Count Scar - SA (15 page)

Seneschal Guilhem roused himself enough to discuss rents with the convent's seneschal. The two of them sat in the visitors' courtyard, with Brother Melchior scribbling details. A few fruit trees
in a sheltered corner were putting out their first leaves, and somewhere a bird sang. High in the tower a bell's mellow note vibrated. There was no sign of any of the nuns, and I wondered if the
abbess would even want to see me.

But we had only been sitting a few minutes when a young woman in the white habit of a novice came out. She blinked at my scar but dipped her head to me shyly and said, "The Reverend Mother
will see you in her parlor, Count," then scampered away, leaving me to follow as best I could.

The abbess's parlor was a wide, dim room with a stone floor and no furniture beyond two chairs. There was a fireplace, but the hearth was cold on this late winter afternoon. The Abbess Richildis,
severe in a black habit, turned at my step. I had a quick impression of a serene face with a large nose in the center, a nose just like my grandfather's. She looked as though she had once been very
tall, but she now sat stooped in one chair, supporting herself on a cane. The novice hovered at her elbow.

I unbuckled my sword belt to leave it at the door and went down on one knee before her, hands upraised and head lowered. "Reverend Mother, I am Count Caloran of Peyrefixade, and, I believe,
your own nephew."

"Greetings, in God's name," she said. There was no quaver in her voice; it could have been the voice of a woman twenty years younger. The touch of an Auccitan accent, I abruptly realized, was
the same accent my grandfather had had, which I had only thought of as his way of talking and never identified as coming from the south. "I know very well who you are, Count Caloran,
grandson of my own brother. Come sit beside me. You may leave us, my dear," to the novice, "for the space of a half hour."

The girl curtsied and retreated. The Abbess Richildis turned her eyes toward me, bright even in this dim room. They, too, though set beneath thin white eyebrows, were not the eyes of an old
woman, and they looked calmly into mine as though staring straight through my flesh, including the scar, down to my soul.

"I am very sorry to say, Reverend Mother," I said somewhat nervously as I seated myself in the other chair, "that I only learned extremely recently that I even had an aunt. I have been trying
without success to remember my grandfather speaking of you, but he died while I was still a boy myself."

"There may have been no reason for him to mention me," she answered. Her tone was resonant with a great serenity, born of decades of prayer and contemplation, but I thought I sensed in it
something else as well, a curiosity and an enjoyment of experience that had not been superseded by the religious life but which she had incorporated into it. If she saw into my inner heart,
apparently she did not object to what she saw there.

"I became a novice here at the age of six," she continued, "and died to the world. And my two brothers, Bemhard and Caloran, were much too busy with boys' affairs to concern themselves about a
little sister. But you don't want to hear about me. I want to hear about you. When I learned that the duke had brought back a great-nephew of mine to rule at Peyrefixade, I very much hoped that
you would come to see me. Otherwise, in a little while, I might have had to send a message to you, and very strange I'm sure you would have found it to be summoned by the abbess of the Holy
Family, as though you were a recalcitrant neighbor who had begun fencing in the convent's pasturelands! So tell me first, did my brother Caloran succeed in taming that wild northern archduchy
after he married the heiress?"

I found myself after only a few minutes talking easily and comfortably to the abbess. I thought of telling her not to believe anything the Inquisition might relay about me, but decided it was
better not to mention the incident at all. She would certainly hear of it, but by then I hoped the archbishop and I would be well on our way to a cordial understanding. Perhaps standing up to the
wizened little priest the way I had was not entirely the way of wisdom, but if the other choice had been to light the fire myself then I had had no choice.

"So you too were from a family of two brothers and a sister?" the abbess asked.

I nodded. "My brother Guibert inherited the archduchy, I've now become count here, and our sister Gertrude— she died as a girl."

She nodded. "I received one or two messages from up north over the years, but a nun does not exchange letters with her relatives as though she were a young woman making a visit to the royal
court! It is curious, Nephew Caloran, but I was elected abbess as a reward for years of faithful prayer and unworldly thoughts, and now as abbess I have very little time for my private devotions
and have had to become aware of the world's affairs as I was not for fifty years."

"You must have been in contact in recent years with your brother Bernhard," I said. At least I might be able to learn something more about Peyrefixade, and the close relationship that had
apparently been maintained between the old count and the Order of the Three Kings—the close relationship that Thierri had wanted to break.

"Contact beyond the semiannual disposition of rents?" she said with a small smile. "Our parents were generous when they offered me to the Holy Family." So Melchior had been right, I thought.

"That, of course, was before the great war against the Imperfected, so I never saw the heretic castle which my father and then my brother made their own."

I should have realized that, I thought. No chance then of learning anything firsthand from her about my castle.

"I did see my brother Bernhard occasionally," she continued, "perhaps every two or three years for a brief visit even while I was a nun, more frequently in recent years once I became abbess. He
sometimes came himself to collect the rents rather than sending his seneschal. And that is why," her voice suddenly dropped, and she leaned forward so sharply in her chair that for a moment I
was afraid she was going to fall, "I would like to ask for your help." She lifted her eyebrows apologetically. "He and his granddaughter, of course, were not truly my family, because I have
belonged since I was six to the Holy Family. But humor an old woman's whim. I do not seek revenge, only knowledge. Help me find out why they died."

I cocked my head, surprised. "There's no secret about it. The countess died a few months ago from a fall from the castle ramparts. No one saw the accident, though there are plenty of rumors."

Would I have to offer lands and rents for my cousin's soul, I wondered, or would some new altar vessels and cloth for the nuns' habits do as well? "As to her grandfather, the old count— I never
heard anything specific, but I assume he died from old age."

"I do not mean the method of their deaths," she said quietly. "That of course I know perfectly well. Indeed, although ultimately my brother's death was from old age, the precise cause was a broken
hip. He was riding with some of his knights and Lord Thierri, his granddaughter's husband. His horse became spooked somehow and threw him, and he declined rapidly and was gone within a
month. No, I mean something more, Nephew Caloran. I want to know why both of them died within a year. Was it merely a coincidence, or the devil jealous of their good works in the world? Or
was there a human agent, perhaps one who preferred someone else at Peyrefixade?"

She was touching on something I wanted to know myself. "The duke chose me to become count at Peyrefixade," I stammered, "but I scarcely suspect him of getting rid of the old count and the
countess in order to bring in a man he'd never met!"

Inwardly I was thinking that people who got too close to Thierri seemed strangely inclined to die: first his wife's grandfather, although I had not heard before the faintest rumor that Thierri
might have hastened the old man's death, convenient as it may have been for him, and then Countess Aenor herself. Nothing Thierri had told me, including his suspicions that the Order of the
Three Kings was responsible for her death, could be given any credence.

Abbess Richildis gave a small smile. "The duke I might suspect of many things, if it were not inappropriate in a nun to have such thoughts, but pushing my niece from the castle ramparts is not
among them. I hope you realize, however, Nephew Caloran, that he may possibly be making plans for you."

The room had become darker while we spoke, though I could still see the brightness in the old abbess's eyes. "Is this a veiled warning," I hazarded, "about his daughter Arsendis?"

"Then you have met the young lady!" the abbess said, pleased. "I am sure you have been told that she rejected the match her father had made for her, even though it was an excellent one as the
world reckons these matters. Ever since the duke's son left his court—I will not recount that story, as it is very painful to contemplate—Argave has had to treat his two daughters as his heirs."

She paused for an embarrassed titter, surprising in one so serene. "You see how my duties have forced me to be aware of the world's rumors! The oldest daughter obediently married a count from
some distance east of here five years ago, and the duke feels it imperative that young Arsendis also marry well, though he will not force his choice upon her. It is possible, Nephew, that Duke
Argave may be considering your potential as a son-in-law— especially if he fears the alternative is Prince Alfonso."

"Prince Alfonso!"

"The prince has repeatedly proposed the union to Duke Argave in the strongest possible terms. He even came here once himself, promising a rich gift to the nuns if I would second his cause with
the duke." The abbess shook her head. "You see how much the world distracts me!" But the Abbess Richildis, I guessed, had not acceded to Alfonso's request.

I smiled. "I myself seek only a gently-born lady who would have me as I am, and I do not flatter myself that Arsendis is that lady."

Before the abbess could add anything more to this intriguing discussion, the young novice returned. "It has been a half hour, Reverend Mother."

"Of course, my dear. Help me rise." I hurried to assist the old abbess with a hand under her elbow as she levered herself to her feet, supporting her weight on the cane and the novices arm. She
might once have been as tall as I, but was now so stooped she came no higher than my chest. "Bless you, Nephew Caloran," she said, turning up her face toward mine, "and thank you for visiting
me." This close I could see all the wrinkles that age had left, but none of them threatened either her serenity or the spark in her eyes. "If you learn anything about that of which we spoke, come
visit me again."

It was not until she disappeared through an inner door, and I had retrieved my sword and gone back out to see how the rent rolls were coming, that I realized that I had never discussed with her
my gift for the countess's soul.

It was good to be home in Peyrefixade. As I settled down in my own bed again—I had long since stopped thinking of it as the countess's bed—I felt secure as I had not for a week. Just seeing the
dark red tower from the valley below had made my spirits lift. Now that I had seen my whole county, I knew that being the scarred Count of Peyrefixade was better than being the unscarred Lord
Caloran of anywhere else. The duke might be developing elaborate plots in which I played a major role, plots that could take a distinct turn for the worse once he discovered I had defied the
Inquisition; Lord Thierri might be thinking up ways that he could replace me here; Prince Alfonso might be planning to eliminate me to make easier his access to my county, not to mention to
the duke's daughter; the heretics might want their castle back; and the Inquisition might feel that I was behaving entirely inappropriately for a son of the True Faith; but none of them could touch
me here.

I sighted contentedly, looking through the bed curtains to the soft glow from the fine new fireplace. All around me I could hear the men settling down to sleep and even the first snores. The
muscles that had been gripping a horse all up and down my county slowly relaxed, and I dozed off.

When I opened my eyes again in a short time, rolling no over to go from dozing to deep sleep, I could still see the fire's warm glow, but it seemed somehow brighter than I expected. The bed had
gone from comfortably warm to unpleasantly hot, and a loud crackling surrounded me. I sat up abruptly, my heart racing in panic as I tried desperately to determine what was dream and what
was reality.

The reality was worse than any dream. The bed curtains were on fire.

Chapter Six ~ Melchior

Chapter Six ~ Melchior

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Count Caloran and the others might be happy to be home, but I had returned to Peyrefixade sore in body and troubled in soul. I had been a sworn canon of the Order more than half my life and a
priest since I was twenty. I held myself to be a faithful son of the True Faith. Yet all my confidence, my painfully constructed fortress of detachment, had crumbled into nothing when I saw those
three poor souls about to be consigned to the flames, just as Grandfather and his companions had been on that terrible day when I was still just a boy. As soon as the hall settled down for sleep, I
rose quietly from my pallet and slipped up the stairs to the chapel, to spend the hours until it was time to sing the night office in deep examination of my heart and earnest prayer.