Flesh and Spirit (26 page)

A west wind had brushed away the previous day's storm and left the evening astonishingly pleasant. Time yet remained before Compline, and I wasn't ready to go indoors.

“I'd much rather talk of why, in all that's holy, this flock of mad monks and gruff lords shares their secrets with a talkative boy of twelve-almost-thirteen.” While babbling freely of his studies and abbey life, the stubborn little donkey would speak nothing of his raising beyond what he'd told me in the library. “It speaks highly of your character. And, of course, Brother Sebastian says you are the brightest scholar ever to study here. You've much to be proud of—”

“You've heard it wrong! I'm not half the scholar Brother Gildas is. And Gerard is far more holy, for I'm so easily distracted when I think of what I've read and the adventure tales you've told us. I
do
talk too much, and I'm wholly untrustworthy, for I've told you more than I should already. The moment I'm sixteen, I'm going to take a vow of silence!”

So soon after our study of the great vices, I should have known better than to use the word
proud
. Truly, if he were Eodward's child, I didn't think he knew it.

I ceased probing and soothed his worries about excess pride and boyish sins with a lurid saga about Grossartius the Revenant's return from the dead to serve King Caedmon. The bells began to strike. He jumped up as if a gatzé's tail poked him from underneath. “We need to go.”

I sighed and unfolded myself from the bench. “Indeed. Brother Sebastian will have my skin if I'm late. My knees won't survive more penance.”

The boy giggled. “I heard you made a sight, kneeling there in just shirt and trews all day. Brother Jerome said you were as blue as a jay and looked as if you might eat your sandals.”

I stuck my foot and its unchewed sandal out before us. “Thanks to holy Iero, no need for that.”

My Compline reading went very well, though I realized afterward that I had opened the page for two days previous—the page with the geese—and not the one I was reciting. Fortunately no one looked over my shoulder. Several of the brothers offered congratulations and kind words as we left the church. Brother Gildas stood last in the short line.

“You did very well for your first service reading,” he said, as we strolled companionably through the upper passage toward the dorter, anticipating the day's end bell. “A bit stiff, perhaps, but practice should improve you. You are a man of many talents, Valen.”

Why did he keep saying that? It bothered me that he might be one of those who had less confidence in my “usefulness and character,” as Brother Victor had put it.

“So are you going to tell me what I was punished for?” I said softly enough that no one else could possibly hear. “My knees would very much like to know.”

“Soiling your clothes? Sleeping at services?” The good brother grinned cheerfully.

Such a friend could drive a saint to drink. “The grain sack was
your
idea, wasn't it? To get me thoroughly muddled before your test.”

“I'm truly sorry for that,” he murmured, clasping his hands piously at his breast, looking straight ahead, and picking up the pace. “I had no idea it would distress you so.”

“Thus you owe me an apology—a favor.” I ducked my head lower and scarcely moved my lips. “And you know what I want: What does that puddle in the hills have to do with preserving knowledge and Evanori warlords and three—or is it
four
—royal princelings?”

“We cannot discuss such things here. Father Abbot warned you. I understand you've been given some
enlightenment
.” His mouth shaped the beginnings of a smile.

I wanted to kick him.

“Father Prior will surely assign you more readings after tonight, Brother Valen.” He spoke more boldly as we neared the library door. “As you succeed in your assigned tasks, you earn more trust…and more tasks. As it happens, Brother Chancellor has received word of a book of Aurellian poetry that might be available to borrow from a lord down near Caedmon's Bridge. Brother Adolfus is to travel there tomorrow. Father Abbot says that, as a man so recently of the world, you might be of use in the negotiation.”

Oh, no. No more traveling with the abbot's friends. No more of this conspiracy business. I hated being their ignorant pawn.

“As much as I appreciate our brothers'
trust
, the god teaches me constantly of humility,” I said. “I've never been particularly successful at any single occupation, perhaps because my true calling is this quiet, retiring monastery life of simple prayer and simple service. I intend to devote my best efforts to making myself worthy of that calling, avoiding all things grand or mysterious…or dangerous…or
deviant
. Besides, my leg would never bear me so far.”

Surely it would be better to live out the season quietly and escape with my skin intact to enjoy what I could of the world before it ended. The doulon had me in its stranglehold, and were I ever so blessed as to survive its shedding, my diseased senses and explosive restlessness would leave me as mad as my grandfather. Not even such a wonder as the lighthouse would tempt me to use the bent for aught but my own need. Look where such had got me.

Gildas laughed in that way he had, encompassing his entire being. Then he laid an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, heads together. “Grand and mysterious events have a way of catching up to us even when we have no such course in mind. Someday I will share my own story with you. Good night, Brother. Safe journey.”

He was still chuckling as he disappeared through the library door. I walked on toward the dorter, grumbling under my breath, yet unable to be truly angry with him. If only I had displayed my ignorance about the book. One would think I would have outgrown pride after so many years of stumbling so ineptly about the world. Seven-and-twenty years and I'd shed not a single one of the great vices.

The infirmarian had assured Father Abbot that exercise would be good for my healing thigh, thus Brother Adolfus and I were dispatched on our errand as the bells rang for Prime. The west wind's respite had been too brief. Purple-gray clouds hung low over the mountains, threatening a miserable day.

The road cut south through the abbey grain fields, where a few lay brothers were reaping barley that stood astonishingly undamaged despite the storm. Abbot Luviar had charged Brother Adolfus to summon the local villagers along our way. Though bound in service to the abbey, they had not yet come to aid the harvest.

The toad-faced Adolfus made it clear from the beginning that he would likely not speak to me beyond our business. “Journeys are excellent occasions for contemplation of our life's road through the vales of doubt, the fens of sin, and the occasional mountain peak of divine inspiration. Silence will be our guidepost.”

As this was the lengthiest statement I had ever heard from the man, I'd borne no great expectation of conversation. But I had hoped he might be one of the “cabal,” as Jullian referred to the abbot's little group of conspirators, and thus be willing to enlighten me on our mission. I had no illusion that we were truly off to negotiate use of a poetry book.

Drawing up my hood and tucking my hands up my sleeves against the cold, I wondered how I might divert my “life's road” to some nearby town where there might be a seedsman or herbary. To that end I had brought along the gold button and silver spoon. Though I'd likely not get the trinkets' full worth, I might get enough to buy nivat for a doulon or two. Only enough seeds for one use remained in my pouch, and possessing even a small supplement might soothe this anxiety that dogged me. The disease lurked in my bone and sinews alongside the craving for its remedy, both waiting to take fire.

Shrines dotted the roadside. A patch of wildflowers drooped beside a wooden representation of Karus. Rotting travelers' staves had been stuck in the ground about a painted statue of Saint Gillare. An older stone figure, halfway devoured by orange and red lichen, represented Erdru bearing his uplifted platter of grapes. A statue of Arrosa, her hand about a naked mortal's member, had toppled over, leaving her poor lover separated from his better parts.

Beyond Gillarine's fields and pastures, the landscape changed abruptly to rolling meadows of yellowed grass and ankle-high briar tangles, dotted with stands of scrawny trees. In one of these meadows, half a quellé past the abbey's boundary fence, stood a ring of aspen trees. Legends called such rings holy to the Danae, who were said to especially love to dance there in autumn when the leaves turned gold. This dreary, precipitous autumn had tainted the leaves black, and they'd fallen before ever they were gold. What if they never gleamed gold again?

Fool,
I thought, shoving away the dismal speculation.
These monks will have you believing their end-times nonsense.
Yet such belief as could create the marvelous lighthouse could not be so easily dismissed. The unseasonable cold and gloom seeped into my every pore.

Five quellae past the aspen grove, the cart track rose steeply for a short way, leveled out and traversed a meadow, then rose again, the terrain like a series of giant's steps toward the southern mountains. The river was no longer a lazy looping band of silver, but a younger stream that plunged from the mountains and raced through a gorge off to our left. To our right a gray-green forest of spruce and silver birches mantled the rising hills, occasionally dipping its folds into the sweeping meadows.

We met neither seedsmen nor herb sellers nor indeed any people at all along the way. The first village we came to was well overgrown, red plague circles fading on its crumbling houses. We did not dawdle there. A second settlement showed signs of more recent disaster—tools and carts bearing but early signs of rust, painted sigils of ward and welcome still bright on the lintels. But a heap of decaying sheep fouled the nearby pastureland, and perhaps other creatures lay unburied, as well. We covered our noses with our cowls and hurried past.

As soon as we could breathe, a shocked Brother Adolfus fell to his knees and prayed for the missing villagers of Acceri, who usually worked Gillarine's planting and harvest. Evidently the abbey had received no word of their distress.

He should have waited a quellé more for his prayers. A third village, Vinera, had burned mere days ago. The sharp wind off the mountains shifted a blackened shutter and ruffled a length of frayed, muddy cloth tangled in a smashed loom. No corpses were visible, but I could see what had happened. One of the stone hovels had been made into a charnel furnace.

“Who could commit such sin?” Brother Adolfus's voice shook, as I showed him how the doors and windows had been blocked to prevent escape.

“Harrowers,” I said, snatching the fluttering orange rag from a charred post and grinding it under my foot. “They take the folk who'll agree to follow them and send back raiders to slaughter the rest.”

We did not linger. Though I pulled my hood lower, so that I could see nothing but the muddy ruts and Brother Adolfus's hem, the odor of burning lingered in my nostrils. Perhaps the world had already ended.

By late morning, we had completely lost sight of the river as we climbed a long series of switchbacks. Horses had traveled this road in the past day. A great rushing noise as of wind or water grew louder as we pushed on.

No gentle meadow awaited us beyond the crest of the climb, but a broad, treeless hillside, creased with a succession of low scarps. Beyond these alternating strips of vertical rock and grassy terraces, the land broke sharply upward into a formidable cap of barren rock. A blocklike fortress perched atop the crags, the grim ramparts more a part of the rock than distinct from it.

The road wound back and forth in deep bends to circumvent the scarps and traverse the broad terraces. Midway across the expanse, a waist-high cairn marked a branching of the track. The left fork arrowed across the slope toward the river gorge. The right snaked westward for half a quellé before beginning the ascent of the breathtakingly steep shelf road to the fortress.

“These mountain lords all think they are eagles,” said Brother Adolfus, gawking at the forbidding road we'd yet to climb.

As we slogged toward the cairn, backs bent and heads ducked into the wind that flapped our cowls and gowns, a simple arch of dressed stone came into view in the distance, spanning the gorge. Caedmon's Bridge. Two broken columns marked the bridge approach, and a small mounted party, too distant to make out numbers, waited beside them. One rider galloped in our direction.

“Are these the ones who burned Vinera?” Brother Adolfus sounded ready to charge.

“I'd say not. Were they hostile they'd not be sending only one to greet us.”

My eyes did not linger on the bridge or the people, but rather scoured the rugged land beyond the chasm. Caedmon's Bridge marked the boundary of Evanore, the land of trackless forests where the sun never penetrated, of rivers of flowing ice, of forbidden mountains where gods had made it impossible to breathe—the land of Prince Osriel and his terrible warlords and mages who served Magrog, lord of the netherworld. To cross Caedmon's Bridge placed a man's soul in mortal peril, so stories said, and would boil a pureblood's brains.