Magic in Ithkar

by Andre Norton

  Brother Jerome hunched further into his pain, knowing from experience that his bent frame would conceal the gold candlestick tied to his chest. His brethren called him “the Huncher” because of his odd kneeling. He almost didn’t suppress a chuckle. They teased but thought him impossibly devout. In their blind, false piety, they never guessed that he had for many mornings now been prayerfully wrapped around piece after piece of soft gold stolen from the temple’s dusty treasure vault. Even the fearful sweat that constantly glazed the center of his tonsure was thought the product of his intense devotion and prayer.

  Fools, thought Jerome. Pious, unsuspecting dolts. Even the high priest, with his supposed grand education and pompous pronouncements, had been fooled.

  Just the other morning, the high priest had condescended to speak to him. “Ah, Brother Jerome, up before everyone again. Pacing the halls like a curled saint, praying, praying, praying. You must be kinder to yourself. Straighten your shoulders, your back. Those we worship have no need of red-eyed and stooped servants.” Jerome felt a wave of goodwill stab through him. That damned badge. He fought the feeling down. Long ago he’d learned to resist the high priest’s hypnotic Lordly Ones amulet. Silence and deadly purpose were his defense. Let him and the others think that their sanctimonious posturings and pat conclusions were omnipotent: “Ah ’tis the devote Jerome, mumbling his way through the rolls of the Songs of Summoning, stalking the halls, bent with his eyes on his dirty toenails.”

  Damn their laughter. Damn the high priest; his rewards would come anyway. For too long he’d indulged in the spices, wool, jewels, and fur that wandered up and down the Ith. The fat pig would learn when the next noble visited for a token Holy Ten-day appearance that the purest of the precious gold was gone, his storeroom shelves marked with dust-free shapes and empty cases. Jerome had so wanted to stand straight for the bloody ass. What fun it would have been to watch the false beatitude drop from his fat face when he saw a temple treasure outlined beneath his robe! Jerome had even wished, as he’d lain each night on his pallet hating, that he could be there when the high priest opened the door and saw his losses; but by then the Ithkar Fair would be over, the lustful fleeced, and he on his way to take care of her!

  Devotions over, Jerome rose carefully, straightening only at the knees, to leave the bare resident chapel with the other priests. Despite the high priest’s stern presence, there were the usual whispers and muffled chuckles as they made their ways back to their cells for the morning’s hour of solitary meditation. Being careful to avoid the spaces between the ill-fitted flagstones and the worn curves on the stairs, Jerome made his way along the too familiar route to his only private place. It wouldn’t do to stumble now, not when he was so close to his goal. He again chuckled to himself when he realized that if he fell, he’d clank when he hit, a topheavy thief with a golden breast.

  He did pause in the soft breeze of late summer to look out through the arched windows of the cloister across the rolling green hills. In the distance he could see the preparations for the fair. Dominating it all was the undeniable majesty of the Shrine of the Three Lordly Ones. The silver Ith, its filth hidden by sun and distance, ribboned the far boundary. The skeletons of the rising tents, soon to capture more colors than the rainbow; the permanent, more spacious stalls of the guilds, even the gray edifice of the stone workers’ hall of statuary. Wagons of traveling players already ringed the shrine and turned it into a giant pinwheel. Off to the side a young boy and girl performed tricks on a galloping pony; the distance made them look like centaurs. Jerome even thought he saw the spinning flashes of the axes thrown by a juggler practicing his art and the sharp flashes of the controlled fire of a trained dragon. He looked for one wagon in particular and was both angered and relieved when he couldn’t find it.

  “ ’Tis a beautiful sight, is it not, Jerome?” remarked Brother Sadmust, the heal-all.

  Jerome brushed by. “Eh, Sadmust, I must, I must, go to my cell . . . my prayers, the souls of sinners, my soul, my brethren. I will come by after the fair, after all the responsibilities of so many visiting souls are done.”

  “My pardon, I did not mean to keep you, but the high priest and I are . . .” Sadmust’s words echoed along the vaulted corridor; Jerome was already picking his careful way toward his cell. Sadmust stared at the departing back: a strange man, unquestionably devout, but disquietingly different from the monastery’s usual population. And that poor, sad back. How cruel that the priests mocked his piety before all. It would not be a happy fair for him. Sadmust nearly followed but thought better. Still, he must have another chat with the high priest about Jerome. Try to convince him that Jerome’s piety deserved to be treated as more than a comical curiosity.

  Jerome leaned his back against the door to his cell. Gods, it was good to straighten up. Almost inadvertently a groan escaped his lips; he repeated it. Oddly, it helped ease the poisoned stomach he had endured since she’d left him for the ragtag guardian-wizard. “Ooooww.” He let it escape slowly. Better, a bit better, though never gone. He retched as he did most mornings and had to hold his hands above his head to stop from puking. Let them listen and marvel again at his agony for the world’s pain. This was his pain, his to keep, to hold, to nurture. Sweet pain, sweet moan. Cursed woman, soft, beautiful woman, firm breasts, warm quilts, wonderful hunger, caring— Stop, fool! Again she had seduced the revelry from him. Again he clenched his teeth against the love that crept within him without cause, without reason. He must deny her, he must survive. Reason? spoke something within him; Purpose? it asked again.

  Jerome spoke again to his constant haunter. “It will pass; I will be healed; it will be better; I will one day be free of her. There will be payment. ...” From a deep, secret place within him, there rose a sardonic chuckle, and Jerome snapped his head sharply back and forth to rid himself of his own voice, to rid himself of the feeling that he would never be whole again.

  “I will be healed, but not by the butcher of a barber in the town with his faded red-and-white pole, nor by that meddling Sadmust. That fool of a heal-all; he doesn’t even believe in bleeding. If there was blasphemy, that Sadmust was in it up to his nostrils. No humors, what a turd! All I’ll need is enough money to be bled by an expert. All that ails me is too much black bile. A balanced system, microcosm matching macrocosm—then I’ll be free of her and the pain.”

  For the moment, he was almost free of his stomach and his aching back had begun to stretch out. ... She used to rub it— Stop! He ripped his robe and hair shirt over his head in one motion. Lords! He nearly dropped the Y-shaped rod, that noise would be hard to explain. He rubbed his blood-streaked chest with grease he’d taken from the kitchen. It provided little relief, but its smell did contribute to his reputation as a denier of the flesh.

  As his hands flashed in practiced motions over his chest, under his arms, and as far around his back as he could reach (he shuddered to think what his back must look like), his eyes swept the all-too-familiar cell. The short, thin slit of a window with its cracked wooden shutter. He had to spill water on it in the winter to ice it tight. The crude copy of the Three Lordly Ones’ badge above the pallet, its top clumsily carved off center. Across from the pallet was a small, wooden shrine covered with white cloth and topped with an earthenware singing cup and a fat candle. A small, three-legged stool beside a large wooden washing bowl and chamber pot completed Jerome’s meager holdings.

  Again he drew a moment’s humor from his cleverness. All looked exactly as it should; it was the same as all the other cells that marched the east wall. Seemingly stoic and barren, it hid far more than anyone could suspect. The shrine, ah, the shrine, that was the real triumph.

  Jerome allowed himself the brief luxury of stretching out on the pallet. The soft yielding of mildewed straw concealed its real contents. Now he had to twist his mouth into his shoulder to conceal his almost hysterical glee at the high priest’s vanity. The perfect peacock, so fastidious. Had he ever worn the same vestments twice? The smug fart w
ould be astounded if he ever went back into those cedar chests he has stacked in the crypt. Beneath one layer of vestments was the straw from the pallet.

  One vestment at a time, Jerome had smuggled the varicolored robes back to his cell. For weeks he’d had to hide his pin-pricked fingers, curled into his palms or thrust into his sleeves. Fortunately, saying the scratches on his fingers had their disguising effect, and it had contributed mightily to his pious reputation. But slowly and surely the tent had grown under his fumbling, thimbleless fingers, the tent that would rise above his masterpiece and attract all the rich and greedy simpletons at the fair. For nights he’d trembled with the fear of intrusion when its rainbow colors had been spread all over the cell, draped from ceiling to floor. His silver-hilted knife, the last remnant of his nobility, flashed through the costly fabrics, ready to be turned upon even an innocent visitor. He wished the tent was bigger, but it would be impressive enough with its precious threads, that was most important. His black velvet robes and conical cape, shaped from four vestments from the Eulogy for the Departure of the Three, would be wonderful dramatic contrast.

  “Enough preening, clever devil, a morning’s work lies ahead.”

  Crossing to the shrine, Jerome eased it away from the wall. Umm, it was getting heavy; there had to be fifty cubits of gold wire by now. Once he had angled it out, he paused to admire the carefully carved wooden Egg and wheel; its bulk filled two-thirds of the hollow shrine. Ah, ’twas his own little lordly Egg. Briefly he admired the curve of wheel and the Thotharian and Lordly Ones symbols that covered it. Sadmust and the high priest would shudder to see some of those signs, but Jerome knew they were only part of the larger sham that was all there was to life. Inadvertently, he’d once hummed one of the Songs of Shaping as he carved. Suddenly, the runes had seemed to crawl about the Egg. Fear prevented any further humming. Besides, it had surely been a trick of his tired eyes.

  All those days wandering about his father’s estates, ignored as only a third son could be, had paid off. His once expansive and insatiable curiosity feeding as he watched the hands of the master carver, the smith, the weaver; those moments stolen in the library of the keep’s resident wizard as he read the old manuscripts; his fascination holding the indecipherable symbols in his mind. Recalling them for his Egg. “An idle woman’s fetish,” they had called his fascination with reading. His father’s and older brothers’ continual riding or sword clanking were the true manly arts.

  Again a chuckle briefly escaped Jerome’s pursed lips. Even when he was with Dulcesans . . . She had so delighted in the new things that you wanted so much to show— Stop!

  He still saw and remembered things. Little did any of them know the uses he would turn all of it to, little since the day he’d denied the position on the Ithkar Board of Trade his father had bought for him. What could they have ever suspected when he’d run, cursing and heartbroken, from their scorn, to be found weeks later half-starved and raving on the steps of the temple on the hill. What could the priests have known of the bosom serpent that they’d taken in and succored that night!

  Jerome reached into the shrine; his hand curled around the familiar oiled handle of his most precious tool. The chisel had once been one of the prized possessions of Brother Hoosh, the carpenter; its fine metal gleamed in the candlelight despite the constant dampness. When the tip had been notched by an inept and presumptuous acolyte, Hoosh had thrown it in the corner in an impious rage. Only Jerome had remembered, and when his scheme had emerged on that fateful night almost five months ago, he had returned and found it.

  Easing himself down on the low stool and pulling the colorless blanket from the pallet about his raw shoulders, he set the wash basin between his feet. Taking the soft gold Y-shaped rod, he began to push the chisel along its length. Fine gold curls rose from each stroke to fall into the basin with dull, repetitive thunks. Once a young acolyte had overheard the noises on his way to the scullery and fortunately had asked Jerome what they were. He’d remarked that they were probably his prayerful breast-beating. Another piece of the gossip surrounding the reclusive, devoted Jerome. . . . That dark chuckle slipped out again.

  The Y-shaped rod, despite its branching, was easier than the singing cups. For the longest time, he had fretted over the jewels that had had to be scraped off and were useless to his plan. However, this year’s spring planting had solved that problem. He would be long gone by the time Sadmust noticed the gaps in his herb garden and longer still before some priest would think he’d turned up another Lordly Ones treasure come next spring.

  Jerome’s hand and chisel moved in hypnotic regularity as he stroked the rod toward nothingness and as the basin filled with golden locks. Despite the rigid control and relished revenge that kept Dulcesans out of his mind amid the day-today tasks, his sour gut and the thoughtless monotony of his task allowed his mind to slip unguarded into the past, to harken to that deep, secret voice he so desperately tried to ignore.

  It had been one of those crisp, sharp days that made autumn a season of clarity and cleansing. The harsh winds of winter that would blow through the unmortared seams between the stones of his father’s keep and move the tapestries as if wraiths hugged the walls were still in the distant future.

  That morning he had learned from his mother of the position on the board of trade. It was to have been his father’s surprise at dinner, but his mother never could keep secrets from her youngest and most precious son. He had only one thought: to tell Dulcesans of his joy. Finally he would have a purpose, a place. She, widowed early and able to inherit her husband’s small wealth, property, and business, was one of the few, favored single women in Jerome’s world. Despite her youth, she had prospered in the small shop. Jerome had always been uneasy with her skill and presence, but his love shadowed that even when she spoke of things he didn’t understand. All he could do was offer support. He’d had to content himself with giving her the small figurines his clever hands shaped with a skill beyond his years, and she did joy and laugh in the stories he culled from the old books. Whenever they met, he always had a bag of something for her and one of his great pleasures was to watch her explore its confines for the little treasures he’d collected.

  He’d sent her a missive the night before asking that she contact him today. He’d had no word, and despite his deep respect he tended to worry. She was the light of his small, trusting life and he feared for her living alone. Had he been more astute, less devoted, less mindlessly impassioned, Jerome would have been forewarned. More and more, his ardent attentions had been treated by Dulcesans as impositions, his messages unanswered, her promises of words and meetings unfulfilled. He had excused her with the stresses and preoccupations of the shop and her increasing devotion to matters mercantile. Fool, half a man, fool, the inner voice hissed.

  But that day had too much blinding ecstasy for him to think of his forebodings. He danced more than ran. Bumping people on the street, his tabard flying about his head, he spun, he laughed till all thought him mad as he pirouetted his way through the narrow streets to the shop’s back door. Finally, he had something of his own to offer. They would go to the city; they would share all moments.

  Had Jerome’s normally sharp eye not been consumed with tears of joy, he would have noticed. The brazier that burned outside the door with the remains of skewered meats was the same as the small, intimate feasts they had shared before, and he had hoped to have today. Used fool. The shrouded wagon, emblazoned with the sign of Compo, the guardian-wizard, should have told it all. Worthless fool. When she rushed out the door to meet him, to stand between him and the shop, he should have known. Her gaze was cold, chill for a stranger; a blouse he had bought for her on a rare trip to the city was shaped tight to her breasts. Empty fool.

  “I have news; I had expected word this morning,” Jerome offered, his heart dying as he finally took in the obvious signs about him.

  “I never said when today. There is company. I will send word this afternoon.” There was no love in her voi
ce. His insides iced further.

  “Is everything all right?” Jerome hoped his honest concern would warm her. It didn’t.

  Abruptly: “Until then.”

  “Until.” No kiss, just a retreating back.

  There was no word that afternoon. He waited without hope where he could see any messenger entering the keep. Later in the afternoon, when his loutish, oldest brother had made an offhand remark about Dulcesans’s long afternoon’s lingering with a guardian-wizard, it had been too much. Little remained in Jerome’s memory of what he screamed at his father, his family, of the spit that flew unbidden from his mouth, whipped by his frenzy across his chin. Fool. Loon. All that remained was the poison-without-balm that filled his stomach, and he began to stoop and moan as he ran from the keep.

  He spent the first night curled in a stand of willows, too crippled to move, too stricken to will anything. Cursed with the taunting voice that became his constant companion: Seed spilled upon emptiness. Void. Caring, dreams, tossed among the rotting vegetables. Love crushed, barren.

  Some reason returned the second night. And his pearl ring, a gift from his mother, bought him a bath and a meal at a small inn on the trade road on the outskirts of town. The grease-spattered innkeeper thought himself a clever fellow to receive so much for so little. Jerome didn’t care. The ale and the bird did nothing for his pain. Nor did he notice the looks his soft moans and soiled finery drew from the other patrons.

  Yet, in those who believe too truly to survive among people, hope and love are difficult to kill. As the evening moved on, Jerome began to distrust his own eyes and his brother’s words. She had told him just five nights before that she loved only him, that the future bound them together. They had been together so long, shared so much preciousness. Simperer. He crept back to her, woke her. He was greeted with a blast of hate and summoned ugliness that his basic good nature could not stand against. Empty, riven fool.