The Cross and the Dragon (45 page)

As she entered the church, she thought,
No turning back.

She walked past the images of martyrdom, toward the altar. The sun illuminated the image of Christ and Mary. The image filled Alda’s mind. Her arms opened as if to embrace the Savior and His Mother. The sisters stood in a circle. Alda was in the middle. She fell to her knees and took the vow of stability, fidelity to monastic life, and obedience.

A clerk wrote a document as Alda spoke, and Alda scrawled her name at the bottom. She placed the document and her hand upon the altar and sang in Latin, concentrating on the pronunciation. The sisters responded in Latin.

Alda lay on the floor, prostrating herself at her sisters’ feet. This was difficult for her, but Saint Benedict wanted humility, not pride. The sisters prayed over her. She was a Sister of the Sacred Blood now, a bride of God. She would stay with the sisters forever.

The prayers ended. One of the sisters took her blue silk veil. Another cut Alda’s hair close to her scalp. The sisters removed her old clothes, her old life, embroidered gown, leather boots. They dressed her in the garb of a sister, black wool habit and rude linen veil, wooden shoes, a scrap of leather for a belt.

The sisters, her sisters, smiled. Radegunde was smiling. Alda managed a smile, but she was troubled. She should have felt joy at this moment. But a nameless doubt still gnawed at the corner of her mind.

Chapter 30

A cold rain soaked Hruodland as he set foot on the dock at Nonnenwerth the next morning. The fisherman who had rowed the boat followed him. Hruodland rapped on the door of the gatehouse. After a moment, he heard the tapping of a cane and the shuffling of wooden shoes against a floor. An old woman, so wizened that Hruodland could not even begin to guess her age, opened the door. After he said his business was with the abbess, the porter walked with him through the rain and mud to the abbess’s residence, a two-story building made of the wood from the forest. Hruodland welcomed the solid wood under his feet as he stepped into the hall, illuminated by gray light seeping through the windows and the glowing hearth at its center.

“Who should I say is here to see her?” the porter asked.

“Hruodland, prefect of the March of Brittany.”

“It is not kind to joke like that, sir. I can make out enough details to see that you are a nobleman, but your noble blood does not excuse you from mocking the dead. Hruodland was a kinsman of the abbess and the husband of one of our sisters. He died at Roncevaux doing the work of our Lord. Show some respect.”

“I meant no mockery,” Hruodland said slowly, pushing his wet hair from his eyes. “I survived the slaughter at Roncevaux. I am Hruodland. Tell the abbess one of her kinsmen is here to see her.”

The porter hobbled off and returned minutes later. She said, “They will see you now.”

“They?”

“The abbess and her prioress.”

Hruodland offered his arm to the porter. Her gnarled hands were icy. She already seemed exhausted from her errand.

Hruodland entered the room in which the abbess received guests. The porter left. The abbess looked down at Hruodland from an ornate chair, a mural of the Crucifixion behind her, candles blazed on either side of her. The abbess sat erect, chin up. The prioress stood to the abbess’s right, half in the shadows.

Another pair of candles burned to Hruodland’s left and right, lighting the scene from the Final Judgment, brightening the golden white of heaven, adding more flames to hell. Radegunde’s face betrayed no emotion. Her talon-like hand gripped the staff tightly.

“What is your errand?” Radegunde growled.

She wastes no time on formality or politeness.
“I have come here for my wife,” he answered.

The abbess had a coughing fit. When she caught her breath again, she frowned.

Why does she act so? She is not glad that I survived Roncevaux?
“Is Alda here?” Hruodland asked irritably.

“Yes, she is here,” the abbess said.

A long silence.

Hruodland cleared his throat. “I have come to take her home.”

“This is her home. She took the vow yesterday. She is one of us.”

“But she is my wife.”

“Marriage is an arrangement between men. Alda has made a vow to God. Do you expect your wife to break a sacred promise? Do you want your wife to leave the monastery if it means mocking God and damning her soul?” She looked at the mural above Hruodland’s head, at the Christ larger than life, at the small naked figure before Him.

“But I love her,” Hruodland said. “Surely, God will understand.”

“You presume the will of God.”

“So do you,” Hruodland said, not disguising that his patience was wearing thin.

“The writings of Saint Benedict say once a woman takes the vow she cannot leave the monastery. Alda took the vow of her own free will.”

“Saint Melaine told me to come for Alda,” Hruodland said emphatically. “I prayed before his relics. He spoke to me in Alda’s voice.”

“Allow me to pray on this,” Radegunde said, staring at the Final Judgment. “Sister Prioress, take him to the hall.” She dismissed Hruodland with a wave of her hand.

Hruodland swallowed his anger at being treated like a servant and followed the prioress out of the room.
Do whatever you must to bring Alda home
.

The prioress led him to the hall. “We will wait here.”

“You can wait here,” Hruodland snapped. “I am going to the church. I, too, wish to pray.”

He turned his back on the prioress and left before she had a chance to reply. Outside, the rain had become a drizzle. He walked through the mud to the church, where a candle was burning at the altar before a mural of Christ and His Mother. He strode to the altar and lit a second candle. A glint of metal on the floor caught his eye. He bent toward the object and picked it up. It was a ring.

He held it in the light of a candle. It was Alda’s ring, his morning gift to her.

* * * * *

Alda slowly walked toward the church, her eyes scanning the mud. She hoped her ring had not sunk into it. She had kept it on a ribbon under her habit and had discovered during her class that the ribbon had broken.

Alda had excused herself to go to the privy. Outside the classroom, she tied the broken ends of the ribbon together. Mud oozed around her wooden shoes and splattered her habit.

It is a sin to search for the ring. It is worldly. Return to class this instant,
she told herself as she continued to scan the mud.
It is God’s will you lose the ring.

Alda drew her cloak closer to her as the drizzle wetted her face. She kept searching for a glimmer of gold or the wink of a ruby in the mud. She was shivering when she arrived at the church.
Mother of God, please let it be in there.

Entering the church, she noticed a second candle was burning at the altar and saw the silhouette of a tall man. As he turned toward the door, she beheld his face. She gasped.

“Hruodland?”

“Alda?”

At first, she walked toward him. Then, her steps quickened to a run. Her shoes clattered against the wooden floor.

She and Hruodland embraced. Alda was struck speechless, weeping. He kissed her. She kissed him. He felt so real, so warm, like he was alive.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

Hruodland, too, was crying. “You are the only one to have no fear of me.”

What happened to his speech? The angels must serve wine.
“Why would I fear you?” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you, Alda.” He held her face in his hands. “I have longed for you.”

As she caressed him, her desire was reawakened.

“What troubles your soul?” she asked, noticing that he was thinner than she remembered. “What brings you here?”

“I have come to take you home.”

“I have prayed for this for so long.”

Alda had thought death would be painful, a crushing of the heart, a stiffness of the body, the soul forced through the mouth. Yet she had not noticed it. She wondered where her body was. She did not see it in the church.
It must be lying in the mud outside. No matter. I no longer need it.

“When did I die?” she asked.

His jaw dropped, then his eyes searched her face. “You are alive,” he said.

“Then, this is another dream?” She looked down, disappointed.

“It is not a dream.”

Alda shook her head, confused.

“Alda, my dearling, I am not dead, either. I survived the attack at Roncevaux.”

If Hruodland had not been holding her, Alda was sure she would have swooned. They staggered to a bench along the wall and held each other for a long time in silence.
It did work,
she thought.
The amulet did protect him.

“Hruodland, I thought, your brother himself told me…”

“We were both deceived. When Gerard told you I was dead, he believed it. I had been gravely wounded on the battlefield, and he and his men had taken me to an abbey to await a Christian burial.”

“If I had known, I would have gone to you.”

“I know.”

Alda leaned against Hruodland’s shoulder. She wanted to hold him, make sure he was real.

“I prayed for you every day,” she finally said.

Hruodland kissed her. “Why did you come here instead of remaining at Drachenhaus?”

Alda trembled and bit her lip. She looked up at him, tears studding her eyes. Again, she felt Ganelon’s weight and the cold iron against her throat.

“Ganelon,” she managed to say before her sobs overwhelmed her. She felt Hruodland’s torso and arms stiffen.

“What did he do?” Hruodland’s voice echoed in the church.

“He… he tried to… tried to…” She buried her face in her hands.

“He tried to rape you?”

“My virtue is intact,” she said in a choked voice. She glanced up at her husband. His eyes blazed; his jaw was rigid.

“He will never trouble you again.” Hruodland’s voice was even but carried an undercurrent of rage. “But now gather your things, and we shall go to Drachenhaus.”

The mention of Alda’s birthplace stirred memories of a hot bath smelling of rosemary and lavender. A bathhouse warming room with a bright fire. Imported, spicy perfume. Roasted pork. Wine sweetened with honey and woodruff. Ribbons and bracelets and girdles. Linen and silk. Everything she had done without. Everything she had sworn to forsake.

“When I took the vow, I thought you were lost to me.”

“I am here now,” he replied. “We can start anew.”

“No. I lost you by my own hand, by taking the vow. I am married to God. I cannot go back with you.” She remembered what Plectrude had told her: if she left, she would be condemned for mocking God. “I still love you. I shall always love you. But I took the vow with God.”

“God will understand,” Hruodland said. “One of His saints sent me here to find you. I heard him speaking to me in your voice.”

Alda brightened. “Did he say for me to come with you?”

“Not explicitly. He was talking about the women who were with Christ when He died, the way you were when you swore your fidelity to me.”

They both heard the church door creak open and turned toward the sound as Plectrude entered.

“The abbess will see you,” she said.

Leaving the church, Hruodland and Alda held hands and walked through the mist to the abbess’s residence.

“The abbess will speak to Alda first,” Plectrude said.

Alda kissed Hruodland before she followed Plectrude into the abbess’s reception room. Although it was summer, Alda felt as if she were stepping on ice when she entered through the doorway below Christ judging the dead. Alda drew her damp veil and cloak close to her.

“I apologize for the wait,” Alda said. “I was in the church.”