Night Blooming

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “It was the inspiration of the founder that put Sant’ Martin’s where it is,” said Fratre Angelomus, offended by Rakoczy’s too-worldly explanation.

  “That was my meaning. Do you think the wells weren’t inspiring?” Rakoczy said without a trace of umbrage. “Wouldn’t God rather have His monastery be as safe as possible? And wouldn’t those wells make the monastery the safe haven it was intended to be?”

  Fratre Angelomus scowled. “Don’t you accept the doctrine of divine inspiration?”

  “I would not presume to comprehend the purpose of God,” said Rakoczy.

  “At least you are willing to admit that,” said the monk.

  “There is no reason to wrangle,” said Otfrid. During their travels, he had grown weary of Fratre Angelomus’ constant challenging of Rakoczy; it was not for them to interrogate the foreigner, only to deliver him to Alcuin, no matter what the monk thought. At first their disputes had been mildly entertaining, but now, after two months of daily exchanges, Otfrid was heartily jaded. “Our journey is almost over.” They had gone out of the town and were now on the road to the abbey, a busy thoroughfare lined with stalls filled with livestock. Among these stalls were other, more permanent buildings: inns, taverns, and brothels.

  Fratre Angelomus managed to smile. “For which we must thank God and the Will of Great Karl.”

  “Amen,” said Rakoczy, aware that if he failed to endorse Fratre Angelomus’ faith, he would increase the suspicion the monk already harbored toward him.

  Rotgaud pointed toward the massive gates of Sant’ Martin’s, now standing open, guarded by monks holding thick wooden staves that could be used as weapons as well as walking sticks. “There is the place we must leave you, for armed men cannot enter the monastery precincts.” He motioned to the soldiers with them. “We turn back here.”

  The others drew rein, almost surprised that their wayfaring was over and that they had at last come to the end of their time together. Two of the men regarded Otfrid with the respect his position demanded, but the other two did not. “We are now without work,” Adalgis complained just loudly enough to be heard over the babble from the street and the market beyond, his young face marked by dust and ambition. “We have served you well, haven’t we?”

  Rakoczy, who had been expecting this, opened his wallet and pulled out twelve silver coins. “Let this hold you for a while, so that you may find suitable advancement in your next employment, and not be compelled to accept the employ of anyone with a few coins to give you. Find a lord worthy of your service.” It was more than generous, and all the soldiers knew it. Before Adalgis could snatch the money, Rotgaud motioned to them to receive the silver humbly; he took the first place in line for the largesse. “You have all done all you were asked to do, and more,” Rakoczy went on. “I thank you.”

  “Very well,” said Adalgis, who had never had so much money at one time in his life. “You have used us honorably, and we are obliged to you.”

  “I am not your lord, nor am I apt to be in future,” said Rakoczy as he passed out the coins. “I am a foreigner here at the behest of Karlus the King. You have ensured that I may do as he bade me.” This was the correct response, and all of them knew it.

  The four soldiers reverenced Rakoczy, then pulled their mounts away from the gates of Sant’ Martin’s, urging their horses through the market throng toward the largest of the taverns.

  “They may not have their coins by morning, between drink and dice and women,” said Otfrid. “But you did well by them.”

  Rakoczy shrugged. “They deserved my gratitude, yet I have few means to express it: as a stranger without lands or honors to bestow, I cannot offer much more than coins for their efforts, which I have done.”

  “You gave coins to peasants,” Fratre Angelomus said, as if to cheapen Rakoczy’s gift to the soldiers.

  “They worked when I bade them. What more could I do?” He inclined his head toward his manservant. “I also pay him.”

  Fratre Angelomus shook his head. “Not what a man of rank would do.”

  There was a subtle shift in Rakoczy’s stance, a different light in his dark eyes; his compelling gaze rested on the monk. “Perhaps,” he allowed in a gentle voice that carried more authority than a shout would have; Fratre Angelomus moved back, masking his reaction by dismounting and tugging experimentally on the billets beneath the wide skirt of his saddle.

  “If you tell the warder you have arrived, you will be taken to your assigned quarters,” said Otfrid. “Fratre Angelomus and I will find proper lodging in the city. In the morning we leave for Aachen, to report on our errand.”

  “Then I will thank you now,” said Rakoczy, paying no heed to the monk. “You have done well, and so I will inform Alcuin.”

  “You offer us no money,” said Fratre Angelomus, his features expressing his scorn more than his tone. “Yet you paid the soldiers lavishly.”

  “Of course: it would disgrace Karl-lo-Magne to pay you, who are his sworn men, and I have no wish to do that It would be a most unfortunate beginning to my stay here.” Rakoczy turned to regard Fratre Angelomus. “I will give a donation to Sant’ Martin in your name, if that would please you.”

  “You will do as you must,” said Fratre Angelomus, busying himself with the girths of his saddle before remounting.

  “And you, good Fratre, will do as you must, as well,” said Rakoczy, nodding to Rorthger and indicating the gates. “We part here, good missi. My thanks to you for bringing me here; I wish you a swift and safe journey to Aachen.”

  “Amen,” said Fratre Angelomus.

  “Godspeed,” said Otfrid, and set his horse trotting away from the monastery.

  Rakoczy raised his hand in farewell, then said to Rorthger, “Well, shall we go in?”

  Rorthger tugged on the mules’ leads and fell in behind Rakoczy. “I am ready.”

  “I wonder if I am,” said Rakoczy in Greek. “What if we should follow after Otfrid, leave Sant’ Martin’s, and return to the Wendish marshes?”

  “We would have made a long journey to no purpose,” said Rorthger in the same language. “And you would disappoint Karlus without good reason.”

  “Yes. But it is temp—” He broke off as he came up to the monks guarding the gate. “I am Hiernom Rakoczy; your Abbott, Alcuin of York, sent for me.” He spoke in Latin and repeated himself in Frankish.

  “I am Fratre Berengarius,” said the man with a silver crucifix hanging from a thong around his neck. “Our Abbott is expecting you. If you will come with me?”

  Rakoczy inclined his head. “Of course.” He gestured to Rorthger to come with him.

  “Your mounts and pack animals will go to the stable.” Fratre Berengarius pointed off to his right. “Your manservant may deal with settling them. He will have stalling provided for your horses and mules. When that is done, have the slaves bring your chests and crates to the collegium where rooms have been set aside for your use.” He stood still while Rakoczy dismounted and handed his reins to Rorthger. “The slaves will know where to take your things.”

  “Fine,” said Rakoczy, and gestured compliance to Rorthger. “I will join you in a while, I must suppose. I don’t know how long the Abbott will keep me in attendance on him.”

  “As you say, my master,” said Rorthger. “You must suppose.” He did not quite smile, but there was a quirk at the corner of his mouth that told Rakoczy that Rorthger was amused.

  “Exactly,” Rakoczy responded, and went to the monk. “Lead on, Fratre Berengarius.”

  The Fratre did not like Rakoczy’s lack of what he considered appropriate reverence for the monastery; his lips were set in a thin, disapproving line as he nodded toward a large building on the west side of the Cathedral. “That is the way to the collegium. I will escort you to Abbott Alcuin, who will receive you as soon as he can. He has many duties that require his attention.”

  “And my arrival is the least of them,” said Rakoczy patiently. “I am aware of it, and I am wholly at his service.”
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br />   They went off through a group of people huddled together, their clothes unlike the costume of this region; one of the men leaned on a pair of stout walking sticks, trying to favor a grotesquely swollen ankle.

  “They are from the Pyrenees,” Fratre Berengarius said. “They have come here for succor and the hope of getting land to work.”

  Rakoczy had a fleeting image of Csimenae and her unholy tribe in their self-made mountain fisc; then it was gone, and he remarked, “The monastery must take in hundreds of refugees in the course of a year.”

  “That we do. It is worst now, with the harvest coming, but all year, even in winter, they seek us out, from all over Karl-lo-Magne’s lands, and beyond.” He was unabashedly pleased to announce this. “Sant’ Martin is a powerful patron.”

  “No doubt the presence of Great Karl’s chief advisor is not a disadvantage,” Rakoczy said.

  Fratre Berengarius shook his head. “Christ leads them to us, for the salvation of their souls. We must protect them in the Name of Christ or disgrace our vows.”

  Rakoczy looked up at the shoulder of the Cathedral, the transept that bulged with chapels and oratories. “A most remarkable building, this Cathedral. Indeed, the whole monastery is impressive, so well laid out and carefully kept.”

  “The Prior is strict, and so is the Superior. The Rule is upheld here.” He pointed to a group of monks rolling newly made barrels toward the monastery brewery. “There is labor for all of us, and we know we must do it for the Glory of God.”

  “How many monks live here?” Rakoczy asked, doing his own calculations.

  “Two hundred twenty-six at present, forty-three novices, three hundred thirty-nine slaves, and sixty-one lay-Fratres, most of them one-time soldiers who have left the field of battle forever, and have given themselves to God instead of the King.” He was proud of these numbers and carried himself a bit straighter as he led Rakoczy past the brewers.

  Rakoczy interpreted the vocation of the former soldiers as being the result of some disabling injury rather than a sudden awakening of fervor, but he said, “A great credit to Sant’ Martin.”

  “Amen,” said Fratre Berengarius. “That passage to your right—take it.”

  Rakoczy suspected that he was being taken the long way around to his destination, and assumed that Fratre Berengarius had been asked to do this, either to delay his arrival, or to show him the extent of the monastery. This right-turning path led past a cloister and a chapter house, then along the flank of the Cathedral toward a two-story building with a Roman arch over the center entrance. Rakoczy went toward the entrance, Fratre Berengarius immediately behind him. “Is this the collegium?”

  “It’s the scriptorium; the collegium is behind it, facing the petitioners’ court. Go through the arch and across the courtyard. The next building is the collegium. It is larger and has more rooms than the scriptorium. Two or three will be assigned to you. Your manservant will be taken there with your belongings. A bed will be prepared for him in the corridor, to guard you.” Fratre Berengarius made this sound like an unearned honor. “He is a servant, isn’t he—not a slave?”

  “I have no slaves,” said Rakoczy with utter finality. “And he will occupy my rooms with me. He can guard me better from inside than from the hallway.”

  Fratre Berengarius had no answer for this idiosyncracy, attributing it to Rakoczy’s foreignness; he took advantage of their entry into the courtyard to change the subject. “You will see there are three passages. The one on the left is for Fratres, the others are for Magnati, Illustri, Sublimi, and Potenti. Bellatori are housed in the dormitory, when they are admitted here at all.”

  Rakoczy smiled. “Which am I to use?”

  Fratre Berengarius stared at him. “Which—?”

  “Passage,” Rakoczy said patiently.

  “The central one, at least today. The Abbott will say which you are to use in future.” He indicated a staircase. “Your quarters are that way. I’ll show you where when the Abbott is done with you.”

  “Thank you,” said Rakoczy, making note of the narrowness of the flight, and the steepness. “You must go single file up and down those stairs.”

  “As our Rule requires,” Fratre Berengarius agreed.

  Rakoczy nodded. “Sant’ Benedict said little about staircases.”

  “Our Rule enlarges his dicta,” said the monk, pointing to a corridor on their left. “If you will turn here?”

  “Of course,” said Rakoczy, doing it. The long passage was two stories high, the upper level galleried with a series of small arches. The sounds of many hushed voices made the air rush and whisper like the waves of the sea.

  “There is an alcove ahead. Enter it,” said Fratre Berengarius.

  The alcove proved to be large, the size of a reception room, but lacking a fourth wall and a door. There was a long trestle table set up across it, and half-a-dozen men in habits stood around it, frowning down on a swath of silk marked with red dye; Rakoczy recognized the object of their scrutiny as an Imperial map from the Court of the Emperor of China. It was at least two hundred years old; age made it fragile, something the monks took into consideration in their handling of it.

  “Sublime Abbott,” said Fratre Berengarius in a respectfully lowered voice.

  A white-haired man whose tonsure no longer needed the barber’s efforts to maintain looked up, blinking as those with short sight were inclined to do; he approached Rakoczy in a friendly manner, not overly familiar, but genial enough. He stopped an arm’s length from the new arrival. “So you’re Rakoczy. Your reputation precedes you.” He came up to Rakoczy’s chin, an angular man with snapping blue-green eyes, a large nose, and hairy ears.

  “And you are Alcuin of York?” Rakoczy inquired, knowing it was possible that this man could be his deputy. “Your reputation is known far beyond the territories of Great Karl.”

  “I am he,” he said with a modest ducking of his head. “You came in good time. I hadn’t thought you would arrive for another two weeks at least.”

  “The missi dominici and the escort who brought me urged us to travel with dispatch,” said Rakoczy, then took a chance and added, “I see you have a map from China.”

  “We think so,” said Alcuin. “Perhaps you can assist us on this point.”

  “Certainly,” said Rakoczy, and stepped up to the table. “It is an old map, as I’m sure you know.”

  “Yes,” said Alcuin. “I thought so, too.”

  Rakoczy had the uneasy feeling that this was some kind of test, and that the whole encounter had been staged for his benefit. He reverenced the monks around the table, then bent over the silk. He read the names of rivers and cities, but decided not to say too much of this, for he did not know what the monks had already been told about the map, or what they had decided on their own about it. “This is of the northern part of China, from the ocean to the far end of the Chinese lands, near the Celestial Mountains, from the lands of the Mongols on the north to the edge of the Land of Snows on the south, a considerable area to cover,” he told them. “Those mountains are extremely high, and they cannot be easily crossed, so the route is an important one, and also vulnerable. The trade routes go along the northern side of their foothills, where the lands are long, empty plains and arid wastes.” The last time he had traveled the Old Silk Road had been in the Year of Yellow Snow, when the cold never released its grip on the land at any part of the year, and the skies had dulled and darkened. “There is a city here.” He touched the silk lightly. “Kara-khorum. Many caravans go through it, from Byzantium and the peoples north of the Caspian Sea, the inland sea beyond the Black Sea.”

  “There is no such sea,” one of the monks said scornfully.

  “But there is,” Rakoczy countered mildly. “I have seen it.”

  “A man may claim anything when no one can challenge him,” the monk persisted, his demeanor resistive. “You could tell us anything and expect us to believe you.”

  “Fratre Roewin,” Alcuin admonished him gently. “Let the M
agnatus tell us what he knows.”

  “But he takes us for fools, Sublime Abbott,” Fratre Roewin protested. “He is repeating fables for credulous imbeciles.”

  “Which we may be, and ignorant as well,” said Alcuin. “Therefore it behooves us to listen. We will judge what he says later, when we have had time to discuss it.”

  Rakoczy was now certain that this was a test and that it had been prepared for him. He studied the map, choosing what to tell them about it, cognizant of the fact that the monks had already received some information about this treasure that they were measuring against what he told them. “This map is old, good Fratres, more than a hundred years, by the look of it, and you ask me to tell you what I know about it, though it is ancient How long have you had it?”

  “Is that important?” asked the young monk.

  “Not particularly, but I know that from time to time spies smuggle maps out to the Mongols, who want to raid in China.” Rakoczy lifted his fine brows inquiringly. “Consider the use such a map could have, how misleading it could be. A foe, with such incorrect information, might make crucial errors, which the Emperor of China would turn to his advantage. And regional warlords could have a misleading map prepared that would give his men the advantage against their rivals. This does not appear to be one such, but if it is a successful ruse, it should not appear deceptive in any way. Such maps are more readily to be had, and they are often sold to the credulous, and such maps are occasionally and deliberately smuggled out of China, intentionally deceitful, to confound the Mongols, and other enemies beyond the borders of China; this may be one such.”

  “It came into our hands a decade ago,” said Alcuin, waiting expectantly.