“I can’t see him marrying a child princess any more than he can,” I said encouragingly.
“But she might be the best person for him,” Gwennie said, pushing away a strand of hair from her face with a damp wrist. The knife flashed again. “If he told the queen he’d marry her when she was five years older, then he wouldn’t be bothered in the meantime by a parade of other candidates. And in five years, anything-” She stopped herself. “The girl would have to be better than the duchess’s daughters.” She allowed herself a smile. “I’m sorry, Wizard. I shouldn’t be talking to you like this.”
“Better me than anyone else,” I said, working the pump again. Wizards in royal castles have always been in somewhat of an ambivalent position, with a power beyond that of kings if they cared to use it, yet on the paid staff like any servant. Most wizards manage to cultivate airs of authority and mystery that make everyone, from kings to stable boys, treat them with deference. In spite of twenty-five years of intermittent trying, I had never gotten anyone at Yurt to treat me with deference and had decided it was not worth the effort.
“I didn’t tell Paul any of this, of course,” Gwennie said, scooping mushrooms from the board into a bowl.
“How about telling him not to challenge an armed man for fun?” I said, but she wasn’t listening.
“If I started telling him the same things everyone else is saying,” she said, “he’d stop coming to talk to me.” Although Gwennie and Paul were almost exactly the same age and had played together as children, I had imagined they had grown apart in the last fifteen years. Perhaps I was mistaken.