False Dawn (21 page)

“It is lamentable in these sad days when faith is so needful that there are so few left to administer the Sacraments to the believing.”

Evan nodded absently, covertly watching Thea. She was standing back from them now, and she was upset; Evan knew it from the way she held her head, from the tautness in her hands and her rigid posture that brought her chin up.

There was nothing she could say that might win their understanding. She had been watching Brother Philian and saw that he had an erection. She knew with the certainty of fear that as soon as he became aware of it, he would blame her. She begged her thoughts to go elsewhere, not to notice what had happened to Brother Philian.

“To enable you to return to Church life, this community is always open to you,” Brother Philian was saying to Evan even as his eyes strayed to Thea.

“I appreciate that,” Evan said, not thinking about how he was responding, since he was convinced that nothing he said mattered.. He knew something was wrong with Thea, and did not know how to help. He wanted the tiresome old monks to leave.

“This is a simple matter, my son. You have only to live our life for one year as an apprentice, take our vows, and be secure in this place.”

“Ummmm.”

Brother Demetrios had stood back, listening to this exhortation, and at last bent to pick up the food bowls. As he bent, he saw the other monk’s excitement. His face whitened and he crossed himself. “Brother Philian!”

“Yes, Brother?” the old monk asked, annoyed at being interrupted.

“Your flesh…” Brother Demetrios could bring himself to say no more.

Brother Philian stared, and then, in realization, he felt the swelling under his robe, horror in his eyes as he stared at Thea. “Devil!” he shouted at her. He turned back to Evan. “You see what that woman of yours has done to me?” As if in confirmation of this, the erection grew.

“I didn’t…” Thea protested, though she knew it was useless.

“Even vile, even deprived of the arts of women, even confined; she is a devil!” He screamed this, and hurled the two wooden bowls at her, crying out with her as one struck her face.

It had been automatic, the closing of her nictitating membranes, a protection like the flicker of an eyelid. She stood still, knowing that both monks had seen. The cut on her cheek where the bowl had knocked her began to bleed and she felt the warmth on her face.

“Anathema! Witch!” Brother Demetrios had gone chalky all over, and his body trembled.

“Leave now, Brother Demetrios. Else she contaminate you as well,” Brother Philian ordered, a sly expression in his eyes.

“But can she do that? Is her power so great?” He was wild now, verging on panic.

“She can,” Brother Philian assured the other monk. He turned back to Evan as Brother Demetrios fled from the barn. “You did not mention this”—he gestured to the front of his robe.—”why did you not mention this?”

“I didn’t think it mattered. I thought you knew.” Evan had not moved, hut his whole body was tense, coiled like a cat.

“But you know that interference with the works of the Lord is blasphemy. All else is evil and Heresy. You have heard Father Leonidas. You are of the Faith. You must recognize the devil’s work when you find it.”

Evan spat.

“I see.” Brother Philian stood straight. “It is a pity. Obviously you have chosen to ally yourself with her and the flesh, and have spurned God and Paradise. If I may say so, this is a foolish mistake.”

“I doubt it.”

Again Brother Philian felt himself through the robe, a glazed satisfaction in his eyes. “Heresy…heresy is punished with flames, my son Only fire can take away that sin…You will burn: you and she. We will mingle your ashes.”

When Brother Philian had left, Thea had sat with her back to Evan, not speaking. She was too wrapped in her hurt to hear the few words he had said to her, and the cut on her face was like a seal on the document of her shame. While rage and humiliation burned in her, she shut him out, not trusting his concern.

“Thea?” Evan said quietly after almost an hour had passed, then sat still.

Some while later, Brother Odo arrived to milk the cows, remarking that it was fortunate that the witch had not dried up their udders. He rubbed the teats with holy water to protect them from that peril. When at last he gathered up the pails, Evan made a hooting noise and rattled his chains to speed the monk on his way.

At last Brother Roccus had come, shortly after midday. He held a book and carried a crosier. “I will hear your confession now, given of your own free will, without instruction or coercion, for the glory of God and the triumph of faith.”

Thea remained immobile in the straw. Evan looked at the monk, one eyebrow raised. “I would prefer not to.”

“Your confession is necessary,” said Brother Roccus. “Without it, your sin will stain our sanctuary.”

“Will it?” Evan pulled himself to his feet, taking advantage of his stocky build. For although Brother Roccus twitched with energy, he was both short and thin, and Evan’s solid strength was more imposing than his greater height.

“We must seek out error. You must acknowledge that error before the Throne of God so that what we do is for His Greater Glory, and not the Sin of Man.”

“Any error I have made will be professed if it is required, but not to you, nor any of your Brothers. You’re a sadistic bastard, not a servant of Heaven,” Evan said calmly as he crossed his arms. “You get nothing from me.”

“It is necessary,” the monk insisted. “Brother Philian says there is grave error here. He will pronounce anathema on you if you do not repent and confess.”

“I don’t give a damn. You’ve hurt Thea and you’ve already made up your minds to kill us. And don’t pretend it’s otherwise,” he went on, making the most of Brother Roccus’ confusion. “You want a show of a burning…it was burning, wasn’t it?”

Brother Roccus’ brow darkened. “It is ten days until the Lord’s Day. Father Leonidas has said that on that day your guilt will be offered up.”

“Charming.”

The anger in the barn grew denser, almost palpable. The cows moved restlessly, sensing powerful emotion, and a few of the sheep began to mill in their tight little pen, baaing in distress.

“I will have your confession. I do not need to hear the woman—we know her sin already.”

“Get out.”

Brother Roccus stood his ground with a visible effort. “You must confess. I have been sent to hear your confession, and if you do not…”

Evan finished it for him. “If you do not hear my confession, Father Leonidas will give you an Act of Contrition to perform, won’t he? He must give you a lot of them. And not just Rosaries or the Stations of the Cross.” Evan remembered that it was Brother Roccus that Father Leonidas had reprimanded the morning before.

“My sins are not in question,” the monk declared.

“Aren’t they?”

The sheep had huddled together in the far side of their pen, bleating nervously, their small hooves tapping on their confining boards as if trying to escape.

This was too much for Brother Roccus. He had endured more from Evan than he was able to stand. He charged this tormenting prisoner, his book upraised, making a gobbling sound as he came.

Evan moved back against the wall, but not in fear. He was getting as much play as possible in the chain that held his wrists. When he had enough, he swung it expertly, almost casually, across Brother Roccus’ face and shoulders.

There was another sound from Brother Roccus now, one that sent the livestock milling, distraught. Brother Roccus fell, lying slumped at Evan’s feet, his face torn away where the chain had hit it; he was not breathing. Evan leaned back against the wall and waited.

“Evan?” Thea said after a moment.

He looked over at her, lowering the chain. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, touching the scab that had formed on her cheek and was at the center of a massive bruise. “It’ll heal,” she said.

It was almost an hour later when the monks came to find what had happened to Brother Roccus, and by that time the body was cooling. In horror they looked at their murdered Brother, and then at Evan, who twitched the chain suggestively as he grinned, his eyes ferocious.

A monk was sent running for Father Leonidas and when that austere man arrived, he reddened visibly under his filth. “This is the Great Second Crime!” he thundered.

“Take his feet and drag him out. I don’t want to smell him anymore.” Evan gave this order as the old monk came near. “And if any one of your men try to touch me or Thea, I’ll do to him the same thing I did to that vermin.”

Brother Odo was given the task of pulling the corpse from the barn, and the monks retreated hastily to prepare for the
Requiem
.

That night there was no bowl of gruel nor anything else for them to eat. From the chapel came chanting and the recitation of the long vigil for the dead, broken occasionally by exhortations from Father Leonidas. In the barn, Thea and Evan listened, counting off the hours of the night as the cycle of prayers continued.

The sun had been up for some time when Evan heard the first sound, like a distant cannon; a crack that echoed across the valley and brought him upright in his chains.

“It’s the thaw,” Thea said after a moment. “The ice is breaking up in the river. Maybe it’s March already.”

“What about the snow?” Was it his imagination, or had the smell of the air changed, too, promising the green scent of new grass?

She listened critically. “This is in the valley still. Maybe a week at most before it spreads higher up, unless we have a late storm, the way we did two years ago.”

“That means the passes will be open before long,” Evan said, a deep frown settling between his brows; he was light-headed and short-tempered from hunger and fatigue. “Graeagle is too close.”

“It won’t matter in a couple of weeks, not to us,” Thea reminded him. The sharp hurt of the chains had become a persistent ache and she moved with difficulty.

Evan considered the bound cloth leggings they had been given to serve as shoes when the monks had taken their boots after they had removed Brother Roccus’ body; he tested them with his hand. He scuffed speculatively at the wall. “How far do you think these would last?”

“I don’t know. Not very far, and then we’d have real trouble.”

“Could we walk out of here, if we were out of this compound?”

“It depends on the cold, and how wet it is, and what route we take. The road wouldn’t be safe, and going up to one of the ridges could turn these to rags in a day or so,” she said when she had thought about it. “It would be chancy. Frostbite is worse than rocks; it could slow us down and kill us as much as fire could.”

“I’d like to take the risk,” said Evan.

“So would I,” she agreed, and sat down again.

Through the day the distant river boomed for spring.

After sunset, Father Leonidas appeared in the barn once more. “In ten days it is the Lord’s Day, when He Rose Victorious,” he informed them. “On that day, you who are in sin and without repentance, you shall surely perish. You will be offered up as He was offered up, for the redemption for the evils of man, so that you will do one thing of merit in dying that you could not achieve while you lived. And the body of Brother Roccus shall stand as sentinel over your deaths so that his murder will accuse you as you die.”

“Delightful. Do you think he’ll keep that long?” Evan murmured. “You may want to burn more incense.”

Father Leonidas quivered, his face suffused with red. “Infamy. Infamy. Iniquity.”

In response Evan’s chains chimed together. He had the satisfaction of seeing Father Leonidas back away from him, reciting prayers as he went.

The rising moon dappled the barn with soft light a week later. There had been clear skies for two days, and the hills sang with freshets. The chanting had continued in the chapel, and occasionally three stave-armed monks would bring a bowl of gruel and a jug of water to the barn for the prisoners. The air was cold, but not the deep biting cold it had been before. With no latrine and little room to move, the barn had begun to stink.

“You awake?” Evan asked softly as he watched the moon through a crack in the wall. He reckoned the time near midnight, but he was not tired, though inactivity had made his muscles sore.

“Yeah. You too?”

“I was thinking,” Evan said dreamily, “what it used to be like, a soft winter night like this with spring just coming on. Usually we were in London, and we’d walk along Old Brompton Road, looking in the dark shops. Most of the time it rained, but once in a while it would be clear and cold. Or there’d be just enough snow to make the city shine. God, I loved London. I can remember in ‘88, the Thames froze enough to skate on; it lasted four days. You should have seen it. People everywhere. It was like a festival.”

“It must have been very pretty,” said Thea, unable to picture it.

“It was beautiful. A lot of things were beautiful.”

“Get some sleep, Evan.”

He shook his head. “I want to see this. I want to remember it.” He added, very softly to himself, “I want to remember you, Thea. Thea.”

After the monks pronounced formal
Anathema
on them, they were left alone once again. Thea scrambled up in her chains holding a rust-speckled crowbar. “I found it under the floor boards behind the byre,” she said. “I think I can get the cleat loose if I work at it.” She paused. “If there’s time, I’ll do you, or you can take the crowbar yourself.”

Evan didn’t feel noble and didn’t attempt to fool her. “I’m not looking forward to burning,” he said. “I hope there’s time for us both. But if there isn’t, get away.”

She looked toward him across the barn, feeling a rush of pity for the dirty, ragged, gaunt man he had become. “If I can, I’ll get us both out.” It was a promise. Then she set to work with the crowbar on cleat bolted to the stall-beam; the shackles passed through its ring and held her chained to the wall.

Outside the monks bustled about gathering wood for the auto-da-fe, taking care to choose branches that were green and would burn long and slowly. They worked with more animation than they had shown before, and greater concentration, so it was not until the Pirates reached the gates of the monastery that anyone realized what had happened. Evan heard the warning shouts and tried to look out the shutters to see what was going on.