C. Brittain - The Witch, the Cathedral

But there was nothing about him to support Paul’s suspicion that he wanted the queen’s kingdom rather than her person. He had his eyes on her constantly as she turned in the intricate steps of the dance, with an open affection that was almost too personal to watch. Even though for the most part her own expression was amused or even mocking, he several times said something in her ear that turned her laugh into a smile of undisguised pleasure.

They were only a couple in love, I told myself, and their unanimity, their cheerful picking up of each other’s lines, did not show any plotting or planning but only how closely their minds and spirits were intertwined. I only wished I believed it.

In the morning I heard from my chambers the clatter of horses being brought from the stables. A surreptitious glance out the window confirmed that the queen and Vincent were going hawking. I would stay in my study, I decided, until they were gone.

I was leafing through the third volume of the Arcana, looking for spells that might help the cathedral keep fairy lights off their new tower, when there was a knock on the door. “Come in!” I called, assuming it was the kitchen maid come to get my breakfast tray.

But the door burst open with a bang that the kitchen maid would never dare. I swung around to see my doorway blocked by a dark form, silhouetted beyond recognition by sunlight outside. But unmistakable was the naked sword it held.

I didn’t even think. Two words in the Hidden Language and the figure staggered; three more and the sword clattered to the flagstones while the figure dropped as though hit with a plank. I strode across the room to retrieve the sword, then turned to see who had unwisely tried to attack a wizard.

It was Vincent. He sat up and tenderly felt his ribs. “I guess there’s nothing broken,” he said and gave me a rueful smile. “Help me up?”

I took the proffered hand and pulled him to his feet, but I held onto his sword.

“I’m sorry!” he said with apparently real penitence. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come hunting, and I thought it would be fun to pretend to attack you-just a joke, you realize, just to show you a trained warrior’s power! I had no idea you’d react like that.”

“Wizards always react rapidly,” I told him sternly. “Suppose a trained warrior burst into your room. Wouldn’t you draw your sword first and inquire who it might be afterwards?”

“I guess I’m lucky you didn’t kill me, in that case,” he said cheerfully, brushing himself off. “After my brother’s experiences, I should have known better! Let me have my sword back, and I’ll certainly never try a joke like that on a wizard again. Now that I’m here, do you want to go hunting?”

I handed him his sword since I could think of no excuse to keep it. “Thank you for the offer,” I said, more sternly than ever, “but I need to spend the day in the perusal of my magic spells.” What could Vincent mean by his brother’s experiences?

“We’ll see you later, then,” he said, uncowed. I closed the door firmly behind him and sat at my desk, doing nothing but listening until I was sure the hunting party was gone.

Then I did turn again to my books, looking for a spell that might protect against the action of any other spell. In an hour I determined that there actually was no such thing, but with enough effort I might be able to create one.

I put the volumes back onto the shelf, hoping I would not have to try. Even the simplest spell can have unforeseen results, and a spell against magic would create enough tensions within the natural fabric of the cathedral city that I might end up with the whole church sinking into a giant hole in the earth.

Instead I reached for another book. If I saw the Romney children again, I wanted to be ready with something to impress them.

It had been years since I had tried to make myself invisible. When I first came to Yurt, I had become quite good at making my feet disappear, but I had never been able to become invisible above the waist. Now, after reviewing my books, flipping back and forth between several volumes with fingers and three pencils marking different places, I thought I finally understood the problem.

I stood up, took a moment to review the spells in my mind, and began. As the heavy syllables of the Hidden Language rolled into the silent room, I slowly became invisible, starting at the feet and working up to my head. I looked into the mirror with delight. Nothing was there.

There was a sharp rap on the door. “Come in!” I called without thinking.

This time it was the kitchen maid. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, coming in. “But with the extra people staying, I’m afraid I lost track of your breakfast tray, and so-” She stopped, not seeing anyone. I smiled to myself and tried not to breathe. “Sir?” She looked directly through me to my bedroom beyond.

She shrugged then and picked up the tray. For a moment I was tempted to break the spell and appear abruptly before her, preferably with a flash and a lot of smoke. I went as far as to tiptoe over to the doorway where she would pass directly by me.

But I resisted. She was a very young kitchen maid, and it would not be fair to make her suffer for Vincent having surprised me. Besides, I didn’t want to have to sweep a lot of broken crockery off my clean flagstone floor. I stepped silently aside and let her pass.

As she swung my door back open, sunlight poured in from the courtyard. She didn’t see it, but I did: my shadow stretching out from invisible feet. The door swung shut and the shadow was gone, but I was left considering. My spell of invisibility made me and my clothing invisible to the human eye, but apparently not to the sun.

I snapped my fingers, said the two words to break the spell, and reappeared in the mirror. I doubted even the wizard or magician the Romney children had seen could have made his shadow disappear. Now all I had to do was to find a way to make a cloak of fire.

Since the spring morning was so warm, I had not lit a fire. Now I knelt at my hearth and put a pile of kindling together. Some wizards, I had once heard, could create fire straight from the air, but that was something never taught at the school.

The challenge with a cloak of fire would be to surround oneself with living flames yet emerge unscorched. Once I had a small fire burning, I pulled another book off the shelf and started putting a promising spell together. Sitting with one hand holding the volume, I tentatively reached the other hand toward the flame and then rapidly drew it back. This particular protective spell didn’t seem to do anything against heat.

I tried a different spell, one that I knew was effective against arrows. But it worked no better against fire than the first. The third spell I tried seemed to have potential until I realized that I was able to put my hand closer to the flame only because the flame was dying.

I stood up, sucking the burnt back of one knuckle. “If the Romney children aren’t satisfied with illusions and invisibility, then it’s no use even trying to satisfy them,” I told myself and went out.

Gwennie, daughter of the cook and the constable, was crossing the courtyard, staggering under a pile of leather-bound ledgers. I hurried to help her, putting a lifting spell on the volumes. “Where are these going?”

She gave me a quick and grateful grin and pushed the hair back from her face with a dusty hand. “To the storeroom. I decided Father doesn’t need all these old ledgers cluttering up his office. Some of them even date from before I was born !”

I had to smile because I well remembered when she was born, which didn’t seem long ago to me. “I would have thought you’d be helping your mother in the kitchens instead of your father.”