The Miracle Thief

by Iris Anthony

Smoke curled through the windows high above me as foreign tongues filled the air with their cries.

  Speak truth; stand for what is right.

  The abbess had trusted me to do what was right. And my daughter had trusted Saint Catherine would tell her what to do. If the Danes wanted the relic, then they would have to first find it. I retreated back toward the chapel.

  I did not have much time. If it weren’t for the box, then I could hide it beneath the altar, where no Dane, at least, would think to look for it. The box itself was nothing. The true treasure lay inside it. The true treasure! I opened the lid and emptied the contents into my hand. Then I fished the shard of bone from the dirt.

  Forgive me, Saint Catherine.

  Placing the bone beneath the altar, I poured the dirt on top of it, covering its telltale shape. Satisfied with my deceit, I set the box in its rightful place.

  “It’s too dark.” Otker’s voice came whining through the gloom.

  Someone, Ava perhaps, began to whimper.

  I rose and put a hand to each of them in turn. “But did you not know? Even darkness is as light to God. He can see you just as clearly as He could before.” Though I would have much preferred to stay in there with them, trying to hide myself in the gloom, my object was not to spare myself. It was to save Saint Catherine and to protect the children from the Danes.

  I might have given the pagans the box itself, but it was empty. And what if they discovered my subterfuge? In their rage, might they not murder us all? I needed something to place inside it. Something that would substitute for a bone.

  There were candles aplenty, but those would not do. They were the wrong shape, most of them, too squat and stout. The lamps had wicks, but those were much too slender.

  Lifting that last of the lighted candles from its holder, I used its light to search the floor for something, anything, that might work for my purpose. But the floor here had been swept clean as well. And so had all the crevices of the walls. In this one area at least, the abbey was being well cared for. I needed something thin and sturdy. A bone. A quill pen. A…twig.

  Gerold!

  Setting the candle back into its holder, I went to the children and knelt in front of the boy. His gaze crept toward mine, and then it dropped away. He jammed his fist into the folds of his tunic.

  Taking hold of it with what I hoped was a gentle hand, I tugged it away from his side. “What have you got there?”

  His jaw clenched as his brow folded. He pulled his hand to his chest.

  “I have tried to help you these many days. I have tried to give you good food to eat.” I covered his hand with my own. “I have tried to make certain you have everything you need.”

  He was looking down at our hands, his lower lip extended in a pout.

  “This time, I was wondering, if perhaps, you might be able to help me.”

  Slowly, his gaze rose. It did not meet mine, not exactly, but it was not far off.

  “I need what you have in your hand. And I am not going to throw it away. I am not going to scold you. I just want to put it in this box.” I let go of his hand and held up Saint Catherine’s reliquary.

  Just the single candle was lit, but still the jewels somehow captured its light. The rubies glowed. The emeralds glinted. And the gold reflected back the light. Red and green flickered across Gerold’s face as he stood there, gazing at the reliquary.

  I took off the lid.

  He leaned forward and looked inside.

  “There is nothing there right now. Would you not like to put your twig there?”

  His fist clenched.

  “You could do it yourself. Here: I will hold the box, and you can put it inside.”

  He looked down at his hand.

  “You can even put the lid back on top if you want to.”

  Opening his palm, he revealed a short, splintered shard of wood, which he must have pulled from the hearth before we’d taken him from the hospice. It did not look too different from the bone I had hidden beneath the altar. I wanted to force him to do it. I wanted to snatch it from his hand and drop it inside, but I could not risk his tear-filled cries. The Danes must never suspect the children were here.

  “If you put it in this box, then I am going to show it to some other people—”

  His fist closed.

  “But only so they can admire it too. They have traveled so very far to see it. Everyone who comes here wants to see what’s in this box. Did you know that? And now, if you wish it, you can put your twig in here. Would you like to?”

  He was gazing out across my shoulder.

  “Can you help me?”

  He blinked.

  “Please?”

  Looking down, he held his fist over the box and opened it.

  I heard the twig clatter at the bottom, and then handed him the lid.

  He took it, rubbing at the rubies with his thumb.

  “Can you put it right there? On top?”

  He held it up, staring into the jewels as he turned it first this way and then that. Finally, bless heaven, he pushed it down onto the box.

  Leaving the children huddled against the back wall, I stepped out into the church, box between my hands, and I waited.

  ***

  I did not have to wait long. The door flew open, slamming against the wall, causing the building to shudder. The birds that nested in the beams squawked and rose to flutter about the roof. Men filed in, one after the other. They were tall and fair, clad in strange costumes and cloaked with furs. Their faces were bearded. The tallest of them, the man who wore a helmet, led them toward me as I stood in the middle of the nave. And there they came to a halt, axes glinting.

  I had never known such terror.

  The canon had come with them and stood now, just inside the door. They had a second cleric with them as well. A monk. After the man with the helmet had spoken, the monk translated.

  “They are here for Saint Catherine’s relic. They have already put the rest of the abbey to the torch. There will be no escape if you refuse to give it to them.”

  Trembling, I held out the box. The sooner they took it, the sooner they left, the better. As long as the children kept quiet, they might never be discovered.

  The monk stepped forward to take the box from me as the Dane himself walked right past us.

  “No!” I grabbed hold of the Dane’s arm. “I give the box to you.”

  He wrested his arm free and continued on toward the chapel.

  I appealed to the monk. “I gave it to him. I gave him what he wanted!”

  The monk shrugged. “They know there is always treasure at the altar of a church.”

  “But there is none. The box was all we had. There is no gold. There are no jewels. I gave him what he wanted!” Running to the Dane, I threw myself at him, grabbing hold of his arm.

  He rebuffed me with a blow of his hand, and I struck my head against a pillar as I fell.

  As I lay there on my back, I saw spirals of smoke curl down from the roof and the spark of flames at the pitch of the eves. Smoke was billowing through the windows now, and the birds were circling in earnest, squawking as flew.

  Rolling onto my stomach, I threw out a hand and grabbed hold of his foot. He must not find the children.

  The Dane stopped and turned, lifting his ax above his head. But at the moment he would have brought it down, he paused, glancing back at the entrance.

  Rolling away, I scrambled to my feet.

  The door was opening, fresh air swirling with the smoke. From the threshold stepped the young lord. But he was not the same nobleman who had left me. His demons had returned, and he was beating his breast and thumping his head with one of the cooper’s staves. As he stepped forward, I could see blood had begun to trickle down his cheek. “Go away! Go away!” The strain of his cries had raised the tendons that bound his thro
at.

  The Danes shifted as they turned toward him, and one of them cried out, “Berserker!”

  The cry was lifted up and repeated. “Berserker! Berserker!” The Danes tried to push one of their own forward toward the young lord, but he refused to go.

  As the young man advanced, they began backing away from him toward the man with the helmet.

  Down the nave, the young lord strode, beating his breast and striking his head with the stave.

  “Is he mad?” The canon yelled at me across the smoke that had swirled around us.

  I could not contain my smile. “Zeal for the Lord has consumed him!”

  As the boy came abreast of me, I fell in with him, following as he led toward the chapel.

  One of the Danes let out a shout, pointing a shaking finger beyond us at the mouth of the chapel.

  Through the spreading smoke, I could see my Pepin outlined by the candle’s flickering light. He had ascended toward the church and was flapping his arms, hopping about the entrance to the chapel. In that eerie interplay of light and shadow, his figure was veiled, his features distorted as his silhouette was cast up onto the smoke. He seemed a giant bird, wheeling first this way and then that.

  “Valkyries!” The Danes’ cry was jubilant. Triumphant.

  The young lord loosed a cry of rage so noisome even the timbers of the church trembled. An eerie shriek drifted out from the chapel. It rose and fell in a strange cadence. And then Otker appeared beside Pepin. “Valkyries. Valkyries. Valkyries.” He joined the lad, hopping about, and his laughter echoed through the smoke.

  The monk threw himself upon his knees, pleading the protection of heaven. But the helmeted Dane let out a bellow and pointed his ax in our direction.

  I hurried behind the young lord, collecting the children and pulling them along with me. As we went, there was a resounding crack, and one of the eaves fell into the nave, sending out a shower of sparks.

  Before our descent into the chapel, the roof, eaten by flames, crumbled to the floor atop the Danes. And then the beam that had held it up toppled down upon them.

  In the church, all was afire. But the smoke had not yet completely overtaken the chapel. I coaxed the children down toward the floor where the air was still clear. Beside me, the young lord slowly ceased his tormented cries and let the stave fall to the floor.

  Ava crawled onto my lap while Otker and Gerold watched on their bellies as the church was consumed by flames.

  A girl like you has nothing to offer at all. A girl like you can never come to anything.

  I had nothing to offer, I would never come to anything, and around me were gathered the least of all of God’s children. But I had spoken the truth. I had stood for what was right. And together we had saved the relic.

  Saint Catherine had chosen to stay.

  Saint Catherine, glorious virgin and martyr…implore for me progress in the science of the saints and the virtue of holy purity, that vanquishing the enemies of my soul, I may be victorious in my last combat and after death be conducted by the angels into the eternal beatitude of heaven. Amen.

  CHAPTER 29

  Anna

  ROCHEMONT ABBEY

  When we finally came to the abbey, we entered through an unattended gate and found ourselves in a courtyard devoid of people. Buildings lined the square with the church itself at the foot. A rocky cliff seemed to serve as its back wall. Carts stood waiting to be unloaded, and craftsmen’s fires burned as if they still expected to be of some use. Somewhere, out among the buildings that lay before us, a door slammed.

  The canon was pleading with the Danes as we approached. “I’ll just—let me talk to the nun one time more. I can’t think she understood what I was saying. She’ll give it to us, and then we can leave, and we won’t have to trouble them at all.” He spoke the words as if he did not quite believe his own pronouncements.

  The Danes had not even stopped to listen to the monk translate the words. They began shouting and beating their shields with their axes.

  One of them strode toward a fire that burned unattended. He broke up an unfinished barrel and put it to the flame. The others took pieces of it and turned them into faggots. The chieftain took one up and flung it into one of the buildings.

  It did not take long for smoke to start roiling from the door.

  Another Dane threw his faggot through the church’s high window. A second dipped his into a cart filled with straw and then threw it atop the church’s roof. The flames sputtered for a moment, but then blazed as fire swept out from it in all directions.

  The canon slipped and slid across the muddied snow as he ran toward them. “Stop! You cannot just—! What good will it do if you burn down the church before we can even find the relic?”

  The monk grabbed at the chieftain’s arm and spoke, gesturing toward the smoking roof.

  Pausing a moment, the chieftain barked answer. “He says, ‘They will take the relic and be gone, but these people will know forever what a grave mistake they have made in not giving it to us.’”

  The chieftain threw open the door of the church while the canon followed, protesting. “You cannot—” He appealed to the monk once more. “They cannot do this! This place is a sanctuary!”

  To those who believed, perhaps. To those who knew what the word meant.

  “In the name of God, I beg you!”

  The Danes ignored him as they stalked past him into the church.

  Godric placed his arm about me, and I turned into him, throwing my arm about his waist. But we were not the sole witnesses to the church’s destruction. Just after the Danes had entered the church, a man ran across the courtyard, beating his chest and pounding his head with a stave.

  Was this one of the monk’s berserkers? It could not be, for it was not one of the Danes. But he lurched by, eyes wild, as he told us not to make him stop. As he reached the church, Godric drew me away from the scene. “There’s no reason to watch this. We should wait outside the gate. I will find a way to take the relic from them later.”

  “But what if they do not find it? What if it’s destroyed?” The roof was in flames, and the church itself could not last much longer. If the relic was in there, then I had to go to it. Slipping from Godric’s arm, I joined the canon at the doorway. Flames shot through the windows, and sparks drifted down from the roof. The church was filled with fire and smoke. If I hoped to find healing, I must do it now.

  The canon tried to stop me. “You’ll be killed!” He tugged at my arm, but I wrenched free.

  Stumbling, I walked down the nave.

  Up in front of the church, beyond the Danes, had gathered a winged heavenly host. And the sound of a wordless hymn drifted out over the smoke and the fire.

  “Valkyries!” One of the Danes shouted the word, and the others picked it up and repeated it, but I could not see those pagan spirits here. I saw only holy angels, and I heard only that amazing melody of grace. And then the roof collapsed atop the Danes and their translator monk. The bell came with it, clattering in protest as the fire sent grasping fingers up the pillars and pulled them down too.

  The canon dragged me from the church by the collar, despite my protest, and deposited me in the arms of Godric, who held me fast when I would have bolted toward the flames. We stayed in that muddied courtyard, the three of us, and watched as the church burnt down. In time we were joined by others, residents of the abbey, who began to trickle back in through the gate.

  Once the walls collapsed, it did not take long for the flames to tire of themselves. When they met the snow-damped ground, they retreated back to the center of the structure, where the roof had fallen in, and there they smoldered.

  Using some of the craftsmen’s abandoned tools, Godric and the canon prized the rafters from the Danes and the monk. The others joined in scattering the glowing coals so they would cool. It was not difficult to identify the chieftain
with his metal helmet. But melted across his chest was a pool of bright, shining gold.

  The canon, seeing it, paused. “Saint Catherine’s relic.”

  The relic? “Is it…?” Stricken, I looked at him. “Is it destroyed, then?”

  He only shook his head. “I told him she did not wish to leave.”

  I wandered from the center of the church forward, to where it had once met the rocky cliff. My journey, all of my trials, had been for nothing. But what other end might I have expected? I had done nothing I was supposed to. Nothing the other pilgrims had told me must be done.

  Though I was standing, as I had long hoped to be, in Saint Catherine’s church, my feet were still shod. I had not honored the sanctity of the place. I had not prayed my way down the mountain to the abbey. My poor straw cross had been blown from its place in the valley. I had not kept a nightly vigil. I had not made my confession. I had no gift to offer Saint Catherine, no reason to interest her in my affairs.

  I wiped a tear from my cheek as my feet left the earthen floor for what felt like stone. Looking down, I discovered the ground sloped down and into the face of the cliff, where there seemed to be a sort of cave.

  There in the gloom before me was an altar.

  Kneeling before it, hands clasped to my forehead, I could think of no words to say. I was left with no one to intercede on my behalf, and I knew any petition I could make for myself would be poor indeed. Weeping, I placed my hands on the altar and then lay my cheek atop them.

  I could not think why I had ever expected God might heal me, or why I had ever hoped to be found worthy of such unmerited grace. Surely I deserved no good thing.

  “God, help me.” I could barely whisper the words for my tears.

  “The sword that from her neck the head did chop, Milk from the wound, instead of blood, did bring; By angels buried on Mt. Sinai’s top; From Virgin Limbs a Sovereign oil did spring.” The words seemed to inhabit the very air around me, as if an angel’s voice had spoken.

  As I lifted my head and stretched my arms toward heaven, my devil’s hand unfurled itself. The skin around it had loosened, and there were fingers, which had grown to fill it. New ones.