he looked as though a sharp breeze would break him in two.
The two girls rushed to support him and helped him to a chair.
“What wisdom do you bring, lord wizard?” Jess asked.
Uthbridge blinked at her. He had a face like an amiable badger, blunt-nosed and broad-headed. His thick hair and mustache had grayed with time. His hazel-green eyes were as clear as they had been years ago, but he always squinted as though there was a film over them.
“I have been here already,” he said, peering around the room.
“Yes, dear wizard, you have.” Caitlin was amused. “Often.”
“The invasion’s been averted, then?” Uthbridge asked. He smiled at Jess. “Well done, my child!”
“What invasion?” Jess asked.
Uthbridge had always been able to foretell the future. The trouble was, as his age advanced, his foresight sped farther into the future so it was virtually of no practical use. Jess regarded him fondly as an eccentric old uncle. But once in a while, he had something true to say.
Uthbridge looked worried. He pulled a tangle of strings and crystal beads from his belt pouch and arranged them over his fingers. He twisted the contraption into one impossible configuration after another. “It can’t be the invasion yet, can it? The archduke and the archduchess must defend our gates! Strangers have come within.”
“My parents have not gone to war,” Caitlin said. “They have gone to the Rocky Ford to negotiate with Lord Matew’s parents. Only Matew and his friends are coming here. I am going down to await them for the noonday meal. It will be a feast. You are to join us.”
Uthbridge let the cat’s cradle drop, his narrow shoulders sagging with relief.
“Ah, yes! The Rocky Ford lands will come under the aegis of Kalb De. You are a wise ruler of your people, my lady.”
“Not yet! In time, I will be. I am in no hurry to bid farewell to my parents. So do you mistake my affianced husband for an invader, lord wizard?” Caitlin asked, her blue eyes crinkling with merriment.
“Not he, but one who is as close to him as a second self,” Uthbridge said. He drew himself up. “Beware, my lady!”
Jess frowned.
“We are at peace with the lands around us. None have voiced an objection to her ladyship’s match.”
“But an invasion has happened,” Uthbridge said, consulting his strings and crystals. “In fact, it is beginning . . . just about now.”
Shouting interrupted them. Jess glanced out the broad window, squinting to see through the rippled panes of glass. Horsemen were approaching at speed, a whole band of them!
“Stay here, my lady. Uthbridge, can you provide protection to defend her?”
The elderly wizard straightened
“Of course! I have brought the necessary elements. Hear me, o spirits!”
His manner might be hazy at other times, but when it came to the practice of magic, he became as sharp as a blade. He snatched forth a handful of items from his belt pouch and threw them into the air, where they hovered like birds. He reached for a jar and shook its powdery contents into his palm. Jess waited to see no more. She flew down the stairs, calling: “To arms! The duchy is in peril! To arms!”
Her cry was not taken up. She heard more shouting and clashing of metal upon metal, but the alarm horn was not sounded. Where were the rest of the guards? She rushed to the guardhouse, where a couple of her fellows lounged against the wall, passing the time.
“Hurry!” she cried. “Invaders approach! Arm yourselves! The wizard has foreseen an incursion against us.”
“What?” cried Bainton, a large, handsome man with sandy hair and a big jaw who had recently been promoted to sergeant-at-arms. “Soldiers, prepare!”
Five of Jess’s former fellows rushed through the open door and seized polearms and maces hanging from pegs on the wall. Bainton mustered them into a file, waiting for Jess to join them.
She threw open the battered wooden chest with her name carved in the top and began to drag out the pieces of her armor. First the cap, over her hair. Then the felt tunic, to hold the weight of the armor off her shoulders. The Mistress-at-Arms appeared in the door, her tall body blocking out the light.
“What are you doing, Corporal Jess?” she demanded, hands on hips. Her well-polished scalemail was covered by her dress tabard, dyed chestnut brown and embroidered in couched gold with the wheatsheaf emblem of Kalb De. Her long, high-cheekboned face peered out from under her shining helm. Her silvering braids were