4. THE KING'S MAGICIAN

Plans are being made to use magic against the villagers

Mirelin was a troubled magician. He was troubled largely because his boy friend, Jackiss, had turned straight and, in a savage attempt at pleasing a homophobic king, had lost his best arm in battle, and even worse was no longer sharing his, Mirelin’s, life.

He had long known that Jackiss was a strange one. There had been times when his friend had eyed King Jasper with a raunchy look spreading across his face, and that had made Mirelin feel uneasy. Then, out of the blue the lovely man had declared undying love for Princess Zinga, an actual woman, and had taken her roughly to his bed where an excess of apparent enthusiasm on his part had stilled her heart permanently and given him the reputation of being a dangerously randy man for a woman to love. Princess Zinda had been the woman usually referred to as the King’s other wife and rather than being angered to strike a vicious blow at Jackiss he had merely seemed to be slightly displeased and had suggested that the man regain his reputation in the wars.

Those wars had been going on for so long that nobody could remember how they had started, just that they had and that the enemy, a charmed King called Osworm who, it was boasted, had a golden throne, was a fiend prepared to dethrone King Jasper and steal his lands, his wives (both of them) and his peasants.

It was to those wars that the magician’s first love had been sent, and in far off lands where he had honoured himself in battle he had also left his right arm after a savage altercation with a short man and a cutlass.

And now he was back, and Mirelin was worse than agitated. A flame still burned within his magician's heart for the manly Jackiss, and he found himself to be all a-quiver. Not even the dear man’s diminution by one arm had lessened the constant vibrancy inside his heart. Often in his dreams he conjured the figure of Jackiss to parade naked before him, and no magic was involved.

Jackiss had recently been on a journey into lands given him by King Jasper as a kind of reward for losing a quarter of his limbs, but King Jasper was, if nothing else, a cunning king. He didn’t like Jackiss. The man’s reputation as a charmer of boys was one reason, but the bigger reason was the way he had mated so raucously with his least favourite wife that it had led to her very premature death. It wasn’t that he was overfond of the woman, she was well past her best and starting to wrinkle, but the shame was he’d never possessed the skill to do such a fatal thing as roger her to death himself, though truth to tell he’d never actually tried. So, as a reward, he had given lands to the man, but lands that were on the edge of what some said was his territory, though others disagreed. Anyway, it seemed that nobody wanted them, so they made a cheap reward.

But the gift had been given and Mirelin had learned that Jackass had returned to the king, smirking.

It angered Mirelin. Of course it did! He and Jackiss had sworn to remain in comradeship bordering on lust together for the remainder of their days and it looked as though the promise made by the man he still loved had been as empty as the sleeve crafted for his right arm.

It was whilst he was having such sultry, and it must be admitted rather selfish, thoughts, that King Jasper summoned him to attend the throne room in order to be consulted on an important matter of state.

Mirelin was often consulted in such a way. The king needed to have his own plans confirmed as genius and the man to do that was the one who had magic at his finger tips. Only Mirelin knew that his apparently startling magic had more to do with secret recipes he’d inherited from his ancestors and that the powders he made that blazed in a myriad assortment of sparkling colours when cast with a flourish onto the flames of the castle fire had nothing to do with anything but their often awe-inspiring (to others) appearance.

When he arrived in the throne room, with marvellous tapestries on the walls, brightly coloured and illustrating the various noble deeds of the ancestral line of which Jasper was the latest incumbent, he was feeling petulant. The throne was at one end, huge and made of polished timbers adorned with silver and gemstones, and on it sat King Jasper himself, a crown on his head and a sceptre in one hand. On his right hand side stood the one-armed Jackiss, his empty sleeve bound tightly by his side and his face stolidly expressionless.

“Ah, Mirelin,” said the king in his awkwardly nasal and high-pitched voice, “we have ordered you here for your invaluable opinion.”

“Yes, sire, darling,” responded the magician, and he could have kicked himself when he added the darling because it seemed singularly inappropriate when addressing King Jasper, who had never been anyone’s darling. But the king let it pass as though it hadn’t been said, and Mirelin began to wonder if the word had only existed inside his own head.

“Our loyal subject Jackiss has returned from his lands in the North,” began the King, “and he has found it occupied by scurrilous and unpleasant people with women begging to be ravaged and men, though fleet of foot and wealthy according to their own standards, are little more than peasants claiming an ancient lineage and having no proof. The land now belongs to Jackiss, but we are debating what is to become of the natives who claim the land according to their ancestral lore. No solution comes to our mind so I have summoned you, for your good counsel and magical advice. What must my one-armed warrior do in order to free the land for himself?”

Crikey, thought the wizard, this is a no-brainer!

“Sire,” he said in his best cringing voice, “it is in my mind that, if you can spare me for the time it takes, that I go to the Northern lands with darling Jackiss and use a spell to free the lands up there of the pestilence that infests it. Then it will be his and his alone, and I might even conjure a small throne for his aching bottom.”

“What did you call me?” growled the on-armed warrior.

“Sorry, sweetheart, I mean no offence,” smirked Mirelin, “but with my spells and magic I might solve your problems for you, though I suggest it might take a little time...”

“You have a month!” snapped the King, “and only a month, and then I want you, Mirelin, back for counsel. Jackiss, the northern lands are yours and you may remain there unless I summon you to join me for further battles and put your other arm at risk! Now depart, the two of you, and sort the problem out!”

“Of course, beloved,” murmured Mirelin, “we will be off as soon as I have gathered my spell book and magic jars from my boudoir. Are you coming to help me, darling?”

He addressed that last question to Jackiss, who kicked him.

©Peter Rogerson 19.11.18