Shroud of Shadow (29 page)

Natil kept her eyes on Dinah. “Beloved, what do you need?”

Dinah spoke finally, gasping the words out as though she had been too long submerged. “What . . . what Omelda said. I have to leave. Edvard and Norman . . .” The gap between her fingers closed up, and she shuddered.

Natil frowned. “Edvard and Norman will not harm you.”

“You can't say that.”

Indeed, she could not. She had broken her promise to Omelda, failed Harold, and, since yesterday's conversation in the kitchen, was now contemplating forswearing her agreement with the Aldernacht family. By what right did she now make statements with such calm assurance of their ultimate veracity?

She rebelled against her thoughts. “I say it. It is true. I will get you out of the house.”

Dinah laughed bitterly. “They'll find me.”

Omelda spoke up. “No, they won't. Not where you're going.” She pointed to the prostitute. “Stay here. I'll be back.”

She went to the door and slipped out into the hall. Alone at last with Dinah, impelled by the urgency of the whore's need and by what she sensed was potential danger to Jacob, Natil took Dinah's hands, pulled them away from her face. “What happened?”

“It's none of—”

Natil seized her by the shoulders, allowing a very human anger and frustration to possess her. “
It has become my business, woman!
” She glared into Dinah's face, wishing that some of the power of the vanished starlight might, for an instant, rekindle in her eyes.

Whether it did or not, Dinah trembled, nodded, and, haltingly, told Natil about the plot against Jacob. And about what Edvard had said to her just before thrusting her into Jacob's bedroom.

Natil sighed.
Human ways,
Terrill had said, long ago, with grief in his voice. Indeed, this was the most human of ways. The sorrow in the world seemed endless, and Natil found herself thinking of Hadden and Wheat, who were—would be—facing the same immortal dilemma that she herself appeared to be on the verge of resolving . . . or, rather, rendering moot.

What gets us through?

What indeed? Apparently nothing.

“And I failed, so they're going to kill me,” Dinah finished. “I know it.”

Natil nodded. She also knew it.

The door opened softly, and Omelda entered with her tattered bundle. She kicked the door closed, dropped to her knees, and began to undo the wrappings. “It's still in here, Dinah. And you need to . . .” Her voice almost broke. “. . . to go where it'll take you. For a while. At least for a while.”

When she rose, she held up the common clothes of a woman. They were cut severely, though, and their color was an unfigured black that many washings had turned a muddy gray.

Dinah blinked. “Those are nun's clothes. That's a habit.”

Omelda approached, shoved the garments into her hands. “Put them on. And when you get out of here, you go down to Shrinerock Abbey. You don't have to be a nun, you don't have to stay there. Just talk to Dame Agnes, and listen to what she has to say. And . . . tell her that . . . that I'm . . . all right . . .”

Again, just on the other side of Omelda's tears, Natil heard dissemblance.

“. . . and that maybe someday I'll be back. Maybe . . .” Omelda turned away. “Maybe you'll want to stay there for a while. You can decide what you want to do while you're there. Dame Agnes is a good woman. She'll take care of you.”

Dazed, bewildered, Dinah donned the habit, pulling back her dark curls and covering them with the veil, wrapping herself in the sexless, somber black of the Benedictines. When she was done, she stood, wavering, in the middle of the room, her debauchery debauched.

But smuggling Dinah—habit or not—out of the compound would not be easy. The household had been thoroughly roused, and Natil, bereft of starlight, had not been in the house long enough to know anything of the grounds. Omelda had never gotten over her initial bewilderment. Dinah herself knew only a few rooms.

Footsteps outside, a heavy knock on the door. Omelda jumped. Dinah looked ready to fling herself out the window. Natil signed to them to be still and went to the door. “Who, please?”

“Manarel. Just checking, Mistress Harper. Are you all right?”

Natil sagged slightly. “We are . . . ah . . . fine, Master Manarel,” she said, and then she opened the door and beckoned him into the room. The big man entered, stared at Omelda, stared harder at the impostor nun, and then turned to Natil for an explanation.

It was not forthcoming. “We need to escort this good sister out of the house, Master Manarel,” said Natil. “Can you help us . . .”

“But what—”

“. . . without any questions?” Natil hoped that her smile did not look as insincere as it felt.

Manarel frowned, folded his thick arms. “I'm a steward of this house, Mistress Natil.”

“I realize that, honored sir.”

“I've given my word to protect this family.”

“Gracious sir, I know.”

“You're being too polite.”

Natil sighed, bowed. “I try.”

Manarel glowered down at her. “The house is in an uproar, Mister Jacob's disappeared . . .”

Dinah turned away.

“. . . Eudes is going on about intruders or something like that, and you . . .” Tall and thick, he loomed over Natil like an oak tree over a willow sapling. “. . . want me to help smuggle an unidentified nun out of the grounds.”

Natil cleared her throat. “And out of the city.”

Manarel clapped his hand to his forehead. “Dear God!”

“I am sorry to inconvenience you, Master Manarel,” said Natil, feeling the hopelessness of the situation. “But—”

“Shut up. I'll do it.”

The harper stared.

Still with his hand to his forehead, Manarel chuckled: a low rumble that appeared to well up from inside his chest like a small earthquake. “Yes, I'll do it, Mistress Harper. You braved the Inquisition to try to help Harold, and idiot though he was, Harold was one of ours. And so I'll return the favor tonight. But where is the . . .” He examined Dinah as though he would sooner have believed his horse to have taken the veil. “. . . good sister going?”

Dinah answered before Omelda could dissemble or Natil could equivocate. “South,” she said, her voice hoarse. “To Shrinerock Abbey.”

Manarel did not waste time: he had given his word, and he would allow nothing to stop him from keeping it. With a nod (and a trace of a glower) at the harper, he offered his arm to the false nun, and after a quick inspection of the hallway he took her away.

Omelda sat down heavily on Natil's bed. “It's not a good world to be a woman in,” she said darkly. “I hope she makes it to the abbey.”

“She's dressed as a nun,” said Natil.

“That never stopped anybody.” Omelda, staring straight ahead, appeared to see nothing. “
I
was dressed like a nun that first week, and that didn't do anything to stop the thieves who found me.”

Natil covered her face with her slender hands. Tomorrow, she would leave Ypris and head south. To Malvern. To an end. She hoped. “They . . .”

“Used me for a few weeks.” Omelda was still staring. “Or a few months. I don't remember now. My hair had grown out by the time they let me go: that was . . .” There was an old horror to the tale, but Natil heard something else, too: an immediate pain that had nothing to do with memories. “. . . that was a good thing.”

“I suppose that everything that happens, happens as it should.” Natil sniffed, the hot tears stinging their way down her fair skin, pooling between her fingers. “Because that is the way it happens.”

“A charming philosophy, Natil.” Omelda's voice held all the warmth of a stone.

The harper dropped her hands, nodded. She felt empty, drained. “Quite strange, I know. I am . . . no longer sure . . . exactly where I got it.”

She took Omelda by the hand, then, and led her back to her room: but the house had fallen silent. No slamming doors. No shouts. No running feet. The corridors appeared to be deserted.

And then they came upon old Eudes in the hall. He was wearing a dressing robe that was as gray and dusty and faded as himself. But the trusty old wardrobe looked decidedly run down tonight: his moldings dull and chipped, his doors sagging on their hinges.

“Master Eudes?” said Natil. “Good evening, sir. God bless you.”

“What's that? Eh? Oh! Natil.” Eudes nodded absently.

“Is something wrong?”

Eudes stared for a full minute before he replied. “I'm . . . not sure. Maybe. Maybe not. The master found his . . . wife.”

“His wife? Marjorie? She is . . . ?”

“Dying,” said Eudes with a creak of peeling veneer. “Consumption. The physician says she can't possibly live more than a . . . week.”

Adoro te devote, latens deitas . . .

It was a matter of money. God's money. Ever since the days of old John XXII, the Church had been weighing with excruciating logic—and, sometimes, with excruciating pain—its virtue and vices, profit and loss, use and ownership. The Spirituals had fought against it. John had fought for it. Who, exactly, had won was still somewhat in doubt for many.

Siegfried, though, had no doubts whatsoever. God had won. In one way or another, the Deity who hid Himself beneath a cloak of bread and wine had triumphed. That the mild little men who attempted to do His will had no understanding of exactly
how
He had triumphed was of little importance. Men had not been created to understand, but rather to
believe
. That was their duty, that was their salvation.

But money was nonetheless a palpable problem for Siegfried these days: Furze was poor, the Inquisition was large. Despite divine triumph or the demands of the orthodoxy, people had to eat; and since the Inquisition was not in the business of multiplying bread and fishes (at least, not yet), its servants had to be paid for their work.

Many people, much money. But though the possessions of accused heretics was confiscated and donated to the furtherance of the will of Holy Church—after a reasonable portion was tendered to the local representative of secular power—there was, in truth, not a great deal of money to be had in Furze to begin with. The coffers of the House of God, in fact, were all but empty.

Fra Giovanni brought the news, adding it to his customary morning report. He was nervous, worried. There was nothing to be had from Shrinerock Abbey, the Benedictine monks held a charter directly from the Holy See and were therefore beyond reach, and even the slow but steady transfer of principal from the cathedral fabric fund, he informed the Inquisitor, had accomplished little. Furze had gone bankrupt long ago. The Inquisition was in danger of following it.

Siegfried leaned back in his chair, looked out the window that was streaming with morning light. Oh, for a glimpse of divine radiance that would blaze forth with the same uncompromising brilliance as this sunshine! Then Siegfried would know. Then he would be sure.
Latens deitas
no more!

But the sunlight remained sunlight, and the Deity remained hidden. Siegfried was looking at the morning, that was all, and the coffers remained empty. Perhaps this was a test.

“What about Paul Drego?” he said.

Giovanni nodded toward the thick book that occupied one corner of Siegfried's desk. “It is all there, Brother Siegfried.”

Siegfried looked at the book, was silent. Empty coffers and God's will. A heretic forfeited both his property and his right to enter into contracts and bargains from the moment of his heresy, and, according to this book of gathered intelligence and rumor, Paul had fallen into heresy long ago, even before he had, in the tavern with James, refused to swear (thereby branding himself a Waldensian), or speculated on the question of the poverty of Christ (thereby allying himself with the Beghards and the ignorant but pernicious Spirituals). But at that time, Paul had possessed little more money than James, and considerably less than Simon; and even Simon, the wealthiest man in Furze—of course he was wealthy: he was a Jew—had difficulty putting sufficient bread on his table.

But now the situation had changed. Or, rather, was changing. Paul was still poor, but he had the promise of Aldernacht money. But if Paul were indeed already a heretic, then the Aldernacht contract was null and void, and the moneys would revert to Jacob's family. Furze would remain poor and foundering, and the Inquisition would remain poor and foundering right along with it.

Siegfried picked up the book, leafed through a few pages of the close written entries. The tavern. Visitors at the house. Remarks made in the square. Denunciations from neighbors who might or might not bear a grudge over the matter of a basket of Christmas figs . . .

But if Paul had been heretical before the contract had been signed, then there would be no money.

God's will, God's triumph. Siegfried weighed the book in his hand. It represented weeks of work, but what were weeks against eternity? A final consideration, then, a final decision . . .

. . . and he tossed the book into the trash bin.

Giovanni looked startled. “Brother—”

“The results so far are inconclusive,” said Siegfried.

“But—”

“The Inquisition, Fra Giovanni, is not accustomed to punishing the innocent. The guilty we track down with all the vengeance of angels and the determination of hounds: not even death can come between us and the punishment of the confirmed heretic. But we must have proof. Conclusive proof. Therefore . . .” Siegfried felt unclean. He had uttered a lie. But he reminded himself that it was a good lie, that God was depending upon that lie. “. . . we will look further at Paul Drego and his friends. We will watch him carefully, for though he may not yet have fallen into heresy, it is quite possible that he is very close to it.”

Giovanni stared. Siegfried saw his thoughts. The book . . . the evidence . . .

“Give the necessary orders, Fra Giovanni. Have Paul watched. And . . .” There was another side now to Furze . . . and to money. Jacob Aldernacht. Wealthy beyond belief. And his house musician had uttered heresy. What if . . . ? “I will question Harold this afternoon.”

Giovanni stared a little more, mouth half open. Then, abruptly, he gathered his wits. “As you wish, Brother Siegfried,” he said, and he left the room.