“And what are they teaching princesses?” asked the Wizard, directing her attention to Anya.
“Nothing,” said Anya. “I mean, everything I’ve learned I’ve had to learn myself. Mostly from books. And I’ve never really read very much about wizards.”
“Then it is past time you learned,” observed the Wizard. “Follow me.”
“I ain’t going nowhere,” repeated Shrub. He plonked himself down and set his feet into the bridge, to make it hard for anyone to shift him. “Certainly not into that tower. I might never come out!”
“No one is going into the tower,” said the Wizard. “It’s not safe at all. Anyone can see it’s only magic holding the top half up above the bend. Could fall down anytime!”
“You don’t live in the tower?” asked Anya. “I thought wizards always lived in—”
“We use the lower part for storage. No one’s lived in it for years, not since my predecessor’s predecessor. Ah!”
She paused and half turned, nodding towards an unseen presence. Anya again thought she could almost hear something, but this time it was like muffled panting.
“He ran all the way, like a good lad. Hopefully this will satisfy your suspicious lizard.”
“I’m not a lizard,” grumbled Shrub. “I’m a newt.”
“Yes, I know,” said the Wizard, smiling. She really looked preposterously young, Anya thought. She had very white teeth, and amazing dark hair and lustrous dark skin. All very pretty, not like the wizards in stories. Perhaps Shrub was right to be suspicious … it was so overcast and foggy she could even be a vampire. Though her teeth didn’t look that pointy, and Anya couldn’t see the gill slits in her neck where a vampire sucked in extra air to create the vacuum they used to draw out their victims’ blood …
“I don’t like putting this on,” said the Wizard. “But I suppose for the sake of tradition and a suspicious visitor, it must be done.”
She reached into apparently empty air and drew out a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. Putting them on, she extended her arm again, this time drawing forth a huge and very bushy mass of unruly white hair, which she threw up in the air. Craning her neck back, she looked up as it fell, the hairy bundle settling on her face. When she looked back down, the mass of hair had settled as a vast, snowy beard complete with mustachios that trailed almost to her waist.
It was a very impressive beard, for its volume and its incredible whiteness, but most of all because it looked completely real. Though odd, since attractive young women didn’t normally have flowing white beards that were half as tall as they were.
“Almost there,” she said, holding out her open hand, her fingers closing on a suddenly materialized hat. It was very tall, pointed, and made of a deep purple velvet liberally covered with stars, moons, and a comet, all embroidered in silver and gold wire with small ruby chips for the comet’s trail.
The Wizard turned the hat upside down, reached inside, and took out a boiled sweet, striped in rainbow colors. She popped this in her mouth, put her hand in the hat again, and drew out a long staff of ebony, shod with silver at each end, and banded seven times in gold, indicating her rank as a full wizard of the seventh circle.
“There,” said the Wizard, putting on her hat and stooping forward a little to lean on the staff. Her voice was male now, and very deep and sonorous. “Do you trust that I am the Good Wizard? Or must I blast you with fell lightnings?”
“No, no, I accept!” gabbled Shrub. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Lord Wizard!”
“Good,” said the Wizard, her voice booming. She handed the staff back into the air. It vanished, followed by the hat and the glasses.
The beard, however, would not come off. The Wizard tugged at it several times, swore in her deep male voice, spat out the boiled sweet, swore some more in her normal voice, and stamped the bridge with her red boots, splashing muddy water everywhere.
“I hate this beard!” she said. “Trust him to play a trick on me. Just when I think I’ve found the last trap in it, I discover another one.”
“Who’s tricking you?” asked Anya carefully. She had edged away as the Wizard stamped, fearful that this sudden anger might be directed elsewhere than the beard.
“Oh, my predecessor!” said the Wizard. She gave the beard another tug, and suddenly laughed, all traces of anger gone. “It’s traditional you know, to play games with things you leave for later wizards. This was his beard, naturally I mean, before he enchanted it for his heir, who turned out to be me. He was very fond of it, not least because it gave him his nickname for many decades. You would have heard of him, I expect?”
Anya shook her head.
“The long, flowing white beard,” hinted the Wizard, running her hands through it to show off its properties. “Snowy, ridiculously white … ”
Ardent’s ears suddenly sprang up.
“Snow White!” he barked excitedly. “Tanitha told us. But he was the Good Wizard of all Yarrow, long, long ago. He vanished in the Deluge, drowned.”
“He didn’t drown!” said the Wizard. “Good gracious! Only a very incompetent wizard would let themselves drown. He just got—well, involved in a personal matter, and was caught up with things for a century or so. In a cave. And then he was tired of wizarding, so he handed over the beard and the trappings to me. You might see him later, if he’s up. He does come to dinner once in a while.”
“Dinner!” barked Ardent reflexively.
“Dinner,” sighed Anya. She hesitated, then asked, “And is there … could there be … might I have a bath?”
The Wizard looked the muddy, bedraggled princess up and down, then across at the numerous dark streaks that gave Ardent a somewhat tigerish aspect, and the mud caked on Shrub’s head.
“Baths for all of you, I think!” she pronounced. Ardent’s ears and tail drooped as she went on. “Save your otter-maid, who perhaps would like a swim in the reflecting pool instead.”
“A pool?” asked Smoothie, who had been watching the muddy, flooded river with her sharp eyes, noting the currents and hoping for signs of fish. “Of clean, fresh water?”
“Oh yes,” said the Wizard. “Got to have a crystal-clean pool or you can’t get the visions sharp enough to work out what’s going on. It’s fed by an underground spring. Come to think of it, you can probably get your own dinner there. Plenty of eels infest the place.”
“Eels,” said Smoothie, her sharp-toothed smile spreading wide across her half-human, half-otter face.
“Lots of eels,” confirmed the Wizard. She smiled too, but the smile vanished as a raven cawed somewhere off in the distance and was answered by another. She looked up at the sky, her eyes narrowing, and stroked her beard. Anya looked too, and caught just a glimpse of a black shape, disappearing into the low clouds.
“I like a raven with a message to come straight to the recipient,” said the Wizard. “I would rather not see skulking ravens, like those two. Spies, without a doubt. Come! No point standing around here.”
Anya agreed. Ravens were used as messengers by many people, but Duke Rikard had a whole bunch of particularly unsavory ravens he employed as his agents. And where the ravens were, she suspected weaselfolk would soon follow. Or assassins. Or both. Or worse.
Anya shuddered at the thought of something worse than weaselfolk, remembering those snapping jaws so close to her throat. But she forced the memory aside, and tried to think of nice things …
Like the prospect of a hot bath, which was now firmly fixed in her immediate future.
The Good Wizard led them up at a fast pace towards the tower but, almost within its shadow, turned sharply to the right. There was a path there, of well-rolled gravel, bordered with white-painted stones. She crunched along the graveled way with the others following, towards a huge arched gate set into the hillside.
The gate was enormous, thirty feet high and twenty feet wide, of ancient timber faced with bronze plates, tarnished dark with age. It looked as if it would take a dozen strong people to push it open, a team of
oxen, or even a giant porter. But the Wizard knocked on it with her ringed hand, and the lines of a lesser door set within the gate became visible, traced in fire.
“Flashy, I know,” said the Wizard, pushing this regular-size door open. “Some long-ago Good Wizard had a taste for this sort of show. When the full gate opens, there are gouts of flame and brazen trumpets, the whole works. Quite fun if you like that kind of thing, but it takes too long. Please, do come in.”
There was an antechamber beyond the gate, well lit with colored lanterns that burned without smoke or visible flame. A long, highly polished mahogany bench ran down the middle of the room. There was a boot rack against one wall, on which rested two or three dozen shoes and boots of different makes and sizes, nearly all as beautifully made as the Wizard’s own red boots. A line of bronze coat hooks adorned the opposite wall, most of them taken up by cloaks, overcoats, surcoats, wraps, and other outerwear, again all beautifully made with style and precision.
The majority of the coats were strangely small in length, Anya noted, though very broad in the shoulder. And many of the boots and shoes were similarly wide but short. Very few would fit the Wizard, therefore most of these items were not her own, but for some other members of the household.
The Wizard sat down on the bench and unbuttoned her boots, swapping them for a pair of elegant slippers with curled-up toes that had small bells at the very tips, so she tinkled as she stood up. She shrugged off her cloak and hung that up too, revealing an elegant robe underneath, of highly calendared dark blue wool with a silver brocade trim.
“Leave your shoes here,” she said. “They will be cleaned. Take slippers from the box. I don’t like muddy footprints on the carpets. They don’t fly so well when they’re dirty, and you never know when they might be needed with no time for cleaning.”
Ardent looked down at his paws, which were undeniably muddy.
“There are dog slippers there too, Ardent,” said the Wizard. “And ones for young Master Shrub and Champion Smooth Stone Oysterbreaker.”
“I don’t need slippers,” said Smoothie. She sat down, bent double, and licked her feet clean in a few seconds.
“How do you know all of us?” asked Anya. Only Shrub and herself had given their names.
“I am a wizard.” The Good Wizard pulled at her beard again, but it still wouldn’t come loose. “On to baths! Robes will be provided, while your clothes are washed and … ah … mended. Or perhaps replaced?”
“That was an accident,” said Ardent, noticing the Wizard looking at the holes in Anya’s kirtle. “About these baths, perhaps just a shallow one; I c-c-could pop in and out? And soap … soap isn’t really—”
“Ardent,” said Anya in a firm but kindly tone. “You will have a bath. With soap.”
She helped the dog on with his slippers. They were soft leather moccasins that fit perfectly over his paws and were tied with blue ribbons. Shrub’s were sturdier wooden clogs with felted soles, and there was even a kind of sock that went over his tail so it wouldn’t drag dirt across the floor. Or the precious carpets.
“Very good,” said the Wizard. She opened the door and led them into a vast hall. Though it must have been carved out of the rocky hill, the walls were lined with paneled chestnut, as was the ceiling high above, save for the great oaken beams and braces.
The floor was entirely covered in carpets, so that whatever surface lay beneath was invisible. Dozens and dozens of carpets, of different sizes and designs and patterns, overlapping one another everywhere. In places there were raised sections where clearly three or four carpets lay beneath the visible ones, making for a rather uneven surface. The carpets were of very mixed ages: some of great antiquity, very old and faded, others vibrant, their colors strong, as if they had just been made. It was unusual flooring, Anya thought, but certainly warm and comfortable.
There was a massive fireplace at the far end, bigger than the largest one in the hall at Trallonia Castle, just as this hall was also much larger. Several logs—really the rough-hewn trunks of large trees—were burning slowly in a grate made of wrought iron in the shape of interwoven roses, with oversize thorns. Bronze firedogs that looked very much like Ardent, only larger, stood at each end of the hearth, their snouts bright from rubbing, flanks dark with the patina of great age. An iron basket held an assortment of pokers, tongs, toasting forks, and ash shovels, some bronze, some iron, and some of a silvery metal that Anya couldn’t identify.
A long table of dark, polished timber dominated the hall. Only the far end was set for dinner, thirteen places in all, though the table could easily seat forty. Each setting featured half a dozen different knives and forks, Anya was very pleased to see, suggesting a quantity of food. And there were three glasses, two metal goblets, and one wooden beaker set for each diner too, indicating a great choice of drink. Anya didn’t care about that, as she drank only water, but it was still impressive.
There were four ordinary-looking heavy oak doors on the left wall, and eight rather extraordinary doors on the right wall. These eight special doors were painted with scenes of craft and industry, beautiful paintings, but very old, as could be seen by some parts that were faded or obscured by decades or perhaps even centuries of collected dust and grime.
The painted doors depicted people—curiously small and broad people—hard at work, their lips curiously pursed. Not pouting, though Anya couldn’t quite work out what they were doing.
One door showed a forge, bright with fire, two leather-aproned smiths hammering at an anvil; another a cobbler at a last, putting gold nails in the sole of a fancy boot; the next, weavers at a very large carpet loom; then jewelers at their desk with fine instruments; embroiderers on their stools with great spools of thread all around; a cabinetmaker with many different timbers in front of him, a partially made screen under construction; and the seventh showed a room of many bones and tusks, with two of the short folk engaged in an intricate carving of some very long and whorled horn that Anya thought might be that of a unicorn, save that it was black and not a lustrous and pearly white.
The eighth door had the portrait of a wizard, much like the Good Wizard when she was in full regalia, with the long white beard, the starry hat, and staff. But it was not her face with those bright eyes, nor quite the same beard, and the hat was taller and had bigger stars and no comet. The staff had nine gold bands and a giant ruby on the end. This painting was even more clouded in darkness at the edges, a sign of great age.
“Bathhouse is through there,” said the Good Wizard, pointing to the first plain door on the left. “My apprentices will help you with towels and niceties. Choose any bath you like. There should also be a small terrarium where you can place your frog prince—”
She looked to one side, tilting her head to listen to an invisible apprentice.
“Yes, it has been put there. It is quite secure, and contains a number of bugs and so forth. Please, choose your bath.”
The door opened, revealing a large, steamy chamber beyond, in which nine copper bathtubs with brazen feet were arrayed in a line, each with a small table beside it laden with soaps and oils. They were already full of hot water, as evidenced by the steam. There were paper-and-bamboo screens arranged between them, which were open at present, but could be slid shut for privacy. Each of the screens was decorated with a different motif, reflecting the paintings on the doors. Anya noted the closest had small anvils, the next shoes. Clearly, the doors and bathtubs were identified for some other reason. Perhaps simply convenience, so the inhabitants of the Wizard’s halls could say “the Smith’s door” or “the Cobbler’s bath.” But it seemed to be more significant than that.
“The reflecting pool is reached by a small stair behind the fireplace, Mistress Otter,” said the Good Wizard. “Just keep going down and you’ll find it.”
“Eels!” exclaimed Smoothie, and she was off.
“I don’t like hot water,” said Shrub grumpily. “Newts don’t, you know.”
“My apprentices will arrange
the temperature according to your liking,” said the Wizard. She reached under her beard and pulled out a large watch, flicking open the somewhat battered silver case. Watches were quite rare, and Anya had only seen one before. That belonged to Duke Rikard. But the Wizard’s watch was not at all similar. It had too many hands and small inset windows within the main face, showing a crescent moon and a color wheel that was moving quickly from blue to red.
“Dinner in thirty minutes,” said the Good Wizard, flicking the watch shut. She tugged the beard again. “I’m going to go and get this thing off.”
“Are you sure we may use the baths?” asked Anya. She gestured at the doors. “They do seem to belong to particular people … or trades. Like the doors.”
The Good Wizard’s eyebrows went up.
“You really don’t know anything about wizards, do you?” she asked. “The doors are to my teachers’ rooms, and those are their baths. But they won’t begrudge visitors using them; they only bathe once a week as a rule.”
“Your teachers?” asked Anya. “There are other wizards here?”
“None save my predecessor, who does wizarding no more,” said the Good Wizard. “My teachers are master artisans. They teach me their crafts.”
“I don’t understand,” said Anya. “Like you said, I don’t know anything about wizards.”
“Wizards gather the stray magic left over from sorcerers’ spells, witches’ blessings and curses, the breath of dragons, the stab of a unicorn’s horn, the swish of a mermaid’s tail … all things that emanate magic. We then combine this magic we collect with ordinary things, which we must make. We craft items of the rarest magic entirely ourselves, like my red boots. I am a good cobbler—that is my first trade. I have practiced it for some eleven years. Now I am learning to work metal, and in time shall make magic rings and suchlike of the first order. But for things of lesser magic, I work with my teachers, putting the magic in their crafting, while also learning their craft. That is what wizards do. Oh, and be wise as well. Or attempt to be so.”