The Cross and the Dragon (46 page)

“Do you pine for your old life?” Radegunde asked, her face and voice stern.

“I know my husband is alive, Mother Radegunde.”

Alda looked at Christ crucified in the mural behind the abbess, the supreme sacrifice, this death so the faithful could live.
Which saint should I heed?
she asked Him.
What is Your will?

Radegunde had another coughing fit. “Your vow to Our Lord is more sacred than an arrangement between your husband and your kin.”

“I know,” Alda said softly. “But…” She could not say any more.

“Mother,” Plectrude interjected, “perhaps the Lord did send Hruodland.”

Radegunde cut Plectrude off with a glare and dismissed the prioress with a wave of her hand.

“But…” Plectrude protested.

“Go,” Radegunde barked, before coughing again.

Plectrude hesitated and then obeyed.

When Plectrude left the room, Radegunde laid her staff aside. She rose from her chair, descended the steps and touched Alda’s sleeve. “The love of Our Lord is more glorious than that of any man,” she said.

“Can I not love both the Lord and my husband?” Alda asked, her voice cracked.

“Your husband might say he loves you, but…”

“I know he loves me,” Alda interrupted, drawing her arm away from Radegunde. “I have given him reason to have the marriage annulled. No doubt his uncles would oblige. To come all this way for a woman who did not bear him children, why else would he be here?”

“Perhaps on an errand from the Devil to tempt your soul from the path to heaven.”

“My husband is a good man.” She squared her shoulders. “He would never…”

The abbess doubled over as she coughed again. She took a rattling breath. “Perhaps, this man is not your husband,” Radegunde rasped.

“I know he is,” Alda insisted.

“The Devil is very clever. He knows your weakness.”

“But Hruodland was in the church. A devil would not step foot into a church. A devil would not wear a cross.”

“Then, perhaps, he is an agent of the Devil — an unintentional one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Did he tell you that Saint Melaine sent him?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps, it was not Saint Melaine, but the Devil.”

“How could that be? The relics would protect him.”

“The Devil is very clever, child,” the abbess said, guiding Alda to her adjoining study with one arm and taking a candle in her free hand. “But we have the Word of God as a defense. We have the Rule of Saint Benedict.” The abbess lit the candles in her study. “You can read.”

“A little,” Alda replied. The language of the church was still foreign to her.

“Read Saint Benedict for yourself,” Radegunde said.

The abbess picked a leather-and-wood-bound volume from a shelf and held it by the edges in both hands, almost afraid her touch would spoil it. She laid the book on the desk next to a small Pieta and turned the parchment, each page crafted with letters and illuminations. She pointed out the passage.

Alda bent over the book and read. She struggled over the curves of the letters and tried stringing them into words, translating them to Frankish, piecing the translation into a sentence.

“I cannot comprehend this,” she confessed.

“Saint Benedict is clear,” the abbess said. “It translates like this. ‘When she is to be received, she promises before all in the oratory stability, fidelity to the monastic life, and obedience. This promise she shall make before God and His saints, so that if she should ever act otherwise, she may know she will be condemned by Him whom she mocks.’”

Must this be Your will, Lord?
Alda prayed, gazing at the Pieta. It was as if a pack of wolves grabbed her heart and left nothing but a smudge of blood. Alda stared at the words, wishing she could will them to change, to make an exception. She knew Radegunde was watching her, yet she could not look up at her.

Radegunde coughed and spat on the ground. Blood.

“What is your choice, child?” she croaked.

As if I had a choice.
“I shall follow God’s will, Mother,” Alda murmured, looking down.

“Good. Return to your class.”

“What shall I tell Hruodland?”

“Nothing. I shall speak to him.”

“Allow me to see him one last time,” Alda pleaded.

“You have had enough temptation. Return to your class.”

“But this will break his heart. He ought to hear it from me. I am his wife. He deserves that. He ought to know it is God’s will, not mine.”

“You owe him nothing. He already is sabotaging your journey to heaven by bringing back your willfulness. Return to your class. Now.”

“Please,” Alda begged.

She felt the iron dragon amulet against her heart. It used to give her courage, boldness, like the boldness Siegfried needed to face the dragon.

Now it was a mere remembrance of an old life. She wanted to give it to Hruodland so he would remember her, even as he found another wife. She wanted him to remember that she never stopped loving him.

“No,” the abbess said harshly. “Need I remind you of your vow to obey? Return to your class. And leave here by a back door. I do not want you to see him.”

Radegunde followed Alda to the door of the reception room. Alda turned toward the hall, where Hruodland was.

“You are to go through that door,” Radegunde ordered, pointing the opposite way.

Alda’s gaze met the abbess’s.

Radegunde shuddered. “I see the Devil’s malice in your eyes. Obey me, or God will punish you.”

Alda pressed her lips together holding back the curses she wanted to yell. She obeyed the abbess’s command. Her eyes stung as she left the abbess’s residence. She hated the abbess and hoped her death would be bitter and painful.
I have just cut myself off forever from my husband.

* * * * *

Hruodland entered the abbess’s reception room. She sat on her throne, framed by the Crucifixion. She stared past Hruodland at the Christ over the doorway, the Christ judging a small naked soul, hearing at this moment whether she would wear white and go to the golden, rosy clouds or be thrown naked to the tortures of demons.

“Where is Alda?” Hruodland asked.

“She has chosen to follow the path to God,” Radegunde replied as if the Christ above the doorway asked the question.

“What do you mean?”

“She will remain at the abbey.”

Hruodland was silent for a moment. “She is my wife,” he said.

The abbess tightened her grip on her staff. With her free hand, she fingered her crucifix. Still staring at Christ, she said, “She is no longer yours. Her vow to God is sacred.” Her hand swallowed the crucifix. Her voice trembled. “There is no love greater than what Christ gives to us. I shall not let you break it. I shall not let you condemn her soul.”

She wants Alda’s wealth,
Hruodland thought, his wife’s gaunt face fresh in his mind.
I must get Alda to leave this madwoman, no matter what price, or she will die.
“If she returns with me,” he said, “I shall let you keep her dowry.”

“What does a dowry mean to God?” Radegunde snapped. “She is a sister, and we shall not forsake her.”

“I shall have the king remove you from your abbey.”

Radegunde’s frown deepened. Then she started coughing, the way his father had before he died. When the fit passed, the abbess’s spine straightened. Her eyes dropped from Christ to Hruodland and pierced him. The fist around the crucifix tightened.

“You will not threaten me,” she snarled. “Begone.”

“I almost died for Our Lord,” Hruodland roared.

The abbess stood and drove her staff to the floor beside her. “I said begone. If you do not leave, I shall have you removed.”

“By whom?” Hruodland mocked. “That lame, blind, old woman? Do you think I did not notice you want for young men among your tenants?”

Hruodland was going to take Alda back by force. No one could stop him. To his satisfaction, he saw the abbess was quaking. “Very well,” he said slowly. “I shall leave your residence.”

He walked to the church and waited in the cold mist. When the terce bell rang, he saw the women coming for prayers. Hruodland spotted Alda. Her eyes were red. Her face was flushed. She froze as he approached her. Other nuns turned to look at him.

He took two steps toward her and seized her arm. “You will come with me.”

“Husband, I cannot,” she said, looking toward the abbess.

Hruodland glared at the abbess. How dare she fill Alda’s head with such ideas! If it were not for Ganelon, Alda would never have met this madwoman. She would be at Drachenhaus, well fed and bargaining with the merchants.

“You are my wife,” he commanded. “You will do as I say.”

“Please do not make this more difficult. If you could but read the words of Saint Benedict…”

“And what does Saint Benedict say?”

“He says my soul will be damned if I leave the abbey.”

Hruodland was too stunned to speak. Alda would be damned? Alda? She had done nothing wrong, only sought refuge from Ganelon. Ganelon, that cur, was the one who should be damned. And if he were standing here, Hruodland would run a sword through him and send him to hell, where he belonged.

“I do not know why Saint Melaine sent you here,” Alda finally said. “Perhaps it is for me to release you so that you can marry a woman who will give you children.”

“You took a vow with me,” he growled, his grip tightening, “and I do not release you from it.”

Alda could no longer hold back the tears. She pulled her arm away from his grasp and reached for a ribbon under her clothes. She brought out the iron dragon amulet with the stone from Drachenfels and untied the ribbon. Pressing the amulet into his hand, she kissed him.

“Remember me,” she said. “Remember my love for you.”

She slipped a ring off his little finger. His morning gift to her.

“I shall not forget you,” she whispered.

She ran to her sisters. The abbess put her arm around Alda’s shoulders. Hruodland could see by the slump of Alda’s shoulders that she was crying. Her sisters gathered around her.

Hruodland knew he could carry her off, but he would not do so if it meant endangering her soul. Hruodland stared at the amulet. No one could have stopped him from taking her back. No one except her.

Fury clouded Hruodland’s eyes. Fury with Ganelon for such a low act. Fury with himself for failing to protect his wife. His blood enemy had won. Ganelon had failed to steal Alda’s honor, but he had done much worse. Because of Ganelon, Hruodland and Alda could no longer be together as man and wife.

“I will be avenged,” Hruodland muttered to the dragon. “We both will be.”

Chapter 31

Hruodland had one thought as the boat took him back to Drachenhaus’s riverbank: vengeance.

He looked toward the castle and found that clouds shrouded the mountain the way rage shrouded his heart. As he rode up the mountain, he brooded: Alda was forever lost to him, and it was Ganelon who caused it.

As soon as he stepped foot into the hall at Drachenhaus, his grief deepened. Servants had polished the table and chairs with linseed oil and lemon balm. The floor had been scrubbed and covered with fresh rushes, and a fire blazed in the hearth.

Theodelinda and Werinbert ran toward him. The smile on the dowager countess’s lips faded. “Where’s Alda?” she demanded.

“Alda cannot leave the abbey,” Hruodland growled.

Werinbert burst into tears. “Why?”

Theodelinda bent to comfort her grandson. “But she is still a novice. I thought novices could leave of their own free will.”

“That madwoman convinced her to take the vow early.” Fury burned in Hruodland’s dark eyes. “I tried to take her back by force, but she said she will be damned if she leaves the island.”