Strands of Starlight (28 page)

And she looked into her changing, stirring heart, and faced what she saw there with honesty. There was no other way.

“Teacher,” she said at last, “how do I learn . . . to be?”

***

Market day in Saint Blaise: the snorting of horses and mules, the cries of vendors and storekeepers, the tread of many feet. A child's voice rose above the clamor.

”It is the Spring,

Hey, ding-a-ding!

Now all Good Folk do dance and sing.”

It was a girlish treble, bright and clear in air washed clean by the morning's rain. George thought he heard a lute, too, but he could not be sure as he shouldered his way through the crush of people at the town gate. Leave them to their market. It was too fine a day to stay amid stone walls and cobbled streets.

Outside the town, he stood at the edge of the road for a moment, greeting the farmers, the merchants, the artisans as befitted a good mayor. He smiled and waved at those who recognized him, shook hands with a few. This was the first of the large markets to which people came from great distances, even from Maris and Hypprux, and the road was crowded.

Perhaps there was a crusade in the offing, George thought, but on a day like this the possibility seemed remote. Everything was too fresh, the April skies as blue as Janet's eyes, the clouds—all that was left of the rain—glittering as white as the snow that remained on the upper slopes of the Aleser Mountains. How could such things as crusades and wars exist in a world that possessed such skies? Such clouds? Such mountains? George's heart grew, and his smile, already hearty and full of goodwill, was magnified.

“Good morning to you, brothers,” he said to a group of three friars—Dominicans by the look of them—who were just then passing by.

One lifted his head to expose a ruddy, pink-cheeked face. “God bless you, sir,” came the reply.

George tucked his thumbs thoughtfully into his belt and began to whistle as he crossed the fields in which the weeders were already waddling through the crops with hook and fork. Later, he told himself, there was time later in the day to give further thought to defending Saint Blaise from Aloysius Cranby. Nothing could happen today. There was no point in putting the town under siege before there were armies about to besiege it.

George spent the morning in the forest, reveling in the flowers, the grass, the new-leafed trees. There was something precious here, and it could not be found inside city walls. Nor could the richest man in Adria buy it. As ephemeral as starlight, it could slip through one's fingers, and yet it could wrap itself powerfully around one's heart and possess it utterly.

But he seemed to hear Thomas a'Verne talking again. The old ways were dying. And what would come to take their place? Old Thomas himself had passed on during the winter—God rest him!—and had left behind him a world that was shrinking too swiftly from what it could be, from what it once was. Well, Thomas was finished with it.

His thoughts turned suddenly pensive, George returned to the town, his head bent, his mind elsewhere. He was hardly aware of the cries of the people and animals, and though the child was still singing about spring, about flowers and dancing, he did not hear the music.

Yes, Thomas was dead. Roger of Aurverelle was chamberlain now. Suddenly a crusade did not seem so impossible.

To escape the crowds, he took a turning into the alleyway behind his house and let himself in through the kitchen door. Dolores, the housekeeper, was not in the kitchen, but more than likely she was off buying supplies for the year.

Slowly, he climbed the rear stairs to his office. There were maps and inventories waiting for him, along with thoughts of war. He passed the landing that led to Janet's room and peeked in at his daughter. She was bent over a book,reading, and did not notice.

With a fond smile, he finished climbing the stairs and settled behind his desk. He was breathing hard. Maybe it was time to lose some weight

There was a quiet knock on the door to the hallway, and Dolores stuck her head in. “Oh, my lord,” she said, her voice low and tense, “I thought I'd heard you come up.”

“I'm here, Dolores. Do you need me for something?”

She glanced over her shoulder and shrugged helplessly. “You've visitors, my lord. They want to see you now.”

Visitors? George felt his stomach become suddenly queasy. “Uh . . . of course.”

Dolores opened the door and stepped back. Three Dominican friars entered, throwing back their hoods as they did so. Two waited on either side of the door. The third stepped forward, holding a familiar green cloak that was embroidered with the ensigns of Saint Blaise and the Free Towns.

George stared at the cloak. “How did—” But his voice failed when he lifted his eyes and saw that the bearer of the garment was Aloysius Cranby.

The sense of unease that had possessed Saint Brigid grew along with the crops. Twice a week, there was pike practice on the common for the men and the sturdier boys of the village. The gates of the town were shut just after sundown and opened just before dawn. Francis's hammer rang throughout the day, forging weapons.

There was still talk in the town council of hiring mercenaries, and the names John Hawkwood, Guy Asleman, and Timothy Raydenburn came up frequently. Hawkwood was of particular interest, since he and his followers were just across the French border. Mercenaries would cost money, though, and it was the wealthier Free Towns that would have to make that decision.

But as the days followed on another into late April, there was no word from Saint Blaise. Artisans who attended the fairs held in the northern town reported that the atmosphere there was tense, and that the mayor, George Darci, was silent and, according to some, sad.

It was not an atmosphere that encouraged the forgetting of swordplay, but Miriam tried. At night, she practiced the dance on the common, but she thought as little as she could about what the movements meant. Starlight flowed through her mind and her body, and at times she felt as though she moved at the bottom of a deep lake, felt the liquid resistance of the subtle energies that she pushed and pulled. She was aware of the energies. She was aware of their ebb and flow. She ignored what she might, someday, do with them.

She saw Terrill infrequently. Sometimes as much as a week went by between his visits. He watched her dance when he came, and he nodded in approval, but he said nothing of fighting. Miriam did not ask. She knew that his methods were obscure and sometimes frustrating, but she trusted him.

Many days she spent wholly within the town. She had friends in Saint Brigid whom she had not seen in weeks, some not in months, and she took time to seek them out. She chatted with Francis and Hester, spent time playing with the children, inspected the dog she had healed so long ago. She helped Elizabeth with her housework and Roxanne with her baby. And if, in the midst of sweeping, or throwing a ball, or shopping, the thought came to her that the gown she wore was not her usual garb, or that she should be out in the fields with Terrill, she dismissed it gently.

For the first time in her life, she had a goal that went further than survival for one more day, or more recently, revenge upon the stranger in the forest. She would survive, and she would have her revenge, but she was catching glimpses now of a life beyond both, one that stretched off into unfathomable futures, one that wove itself into an intricate pattern of strands of starlight. And she knew it, and she wanted it, and if her heart needed time to heal, then she would take that time.

Now and again, clad as an Elf, she took to the forest, spending long, warming afternoons by the side of a brook, feeling—becoming--the water, the stones that poked up out of the current, the minnows that flashed silver in quiet pools. In her mind she mounted up into the air with sparrow hawks, or knew the musty closeness of a badger den. Often, when she returned to the town, she felt oddly distanced from the humans who lived in houses of wood and stone and straw. But there was nothing wrong with that. It simply was. And that was good.

***

When the war came to Saint Brigid, it came quietly, and unrecognized. Where the townsfolk had expected hundreds of men, here were only three. Where they had looked for gleaming mail and thick leather, here were the black and white habits of Dominicans.

The monks rode up the main street in the early afternoon. The children ran after them, and villagers looked up from their work in surprise and curiosity; but there was little about the three friars to provoke any sort of fear. The brother in charge of the group looked pleasant enough, with dark hair much streaked with silver and blue-gray eyes that peered about at the houses and shops. Nor did his companions seem at all terrifying, though they were definitely an unmatched set: one dark and thoughtful, the other pink and florid.

They spoke with the children, laughed at the dogs that ran barking alongside their horses, waved at the shopkeepers and housewives. The pink-cheeked friar even trotted over to a window now and again to ask directions or give a greeting.

Francis looked up from his anvil as they passed before the forge. The older man smiled and nodded. “Good day to you, Master Smith.”

“Aye, give ye peace.”

“Where is the house of the priest?”

Francis eyed him. The man was strong—all three were, in fact—and there was a sense of assurance in the way he moved and talked that seemed uncharacteristic of a humble friar. His hands were soft. The smith distrusted the combination, and he distrusted it all the more when he noticed an arrangement of the friars' baggage that did not quite disguise the presence of at least one sword.

Dominicans with swords? Francis rubbed his black beard. “On as ye come, and left at tha well,” he said slowly. “It's the house hard by tha church.”

“Thank you,” said the friar. “God bless.”

“Aye,” said the smith under his breath as the friars continued up the street. “I'm sure He wi'. And She too.” He shook his head and went back to work.

Kay opened his door in response to the bold knock, was struck nearly speechless for a moment, then managed to compose himself. Dominicans traveled widely, and there was nothing overtly unusual in their appearing at the door of a priest in the south of Adria. Saint Dominic would certainly not have stayed at an inn: why should his followers?

“God bless you,” said the oldest of the three. “I am Brother Louis, and these are my companions, Bartholomew and Hoyle.”

Kay nodded quickly. “I'm Kay, the priest. Please, come in.” His thoughts were spinning. Maybe—and his hope flashed—this had something to do with his letter to Augustine of Maris.

The three churchmen sat down at his table and accepted his offer of food and drink. Kay tried to control the shaking of his hands as he sawed off large chunks of Elizabeth's bread, but when he dropped the knife to the floor with a clatter, he realized that there was silence in the room. He turned to find that the trio were watching him.

Louis smiled, but his eyes did not change expression. “There is no need to be nervous,” he said. “We are on . . . an investigative mission, sent by the good bishop of Maris. He received your letter not long ago and wishes to be of aid.”

“Oh,” said Kay. “Thank God! We've been terrified here in the Free Towns.” The priest's heart leaped, but something about the three friars made him resolve to be cautious. Louis's words said one thing, but his manner said another.

He piled bread and cheese on a tray and brought it to the table. Hoyle and Bartholomew fell to without comment. Louis delicately broke off a piece of bread and looked at it. “Your bread is well made. There is a woman's hand in it, no doubt.”

“The bread was made by one of the village women,” said Kay. “I do have a housekeeper, though.” He did not elaborate.

“Worth her weight in rubies, I imagine.” Louis smiled blandly and popped the fragment into his mouth.

Kay felt horribly alone.

“So tell me, Kay,” said Louis. “What say the people of Saint Brigid? Aloysius Cranby speaks of inquisition and crusade. He accuses the Free Towns of heresy, and of trafficking with Elves.”

“He does indeed.” Kay was offering nothing until he was sure.

Louis eyed him thoughtfully. His middle-aged face was incongruously boyish, but his eyes were wary. “You are new to this cure, are you not?”

“I grew up in Saint Brigid,” said Kay, wondering at the change in subject. “I have not been priest here long, though.”

“Ah, yes. The matter—the odd matter—of your predecessor, Jaques Alban.”

Kay wondered: what were the sympathies of Augustine of Maris that he would send such an ironic questioner? “Alban? He disappeared a few years ago.”

Louis was spreading butter on a piece of Elizabeth's bread. “Just so. Disappeared. Odd. We hear of so few priests who disappear . . . just like that.” His voice was dry. “They are usually a timid sort who stay around their churches and do not bother with such messy things as disappearing. Indeed . . .” He cut a piece of cheese, peered at it, grunted in satisfaction. “Indeed, one might almost suspect . . . say . . . witchcraft.”

Kay felt himself growing warm. His forehead turned moist.

“Witchcraft . . . or maybe Elves.”

Kay shrugged and poured himself some peppermint tea. To his relief, his had was steady. “Alban might have gone into the forest and run into something. A wild beast. A bear perhaps.”

“Or a boar, maybe.” Louis looked at him over the rim of his mug, his eyes crinkled in a sort of a smile.

Kay set down his tea. “Is there something that you want to say, Brother Louis? I'm a simple village priest, and I don't know the niceties of the city. I call a tub a tub, if you know what I mean.”

“Hmmm.” Louis left off drinking. “Well, really, Kay, I am not trying to say anything. I am asking questions for Augustine delAzri of Maris. Before he commits to a defense of the Free Towns, he wants to know his facts. Aloysius Cranby is not a man to go up against unarmed. Do you see my meaning?”

“Of course.” Why did his stomach persist in churning.

“There have been rumors about Saint Brigid. I would be very surprised if they were true, for if they were, the facts would have been reported to Church officials long ago by the worthy and loyal village priest. But the rumors themselves are damaging.”