Daughter of Magic - Wizard of Yurt - 5 (27 page)

Joachim hesitated for a moment, as though wondering himself if the topic of a seminary student’s behavior was fit for a wizard’s ears, but then continued as though there had been no pause.

“After the incident with the rats, of course, I ordered him to stop preaching or even speaking on spiritual issues to anyone but a priest. He could not deny that was magic, and he understood why I could not alow someone practicing wizardry to pass as the Church’s representative. I suspect he is irritated with me, in spite of his penitent attitude, as wel as with you for detecting his spels.” Joachim seemed remarkably unconcerned about it. “But he is studying hard and making good progress, I hear. Many seminary students come in these days with the impression that they are already spiritualy advanced, scarcely needing our guidance, so if he’s had a few rough spots in his early training he has company.”

“We’re not talking about rough spots. We’re talking about someone who works with a demon.”

“I know you believe that, Daimbert,” said the bishop good-naturedly, “but I have yet to see the slightest sign of anything of the sort. If there is black magic in his background, he has struggled hard to overcome it.”

“Has the mayor made him any more presentations?”

“No—why should he?” Joachim looked amused again. “Cyrus already has the key to the city, something the council has granted no other seminary student or priest—not even me.” I thought but did not say that I would find menace rather than humor in someone trained in eastern magic, someone who had had demonic help with at least some of his spels, whatever the bishop might think, and who was doubtless now furious with the organized Church, with the mayor and council of Caelrhon, and with me. Even if he were trying to break away, through prayer and study in the seminary, from a demon he had unwisely summoned, he had set himself a very difficult task. The demon would haunt him whenever he was not actualy in church, magnifying his sense of wrongs done to him, and tempting him with spectacular ways to get even.

“I hear you wil be Celia’s spiritual sponsor at the nunnery,” Joachim continued, having put concerns about Cyrus behind him. “I plan to ride over myself for the ceremony, so I shal see you tomorrow.” Celia, Hildegarde, and I rode down to the Nunnery of Yurt together. Given the circumstances, I had decided not to wish the twins a happy birthday. Their parents had announced at the last minute that they would accompany us. Celia, looking at the resignation and reluctance on their faces, which they made no effort to hide, took them away for a few minutes’ private conversation and returned without them, silent but with red eyes. She did not speak the whole journey.

The nunnery was only a few miles from the royal castle, but it could have been located in another kingdom for al the contact we had with it. One could see its church spire, rising above some trees, from the road, but I had never gone any closer. It was a hot day of midsummer, and the sun beat down on us and our black clothing, so I was relieved when we turned down the lane, bright with asters, that led to the nunnery.

The lane took us around the shoulder of a hil and into the nuns’ valey. A low wal, its gate open, circled the nunnery complex. The church itself, surrounded by its claustral edifices and farm buildings, looked peaceful and prosaic. In the surrounding fields the nuns’ tenants, stripped to the waist in the sun, were bringing in the hay. They waved to us cheerfuly as we rode past

“There’s stil time to change your mind,” said Hildegarde hopefuly. She had been itchy and uncomfortable in her black dress since we left Yurt. “You know they don’t want women who aren’t absolutely sure of their vocations. No one wil think any less of you.”

Celia shook her head without bothering to reply.

A priest came out to meet us as we clattered over the paving stones in front of the church. Roses bloomed by the entrance: nearly as good, I had to admit, as in Yurt’s royal garden.

“The Lady Celia, I believe?” the priest said, having no trouble distinguishing her, with her sober, weary eyes, from her flushed and irritated sister. “The abbess awaits you within. And this must be your spiritual sponsor.”

“My name is Daimbert.” I had done my best not to look like a wizard, having even borrowed a belt from one of the knights so as not to wear mine, with its self-iluminating emblem of the moon and stars on the buckle.

The priest noticed me admiring the roses. “Those were a gift, many years ago, from old King Haimeric of Yurt,” he told me proudly. “He sent us the rootstock.” Our horses were led away and the priest led us inside. Celia was whisked off to meet with the abbess, while two elderly nuns sat down with Hildegarde and me, to spend the next hour making sure we were clear on the details of our roles in the ceremony as family member and as spiritual sponsor.

What am I doing here? I wondered. I didn’t believe any young woman should be a nun, I didn’t think Celia herself realy wanted to be one, and I was having trouble taking seriously the words and symbols that the elderly nun was trying to explain to me.

“Then, after you have spoken these words,” she said, looking at me over her spectacles, “dip your finger in the sacramental water and touch Sister Celia three times, once on each eyelid and once on the chin.

Use your forefinger.” She was tiny and would have appeared fragile were it not for the cheerful energy that flowed from her. “But remember, don’t speak and certainly don’t dip your finger in the water until the priest has finished the initial prayers and the abbess has led the Amen twice.”

I heard the sound of more hooves outside and concluded that the bishop had arrived with his attendants. Why couldn’t he have been spiritual sponsor instead? I asked myself in irritation. He probably was used to performing rituals like this al the time.

“And you know, I hope,” the nun continued, “that you have to take her by the hand to lead her up to the bishop when it is time for her to make her maiden vows before him. We are very honored that the bishop himself wil perform the office today, rather than one of our own confessors. We want everything to go perfectly.” She looked at me intently. “Wil you be able to remember al this?” Hildegarde’s role, I gathered from snatches of conversation from the far side of the room as I repeated my instructions back, would be much simpler. After the rest of the ceremony was over—so that it was clear that the nuns had accepted Celia for herself, not for any payment—Hildegarde would convey to the abbess the stone, the clod of earth, and the applewood staff that symbolized the property which the duchess had agreed to give the nunnery if her daughter realy did insist on joining.

“Come,” said the nun briskly. “It is time to go down to the chapel.”

IV

The chapel was hot and stuffy, a smal room with an altar at one end and rows of nuns packing the sides. In their black robes and headdresses, they looked very much alike in spite of variations in size, shape, and age. Al had wedding rings on their left hands—brides of Christ, I reminded myself. Their faces wore identical expressions of reverence.

Hildegarde and I took our positions at either side of the door, opposite the altar. I looked for but did not see Celia. The room was heavy with the scents of lavender and incense. The nuns must have received some signal I didn’t catch, for they abrupdy began to sing in unison, a sweet hymn of praise.

When the hymn ended, the abbess swept in, three priests scrambling to keep up with her like smal boats in the wake of a ship. Even in a nunnery, I thought, they used men for priests. It looked as though Celia’s original plan never had a chance.

The abbess was even taler than the twins, and her piercing blue eyes didn’t look as though they missed much. She nodded rather distantly to Hildegarde and me and went to stand by the altar. There was a stone font next to it, like a baptist's font, that I assumed must hold the sacramental water. Forefinger, I reminded myself, both eyelids and the chin.

Then Joachim entered, formal in his best scarlet vestments that Theodora had embroidered for him. He caught my eye for a second but gave no other sign of greeting as he joined the abbess. Each of them gave the other a slight bow, but she showed no sign of kissing his ring. He might be the chief spiritual authority in two kingdoms, but this was stil her nunnery and he was here on her sufferance.

The nuns began to sing again, and then the novices entered. They made a striking contrast with the nuns, for they were dressed in white rather than black and thus sprang into relief against the background of the older sisters. They wore no wedding rings. Al carried white wax candles that flickered in the stil air as they walked.

Although the novices wore identical, very simple white robes, and al had their heads shaved, the differences between them were much more pronounced than between the adult nuns. Many were girls, who would remain novices until they were sixteen and old enough to choose their own vocation. One didn’t look much older than Antonia; she walked with great solemnity, keeping her eyes on her candle. Another, a graceful girl about the same age as the Princess Margareta, had somehow managed to pin or tie her plain white robe in a way to suggest great elegance, without doing anything blatant enough to draw the abbess’s censure. Her shaved head was carried at an angle that suggested that she personaly knew that women without hair were much more aluring than women with hair. She looked at me a moment longer than necessary as she passed, raising an eyebrow in a way I would have had to cal coquettish. She at least would not be here once she turned sixteen.

The other novices were older, one or two young women like Celia, and a handful of mature women who were probably widows. These would al be ful nuns within the year, unless the abbess found them unsuitable or unless they changed their minds.

The novices, holding their candles, lined up in ranks in front of the black nuns. They began a new song then, one that startled me so much when I heard the words that I nearly spoke out. This had better just be something symbolic out of the Bible.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine. Because of the savour of thy good ointments, therefore do the virgins love thee. The king hath brought me into his chambers: we wil be glad and rejoice. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.” I almost felt I should rush over to the girl Antonia’s age and cover her ears—but she was singing too.

The door beside me opened, and Celia came in: dressed like a bride and carrying roses.

She walked very slowly, not looking at Hildegarde and me or at anyone else. Her black hair hung loose over the shoulders of a white lace gown and down to her waist in back. It would al be shaved off by nightfal, I thought. White ribbons and white rosebuds formed a headpiece. The singing continued until she reached the middle of the chapel, facing the bishop and abbess, and halted.

Joachim stepped forward. First the bishop’s address, I thought, then the prater by the abbess’s chief priest, then, right after the Amen, I would say my piece. Two Amens, I told myself.”Don’t be hasty. Then the second prayer, then Celia would pronounce her vows, then— The bishop had just opened his mouth to speak when there were quick footsteps in the passage outside, and the door burst open. The abbess took a step forward, eyes snapping at this interruption. A woman hurried into the chapel but froze when everyone turned to look at her.

She wore a dark blue dress and a white apron— housekeeper, I thought. Before the abbess’s glare she became silent and rigid, even started to walk out backwards. The novices’ candle flames swayed in the slight breeze from the open door.

But after only a few seconds the housekeeper remembered the reason she had come with such urgency and stepped forward again. “Excuse me, Reverend Mother, but it’s a very important message for the bishop from the cathedral.”

Joachim crossed to stand beside her. She spoke quickly and in an undertone, which a quick and highly irreverent spel alowed me to overhear. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, Your Holiness, but a pigeon-message just came in, and it said at the top that you must receive it at once. It’s something about your goddaughter.” The blood turned to ice in my veins. Antonia!

“Excuse me just for a moment, Reverend Mother,” said Joachim quickly and hurried away. Without excusing myself at al, I was right behind him.

The housekeeper led us up flights of stairs and down echoing, vaulted corridors to a litde enclosed courtyard off the kitchens. The pigeon loft was on the far side, and several maids stood there, looking uneasy. One smiled with relief when she saw me. “Oh, are you named Daimbert? A second pigeon just arrived, with a message to you from the royal castle. It says it’s urgent.” Both messages, Joachim’s and mine, were ultimately from Theodora. She had, it appeared, bulied the cathedral priests into letting her use the telephone in the office there to cal Yurt. When Gwennie told her I wasn’t home, she had instead sent a pigeon-message to Joachim, at the same time as Gwennie was writing a message conveying the gist of the phone cal to me. “She was nearly hysterical,” Gwennie wrote at the end.

Hildegarde came panting up. “There you are!” she said cheerfuly. “When you both left the chapel so abrupdy I knew it had to be something pretty important! I’m afraid I don’t have my weapons with me, but it shouldn’t take long to stop back at the castle for them. What’s happening?”

I felt almost hysterical myself “It’s Antonia,” I managed to gasp. “And al the other children of Caelrhon. Cyrus has piped them out of town and no one can find them.” My heart was pounding so hard it was almost impossible to think clearly. The flying carpet, I told myself over the roaring in my ears. It could fly a lot faster than I could. Even with a detour back to the castle to get it, I would stil reach Caelrhon faster than by my own unaided flying. And if we had to quarter and search al the rivers and forests and fields around the city, it would be good to have the fastest transportation possible.

“Tel Celia I’m sorry, but she’l have to have a different spiritual sponsor,” I said to the bishop and shot off, not even caring if it was irreverent to fly within the precincts of the nunnery.