by Carol Berg
“You’ve done well by me, Brother Infirmarian,” I said, taking a jig step and twirling foolishly into a sweeping bow. “You are Iero’s own artist with your lancets and caudles. I do thank you.”
Robierre bobbed his head, flushed a little, and went on with his work. Jullian watched intently, a ladleful of his pungent liquid sloshing noisily into the fire. I winked at the boy, grabbed the rucksack and my alder stick, and joined Brother Sebastian at the door.
“I shall strive to do as well by you as Robierre has done,” he said.
“You can stick your nose in his business, Sebastian,” Brother Marcus called after us, “and leave off telling the rest of us when our gowns are untidy or our beds ill made.” The red-haired scribe had taken a spear wound next his spine on Black Night and was dreadfully uncomfortable. He lay on his belly all day and all night, sketching odd little drawings on scraps of vellum laid on the floor under his nose. Robierre wasn’t sure the man would ever leave his bed.
Brother Sebastian chuckled, held open the door, and waved me out. “Tell me if we set too fast a pace, Valen. Your leg seems to be progressing well.”
We strolled past the herb beds and around the bake-house. “I was thinking that I should go walking in the countryside to strengthen it and cleanse my lungs from the sickly humors of the infirmary…”…and scout the possibilities for replenishing my supply of nivat.
Brother Sebastian halted abruptly. “That would not be at all appropriate. Though yet unvowed, you must draw a sharp separation from the outer world. Once your leg receives Brother Robierre’s clearance, you will be assigned outdoor duties more than sufficient to cleanse your lungs.”
“But—”
His raised finger ended discussion. We had reached the stair to the monks’ dorter, and he was soon busy showing me the rope bed and straw-filled palliasse at the south end of the long, high-ceilinged room where I would sleep.
The empty green pouch in the bottom of my rucksack soon became more worrisome than midnight massacres, eyeless corpses, or monks who explained naught of lighthouses or vanishing royalty no matter what wheedling I did. I had taught myself not to think of nivat or the doulon overmuch. The need could come to affect all a man’s dealings, his friends, his choices, until life took shape from it every day and not just the one day in twenty-eight…or twenty-one…that it devoured him. I swore I’d rather go mad from the lack than let it rule me. But always the hour arrived when my bravado withered.
I had already confirmed that Brother Robierre kept no nivat seeds in the infirmary. An exploration of the bakehouse, while its denizens were at Vespers, had revealed that Brother Baker kept his brick ovens clean, his floor swept, his barrels of flour and salt sealed tight, and his wooden boxes of herbs and seeds labeled neatly, though with no sketch or hint of their contents for any who had difficulty with letters. None of the boxes contained nivat. I would have to go farther afield to replenish my supply.
My hopes of moving in and out of the abbey freely were quickly squelched. Every hour of my day was scheduled: services in the church, meals in the infirmary, washing, and walking. I suffered endless lessons, everything from how to fold my gown and place it in the wooden chest at the foot of my bed, to the signing speech the monks used in the cloisters, to a history of the brotherhood so detailed I could near recite what Saint Ophir had for breakfast every morning of his four-and-eighty years. Even my times of “study and reflection” in the church or the gardens were scrutinized. If I dozed off, one or the other of the brethren would immediately walk by and rap my skull with a bony knuckle.
And so I decided to slip out at night. The monks were abed with the birds, and as the dorter had been built for a hundred and twenty, a wide gap of empty cubicles separated my quarters from those of the thirty-one men who slept at the end nearest the church. And in the main, I was well shielded from their view. Besides the common shoulder-high screen of carved wood that separated one monk’s bed, chest, stool, and window alcove from the next man’s, a folding screen of woven lath had been set across the central aisle to separate the novices’ cubicles from those reserved for the monks. And I was the only novice.
But not only did Brother Sebastian poke his head around my screen twice each night, as the Rule advised, but the very structure of the dorter thwarted me. My cubicle lay between the monks’ cubicles and the reredorter. Throughout the night, sleepy monks in need of natural relief made a constant procession down the central aisle, around the lath screen, and past my open cubicle toward the cold wooden seats of the rere.
Worse yet, I was expected to parade down to the church with the monks to pray the nighttime Hours. These interruptions came at such frequent and unholy times—Vespers before supper, Compline at bedtime, Matins at midnight, Lauds at third hour, Prime at sixth—I could not see how I would ever be able to absent myself long enough to acquire what I needed. The anxiety I tried to keep from ruling my life crept inevitably into every hour.
“It’s come!” Brother Sebastian hurried down the path from the cloisters waving a rolled parchment. “I worried we might have to lie twixt wind and water for another month.”
I slammed the wretched book shut. Excessive meditation was surely ruinous to good health and spirits. While my mentor had attended the chapter meeting that morning, I’d sat on this stone bench in the hedge garden, pretending to study. The characters on the page had tightened into seed shapes. Every scent—of yew, of grass, of smoke from the kitchen—taunted me because it was not the earthy fragrance of nivat.
“It’s the letter from Palinur. The last impediment to your investiture is removed.” Having been informed that I was schooled enough to comprehend Aurellian, Brother Sebastian had blithely deemed no further reading test necessary, and his oral quiz of my mathematical skills had been less taxing than a visit to any Morian trade fair. He had lacked only the proof of my birth.
Sebastian unrolled the parchment under my nose. I furrowed my brow and inspected the page as if I could comprehend it. His chattering implied the cathedral labor rolls had indeed confirmed my status as a freeborn and legitimate son of nobodies.
Neither bastards nor villeins were allowed to labor on holy works. When I’d wandered back to Palinur a few years before in search of work, I had assembled several tavern acquaintances into a poor but devout family, believable enough to testify and get me hired on at the cathedral. I had cheerfully imagined my mother’s face if she ever learned she had been mimed by a whore who had serviced Palinur’s garrison so often, she could identify the soldiers’ pricks blindfolded.
Brother Sebastian’s face shone brighter than the hazy sun. “The abbot has given his consent. And, most excellently, it happens that the Hierarch of Ardra himself has arrived for a visitation and will preside at your vesting! Come along with me, lad.”
Before I knew it, we had collected my secular clothes from the dorter and a provision bag from the kitchen, and he was bustling me through the doorway of the very guesthouse where I had been certain that the Duc of Ardra was hiding from his royal brother.
“Tomorrow dawn I’ll come for you, my son. Open your heart for Iero’s guidance.” Brother Sebastian pushed a canvas bag into my hands, and for a moment the animation of his round face yielded to a quieter sentiment. “You’ve a cheerful heart, Valen…yes, yes…Robierre has seen it as well, as has everyone who’s met you. Our brotherhood will benefit greatly from the vigor you bring. But nothing sours a graceful spirit more than taking a path it is not meant to walk, so we would have you be certain of each step along the way.” He grinned and retreated down the steps, waving as he disappeared past the granary. Guilt nudged my shoulder, but I quickly dismissed it.
The bag contained bread, cheese, and a traveling flask of ale, provisions for my journey should I decide to abandon the monastic life. An earthenware flask contained a liquid that had no smell. I wrinkled my nose. Water from the blood-tainted abbey spring was to be my only sustenance for my night of meditation. The bag did not contain my book. I wasn’t sure whe
ther to be insulted that they thought I was so stupid as to abandon my only possession of value, or gratified that they considered me worthy of their company.
I explored the guesthouse, speculating as to where the abbot had installed his royal supplicant if not here. Though its chambers were not elaborately decorated, it was more luxurious than anywhere I’d slept in many years. Plum-colored rugs warmed the bare floors. Brightly woven tapestries blanketed the walls, depicting the events from the life of Karus, the divine mystic from the steppes of far Estigure whose unruly sect had grown into Iero’s Karish church.
A magnificent fresco in the dining room illustrated the familiar theme of the ordo mundi—the world’s proper order. In sweeping bands of blue, yellow, and crimson, the artist illumined the three spheres: the arc of heaven, where the holy saints lived with Iero and Karus; the base foundation of hell, domain of the Adversary and damned souls; and in between, the earthly sphere with its righteous layers of kings and hierarchs, purebloods and peasants, its somber labors and abject wickedness so vividly depicted and its true delights so blatantly ignored. Though Iero extended his hands toward the earthly sphere in invitation, only the winged grace of angels bridged the gaping emptiness between the spheres of heaven and earth. A sad oversight, I’d always thought. In this respect, the Sinduri Council offered a more pleasing view: that every arch, tree, window, grotto, and mud puddle had its pesky aingerou, a messenger to the elder gods. Thus common folk could hold a discussion with our ever-quarreling divine family by raising a glass in an inn or taking a piss in the wood.
It was tempting to build a fire in the hearth, relax on the fine couch, and contemplate this profound and beautifully wrought statement of humankind’s place in the scheme of things. But I dared not miss this chance to get out, acquire what I needed, and get back again without prompting uncomfortable questions from my hosts. Unfortunately the guesthouse held no valuables small enough to carry with me.
Though I had been instructed to leave my monk’s garb in the dorter for my vigil night, pragmatism had prompted a minor disobedience. Those who prowled the roads of Navronne, whether soldiers, highwaymen, or even the most devout followers of the elder gods, considered it unlucky to touch a wayfaring monk or practor. Interference with traveling clergymen had been a hanging offense since the days of King Caedmon’s Peace and the Writ of Balance. The Writ, a declaration of truce between the priests and priestesses of the Sinduri Council and the Karish hierarchs, had been proclaimed at Navronne’s birth by King Eodward’s great-great-great-grandfather—or his father, if you believed the legend that a beleaguered Caedmon, his beloved kingdom on the verge of annihilation by the Aurellian Empire, had sent his infant son Eodward to live with the angels for a hundred and forty-seven years.
As soon as darkness fell—the time when Brother Cadeus the porter gave up his post at the Alms Court—I downed one more swallow of ale, threw the black gown over my jaque and braies, and slipped out of the guesthouse. From the mouth of the gatehouse tunnel, I skulked northward along the outer wall, avoiding the track across the open field so as not to be observed from the sanctuary room. A wooded hollow near the junction of the track and the main road, where the tricky moonlight shifted shadows, provided a likely vantage for less benevolent observers. Prince Bayard would surely have set a watch on the abbey.
Only when I reached a lonely beech grove did I breathe again. I scoffed at my racing heart. What was wrong with me? These were monks after all, and they held no bond upon me. No matter what kind of exit I made, they’d likely take me back come morning if I vouched some saintly vision had changed my heart. This constant prickling of unease was wholly foolish—likely naught but my long-muzzled conscience thrown out of sorts in such a holy place. Laughing at the thought of myself shipped off to live in the realm of angels, I shouldered my rucksack again and set out along the mist-shrouded river.
Chapter 9
A quellé north from the abbey, the River Kay vanished into ripe-smelling boglands. The road, so firm and wide at Gillarine, dwindled into marshy tracks, scarcely distinguishable from the fen in the patchy moonlight. My steps slowed. No bogwight was going to lure me into a muddy death, doomed to take its place until the next unwary traveler set me free in turn! Unfortunately, a careful pace would never get me to Elanus and back in any sensible time, even assuming Jullian’s estimate of three quellae was at all accurate.
Thus, I chose to risk using a bit of magic again. If I didn’t acquire nivat, no amount of power would save me. As the moon darted behind a wad of clouds, I knelt to lay my palms on the earth and discover my way using my bent. I closed my eyes. The mud was cold and gummy and smelled of rotting timber, moldering leaves, and animal droppings. Softening the boundaries of my mind, I released magic to flow through my fingertips.
Inhale. The scents grew richer…stronger. Boot leather and greased axles, cut timber and hay had passed this way. Horses and donkeys. Flocks of sheep and pigs driven to town. Listen. Gurgles and trickles spoke of the river, not vanished, but merely hidden beneath and beside and around me, as powerful in its dispersal as in its joined form, just more subtle. I discovered traces of travelers…of voices. My youthful ventures in use of my bent had never been so vivid.
I stretched my mind forward and swept from left to right, as a draftsman ties his pen to a string and stretches that string from a fixed point to scribe a perfect arc. Within that arc I could sense the variance of terrain: puddles and gullies, sucking mud pits, submerged trees, plots of firmer ground, the tracks of thirsty deer and bears and skittering mice, and always the road like a band of sturdy cloth, woven of scents and earth and the quivering remnants of those who had trod or ridden or driven over it, talking, braying, singing.
So many sensations all at once…and the music…A number of singers had traveled this road, leaving behind telltales of their music. One of them…ah, what a gift…the plucked notes of a harp wound through present and past like a thread of silver, woven into the road for a while and then wandering off into the fens…a song to pierce the heart. A prickling crept up my arms, as if I were dissolving into the fens like the river and the road. Beneath my palms the earth swelled, as if a body lay beneath the mud and had begun to breathe. Somewhere eyes were opening…
Quickly, I scribed the shape of the land on my mind and yanked my hands away, rinsing the mud off them in a puddle and wiping them on my gown. A glance around the still, moonlit landscape revealed neither man nor beast. But as I set off again, I could not slough off the sense that my eyes were unreliable.
Forests and bogs were favorite haunts of spirits. Though aingerou preferred cities and other man-built habitations, and revenants preferred the places they’d lived or died, tales spoke of older beings who yet walked in the wild—the guardian Danae, whose dancing wove the patterns of the world and who could merge their bodies with ponds or groves, and the demon gatzi, who were but Danae corrupted to Magrog’s service. Both were said to whisk folk away from mortal life. I’d never run across any such creatures, so they didn’t worry me all that much, but it never hurt to keep one’s eyes open.
Holding the thread of path and direction in my head, I hurried down the road, humming the harper’s song that still shimmered in my head. The cheerful melody swelled my heart and kept the night’s terrors at bay.
The hour was not even Compline when the first glimpse of torchlit roofs and walls, and the first sounds of pipe, tabor, and raucous laughter set up a rampant thirst in me. I stripped off my monk’s gown, stuffed it into my rucksack, and trotted the last few hundred quercae up the road and across the ditchwork to the cross-timbered gate. A good-sized town like Elanus should have a fine selection of taverns, sop-houses, pickable pockets, friendly barmaids, and gullible gamblers, not to mention an herbalist or apothecary with nivat seeds to sell. Not to mention a tankard of potent mead to warm away the damp and make a man forget politics, holy men, and conspiracies for an hour or two.
A closer look dampened my optimism. Though the earthwork surrounding
the hillside town appeared substantial, the wooden palisade atop it was rotting and the town watch lax and slovenly. My claim that I’d come in search of a secure bed on a journey to visit my brother in Palinur easily satisfied the two half-soused guardsmen who carried but one serious weapon between them—an iron-bladed bill hook that would see its best use as a club. They seemed more interested in my assertion that my brother had a job awaiting me in a Palinur tannery than in the motley bloodstains on my jaque or how I had managed to travel any distance in these perilous times, carrying no weapon but a walking stick.
“Bog iron’s failing,” said one of the reeking pair as he cracked some aged walnuts with his bill. His blotched skin was peeling. “Half the smelts are cold. Roads too risky to bring in ore, and them as might haul it are fighting or dead. Elanus won’t last a year more.”
The second guard sneezed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Some Harrowers were through here yestereve, preaching. Lot of folk figure the orange-heads have it right. Won’t take but another smelt closing down for them to have us all burning for the Gehoum.”
“So they’ve gone now…the Harrowers?” I asked, glancing around uneasily, happy I’d taken off the monk’s habit. I didn’t need any ragtag from Black Night taking out their frights and vengeance on a monk. Harrowers didn’t honor the Writ of Balance. “You’re sure they weren’t soldiers—Moriangi?”
“Nawp. Only orange-heads, but soldierly, especially the woman leading ’em. They’re burning farms and outliers these last few days, them they say is offending their holy Gehoum. They burnt Mott’s granary, saying his plow was a curse. The watch snagged one of her hags for the pillory. Rest got away.”
“Mayhap I’ll be on my way sooner as later, then,” I said. “Wouldn’t want to cause them offense. But I’m for a tankard first.” I’d need to be careful leaving. The Harrowers would likely hang about the town to get their woman back. Perhaps theirs was the foreboding presence I’d felt on the road.