A Wizard in Peace

CHAPTER 17

She remembered being the Lady Rijora, and in her dreams, she still was—but in the light of day, she knew herself once again as just plain Bess.

Plain indeed! Where Lady Rijora’s mirror had shown her a finely chiseled face with large blue long-lashed eyes, fair complexion, and a veritable mane of golden curls, Bess saw a moon-round face with close-set brown eyes, skin scarred by pimples, and framed by straight lank brown hair. The layers of fat had faded with Dirk’s combat drills and the Guardian’s diet, though, and she bore herself with grace, back straight and step light. Her tongue kept the lady’s accent as well as her hands remembered the gestures of refined conversation, and the ways of using the tableware for an elaborate formal dinner. Even more, she remembered the tricks of wide-eyed flirtation, of sidelong glances and the tilt of a head and the bat of eyelashes so well that she didn’t even need to think of them.

Less obvious, and much to be hidden, was the knowledge of literature that their deluded court had learned from the Guardian, and the seriousness of the lessons Gar and Dirk had taught—of history, of law, of the workings of society and government, and of the human mind. It was knowledge to be hidden, yes, but also to be used for asking the occasional question that stimulated conversation, and made it much quicker for her to learn from its interplay.

The townswomen eyed her with suspicion as she walked down the high street with her basket on her arm, and she heard more than one mutter, “Who does she think she is, putting on such airs?”

Without even thinking, the words leaped to her tongue: I am the Lady Rijora, peasant. You forget your place. She bit them back in time, though, only tossing her head in reply—and that little gesture brought angry murmurs from other women all along the way.

At least I’m attracting attention, she thought, but with her heart in her throat. She meant to be noticed, surely enough—but what would happen when she was?

A man in livery, carrying the staff of a watchman, stepped up to her, his face carefully neutral. “Good day, goodwoman.”

“Good day, watchman.” Her heart rose into her throat.

“Let me see your travel permit; please.” The officer held out his hand.

“Of course.” She rummaged in her basket and held out the packet, her heart hammering, no matter how calmly she smiled. This was the first crisis—whether or not her forged papers would pass inspection. The Guardian itself had made them, of course, feeding them out of a slot in the wall, and had reassured her that it had shaped them after real papers that a wanderer had brought only five years earlier—but how much could change in five years? Certainly she had!

The papers, though, had not—or so it seemed. The watchman read them through in a minute, nodding in satisfaction. “So. You are Bess of the village of Milorga, come seeking your third cousins.” He looked up, frowning. “Your magistrate does not say why you seek them. Do you need to live with them?”

Bess noticed the dangerous glint in his eye—the official on the watch for single folk who should be bound into marriage.

That was her intention, but she didn’t have the same partner in mind that he seemed to have. “No, sir—it’s just that my grandmother has only this last month learned that her brother lived long enough to wed, when he was mustered out of the Protector’s service.”

The watchman stiffened; service to a Protector’s guardsman, retired or active, held a high priority.

“Gram is old and frail,” Bess went on, “and wishes to see her niece or nephew, if she has such, and their children, if there are any. Mama must tend the old woman, so I am sent to seek our relatives.”

“A good deed,” the watchman said piously, “but why here in our town of Grister?”

“It’s the last place Grandma knew of my great-uncle being sent,” Bess explained, “and she hopes that his family will be here, of course, but if not, she hopes that someone here might still remember where he went.”

“Sent here.” The watchman thrust out a lip, looking thoughtful. “He was assigned to be a reeve’s guard, then?”

“Yes, sir, but his reeve sent him to organize the Watch for the magistrate of this village.”

“A common thing, when a magistrate is new to his office and has just begun his first assignment,” the watchman said, nodding. “Indeed, the officer who commands us is just such a reeve’s man, for our new magistrate is very young, and newly sent to begin his career.” He couldn’t help a hint of condescension coming into his voice.

Bess couldn’t keep a thrill from her heart. She knew very well that the magistrate here was brand-new, and very young, as such officials went, only in his mid-twenties. In fact, that was why Miles had sent her.

“What was your great-uncle’s name?” the watchman asked. Bess was well prepared for that question—indeed, well prepared for any question having to do with her fictitious family. “Raymond, sir. Of Milorga.”

The watchman shook his head, frowning. “I don’t know the name, and I’ve lived here all my life. We can ask, but I doubt that anyone will recognize it. I think you’d better come to the courthouse, young woman, and see if young Magistrate Kerren will consent to look in his record book for you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Bess said, and sighed. “I didn’t really expect to find his family here. I am hoping for some hint of their whereabouts, though.”

“It is likely to be a long search, through many villages,” the watchman said with sympathy. “Come, maiden. Let me take you to our magistrate.”

Bess went willingly—very willingly indeed. She didn’t have to marry the young magistrate, of course—Miles had made it clear that he wouldn’t ask that of any woman. But if he wasn’t too repugnant, and if she could bring herself to marry without love, she could do a great deal of good for the cause. He had been quick to remind her that, since she came to it by assignment, it didn’t need to last any longer than any magistrate’s marriage—and between the Guardian and the knowledge Dirk had taught them all, she knew quite well how to keep from becoming pregnant.

Unless she wanted to, of course.

Bess was more than willing. What else did life hold for her, now that the Wizard had waked her from her lovely dream? For a moment, she felt a lash of savage anger at him, for tearing away her sweet insanity—but she let it pass, knowing that holding to her anger, treasuring it, would only undo her. She was restored to real life and had to make the best of it—and she wouldn’t be the first woman to marry for reasons other than love. She was no virgin—the affairs and love-games of the deluded court had been real enough in that respect, and she had joined in with a will.

Still, the thought of marriage was exciting, though also frightening. Besides, the magistrate was young. She intended to be his first wife, and if the revolution succeeded, perhaps his only wife.

If he was desirable.

Spring had come around again. The trees around the Greenthorpe courthouse were heavy with blossoms, and the people of the village wore their brightest clothing as they filed in through the open gates, to take up their places all around the doorway. Musicians played—viol, gamba, and lute, with a flute, a hautboy, and a bassoon giving the music richer accents with their wooden instruments.

The bailiff and the most prominent merchants stood to the left of the courthouse door, richly clad. At the right stood the masters of the trade guilds, more soberly dressed, but with their chains of office making them every bit as grand as the merchants.

The orchestra paused, then played more loudly, a solemn march, as Orgoru came out of the courthouse door in his most formal velvet robes, his own chain of office dimming all others by its luster. The crowd murmured in anticipation as the march picked up tempo, remaining stately but with a more joyous tune. The people in the gateway parted, and six village girls came walking down the path dressed in light pastel gowns with flower wreaths in their hair. After them came Gilda, clothed in white, a crown of flowers holding the veil that covered her face.

The bridesmaids parted, stepping to either side. Gilda paced between them, and if there were a few glares of jealousy and, here and there, a muttered remark that would have been more fitting for a cat than for a village matron, surely they may be excused. After all, every woman between the ages of fifteen and fifty had secretly been hoping to wed the new magistrate, and for an outsider to walk off with the prize was certainly reason for bitterness.

Orgoru stepped forward, hand outstretched, and Gilda stepped up to the broad threshold beside him.

The music ended with a bright flourish, and the bailiff stepped forward, cleared his throat, and thumped his staff for silence. “Friends and neighbors! Hark and hear! It is the office of the magistrate to perform weddings, but when the magistrate himself is being married, his bailiff has the honor of conducting the ceremony—and so I do!”

He turned to face Orgoru and Gilda, beginning the long sequence of questions that made it as sure as anything could that the two people before him knew what they were getting into, and were braced for the worst as well as expecting the best. Nothing could really guarantee a happy marriage, of course, and there was nothing to stop a couple of youngsters from simply memorizing the questions and the answers without stopping to think what they meant—but the challenges the bailiff read off would at least give all but the worst hotheads time for second thoughts.

In the case of marriages the magistrate himself ordered, of course, the ceremony was much shorter.

Finally the questions were done; finally the bailiff called out, “I now pronounce you man and wife!” and Orgoru lifted Gilda’s veil to kiss her. The crowd cheered, and if among them was a vagabond with his lute slung across his back and his pouch at his side, why, the more shouts that praised the happy couple, the luckier their union would be.

The orchestra broke into a triumphant wedding march as their magistrate and his new wife turned to wave at the crowd, then led the way down the path toward the gates, and the tables that had been set up outside, filled with food, and the kegs of wine and beer that stood beside them. They shook hands with each of their guests, which included the whole village and most of the surrounding farm families.

As the vagabond came through, one or two of the villagers may have noticed the bride giving the vagabond a quick peck on the cheek, and the magistrate leaning forward to whisper in the vagabond’s ear as he shook his hand. “Thank you for coming, Miles! It’s so good to see you here!”

“I had to come to wish you well, Orgoru,” the secret chief of the rebels whispered back, “and I do, with all my heart!” He gave Orgoru’s hand a last pump, and moved on. The magistrate smiled after him a moment.

“What is it, husband?” Gilda said, low-voiced and blushing. “I think Ciletha may have become closer to our friend Miles than we knew,” he murmured back, then turned to shake the next hand, while Gilda glanced at Miles’s back, her eyes glowing with shared happiness.

The little orchestra took up dance tunes, and when they tired, a farmer stepped forward with his bagpipes. The celebration lasted until the sun went down, and no one begrudged the vagabond a bite or a glass of wine, especially since he began to play his lute when the other musicians tired. When they caught their breath and began to play again, he danced with the village girls, and only he seemed to be surprised at the strange woman who stepped from the crowd to dance with him.

So Orgoru and Gilda were married, and Miles and Ciletha danced at their wedding, and though the revolution might be long in coming, they certainly seemed to be enjoying the waiting.

After the wedding, Orgoru closed the bedroom door on the last of the well-wishers, took Gilda in his arms, and kissed her. Then he stepped a little away and said, “Remember, we don’t have to make love if you don’t want.”

“Of course I want to,” she said, “and you yourself are the sweet reason why. But if you need any other reason, remember that without your children, I’ll have no claim on the Protector’s living after you’re reassigned. Worse, everyone will think I’m barren, and I’ll be sent to the frontier farms—though, truth to tell, I’d resigned myself to spinsterhood before I came to Greenthorpe.”

Confused, Orgoru said, “But we’re going to overthrow the system and be able to stay together for life!” Or die trying, he thought, though he didn’t mention that out loud.

Gilda beamed at him and said, “I know.”

Orgoru stared at her until he realized she had only been playing her role to the hilt; then he began to smile again. Gilda laughed and said, “There, I see you’ve begun to understand the game. Now kiss me, handsome prince.” Nonetheless, Orgoru was ready to take a few weeks seducing her. Gilda, however, had more immediate plans.

Dilana’s magistrate was older, much older—but so was Dilana. From being the grand duchess of the deluded, she had become a matronly, though lean and angular, widow of a peasant who had died at the hands of bandits with their two sons—at least, so far as the magistrate knew.

They sat in his study, the garden a swathe of color beyond the windows, complementing the rich wood of the paneling and his desk. The velvet upholstery of chairs and settee might have been taken from those flowers, so well did the whole blend. For a moment, Dilana marveled that every courthouse in the land could be identical right down to the finishing of each room. Its purpose was clear—to make the magistrates feel at home, when they were always strangers in new towns. Still, the familiar setting could only lighten homesickness, never cure it completely.

He nodded, frowning as he read her papers. It was reason enough to start a new life, far from the scene of her bereavement, and the memories of past joys. He laid the papers aside with a sigh. “Yes, surely, Goodwoman Dilana. You’re welcome among us, and I’m sure there will be many people who will be glad of your skill with herbs.”

Dilana knew better than to bat her eyelashes or cast coy glances from the corners of her eyes, knew how false such gestures would seem coming from a mature woman—but she did lower her gaze to her hands, folded in her lap. “It was good of Magistrate Proxum to speak so well of me.”

“No more than you deserve, I’m sure,” Magistrate Gorlin said. “I haven’t met this Proxum, but a magistrate knows quality when he sees it.”

Was he speaking of the mythical Proxum, or himself? Dilana dared hope, and murmured, “Magistrate Proxum is quite young, sir.”

“So his judgment is not fully formed, eh?” Gorlin smiled, amused. “Still, people cured are people cured, Goody Dilana. Even a man in his twenties couldn’t mistake that.”

“My skill couldn’t heal my husband, though,” Dilana said, affecting infinite sadness, “nor my sons.”

“But you couldn’t come to them in time.” Gorlin leaned forward to touch her arm in reassurance. “Loss strikes us all sooner or later, mistress—and though I haven’t suffered the death of a spouse and children, three wives and six babies have passed from my life as surely as any grave could take them. You know that we aren’t even allowed to write letters to those we leave behind us, don’t you?”

“I do, sir.” Dilana muffled her voice and, to her own surprise, felt actual tears start to her eyes. “It must be some slight comfort to know that they still live—but I can see that it would be slight.” She strove to pack as much sympathy behind the words as she could.

“Slight indeed.” Gorlin sat back with a sigh. “But we must go on, mistress, we must still seek life. There are too many who may need the help we can bring, too many whose lives we may yet enrich, for us to seek to end our sorrows for loss alone.”

“Yes, we must go on.” Dilana looked up, her heart really aching for the poor magistrate and the loss he had suffered. Now it was she who reached out a hesitant hand to reassure and comfort, “At least you, having passed through it thrice before, know why life must go on, know it by experience.”

“I do that.” Gorlin took her hand with a gentle smile. “When I left my first wife, I was plunged into sadness that darkened all the world about me—but I pressed on to my new duties, out of sheer faith that the people had need of a magistrate.”

“I am sure they did,” Dilana said softly, thrilling to his touch, to the caress of his voice. “There are people you have protected from bandits, weak folk whom you have saved from the oppression of their stronger neighbors.”

Gorlin let out a massive sigh. “It’s so good to talk to someone who has seen, and knows by living!”

Dilana blushed and lowered her gaze again, taking her hand away. “There are virtues in experience that nothing but some time spent living can bring, Magistrate Gorlin.”

“Yes, virtues of understanding and sympathy.” Gorlin took her hand again. “It will be very good to have you here among us, Goodwoman Dilana.”

“You flatter me, Magistrate Gorlin.”

“Well, yes.” Gorlin’s melancholy cracked into a smile. “And I intend to. Call me William, Mistress Dilana.”

“Why, thank you, Magis—William.” Dilana looked up in surprise. Now she batted her eyelashes. “But I have no private name to give you; I am only Dilana.”

“Then I shall call you Dilana indeed.” Gorlin caressed the hand he held.

The courthouse looked exactly like the one in Bess’s home village, which gave her a sense of reassurance, but didn’t surprise her at all. Everyone knew how a courthouse was supposed to look: big and square and built of warm yellow brick, with a roof of tile instead of thatch exactly divided by four dormers, and real glass in the big rectangular windows. She didn’t know that identical courthouses all across the land made the power of the government seem to be everywhere, and invulnerable.

The watchman led her through the big double doors into the usual vestibule, fifteen feet by ten, and turned to his right, through a smaller set of double doors that led into the courtroom. The magistrate sat behind the bench, two feet above everyone else in the room, looking far too young for so exalted a position—and would probably have looked intimidated by it all, if he hadn’t been frowning darkly at everyone. Bess’s heart sank until she realized that he was probably scowling to hide a feeling of being too small for the task.

The watchman gestured her to a seat on a bench along the wall and whispered, “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, maiden. He must hear other petitions first.”

“Of course,” Bess whispered back, and settled herself with complete composure. Bess she might be, but the self-assurance of believing herself to be a lady of quality still hung about her, belying the simplicity of her homespun blouse, bodice, and skirt.

The watchman straightened and signed to the magistrate. Bess was a bit nearsighted and didn’t want to squint, so she couldn’t make out the details of his face, but at least he seemed not to be as ugly as a bull. At the third try, the watchman caught the official’s eye, and the magistrate nodded slightly. He didn’t interrupt the current petitioner, though—a bearded middle-aged man asking for more time to pay his overdue taxes. It seemed the summer had been hard, and the crops not what they should have been, and he also seemed to feel the need of going into great detail about it all. Bess sighed and settled herself to be patient. There were several other people waiting—she counted eight, but from the way some of them glared at one another, she suspected there were only five cases. Still, the ones involving arguments were apt to take quite a bit longer.

The bearded man took long enough. Finally he paused for breath, and the young magistrate said wearily, “Yes, the season has been hard, farmer. Your tax is reduced to twelve bushels of wheat and one bullock.”

The farmer stared, taken aback, then began to smile.

“Next year, though, if the weather is good, I’ll expect you to make up the shortage, or at least part of it, and the rest the year after.”

The smile faded.

“Clerk, note it,” the magistrate said, and the clerk, older than the magistrate by half and probably his guiding hand for these first few years, nodded and bent to his pen.

The farmer swallowed, ducked his head. “I thank Your Worship.” He stepped over to the clerk’s high writing desk, pulling his hat on.

The waiting petitioners rustled as they sat forward eagerly. The magistrate turned to them and said, “Watchman Goude waits to tell me of the young woman he has brought in. I shall hear her next, so that he may go about his rounds.”

The petitioners muttered in indignation, and Bess sat forward, surprised and suddenly nervous.

“Come now, maiden, he won’t bite you,” the watchman said kindly, but with a glint of amusement in his eye. “Let’s stand before him, shall we?” And he kept his pace beside her all that long way, or so it seemed, up to the magistrate.

They stopped the customary four feet from the bench, and Bess looked up in surprise. Why, he’s handsome, she thought, or nearly.

Handsome enough, surely, with dark hair around the rim of his judge’s hat, and regular features below, with a straight nose, strong chin, and large eyes—or at least, large for a man. He was perhaps a year or two younger than she herself. She was a little old to be unwed, but perhaps he didn’t notice—though he did seem to be noticing everything else about her. His glance took her in from head to foot, lingering on her face, then her hands and her basket. He seemed faintly puzzled. “Good day, goodwoman.”

“Good day, Your Honor,” Bess replied. Her stomach churned with nervousness.

“Why is she here, watchman?”

“She is newly come to our town, Your Honor,” Watchman Goude explained. “She tells me her errand is to seek out relatives that she has newly learned might be here.”

“Newly learned?” The young magistrate bent his gaze upon her, and Bess was surprised how penetrating that gaze seemed. Uneasily, she realized that this magistrate was probably nobody’s fool, and might be harder to deceive than she had planned.

He pursed his lips in thought. “How is it you have only just learned of your relatives’ whereabouts, young woman?”

A good question, in a land where everyone needed travel permits. Bess launched into her explanation. “I am Elizabeth from the village of Milorga, Your Honor, though my folk call me plain Bess.”

“Not so plain as all that,” the magistrate said thoughtfully, and Bess’s heart skipped a beat.

“My grandmother had a son and a daughter, Your Honor,” she said. “The daughter stayed in Milorga and wed my father. The son went to the reeve to become a soldier, and soon found himself in the Protector’s town. He wrote home for a number of years, but his letters came more rarely as time went by, and finally stopped altogether. Grandma was afraid he had died, but Papa and Mama assured her the reeve would have written to tell her if he had. So we have dwelt for many years, not knowing whether he was alive or dead—but this last Midwinter Day, a peddler came to our town, and when we asked after Uncle Raymond, as we always do, he said he had been arrested by a Raymond of Milorga when he passed through Grister, some years before.”

“Arrested?” The magistrate frowned. “For what?”

“A goodwife had accused him of giving her three yards of red ribbon, Your Honor, instead of five, and it was only three, when the magistrate’s clerk measured it—but Uncle Raymond had seen her old hat bedecked with red bows, and told the magistrate of it.”

“Had he indeed!” The magistrate smiled, amused. “Did the magistrate unwind the bows and measure them?”

“They had no need, or so the peddler said—anyone could see there was at least six feet of ribbon in those bows, if not eight.”

“They must have been huge indeed.”

“Why, I remember that now!” Watchman Goude exclaimed. “Goody Prou—Ahem! The woman in question was in a temper for weeks. Maybe it was lucky for your uncle that the reeve called him back to service the next week, damsel. He had scarcely been here a fortnight.”

“Really!” The magistrate looked up, interested. “Why was he called away so soon?”

“I can’t say, Your Honor—we never ask, when it’s the Protector’s business.”

The magistrate gave a quick nod. “No, of course not.” He turned back to Bess. “You have reason to think he might be your uncle?”

“Only from his name and his birthplace, Your Honor—but there can’t be all that many Raymonds of his age who came from Milorga. It’s a large village, but still a village, and everyone knows everyone else.”

“He was the only Raymond who was, say, forty-five years old, then?”

“No, Your Honor, there were three—but the other two are still there, and have been all their lives,” Bess answered. It was hard to meet the judge’s eyes—so penetrating, so warm a brown, so sympathetic, that they started something quivering inside her. Meet them she did, though, standing her straightest with shoulders back and head high. “Watchman Goude was good enough to tell me that you might look in your book for me, to see where he went.”

“We might do that, yes,” the magistrate said slowly, “but I must not stall this court session to oblige you. I have little free time today—but if you will discuss the matter with me over dinner, I may be able to find a few minutes then.”

Bess’s heart skipped a beat, and the other petitioners stirred, muttering in indignation about one of their number being invited to dine with the magistrate, and a stranger at that! She didn’t hear any lewd suggestions, though—there was that much advantage to being plain. “Why, thank you! You do me much honor,” she said.

The smile he gave her was brief, but dazzling. “At sunset, then, in my chambers.” He turned to the clerk. “Eben Clark, will you bring the book for the year Raymond of Milorga was with us?”

“I will, Your Honor.” The clerk met his magistrate’s gaze squarely, and though his face was expressionless, his eyes were shrewd.

Bess turned away, her heart pounding. Fate had given her the chance she had hoped for, far more quickly and easily than she could have believed. She was bound and determined that she would not waste it! Plain or not, loved or not, she would marry Magistrate Kerren!

But she hoped, at least, for friendship.

Bess came back to the courthouse as the sun was setting, pulse drumming, drawing deep breaths to calm herself. Desperately, she reminded herself that the marriage didn’t need to last more than five years. Of course, for that five years, she had to make herself so pleasant a companion, so indispensable to Magistrate Kerren’s comfort, that he would begin to trust her, would take her ideas seriously, and would eventually change his own ideals of government to come into line with hers. It had been happening as long as history, she reminded herself—even in the Bible, that book the Guardian had taught them that had explained so much that was mysterious in ancient Terran literature—men coming to accept the ideas of the women they loved. This was her part in the revolution, in bringing the ideal of rights to the people of her land, of rights for all people, even women; it was what she could do to work toward a better world.

Then, after that, the Wizard would send her back into her wonderful dreamworld of nobility and luxury…

The guard at the door knocked for her, and the portal opened. A butler gave her a short nod. “Maiden Bess. You are expected. Follow me.”

He turned away, and she followed as he’d said, trying not to resent his coldness, even rudeness—not a single “please,” not a word of welcome.

The hallway was paneled in wood waxed to a golden luster, wood also used for ceiling beams. A chandelier hung from its center, cut-glass pendants refracting the light of the candles to fill the space. Bess stared, and made no attempt to hide it—awe would be expected of a village girl, for few ever saw the magistrate’s living quarters in the courthouse.

The dual door at the end of the hallway stood open to show a huge dining room with a table long enough for twenty. Bess’s heart skipped a beat—was she to have dinner with the magistrate in that virtual cavern?

Apparently not—the butler led her down its length, then through a single door at the end of the side wall. She followed, stepping through into a much smaller room, only twelve feet square, with a table that could seat only four. Broad windows to her right looked out onto a manicured garden, golden in the sunset. Large landscapes in gilded frames echoed the garden’s peace on the other three walls. It felt cozy after the cavernous dining room, but still spacious.

Magistrate Kerren was sitting at the table facing the window, caressing a wineglass with his fingers. He looked up as he heard them enter, and was already beginning to stand as the butler said, “Maiden Elizabeth of Milorga, Your Honor.”