The man gave a start, as though feeling the impact of the chaplain’s eyes, but he recovered almost immediately. “Excuse me, Father, I didn’t notice your vestments at first. If you’re worried that we’re restricting access to the relics, you needn’t be; people can still go around by the road for free. We’re just providing an extra service.”

“Charging them to climb down the steps is an extra service?”

“Ah, but we’ve improved the path!” said the man proudly. “And our real service is going to be the basket. As I said, we don’t have it ready quite yet, but we should in a few weeks.”

“What is this basket?” I asked.

The man looked at me properly for the first time. “Excuse me,” he said with a delighted smile, “but are you a wizard? You are? This is wonderful! You have no idea how much we’d been hoping to be able to attract a wizard.

“You see,” he went on, “the basket is all very well, but it would be so much better if we could have a wizard working with us. Wouldn’t it be more exciting and appealing to have people carried up and down the cliff by magic than lowered in a big basket at the end of a pulley? I’m sure we could charge more, too. We’d give you a fair cut of the profits, you needn’t worry about that. You wouldn’t even need to be here! Just set up the spell and teach us how to keep it working, and we’ll do the rest.”

There were so many things wrong with his assumptions I scarcely knew where to begin. “I’m afraid a spell to lower people down the cliff couldn’t just be ‘set up’ and then kept working with no wizard here,” I said at last.

He looked thoughtful. “That might be a problem. But maybe you’d prefer to be here yourself, at least during the summer months when business will be best! I’m sure this will be enormously profitable, once word gets out. Do you have a post at the moment?”