C. Brittain - The Witch, the Cathedral

“I’m sure the old bishop thought exactly the same thing when they elected him,” I said encouragingly.

“But why me ? What have I done to deserve this?”

“You were Royal Chaplain of Yurt for years,” I suggested.

“A position as chaplain to an aristocratic court has never been considered a great sign of spiritual purity.”

“And you’ve been to the Holy Land.”

“So have several other members of the cathedral chapter, including the chancellor. What special merit can they imagine I have?”

I took a sip of wine I did not want while wondering whether to remind him. “You brought someone back from the dead.”

“That had nothing to do with my merits,” he said, staring straight ahead. “Besides, it was so long ago I doubt they remember, even if they heard about it in the first place.”

When there was that note in his voice, I knew better than to argue with him. Instead I said, “I think you’d be a very good bishop.”

The edge of his mouth twitched in what might have been a wry smile. “The good opinion of a wizard is not what I need.”

I knew him too well to worry that this might be an insult. “At least if you were bishop you wouldn’t have to worry about someone else’s disapproval if you needed help with another magical problem.”

He leaned forward, resting his forehead on his fists for a moment, then shot me one of his piercing looks. “I realize wizardry does not demand the same level of spiritual commitment as religion, but maybe I can explain it to you. I know my own weaknesses. My fears of being unworthy are not a meaningless or automatic response. Do you remember the very first day I met you, when you had just become Royal Wizard of Yurt? You were talking about the land of wild magic and said that you had never been there because you were ‘not yet worthy of the voyage.’ Do you remember?”

“Yes, I might well have said that.”

“Have you been there yet?”

“Well, no. They used to have field trips from the wizards’ school, but I was never invited to go. I guess I could have gone myself any time in the last nineteen years, but somehow I haven’t.” Wild magic had been to meet me once too often; I had no desire to go meet it.

“Then even you, with the audacity wizardry gives a man, know what it is like to feel unworthy.”

Actually I had always had an excellent idea of what it feels like to be unworthy, or at least incompetent, but I had never let it bother me.

He sat back as though he had just explained something important. I still thought he would be an excellent bishop. “If they do elect you,” I said, “I’ll go to the land of wild magic. Maybe I can find the Queen of the Fairies and make her stop sending her fairies to your cathedral.”

Joachim said nothing but just looked at me.

“Or,” I added, warming to the topic, “you and I could try to arrange better relations between wizardry and the Church, so that bishops aren’t always warning young priests and old wizards warning young wizards against each other.”

I was pleased to see that this idea distracted him. He played with his empty wine glass, thinking about it.

“There are three who rule the world,” I quoted, “the Church, the wizards, and the aristocracy.”

“And the greatest of these is the Church,” he said absently.

“Hey! They never added that when I learned the proverb!”

This actually made him smile. “Did they tell you that the greatest were the wizards? It is a good saying. The Church is concerned with the souls of men and women in this world and their salvation in the next, and wizards with keeping the peace and keeping dragons away.”

“And the aristocracy with law-giving and administering justice, with wars-when we let them-and with the extremely vital mission of providing the income for priests and wizards. We don’t actually say that wizards are the greatest, you know, even if we are; after all, we’ve always served the kings.”

“That leaves the peasants and the artisans and the merchants.”

“Of course they don’t have time for anything as foolish as ruling the world,” I said. “They’re too busy producing what everybody else needs.”

Joachim smiled again and worked the cork out of another bottle. I was delighted to see him feeling less bitter. Maybe sometime he’d even want to go flying again. “But we are not discussing social theory,” he said. “You’re trying to cheer me up, and it may be the sin of despondency to resist such cheering, even from a wizard.” He filled our glasses; he had switched from white wine to red, and it glowed the color of rubies in the candlelight. “I still often feel like a callow priest fresh out of the seminary, but maybe even the most powerful men feel that way sometimes.”

I remembered him having an air of mature gravity from the day I met him and very much doubted he had ever been callow and shallow-unlike the young priest who was now chaplain of Yurt. But I did not mention this, and also did not mention that he seemed to have done a very good job of overcoming the same fears of unworthiness when he was first invited to join the cathedral chapter.

“Lately I’ve found myself wishing,” I told him instead, “that we could go back to Yurt the way it was when we first arrived there.”

“Of course you have to remember,” he said thoughtfully, “that ‘Yurt as it first was’ is different for me than for you. I had already been royal chaplain for several years when you arrived. I remember the queen’s old nurse living in the chambers they later gave you.”

I had never quite gotten over the feeling that I would have been much more awe-inspiring in a dungeon or a tower, but I very much liked my chambers in the royal castle, looking out into the courtyard through a tangle of climbing roses. It was by now far too late anyway to become frightening and mysterious.

“Speaking of the queen,” added Joachim, “I meant to tell you. I received a letter from her yesterday.”

I was jealous at once. I hadn’t had a letter from her since the first week I had been in the City.

“I had not heard from her in months, maybe a year, but she wants to find out what she needs to do to reserve the cathedral.”

“The cathedral?”

“Yes. She is thinking of marrying again.”

I stared at him, unable to answer. I was devastated. The old Romney woman, in prophesying that I would fall deeply in love, had been almost twenty years too late. I remembered my wine glass just in time not to drop it. “But she can’t get married!” I finally managed to gasp.

“Why shouldn’t she? She has been a widow for some six years, so remarriage would show no disrespect to the king’s memory. Doesn’t Paul come of age this summer? Once he is eighteen her regency will be over, and she will be free to leave Yurt if she wishes.”

This was even worse. “She can’t leave Yurt!”

Joachim looked at me quizzically. “You seem very disturbed by this.”

“I am disturbed,” I said desperately. “I’ve never told you this before, but I love the queen.”

“Of course. Everyone who knows her must love her. That is why we should welcome anything that makes her happy.”

I thought, not for the first time, that it was a good thing he was a priest.

“You can see her letter if you like. She did not tell me the name of the man she is thinking of marrying.”

He got it from his desk. It was a real letter, not one of the tiny rectangles that were all the carrier pigeons could handle. She must have found someone heading to the cathedral city to carry her letter by hand. I read it avidly, looking for hidden clues as to why she should suddenly have made such a bizarre decision, but there was nothing in it besides what the dean had already told me. I found myself remembering various men over the years who had looked admiringly at the queen, all of whom I now detested. Joachim was right that everyone loved the queen, and not everyone was a priest.