King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“Our Lady has already judged my heart and found it wanting. It is Her mercy and Her forgiveness I strive to be worthy of. Not yours.” Certainly Agius was furious, to speak so.

“You are angry, child. Is this the heart you display to Our Lady and Lord?”

The frater did not seem in the least moved by the biscop’s soft words. “She knows what is in my heart.” He stood up, no longer looking like a lowly churchman brought before a high-ranking biscop but rather like a nobleman made angry by a retainer’s presumption. “You do not.”

A shocked murmuring rose from the crowd of servants; Antonia stilled it with a gesture. “Who speaks now, Frater Agius? The humble frater?” Her voice grew suddenly hard and accusing. “Or the proud son?”

He actually winced, though he did not back down. “I will do penance for my pride. What do you want of me, Your Grace? Why have you had me brought here? I serve the world no longer.”

“But you live in the world nevertheless. We cannot escape the world, Frater Agius, though we strive to do so. Even you have not yet learned to submit your will to that of Our Lady and Lord. Some part of your heart still lives in your old station, where you are accustomed to having your own way.”

“Our Lady will judge me,” he repeated stubbornly. “What do you want of me?”

If there had been any tiny line of harshness in her face, it dissolved now into a sweet smile made the more reassuring by her round, pink-cheeked face and her twinkling blue eyes. “To visit with your niece, of course.”

“My niece!” He almost roared the word.

“She is being fostered by the Biscop of Autun.” Her placid countenance remained unmoved by his anger. “Did you know that?”

“Of course I knew!”

“It was by your suggestion, was it not?”

He glared, refusing to answer.

“You will remain here for the time being.”

o;There is another I requested be brought to me many days ago. He has not yet arrived?”

“Not yet, Your Grace.”

“I hope he can be with us by Compline.” She spoke mildly, even hopefully, but Alain now recognized the undercurrent that eddied around her. For all that her aspect was kind and her voice gentle, she did not allow her will to be disobeyed. Clerics scurried away; others took their place, and as a united party they processed out so the biscop could lead the service of Vespers, the evensong.

Cleric Willibrod, left in charge, allowed Alain to kneel and pray as Vespers was sung in another part of the camp. During the final psalm, two soldiers appeared at the open tent entrance. With them, as if he were under arrest, came Frater Agius. His brown robes looked travel-stained and rumpled, and he was limping. Alain was so surprised he jumped to his feet in mid-phrase.

Agius shook free of the guards. He knelt at once to finish the last lines of the psalm, and Alain, shamed by the frater’s piety, copied him.

“I thought you had stayed behind at Lavas town,” whispered Alain after the last Alleluia was sung. “I thought you did not intend to ride with Count Lavastine.”

“I did not.” Agius rose, glared at the guards, and limped over to wash his face out of the same fine brass basin used by the biscop. Alain was both astounded and entranced by this show of worldly vanity and arrogance on the part of Agius. The frater wiped his face and hands dry with the same soft white linen the biscop had used. “It is not my part in life to involve myself with the worldly disputes that tempt those who have been seduced by the glamour of earthly power and pleasures.”

“Then why are you here?” Alain demanded.

“I was summoned against my will.”

Agius promptly sat down in the cushioned chair which even an ignorant lad like Alain, unaccustomed to the ways of the nobility, could see was reserved for the biscop. This act of flagrant defiance set Alain shaking. The hounds, catching his mood, stirred restlessly, thumping their tails on the ground and lifting their heads to watch intently.

“I beg your pardon, Brother,” said Willibrod nervously. He began picking at the scabs on his skin. “That is Biscop Antonia’s chair. It is not fitting for a lowly brother to sit—”

Agius glared the poor cleric into silence.

Through the entryway, Alain saw torches flickering. Biscop Antonia had returned.

2

“IS it fitting,” asked Biscop Antonia in her mild voice after the outraged gasps of her servants had quieted, “that a simple frater of the church presume to sit in the seat of one whose elevation was ordained by the hand of the skopos herself?”

“Our Lady has already judged my heart and found it wanting. It is Her mercy and Her forgiveness I strive to be worthy of. Not yours.” Certainly Agius was furious, to speak so.