Is This Apocalypse Necessary? - Wizard of Yurt - 6 by C. Dale Brittain Read Free Book Online

the dying fire, me on the couch and she on the hearth-rug, her head leaning against my knee. I worked my fingers through her curly hair to find and trace the edge of her ear, staring the while into the red and orange coals before us.
    "At least Antonia isn't interested in boys yet," she commented. "A good thing, too. Even if she's just been away for a few days she always surprises me when she comes back by how grown-up she looks. She's going to be a lovely young woman."
    "A young woman who's going to be locked up for ten years from the time she first looks at a man with interest," I said firmly.
    Theodora laughed and squeezed my leg, although I had been at least partially serious. "Have you spoken recently to the bishop?" she asked.
    "Joachim? No. Is there something I can do for him?"
    Theodora embroidered altar cloths and sewed vestments for the cathedral, and it sometimes seemed these days that she saw my old friend the bishop of Caelrhon more than I did. "Apparently he's worried about something to do with the bishop of the great City," she said. "I was just wondering if you'd heard about it, since the wizards' school is also in the City. I told him you were coming today, and he left a note for you."
    Affairs of the Church held no interest for me. "The Master of the school is dying," I said suddenly.
    Theodora turned then to look up at me. "I'm very sorry. Is that what's been bothering you?" When I cocked my head at her she added, "You should know me better than that, Daimbert! Did you expect your light-hearted joking this afternoon would make me think everything was fine?"
    I touseled her hair. "Well, everything in Yurt is fine. And the Master is very old—we all knew he couldn't live forever." I was thinking, if I had agreed to pursue the Master's idiotic dying scheme, I would be here telling Theodora good-bye forever.
    "So will they just elect a new head from among the faculty?" Theodora asked thoughtfully. She shook her head and squeezed my hand. "I'm sorry, I know in some ways the old Master was like a father to you, but I'm afraid I'm thinking not about him so much as how the school might change. You know you've said several times that some members of the faculty seem open to the idea of starting to accept women as students as well as men."
    "Well, by the time Antonia would be ready to go to the school," I said noncommittally, "there may well have been some changes." Elerius might once have taught my daughter some magic, I thought, but I was absolutely determined that he would not have a chance to get his hands on her again.
    Theodora and I would train her ourselves.
    "I visited the Master the other day," I continued slowly, "probably the last time I'll ever see him. And I—I told him I was married to you. We've always kept this from the school, and I'm sorry I didn't ask you about it first, but I thought for various reasons that I should tell him now."

    Theodora rested her chin on my knee, her amethyst eyes dark in the shadows. "But you don't sound as though the school is planning to cast you out of institutionalized wizardry."
    I shook my head. "No, no," I said, not meeting her eyes. "In fact, just the opposite! I think," I added in a rush, "that the Master considers this a temporary situation, and that I'll tire of you sooner or later. He is, of course, completely wrong."
    Theodora smiled and rose to her feet. "Time for bed," she said, taking my hand and pulling me up with a tug. "You can show me just how tired you are or aren't of me!" I slipped an arm around her waist, but she paused by her cloth scraps. "Here," she said, digging among them. "I should give this to you before I completely lose track of it."
    It was the note from Joachim. I stuffed it into my pocket and nuzzled Theodora's hair, wanting distraction from thoughts of the school.
    But she stepped away. "I won't think you're tired of me if you want to read your letter first. After all, it's from the bishop!"
    I pulled her toward me again but