one but yourself believes that the Romneys have anything to do with the vermin in our city.”
The torches hissed in the sudden stillness, and the sky above lowered heavy and black. The people stood motionless, watching the burly man and the bishop stare at each other. A few rats darted out into the crowd but immediately disappeared again.
“Don’t you believe in overcoming sin, Your Holiness?” the man said after a moment. His voice was not so loud or so assured, and I noted he had returned Joachim’s title to him. “Don’t you think-like Cyrus! — that God wants us to root out evil?”
“To kill the defenseless,” replied the bishop, his hands still resting protectively on the Romneys’ heads, “is to embrace evil, not drive it out.”
“Are you so sure, then,” said the man doggedly, “that you always recognize evil yourself when you see it?”
Joachim winced at that. Before he could answer, another voice came from the crowd, a woman’s voice.
It was the Lady Maria. “Oh, let them go!” she called. “Of
Cyrus had been standing silently, without moving, as though waiting to see the crowd’s mood before reacting. His expression had been very strange, one moment distant and ethereal, but the next alert and almost cunning. At the Lady Maria’s words he resolutely stepped forward, hands held high. “Praise God!” he shouted. “For He has spoken through His humble handmaiden!”
“I’m no handmaiden!” the Lady Maria snapped back, her voice loud and clear. “I was born the daughter of a castellan lord and am the aunt of the queen of Yurt!”
After a second’s startled silence, there came a new note to the sound of the crowd, a note of surprise, almost a giggle. Although it passed away again almost immediately, the tension was broken. Cyrus looked as though he wanted to stare Maria down. “Well, if you want to use the term in the
“See how the devil tempts us all!” Cyrus cried, raising his eyes from the Lady Maria to the black sky above. “God’s daughter has spoken truly! Sin comes masquerading as goodness, luring even the most righteous into error! Repent, my children! Repent!”
“You mean I have to let them go?” the burly man asked truculently.
“Yes!” said Joachim and Cyrus together.
He thrust the Romneys from him with disgust. “All right, Holy Father,” he said, and it was not clear which man he was addressing. “But don’t blame me if the rats get worse!”
The Romneys stumbled and would have fallen if the bishop had not caught them. He put an arm around each and, sweaty and grimy as they were, gave them the kiss of peace on both cheeks. “Let me apologize to you on behalf of all the priests of Caelrhon,” he said, loudly enough that everyone could hear. “I see the mayor is here, and I am sure he expresses the same sentiment on behalf of Caelrhon’s citizens.” The mayor made an incoherent sound that was more assent than anything. “One misguided and overzealous Christian is not representative. Would you like some assistance returning to your caravans?”
But the Romneys, their eyes still wide, wanted no assistance. The crowd, shamefaced, parted for them as they hurried away.
I turned from watching them go to see the bishop standing sternly in front of his newest seminary student, his left hand extended at waist level. After only a moment’s hesitation Cyrus knelt and kissed the episcopal ring reverently.
“Praise God!” he shouted then as he rose to his feet, as though wanting to reassert his authority over the crowd. “For He has given us a truly holy bishop to lead us!”
“Cyrus,” said Joachim, not at all mollified, “I shall speak to you in the cathedral office first thing in the morning.”
The bishop strode away with a swirl of vestments. “I see,” said Cyrus behind him, uncowed, “that before any other Christians are tempted into sin I shall have to do something about those rats.”
II
It was just before dawn when a sound woke me. I lifted my head from Theodora’s couch to listen, unsure at first if it was dream or reality.
It was reality, all right. Faint but clear, from the direction of the docks, came the sound of piping.
As I listened the music grew louder, as though the piper was coming this way. The notes rose and rose again, wild and compelling, a music that entered the brain and called the body. That piping had me swaying on my feet with my hand on the doorknob before I even realized what I was doing. It tugged at the magic within me with a call that overcame all feeling, all will, nearly all thought.
“No,” I gasped, and the sound of my own voice gave me back a little of my senses. I made a desperate effort and pushed away from the door. No magic I knew could oppose this. Theodora emerged from the bedroom in a long white nightgown, her eyes only slightly open, and brushed past me, reaching for the knob.
I seized her and held her to me. She struggled but as though only dimly aware of my presence. Faint light from the curtained window fell on pallid cheeks and tumbled hair. “Theodora. Wait. Stop. Don’t follow it,” I managed to choke out.
But it was Antonia, clutching Dolly and stretching to unlock the door, who seemed to make Theodora aware of where she was. She shook herself, gave me a quick look, and pulled our daughter back into the middle of the room. The three of us clung together desperately as the piping came closer.
“It’s a spell,” I said in a low voice, hoping that the sound of a human voice would keep us anchored here in this room. The notes were mixed with another sound now, almost a squeaking. Antonia had ceased struggling but was crying silently. “Someone is working a summoning spell. I don’t recognize his magic at all, but I think-I hope-it’s not for us.”
Summoning was specifically forbidden by the masters of the wizards’ school as the greatest sin a wizard could commit.
“It’s only because we all know magic that we’re more susceptible than most people to spells,” I tried to continue in a calm, explanatory tone.
But now the piper was directly outside Theodora’s door. I stopped speaking as it took all my effort just to keep myself from abandoning my family and all my reason to follow that music.
There was a moment in which I must have squeezed Theodora’s arms painfully, because she had purple bruises later, but with my eyes tight shut I was unaware of her, only of my desperate need to follow and equally desperate determination not to. But after what seemed an endless time, though it could only have been a few seconds, the piper passed by. I took a deep breath that was almost a sob as the power of his spell diminished.
Antonia plopped down in the middle of the floor, crying hard, and Theodora tried to comfort her. I lifted the curtain to look out. The piper was gone, and I did not see any of Theodora’s neighbors following.
“It looks like that was only a spell for magic-workers,” I started to say, trying to make it a joke.
But then I saw the rats. Hundreds of them, thousands of them, brown rats poured like a river down the middle of the street, their hairless tails arched over their backs. More came scampering out of cellars and alleys to join the stream. Theodora joined me at the window and stared in amazement. I had not realized how thoroughly the city had been overrun with rodents until I now saw them all together.
“Well,” I said when I could speak again. “It looks like Cyrus really has done something about the rats.”
We bathed, dressed, and had breakfast to give ourselves time to calm down. “It wouldn’t have to be a demonic spell,” I said to Theodora as we went out two hours later. I leaned again on my predecessor’s silver- topped staff.
There was a narrow crevice at the center of the cobbled street where rainwater drained. The thin layer of
