The Witch & the Cathedral Read online

  “Change can take a long time,” I said, shaking my head. “The old Master must be hundreds of years old by now, and he isn’t going to make innovations rapidly. But there’s something else, something I’ve felt uncomfortable telling you. The real objection raised to training women in wizardry is that women already have a creative power men don’t have. You can create life in your wombs.”

  “You men are just jealous,” said Theodora.

  “But it causes very serious problems,” I persisted. “A woman with the full knowledge of wizardry could create and give birth to a monster.”

  “And school-trained wizards can transform ordinary creatures into monsters,” she replied. “I thought your training was supposed to make sure that wizards knew the responsibilities of magic as well as its uses. Why not train the witches too as long as you’re so worried?”

  “I have been training you in the magic of light and air,” I said. “I just don’t care to start on women in general. For one thing, most women wouldn’t have all that you have to teach me.”

  “And you wouldn’t be interested in a witch if I didn’t have fire magic to teach you?” she asked, giving me a sideways glance from her amethyst eyes, a glance that might have been teasing and might have been accusation

  “I wouldn’t be interested in you if you weren’t Theodora.”

  “Fear of monstrous babies has nothing to do with your school’s attitude,” she said. “The real reason is that men already feel threatened by women. You’re desperately trying to keep mastery in at least one area.”

  I sat up and frowned, wondering if she was serious. “Theodora, what are you talking about?”

  “You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”

  I didn’t answer. She started braiding stalks of grass together, not quite looking at me. I felt my irritation drain away as I watched her hands, the way she moved her head, the slow movement of her chest from her breathing.

  Theodora spoke several words of the Hidden Language hesitantly, so slowly that the spell she was creating trembled on the edge of dissolving, but then the grass braid she held was suddenly diffused with light.

  She laughed with excitement and looped it around her arm. “It will fade in a moment,” I said. “Do you want me to put on a spell to make the light permanent?”

  “No,” she said, as the glow slowly dimmed. “If I put a permanent light on something, I want it to be something better than stems of grass. However,” starting to rise to her feet, “the day is also dimming; I need to get home.”

  Without even realizing what I was doing, I took her hand, pulled her back down beside me, and kissed her lightly. “Let’s go, then,” I said. “What time will I see you tomorrow?”

  My dinners with Joachim became almost silent as the days passed. The dean may have feared my brief visit was going to stretch on forever. I could see burning in his eyes the constant question, the constant concern for his cathedral, but he did not want to ask me again. Since I did not feel I could discuss with him any of the topics I wanted to talk about, I found that I too had little to say.

  Once Joachim became bishop, I knew, he would no longer feel comfortable with our late night talks. By not arguing theology and human nature with him now, as we had done for years, or even discussing my own difficulties in tracking the monster, I was wasting what might be my last chance for such conversations.

  He handed me a letter that evening at dinner. “It came via the pigeons from the City,” he said, eating as though not tasting his food.

  I took it in surprise, wondering who in the City even knew I was here. Then I saw it was from Elerius and had been sent from his kingdom and relayed through the City’s postal system.

  “Just a friendly word of advice, Daimbert,” read the letter from the school’s best graduate. “I hear you’ve gotten yourself maneuvered into trying to help the Church. The Master, I’m sure, will not be happy to hear this, especially now that the priests are conspiring against wizardry. Keep your distance, or at least keep your eyes open.”

  I crumbled the letter in my hand. Anyone, much less Elerius, should have known that such a patronizing “word of advice” was enough to make a wizard do just the opposite. I turned to Joachim and tried talking to him.

  “I’m starting to feel as though I’ve lost control of my own life,” I told him. “Events keep happening faster than I expect, and I do things that surprise myself.”

  “If you wish to go back to Yurt,” he said slowly, “I shall not keep you. I understand if you feel you cannot oppose another wizard’s magic.”

  “That’s not what I meant at all!” I said in exasperation. “I intend to stay here until I find out what’s happening to your cathedral. I’m just sorry I haven’t made progress as fast as you hoped.”

  “We’re grateful for whatever assistance you can offer,” he said stiffly and rose to gather up the dishes.

  I would have moved out, gone to the little castle across town, except that Prince Lucas was still there. I thought that he, too, might be waiting.

  “Do you know why Prince Lucas is here?” I asked Theodora the next afternoon.

  Rain hissed on the street outside as we sat in her house, drinking tea on a cleared spot in the middle of a table scattered with spools of thread and scraps of colored cloth. Her cat, who had become used to me, purred by the fire, its paws tucked tidily together. Some of Theodora’s completed work, stacked on a nearby chest, was worked with simple designs, but some was embroidered elaborately with flowers or with geometric patterns. On all of it, whatever design she was following, Theodora used a distinctive stitch: across three threads, skip one, then across two more.

  “And why should a great prince tell an embroideress why he comes and goes?” She seemed, as always, to find me highly entertaining.

  “Well, you live here in the city, and I understand he comes here often.” I paused for a moment, thinking. “Why, when Caelrhon is so much larger a kingdom than Yurt, does the king of Caelrhon not even have his own castle in his own cathedral city?”

  “I’m sure you don’t want me to tell you,” said Theodora, trying to suppress a smile, “that great princes don’t explain these things to embroideresses.”

  “Paul will know,” I said. Theodora knew about Paul. I had told her a little about Yurt, hoping that in return she would tell me more about herself. But from my account she would have gathered that after the old king had died the royal heir brought himself up with the aid of his great-aunt and the castle staff, for I never mentioned the queen.

  I thought, as I already had several times, that I was caught between finding Theodora highly elusive and knowing her better than I had ever known anyone. She had quickly learned everything —or almost everything—important there was to know about me, and yet I often felt there were whole aspects of her life that were still hidden. But then she would casually tell me something in a way that suggested she had never meant to keep any secrets.

  “I’d like to meet Paul,” she said thoughtfully.

  Reason reasserted itself after two jealous seconds. Paul must be ten years younger than she was and would probably consider her a contemporary of his Aunt Maria.

  On the other hand, I reminded myself, she was twenty years younger than I. For the first time since I had become a wizard, I wished that I looked less old and venerable rather than more so. “Has it ever bothered you that I have white hair?”

  “No,” she said, with a teasing smile that brought out her dimple. “I assumed that that was just an emblem of your wisdom.”

  “You still haven’t told me,” I said. “Why, when the Romneys left town to avoid telling me about you, did you seek me out yourself?”

  “I had to see whether I approved, of course, of the man who was supposed to use his magic to protect the cathedral. And did you ever think you aren’t like most wizards?”

  I wasn’t sure what this meant and thought it safest to leave it while it might still be a compliment. “Did you ever meet Sengrim, the late Royal Wizard
of Caelrhon?”

  “He was here in the city a number of times over the years,” she said slowly. “I wouldn’t say I ever actually met him.” Her tone suggested that he was one of the wizards I was not like.

  “Prince Lucas dismissed him, and I wish I knew why.”

  “A secret quarrel, clearly not suitable for witches to hear,” she said with another smile. “Shall I make more tea?”

  I nodded but refused to be distracted.. “I have an idea about that wizard,” I said. “I notice Prince Lucas’s wife isn’t with him.”

  “I remember his wedding,” Theodora said reminiscently, refilling the pot with boiling water from the hearth. “It was one of the most exciting events in the city in years. They were married in the cathedral on one of the hottest summer days I’ve ever seen. The princess had her own gown made in the great City by the sea, but I helped make some of the bridesmaids’ gowns. The princess paid better than anyone around here; I lived on the money for three months. I hope she hasn’t found life in a small inland kingdom too dull—though she does have her children now.”

  “But she found a way to liven up her life!” I interrupted. “I think she had a torrid romance with their Royal Wizard! That’s why Prince Lucas dismissed him and became so furious when I even mentioned him. You don’t think—you don’t think Lucas deliberately arranged for the ‘accident’ that killed him?”

  Theodora poured out the tea, looking at me from under long lashes. “Why would a wizard have a romance with a princess? I’d always heard they were as chaste as priests.”

  I knew she was teasing me again but answered seriously. “It is traditional that wizards never marry, but it’s very different from the situation in the priesthood. A wizard is not considered to have sinned against wizardry and blackened his soul by being with a woman. Most wizards just prefer to keep their own counsel.”

  “I see,” she said, her back to me while she set the teapot down. When she turned around she was smiling. “I like your idea, it’s very dramatic and romantic, but you still need to explain one thing: why would a princess possibly be interested in a wizard?”

  When I left a little later, I kissed her, tipping up her face with a finger under her chin. For a moment I felt the pressure of her forearms against the sides of my neck.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, stepping back. “Keep practicing your fire magic until then; you seem to be a very promising pupil!”

  II

  We arranged to go on Sunday to the stone quarry three miles from town. Theodora said she had always wanted to climb the steep limestone outcropping from which they were cutting the blocks for the cathedral, but she couldn’t go during the week while they were quarrying and said she felt uncomfortable going alone on Sundays.

  “There are some rough men who camp there,” she said. “It’s far enough away that the municipal guard doesn’t pay attention to them.”

  “But isn’t that a problem for the men working in the quarry?”

  “I think a lot of them are the men working in the quarry.”

  She was so good at some aspects of magic that I kept forgetting how big were the gaps in her knowledge. Without knowing how to fly, she was limited to running from danger. Climbing around the cathedral tower at night must have seemed less threatening than facing strange men in daylight.

  First thing Sunday morning, however, I went to service in the cathedral. I sat with the servants of the cathedral priests, doing my best to look serious and not at all like a wizard. The cantor Norbert, however, standing in front of the choir, seemed to have no doubts about me.

  Joachim led the service, and, watching him, I realized something that I should have realized much earlier. The reason he was always so busy was that he was already effectively the bishop. It should have been the bishop standing at the high altar on Sunday morning, the dean taking the noon service, but Joachim was doing both. In his care for the diocese, for the cathedral edifice, for the rest of the priests, for the seminary itself and all the young would-be priests, he must also be doing double duty.

  The congregation came out of the cathedral into brilliant sunshine, rolled on a wave of organ music. Joachim caught up to me at the door. “We just have time for breakfast,” he said, “and then I have to ride out to a village five miles from here for a baptism. The baby was born too soon, and they’re afraid that bringing her into the city might kill her, but they want her baptized as soon as possible. I’ll have to hurry back, because after the noon service a castle chaplain is coming for his annual spiritual examination.”

  After that I certainly couldn’t tell him I was going to spend the day with an attractive witch. “I hope it goes well,” I said gravely.

  But as Theodora and I walked out the city gates an hour later, I was not thinking of the heavy responsibilities of cathedral priests. “I really should teach you how to fly,” I told her. “Then you’d be able to get to really high places to do your climbing.”

  “Could you really? Could a witch learn to fly?”

  By the time we had walked the three miles to the quarry, Theodora was able to lift herself about six inches off the ground, although she kept laughing, which broke her concentration.

  The quarry itself was silent, and there seemed no one around but ourselves. The sun beat warm on our heads, and larks soared and sang around us. The actual quarry was a great gash in one side of the limestone outcropping, but the other side was untouched. “I’ll try climbing here,” said Theodora.

  She unbuttoned and stepped out of her skirt—I was intrigued, but underneath she wore men’s leggings—and braided up her hair. Then she rubbed a little dirt into her palms and, her head back, considered the steep surface. It was pocked with cracks and fissures; even a few flowers grew in tiny pockets of soil. Then she began to climb.

  “Remember those words of the Hidden Language,” I said quickly. “If you start to fall, you might be able to slow your descent with the flying spell.”

  Theodora finished shifting her weight from a lower to a higher toehold and paused. “Maybe I shouldn’t let you teach me to fly after all,” she said. “This wouldn’t be as challenging if I knew I was always perfectly safe.”

  She went back to climbing, moving slowly but steadily, finding crevices in the rock which I would never have found, trusting herself to them when I would have been paralyzed. Although she did not have the long toes and fingers of the workmen on the cathedral, she moved with the same apparent disregard for height.

  At first I watched her from the ground, then I flew up to a ledge and watched as she went by. She broke into a light sweat as she climbed, making her tunic stick to her back. She seemed to have an exquisite sense of balance and an absolute confidence that her body would obey her mind.

  At the end of a half hour, Theodora had almost reached a deep crevice in the rock face. But the last few feet of cliff jutted outwards. She worked her hand into a narrow crack, made a fist so that the hand would not slip out again, and braced her weight against it as she scrambled for purchase with her toes. For a moment she became motionless, then her knees started to tremble and she began quietly swearing.

  I reached with magic to catch her, but then she flung the other hand up, grabbed the lip of the crevice above her, kicked her way upward, and folded herself into it. I let out my breath all at once. “I’m going to rest here!” she called cheerfully. “I think there’s enough room for you, too.”

  I flew up to join her. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course. I apologize for the cursing. There’s always a moment, usually just before you reach the top, when you think that this time you’ll never make it and you have to yell at your body to keep it moving at all.”

  There was just room in the crevice for a second person. Although not nearly as supple as she, I managed to fit most of myself in. Our faces were very close together and our shoulders collided. I was surrounded by the scent of her, a combination of sweat, lavender, and clean hair.

  “I’m extremely impressed,�
�� I told her honestly. “Did your mother teach you climbing as well as magic?”

  “It was my father, actually,” she said. “He died in a fall when I was only ten, but he’d already taught me everything he knew.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said inadequately.

  “It’s a long time ago now. Besides, I don’t think of him as being dead. I think about what he used to say to me, how he used to encourage me when he first took me out to practice on little ten-foot boulders. Sometimes when I’m climbing I can still almost hear him.”

  I thought to myself that theirs must have been a very unusual family. But I was distracted by the realization that her lips were less than an inch from mine. It seemed perfectly natural to start kissing them. Even though I could not embrace her, as my arms were needed to hold me in the crevice, I kept on for some time. Theodora seemed to be enjoying this as much as I was.

  I had almost decided I could spare one arm to put around her when the corner of my eye caught a glimpse of empty air. If I wasn’t careful, both of us would be down at the bottom of the cliff.

  Very delicately, I pulled my head back. Her eyes smiled into mine. “Is this what you’re imagining the princess and the royal wizard doing?” she asked.

  I wasn’t at all sure she believed my theory about Sengrim—I wasn’t sure I believed it myself. But being reminded of him calmed me down enough that I noticed how cramped I had become jammed into the crevice. “I’m going to slip out now,” I told her. “Were you planning to climb any higher?”

  “This is high enough for today,” she said. “It always takes longer to go down than up. We’ll have to come back here again.”

  I rolled out into the air and hovered, watching as she extended first one long leg and then the other. She found toeholds and started easing herself down.

  As she descended I hovered to one side, trying to stay far enough away that I would not distract her and yet close enough that I could catch her with magic if she slipped. She would probably object if she knew what I was doing, but her father had fallen to his death.