Sanctuary (Dominion) (10 page)

I wasn't sure what to say. It was an awful story, brutal in its finality. But I found myself more curious why he would even tell it. "Who was he?" I asked.

"Who?"

"The farmer. The one who died."

Arkael looked up at me with wide, guilty eyes, almost as if I’d caught him in a lie. But then he just shook his head. "I don't know." He turned and wandered away from the fire, out into the darkness. "I have no idea," he muttered.

I would have gone after him but I knew he was in no danger. I assumed a man like Arkael had nothing to fear from anything roaming about in the woods, even while drunk. So I would wait until the morning, until all of us had a chance to rest and regain our wits. Then I would ask my questions, and find out just what tonight had been about.

*****

"Hunlaf!" Ailbert's voice woke me with a start, and I half sat, half rolled over at the sound of camp being broken. "Bring those bottles. I can still use those." I looked over to see everyone else awake already and packing their things. Pots, utensils, weapons and jewelry clanged together as everything was stuffed tightly into the wagons. Of course, none of the noise went unnoticed by my throbbing headache.

Ailbert stood by his cart, lording over the camp like a king while Inar and Hunlaf gathered the few remaining dishes and blankets lying on the ground. Edmar and his son stacked their cups and plates into one of the chests on the second cart, while Oswin and Hrodgar waited by the third, already packed. The only person I couldn’t see was Arkael. I hurried to my feet and looked around, but saw him nowhere nearby.

“Good morning, Father,” Ailbert said, gracious as ever. “Sleep well?”

"I’m afraid I’m still recovering from that ale,” I said, wincing from the sunlight, and from standing up too fast. “Where is Arkael?"

"Not here, my friend," Ailbert said.

“What do you mean?”

"He left," Hunlaf said, his deep, gruff voice catching me by surprise. "He came back in the night. Took his pack and left." He pointed north. “That way.”

That was impossible. He couldn’t have gone. He told me just the other night that I was welcome to travel with him. He let me keep up with him, even though I was slowing him down. Why would he leave now? What had changed?

"How long ago?" I asked, hoping I could still catch up.

"Long time ago," the dwarf said.

My spirits fell, and the dull throbbing in my head became overpowering as I realized my situation. I was in the middle of nowhere, my only protection gone, and I had no idea where to even search for him.

"Looks like you're alone, friend," Ailbert said, none too helpfully.

"Good riddance, too," the dwarf added. "Forest was quiet with him around. Wasn't natural."

I scanned the horizon to the north, but it was no use. No one was there.

I looked down at my satchel, and at Humbert’s cup which lay on its side next to me, the only item left unpacked from last night’s reverie, and I remembered our conversation, the story Arkael told us, about the farmer and his wife. I struggled to think of any details that might have set him off, that would make him angry enough to disappear into the night. But I could come up with nothing. He was just gone, as unexpectedly as he’d arrived.

I was alone.

Part 2

Eoferwic

Chapter 8

“It’s me, Dagbert. Daniel. From the church.”

The world was cold and rainy when I finally reached the gates of Eoferwic on the afternoon of October 28th, a fitting portent of my days to come. My legs and back ached from six days of arduous travel across the British countryside, and my arms shivered no matter how still I held them. The steady rain from earlier in the day had turned into a light mist, but my clothes were still drenched, and my body chilled to the bone. Traveling in these conditions was dangerous, but I could at least be thankful I hadn’t been waylaid by sleet or snow. Even the hardiest of men could find themselves dead on the side of the road after getting caught unprepared in a winter storm.

An old Roman wall easily twice my height surrounded the southern edge of town, on the near side of the river Ouse, while an earthwork topped with a wooden palisade protected the rest of the city. The thick oak gate at the southwest corner, flanked by the Roman walls, stayed open, which meant there were no enemies nearby. Two lonely soldiers stood guard. One, a young man I didn’t recognize with a bored look on his round, too-trusting face, leaned back against the wall, chewing on a weed, while the other was older, with a haggard face and a thin frame that barely supported the oversized leather jerkin he wore. It was the older one who stood before me with a confused expression.

“Daniel?” he asked, although I couldn’t tell if he remembered me, or if he said the name to jostle his memory.

I'd returned home, or at least the closest thing I had to one. I'd grown up here, in this bustling trade town in the southern reaches of Northumbria. My mother brought me here when I was five and died shortly after, leaving me in the care of the church as an orphan. I grew up among the priests, the nuns and the Bishop, caring for their herd, cleaning the place, preparing food, and performing whatever chores they deemed necessary to keep a curious little boy out of their hair. It wasn’t an easy life, but it could have been worse. Some of the priests treated me well, and I still had fond memories of them. But even though they brought me into their fold, I never felt like I belonged here. That’s why I was eager to leave when I did, and why I only returned when I had no other choice.

Dagbert had been a city guard as long as I could remember. He’d shooed me away plenty of times as a child, and even a few times as a young man. But he was old even then, and as he stared at me, his milky eyes squinting in the hazy evening sunlight, I wondered if his memory might be failing.

“Oh! Daniel!” he said, and I smiled, relieved. He slapped my arm, nearly knocking me sideways. He still packed a punch. “I remember you, boy. I thought you left. To study in Rome or wherever they teach the young priests?”

“I was there, yes,” I said. “Now I’m back. I’m looking to find a place to stay for a while.”

“As well you should. Winter’s about to freeze all our arses off, boy!” His expression changed when he realized what he’d said. “Oh, sorry. Guess I should mind my tongue when I'm around you, huh?”

“It’s quite all right, Dagbert.” I smiled, putting him at ease.

“Hengist,” he motioned the other guard over, “this is Daniel. Look at him, coming back to us a priest, aren’t you?”

Hengist glanced at me and nodded, then went back to leaning against the wall and picking at his ear. Once I heard the name I recognized him as the youngest son of a smith named Brehan. We didn't know each other as children but I remembered hearing a story once, just before I left, about how Hengist had impregnated the serving girl of a local lord who kept his home in the city. I wondered if they'd ended up married, though I supposed his job as a city guard now answered that question for me.

“You should be getting to the church then, shouldn’t you, boy?" Dagbert said. "Go on in, then. It’s right where you left it.” He laughed. “Tell ‘em I said hi.”

He waved me through the high, arched gate and I plodded along the worn stone path that led through the old Roman parts of town, right up to the bridge that crossed the river. Tradesmen, crafters, sellers and buyers crowded the streets just north of the river, trading money, food, leather, pottery, jewelry, clothes and anything else anyone would pay for. Pack mules lined the road, smoke wafted lazily from most buildings and the smell of ale and pork carried on the wind, making me realize just how cold and hungry I was. I lingered on the near side of the bridge, though, watching the riverbank just before it disappeared underneath. I’d played down there as a child with a few other boys whose names I only partially remembered. One of them died young, another lost interest in us, and the last left when his parents went south for work. Godric. That was his name.

The main church – there were three other smaller ones in the city, catering mostly to the poor – was situated in the northwest corner of the city, inside the walls of the old fort that had been the heart of this place at its birth in the first century. It was past the marketplace, the tradesmen’s shops, the taverns and everything else this town had to offer. I would see it all on my way there, and every building would bring back a memory I may or may not want. Playing under the bridge, for example, or the mildly sweet smell of fresh bread as I walked past the baking ovens in the market over and over again, or when Mildrith, the daughter of a carpenter, kissed me behind the stables of the Sothward Inn. Even the walls themselves reminded me of the first time I came to this city. I’d marveled at everything, never in my life having seen so many people and homes in one place, and I’d wondered at the time if my mother had somehow been made a princess and was taking us to a great hall.

And then there were the memories I wished I could wipe from my mind. Like the beating I received from the Bishop for stealing as a boy, and then being beaten again for lying about it. Or the day I saw Mildrith kissing some other boy behind the very same stables. Or the day my mother died. She’d been sick and I didn’t even know. I was seven years old, and had just finished dinner when the Bishop took me into his office and told me she’d gone to heaven to see God. I didn’t understand, of course, and I found out later that night she’d died from some disease no one could even name. But that wasn’t the worst part. The priests told me I couldn’t see her body. It had to be burned to keep her disease from spreading. I’d been with her only a few hours before, helping with laundry, and she’d looked just as she always had, but some sickness lurked within her and took her without warning. The only family I had left in the world, the only person I loved, was gone, and my lasting image of her was as a servant, lugging around a water bucket.

My throat tightened and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of her in so long. She was taken from me so early in life that I never even had a chance to know what kind of person she was. She loved me, and treated me well, but that was a mother interacting with a young boy. I’d never know what she really thought about, or what she enjoyed, or even feared. I chalked it up to another example of a cruel, hostile world. My father died when I was a baby and my mother when I was a child, leaving me to navigate this existence all on my own, with no one to guide me. And like most directionless young men, I’d blamed God for my misfortune. I suppose I still did. And that made growing up in a church a difficult and complicated experience. But I was glad to remember this now. I couldn't become wistful or complacent. I needed to remember that I still had a quest to finish.

The brick path leading to the Roman section of Eoferwic widened, eventually opening up into a large square plaza surrounded by grand, two-story, stone buildings. A grassy mound filled the center, topped by a small fountain sitting under the shade of an oak tree, and various estates lined the southern and northern edges, all of them separated from the plaza by a waist-high enclosing wall. The church, though, filled the entire western side, looming over everything with its imperious presence. An open gate in the wall led across a small walkway to the giant double doors of the church, each with a flat iron cross in the center, large iron knockers just below each cross, and thick, simple curved handles that met in the middle. I avoided those doors, though, and instead walked around to the back, toward the two-story annex that held bedrooms, classrooms, a kitchen and a small library. That's where the servants and the nuns would be this late in the evening, and I preferred to announce myself there, first.

A child sat on the ground just outside the back door to the annex, a blanket wrapped around his thin shoulders. He couldn't have been more than five or six years old, with thick brown hair, and arms and legs that were all bone and skin. He held a stick in his hand, using it to draw something in the dirt. He looked up at me curiously as I approached, and I wondered if I’d struck a similar expression sitting on those steps as a boy.

“Good evening,” I said, smiling.

He stared at me silently for a moment, examining my wet robes and hair, and then went back to his dirt. I decided to leave him be. I remembered how important drawing in the dirt could be when you’re forced to do chores all day.

Through the back door was a narrow hallway, with several closed doors lining either side. I moved past them quietly, not wanting to disturb anyone, and then past the empty library to my right. The hall angled left, leading to a small kitchen, along with a storeroom and a pantry. Past that was another door that led to the grassy courtyard between the annex and the church. I stood in the kitchen for a long moment, next to a large pot of boiling water sitting over an open fire. The heat was glorious, and I wished I had dry clothes to change into so I could just curl up here on the floor all night. The door to the storeroom closed and I turned to see a woman in a nun’s habit standing behind me.

“Hello?” she said. The two nuns who’d been staying at the church when I left were named Agnes and Ethelwan, and this woman was neither. She was tall, thin and middle-aged, with brown hair sneaking out of her habit, and a face best described as pointed and surly. She likely thought me a crazed intruder. “Is there something I can help you with?”