ESTHER M. FRIESNER
HALLOWMASS
Esther Friesner reports that her recent efforts include a collaborative novel
with Mercedes Lackey, as yet untitled, and that her fourth "Chick" anthology,
The Chick Is in the Mail, will be out in January.
This new fantasy story was inspired by a trip to Chartres cathedral At one
point, Esther heard "beautiful, silvery threads of music that seemed to spiral
down from no visible source in the shadows above." Further examination, however,
revealed a young man playing a flute ,in front of the cathedral and some trick
of acoustics obviously drew the melody into the building.
Read on and see how our Connecticut bard transmuted this small scene into a
lovely yarn.
MASTER, THE HEART OF THESE things came to pass in the autumn of the year that
the great cathedral neared completion. Beyond the town walls the fields were
nearly bare and the forest put on splendor. Bright leaf crowns of bronze and
purple, scarlet and gold flung themselves over the secret fastnesses of the wood
where terrors crouched. In the shorn fields asters winked blue among the
stubble. And everywhere, in the streets and on the narrow track slipping between
the hills to the outlying villages, there was song.
The countryfolk sang because their harvest was done and the war had slithered
its huge, armored body far into the south that year. Mothers sang cradle songs
to cradles where for once no spectral hand of famine or illness or whetted steel
had crept to touch and take their babes. Farmers bellowed drinking songs in the
taverns because singing drowned out the noise of backbones that creaked and
snapped when honest working men at last unbent their spines from the labor of
reaping and stacking, threshing and winnowing the grain.
Giles was a man who made his songs with stone. He was well past the middle years
of Adam's sons, his raven hair streaked and stippled with gray, his beard blazed
silver like the back of a badger. When he first arrived, over fifteen Easters
agone, no one in the town knew where he came from or who paid out his wages. He
presented himself to the widow Agnes who had a small house hard by the
cathedral's growing shadow and offered her a fair price for the rental of a
room, food to fill his belly, and the free use of her modest yard. The yard
stood behind the house and was supposed to contain the widow's humble garden,
but the plastered walls of the house itself hoarded sunlight from what few
plants struggled their way out of the sour soil, and in time the cathedral's
rising walls shouldered aside almost everything but shadows.
The widow Agnes therefore did not complain too loudly when the nature of Giles's
intent for her property was made known. The very next day after his arrival, a
dust-faced man named Paul the Brown presented himself at her door driving a cart
with a load of fresh timber. She recognized him as one of the bishop's
lowest-ranked servants and kept her thoughts to herself when Giles rushed out to
greet him eagerly. Together the two men transported the lumber into the widow's
yard and from it built a spacious, slant-roofed shed on ground where flowers
often had been planted but never had lived to bloom.
In the days that followed, the widow Agnes witnessed more strange shipments
arrive on her doorstep for her new boarder. There was a small, sturdy table, a
stool standing on four fat legs, a coarse hempen sack that clanked demons out of
the widow's white cat Belle, and lengths of sailcloth, thick with pale dust and
neatly folded. All of these effects were trundled out to the shed in the yard
where some were put in place and others put into ironbound chests of wood that
locked with a snick-clack sound like jackdaws laughing. Last of all came the
stones.
A squadron of servants showed their yellowed teeth to the widow when she
answered their thunderous summons on the day the first more-than-man-size block
of stone arrived. As with the first servant, Paul the Brown, their faces were
all familiar to her--work-creased vizards of skin glimpsed in passing on market
day, or when the widow's curious eye wandered during mass, or in the shadow of
the tavern sign.
The leader of that burly crew doffed a cap frosty with dust and asked, "Where'll
Master Giles have it?" He gestured to the block of raw-hewn stone on the cart
behind him.
"Master Giles?" the widow echoed. Her commerce with the man until this had been
scant and small (and she a woman whose inquisitive tongue could winkle out a
fellow's life history in the time it takes to break a tinker's promise!). She
knew him by that name but not that title.
"Aye, this is the first of 'em," the servant said. He might have said more, but
Master Giles was there, white Belle a mewing ghost at his ankles. He spoke with
brief courtesy to his landlady, begging her pardon for not having forewarned her
of this visitation while at the same time telling her no more about it. Then he
hustled forward to direct the men to move the block of stone into the widow's
yard, under the shelter of the shed.
Some days later the widow Agnes found the form of a man emerging from the great
stone. Crude as God's first tentative pinchings in the red clay that would be
Adam, Master Giles's man lacked the features of a face (unless the first hint of
a high-bridged nose could be reckoned to that credit) and could be said to
possess human hands only as a courtesy to the lumpy mass of rock at the ends of
what might have been arms.
Master Giles saw the widow staring at his work and grinned. His thick hair and
beard were now all white with the breath of chiseled rock, as if the stone were
sucking away his alloted lifespan, but he worked bare-armed and bare-chested in
the pleasant summer weather and the knotted muscles moving sleekly beneath the
skin cried liar! to any who dared to call him old.
"Good day to you, goodwife," he said, still swinging the hammer, still holding
the steel-edged cutting tool to its task. The tapping blows and the chinking
sound of the stone's thousand small surrenders underlay his words in a smooth,
steady rhythm. "What do you think of my Saint Clement?" He lowered the hammer
and gestured at a protruding lump of rock with the chisel. "Here's the anchor
that dragged him to a glorious martyr's death. I would have given him a
stonecutter's tools, but my lord bishop would discover my vanity all the earlier
then." His hearty laugh was for himself and for all the petty conceits of a
fragile world.
The widow crept nearer, but she could see neither the offered anchor nor the
stonecutter's point. His smile did not mock her when she confessed herself
either bewildered by the light or merely bewitched by her own ignorance.
"You will see the anchor in time," Master Giles said kindly, setting his tools
down on the worktable and taking her plump hand in his calloused palm. "The
saint is still being born. You see, my lord bishop has brought me here for the
cathedral's sake. I am to adorn the south porch below the great rose window with
twelve figures in stone, and since Master Martin whose province is the north
porch has already laid claim to the Twelve Apostles, I have a free hand in the
choice of my saints. I thought to begin well by invoking the protection of Saint
Clement. He has always been a friend to those of my trade. The Emperor Trajan
tore him from the papal throne and sent him as a slave to the marble quarries of
Russia, but even there he made conversions and worked miracles. Once, they say,
his faith called forth water from a rock for the sake of his fellow-slaves'
thirst. Soon after, he was flung into a great sea, the anchor around his neck.
The angels themselves built him a stone tomb beneath the waves. That is beyond
me, so I do this, to his glory."
The widow Agnes bobbed her head. She loved the tales of saints' lives, for she
was a devout woman--all the more so since her husband had gone to sleep in a
churchyard bed. He took with him to eternal rest the staff with which he used to
beat his bride, but he forbore to fetch away his money. If this was not proof of
divine grace, it would do for the widow Agnes. "Which saints will you choose for
the other--" She did a quick tally"--eleven?"
"I don't know," said Master Giles. "Saint Barbara, perhaps, to keep the peril of
fire far from the holy place, and Saint George to aid the farmer and protect
good horses. Who can say?" His smile was whiter than the fresh-cut stone as he
glimpsed Belle's pointed face staring boldly out at him from behind the widow's
skirts. "I might even carve a likeness of Saint Anthony to mind the fortunes of
some small animals in need of watching."
The widow Agnes laughed out loud and told him he was a sorry rogue, and that she
would warn my lord bishop of the jackanapes he'd hired for the adornment of the
south porch. Then she brought Master Giles the good wine from the cellar and
when the sun's setting cheated the eyes of gossips everywhere, she took him to
her bed.
The years ran and the cathedral grew. The shapes of saints blossomed in the
widow's yard and were duly bundled away to their places in the niches of the
south porch. The widow and Master Giles lay down together many times with only
simple human comfort in mind and awoke one morning startled to find love had
slipped between the sheets. They did not marry, for the talk would crumble
Master Giles's favor with the bishop as surely as it would destroy the widow's
fame for piety and prayer. There did come a time in that first mad year when the
widow had cause to travel south to settle a matter of inheritance among her
distant kin, but she returned within a six-month and all was as before.
The little white cat Belle birthed many litters and died, leaving the wardship
of the widow's house to her daughter Candida, who was also furred with snow. And
one hot August day the widow died of a sweating fever that carried off many
souls besides her own, leaving the care of her house to a distant relative and
the care of Candida to Master Giles.
The distant relative turned out to be a spinster of the breed that seem born
crones from their mothers' wombs. She was called Margaret, dead Agnes's
far-removed cousin, a woman who had never married and therefore begrudged the
joy of any woman who had. She was able, for charity, to forgive those who found
themselves bound in miserable, loveless matches, and so for a time she had made
Agnes her favorite. But when Agnes's husband died leaving the lady young enough
and rich enough to live on sweetly content, Margaret came near to choking on the
injustice of it all. Or perhaps it was only her own bile that rose to fill her
throat.
Margaret lived with her parents in a village whose chief product was stink.
After they died, Agnes sent her cousin plentiful support, the only fact which
allowed Margaret to reconcile herself somewhat to Agnes's good fortune. She had
less trouble reconciling herself to her own when the news reached her of Agnes's
death and her own inheritance.
She arrived on a raw December day when Master Giles was just finishing work on
his ninth saint. She came mounted on a fat donkey, purchased with the first
portion of Agnes's bequest. (A clerk of the cathedral was guardian and messenger
of the widow's estate. He it was who took word of Agnes's death and final
testament to Margaret, along with a sum of money to finance the spinster's
journey to her new demesne. Agnes had made a sizable gift to the cathedral as
well as to her cousin, and so it was plain courtesy to see that good woman's
affairs well settled.)
Margaret drove the donkey on to the timpani of her bony heels against the
animal's heaving sides, a stout stick in her hand playing counterpoint on his
rump. The poor beast's brayed petition of mercy to heaven roused every street
through which they passed. So loud was her advent, and so well heralded by the
urchins running along beside her, that Master Giles himself was lured from his
beloved stone to see what nine-days' wonder was invading his emptied life.
When she drew up abreast of the late widow Agnes's house, the spinster Margaret
jerked on the donkey's rope bridle and slid from the saddle-blanket with poor
grace. The throng of merrymaking children who had joined in her processional
swarmed around her, offering to guide her, to hold the donkey's bridle, to
perform any of a dozen needless errands to justify their continued presence
underfoot. Master Giles saw with horror how the woman raised her stick,
threatening to treat the children after a fashion that was unfit to treat a
donkey.
"Go home, children," he said gently, stepping into their midst and placing his
towering body as a shield between them and Margaret's stick. "Off with you now,
you're wanted home." The children giggled and darted away, all save one.
"Who are you?" Margaret demanded of the stonecutter, her lips thin as meat cut
at a poor man's table.
"I am Master Giles, in the service of my lord bishop."
"Oh." Her mouth was small and hard as a prunepit. "You. The clerk said you pay
rent and you work to finish the cathedral. My lord bishop would rather not have
you moved."
"My lord bishop is kind," said Master Giles in such a way that he let her know
how alien he thought kindness was to her heart.
"My lord bishop may command me," Margaret said drily. "So you are to stay, then,
since it does nothing to inconvenience him. How much longer must you live here?"
"Until I have finished birthing my saints."
"Birthing? How dare you speak so of the holy ones?" Margaret squawked like a
goose caught under a style. "As if they were slimed with the foulness of a
sinful woman's blood? Ugh! I will report this blasphemy to the bishop and you
will be made to leave my house before another sun sets."
Master Giles's eyes lost their tolerant warmth. "You may say what you like into
whatever ears will hear it. I will deny it all. Do you think my lord bishop will
risk the promised beauty of his cathedral for the sake of a lone woman's
rantings?"
"I have truth to speak for me," Margaret said, stiffer than the carven draperies
that clothed Master Giles's stone children.
"That's as may be," he replied. "But I have my saints, and my saints have my
lord bishop's ear." He turned from her proudly and almost sprawled over the
huddled body of the boy who crouched against the doorframe of dead Agnes's
house.
"Go home, child," Master Giles told him. "Why do you linger here?" The boy
looked up at the stonecutter with eyes as stony and unseeing as those of the
master's carved saints and a face as beautiful as heaven. A blind man's staff
leaned against his hollow shoulder but he did not have the shabby air of a
beggar. His garb was well worn, simple, sufficient, and there was a bundle of
belongings at his feet.
Margaret gave a harsh sniff. "This is Benedict," she said, and she siezed the
boy roughly by the wrist and thrust the lead-rope of her donkey into his hand.
She barged into the widow Agnes's house without another word, leaving Master
Giles to stare at the boy as blankly as if he himself were the sightless one.
The boy leaned on his staff and got to his feet, holding fast to the donkey's
rope. "Is there a stable?" he asked, stooping to juggle rope and staff so that
he might hold these and still take up his bundle.
"I will take care of the beast," Master Giles said, his tongue stumbling over
the words as a score of unasked questions struggled for precedence. He tried to
disengage the boy's hand from the donkey's lead, but Benedict refused to
relinquish it.
"This is my work," he said. "I am always the one with the beasts."
Master Giles considered the boy's reply as no stranger than his bearing. He did
not seem a servant, yet Margaret did not treat him as kin. "This way, then," he
said at last, and set his hand on the boy's shoulder to guide him to the shack
that served dead Agnes's house for a stable.
The house that once had warmed itself with love now steeped itself in ice. The
house that once had rung with the sweet tempo of iron on stone, keeping time to
a well-loved woman's morning song, now sheltered only silence. Margaret provided
Master Giles with food and shelter and free use of the yard in accordance, to
the letter, with dead Agnes's first agreement with the man. No less. Certainly
no more. The stonecutter could find no matter for complaint in the quality and
quantity of his victuals, and yet he rose from the table empty, burning with a
hunger of the heart, a thirst of the soul.
As promised, the boy Benedict was the one with the beasts. He took care of the
donkey and later, when Margaret purchased a family of chickens and a brown
milk-goat, he looked after these too. He was up early each day, leading his
charges off to graze on what few mouthfuls of dry grass the town green afforded
in the harsh weather. Master Giles heard his staff tap across the paving stones,
falling into its own cadence somewhere between the quicktime of the goat's
hooves and the steady clop of the donkey's feet.
Winter closed over the town. It was a cruel season. Work on the cathedral
slowed, with labor limited to only those artisans whose hands touched the
interior of the sanctuary. Unfinished walls put on a penitent's shirt of thatch
to keep the bitter weather from setting its teeth into the stone. Master Giles
set up canvas walls around his shed and worked on in all weathers, so long as
the frost did not grow deep enough to affect the fiber of the rock.
One morning soon after Candlemas, before even the whisper of dawn had touched
the sky, he was roused from his lonely sleep by the voice of the stone. The hour
was too early even for country-bred Margaret to be padding about. Master Giles
tossed aside his blankets, did up his hose, and pulled on a woolen smock over
his tunic. His bones cried out for a cloak, but he hushed them with the reminder
that work would warm them soon enough.
He loped silently down the stairs and came into the kitchen. A breath of light
from the fading moon silvered the edges of the shutters. Master Giles fetched a
small iron pot and filled it with coals plucked from the hearth's neatly banked
ashes. This would be all the heat he'd have in the shed, for a greater fire
might cause the stone to split. It was enough to keep his hands from stiffening
at his art, and that was all he asked.
The house was very still He felt as if he were Lazarus leaving the tomb.
Margaret kept the place clean as boiled bones, yet she did not speak with Master
Giles except to return his perfunctory salutations, to summon him at mealtimes,
to give him messages from the cathedral, and to answer any questions he might
ask. But while she tithed her words to him, the boy Benedict paid out none at
all.
There was frost on the earth. Master Giles stood in the yard with his back to
the house and raised his eyes to the great cathedral. "Five years or six and it
will be d...
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