"Esther M. Friesner - Hallowmass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

enough his work on the great cathedral would be done. Already he was considering
the final saint he must carve, and once that was accomplished there would be no
further call for him in this town. If it fell out that another town had use for
his skills, all would be well, but if not -- He had gone the roads in idleness
before this, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, once for over a year.
When there was only himself to think of, the roads held no terror, but now --

Now the devil's fork held him: He could not subject a blind boy to the road. He
could not abandon his son to the absent mercies of Margaret.
A miracle, my lord bishop calls him, he thought. Let it be so! What churchman
would not be proud to keep a tame miracle in his court, especially now that
there is a great cathedral to support? The relics of the saints will bring some
pilgrims, but many more will flock to see beauty spring from the hands of the
blind. Then and there he resolved to do everything he could to advance Benedict
in favor with my lord bishop.

The first thing that he did was to bring the lad before the bishop, as the
bishop had commanded.

"Well, my child, you must tell me how you did it," the bishop said, seated on
his great chair of state while Master Giles helped his son to kneel and kiss the
ring and rise again.

"What would you have me tell?" Benedict asked.

"Why, how you came to do this." The bishop held up the cherub's head. Then he
realized that the lad could not know his meaning, lacking sight. "How you knew
to make so exquisite a thing as this angel," he amended.

"Oh," said Benedict, nodding. "That was easy. She sang him for me."

The bishop sat a little straighter in his chair. "She?" he asked, and also:
"Sang?"

Master Giles's hands tightened on his son's shoulders. "It is a true miracle, my
lord bishop," he said hastily. "The lad himself told me of it. The Virgin Mary
appeared to him in a vision of the soul, for which no man needs eyes, and sang
of the glories of heaven. Thus he was divinely inspired."

"Ah." It was the bishop's turn to nod. He was a man willing to understand
miracles, but not wonders. "And do you think this was a solitary vision, or
might we expect more?"

"More," said Master Giles emphatically. "God willing," he added, seeing the
bishop's eye turn hard and cold and narrow as the chisel's blade.

"Let us pray that so it may be," the bishop said drily, and laid aside the
angel. "It were a pity to spend all the inspiration of a vision on grasping so
small a portion of heaven."