The Witch, the Cathedral

“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