Flesh and Spirit Page 19

  Luviar said naught.

  Scrutari-Consil stepped farther into the room, his cloak billowed by the draft from the doorway. “I understand that some few members of this brotherhood labor in the scriptorium occasionally, although they are not considered scribes. I must question those persons that I may assure Hierarch Eligius I have been thorough in my obligations. And one more small matter…”

  I tried not to fidget. I would not be on that list. He would have no reason to speak to me. Soon he would be gone, and perhaps I would be able to pass an hour without imagining my father’s sneer as he devised a method to control me for the rest of my life.

  Hands at his back, the pureblood pivoted on one fine boot, as if to take a final appraisal of our faces. “…I require a review of your membership list. In my general scrutiny of Gillarine and its residents, I have perceived residue of sorcery. My duty to the kingdom and its law demands that I ensure that any pureblood in your brotherhood has received the proper family dispensation. Much better that I, a Karish observant, take on this review, than a Registry inspector, likely an unbeliever, intrude upon your holy precincts.”

  Deunor’s fire, damnation, and all cursed gatzi! Never use magic, fool. Never. You know it.

  The monks Scrutari had questioned insisted that a man could hide nothing from his magical interrogations. I knew better. To deceive a pureblood perceptive you just had to present plausible, consistent testimony and obliterate any distinction in your mind between the truth and the lie—perhaps a difficult thing for holy monks. For me, the lying was easy. Unfortunately, my history, cobbled up in an instant whilst I suffered from wound fever, was as thin as these monks’ finest vellum. And my name was now scribed on the abbey’s roster.

  “Of course you may inspect our membership roster if you deem it necessary,” said the abbot, displaying no emotion the perceiver might probe. “But it would be a waste of your time. Only one of our brotherhood claims pureblood descent. His dispensation is duly recorded, and for more than twenty years he has forsworn the practice of sorcery as our Rule demands. Prior Nemesio can show you this man’s credentials immediately after chapter. As for those who assist in the scriptorium, one could say that every man in the abbey does so, whether he be the lay brother who tends the fire or the boy who mixes the ink or the choir monk who petitions blessings for the generous donors of our books. I see no need for you to interview every resident of Gillarine on some arbitrary quest for completeness. The hierarch would perhaps consider it a frivolous use of our time and that of his valued pureblood servant.”

  Scrutari’s nostril’s flared in disbelief—as did mine, most likely. “Surely, holy fath—”

  “Once you have reviewed the record Prior Nemesio will show you, your horse will be ready for your departure. Bear our prayers for good health and Iero’s blessings to the hierarch. Now please excuse us. We’ve business to attend before the bells ring for prayers.” The abbot’s demeanor stood no more yielding than a granite wall.

  Though I applauded his decision, Luviar’s refusal made no sense, unless…I glanced at the young face beside me. Jullian’s eyes were fixed in the vicinity of Brother Nunius’s wrinkled neck, and his fingers clenched in a knot tighter than my own. He breathed in shallow fits.

  “As you say, Father Abbot. I shall pass your message—and my conclusions—to the hierarch.” Stiff as Erdru’s prick, the pureblood touched his forehead and withdrew. Were I Abbot Luviar, I would not request any favors from the Scrutari-Consil family before Judgment Night.

  An unruffled Prior Nemesio began the day’s business. Boring business. He invited Brother Nunius to speak on the fifteenth chapter of Saint Ophir’s Rule—that which addressed the management of an abbey’s lands and treasury and the apportioning of alms. My attention wandered.

  Weak sunbeams shone through the lancet windows behind the abbot’s chair, transforming the colored glass into rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. I examined King Eodward’s features in the window, searching for some trace of the man I had met. He had been the exemplar of Ardran manhood—big and ruddy, beard and hair as red-gold as summer sunset, his bones sturdy and well formed, his face equally suited to laughter and sober intelligence. I glanced at Jullian—the boy was breathing again—and wondered about a rumored Pretender…a child…and an abbot who juggled hierarchs and purebloods and princes as if they were oranges. And told myself I was a lunatic.

  By the time Brother Nunius’s sermon had labored to its conclusion, and the prior began assigning reading tasks for the day’s services and mealtimes, my eyelids were drooping. But somewhere between “Brother Aesculpius, Vespers” and “Brother Jerome, Matins,” he announced, “Brother Valen, Compline.”

  Gods’ bones! They wanted me to read! Cold dismay wafted up my gown with the draft. My conscience bloomed hotly on my cheeks. Rabbitlike thoughts of escape drew my glance to the door, where I found Jullian staring curiously at me.

  Except on the coldest or rainiest days, I was supposed to spend the hours between Terce and dinner pursuing my studies in my carrel in the north cloister. Brother Sebastian had selected a dreadfully thick book for me to study over the next months. I didn’t even know its name.

  I riffled the pages of the book and contemplated the cloister garth and the shrine, mulling the problems of undead spirits and why one of them might have an interest in me, and of how I was to convince Brother Sebastian to read me the text I was supposed to proclaim at Compline.

  I had already spent an hour concluding that I couldn’t possibly guess which of Saint Ophir’s brothers was a pureblood. My own appearance evidenced that “straight of hair, deep of color, short in stature, large in talent” was not an infallible guide to Aurellian heritage, but most purebloods did conform to the type. Whoever it was—and a careful recollection of every face in the chapter circle yielded no suspicion—either he was not insightful enough to connect me to the infamous Cartamandua recondeur or he had truly shifted his loyalties to the brotherhood and broken contact with the Registry. I was likely safe enough as long as I kept to my usual precautions. I hoped.

  Inevitably, as it had all week, my mind returned to the incident in the wood. The more I recalled, the stranger it all was. The Harrowers had not been doing the same to Gildas as they had to Boreas. Sila Diaglou had said they wanted to “draw them out”—referring to her enemies. And Luviar and Thane Stearc had been running to the gates…

  Ow! I bit my lip to keep from yelling aloud when Brother Sebastian’s knucklebone rapped my skull. I stuck my books in my pockets and traipsed after his wagging finger.

  Though rigorous in matters of decorum, liturgical observance, and adherence to the Rule, the tidy Sebastian had been undemanding when it came to my studies. He seemed more than willing to believe that my healing shoulder wound restricted any writing tasks and that illness still caused my eyes to tire easily, limiting my reading. In the main, he complained I talked too much, and was forever exhorting me shift my verbal excess from flesh to spirit.

  “Fine mornings are too rare of late,” he said as we left the cloisters for the maze of yew and hawthorn hedges in front of the church. “Let us discuss the lesson you were to master for today, and, at the same time, give praise for the sunlight. So, Brother Valen, the structure of virtue: Recite for me the seven great virtues and twelve great vices and expound upon their signs and meanings.”

  If he had known my answers were all guesswork, he might have admired my cleverness at getting almost half of them right. Instead, he cheerfully scolded me as a slackwit, and charged me to obtain a wax tablet from Brother Victor and write out the two lists for the next morning.

  “We do not expect every brother to be a scholar of Brother Gildas’s level, or even Jullian’s, who has as fine a mind as any student we have ever nurtured here. But you must master the basic precepts of divine order, be familiar with the holy writs, and the history—” The dinner bell brought a welcome reprieve from his kindly concern.

  I’d grown quite fond of mealtimes, beyond the fine a
nd plentiful sustenance. The week had taught me that the light-filled refectory was neither so serious nor so strictly quiet as the cloister or library, save during the actual reading that accompanied every meal. Which circumstance raised my hopes of garnering assistance to break the twin shackles of the Compline reading and my study text. Scrutari-Consil was gone. Gildas had shielded my abortive departure. Truly, excessive worry about the future wasted a man’s life.

  “Iero’s grace, Brother Abelard,” I shouted in the ancient monk’s ear and took his arm on the refectory stair. “The sun feels a bit more seasonable today, does it not?” The crabbed old fellow frowned and shushed me, and shook off my hold. Horribly deaf, he proposed every morning in chapter to apply the rule of silence everywhere in the abbey.

  Undeterred, I dropped back and offered my assistance to another of the elders. “Brother Nunius, someday perhaps you could teach me why we may give alms to ill-reputed women only in famine times. That part of the Rule left me confused.” At least I could speak of ill-reputed women.

  “Indeed, it is a strict provision,” said the birdlike monk, graciously accepting my arm. “The fifteenth chapter is more important than most of us credit. Sometimes I believe I am the only one who pays it mind. You were not the only member of our family dozing this morning.”

  Family! By the god’s toes, if I ever thought of the brothers as family, I’d bolt from here for certain. “Tell me, Brother, why does Saint Ophir forbid his brothers magic working? We’re taught that pureblood sorcery is a gift of the god”—and thus we pursued recondeurs as doubly damned, traitors to the divine, as well as to the king—“so should not our Rule promote its use in holy works?”

  “An excellent question! Sorcery is a component of the earthly sphere just as wealth and gaming and pleasures of the flesh,” said the old man. “Whilst not evil in themselves, such worldly pursuits leave the soul ripe for the Adversary, who is ever seeking ways to subvert our better natures. Young fellows like you must work diligently to avoid such pitfalls as sorcery.”

  “And so I shall, good Brother.” I laughed and released his arm as we reached the refectory door. “So I shall.”

  “I need to speak with you, Archangel,” I said quietly, when Jullian arrived with the boiled fish and stewed parsnips. “A work of mercy that will ensure your place in the heavenly choir.”

  He bowed his head for the prayer as the abbot rang the bell. “You should not have lied about your reading,” he whispered, his lips scarcely moving. “Lies are the Adversary’s tool.”

  The mealtime reading had begun, so I had no time to question how he had guessed or why such a minor offense caused him to sit there tight as a tabor’s skin. No time to remind him that secrets are the closest kin to lies.

  “You once offered me whatever I needed of you,” I said. “Surely the god wishes you to help me become a better man.”

  He nodded without looking at me. “Meet me in the garden maze just after supper. Tell Brother Sebastian you need to meditate on those you’ve wronged in preparation for Saint Dian’s Day.”

  His direction sounded a bit pompous coming from a boy of twelve. Of a sudden, my mad whimsy insisted on reviving itself. An Ardran Pretender…here. If such were true, the danger would be unimaginable. I buried the thought as quickly as it had arrived.

  Yet as a drifting cloud grayed the light from the great windows, my spirits chilled. I could not shake the sense of unseen hands propelling me toward an unseen precipice, and even the lovely mound of parsnips touched with thyme could not disperse it.

  Every day between Nones and Vespers, I reported to work in the kitchen. Though I could not seem to satisfy the meticulous Brother Jerome with my work—my chopping was uneven, my fish wastefully trimmed, and after the third time I scorched the porridge, he forbade me to come near his precious pots—I enjoyed those hours the most of all my duties. Yet on this day I fidgeted through the time as if I’d buckthorn twigs in my trews, and I came near yanking out what was left of my hair as we dragged through Vespers and supper. I couldn’t have said what I was expecting.

  Fog had rolled in from the river again, studding the neglected hedges of the garden maze with water droplets. Sprangling branches spattered my face as I hurried down along the graveled path toward the center of the maze and the stone bench that overlooked a green-slimed pond.

  “Brother Valen!” Jullian jumped from the bench like a startled cat.

  “Are you expecting other oversized supplicants this night, Archangel?” I said with a grin, hoping to put him at ease.

  Unsuccessfully, it seemed. He glanced over his shoulder and gripped his arms about his slight body as if gatzi were poised to jump out of the hedges and drag him off to the netherworld. Blue-gray dusk had settled over the abbey. The days were rapidly growing shorter.

  “Of course not.” He bit his lip and sat on the bench again, curling his bare legs underneath him. His eyes would not meet mine. One would think it was he undergoing the humiliation of seeking aid from a child scarce dropped from his mother’s womb.

  “I thank you for not revealing my problem to the brothers,” I said. “They’d pitch me over the wall did they find out. I’ve nowhere to go.” And unholy murderers lurked beyond these walls.

  When I tilted my head to glimpse his face and gauge the depth of his worry, he turned away. “I’ll help you,” he said. “I did say I would. But I’ll not lie about it should anyone ask me.”

  “A fair bargain and a great kindness.” I held out my psalter and my lesson book. “All I need is for you to show me which page and to read me whatever I’m supposed to say at Compline, and then to read me the passage about the great virtues and vices from the other book.” I could devise some explanation for not writing the lesson.

  “How will reading you the passage help you? You’re required to proclaim the whole text, and Brother Abelard will complain if you get even a word of it wrong.”

  “I’ll remember. It’s just—My eyes—” Of a sudden all my usual excuses felt inadequate. “It’s like a blindness in me, Jullian. I see the marks on the page, and I can tell one letter from the other if I work at it hard enough. But when I look at two or more together, they tie themselves into knots that won’t unravel no matter what I do. I’ve tried to learn since I was a boy, but it won’t come. I’m just…broken…somehow.” Or lazy-minded, stubborn, demon-touched, god-cursed, soul-damaged, or willfully obtuse—all the things my tutors, parents, and siblings had named me. I must be mad. I had never told anyone what I had just exposed to a child I scarcely knew. “But I’m not stupid. Read it to me exactly, and I can remember it exactly.”

  Heaving a great quivering sigh, the boy laid the books in his lap and carefully smoothed the worn covers. Some fine friend I was, who had so pompously set myself to ward him from unwanted advances of the flesh, only to subvert his conscience, which he likely valued higher. As for my mad speculations, an hour’s contemplation as I worked in the kitchen had already convinced me I was an idiot. Any youthful Pretender of Eodward’s loins would be secured in some remote fortress under the protection of pureblood defense works, not scuffing about an abbey in sandals.

  “All right, then.” Jullian leafed through the psalter until settling on a page bordered with flying geese. “This is tonight’s Compline—” His head jerked up at some noise from beyond the hedge.

  When his gaze shifted to something over my shoulder, I was still too taken aback to ask what distracted him, for in that moment of surprise, I had glimpsed his face…not conscience ridden at all, but keen with excitement and anticipation.

  “Brother Valen.”

  I jumped to my feet, enough blood rushing to my face to feed a cave of bats. “Holy father! I—We—”

  Jullian stepped immediately to the abbot’s side, halting my stammering with a now-obvious truth. The boy had known he was coming. Saint Dian’s Day…they had conspired to get me here!

  “Sit down, Valen,” said Luviar. Joining me on the bench, the abbot pressed a finger to his lips a
nd then flicked it in a quick gesture to the boy.

  Jullian bowed and melted into the hedges.

  “I needed to speak with you in private, Brother Novice. And as you have no doubt learned in these past weeks, privacy is not a condition of monastery life. Not physical privacy, at least, even for the abbot.” His brows lifted, widening his gray eyes in an expression I would have called good humor were this anyone but Abbot Luviar.

  Annoyed with the boy and the abbot—and even more with my own stupidity—I kept my jaw shut tight and dipped my head in agreement, sure I was now to hear word of my dismissal.

  “Hmm. Not so forthcoming as at our first meeting?” Luviar’s scrutiny felt bone-deep. “I suppose I must take responsibility for that. Though I am aware that not everything you told me of your journey here is entirely…accurate…I believe I understand at least something of your reasons for dissembling. Tell me, Brother Valen, were you a more capable pikeman in Ardra’s service than you are a cook’s helper?”

  My skin heated. So he’d guessed that I was a deserter. Best not add more lies, if I could avoid it. “No, holy father.”

  “Your past loyalties do not concern me so much as your current loyalties, Valen, and I’ll not hold you to account for choices made before you were in my charge.”

  The failing light made it increasingly difficult to read his face, thus I dared not feel relief.

  “I’ve seen and heard enough of you these past weeks to believe that I can entrust you with a task I need of you tonight. Your instincts are ever generous, whether to old or young—or those in peril. You accept what is without complaint, bridling only at matters of justice. And you live your days with relish, no matter their mundanity. You have a certain honesty about you that has little to do with truth or untruth. I am not a fool. But I’m not sure if you trust me, and that is imperative, for I must insist that you keep silent about certain matters that could compromise others’ safety. Matters of great importance.”