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him, to lose a battle. But he never went to war to suddenly stop going to war.
The truth was that these knights unabashedlyliked fighting. He had heard their
complaints all winter, even at the round of parties that be attended, that
were given by anyone of the gentry who had a castle or a hall big enough to
entertain. Winter was a period for passing the time impatiently until spring
made it possible to do the one thing that made life worthwhile fight.
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As he had heard anynumber of the males in the gentlemanly class say on
occasion, there were only so many meals you could eat, so much wine you could
drink, and so many women worth being interested in. You went through these
rather quickly, and after that it was a matter of twiddling your thumbs until
the snow was off the ground, and the real business of a knight's life could
take up again.
"James."
Jim turned to face Carolinus, with a sudden guilty feeling.
He remembered that Carolinus had spoken to him some moments ago about wanting
to talk to him aside; and in the rush of events he had forgotten all about it.
"Come with me," said Carolinus. "No one else will notice you're going except
Malvinne. And he'll be expecting us to go off and talk."
Carolinus turned without waiting for an answer, and threaded his way among
the men-at-arms. Jim followed him. He was interested to see that, although
none of the men-at-arms seemed aware of them or deliberately shifted out of
their way, there were little movements aside on the parts of many of them, to
widen the space through which Carolinus might pass. They reached the outer
ring and walked off a short distance, far enough into the trees so that they
could not see the people behindthem, and the sound of talk back there could
not be heard.
At the foot of a large tree that shadowed them from the midday brightness of
the sun, Carolinus stopped and turned back to face Jim. Jim stopped also; and
their eyes met.
"You're going to have to make up your mind what to do about Malvinne, James,"
Carolinus said. "It's time now to make your decisions."
"Do?" Jim said. "Matters seem to have taken care of him pretty well. His
false Prince is gone and an agreement has been reached between the Earl and
King Jean. It's just a matter of stopping the soldiers on the field from
fighting."
"As you noticed,"said Carolinus dryly, "that part of things hasn't taken care
of itself too well."
"No," admitted Jim, "but it does seem to me that Malvinne is now pretty
effectively out of the picture."
"Out of the ordinary temporal picture, yes," said Carolinus. "The question
remains what to do about him as far as theKingdomofMagic is concerned."
"But deciding what to do with him isn't my responsibility, is it?" asked Jim,
abruptly very uncomfortable. "Certainly there are other people, or other
rules, or something like that that will deal with him."
"There are, in a sense," said Carolinus."Primarily the Accounting Office.
However, what the Accounting Officedoes, depends upon the action you decide to
take."
"Why? What action should I take?" asked Jim.
"That, as I say," answered Carolinus, "is something that has to be your own
decision. I can no more help you now with this, than I could help you earlier.
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It was necessary Malvinne be stopped and brought to book; not by a magician
like myself, but by someone like you, of much inferior rank. That is part of
the rules that govern all who deal in magic. It has its roots in the need to
set up a system that would keep strong magicians from fighting each other,
with possible resultant danger to the other Kingdoms that inhabit this world,
the space above, and the space below, its surface. I may have explained some
of this to you. What I brought you out here for is to tell you exactly what
your position is, right now."
"Tell me, then," said Jim.
"Very well," said Carolinus. "First, you should understand that of all the
magicians in this world, you are the only member of our craft and art who was
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