PROLOGUE (75 page)

They could not.

They had heard Tallia speak of her visions. They had seen with their own eyes the marks of flaying on her skin, the stigmata that mimicked the wounds borne by the blessed Daisan in His trial of agony.

They had witnessed the miracle of the rose.

Mother Scholastica rose from her chair like the very angel of God rising to strike down the wicked. "Do not tell me that you
believe
what she has told you? That you profess this heresy yourself? Lady and Lord preserve us!"

"I-I pray you, Mother," began Sigfrid, stuttering slightly. His voice was hesitant, and he was pale. "If you only listened to what Lady Tallia teaches, if you had seen the miracle as we did... Surely the good biscops at the Synod of Addai understood the matter wrongly when they passed judgment on this matter. It was over three hundred years ago. They were misled by
—

"Silence!"

Even Baldwin flinched back.

"Children." Thus did she set them in their place. "Do you not understand that the punishment for heresy is death?"

But Sigfrid had a stubborn streak in him, hard to see beneath his unfeigned modesty. He moved through the world with eyes for nothing but books and learning, but once fastened to an idea, he did not let go of it. "It is better to speak the truth and die than to keep silence and live."

"A miracle!" said Brother Methodius suddenly, and with deep disdain, although Mother Scholastica had not given him leave to speak. "Roses grew in that courtyard before we moved them to make way for the fence. Which has not done its duty!"

"Nay, Brother, do not blame the fence. It has served God and its purpose well enough until now, and will continue to do so. It is the taint of heresy that has planted its seed in the ranks of these novices. But now that we know how far it has spread, we can uproot it. These four alone among the young men are stained. They are to enter seclusion. Brother, you will watch over them, see that they speak to no one else, until they are sent away."

"Indeed, I will," said Brother Methodius with such emphasis that Ivar felt a cold tremor of doom in his heart. Brother Methodius, a small man of middle years whose scholarship was greatly respected although he was only a man, and whose calm steadiness in the face of emergency was legend, could be counted on to fulfill his promises.

"Sent away?" asked Baldwin, saintly posture crumbling. "You're sending us home? I beg you, Mother
—

"The time for obedience came and went," was her sharp retort, cutting off his pleading.

Ermanrich grunted, hiding his thoughts. Sigfrid had his head bowed so deeply that Ivar couldn't see his face.

Ivar thought of home, but it meant nothing to him now. What would he do there? Go hunting? Fight the Eika? Marry an heiress? Seek an estate of his own in the marchlands?

After hearing Tallia's words, after seeing the miracle, these occupations seemed so...trivial. No matter what Brother Methodius said about the rosebushes, Ivar knew a miracle when he saw one. And he
had
seen one. Of course Mother Scholastica and Brother Methodius did not want this miracle to be true, because it would overturn everything their faith was based on.

They believed in the Ekstasis, when the blessed Daisan had fasted and prayed for seven days seeking redemption for all humanity and the Lord and Lady in Their mercy had conveyed him directly to heaven. They did not want to believe that the blessed Daisan had suffered and died on this Earth and been redeemed by the Lady's power because he alone of all things on Earth was untainted by darkness, because he was the Son of God, She who is Mother of all life.

"You will not be sent home," said Mother Scholastica without any softening in tone or expression. "Each one will be sent to a different place. This taint is a disease that has affected all of you together. A flock of sheep is more easily brought to ruin when there is one foolish and reckless creature among them ready to leap off the cliff while the others follow. What you feel now is only a passing fancy. With enough hard labor, seclusion, and prayer you will find your way back to the truth. Be assured that the Fathers of those establishments to which we will commend you will be warned of the taint you carry with you. They will watch you carefully, and compassionately, to see that you do not spread the disease to others and that you are freed from it in the end."

Ermanrich had started sniveling again. "What about my cousin, Hathumod?" His nose had flushed bright red.

"She has her own destination. It is not for you to know." She nodded toward Methodius, who lifted a hand for silence. Ermanrich choked down his sniffles, sneezed, and wiped his eyes. Baldwin was trembling. Ivar felt nothing except a tingling in his knees; one side of his left foot had gone numb.

"Ermanrich will journey to the abbey of Firsebarg. Baldwin will become one of the brothers at St. Galle." Baldwin caught the barest exhalation, like relief, in his throat. "Ivar will be dedicated to the monastery founded in the name of St. Walaricus the Martyr."

Ermanrich gasped. "But that's all the way east, in the marchlands."

"Nay," murmured Baldwin, "farther even than that. It lies in Rederii territory, outside of the kingdom."

"Hush," said Mother Scholastica, her tone more of a threat for its softness. "You have not been given leave to speak.

"Sigfrid," continued Brother Methodius in the same cool voice, "will remain here at Quedlinhame, under our guidance."

Cast to the four winds: Ermanrich to the west, all the way into Varingia, Baldwin south to the mountains of Way
‍
land, and himself east beyond the marchlands into barbarian country, a dangerous place in the best of times.

"But what of Tallia?" asked Sigfrid. Lifting his gaze from his hands, he wore a resolute expression. Of them all, Sigfrid had remained most skeptical, and most torn, and yet his belief, once won, was probably unshakable. Ai, Lady, thought Ivar with a stab of foreboding, what would become of poor Sigfrid without his three comrades to look after him?

But at this moment Mother Scholastica looked kindly upon her favorite novice, even one who had disobeyed her order for silence. However severely she looked upon the others with her hair covered and her robes sweeping to the floor in all their white splendor, with her golden torque at her neck to remind them all of her earthly power and the abbess' ring on her finger as a mark of God's favor and authority, even her stern face softened when she looked upon Sigfrid. "Her fate is no business of yours, child. She has no place within these walls. The king may deal with her as he sees fit."

Sigfrid cast his eyes dutifully to the ground again and said nothing more.

Ivar did not know what to think. He tried to think of Liath, but she slipped away. She had slipped away long ago, but Tallia had remained. Tallia had wanted to remain and Liath had not; she had not even been willing to escape with him. She had not had faith. When he thought of her, he remembered keenly the mystery of her, for she was not beautiful in an expected way but rather she was like no woman he had ever seen before. He remembered the way she had a warmth about her that drew the eye and held it; he knew he still loved her. But did not the blessed Daisan say that lust was a kind of false love and that it was only true love whose peace lasted until the end of days? It was not Tallia's
body
he dreamed of at night but the zealous fierceness of her passion. He wanted to hold on to so fierce a love.

The murmur of voices sounded beyond the door. It cracked, swaying open, and Brother Methodius stepped outside. A moment later he returned together with the sister guest-master, a normally unflappable woman who now looked flustered.

"I pray your pardon for this interruption, Mother," said the sister guest-master, glancing at the novices with a frown.

"You would not come if you had no reason to. What is it?"

"You know of our guests, who sent a servant ahead this morning to warn of their coming?"

Mother Scholastica nodded. She took up her owl feather quill and set it to lie parallel to the parchment leaves on which she had been writing. "All was ready for them, as befit their rank?"

"Of course, Mother!"

The abbess glanced up, evidently startled by this evidence that the guest-master was so shaken by the turmoil that had driven her here, to this study, that she could not respond with humor to this mild sally. "Rest easy, Sister. I have no doubt they, and their mistress, return to the king's progress. Indeed!" She looked at Brother Methodius and as one mind with two bodies they looked together toward the closed door that let onto the sickroom of the old queen. "She can take Tallia back with her."

"And Ivar as well," added Methodius, "since she will eventually return east. Then we can charge her with the lad's safety, and her own people will make sure he reaches St. Walaricus safely."

"Yes. I will warn her myself of the heresy, and she will know to watch out for it and to keep them isolated from those weak of heart who might be tempted."

Still Ivar heard voices outside, one louder than the rest, impatient and startlingly loud in the quiet of the cloistered grounds where silence and humility reigned.

The sister guest-master gestured helplessly toward the door, even now swaying open again. "But she waits outside, Mother.
Now.
I could not dissuade her though I told her you were in the midst of a conference of grave importance. Though no other would be so brash..." Here she faltered, recalling prudence and the strictures of a woman sworn to the church. "She claims to have other business
—
urgent business
—with you."

"With me?" It was so rare to see Mother Scholastica surprised that Ivar forgot for an instant his own troubles and his own desires. Urgent business?

The door was flung open.
She
had not waited outside.

Ai, Lady, had
she
no respect for the authority of the church at all?

She
came in at the head of a troop of servants, lords, ladies, and richly dressed stewards, a veritable herd of them. All laughed and chattered and then, belatedly, recalled the respect due to a formidable abbess who was also the sister of the king. All bowed in some manner, or knelt as need be. All but
her.
Ivar stared, mouth agape.

Oh, God," whispered Baldwin beside him, his voice barely audible. "God, I pray You, spare me this."

She
was a great lady of middle years, a fine noblewoman dressed in great state, almost as if she were a king's sister herself. She had height, strength, vigor, and much silver in her hair; no doubt she had children older than the young men kneeling on the floor, and perhaps a grandchild besides. She was not unhandsome, and she wore the arrogance of a great the realm as easily as she wore a light summer cloak, trimmed with a cunning embroidery of birds and flowers, over her riding tunic and gold-braided leggings, but she did not look particularly likable. No doubt she cared little whether she was liked; nobles such as she demanded respect and the honor due to their position, nothing more, nothing less.

"Who is it?" hissed Ermanrich from Ivar's other side.

"Margrave Judith," said Mother Scholastica curtly. She did not incline her head in greeting. Margrave Judith made no obeisance.

Baldwin made a soft choking noise, as though a bone had caught in his throat. He had gone pale
—although in Baldwin not even fear could dim his unfortunate beauty.

"I greet you," continued Mother Scholastica in the same crisp fashion, "and offer you the hospitality of Quedlinhame. You are here on your way to King Henry's progress? I fear Queen Mathilda is too ill to receive visitors."

"I am grieved to hear it and I will pray for her quick recovery." Margrave Judith spoke with the tone of a woman who always gets what she wants, when she wants it. "But I have other business at Quedlinhame. Indeed, a matter dear to my heart for I am certainly now old enough and powerful enough and with heirs enough to suit myself in such a matter."

Hugh's mother.
Ivar could see nothing of the son in her except in height and in the almost contemptuous imperious-ness with which she regarded the abbess.

Baldwin stirred beside him like a leaf shaken in a strong wind.

Mother Scholastica lifted a hand, palm up, to encourage the margrave to go on, but instead the margrave turned and, as a basilisk fixes its prey with a fateful gaze before i strikes, she looked directly at Baldwin.

"I have come," she said, "for my bridegroom."

Baldwin burst into tears.

LAVASTINE had chosen to camp on a low hill about a league from Gent. He stood with a hand on Alain's shoulder as they looked out over fields long since gone to riot with half-grown wheat and barley struggling to lift their heads above weeds and grass. Herds of cattle and sheep could be seen in the distance, but all had been moved a good way from Lavastine's position. The Eika knew they were here.