4- The Scent of Magic

The older boy put a hand on Connall’s head and mussed up his hair, then looked up at the sky, his pale blue eyes glowing in the morning light.  Connall had never seen anyone who looked like that before.  Was this what all sorcerers looked like?

Suddenly the hand on his head was gone, and the older boy was loping gracefully across the garden toward the outer fence.  “Wait!” Connall called out as he watched the sorcerer throw one leg up as high as his head and hoist himself up.  “Are you going to come back?”

The boy perched at the top of the fence for a moment and looked back at Connall, the sun behind him making a red-gold halo around the outline of his dark curly hair.  This boy had long, pretty hair like a woman, but somehow it didn’t make him look girlish at all.  It just made him look wild and magical.  Connall had a sudden stray thought that he would like to grow his own hair out long like that.

“I don’t know,” the boy called back, and then he disappeared.  Connall ran to the fence and peered through the gap between two of the slats.  But the sorcerer was gone, and Connall could see nothing but trees at the edge of the forest.

He sat on the ground and leaned his back against the fence.  His heart was beating so fast.  It had been just like an adventure out of a story. 

Connall had sneaked out to the garden the night before, just to prove Frater Avrid wrong about him being too tired for mischief, but after playing for a just a little while, he had gotten sleepy and had let himself close his eyes for just a few minutes.

He’d woken up in the middle of the night to find a sorcerer in the garden with him.  Connall had watched him looking through the garden, cutting leaves off of the special plants– the ones Frater Avrid called the Witches’ Herbs.  The frater had told Connall that wild sorcerers needed those herbs to work their evil magic.  That was how he knew for sure that the wild boy was a sorcerer.  That, and the fact that he looked so strange.  Almost like he wasn’t really quite human.  And his eyes had sort of gleamed in the darkness, like wolf eyes.  Connall had been scared at first, but the sorcerer was a lot younger than he would have expected.  He looked maybe fourteen or fifteen.  About the age of a new novice.  And he was so skinny.

Still, when the sorcerer looked right at him for the first time, Connall had almost screamed.  But the older boy had just looked at him for a minute and then went right back to what he was doing.  He didn’t try to work any evil spells on him and he didn’t try to get him with that long knife either.  Connall had heard stories from some of the travelers about friendly sorcerers who were even willing to trade sometimes.  He figured this boy was one of those.  And if friendly sorcerers needed the Witches’ Herbs to work their magic, then maybe there was friendly magic too?

Connall wasn’t sure about that, and he wasn’t sure what the gods would think about him for having such thoughts either.  But after thinking about it, he decided to help the sorcerer.  He went to the far corner of the garden, right by the kitchen door, where Frater Avrid kept the little flowers he called purple dreamers.  They were special plants that couldn’t take a lot of sunlight, so Frater Avrid kept them under a little brown tent.  Connall had known the wild boy wouldn’t see them there, so he’d pulled out several large handfuls of them and brought them to him.

But he had accidentally startled the sorcerer, and . . .

Connall looked down at his left hand.  There was the strip of bright yellow cloth that the sorcerer had pulled from his hair to bandage the cut on Connall’s palm. 

Connall quickly unwrapped the cloth and pulled it off of his hand.  Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he darted to the big barrel of water by the garden gate and carefully dipped just the bloody part of the cloth into the water.  He scrubbed at the spot, trying to wash out the blood without getting the rest of it wet.  He didn’t want to risk washing off any of the magic that might be on it.  When the spot was no more than a faint brown shadow, Connall wrung it out and then folded the cloth up neatly.

He held the dry part to his face and breathed in the scent.  It smelled like the forest, and like smoke and spices and fresh-fallen autumn leaves, and there was another scent– a warm, sweet fragrance that was stronger than all the other smells.  The sorcerer had smelled like that.  That must be what magic smells like, he thought. 

He looked at the little yellow cloth.  He needed to hide it somewhere the fraters wouldn’t find it.  If they could recognize the scent of magic . . .  And even if they couldn’t, he didn’t want anyone else touching it.  This was his proof that it hadn’t all been a dream.  A treasured souvenir from his very first adventure.  He dipped his face in the barrel of water and washed the garden soil from his cheeks, trying not to wet the top of his head where the sorcerer had touched him.

He glanced toward the dormitories where the fraters and novices slept.  The sun was up, and they would be getting ready for Morning Songs by now.  Trying to keep to the shadows, Connall darted from building to building until he got to the dormitory he shared with the newest novices.  His bed was closest to the door, and as he slipped in he was fairly certain that none of the others had noticed him.  Connall found the small hole in the side of his mattress and shoved the little strip of cloth in among the straw, then he changed into his clean tunic and breeches and skipped toward the sanctum as if it were any other day. 

Connall sang along with everyone during the opening songs, his mind still full of the night’s excitement.  Then the pater got up and started droning on and on about the Father Creator’s generosity and the Mother Protector’s watchful eyes and the Wise Child’s loving sacrifice, and Connall began to worry about his new secret.

He knew he couldn’t ever tell the pater or any of the fraters or novices about the boy he’d met in the garden.  They would never understand.  So of course he could never confess this secret with his other wrongs.  But what would the gods think?  Connall had heard the pater and the fraters say that the gods hated magic.  That it was evil and forbidden.  That sorcerers aligned themselves with demon spirits– the enemies of the gods.

But Connall found it difficult to imagine that nice older boy being involved with demons, or being enemies with the gods.  He looked down at the cut on his palm.  He knew that had been an accident.  And it was more Connall’s fault than the sorcerer’s.  And the older boy had looked so upset when he saw the cut.  He had even wrapped it up for him.  Did evil people act that way?  It was all so confusing.

Connall wished he could hear it from the gods themselves.  Who knew?  Maybe the pater and everyone had gotten it mixed up?  Connall thought of the Wise Child, and how he had pleaded with the Father and Mother to forgive everyone’s wrongs.  How the Wise Child had taken all the wrongs of all the people in the world upon himself and had accepted the punishment for all of them.  Then he had told the people to love each other and forgive each other.  Would the Child really be angry with Connall for being nice to that sorcerer?  He wasn’t really sure about that.

Then again, maybe it would be best if the gods just looked the other way for a while.  Of course Connall knew he wouldn’t be able to keep a secret from the Mother Protector, but maybe if he was lucky she might not really be paying much attention to him right now.

When the pater was done talking, they sang another song and then it was time for Connall to go kneel in front of the pater.  Since he was the youngest one there, he always had to go first.

“Plead for me, Pater, for I have wronged,” he said.

The pater put his hand on Connall’s head, in exactly the same place where the sorcerer had touched him.  Connall resisted the sudden urge to flinch away.  He didn’t want the pater’s bony old hand rubbing off any of the magic that might still be there.  But he held still.  “For what wrongs shall I plead, child?” the pater asked.

Oh, that was a good question.  Connall swallowed and took a breath.  “I left my bed after Evening Songs and walked the grounds at night,” he began, glancing at Frater Avrid to see if he had heard that part.  “I was late to my daily work and made Frater Avrid cross.”  Connall’s heart was thumping hard inside his chest and he could feel his face growing hot.  He just knew the fraters could all see him turning red but he hoped they wouldn’t be able to guess why.  “And . . . um . . . I climbed a tree in the garden and ate two apples without permission.”

The pater nodded solemnly.  “And do you regret your wrongs?”

“I do,” Connall whispered.

“And will you try to resist these temptations in the future?”

“I will,” Connall promised.

The pater smiled at him like he always did.  “Then you will be blessed.  Go forth and do good works in earnest.”

“Thank you, Pater.”  Connall returned to his place by the wall and breathed a heavy sigh.  Somehow he had gotten through it without anyone suspecting anything.  He clenched his left fist, digging his fingernails into the cut in his palm.  He hoped it would leave a scar.  He wanted to always be able to
look at it and remember his first adventure.