“Hello.” Freya started forward. “Hi.” The stranger was too far away to hear. Freya waved.
The girl—if it really was a girl—was standing close to the center of the inner ring.
She was standing right beside the excavation.
Freya began to run toward the stones.
CHAPTER 23
BEAR WATCHED from a distance. He always watched from a distance now.
Being a lay servant, he stood at the back of the church, but he could see Signy lying facedown before the altar with the other girls.
He had not been able to change her mind. Now, in the blustering spring weather, as drafts rushed through the cold church, it would be accomplished. Today Signy would take vows. She would become a postulant and then, in time, she would be made a nun.
As the moon had waned last night, there had been one final, pointless conversation.
“You know why I am doing this, Bear.” She had been patient with him, as if he were a stubborn child. “I did not resist temptation. The life of our baby was taken to show me the sin of what happened between us—and that the Gods in the stones are false. It is for me to make amends now and serve my brothers and sisters, and the Lord, as faithfully as I can.”
At first he had tried to reason with her. “But what will you serve, Signy? A tortured man dying slowly so that you can drink his blood, eat his flesh?” His voice had risen. “We are not savages.” He’d grabbed her wrist when she tried to turn away. “Look at this scar. We two are joined by blood—our own and that of our child. Please. Please. This place just wants slaves, willing fools who cannot see the truth.”
Signy had shaken her head. Dark circles under her eyes told of deep suffering. “I will pray for you at the vigil tonight, Bear, and I shall pray, also, that you may be healed and find peace—as I pray for the soul of our daughter.” Her voice had cracked. That was something, some indication that she still felt emotion. His Signy.
But the girl in the black kirtle who lay before the altar today was no longer his Signy.
Last night, though, his Signy had faltered when she said, “I must give back your gifts, Bear. I can take nothing that is not sacred into the convent.” And she had handed him the little ship, then the knife.
Neither could speak. At last he’d said, “But this they cannot take from you.” He’d marked the little lead box with a cross.
So many weeks of winter work with only a rushlight to see by, but he’d made the box and the crucifix that lay inside. Jet from the cliff formed the body of the cross, smoothed and burnished with sand and pinned with a tiny nail of copper, and the crucifix was small enough to hang between Signy’s breasts. Something of him would go with her, if she would allow it.
Hesitant, she’d taken his present in her hands.
Bear groaned, and some of the monks turned. They frowned at him, but he did not care. That girl, the one on the end, she’s mine, not yours. That was what he wanted to say. But it was not true. Not now, for last night he’d destroyed their last moment together.
As he tied the crucifix around Signy’s neck, he’d taken her face between his hands. “I brought you back from the dark kingdom, once. I gave you life. Do not take mine away.”
“No!”
Signy had pushed him, and he’d fallen hard against the wall of the church. A heap of rags on the cold earth, he’d watched her run.
Perhaps she had heard him. Perhaps, as she lay there before the altar, his words were in her head still. “You are not a nun, Signy. You’ll never be a real nun. Don’t lie to yourself.”
He’d pulled himself up against the rigid wall, the chilled, cut stone. Fury swamped sorrow as he remembered. This building was the symbol of all that had been taken from him, and yet this Christ, the ghost they all worshipped here, had been only a man—they all said that. How could he also be a God?
One by one, the postulants to be were commanded to stand before Abbot Cuillin. Gunnhilde stepped forward to attend them, emotional as any bride’s mother. In the sisters’ dormitory, Bear knew their worldly clothing would be stripped away and their hair cut to stubble. Rerobed in postulants’ habits, the four would be dedicated to a God none of them would ever see, and Signy would never, willingly, look at him again.
Waiting for the girls to return, Abbot Cuillin censed the altar. All his brethren knelt, heads bowed, and beat their chests in accusation of sin.
Bear snorted. How much iniquity could be accomplished on a gruel of oats, barley, and seaweed? He would not watch what was to come, he could not.
Emerging from the church like a badger from its hole, Bear blinked in the cool spring light. He knew what he’d left behind. Darkness. The church was lit only by lamps of seal oil and odorous tallow candles, and this was the frightened, haunted world that Signy, the bright, sweet friend of his youth, would now inhabit willingly.
Bear ran toward the meadow where the barley was a green fuzz of urgent life. The rising swell of voices followed him, and then the bell began; the service of consecration was finished.
He leaned on his staff. It was done. Signy was lost to him.
Bear turned and stared at the circle of stones. They had buried their daughter there, and now he would make her soul an offering, the ship he had made for her mother.
CHAPTER 24
IN THE two years since her profession as a novice, much had changed for Signy, and that was because she had been singled out by Brother Anselm, the monk who ran the Scriptorium.
One evening in the Abbey kitchen, after she had finished pounding dried fish for tomorrow’s break-fast, she was told to rake the ash and reset the fire for the morning.
But Signy found a piece of good charcoal among the spent coals, and sinfully, she hoarded it. Every day between Vespers and Compline, a little personal time was permitted, and this particular evening Signy decided she would draw just to vary the tedium of prayers, work, and sleep. She liked to draw when no one was watching.
In the nuns’ chamber, her sisters were bent over sewing and handwork at a table. Signy withdrew to the end of the room, farthest from the lamps, and faced the wall. There she prostrated herself as if in private contemplation. From the back, in this dim corner, it would look as if she was telling the rosary, but surreptitiously she had begun to sketch on the flagged floor, her face against the stone.
After a time, she knelt to inspect what she had drawn.
“Now, what are you doing here, Sister?” Brother Anselm had been made the chaplain of the novices recently, and it was his habit to join his charges just before the final service of the day.
“Nothing, Father.” Signy scrambled up and tried to move one foot surreptitiously beneath the skirts of her habit to scuff the images she’d made.
Anselm signed a cross over Signy’s bent head. As was proper, the novice was discomforted at being directly addressed, yet he had known her since she was just a small, lost heathen. His heart had been warmed to see her slowly turn from paganism to the one true God.
“Nothing? But you are always so industrious.” The monk waved the girl aside, expecting to see a work of piety from her busy fingers.
There were faces sketched on the stone flags. A likeness of Sister Gunnhilde, her age and kindness captured in just a few quick lines, the features of the youngest of the novices, Witlaef, tenderly displayed as the shy child she was.
“But . . . these are secular images.” Brother Anselm’s confusion turned to concern. “Rub them out, Sister. Quickly. You are not to speak of this.” Anselm stood in front of the novice as Signy swiped the images away with the hem of her habit. He raised his voice and addressed the others to distract them. “Sisters, it is time to join your brothers in the chapel. The bell will shortly ring for Compline.”
Processing out behind the nuns and the other novices, Signy reflected on her luck at being discovered only by Anselm, and also on her perverse instinct for implicit disobedience.
Much was risked by drawing what she saw, the world of everyday monastery activity. But
some small flicker of defiance still burned in her heart, try though she might to smother it. It was hard to be mindlessly, gratefully obedient hour after hour, but on the day she had miscarried her child, she had turned away from her previous life. By this act she had accepted the power of Christ and His mother into her life, and with that came the obligation to atone for her sin with Bear. Yet sometimes it was hard, and sorrow for all she had lost made the old life beguiling. Signy struggled to fight such thoughts, struggled to banish Bear’s image from her mind, and that of the tiny, perfectly formed baby who had never breathed. Her nameless daughter.
Perhaps, one day, God would tell her when she had suffered enough for what had been done.
“In the Scriptorium, you will work behind this screen.” Anselm pointed to several large panels of woven bog willow. In one corner of the copying hall between two unshuttered windows, a tiny room within the greater space had been created.
It was four days since Anselm had discovered her drawings, and even now, Signy found it hard to believe what he said to her. “Our blessed Abbot has agreed that you will be the Scriptorium servant. In silence and by my instruction, you will learn to prepare ink and colors for the valuable work that your brothers perform. And, too, if your progress is satisfactory, I shall teach you the preparation of vellum.”
Signy had stared at the monk. The words scarcely penetrated. “Me, Father?” Her voice had been a strangled squeak.
Anselm had nodded. What he did not tell the awestruck girl was that, in time, she might also be trained as a copyist.
The Abbot had only reluctantly agreed to Anselm’s unusual request, but both men knew there was little real talent among the Scriptorium monks. And they were ambitious. If Findnar was to become the seat of learning they believed it should be, holy books must be copied and a library created. Skill, therefore, must be identified and fostered in the Abbey. However, to consider that a girl, a postulant, might be trained for such tasks was daring and radical, and a potential cause for scandal.
“Our Abbot was naturally most concerned that the work of the Scriptorium might be disturbed by your presence here. With God’s help, we shall guard against that by all means in our power.”
Signy had nodded vigorously. “Oh, of course, Father. I would never willingly do such a thing. In Christ’s name, I shall do my best, unworthy though that be. I am so grateful; it cannot have been easy to convince our beloved Abbot to allow me this honor.” Her eyes had been troubled.
The monk had been moved, for this reply was evidence of genuine humility, but he held up his hand. “You are correct, Sister. It has cost him, and me, many hours of anxious prayer, and so, for a time, you will be in the Scriptorium on sufferance as we continue to pray for the Lord’s blessing on this work.”
“For how long?” Signy had winced. “Forgive me, dearest Brother, I spoke without thought. I humbly await knowledge of the Lord’s will.” She had clasped her hands in a tight knot and murmured the apology, properly, to the floor.
Ah, youth. With some nostalgia, Anselm had remembered the impetuosity of that fleeting season. “Our beloved Abbot will inform us both. Meanwhile he has laid down other conditions. Mark them well.”
Reverently, Signy had crossed herself and knelt. “Yes, Father. I humbly await his holy instruction.”
Anselm had attempted severity. “First, you are never to speak unless addressed by me, or the Abbot himself.”
Signy had nodded diligently.
“There is to be no coughing or sneezing—even if you are unwell. The needs of nature must be ignored. Attend to them before entering the writing chamber. You will be at your place immediately after the break-fast, before your brothers, and you may depart only after they have finished and when you have swept and cleaned the copy chamber. The Abbot has most strictly decreed that you will not, at any time, be seen by your brothers here. Or heard.”
“Of course, Father. And thank you. I will not let you down.” For the chance that was offered, the chance to learn, Signy would have agreed to anything, sacrificed anything.
And at first she was the most menial of assistants.
Gathering oysters so that the shells could be used as paint receptacles, she also dug clay to be dried and ground for earth color and picked plants from which to extract dyes. Then with egg whites, honey, and soot begged from the kitchen, she learned to make ink. The greatest trial was making quills, for Signy was to harvest feathers from living geese—and though they pecked her and beat her with their wings, she became adept at drying and cutting the quills so well that there had never been better writing instruments on Findnar.
Gradually, she was permitted to take on increasing responsibility, including the preparation of vellum from calfskins and goatskins. Signy grew to hate this process, for the lye burned her hands and scraping the hides was tedious and smelly. But the result, once the dried skins had been well burnished, was magical: soft, supple, and fine-surfaced, Signy’s vellum was greatly appreciated in the Scriptorium, and Anselm was well pleased. As he had thought, this girl was quick to learn and diligent. And with good reports, Cuillin permitted Signy to continue with her work.
And now there came a remarkable day.
After diligent prayer, Anselm decided to instruct Signy in the formation of letters in the Roman alphabet. If she was ever trusted with copying any part of the holy books, she must learn an acceptable scholar’s hand, though he did not expect her to read, just to mimic what she was shown.
Anselm had no idea if Signy could actually master writing. A woman’s mind was certainly not the equal of a man’s and never would be, but he was curious to pursue the experiment, for he had never had the teaching of a clever girl before. For practice, he supplied her with a piece of slate on which he had written the letters of the Roman alphabet, and he began to instruct her on how to form them.
Once begun on this road, Signy stole all the time she could from her usual chores, and then she had an epiphany. One evening when the monks finished work, she secretly began to search among their manuscripts for the individual letters she now knew, for she was hungry to know how letters became words.
First she worked out the name of Mary, and then Jesus, and then God. Saying the names out loud, she fixed the images of the letters to the sounds. With growing excitement, she painfully spelled out a series of words; then she composed her first sentence: Praise God, Jesus, and Mary.
Over the following months, Signy began to write more and more. Slowly copying prayers at first, and comparing the Latin to its meaning in the Christian language she now spoke, very gradually she began to make sense of both. And as she had once drawn the world around her, she haltingly began to write of what she saw and felt on scraps of vellum in her cubicle. And on one slow day, when Anselm had sent Signy to beg leaves from the Infirmarian’s woad plants to make more blue pigment, she dared to visit Laenna’s grave.
Signy had not talked to her sister in a long time. Since she was a postulant, every minute of her day was accounted for, and an absence brought trouble. Today, though, she had the luxury of a little time. “I have missed you, Laenna,” she said. “I know personal affection is a sin and must be guarded against, but I thought you would like to know that I can read now and write too.”
Signy held a scrap of vellum up to the pillow stone; it was covered with her tiny, careful script. “Would you like to know what it says? I wrote it yesterday.” She cleared her throat. “Feast of St. Marinus and St. Asterius. Rain since Matins. Very cold. With God’s help I found a small patch of chalk in the meadow. Brother Anselm is pleased. He has shown me how to make white pigment for my brothers. After Tierce, I was sent to ask for cabbage and parsley to make green dye. In the garden, I saw my old friend. I did not look at him, but he tried to talk to me. I must confess this. My thoughts led me to sin.”
Signy’s voice faltered. She stopped reading. “Laenna, do you ever wonder what it would have been like, being a mother? If we were still at home, we might both have our own households now. An
d babies.” She picked at the new weeds among the white pebbles. “If I become a nun, I will never know what that is like. Not properly.” She closed her eyes. That was a lie. She knew what it was like to be a mother, even if so briefly.
“I had better go—they will ring for Sext soon. Next time, it will not be so long, I promise.”
Later that day, Anselm put down his brush with a sigh. He had just applied the last morsel of gilding to the final illustration of Luke’s Gospel, the Ascension of Christ into Heaven. His task was complete.
Anselm guarded zealously against worldly pride and, for that reason, none had yet seen this work. Brother Abbot would be the first audience for the manuscript, the latest to come from Findnar’s Scriptorium, but Anselm felt tired and flat. The ending of something was so often an anticlimax—and a loss.
“Brother Anselm, I must ask your advice.” The master of the Scriptorium jumped; the Abbot had arrived, unheralded.
Anselm cleared his throat. “Abbot, I shall give it to you gladly, if that is the will of God.” He stood quickly. Was this a good moment to show Abbot Cuillin what he had accomplished?
But Cuillin was staring at the restless sea beyond the windows. He said, absently, “Amen, Brother, to that.” The view was obscured by a fleece of mist on the water—only if he squinted could the Abbot see to the far side of the strait.
He was worried. A visitor from the mainland was expected today, a rich merchant from the township that was growing up on the site of the old Pagan settlement. This man had sent a messenger in an impressive ship several days ago. It seemed that the no doubt self-styled Lord Solwaer wished to visit Findnar, but what did he want?
Cuillin sighed. His gaze focused on the top of the cliff where the path to the cove began. At least the new work there—work that he had insisted on and that had involved every able-bodied man on the island—gave him some comfort. A great gate and palisade now shut off the path so that the way down to the cove—and up—might be controlled by the Abbey. Last summer, rumors had reached Findnar of raiders returning to the North. It had therefore become prudent to arrange protection.
The Island House Page 23