“You seemed surprised that I asked you in,” I said as I handed him a glass. “Why was that? Were you and the old wizard enemies?” I knew at least that he would give me a direct answer.

“No, not enemies,” and he held the glass up to the light. “I trust this isn’t magic wine,” he said and smiled for the first time since I’d met him. He took a sip without waiting for the answer to what was obviously meant to be a joke. “But your predecessor resented religion. I don’t know whether he thought there shouldn’t be a court chaplain at all, or whether he thought that the fact that religion demands a higher standard of human behavior than does magic put him at a disadvantage. I have only been here three years myself, and clearly something happened between the old wizard and my own predecessor. I have never heard what it was; I had too much Christian tact to ask.”

“You didn’t have too much Christian tact to guess the lady’s age tonight!” I said with a laugh. If he could make a joke, so could I.

“The Lady Maria?” He considered for a moment. “Maybe it wasn’t tactful at that.” I began to wonder if he would be as good a person to talk to as I had hoped.

“Did the old wizard have these same chambers?” I said to change the subject.

“These chambers? No. In fact, I was rather surprised when I heard the constable was putting you here. The queen’s old nurse had lived here until she died last year; the rooms were then shut up until last week. The old wizard had his chambers in the north tower.”

I knew it. They weren’t taking me seriously. I could be ten times more powerful and mysterious in the north tower than in the old nurse’s chambers!

As though reading my thoughts and wanting to contradict them, the chaplain said, “Everyone was enormously impressed when a wizard trained in the great school answered the constable’s ad. The queen started talking at once about a telephone system.”