But after a moment of staring into the fire, Joachim spoke again. “He confirmed that the new chaplain will arrive here within the week. It’s always hard to get one on short notice, but he thought that this young priest would do very well here. I’m sorry I won’t be able to help him settle into his duties.”

The wizards’ school would certainly not send out a substitute wizard to Yurt while I was gone. For one thing, unlike priests who claimed to show each other Christian charity, wizards were well known for fighting all the time, and I would never have allowed it.

“I shall miss Yurt,” added Joachim. His comment didn’t seem to have anything to do with the bishop, but since it fitted in well with my own mood it seemed appropriate.

We sat in silence for a few minutes. The castle was quiet around us. My chambers opened directly onto the main courtyard, but no one came or went on this dark, damp night.

“The bishop once went to the Holy Land himself,” said Joachim as though there had been no pause in the conversation. “It must be over forty years ago, when he was a young priest. He did the pilgrimage thoroughly, too, starting in the great City by the sea and visiting the holy sites there and then stopping at most of the shrines on the way. Last week he sent me the guide book he’d used, with the shrines he visited all marked. It took him over a year to reach the Holy Land.”

I had met the bishop only once. As a wizard, I was always a little skeptical of claims of great authority by members of the organized Church, and our brief meeting hadn’t made me take to him personally. But I knew Joachim thought of the bishop almost as a father. I, on the other hand, had lost my parents when small and certainly didn’t consider the masters of the wizards’ school as substitute fathers-for one thing, I knew they would have resisted any suggestion that I was their son.

“Well, it would be silly for us to go west to the City to start our trip,” I said absently. “We know Sir Hugo and his party were fine when they left home. By going southeast, we’ll be able to pick up the pilgrimage route well along, without a lengthy detour.” But then something the chaplain had said struck me. “Wait a minute. I lived all my life in the City before coming to Yurt, and I don’t remember it having holy sites.”