Flesh and Spirit Page 18

  “And now, my brothers,” said Luviar, “let a holy fire ignite our souls as we redouble our commitment to the work we have been given. Iero grant us wisdom and give his eternal protection to Navronne’s righteous king.”

  Left unspoken was his opinion of the hierarch’s judgment, though I’d come to think the two had concocted this event as a shield for their political chicanery. Then again, perhaps I’d best give the rumor of a Pretender more credence than I’d done before. Nothing gives a rumor foundation so much as a clergyman naming it deviance.

  The faint honks of geese drew my eyes upward. Long, wavering black wedges arrowed southward, far too early. Eqastré Scrutari-Consil stood out of the rain, just inside the shadowed undercroft. He leaned his back against one of the columns, his arms folded across his chest, watching and listening.

  Sleep eluded me. Despite my near sleepless vigil night, despite the exhaustion of high emotions and taut nerves—or perhaps because of them—my eyes refused to close in the quiet intervals between the night Hours. An oppressive hostility permeated the deepening night, as if the eyeless shades of Black Night’s victims had gathered at my bedside. I could not silence the memory of Boreas’s wails, nor of his choked ecstasy as I wrought his murder. Danger. Villainy. By Lauds, I was near sick with it. When I glimpsed Scrutari-Consil observing our procession down the nightstair into the choir, my overstrung nerves snapped.

  I could not stay here. Not with a hunting pureblood in residence. No matter my missing book; no matter coming famine. Twelve years I had remained free by moving on when I needed, forgoing attachments that might tempt me to linger past safety. With silent apologies to the monks who had welcomed me so kindly, and to the god Iero who had received so little service from my vows, I slipped out of the dorter into the cold mist and drizzle in the dead hours between Lauds and Prime. By the time I reached Elanus, I’d have daylight.

  Life was never so simple, of course. I retrieved my nivat bag and other contraband from the hedge garden and tucked them securely in my rucksack along with my secular clothes and the blanket from my bed. But when I emerged from the abbey gate tunnel, a near impenetrable fog had blanketed the fields. The route through the bogs remained clearly mapped in my head, but just traveling the half quellé from the abbey to the road without getting turned around would be no easy matter. I had no time to waste. Two hours more and I would be missed. And the pureblood would surely hear of it.

  Damn all! I ground my walking stick into the mud. Foolish to travel in such conditions. And even the ascetic accommodation of the abbey was a prince’s comfort beside what awaited me on the road. But neither argument could persuade me to risk one more day at Gillarine.

  I glanced upward to the windows above the gatehouse. I would chance the main track from the gates to the road, rather than going cross-country as I had the previous night. If I was quiet, there’d be no danger of being spotted by the sanctuary watch. I poured the last dram of ale from my vigil night flask onto the path, praying holy Deunor and Saint Gillare to bless this fool’s journey. Then I gripped my stick, shouldered my pack, and set out. Fifty paces and I was lost.

  The short-lived battle of Black Night had churned the field that fronted the abbey into muck. Without vision beyond my outstretched fingertips, I could not distinguish the well-defined track that had once crossed it. Mumbling curses at the need to spend magic—and on this field of all places in the blasted world—I knelt, marshaled what strength might shield me from the horrors wrought here, and touched the earth.

  Spirits of night! How far had I wandered? I lifted my hand, shook my head to clear it, and then touched the cold mud again. The impression was the same. Bloodshed…yes. Seething anger…grief…the death terrors of men and beasts. A hundred quercae to my left, men had screamed out their last moments in focused torment of fire and blade. But as runners of nandia vines and sprouts of fireweed and hearts’ ease recapture a blighted field in one season’s turn, so had a certain sweetness veined this ground. Not a mask to hide the taint of war, but a balm to soothe its raw wounding, to quiet the din of sobs and screams, to blunt the lingering pain enough to counteract its ruinous poison. No music played here as yet. What heart that perceived such sorrow could sing? But someday…perhaps…the tread of happier lives could overlay the lingering horror. Seeds slept beneath the cold mud. Living.

  Wondering, I turned my mind to business. Year upon year of crossing had created a solid track across the wounded field, easily visible to my talent. Only half a day since the hierarch’s party had slunk out of here, and some monk had left traces of his sandals since then. Still wary of Moriangi watchers, I stretched my awareness all the way to the road and swept it across the foggy landscape.

  Deunor’s fire! Riders lurked in the wooded hollow at the joining of track and road—five…ten…I could not tell how many. I sat back on my heels and listened. Naught of man or beast scored the night this far away—which likely meant they did not wish to be heard. Wary travelers, perhaps. But the aura of villainy that had plagued me all night of a sudden had focus. Even a small party could spell danger in such times as these. They could be Harrowers. They could be Scrutari-Consil’s cohorts—Registry. Before I decided whether to retreat or run, I needed to know.

  I touched earth again and sought an approach from the open fields—the direction they’d least expect. Once the route felt sure, I slipped through the pale night, following the guide thread in my head. Fifty times I thought I’d gone wrong; I’d never traveled wholly blind before. But just as the guide thread gave out, my feet felt the sharp rise of the hollow’s lip, and I came near breaking my fingers when my extended hands encountered the bark of a young oak.

  Lamenting my bulky monk’s garb, I crept from tree to tree, now following soft voices and the weak lantern light that gleamed deep in the treed hollow. Somewhere beyond them, horses grazed.

  “Dawn approaches. Are you prepared?” The woman’s voice, cold and clear as a knife blade, chilled my soul. Only one night removed from her depraved rites, I could not mistake the priestess were a thousand other voices yammering in my ear.

  The muffled answer was a man’s voice, but I could not decipher his words.

  “Witness this noble sacrifice, sister and brothers,” said Sila Diaglou, “even as you remain vigilant. May the sweet odor of his suffering serve the Gehoum, drawing out our enemies that we might confound and crush them.”

  A few of them shifted position in the fog, and I used their footsteps to cover my own as I slipped closer. Embracing one tree and then another, I honed my every sense, so that I would not collide with one of the shadowed forms. Four of them besides the priestess…no more. Likely the same I’d seen at Graver’s Meadow. Not gathered close as they’d been there. But somewhere in the center would be the priestess and the victim…

  “Sanguiera, orongia. Scream, Monk. The trump of your pain shall open this battle and win the night.” Sanguiera, orongia. Bleed. Suffer.

  A whistling split of the air. A crack, as if a limb of dry oak had snapped. A heart-tearing scream told me they’d stood him upright near one of three trees, some twenty quercae from my position. I gripped the reins of my fury and held still, listening. The next lash told me which tree.

  Not again. This would not happen again. And certainly not to one of the brothers…

  Blocking out the cries ripped from a man’s pain in the name of purity, I touched earth and mapped the grove, recording every tree, every shrub, every rock, stick, trench, or dip that might betray my steps or slow them. I searched out true north and etched the sense of it into my bones so that I could orient myself without thought. It took longer than I wished, knowing that the lash continued to fall, but I also knew they had no intent to be quick about their brutal game.

  When my mind held as much as I could reasonably learn of the grove, I crept toward the closest of the four watchers. Only at the last step did he look my way—Boreas’s needle-chinned murderer. With every minim of strength I had in me, I slammed my walking stick int
o the man’s throat. Then I darted away. I hoped I’d killed him.

  “Who’s there?” As a loop snapping into a knot did Sila Diaglou’s remaining henchmen gather round her, only to unravel again when one of their company did not arrive. “Radulf?”

  Brisk footsteps sought the victim. “Radulf is down, lady!”

  “Find the intruder!” The priestess’s command slammed my gut like a fist. But I held still and did not flinch. “Falderrene, Malena, all of you, spread out. Do not let him escape! Hold, monk. We’ll finish with you betimes.”

  “Quiet!” spat one of the men.

  The light wavered, shifted. Another light bloomed, coloring the fog piss yellow. Close enough to hear the gasps of the injured man, the harsh breathing of their captive, and the hiss of whispered orders, I pressed my back to the slender trunk and waited for them to disperse.

  The three spiraled outward from the site of their crime. Closing my eyes, I matched their movements with the map imprinted on my mind. Unable to see in the fog, they brushed stalks, snapped branches underfoot, disturbed rocks. As soon as they were spread out from their captive and the cold priestess who guarded him—not so far as I would like—I threaded my way between them. I had little confidence in my fighting ability, but I had a few other skills.

  Yanking my abbey blanket from my rucksack, I returned to the downed man. He clutched his throat, wholly preoccupied with choking. I slipped his dagger from its sheath. If he died I would not grieve, but I could not shed his blood on that ground. Instead, I spread the blanket over his body, considered my intent, and constructed the most rudimentary of illusion spells—the only kind I’d ever learned to any effect. Once prepared, I stared, motionless, scarce breathing, toward the ashen cloud whence came the captive’s harsh breathing. I stared until I could just make out the priestess’s tall figure pacing a short path near the tree. She wielded a short blade.

  “You intrude on matters you cannot comprehend, infidel,” she cried. “Dare you sully a sacrifice offered to the Gehoum? I am the tool of their wrath.”

  You bring murder to Iero’s holy ground, Harrower, I thought, snarling. Against his might, you shall not prevail.

  Touching the blanket, I fed magic to my working. And waited. As the arm of a siege engine seems to crawl on its skyward journey toward release, so my spell seemed to spend eternity in its binding. My heart near stopped when I felt the blanket shift…and then it swelled into the very awkward likeness of a giant monk. Or a giant tent. I didn’t care which way she saw it or how crude the work might be. I was already running.

  “Infidel!” No coward, Sila Diaglou. She charged out of the fog, crashing through trees and scrub straight at my feeble working. “Falderrene! Morgaut! To me!”

  Silently I’d circled wide of her, leaping rocks and pits, dodging saplings and branches and stones, to come up behind the tree. Before she could reach my illusion, I was fumbling at the quivering captive suspended from the thin-boled oak. I could scarce believe my luck—his luck. Two loose, twisted loops of rope were all that held his hands to the limb above his head. I slipped the loops off his wrists, grasped him in my arms, and drew him away from the tree. Though his pale skin ran dark with blood, he expelled only a faint hiss at my handling. He lifted his head—pale, too, shaven as it was, his dark eyes a stain on his white skin…Gildas!

  “Valen?” Even in the wan light, I could feel his shock.

  “Do I need to carry you?” I said, grinning, cheered to feel him supporting his own weight.

  “No…no, not…but….” He shook his head. Though his speech stumbled, he gathered up his cowl and gown that had been stripped off his shoulders and left bunched about his waist.

  “Then follow me.” I grasped his arm and pulled him along.

  “I’ll bleed you for the Gehoum, infidel!” Sila Diaglou’s cry of rage followed us as I led Gildas on the shortest path out of the hollow. I didn’t expect her to follow, and she did not. As I supported the stumbling monk across the broken ground, the dwindling thunder of galloping hoofbeats signaled the Harrowers’ escape. As soon as I was sure, I halted.

  “I think we’re safe now,” I said, supporting him by his arms, careful not to jar or twist his mangled back. “I’ll fetch Robierre…the litter.”

  “No…no…I’ll be all right. Stupid to get caught out. But, Valen”—his gaze was hot—“what, in great Iero’s mercy, are you doing out here? How did you—? I don’t understand.”

  “I could ask the same of you, Brother,” I said.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” he said, after a moment. “I needed to think, and so I played the fool, wandering about out here in the night. Walked right into their little plot.”

  “Exactly so,” I said. “Only, I seem to have lost my blanket as well—hung it up in a tree to distract them. Do you think Brother Sebastian will punish me?”

  He laid his blood-streaked hand on my shoulder and flashed his white teeth in a grin. “I’ll see what I can do.” Despite the smile, his hand quivered like a maid on her virgin night.

  When we reached the gatehouse, Gildas refused my offer to accompany him to the infirmary or even to summon Brother Robierre to see to him. “No need for us both to suffer reprimands,” he said, pulling his disheveled garments tight. “I’ll confess my folly to Father Abbot tonight, so he’ll likely not get after you until morning. Not at all, if I can manage it. I’ll say only what you’ve told me, mention nothing of rucksacks, and bless your name eternally in their hearing. But someday, good Valen, we will speak of this night, you and me.”

  “I’m just happy you’re living,” I said. “The last fellow I rescued was dead at the end of it.” As I slogged back through the hedge garden, I glimpsed Abbot Luviar racing toward the Alms Court, robes billowing. And from the direction of the guesthouse, heading in the same direction, barreled the Thane of Erasku and his secretary Gram. I had not heard that the lord had returned to the abbey. Had I not been ready to collapse as battle fever and tight-held magic drained out of me, I would have gone back to hear what drew them so urgently to the gates. But I could scarce command my feet to carry me.

  I slept astonishingly well, until the bells clanged and clamored, waking me to my first day as Gillarine’s newest and only novice.

  Chapter 13

  The fifth day of my novitiate began as had the previous four. In the dark. After the lengthy service of Prime, we washed heads, hands, and feet in the frigid water of the lavatorium, then broke our night’s fast with weak ale and bread left from the previous day. As every day, I slogged through these activities half asleep. A night of unbroken sleep had taken its place in the pantheon of unachievable delights, alongside my own private cask of mead and a Pyrrhan courtesan in my bed.

  The daily chapter meeting began as usual, too. Abbot Luviar and Prior Nemesio sat beneath the grandest of the lancet windows, the one depicting Kings Eodward and Caedmon worshiping an enthroned Creator. Jullian and Gerard perched on low stools that flanked the door. In between, on crescent-shaped benches that lined the circular walls, sat the remainder of Gillarine’s thirty monks, ordered from eldest to youngest. Every size and shape of man.

  At my first chapter meeting, Brother Sebastian had led me around the circle to introduce me, as if he were a swineherd and I his prized sow. We had skipped no one, all the way from the eldest—straight-backed Brother Abelard, mostly blind and nearing his ninetieth year—to the youngest—walleyed Brother Simeon, eight years my junior. Birdlike Brother Nunius; the aristocratic Ardran Brother Bolene; the cottar’s son Brother Adolfus, whose eyes and throat bulged like a toad’s…My memory for names and faces had been well exercised.

  Sharing this clockwork existence of prayers and work with these men was no bad life by any means. I could surely bear the monotony and excessive piety for a season. It was only when I thought of living this way unchanging until I was the age of Brother Abelard that cold sweat dribbled down my back.

  I had scarce settled in my own place at the lowest end of the bench, just next to Julli
an’s stool and the entry, when every face turned abruptly in our direction. Brother Victor stood in the doorway, looking small and hollow-eyed and unsteady on his feet. Luviar motioned the pale little chancellor to his assigned seat without the least hint of sympathy, apology, or the conspiracy that I believed existed between them. Perhaps that was because the hierarch’s pureblood followed Brother Victor into the room.

  I fixed my gaze on my hands, clenched in my lap. A frigid draft more appropriate to the Frost Moon than Reaper’s Moon funneled up the nightstair, swirled through the open door, and blew straight up my gown.

  Scrutari-Consil had remained sequestered in the abbot’s house, conducting his interviews. My heart had lurched like a besotted beggar every time a new witness was summoned. Every town of any size and every fighting legion bought pureblood contracts, so it wasn’t as if I’d wholly avoided those of my own kind over the years. I told myself I just needed to keep to my usual habits…and pray no one spoke my name in his hearing…or mentioned my book.

  I glanced at Brother Gildas. He appeared soberly attentive as always. To my surprise, I’d never been questioned about our encounter with the Harrowers. Prior Nemesio had cautioned everyone that Gildas had run afoul of them to the peril of his life and that I had chanced upon him and brought him back within our walls. Sometimes I wondered if it had really happened. I had collapsed that morning wrapped in my cowl, but I’d waked with a blanket thrown over me, and my well-brushed cowl hung neatly with my gown.

  “Holy Father, a moment’s intrusion, if you permit,” said Scrutari-Consil without expression, touching his fingers to his forehead.

  “Speak as you will,” said the abbot coolly.

  The pureblood inclined his back to acknowledge the permission. Purebloods bowed to no ordinary but their contracted masters and the King of Navronne. “I must commend you on your brothers’ piety, Abbot Luviar, and on their…ardent…personal loyalty to you and your chancellor. My investigations of Gillarine’s scribes have revealed no purpose to their work but the One God’s glory. As the chancellor’s confinement is ended, I deem my work here complete…or nearly so.”