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Lothain smoothed a hand over his head as he considered what she’d said. “I see.”
Lothain’s legendary temper was balanced on a knife edge, and she knew that it could go either way. She was overwhelmed by what he had told her and she needed time to think, but if she didn’t do something to cool him off, or at least move him into another direction, there was going to be trouble.
With Lothain’s private army filling the hall, she knew that Merritt didn’t stand a chance.
“I’m glad that I was here and had the chance to show you the quarters,” Magda said before he could say anything. She gestured to the door. “If you’re finished inspecting them, then I will see to getting rid of Baraccus’s old tools and moving the rest of my things out as soon as possible.”
Magda had always thought of Lothain as a sizable man, but next to Merritt he looked almost puny. Still, one man was no match for all the soldiers in green tunics.
For whatever reason, Lothain took the opportunity to pass up an ugly confrontation. He flashed her a cold smile and a meaningful look.
“Of course.” He bowed his head slightly. “Thank you, Lady Searus, for listening with an open mind to my . . . proposal. We will be coming to an agreement on it very soon, I assure you.”
Lothain let his gaze turn to take in Merritt, from his long, wavy hair to his boots and back up again. It was a condescending examination.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you, boy, that real wizards don’t need swords?”
Magda expected the trouble to begin, but Merritt instead did something that surprised her. He grinned. As he leaned against the doorframe he shrugged with his other shoulder.
“I’m compensating for my many inadequacies.”
Lothain arched an eyebrow as he bulled the taller man out of his way. “I imagine you are.”
Merritt looked back over his shoulder, watching Lothain and the prosecutor’s private army depart.
“What did he want?” Merritt asked, his grin gone.
“A wife.”
“What?”
Magda waved off the question. “I’ll tell you later. What about James?”
Merritt sighed. “I got lucky. He was having a lot of trouble breathing. They thought his lungs had been burned when he inhaled the illumination from the explosion of the collapsing web. They just didn’t understand the reaction caused by the combination of spells involved. Those spells were still stuck together, I guess you could say, still reacting and suppressing his ability to breathe. Once I decoupled the elements of the spell-forms to cease the reaction, he could breathe again.
“He’s still hurting, but the others can heal him now. We have more important things to worry about.”
Magda let out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.”
Merritt didn’t look to share her relief. “There are still three other wives mourning the deaths of their husbands.”
Magda nodded. “Let’s go next door, to the storage room, just in case Lothain comes back. I told him that you were here for Baraccus’s tools. Let’s not give him any excuse to think we’re up to something.”
Chapter 61
As they walked into the storage room, Merritt swept an arm out to ignite the lamps. Since he was gifted, his presence also lit the half-dozen heavy glass light spheres in iron brackets on the walls. The closed shutters held back the night and the distant flickers of lightning at the horizon.
“So what’s this about Lothain wanting you as his wife?”
His tone betrayed his displeasure.
“We have trouble,” Magda said without answering his question.
“More trouble than Lothain wanting you as his wife?”
“Lothain has been named First Wizard.”
Suddenly speechless, Merritt stared at her, not unlike the way she had stared at Councilman Sadler when he’d first told her the news. The only sound in the storage room was the hissing sputters of the freshly lit lamps.
Merritt finally found his voice. “That is trouble. I’ve never trusted the man. He’s not half the man needed for First Wizard.”
“Believe me, I have a far lower opinion of him than you do, but he’s apparently a man with enough power to get himself named as First Wizard.”
“That’s true enough. A lot of people support him. His reign as head prosecutor has seen a lot of formerly respected people brought down. Many people hold him in high regard for so vigorously going after criminals and traitors. You have to admit, he has been able to prosecute a lot of traitors.” Merritt leaned toward her as they crossed the room. “I have to confess, though, that I’ve always had my doubts about the guilt of some of those he has prosecuted.”
Magda frowned over at him. “Like who?”
Merritt pressed his lips tight before finally giving in. “I knew some of the wizards on the Temple team. I’d always thought favorably of them. I can see that many on the team turned against our cause and betrayed us, but all of them? I wonder if some of them might not have been scapegoats. Charging someone and beheading them ends the investigation. It makes Lothain look like he successfully prosecuted all of the guilty. But I wonder.”
Magda was a bit surprised to hear Merritt say such things. She had thought that she was the only one. Being ungifted, she had assumed that she didn’t know enough about the whole thing to judge. She didn’t know that wizards had doubts about the guilt of the Temple team. Maybe Merritt was the only one.
She looked back over her shoulder at his eyes. “I’ve wondered as well.
“That’s not all of it,” she said as she reached the familiar workbench. “Right after you left me to go help James, I ran into Councilman Sadler as he was leaving the Keep. Besides telling me that Lothain was to be named First Wizard, he also told me that Lothain dismissed him from the council.”
“Dismissed him?” Merritt leaned in. “Can he do such a thing?”
“Apparently. Sadler put on a brave face, but I could tell that he was heartbroken about it.”
Merritt scratched his cheek as he considered it. “Why would Lothain get rid of Sadler?”
“In order to reduce the council’s number to five so as to make it possible to carry any motion with three votes. There were six members, before, so the vote could be spilt three to three, preventing action. Now, with five members, the council can’t be evenly split anymore, as happened with difficult decisions. Now, no matter what, they are always guaranteed to have a majority to decide up or down on any matter.”
“That is troubling. I’ve never really had much to do with the higher powers running the Keep, but this doesn’t sound good to me. What I’m more worried about, though, is what does Lothain know about running a war?”
“He has his own private army.”
Merritt arched an eyebrow. “That doesn’t make him a general, it makes him a petty tyrant with muscle behind him.”
“Well, if I’m right about him, he may now become a bigger tyrant.”
Merritt considered silently for a moment, and then folded his arms. “All of this news is troubling enough, but what’s this about you marrying him?”
Magda took a deep breath. She hated the whole subject. “Well, Lothain says that I’m causing all kinds of trouble in the Keep. He says that the Keep has become divided and filled with discord and distrust. Apparently, a lot of people besides us don’t think he is the right man to be First Wizard.
“Lothain thinks that his problems with credibility are chiefly my doing. He thinks that because of the things I said about him I’ve undermined his authority and have made people doubt him.”
“You said something about him? What did you say?”
“When I was in front of a crowd in the council chambers, he accused me of making up the story about the dream walkers in order to get people to switch allegiance to D’Hara. I, in turn, accused him of chasing phantoms just to make a bigger name for himself. I said that he sees conspiracies lurking in every shadow, spies hiding around every corner, traitors behind every door. I said that he cared
only about inventing wrongdoing in order to advance his own personal fame and power.”
Merritt let out a low whistle. “You said that? Publicly?”
“I’m afraid so. In front of everyone I accused him of coming up with conspiracies that were only meant to promote his own status. I said that in order to elevate himself he was deliberately ignoring the truth about the dream walkers.”
“No wonder he blames you for tarnishing his credibility.”
“He also says that I’ve given birth to wild speculation about dream walkers. He says that my groundless accusations have turned people in the Keep against him. He says that such divisions are harmful to our cause.”
Merritt paced a few step away and then returned with heat in his voice. “Then why in the world would he want to marry you?”
“His solution to people’s doubts about him, doubts that he says I created with what he calls my baseless accusations, is to have me marry him. He thinks that if I were to marry him, it would convince everyone that I’ve reconsidered my views, views shaped by my grief and not any true failing on his part. He says that my consent to marry him would show people that I’m putting my faith and trust in him, and so they should as well. He thinks that it will banish any lingering doubts. He thinks that only in that way will people unite behind him and the war effort. He says that I need to do it for the good of the Midlands and our cause.”
