by Carol Berg
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 and 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.
&nbs
p; 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 and 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.”
“‘For Navronne’? ‘For our children’s children’?” Bitterness at this man welled up in me and erased every other consideration, as if the slaughtered Ardrans’ blood rose from the ground beneath my sandals and their empty eye sockets glared at me.
Luviar did not flinch. His face and shaven head gleamed pale in the enveloping night. “Indeed, yes. Now, ask me the one question whose truthful answer might most influence your trust. I’ll answer you—truthfully—and then we shall see if we’re to proceed.”
“Only one, holy father?” Again and always, my imprudent tongue.
He remained cool and sober. “For now, one question. If I cannot satisfy you enough to gain your promise of forbearance, then I must think of some other way.”
So many possibilities…I was almost drunk with the thought of answers. Yet some of Gillarine’s mysteries were but simple secrets, and simple facts would explain them. I could ask about Jullian—but a negative answer would leave me more confused than ever, and an affirmative one was so dangerous, I was not sure I wanted to know it. No, the greater challenge to trust was this man’s character—which took me right back to the beginning.
“Why did you abandon Ardran soldiers to die—encourage them to die—for a prince you surely know is unworthy?”
He nodded, as if my question were exactly the one he expected. “We live in harsh times, Brother Valen, and as a man newly arrived here from the wide world, you know this as well as any. The lack of a righteous king speeds the ruin of our land. I speak not merely of war’s grief and devastation, but of the deepest mysteries of earth and heaven, for this conflict is but one piece of a grand and terrible mosaic, with some of the other pieces named Famine, Pestilence, and Storm.”
Why was it Luviar could set the hairs on my neck rising with words that would sound pretentious spoken even by a pureblood diviner? His gray eyes warmed with sympathy, as if he understood the unnerving nature of his converse and sought to soothe it even as he made it worse.
“In another age of the world, I would step not one quat in any direction to serve Perryn of Ardra’s cause. But as matters stand, neither could I allow Bayard of Morian to take the final step that would assure his ascension to Eodward’s throne. Not only because of his own faults, but for this: If Prince Bayard’s eye is no longer fixed on his hated rival, and his hammer no longer aimed at valiant Ardra, then his attention—and that of his new allies—will turn to any who dare assert that we must deal with matters more important than the succession. Their hammer will fall on those few who fight to assure Navronne’s future beyond one sovereign’s reign.”
“Assuring the future beyond one…” My mind raced, knotting and unknotting the strange events of the past weeks. “You’re speaking of this end-times teaching.” The long night, Jullian had said. The dark times. What the hierarch called deviance.
He propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward to rest his chin on his folded hands, staring at the well-trodden path. “Those Ardran soldiers had pledged their loyalty and service to their prince,” he continued. “I, in an arrogance of intellect and conviction, stole that devotion and transferred it to a worthier cause. To Ardra, Morian, and Evanore—to Navronne and to the mysteries that bind our land to the future of Iero’s creation. Not to despair, but to hope.”
He had shaped his answer with an artist’s hand that took bits of colored glass and fit them together to create a portrait of kings and saints. I wondered again if Luviar had the bent—for persuasion, perhaps. For truth-telling, I hoped, for my curiosity was so inflamed, I could not have walked away had he sprouted a gatzé’s barbed tail in front of me. I could not say I trusted him, but, gods preserve me, I believed him. “Father Abbot, are you the pureblood at Gillarine?”
His head popped up from his meditative posture, and he laughed, a full-throated burst of cheer, as robust as Ardran mead and as unexpected as an honest tinker. “Is that your measure of trust, Valen? You think I am ensorceling you? Not at all what I had hoped to accomplish. But I granted you only one answer, if you remember. More will come only if you vow your silence. If you choose not, then no burden will be held against you, nor will I look further into your past. Now tell me if I should proceed or not. Lives may depend on your declaration.”
I scratched my head and tried to bury my qualms about holy men. Who was I to gainsay the abbot, after all? He had all but confessed to me that he supported what his superiors called deviance—high treason in the world of practors and hierarchs. I felt great kinship with all rebellious souls, even if they wore golden solicales. “What is it you want of me, holy father? Not a sevenday since I did swear to obey you in all things. And if you command I trust you and keep secrets, well then, who am I to say it is not holy?”
He sighed and spread his hands in acceptance. “I suppose that will have to do. Your task is simple. I wish you to meet with several others who recognize the enormity of the world’s troubles. They need you to demonstrate how to use the Cartamandua maps.”
My spirits, tickled with growing excitement, plunged. Of course it would be the book. Though, indeed, he had asked my aid, not for copying, but for use, which raised all manner of questions, such as where his friends wished to travel that no ordinary book of maps could take them. But this book—I was trying to avoid lies. “Father Abbot, I must tell you—”
No. I couldn’t tell him I’d never used it. On
ce I began changing my story, the perceptive abbot would surely unravel the rest of my talespinning. Then he would be forced to choose between his life and my freedom. I trusted no one but myself with that choice. Blood rushed to my skin with the misstep so narrowly avoided.
“The book is certainly magical, holy father, and thus appears differently to any eye that looks upon it. Its usage is likely different for any who attempt it also. I’ll share what I can, but in truth, as you’ve clearly surmised, I’ve had meager success at anything in my life, thus you’d best not expect too much.”
Luviar watched me silently. Waiting for me to confess more lies, I thought. I kept breathing and did not squirm.
At last he nodded. “Very well, then. All we ask is your best effort. At the opening of tonight’s Compline I will assign you to keep vigil in the church through the night. When the day’s-end bell rings, leave the church and return here. You’ll be met. And you will not reveal this plan or what occurs to anyone, on pain of your immortal soul.”
“As you say, holy father.” I bowed my head, placing a clenched fist upon my breast in their sign of obedience. Then, gritting my teeth, I broached the direst topic. “I am assigned to read at Compline tonight.”
“I’ll have Nemesio postpone that until tomorrow.” He stood and lifted his black hood, so that his body lost definition in the dusk. “Iero’s grace be with you, Valen. Teneamus.”
“Wait! What does that—?” As he turned his back to my rising question and hurried away, I would have sworn I glimpsed a flicker of teeth that might have been a smile.
Chapter 14
The abbot had failed to mention that the “vigil” he planned to assign me was a penance for dozing in chapter. Because he announced this judgment at the opening of Compline, I was required to prostrate myself throughout the entire service, which left me in no great patience for meeting his friends. Perhaps he thought I would be grateful that he was permitting me to abandon the punishment at the day’s end bell, rather than staying in place until Matins. But as the cold, unyielding granite bruised my too-prominent bones, gratitude came nowhere to mind. I could not even rejoice in the postponement of my reading.
