The Vine Witch - Luanne G. Smith Page 0,40

out.

Brother Anselm broke open the chunk of yellow cheese he’d set out. “Do you smell that? The ripeness? Nutty almost. A little sour, a little salty. Les pieds de Dieu. Do not tell my superior, but the smell of God’s feet is heaven to me.” The monk smiled. Threw his hands up in mock surrender. “Eight months ago I added milk, rennet, and a little salt together in a wooden vat. Pressed it, shaped it, and put it on the shelf to age. Today I have a delicious cheese to share with a guest. But the flavor, monsieur, that grows from something I did not add.”

“You refer to the bacteria.” Jean-Paul sat forward, surprised to find himself in the company of a man who’d followed the latest discoveries. “You’ve read the science?”

“We live a humble life at the abbey, but we do not close ourselves off to the world. Yes, those unseen microbes are what create the rich texture and flavor of the cheese.” The monk kissed his thumb and fingertips in exclamation, signifying the magnificent result. “But, of course, now we know how these small wonders occur—miracles in my humble estimation—because men can look through a microscope and see them, track them, but for all the centuries before that, the mysterious process must have seemed like—”

“Magic.” And he’d begun to see.

“Precisely. Fairies, elves, gnomes, witches—they’ve all been credited or blamed. What the eye couldn’t see, the imagination filled in. We put names to the unexplained. Cast it as something to either fear or worship. And yet just because a thing can’t be seen doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” The monk lifted his palms skyward. “In truth, you could say almost everything I do here at the abbey relies on a belief in the unseen. In my profession we use faith to see; in science it’s the microscope. With magic, we don’t yet know how to quantify that range of unseen energy. We lack the proper tool. But not so for the witch.”

“So you’re saying the witches, this magic they do, it’s conceivable it’s merely a part of the natural world, only we don’t yet have the means to measure how it works?” He rubbed his hand through his hair, trying to make sense of it all. “She told me as much. She said she was showing me things that occurred outside the normal spectrum of human vision.”

“Ah. Yes. Like ultraviolet light. This, too, I have read about.”

Jean-Paul nodded, though not yet entirely convinced. “As you say, these bacteria in cheese are of the beneficial type. But where there is good there is also bad. Like cholera or flu. Also unseen, yet dangerous. What if this witchcraft works the same way? There might be benefit, but could there also be something to fear?”

Brother Anselm steepled his fingers. “The locals won’t admit it, won’t say a bad word against the vine witches, but malefaction does happen. You’ve no doubt heard of the devastation that swept through the valley’s vineyards half a century ago.”

“The phylloxera? Nearly every vine was killed because of the infestation.”

“Terrible times by all accounts. But despite official reports, it was no insect that was to blame. It was Celestine, the last witch to be burned in the Chanceaux Valley.”

Skeptical, Jean-Paul leaned forward as the monk relayed the story of a young witch who once worked the vines at Château Vermillion. One day she’d found herself with child, the result of an affair with the village mayor. Instead of marrying the woman and claiming the child as he should have done, he claimed he’d been spellbound. Hexed. Spurned, the witch cursed the entire valley. Not every witch can do that, explained the monk. But this one had broken the rules of the covenants and summoned a disastrous, forbidden magic. She nearly devastated the entire valley to smite one man. “So, yes,” the monk said. “As with the bacteria, the valley mostly benefits from the witches and their magic. Though it’s just as possible for their power to turn deadly under the right, or perhaps I should say wrong, conditions. Bear in mind, however, all witches born after the 1745 Covenant Laws were ratified are absolutely bound by its decree. The consequences of stepping outside the law are quite severe.”

At last Jean-Paul had found firm ground to stand on. If there was a covenant agreement, a lawful decree, then there were books and documents he could study. Laws he could test and weigh against the magic he’d seen. Rules and