No one spoke for a few moments, then Mage Bodkin said, “Well, those requirements disqualify several of the wizards in the room. My innocence was proved at ‘daring’.”
I’d begun to rather like Mage Bodkin.
“Are you a wizard?” someone called. “I thought you were a jester.”
“No,” Bodkin returned, “if I were a jester, people would listen to me more often and welcome me more warmly.”
“That’s enough,” the king said with more exasperation than anger. I marveled at his lenience in letting his subjects speak out of turn. But then, wizards had privileges even the highborn didn’t have.
A knock sounded on the door. Every head in the room turned to it. “At last,” the king said, “the witnesses.”
CHAPTER 23
Iwhispered, prayerlike, “There were no witnesses,” over and over again.
One of the guards opened the door and the head housekeeper ushered two servant children inside. A boy and a girl, perhaps ten or eleven years old. Both took small reluctant steps into the room. The girl wrung her hands, trembling. The boy was as pale as milk.
Could they have been in Saxeus room somewhere, unseen and watching me? I knew it was unlikely and yet my stomach wouldn’t unclench.
The two bowed to King Leofric, gawked at the wizards, and huddled closer together.
The housekeeper nudged the children toward the king. “Go on then, tell his majesty what you saw.”
Neither child spoke and the housekeeper’s expression grew so tightlipped I thought she would smack them.
“Thank you for your assistance,” the king told her. “I’ll question the children now.” He motioned for them to come and smiled gently. “You aren’t in any sort of trouble. Nothing you say will make us angry.”
At the word, ‘us,’ the girl’s gaze traveled around the room, taking in the wizards again.
“After you’re done helping me,” King Leofric drew her attention back, “Madame Hauville will take the two of you to the kitchen and let you eat as many sweets as you want. Would you like that?”
The girl nodded. The boy said, “Yes, sir. I mean, your Sireness, sir.” He gulped at the mangled address. “I mean Your Majesty, sire.” He bit his lip and blinked, near tears.
King Leofric smiled again. “You needn’t be frightened. Simply tell me your story as you would tell it to your father.”
The children edged closer to the king as though he were a safe island in a sea of uncertain consequences. The boy spoke first, his voice rushed. “People keep saying I’m making up tales. But truly, sire, last night while I slept in the hallway, right where I’m supposed to be, sire, I woke to the sound of an animal trotting by. You know, the click of claws a dog makes when it walks.”
Oh. The witness had seen my wolf form. My identity was still safe.
The boy shifted anxiously from one foot to the other. “I opened my eyes and saw an enormous black wolf roaming the halls—all by itself like—going from door to door, sniffing. And it weren’t none of the dogs here at the castle neither. This one had red eyes and was unnatural big. It had a neck like an ox and so many teeth it could hardly shut its mouth.”
An exaggeration, but not much of one. The only animal I’d ever been able to transform into was the form of Wolfson’s beast. That animal was a part of me, the manifestation of my anger.
At the pronouncement of the wolf’s appearance, so many wizards began speaking that I couldn’t make out what any of them said.
“An unnaturally big wolf?” Ronan asked loudly enough to silence the talking. “And it was completely black?”
The boy nodded. “Excepting some gray bits at its neck, Sir. I knew if I moved, it would rip my throat out, so I squeezed my eyes tight and didn’t so much as twitch until morning bells.”
The king turned to the girl. “Were you nearby when this happened? Speak up so we can hear.”
“No, sire,” she stammered. “I sleep in a different hall but I saw the same beast prowling by. It wasn’t no normal wolf, sire. Twas as big as a lion. I ain’t never seen the likes of it before.”
“She may not have seen it before,” a wizard near the window said, “but some of us have.” I recognized the man’s voice. Stewart—the apprentice whose horse had one day disappeared and never been spoken of again. “These children are describing a beast at Docendum castle. Mage Wolfson’s pet.”
All eyes swung to Wolfson. His face reddened, and he waved a hand in Stewart’s direction, flicking away the accusation. “Nonsense.” I’d heard that gruff, dismissive tone many times. A tone with a threat weaved into it. Servants and apprentices both remained silent after being subjected to it.
Wizards had no such qualms. “I too have seen Mage Wolfson’s unholy creation,” a man near the front proclaimed. Two more wizards joined in agreement.