The Witch & the Cathedral

by C. Dale Brittain

  But was there any reason to find them? They had, according to Joachim, been camped outside the city for six weeks, which I thought was fairly long for them. It must be simple coincidence that their decision to move on came the same day as my arrival.

  Playing with the earring in my pocket, I wondered if returning it to its owner was excuse enough to catch up to the Romneys and deciding that it was not. If their departure was indeed coincidence, then they would have nothing to tell me that I needed to know. But if they had moved off as a result of my appearance that morning, fearing that I would further question the children about the person they had seen working powerful magic, then even if I caught up to them they would deny any knowledge of anything.

  I turned to go back through the city gates. If whoever had been casting magic spells on the new tower, fairy or wizard, was with the Romneys, then maybe I had scared him off and Joachim’s problems were over. But I didn’t believe in fairies and had been, at least a few hours ago, fairly sure that no one in the Romney encampment knew magic.

  IV

  Late afternoon found me in the cathedral listening to the organ.

  From the main doors I had followed the Tree of Life worked in mosaic tiles the length of the nave. I started with the tree’s roots and walked across branches and leaves among which appeared first fish, then insects, serpents, toads, rabbits, and deer. Now I leaned against a pillar at the transept, my feet among men and women, old and young, lords and peasants, sinners and saints.

  Even before coming through the doors I had heard the organ. From outside, its notes competed awkwardly with the light-hearted songs the workmen were singing as they closed down for the night, but inside the organ swept all other sounds away. The sun’s horizontal rays poured through the stained glass, lighting up a church interior that had seemed dim at midday. The row of organ pipes, ranging in size from scarcely bigger than my finger to the diameter of a young tree, glowed like red gold. A high melody rose in a hymn of praise while great chords rolled below. The pillar against which I leaned, the stones under my feet, and the very air around me vibrated with the bass.

  The organist finished with a flourish. As the thunder of music died away, I became aware of Joachim beside me. I had no idea how long he had been there. “It would make someone believe in God even if he didn’t already,” I commented.

  He gave me a quick, sideways look. “That is the idea. Come to dinner, and we’ll talk.”

  We went out a small side door and around to the back of the cathedral. Here on a quiet cobbled street, at the opposite end of the church from the new construction, the cathedral priests had their houses. As we walked down the street a priest emerged from a covered porch to stare at us. “Father Joachim,” he said in greeting, dipping his head to the dean, but me he glared at as though I had the word WIZARD (or even DEMON) emblazoned on my forehead.

  “Father Norbert,” Joachim replied with a nod. When we were past he said in my ear, “Don’t mind him. He’s never had much use for wizards.”

  The dean’s house was at the far end. The carved wooden porch and the cathedral looming over the street made the entrance very dark, but as we stepped inside we were greeted by light. Many-paned mullion windows on the far side of the house looked out over a hillside that sloped sharply down toward the river and the tiled roofs of the artisans’ quarter of the city.

  A servant in black livery met us. “We’ll just wash up, and then we’ll eat right away,” Joachim told him. “Once we are served, you can leave us.” The servant nodded silently and disappeared.

  A senior officer of a cathedral, I thought as I dried my hands, lived fairly well. But good living had not filled out Joachim, and his face was as gaunt as ever. I wondered briefly if I should suspect him of being behind some veiled attack on organized magic—which Brother Norbert appeared ready to join—but I dismissed this. I had known Joachim too long, and, besides, he had asked for my help.

  The servant lit the white candles on the table, served us from a large platter, and withdrew, still without a word. As we ate the sky outside the window became gradually dim, and the candle flames seemed to grow brighter and brighter, their light reflected from the polished surface of the woodwork.

  “I climbed up the new tower after I talked to you,” I said once I had finished a plateful of chicken. “How did you find those construction workers? It’s terrifying being up on the scaffolding, yet they seem totally fearless. Maybe their long fingers and toes allow them to cling to a surface like tree frogs.”

  “I did not hire them myself. Even though I am the elected head of the cathedral chapter, the provost and the chancellor are in charge of the cathedral edifice itself and of raising money to pay for its upkeep. There had already been discussion for years before I arrived about building a new cathedral. The provost had heard good things about this construction crew from the priests of another church on which they had worked.”

  “They also aren’t very concerned about the strange lights at night,” I continued. “They come from somewhere far up north, and they seem to consider magical occurrences fairly ordinary. After all, I gather that if one went only a little further than their valley one would reach the land of dragons. And up there it’s all wild magic, not organized and channeled as in the western kingdoms.”

  “My colleagues do not like any kind of magic, wild or organized,” said Joachim, a glint in his eye. He paused to refill my wine glass. “I’m sorry if I seemed abrupt earlier. I have a lot on my mind.” Tact had never been his strong point; although he had become no more tactful over the years, at least he worried about it more. “When I told the bishop today I had sent for you, he was very unhappy about bringing a wizard into the affairs of the Church.”

  “You can tell him that the wizards at the school weren’t any happier about it,” I said cheerfully.

  This seemed to surprise him, but he made no comment. Instead he asked, “And could you tell if the lights at night and the material being moved around on the tower were due to a magic spell?”

  “Someone’s certainly been working magic up there. But I’m hoping he may have left with the Romneys.” I told him about the Romney woman’s eagerness to chase the children away and the abrupt departure of the entire camp that afternoon.

  “That would indeed solve the problem,” said Joachim thought fully, twirling the stem of his glass and looking somewhere over my head. “But you say the children expected to see something spectacular, as though the last magic worker they had seen had not been a member of their band but an outsider like yourself. They hoped for as good tricks from the new wizard they had just spotted as they had from the last.”

  I ignored his implication that my scarlet illusory dragon had been less than spectacular. “If the magician or wizard is still here,” I said, “the most direct approach would be to put a spell on the tower, a magical shield that would keep any further spells from working.”

  “And could you do it?”

  I knew he’d ask that. “Actually, no. I know such spells are possible, but it’s very advanced magic, and I don’t have my books with me.”

  “What else can you do?”

  “The other possibility would be to sit on the construction site every night, watching for signs of magical activity, and then go up and confront the magician if he reappears.” Joachim did not answer at once, and I hoped he was not summoning his small supply of tact to ask me to spend the summer with the watchman. “Why are the members of the cathedral chapter so concerned anyway? The crew foreman said it hasn’t been much of a problem. He told me he thought it was Little People.”

  Joachim fixed me with his enormous dark eyes. “I thought fairies were just a story.”

  “Down here, in the western kingdom, they probably are, but I’d believe anything of the land of dragons.”

  “Fairies or wizards,” said Joachim, “it’s sacrilegious. The bishop feels that someone is violating the sanctity of a new edifice that will be consecrated to God.”

  “And th
at’s why he didn’t like it when you sent for me? He felt that being saved by wizardry is scarcely an improvement over being violated by wizardry? I hope you explained to him that bringing in a wizard to deal with a magical problem is much more effective than trying to pray it away. The saints have better things to do than to worry about whether the new cathedral has fairies living in it. Besides, it may even be good for the bishop’s soul to have to deal with magic, and I’m sure the saints know that.”

  Joachim gave me a look without answering, having had long practice in ignoring my humor.

  “Do you want to go out and see if we can spot the magician tonight?” I asked.

  It was now full dark, and we had been slowly finishing the cheese. Joachim pushed back his chair and rose at once. He lit a lantern, and we stepped out his door under the low porch into the street.

  “How long is it going to take to finish the cathedral?” I asked. We walked slowly because of the unevenness of the cobble stones; neither the lantern nor the shuttered windows of the other priests’ houses did much to light up the street. Shadows danced crazily around our feet.

  “Originally they had spoken of being done within fifteen or at the most twenty years. But I think the provost may have changed his calculations. The workmen are certainly working hard, but there is a limit to how fast anyone can erect that much stonework. Some of the supplies are proving much more expensive than the chancellor had hoped; it’s possible construction may have to stop for a time while we raise more money. It is good that it was decided to leave the old cathedral intact, within the circle of what will be the new one, as long as possible—it may even be generations before the new edifice can be dedicated.” His voice was troubled. Since Joachim was dean, I reminded myself, the cathedral was his as much as Yurt was my kingdom.

  We came around the side of the cathedral to the edge of the construction site. So far, they had completed half a tower. I didn’t want to think what this part of the city would be like once they had to start tearing down houses and moving streets to accommodate the new, wider size of the rebuilt church.

  “I like your cathedral,” I said. “Why not just leave it as it is?”

  “It’s six hundred years old,” replied Joachim. “It’s dark, it’s old-fashioned, and its roof is too low, even compared to some of the regional parish churches that have gone up in the last decade or two. A cathedral is the heart of the Church’s administration and care of souls, and it must reflect the glory of God.”

  The watchman on the construction site came toward us when he saw our light, holding up his own lantern to illuminate our faces. “Good evening, Father,” he said, recognizing the dean. “There have been no disturbances so far tonight.”

  “I have brought a wizard to check for the presence of magic,” said Joachim.

  We made our way through the maze of materials, even more difficult to negotiate at night than during the day. Quick, cool breezes, twisted and turned by the piles of building materials, whirled around us. There were lights in the workmen’s huts at the far side of the site, but the bulk of the tower was completely dark. We leaned our heads back, looking up to where it blocked out the stars.

  “Maybe I’ll go up again to where they’ve got the scaffolding,” I said. “Do you want to come?”

  “I’m not going to climb up in the dark, if that’s what you mean.”

  “I’m going to fly. I can take you with me.” I knew this was audacious. Not only had I never suggested such a thing to Joachim before, but it was potentially dangerous to lift anything heavy while concentrating on one’s own flying. But the night breezes and the wild shadows cast by our lantern had made me reckless.

  Although I expected him to refuse at once, instead he hesitated so long that I started to wonder if he was outraged or indeed had even heard me. “The bishop would not like it,” he said at last.

  “But the bishop isn’t here. No one will see us.” The watchman had not followed us, and the workmen were out of sight.

  Maybe the night had made him reckless too. “Just don’t drop me,” he said, setting down his lantern with what might have been a chuckle. “It would be hard to explain in the morning.”

  I paused for a few seconds to find the right words in the Hidden Language, then rose slowly and majestically up the face of the tower, Joachim at my shoulder. His vestments fluttered slightly in the breeze. I had been right that afternoon. Without the process of climbing, my body had no sense of how high we had risen and no irrational fear of hurtling downwards. I set us on the ledge at the top of the last flight of wooden stairs with a sense of triumph.

  “All you all right?” I asked Joachim. He had not made a sound while we were moving upward, perhaps not even breathing.

  He let out his breath all at once. “Yes. I’m fine. It’s a strange sensation. It— It must be what ascension would feel like.”

  As there had been earlier, there was a hint of someone’s magical spell, but faint and distant, as though cast several days earlier. “Certainly no one but me is practicing magic here at the moment,” I said. “Maybe the magician did leave with the Romneys.”

  I turned back toward Joachim to ask if he wanted to catch his breath for a few more minutes or if we should go even higher, then suddenly staggered. Delicately, fleetingly, another mind had touched mine.

  I stumbled against a wooden brace, leaned on it, and probed in return, but found nothing. Holding on hard to the brace, I let my mind slip lightly from my body, searching more widely while never allowing myself to forget for a second where I was standing. Below us in the city were a great mass of minds, many of them already asleep. A few I could recognize, such as the crew foreman, but most were unfamiliar and hence indistinct. None of them seemed to be practicing magic.

  Had I imagined it? Far beyond the old cathedral, a half moon rose slowly above the eastern horizon. The wind was rising. With the workmen talking of fairies and Joachim of ascension, it was possible to imagine anything tonight.

  V

  The dean was whistling almost soundlessly, but I could recognize the hymn the organist had played that afternoon. “Are you ready to go back down?” I asked. If the magician or wizard was somewhere in the city, probing for my magic as I was probing for his, he was at any rate not up on the tower.

  Our descent was again silent. I was glad that I had not felt that fleeting touch while trying to lift Joachim, or I really would have had a lot to explain to the bishop.

  We recovered the lantern and picked our way back out of the construction site. “Good-night,” Joachim said gravely as we passed the watchman, the first thing he had said since leaving the tower. But he whistled again as we walked back to his house.

  Inside, however, in the light of the relit candles, his eyes looked distressed. “Would you like some tea?” he asked distractedly.

  “Let’s just finish the wine.” I wondered if I should mention a delicate mental touch I was still not completely sure I had felt.

  He emptied the bottle into our glasses. “I’m in much too responsible a position to enjoy magical flying,” he said bitterly.

  I thought about this, sipping my wine slowly. He had enjoyed flying, and he had telephoned me to come help him in spite of the bishop. “Tell me what’s really troubling you,” I said. I considered adding, “Confession is good for the soul,” but rejected the thought.

  He hesitated. I waited, knowing that at a certain level anything he said to me was a betrayal of his position in the Church. For that matter, Zahlfast’s warning to me may have included conversations such as this one.

  “The bishop has been bishop for nearly forty years,” Joachim said at last. “He had already been here for many years when I first came to Yurt.”

  I nodded, studying his face. It had always been hard to read, and I could only see now how truly worried he was about something.

  “This last year, he has become extremely weak. His mind is as clear as ever, and he still directs the affairs of the diocese. But he never leaves his house,
even to go to service in the cathedral, and for the last month he has not even left his bed. The doctors say he does not have long to live.”

  I contemplated the blow it would be if I heard the old Master of the wizards’ school was dying and nodded again.

  “When they made me dean, I knew that most commonly a new bishop is elected by the cathedral priests from among the senior officers of the chapter. Any member of the Church could of course be elected, but cathedral priests usually have a preference for their own officers. But since I’ve only been dean for a few years, I had not thought this would be a concern in my case. I had in fact always assumed that Norbert, the cathedral cantor, would succeed. He is quite a venerable scholar if not a senior officer, and very dedicated to the Church’s welfare—you saw him in the street this afternoon.”

  “And aren’t you the youngest of the senior officers?”

  He did not seem to hear me. “This last week both the provost and the chancellor spoke to me, separately and privately. Neither mentioned Father Norbert. Both said they were too old and comfortable in their present offices to seek the position of bishop. When the old bishop dies, I fear they may elect me bishop in his place.”

  “But that’s wonderful,” I said. “It’s an enormous honor.”

  “It is an enormous responsibility,” he answered with a flash from his dark eyes. “And I know I am not worthy.”

  “I’m sure the old bishop thought exactly the same thing when they elected him,” I said encouragingly.

  “But why me? What have I done to deserve this?”

  “You were Royal Chaplain of Yurt for years,” I suggested.

  “A position as chaplain to an aristocratic court has never been considered a great sign of spiritual purity.”

  “And you’ve been to the Holy Land.”

  “So have several other members of the cathedral chapter, including the chancellor. What special merit can they imagine I have?”

  I took a sip of wine I did not want while wondering whether to remind him. “You brought someone back from the dead.”