The Gathering Storm (31 page)

When she slipped back inside, bending to get under the lintel without banging her head, Rufus barred the door behind her as she checked the soles of her sandals in the lamplight to make sure she wasn’t tracking in anything awful.

They took both of the lamps as they returned to the choir. The front doors had been thrown open. Most of the worshipers had flocked outside, but a dozen waited by the doors, too cautious to venture out. The walls looked different; holding high her lamp, Hanna realized they were bare. The two tapestries lay on the floor, rolled up tight around the two criminals’ bodies; it was odd to see them squirming so. The tall cleric and the one called Gerwita huddled by the Hearth, whispering to Brother Fortunatus, who still held the altar cloth. The third knelt beside the wounded deacon, holding a lion-shaped lamp in one hand. With a pad of cloth torn from her own robe she applied pressure to the wound on the deacon’s back. Blood stained the prone woman’s white garment.

Hanna bent down beside her. “Sister Heriburg, will the deacon live?”

She had a bland, amiable face but a glance that hit like the sight of black storm clouds in winter. “I pray she will. It is in God’s hands now.”

Rufus had gone to the doors to examine the damage done by the ax. Here in the silence of the choir they were alone except for the muffled groans and panicked curses coming from the men bundled up in the tapestries. They had only two lights. Another five or six burned along the nave, but most of the remaining lamps had been taken forward to the doors by worshipers, making a veil of light that shrouded the night scene beyond.

“Are you loyal to Henry, Eagle?” asked Brother Fortunatus, coming up behind her.

“Yes. That is why I came.”

“From Princess Theophanu.”

Although she had not met this man in the months she had loitered in the regnal palace, she knew that her arrival had surely been gossiped about from the lowest halls to the highest. “I rode here at the behest of Princess Theophanu to bring a message to her father, the king.”

“Was there no Eagle who came to Theophanu in the time you were with her?”

She rose stiffly. Her legs ached from the effort she’d spent bracing; her bruised shoulder throbbed. Even her fingers hurt from gripping the chair leg so tightly before she’d hit the thief. The two women now flanked Brother Fortunatus: the tall one, still nameless, and timid Gerwita. They hardly looked like a foul cabal of conspirators. Wasn’t it possible that Henry had enemies who might seek to entrap the ones most loyal to him? If Hathui had told the truth, those who now controlled Henry would seek to eliminate anyone, even a common, powerless Eagle, who might act against them.

Anything might be possible.

From outside, the roar of acclamation rose to a high pitch as some notable—perhaps Henry and Adelheid themselves—approached down the thoroughfare.

“No Eagle came to Theophanu while I was with Her Highness, but I met one of my comrades north of the mountains who had come from Aosta. She rode one way, and I another. Where she is now I do not know.” The memory of Hathui’s expression, at the end of their conversation so many months ago, made her throat tighten. Yet for all the bitterness that curdled in her when she thought of Sanglant and Bulkezu, she could not wish Hathui ill. “I pray she is well.”

The cheering swelled at the porch of the church.

“Beware—” Fortunatus broke off as Rufus called to her and the people gathered at the doors cried out in thanksgiving as they knelt with heads bowed. A tall, elegant figure moved forward through the glow of lamplight like an angel advancing out of the darkness to lead the benighted to salvation.

Only this was not an angel.

She knew him even before she saw him clearly. No person who had seen him could ever forget him and especially not when he was burnished, as now, by the light of a dozen lamps and the heartfelt acclaim of people who had been rescued
from certain death by his timely arrival. A fire burned in her heart, and she took a few steps forward before she remembered what he had done to Liath. She scarcely heard the whispers and footfalls behind her as Hugh entered the church.

Presbyter Hugh, they called him here. Everyone talked about him, but it was easy to ignore talk. Talk did not have golden hair, a handsome face, and a graceful form.

“Is this where it happened?” he asked with outraged concern. He caught sight of Rufus. “An Eagle! I thank God you survived. Lady have mercy! Look how they tried to chop their way in through the door.”

It was impossible not to be moved by that beautiful voice, both resonant and soothing. Impossible not to be lulled, until the moment when he looked up, directly
at
her.

She stood frozen halfway down the nave, forgetting how she had walked so far, drawn as though by a tether line being reeled in.

He saw her.

He
knew
her.

“He always knows.” Liath had cried, long ago in Heart’s Rest. And he had known that day. He had returned to stop Hanna from speaking with her friend. He wanted no comfort given to the one he had made his slave.

Just like Bulkezu.

Such a shudder of misgiving passed through Hanna’s body that the lamp trembled in her hand. He smiled gently, and she remembered the way he had looked at her that day in Heart’s Rest in the gloom of the chapel: as if he were measuring her to decide if she posed a threat to him.

He had dismissed her then. She was only a common girl. He might recognize her face, because of her link to Liath, but she doubted he remembered anything else about her.

It was better when they didn’t know your name.

“We heard news of an Eagle come from Princess Theophanu,” he said, walking forward. She remembered to kneel; she found another bruise that way, on her right knee, that she’d gotten without knowing. He paused beside her without looking at her, because he was examining the choir with a mild expression of surprise. “Are you the last one here?”

Rufus stood behind him, looking puzzled as he, too, stared
at the choir and the writhing tapestries. She turned her head. The four clerics were gone.

“The other clerics—” Rufus began.

“—fled with the rest, in fear of their lives,” she interrupted. “We are all that is left. Your Excellency, if I may rise, there is an injured deacon and the two criminals who assaulted her. She is gravely injured.”

Hugh knelt beside the deacon, lifting the bloodstained pad of cloth from the wound. He frowned and set fingers carefully along the curve of her throat, and shook his head. “She is dead. May God have mercy on her soul.” After murmuring a blessing, he looked up. “Do you know her name?”

“I do not, Your Excellency,” she lied. “My comrade and I came here to St. Asella’s today because we were told we might hear the lesson delivered in Wendish, which our souls craved to hear after so many months in a foreign land.”

“Ah.” He dabbed a smear of blood off his forefinger onto the deacon’s robe and rose. “Eagle.” He indicated Rufus. “Certain of the king’s soldiers wait outside. See that these criminals are taken away to the regnant’s dungeon. I will send clerics from the queen’s schola to take away this poor deacon’s body and prepare it for burial.”

At the Hearth he studied the holy lamp set on the bare stone floor, the scattered vessels, and the altar cloth spilled carelessly over them. “A grave crime,” he said as he picked up the altar cloth and the vessels and set all to rights, smoothing the gold-trimmed cloth down over the Hearth and placing holy lamp and precious vessels in the precise arrangement on its surface, reflecting the glory of the Chamber of Light, which awaits all faithful souls.

“It is a grave crime to assault and conspire against those who serve God and the regnant.” His gaze marked her, who was waiting only for his permission to go. He had beautiful eyes, a fine, dazzling light blue, but in their depths she saw a splinter of ice. “Isn’t it, Hanna?”

“Your Excellency.” It was all she could say.

“You will accompany me. Their majesties King Henry and Queen Adelheid will wish to hear your report. And so will I.”

Hersford Monastery had the slightly run-down look of an estate that has been neglected by an incompetent steward, but as Ivar and his companions approached the main gate, they saw scaffolding around the church tower and men laboring on its ladders and platforms, whitewashing the walls. Beyond the low double palisade that fenced off the monastic buildings from the surrounding estate, a group of lay brothers bound new thatch on the roof of the monks’ dormitory. Outside these walls men sawed and hammered, constructing benches and tables, while a trio of laborers built a kiln with bricks.

The gatekeeper had big hands, a big nose, and a relentlessly cheerful disposition once he realized he had visitors of noble lineage. “Come in, come in, friends. We’ll be glad to hear tidings from the east.” He called to a scrawny boy climbing in an apple tree. “Tell the guest-master I’m bringing visitors up.”

The child raced ahead. They followed more slowly, since the gatekeeper had a pronounced limp. His infirmity had not weakened his tongue. “The old abbot died last year, may he rest peacefully in God’s hands. Father Ortulfus has come new to us this spring, and though I do not like to speak ill of the dead, I will say that he has been setting things right, for I fear the monastery got run down. Father Ortulfus has even sent to Darre to see if a craftsman can be found to repair the unicorn fountain, which I’m sure you have heard of.”

“I fear we have not—” began Ivar, but the gatekeeper chattered on as he directed them to a side gate that opened into an enclosure surrounded by a high fence and populated by a tidy herb garden, a gravel courtyard, and three square log blockhouses, each one freshly plastered.

“Nay? You’ll see it soon enough. Here my lady must retire, for women aren’t allowed within the monastery walls. Father Ortulfus has brought his cousin to preside over the guesthouse and with her a few servingwomen to ensure the comfort of any ladies who may come by in traveling parties or with the king’s progress. Alas, under Father Bardo’s abbacy I fear that
women were let walk as they wished in the monastery itself, but that shan’t be happening now.”

A pretty young woman with a fair complexion and an almost insipidly sweet smile emerged from one of the cottages. “What have you brought us, Brother Felicitus?” She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. “We haven’t had a visitor in ages, although I fear, my lady, that you look in need of a bath.”

She clapped her hands. Three equally young women rushed out in her wake, followed at a more stately pace by an elderly matron who had the visage of a guard dog, ready to strike first and growl later.

“I am Lady Beatrix,” continued the first girl. “Cousin of Father Ortulfus. He’s my guardian now that my parents are dead, and he’s brought me here until—Oh!”

“Oh!” echoed her young companions.

They had seen Baldwin.

“Best you be getting on, Brother Felicitus,” said the matron threateningly, setting herself between her charges and temptation.

Hathumod stepped forward with a martial gleam in her eye. “I thank you for your welcome, Lady Beatrix. I am Hathumod. My grandmother was a count in the marchlands. I was first a novice at Quedlinhame—”

“How come you here, then, my lady?” interrupted Lady Beatrix, although she hadn’t taken her gaze off Baldwin, who stared soulfully at a table set under an awning and laden with wine, bread, and cheese. “Who are your companions?”

“I pray you, friends.” Brother Felicitus cleared his throat for emphasis. “Let us retire to a more appropriate place.”

“I’m so hungry,” said Baldwin plaintively. “We haven’t eaten for two days.”

Lady Beatrix dashed to the table and brought Baldwin an entire loaf of white bread, still smelling of the oven.

“I thank you,” he said, turning the full force of his limpid gaze on her innocent face. Ivar thought she might swoon, or perhaps he was the one who was dizzy because the bread smelled so good and he was really so desperately hungry.

“Come, come.” Brother Felicitus herded his charges toward
the gate. “Let us not linger here, but if you will come with me I will see that you are fed.”

As they retreated, Hathumod begin to speak. “How I came here is a long tale. If you have the patience for it, it will change you utterly.”

“No tale can be too long if it is also exciting,” retorted Beatrix, “for we bide ungodly quiet here. We get so few visitors—”

“She’s very young,” said Brother Felicitus as he closed the gate, cutting them off from the women’s enclosure. The men followed him through a gate in the log fence marking out monastic ground from the unhallowed buildings set up between the inner and outer fence. “But her parents are dead, her elder brother rode east with Princess Sapientia, and her elder sister died at the battle to recover Gent. Duchess Liutgard is her distant kinswoman, but the duchess has been called south by the king on his great expedition to Aosta, so it fell to her cousin Ortulfus to give her guidance.” Having established his abbot’s noble credentials, he felt free to eye Baldwin distrustfully, as if he feared Baldwin intended to lure poor young Lady Beatrix into a life of debauchery. Baldwin was too busy tearing up the loaf into four equal portions to notice.

“I feel sure Father Ortulfus is a Godly man,” said Ivar.

“So he is. Here is the laborers’ dormitory.” Felicitus indicated a long hall with a porch set outside the inner wall. “Those who are servants of the abbot, or of the king—” He nodded at the two Lions. “—reside here. Our circatore, Brother Lallo, will take care of you. Here he comes.”

Brother Lallo was brawny and immaculately groomed. For a circatore—the monk set in charge over the manual laborers—his hands were remarkably clean.

“Can they work?” he demanded, looking Gerulf and Dedi over and not appearing to like what he saw. They were all unkempt. “I’ve a full house these days, for it’s troubled times as you know, Brother Felicitus. I wish you would have consulted me first.”

“And risked sending them down the road to Oerbeck where they’ll get no more than a thin broth for their supper? We are still the king’s monastery, Brother, and God’s house, and have an obligation to travelers.”