The Conjurers

by David Waid

  When the priest seemed satisfied he’d wrung from her all the information that could be gleaned, he tried to get her to demonstrate again the power she’d shown earlier. But with the priest staring and expecting miracles, she was unable to move so much as a hair on her arm. Though clearly disappointed, he said nothing, stroking his chin.

  The room fell to silence, broken at last by Father Hugh. “We must go to Paris. And go soon.” Standing up, he paced between his chair and one of the windows. “The awakening of your gift will not remain a secret to those who obtain their information by the stars. Even now they will be curious.”

  What sounded like a group of the neighborhood street children ran by outside. The priest stopped at the window, peering out. “Perhaps the search for you has begun. Before they realize your importance, we must be gone.”

  “Why am I important?” Teresa asked. “And how do you know about geistmagen?”

  “They are my work, my life,” he said, still squinting at the street. “I do not know how Ignacio thought to send you to me.” Father Hugh turned and studied her. “Yet I am glad he did.”

  He seemed to come to some decision, giving a short nod and returning to his chair. “Teresa, you have suffered atrocities and upheaval. For this I am sorry. Yet I must tell you one thing more that will be a revelation, though I think not so terrible. I am not the man you believe me to be. Nor is your housekeeper, Maria, so simple a servant as she appears.”

  Teresa sat on the edge of the bed, hands on her knees, and said nothing. “We work for you,” the priest continued. “Loyal to death, if necessary. Yet we were placed here by others — those who have cared about the welfare of your family for many years. People like Maria and I have served the de Borjas since long before the time of your grandfather’s grandfather.”

  Her eyes thinned to slits. “Does my father know this?”

  “He does not. Pious men and women have died to keep that secret. And a secret it has remained for nearly two hundred and fifty years. Now, however, by the will of God and your gift’s awakening, the seal is broken. We must bide in secret for but a little longer, until you are strong. Then we shall see.”

  “Why my family? There are more important lines of the de Borjas.”

  “We have no one with these others, only with your people. Can you guess at the reason?”

  Teresa’s brows furrowed and she stared at the floor, cracking her knuckles. “You expected there to be geistmagen in our family, but not in theirs.”

  “Indeed. Ever the apt pupil.” The priest smiled. “A noble’s title follows the line of eldest sons — wherever that may lead. Great blood, however, follows only the most perfect succession of sires and dams. In that regard, your family has the truer claim.

  “The seed of your gift flows in those veins of yours. Working in secret, our order has interwoven branches of your family many times, strengthening and refining this one line of descent. Each time increased the chance a great power would be born. We have nurtured and tended, pruned and planted, waiting for this time.”

  “You bred us like cattle?”

  “This is God’s work.” Father Hugh scowled. “Nothing at all like breeding cattle.”

  “How is this God’s work? And who are the people of your order? Sorcerers? Why do they want to produce geistmagen? How do they even know about them?”

  “Slow. Slow.” He gestured as though tamping her questions down with his hands. “Secrets that have long lain hidden do not relent so easily. You will learn what you need to learn when it must be learned. In the fullness of time, everything will be yours. But for now we must prepare for a journey. I must get you safely to Paris.”

  “Why Paris?”

  “The Grand Master of our order is there. He will want to see you with his own eyes. More than that, he possesses knowledge that has been held in trust for you. He can teach you how to use that which God has provided.”

  “Mother will never allow it.”

  “After nearly thirty years, I believe I have some influence there. I will speak with her.”

  Teresa looked at her feet. “I can’t go to Paris.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “I have to follow the man who murdered my brother.”

  “Don’t be absurd. If someone must swear vendetta, let it be your father. He will be free soon enough.”

  “It’s not vendetta. It is what Ignacio told me to do.”

  “Is there anything else he said that you have failed to mention?”

  “No.”

  “This is out of the question, of course. You are fourteen years old. Wholly unprepared. You have no idea what is at stake or what it is you represent.”

  “So what if I don’t understand? It’s because you won’t tell me. And it’s not a whim, it is what Ignacio said.” Teresa stood and walked across the room. “I must go to Ireland.” She swung around to face Father Hugh, her mouth set in a thin line, arms folded across her chest.

  “There is only one place to which you must go and that is Paris.”

  “I won’t.”

  “How do you plan to follow Ignacio’s call without my help? You can’t travel alone; the roads are filled with thieves and murderers. What is it you will do for money? A willful nature will only carry you so far, I’m afraid. Do you plan to walk there or travel by boat?” He threw his hands up. “Do you even know the way? Have you given any thought to these questions at all?”

  Teresa sat down on the big pine chest, shoulders slumped.

  “You see, it is impossible to do this by yourself,” the priest continued. “I will arrange the travel to Paris and you will lack for nothing.” He became silent then, watching her. At last, Teresa looked up.

  “I see that I can’t go alone. I need you,” she said.

  Father Hugh nodded slowly. “A wise recognition.”

  “But you need me, too,” she continued. “I will go with you to Paris, but only after we’ve done what Ignacio asked. If you won’t help me, I will stay in Genoa forever and never help your friends. I swear it.”

  The priest’s lips compressed. “You are headstrong, as usual, but in this instance you will do as you are told.”

  “I will not. In a few days my father will be home and he won’t make me do anything I don’t want.”

  “You are absolutely and without question the most obstinate, mulish child I have ever had the misfortune to know.”

  Teresa balled her hands into fists. “Will you help me?”

  Now it was Father Hugh’s turn to think. When their eyes met, it was the priest who looked away. “Yes,” he said at last. “Someone must keep you alive through this folly.”

  Alone again, Teresa thought about taking this journey with Father Hugh. She thought of Ignacio, and the broken vase, and all the things the priest had said, and she remembered how she’d cast a spell from the Maestro’s grimoire without preparation. She was a geistmage. Even Father Hugh said so.

  It was exciting and terrifying. Thoughts of it came and left and circled back again in an endless flittering loop that kept her from concentrating. When she brought out the Maestro’s book again, she couldn’t even focus enough to read its secrets. Pilar sat on the bed beside her, crouched like some pagan statue, and extended her nose to smell the thing.

  With the priest’s help, she would do as her brother asked and follow the Maestro to Dublin. But why did Ignacio want this? She had always imagined leaving the city, but never had she believed it would happen. Yet here she was. Per Dio! Why couldn’t she concentrate?

  Shouting echoed up from the street. Curious, she slipped from the bed. Pilar leapt down quietly and followed behind with her tail held high. Leaning out over the sill, Teresa saw a mob of shouting citizens marching past on a side street. One carried an effigy that had been lit on fire. Glowing strands of loose straw floated over the crowd. Smoke rose in the direction they’d come from, over by the Ghetto where the Jews lived. As they marched by, the crowd’s numbers diminished until the last were gone. Yet for hours, dista
nt shouting came through the windows and the smell of things burning grew stronger. The city itself was sliding into madness.

  Her mother had gone again to the palace of Don Favaretto, the nobleman who supported her father. How soon Mother might safely return through the streets remained a question. And yet, when Father Hugh knocked on Teresa’s door that night, he was excited.

  “It appears you are not the only miracle worker,” he said. “I’ve spoken with your mother at Don Favaretto’s and arranged our travel. The street fighting is fortuitous in that it gave me one more reason you should be sent away.”

  “One more? What else did you say?”

  “I told her the Maestro is unaccounted for and might still pose a danger. Also, that your father will need all his energy and attention to navigate this political strife. His concern for you would be a distraction and that, in any case, your ordeal is best healed within the bosom of the Church.” The priest smiled at Teresa. “I suggested you be brought to the distant convent of St. Irminen in Trier and volunteered myself as your chaperone.”

  “You lied to her.”

  “About where we are going, yes.”

  Teresa stared at the priest, brow furrowed. And then, with a flutter of her heart, she realized this meant she would truly be leaving. It seemed Father Hugh might say more, but Teresa, unable to restrain her enthusiasm, spoke first.

  “When will we leave Genoa?” she said. “How do we travel? How long will it take?”

  “Your unending questions are a delight,” he said. “To know that I will spend the next weeks in close quarters with you fills me with emotion. In answer to your question, we will leave with the aid of a trading guild. The Hanseatic League they are called, and I am familiar to them as they are to me. The Hansa are powerful in the north and lead trains of goods overland in that direction. I know their agent here and have settled the terms of our passage.

  “We are fortunate,” he continued. “An important person of their league is headed north and the unrest has caused them to move up the day of departure to tomorrow morning. It is a gift and we must be with them. They will take us as far as Arras, where they veer east for Ghent, while we continue to Calais on the English Channel to board a ship.”

  Teresa watched Father Hugh. “Why are you familiar to them?”

  The priest sighed. “It is an agile mind that can slip untouched past the substance of my words. I have just told you I have arranged the impossible. Perhaps I should repeat myself?”

  “No, Father.”

  “Then let us put it behind us.” The priest opened the door and Maria entered quickly, as if she’d been waiting in the hallway. Both stared at Teresa in awkward silence.

  “What?” Teresa asked.

  “We leave at first light tomorrow,” said Father Hugh.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. However, the fewer who know where you’ve gone — the fewer who can trace your movements — the better off we will be. As a result, I will be travelling with a boy.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Maria stepped forward clutching the household scissors in trembling hands. “We’re going to cut off your hair.”

  Teresa had no words, no thoughts.

  “Please sit,” said the priest.

  Then it penetrated. She took a step back. “You don’t need to do that,” she said. “People already think I’m a boy when I wear Ignacio’s clothes.”

  “This is no street game.” Father Hugh indicated a chair. “Sit.”

  Crossing the room, Maria took Teresa’s hand. “If you wish to follow Ignacio’s guidance and travel with Father Hugh, you must do this. If you would rather remain as you are, you can stay. You will be Teresa de Borja and you will be safe.”

  “Maria.” Father Hugh pulled himself from his chair. “Have you forgotten your vows?”

  “We have a duty to this child,” said Maria. “It is a choice she must make.”

  “Teresa,” the priest said, “if you stay and never develop the powers God has given, they will whither. Many good men and women died so you…we… could have this chance. You are an opportunity for the world’s redemption.”

  “Don’t put that on her shoulders,” Maria said. “She is only a girl.”

  “If she is old enough to make this decision, then give her the truth, so she can make it wisely.”

  Teresa looked between the two. Maria’s eyes had dark smudges under them. The priest stood with his hands balled into fists. When he spoke again, his words echoed the thoughts in Teresa’s mind.

  “If you stay, you will never know what it is your brother wanted you to do.”

  Teresa’s fingers trailed out of Maria’s hand as she crossed to sit in the chair that Father Hugh indicated.

  “So be it,” Maria whispered.

  The cutting began. In the chamber’s silence, the clip of scissors sounded unnaturally harsh. Teresa looked up and saw Father Hugh studying her. After it was done, the priest put his hand on the side of her face. “You are courageous,” he said. Then he slipped from the room and was gone.

  With a sigh, Teresa ran a hand over her hair. So short — strange to feel — almost as if she were touching someone else’s head. Peering into the looking glass, she didn’t recognize herself. Maria swept up the cuttings, then gathered clothing from Ignacio’s room for Teresa to wear. She helped sort and fold them for the journey, packing them in an empty chest she’d brought.

  To Teresa, the scene had the feel of a dream. Maria would not meet her eyes. The woman worked in silence, placing each article away with what seemed an overabundance of care. Teresa, too, said nothing. She watched Maria from the corner of her eye, afraid because she remained silent, yet even more afraid of what Maria might say if she spoke.

  When the clothes were packed, the woman gave Teresa a fierce hug and fled from the chamber. For a moment, Teresa stood staring at the closed door. Shaking her head to clear it, she retrieved the Maestro’s book from beneath her pillow and inserted it deep within the clothes of the trunk.

  Teresa crept down the quiet hallway from her chamber to Ignacio’s and took one last look at his bed; at the things he had collected on his many shelves. She came to a silver pendant of a wolf’s head with a thin chain, draped over the bust of Socrates. Her parents had given it to Ignacio two years earlier. She lifted the chain, settling it around her neck, and it felt right, a way to take a piece of home with her. Slipping back into the hallway, Teresa returned to her room.

  In the morning, Maria woke Teresa to help her dress. She slipped into Ignacio’s clothes and it felt like slipping into his life, leaving her own behind. The trunks were gone, the air bone cold and the sky still black.

  The priest held the reins to a white-nosed mule that bore Teresa’s trunk. “My things have gone ahead,” he said. “We will make the journey in a covered wagon which the Hansa have provided.”

  “Is my mother home? I should say goodbye.”

  “It is best she sleeps. You can imagine, I think, what her reaction would be to your clothing and handsome new hair.”

  Maria stood on the stone step, tears on her cheeks. Teresa ran back to give the woman a hug. “I will be safe,” she whispered. “I promise.” Her own tears rose as Maria’s arms tightened. For a long time they stood like that until Teresa tore free and ran to Father Hugh.

  The mule’s head bobbed with each sleepy step as they walked away. Wiping a rough sleeve across her eyes, Teresa glanced back. Maria remained in the doorway, following their progress. The girl continued looking back every few steps until at last they rounded a corner. Then she looked down, watching her feet as if they had a mind of their own, leading her farther and farther from home.

  The Roman cobbles shone that morning with the moisture of rain, which had fallen in the night. Cupolas catching the first red glow of sunrise shone high above Genoa’s narrow, twisting lanes. The scent of things burnt in the rioting, which had hung so rank on the air, was gone, the refuse washed from the streets as thoug
h the city were sending Teresa away with a last, bright memory.

  The people who would normally be about at first light were indoors, plainly fearing what the riots might bring. The only signs of life were a cluster of fishermen, too old to care, heading for the wharves, and a small dog rooting through the garbage of an alley by a sleeping beggar. Father Hugh led them through a narrow lane where the second stories of houses on either side jutted over the street, blocking most of the sky and the mule’s clopping hooves gave back hollow echoes.

  “Pay close attention to what I say,” said the priest. “Of the Hansa, only the agent who arranged our place in this line of wagons knows me as Father Hugh, and he will not be here to see us off. Instead it will be a man named Bukhardus, the captain of this merchant train. To him and all others we are a master builder and his apprentice, bound for Ireland to erect a cathedral. This will explain your education and soft hands — at least to the unlearned.”

  “Will we get to Dublin long after the Maestro?”

  “On the contrary. The journey may take us five weeks, yet by ship, he must hug the coast, south past Aragon and Castille, through the Strait of Gibraltar and then north. The Maestro will sail past Portugal, León, Aquitane and France before crossing to Ireland. Even with his advantage of an early departure, I believe we will arrive first.”

  Approaching the stinking district of stockyards and tanneries by the Pilgrim’s Gate, Teresa saw a long wooden fence beside a line of wagons and carts, perhaps fifteen in all. One particular vehicle was the largest she had ever seen. Like several of the others, it had four walls and a roof, but stood taller and stretched longer. Its sides were painted pristine white with red trim and it had six great wheels and a team of six large horses to pull it.

  The area around the wagons swarmed with a buzz of people moving in and out. In the middle of this activity, a heavyset woman in elaborate clothes caught Teresa’s eye. Around her shoulders lay a mantle trimmed with fur. Beneath, Teresa glimpsed flashes of colorful silk. A round, brimless cap of gold colored fabric perched on her head, with a thick white band running under her chin to keep it affixed. She moved like a lady, with a straight back and graceful poise even among the shouting, hurrying men. Behind her walked a thin, plain-featured handmaid.