Bold blues and reds and greens.
Sunlight wedded to brilliant color and superb artistry.
The arched window towered seventy-six feet high by thirty-two feet wide. Below the tracery panels of angels, patriarchs, prophets, and saints were twenty-seven panels, each three feet square, of Old Testament scenes, beginning with the first day of Creation and ending with the death of Absalom. Nine rows of panels followed, illustrating eighty-one scenes of dire prophecy from the Apocalypse. In the two bottom rows was the kneeling donor, Bishop Skirlaw of Durham, flanked by English kings, saints, and archbishops.
“It took Robert Coventry three years to create this window over four hundred years ago.” Jordan said. “He was paid the princely sum of fifty-six pounds. Do you think it’s worth it?” When she didn’t answer, he glanced at her expression and nodded slowly. “I can see you do. So do I.”
“It’s magnificent,” she whispered. “It’s everything…”
“I thought you might like it.” He smiled. “I can give you until noon to worship at Coventry’s altar if I’m to keep my promise to Dorothy.”
“Noon?” She shook her head. “I need longer. This is only one window. The Minster has one hundred and thirty.”
“I promised Dorothy that-” He stopped as he saw her desperate expression. “Oh, what the devil. Sunset.”
She nodded eagerly. “Then I can see the Great West Window properly.” She turned back to the East Window and said dreamily, “Do you see how he combined color and grisaille? Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Wonderful,” he said, smiling indulgently. “I’ll speak to the archbishop and see that you’re not disturbed.”
“I won’t be disturbed.”
“No, I doubt if anything could disturb you at the moment. I’ll go to the nearest inn and see if I can find you shoes and a gown to wear on the journey back to Cambaron.”
Coventry had added touches of humor to a few of the panels. Papa had not told her… What had Jordan said? “That would be pleasant.”
“Or perhaps you’d prefer to wear sackcloth and ashes?”
The blues were magnificent but, dear heaven, those reds… “Whatever you like.”
She was vaguely aware of him shaking his head and then the sound of his receding footsteps.
How had Coventry attained that astonishing shade of red?
Jordan came to the West Window to fetch her when the last light had faded from the sky. He took one look at her feverishly bright eyes and dazed face and led her quietly from the Minster to a nearby inn. She was scarcely aware of him thrusting a bundle of clothes at her.
Blues and reds.
Opaque and clear.
Light.
Above all. Light.
He lifted her into the carriage a short time later and settled himself onto the seat next to her. “I take it you had a successful day?”
“They’ll last forever, you know,” she said softly.
“They’ve lasted a long time already.”
“You can burn a great painting. You can topple a statue, but those windows were meant to last forever.”
“If fools like Nebrov don’t meddle with them.” He frowned. “Your cheeks are flushed. How do you feel?”
“The light…”
“I had George bring a basket of fruit. Can you eat?”
She felt as if she would never eat again. She was full, brimming with hues. “I feel like a pane of glass, as if you can see through me, and yet I have textures…” She shook her head. “I feel… most peculiar. Is there something wrong with me?”
He chuckled. “I believe you’re drunk.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t be. I’ve had no wine.”
“There are more dangerous forms of drunkenness than those derived from the grape.” He pulled her against his shoulder. “Rest. I’ll be kinder to you in your infirmity than you were to me in mine.”
She stiffened against him. She vaguely remembered that there was a reason she must resist this intimacy, but it was hard to recall. She relaxed against him.
He had given her the Minster. He had given her that wonder.
“Try to go to sleep. I doubt if you did more than doze on the way here.”
“I was very angry with you.”
“I know.”
“Why did you do this?”
“There’s no accounting for the whims of fools or drunkards.”
“It was not a whim.”
“If you don’t wish to believe it, I certainly won’t insist. I need all available credit for good works to balance the other side of the scales.”
“It… was very kind of you.”
“You must tell that to Gregor. It might save me from severe physical punishment.”
He would not be serious. Had he done it because of the window she had crafted of his mother? She had known he had been moved by it.
Oh, she did not know why he had done such a wonderful thing for her. It did not matter. He had given her the Minster.
“Did you see the blues?”
“Yes.” He stroked her hair. “Though I admit I saw the entire picture and failed to take each facet apart.”
“It’s hard to do in a work of that detail.”
“Was it better than your grandmother’s Window to Heaven?”
“No. Grandmother’s work is better, but she was never permitted to work on so grand a scale. Seventy-six feet…”
“I think you’d better stop thinking about the Minster, or you’ll never get to sleep. What happens after the cutline?”
“What?”
“You once told me how you prepared the final sketch for cutting. What comes next?”
She had not thought he had paid any heed to her words that night in the tower. All she could remember was shimmering sensuality and his soft voice in the darkness. There was darkness now also, and his voice was just as soft, but now there was comfort, not danger.
“I cut the pieces of glass with either a grozing iron or a wheel cutter. After that I grind the top colored layer from the glass with powdered stone.”
“And then?”
“You don’t wish to hear this,” she said impatiently. “It can be of no possible interest to you.”
“Since I’m to live indefinitely with a hole in my roof, I think I’m entitled to test your knowledge.”
He would not know whether she was correct or not. She indulged him anyway. He had given her the Minster. “I attach the pieces of glass to an easel with melted beeswax and paint the lead lines. Then I check for light and flow through the glass.” She yawned and realized she was growing drowsy. The excitement of Coventry’s work was gradually being dampened by the details of the process itself. “I paint the glass and then apply silver stain to the white glass. I fire the glass in a kiln to set the color and then link the pieces and hold them in place with lead strips and cement.”
“And that’s what Coventry did?”
“It’s what we all do.”
“And much more besides.” She realized he had guessed she had simplified and left out the more complicated problems and processes. “Will you let me watch you someday?”
A ripple of unease went through her. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s mine.”
“That’s why I want to watch you.”
