A Wizard in Peace

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Miles fled swiftly through the forest or as swiftly as he could, in the dark. That was still fairly quickly, for he knew the forest well, this close to home. Nonetheless, fear chilled him, and the thought of turning back flitted through his mind—but through it he went, with all his heart helping it on its way, for he fled from Salina.

Well, from the magistrate, really. The thought brought the man’s face instantly before his mind’s eye, heavy fowled and hard-eyed, glowering down from behind his high bench against the paneled wall of the courtroom, with the clerk looking on from his desk in front of the bench and the other petitioners watching from their stools. The magistrate orated, “Salina, daughter of Pleinjeanne, and Miles, son of Lige, I have given you each five years and more to find mates, and you have found none.”

“But we don’t fancy one another, Your Honor,” Miles protested.

Didn’t fancy Salina, indeed! He glanced up at her—quite plain, rawboned and scrawny, with squinting eyes, a long, sharp nose, and a tongue quick to insult and blame linked to a mind that could find every fault unerringly and instantly. She was only five years older than he, but was a shrew already. “Salina, you came of age ten years ago,” the magistrate intoned. “Miles, you came of age five years ago. If I leave you to find your own partners, you never will.”

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