The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

The other laborers scattered into the night. The poor novices fell all over themselves trying not to be seen, but their master came running in Brother Lallo’s wake, his face flushed with anger. Other torches bobbed, a flood tide of monks rushing to investigate the commotion. The abbot and several of his officials hurried up the steps onto the porch.

“You have abused my hospitality by preaching to these poor half-wits!” cried Father Ortulfus as he glared at Hathumod and her companions. “Are you oath breakers as well as heretics, that you take our bread and then throw it in our faces by breaking the rules by which we govern this monastery?” Son of a noble house, he had aristocratic bearing and elegant fury to spare, and his disdain was a well-honed weapon.

The frail Sigfrid did not back down. His friends moved forward around the bench, Lions forming a shield wall to meet an implacable enemy. “God enjoins us to speak the truth, Father. It would be a sin for us to remain silent. I do not fear your anger, because I know that God holds us in Her hands.”

“So be it.” Father Ortulfus beckoned to his burly prior.

“Prior Ratbold will escort you to Autun, where Biscop Constance can deal with you. The punishment for heresy is death.”

The red-haired one stepped forward with the calm of a man who has faced battle and not faltered. “We won’t go to Autun. We’ll leave here peacefully, but we won’t be made prisoners.”

“Leave to spread your wicked lies throughout the countryside?” Father Ortulfus shook his head. “I cannot allow it.” Behind him, Prior Ratbold signaled to certain brawny monks half hidden in the shadows. Iso trembled like a captured fawn in Lallo’s grasp as the abbot went on. “You will be taken to Autun and placed under the biscop’s authority—”

“I won’t go to Autun!” cried the handsome one petulantly. All at once, Alain remembered him: the pretty young trophy husband taken by Margrave Judith and paraded through the king’s progress in the same fashion she would have displayed a young stallion offered for stud. “We won’t go, and you can’t make us!”

The mood shifted as violently as wind turns and gusts in a storm. The novices were dragged away bodily by the master and his helpers. Ratbold’s assistants raised staffs, ready to charge. Dedi picked up the bench, bracing himself, and his uncle drew his eating knife while the young nobleman fell back behind their redheaded leader.

Alain could not bear to see any more. He stepped into the breach between the two groups. “I pray you, do not desecrate this ground with fighting.” Words came unbidden as he turned to face Father Ortulfus. “These men rode with Prince Ekkehard. This woman serves God with devotion and a pure heart. These Lions are loyal soldiers of the king. They fought a battle in the east, in the army of Princess Sapientia and Prince Bayan, and deserve more of a hearing than this!”

Father Ortulfus was so surprised to hear a common laborer scold him that he could not speak.

Hathumod shrieked and flung herself forward to kneel at Alain’s feet. “My lord!” She grabbed his hand to kiss it. Horrified, he stepped back to escape her. “My lord, how have you come here? How have you escaped that terrible battle? I pray you, give us your blessing!”

Her obeisance hurt, an old wound scraped raw.

“Nay, I pray you,” he said desperately. “Stand up, Hathumod. Do not kneel there.”

“What would you have us do, my lord?” she asked. “We will do as you command.”

Father Ortulfus stared in stunned silence with his officials clustered in like stupefaction around him. At the forest’s edge, an owl hooted. Wings beat hard back in the woodland, and for an instant Alain thought the guivre had returned, causing them all to ossify into stone. The owl hooted again. The moon’s light had crept up the east-facing porch, sliding up Hathumod’s arms to gild her face until she looked waxy and half-dead.

“Biscop Constance is a fair woman. She will not judge you rashly,” he said.

“But what of our case, my lord? You walked with Brother Agius before his martyrdom. You heard him speak.”

“Brother Agius was a troubled man.” It was the only answer Alain could give. “I cannot say if he was right or wrong, nor can any of you. Do not imperil your souls by bringing violence to this peaceful place, I beg you. Go to Autun. If your cause is just, the biscop will listen to you.”

“I don’t want to go to Autun!” objected Margrave Judith’s young husband.

“Shut up, Baldwin,” said the redheaded youth. “They’ve got twenty stout men with staves, and we’ve only got knives. We can hardly preach the truth if we’re dead.”

“We have nothing to fear,” said Sigfrid, “since we walk with the truth. Remember the phoenix, Baldwin. Do not lose faith.”

“I have not lost faith, my lord,” cried Hathumod. She reached up boldly and touched his cheek where the blemish stained his skin, then flushed and pulled her hand away. She fumbled at her sleeve and thrust an old rusted nail into his hand. “I have not forgotten that God tested us by offering us a broken vessel in place of the whole one. I still have the nail.”

Surely the guivre had returned, its baleful glare in full force, because he could not move. The nail burned his skin. He had rid himself of both promises and burdens, but what he had given away to the centaur shaman had returned to haunt and plague him. Would he never be free of Tallia’s sin? Was it possible he loved her still? Was his memory of happiness with Adica only a delirium, caught in the mind of a wounded man?

He refused to surrender to the chains that once bound him.

“This is no longer mine.” He pressed the nail into Hathumod’s pale fingers. “I am not what you think I am. I am bound to this monastery now—”

“Who are you?” demanded the abbot. “You came to us raving about the end times and yet stand here like a lord born into a noble house.”

“He was a Lion,” said Dedi, speaking for the first time.

“Nay, he was a count,” said Hathumod. “It was wickedness and the greed of others that brought him low! I know what he truly is, for I have seen that which follows in his wake!”

“He’s a laborer born and bred,” objected Brother Lallo. “I’ve seen the calluses on his hands. He knows plaiting and weaving as would any child born to a family who work along the sea lanes.”