on their way. The bishop has still given me no specific instructions, but the priests will be here in three days.”
“It really does sound as though the bishop is giving you a free hand in all this,” I said, just managing to meet the intense look on his face. “Clearly he trusts you.”
Evrard, behind me, cleared his throat.
“Let me know if I can help, but I don’t know if I can,” I said to Joachim.
“Of course. Sorry to interrupt you.”
“So the chaplain’s your very good friend?” asked Evrard as I closed the door again. “It sounds as though he’s got plenty of problems of his own, what with bishops and priests and who knows what else. I guess it must be hard out here for you to find someone intelligent and interesting to talk to.”
Although I had more than once thought the same thing, I didn’t like the implications of what he had said and decided not to answer.
“He looks very dour,” Evrard continued. “Somehow it’s hard to imagine wild old Daimbert making friends with a priest!”
He would realize Joachim’s merits when he got to know him better, I reassured myself. “Right now,” I said, “I want to ask you why you made the great horned rabbits.”