Paul was saying something, and I looked up quickly. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Oh, yes.” It did not sound convincing in my own ears.
But Paul seemed ready to believe me. “Anyway, as I was saying, some of Vincent’s ideas make excellent sense. On this he and his brother do agree. It really is true that the kings of the western kingdoms have acted in the last few generations as though we’re not truly rulers of our own peoples and destinies.”
Now I was alarmed. I pushed my uneaten plate of food away, half-nauseated from the vertiginous feeling of being flung from one emotion to another. “But what is Vincent planning to do?”
“Everyone knows the saying about the ‘three who rule the world,’” Paul continued, staring fixedly at the candle flame. Although he spoke fairly casually, I realized he did not want to meet my eyes. “But the world is in many ways ruled only by two, the church and wizardry, and it’s only because those two have a traditional rivalry that the aristocracy is allowed even the smallest role.”
This did not sound at all like Paul. Won over by the gift of a red roan stallion, he seemed willing to believe whatever Vincent told him.
“The princes have relied too long on the advice of their advisers,” Paul went on as though repeating something he had been told. “It is very well to be guided by the Royal Chaplain and the Royal Wizard in affairs of the soul or in magic spells. But the Church has long had its own organization and institutional goals, and the wizards have molded their school on the seminary system, only making it more centralized. Now that there are wizards being placed in every castle and manor-house in the western kingdoms, no aristocrat will be able to have an independent thought again. When the wizards first started putting an end to warfare, everyone accepted it at first as an excellent improvement. But only now, when it’s almost too late, are the aristocrats realizing that the real purpose behind it all-”
I had to stop him before he went any further. Several people at adjoining tables were looking toward the prince with surprise. I put my hand on his arm, making him jump. “Paul,” I said gently, “I’m a wizard, and my chief concern is the welfare of the kingdom of Yurt.”
He looked at me then, his eyes wide. “I didn’t mean you.”
“But I think Prince Vincent did.”
“This isn’t something Vincent told me; I worked it out for myself.”
“Come on, Paul. Your Aunt Maria told me what Vincent had been saying to the court. You know that we wizards tend to fight among ourselves so much it’s lucky we get anything accomplished at all.” If I were conspiring to give the aristocracy more power, I thought, I would have started by trying to discredit organized religion, but the princes of Caelrhon seemed to have started with organized magic. “If you keep on believing in a wizardly conspiracy,” I continued, “soon you’ll start sounding like the young chaplain.”
As I hoped, this brought an expression of disgust to Paul’s face, and then he smiled. He glanced at my plate. “You didn’t eat your lamb chop. Don’t you want it? Do you mind if I take it?”
II
We arrived early at the cathedral, the two princes dressed soberly in black. I mingled with their knights, trying my best not to look like a wizard. The bishop’s body still lay in front of the high altar, surrounded by candles. One of the flagstones to the side of the altar had been taken up and stood on its edge, next to a dark pit.
The church filled with town dignitaries and wealthy merchants and many ordinary citizens, everyone dressed formally and somberly. Even the workmen from the cathedral construction wore shoes over their long toes for the first time since I had met them. I recognized the mayor, who arrived wearing all his chains and medallions of office. As people slid quietly into the pews, I kept looking for Theodora.
When we had been there nearly an hour, and Paul was starting to swing his legs restlessly, the deepest bell began to toll in the tower above us. I started counting the strokes, lost track around forty, and realized they must be tolling a stroke for each year the bishop had lived. The bell went on for a long time, until the prolonged, deep strokes seemed to beat along with my heart.
The bell was still at last. All of us took a deep breath, and then the organ began. It played deeply and slowly, all in the bass, as a young boy dressed in white proceeded down the aisle swinging a censer. Then the cathedral priests filed solemnly down the nave and took their positions around the altar. Joachim walked at their head, taller and gaunter than any of the rest. I got a close look at him as he went by, but I did not think he saw me. His face looked as though he had never smiled in his life.
He led the service, his voice ringing clearly through the packed church, but I knew him well enough to recognize the enormous strain behind the calm voice. The bishop had been a father to him for over twenty years. As Joachim spoke of the bishop’s goodness, humility, and spiritual guidance, I felt my own eyes stinging.
The priests began to sing then, and the congregation rose to sing with them. We of the royal courts of Yurt and Caelrhon scrambled to our feet only a few seconds behind the rest.
When the singing ended, while the last organ notes still lingered, there was a brief scramble at the door and four seminary students came in, carrying an enormous coffin between them. There was dead silence except for the sound of their footsteps. They brought the coffin up to the altar and set it down. A priest stepped forward with a candle snuffer and one by one put out all the candles.
I understood at last what Joachim had meant when he said his cathedral was too dark. In spite of the high stained-glass windows, the church was extremely dim on this overcast day. The priests who lifted the bishop’s body and placed it in the coffin were only dark shapes.
Joachim’s voice rose as though disembodied. “As for man, his days are as grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more…. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down; he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.”
There was more rustling by the altar. Then came the clang of a lid closing, a creak of bolts being tightened, and the faint sound of heavy breathing, even a grunt or two, as the dark shapes lowered the coffin. Finally came the hard report of stone being dropped into place.
After a long pause, the priests of the cathedral chapter began to sing. “Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison.” For a moment their song filled the dark church, but then their voices died away. Again there was total silence.
Then Joachim began to speak, and as he spoke lights sprang up on the altar. “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…. I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered. I create Jerusalem rejoicing, and her people a joy. And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her…. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death.”
The black veils were gone from the altar, and the gold of the crucifix seemed to burn with its own light. The organ struck a new note, of utter seriousness yet great joy.
The choir began to sing again, a hymn of glory and triumph. At the same time, the sun finally emerged and struck through the stained glass to cast a brilliant glow on the replaced flagstones around the altar. The priests kept singing as the congregation slowly filed out of the church.
We emerged blinking into sunlight in the construction site in front of the cathedral. Lucas kept glancing around in a manner I considered highly suspicious. “Well, I thought they carried that off fairly well, everything considered,” he said, as though wanting to make light of the whole matter and not quite daring to do so.