The Witch & the Cathedral

by C. Dale Brittain

  “A dinner invitation.” This didn’t make any sense.

  “A priest came by from the episcopal palace an hour ago. The bishop wants you to dine with him.”

  “The bishop?” I repeated stupidly.

  Paul laughed. “I thought you’d be flattered by the honor! There can’t be many wizards asked to dine by bishops the very evening of their enthronements.”

  I managed to pull myself together. “Oh. Yes. The bishop. This will a good time to warn him.”

  All summer I had known that if Joachim became bishop our long evening conversations would be over for good. But now he was bishop, and he still seemed willing to talk to me. I should have been delighted but felt no emotion at all. Besides, it would all be different.

  “I’ve got something else to tell you,” said Paul, somewhat sheepishly. “I know you didn’t want me to ride Bonfire. But I did anyway. I can’t believe Vincent meant him as a trap, and, besides, I couldn’t help myself. Was there ever something you wanted to do so badly you didn’t care about the consequences?”

  I nodded without speaking.

  “Bonfire really is as gentle as a kitten, and can he run! He’s even faster than those horses in the borderlands.”

  “All right, then, but be careful,” I said inadequately. I hurried inside to scrub my face and to brush the bits of grass out of my hair and beard.

  As I walked toward the cathedral a few minutes later, I tried to recall all the concerns I had about a forthcoming attack from an evil wizard. I had feared no one in the Church would be willing to listen, but if Joachim had invited me to dinner he would certainly let me speak.

  A young and rather nervous acolyte met me at the palace door, but inside I was pleased to see Joachim’s silent servant, apparently forgiven for his complicity in Norbert’s plot. He nodded gravely and motioned me toward the study.

  “Uh, Your Holiness—” I began awkwardly, dipping my head and wondering if Joachim expected me to kneel.

  The bishop had been reading his Bible, but he immediately rose to greet me, taking both my arms in his strong grip. “I am glad you were willing to come,” he said with a smile, a genuine smile such as I had not seen on his face very often. “I had been afraid you would refuse. You have been out all afternoon, I understand? You must be starving. Come into the dining room, and we can eat at once.” He wore his ordinary black vestments again rather than the scarlet robes of this morning, although the ruby ring was still on his finger. He looked more comfortable and relaxed than I could remember seeing him for a long time. “And don’t call me Your Holiness, Daimbert, unless you expect me to start calling you Your Wizardliness!”

  The candles were lit, and the bishop’s servant brought the soup. I sat down in something of a fog, but as soon as we started to eat I realized that he was right; I was starving.

  “I want to thank you, and I want to apologize,” said Joachim. “You removed the magical danger to the cathedral, at much greater personal risk than I had anticipated—although I should have known better. When I got your telephone message last week I drew a relaxed breath for the first time this summer.”

  I had to warn him that the magical danger was not all gone, but he was still talking.

  “And all the time that you were marshalling your forces against the monster, I selfishly ignored you. I was so caught up in my own concerns, worrying about the bishop, worrying about whether I would be elected myself, that I paid no attention to you. But now the bishop is safely in Abraham’s bosom, and I have been elected to succeed him, for good or ill. I think all the members of the cathedral chapter had a serious lapse of judgment, but, with the help of God I will at least not lead my flock into evil.”

  “As you know,” I said, “I’d always thought you’d be a good bishop. And, do you remember?” with a fair approximation of a smile. “I promised you two things if you were elected. I said that I’d go to the land of wild magic, and I’ve done so—or at least to the borderlands, which were wild enough for me. And I promised that I’d try to work with you, to find ways that wizards and priests could stop distrusting each other.”

  This might be hard, I realized, since the first thing I was going to tell him was that there was an evil wizard loose in the twin kingdoms. But the servant came back before I could say anything more, to take away our soup bowls and serve the lamb and carrots.

  “Put the cheese and fruit on the side table,” said Joachim, “along with the rest of the wine. We can serve ourselves.”

  The servant closed the door behind him as he left. Joachim turned his enormous dark eyes on me. “Now I’d like you to tell me what’s really bothering you.”

  “I’m afraid a wizard I haven’t been able to find is plotting some massive attack,” I said. “It was he who called the gorgos, and I can’t even imagine what he’s planning next.”

  Joachim had put down his fork and was watching my face.

  “I don’t know where he is now. I came back from the borderlands as fast as I could because I was terrified he might try to attack the cathedral at your election the way he did at the old bishop’s funeral. Nothing happened, and I can find no sign of wild magic in the city, but that may only mean he hasn’t been able to get a new monster from the north—yet. And I doubt I’ll be able to get any support from the wizards’ school.”

  The bishop nodded gravely, still watching me. “But you don’t sound as though you anticipate a magical attack tonight.”

  “No, or at least I hope not.”

  “Good. Then you can tell me all about it a little later.” He took a few bites, then looked at me again. “Right now you can tell me what’s happened to you, you personally, these last few months. Because something has happened which has affected you even more profoundly than your fight with the monster.”

  I forced myself to adopt a light tone. “What makes you think something out of the ordinary has happened to me, besides of course nearly being killed by a gorgos?”

  This was far too flimsy for him. “As I told you once before, I know you better than you think I do. You put me off then, but I can’t bear to see you like this any longer. Something terrible has wrenched your soul, and if I’m supposed to guide the souls of this diocese I can’t leave my oldest friend to suffer unaided.”

  I tried not to meet his eyes. “You don’t need to hear all this. Half of it you wouldn’t understand, and the other half you’d just say I was receiving a sinner’s just reward.”

  “And are you?”

  I looked up in spite of myself. “Joachim, I don’t even know anymore.”

  “Then why not try to tell me?”

  I took another bite of lamb—it really was very good—then pushed my plate away. “This may take a while.”

  “We have a while.”

  I took a deep breath. “It starts back when I first came to Yurt. I’ve tried to tell you this several times, but you never seemed to understand. Until this summer, I’ve always been in love with the queen.”

  V

  I knocked on Theodora’s door just before dawn. “Theodora. It’s me.”

  She opened the door looking extremely charming in a white nightgown, her hair tousled and her cheek still bearing a crease from the pillow. “What is it?”

  “I’ve come to invite you to Prince Paul’s coming of age ceremony.”

  “But—” I gave her a good-morning kiss while she tried to object. “They won’t want me there—they don’t even know me. And Daimbert!” with an exasperated laugh. “What will the neighbors think if they see me standing here in my nightgown, kissing someone at this hour of the morning?”

  “Then I’ll come inside,” I said cheerfully, closing the door behind me. The cat rose from the hearth, stretching itself to twice its normal length and yawning widely. “I hope you realize the neighbors will start thinking all sorts of things in a few months anyway. But don’t worry about the cathedral. They won’t think of you as a loose woman, but more as a woman who has been sinned against, so you’ll continue to get commiss
ions from the priests.”

  She rubbed her eyes and sat down, pulling a shawl across her shoulders. “What’s happened to you? You look almost feverish. Did you even go to bed last night?”

  “No,” sitting down beside her. “I’ve been talking to the bishop.”

  “The bishop! You’ve been telling him about me—”

  I smiled at her concern. “I certainly told the bishop the most important details, such as that you are the most wonderful woman in the world, and I love you. I didn’t tell him you’re a witch—the Church has long experience in dealing with sin, but even Joachim has always had trouble with magic.”

  “So you let the bishop condemn you as a sinner?”

  “Joachim thinks of everyone as a sinner, starting with himself. He’s never held it against anyone.”

  She started to look amused in spite of herself. I put my arm around her. “If it’s any comfort,” I said, “he thinks you’re right, that I belong in Yurt and you here. Both of you are wrong, of course.”

  “Then why do you seem so happy this morning?”

  “Maybe the Church has a point, that confession is good for the soul. But I think the real reason is my relief that I’ll finally be able to find the renegade wizard; Joachim has a plan to draw him out of hiding.”

  “What’s his plan?”

  Looking into her intelligent amethyst eyes, I realized that Joachim had actually been quite vague about his precise intentions. Last night, after he had listened to my long, disjointed story about the queen and Theodora, once I finally told him my suspicions of a renegade, he had said with calm assurance that locating him would not be a problem. At that point, emotionally drained, I had been glad to believe whatever he told me.

  “It involves Paul’s coming of age ceremony,” I said, feeling light-headed. I knew I remembered the bishop saying that. Did the plan also involve Norbert? No, I was quite sure it didn’t, although I had confessed my involvement in that to Joachim along with everything else. He had placidly refused to attribute any worse motives to the cathedral cantor than misplaced distrust of magic and a rather sad and petty jealousy, though he said he expected that the wizard who had sold the Norbert the book, the wizard who had fostered his jealous plot, was still here in the city.

  “The only problem with the bishop’s plan,” I extemporized when Theodora seemed to be expecting more, “is that it depends on me being as good a wizard as Joachim thinks I am, which is better than I think I am. That’s why I need you to help me at Paul’s coronation. I’m a member of the royal court of Yurt and can invite anyone I please.”

  “But I can’t— How would I—”

  “You’re going with the episcopal party,” I said. “It’s all arranged. The bishop will provide a horse for you. And be sure to attend morning service at the cathedral, an hour from now. Joachim will be giving his inaugural sermon, and it’s going to be highly interesting.”

  “If there’s a dangerous renegade wizard loose,” she asked, “shouldn’t your school be able to help?”

  “That’s one of the wizard’s best ploys. By having his gorgos appear on the new cathedral tower originally, he’s made it appear this is something in which the school should be reluctant to be involved. By waiting until the Royal Wizard of Caelrhon had died, he hoped there would be no one here with the magic to oppose him.”

  I kissed Theodora and stood up to go. “The queen and prince are riding back to Yurt this afternoon. I need to go with them.”

  A smile she tried to suppress twitched the corners of her mouth. “It’s odd that you never told me your queen was so lovely.”

  I sat down again. “Theodora, you have to understand that—”

  She gave up trying to hide her smile. “Of course I knew there was a queen of Yurt, even though you never mentioned her. And I’d seen her several times over the years, and I’d certainly noticed she was very beautiful. That’s why, when you very carefully never referred to her, I knew there was a reason.”

  “But there’s never been any—” I protested.

  “I knew that all along.” She smiled at me, amethyst eyes dancing. “When the king of Yurt was still alive and they came here together, she and he were inseparable. Now that she’s been a widow for several years she might be willing to start looking at other men, but she’d be looking for a prince or another king, not a wizard. This was all clear to me, but I could never be sure if it was clear to you.”

  If I had spoken to Theodora several months ago, I might have saved myself a lot of anguish. But then I hadn’t known her several months ago—and might never have if it weren’t for that anguish.

  “It put me in a difficult position,” she continued thoughtfully, “because I didn’t know if you loved the queen while knowing it was hopeless, or if you’d deluded yourself that you might someday have a chance with her. I would hate to see you deluded, but on the other hand, once I found myself falling in love with you, it made it easier if I could reassure myself that your real affections were already engaged elsewhere.”

  There didn’t seem to be any way to answer this.

  “What I am truly sorry about, Daimbert,” she added, “is that I never realized, not until I saw you sitting with your royal court yesterday, that you’d discovered for yourself that your love was hopeless. For a witch, it’s embarrassing to have to admit I overlooked something that evident.”

  “You mean— It’s so obvious that I had loved her but she could never love me that someone could spot it across a crowded church?”

  She gave me an amused look. “Remember that witches understand all sorts of hidden feelings that ordinary mortals—and even wizards—can’t know. Besides, I know you better than anyone else does.”

  Enough people seemed to know me better than I thought they did that soon I wouldn’t be able to have any secrets at all. “But if you knew all this yesterday—you didn’t say anything about the queen then!”

  “Of course not. You were too upset already. But I don’t know,” she continued, “exactly what happened between you and your queen to make you realize your love for her was hopeless.”

  I looked away as I answered. “I asked her to marry me.”

  She made a small incoherent sound. “I’m sorry, Daimbert,” she said after a moment. “No one should be refused twice in one summer.”

  I thought of telling her she could solve that problem for me but knew better. “And I don’t love the queen. I never really loved her. I only love you.”

  She laughed and pushed me away. “Of course you love your queen. You have for nearly twenty years. Now hurry back to the castle and get ready for church service.”

  But she was wrong, I told myself. I didn’t love the queen.

  The cathedral filled up rapidly. The visiting bishops had left with their entourages after yesterday’s enthronement, but almost everyone else returned for the bishop’s inaugural sermon.

  After changing my clothes and drinking several cups of strong tea back at the castle, I felt almost coherent again. Among the people coming in was a woman dressed in an elegant dress of dark lilac silk. A few strands of nut-brown hair emerged from under a chaste white wimple. I slipped into the pew next to her. “You look like a castellan’s lady, if not a princess,” I whispered with a smile. “I scarcely recognized you as my beloved embroideress.”

  The dark lilac of the dress brought out the color of her eyes, even in the dimness of the cathedral’s interior. “Of course,” she replied. “It’s not for nothing that I make my living by sewing. If I’m really going to go to your prince’s coronation, I have to look suitably regal. What’s will happen here?”

  “You’ll see,” I said, wondering myself. “Joachim’s not just the new bishop, in some ways he’s now the most powerful person in two kingdoms.”

  The organ’s tune changed to a deep and solemn processional march, and the cathedral priests filed in, sober in black and white, led by their new dean. When they had assembled around the altar, Joachim appeared, walking by himself across the m
osaic Tree of Life.

  As he took his place at the lectern in front, resplendent in the scarlet robes that Theodora had embroidered for him, he appeared almost cheerful. No one who did not know him as well as I did would have noticed, for his lips did not smile, and his dark eyes were as unwavering and compelling as always. But his voice, as he read from the Bible and then proceeded to speak of the love and brotherhood that should bind mankind together under God, had none of the anguish in it I had heard so clearly at the old bishop’s funeral. Rather, he spoke with both assurance and humility.

  “As this is my inaugural sermon,” he said, putting down his Bible, “I would like to address to you, my people, a special request.” This, I thought, was where his plan began. I remembered clearly now: he had said he would lure the wizard out of hiding through an idea planted in his first sermon.

  But Joachim’s next words were entirely unexpected. “For too long there has been at best an uneasy truce, if not indeed outright enmity, between the Church and organized wizardry. While I am bishop of the kingdoms of Yurt and Caelrhon, I would like to see this stop.”

  Theodora looked at me from under raised brows, and I thought I heard an uneasy shuffling from where the cathedral priests were sitting.

  “There has been talk, groundless talk, of the wizards’ school seeking to infiltrate all aspects of life in the western kingdoms, of abrogating the authority of lords and even of kings.” I gave the royal princes of Caelrhon a quick glance to see how they were taking it. It was their turn to shift uncomfortably in the pew.

  “This talk was started by someone who is an enemy of the people of our two kingdoms! Unfortunately it has been picked up, both by some laymen who may be in the congregation today and by some officers within the Church. As of today, I want this foolishness to cease.” Joachim looked at all of us with burning eyes, and his voice rose clear in the silent cathedral. “Priests and wizards need to work together, beginning at once.”

  This was starting to sound dangerously like heresy to me. I wondered what the bishop of the great City would say when he heard about it; relations between his cathedral and the nearby wizards’ school had always been strained. I had been hoping Joachim would be bishop for forty more years; at this rate, he might not last forty more days.