The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“These cannot all be true.” Father Ortulfus’ irritation scalded his tone.

“I am no one, Father.” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice, although he knew bitterness was a sin. He must not blame God for the happiness he had shared with Adica; too well he understood how brief life, and happiness, were. “I am just a bastard born to a whore and an unknown father.”

“Yet those fearsome hounds follow you as meekly as lambs. One might say you had bewitched them.”

“Say what you will,” said Alain. “God alone know the truth of what I am. What kin my mother was born to I cannot say, only that she died a pauper and a whore.”

Hathumod whimpered, the kind of bleat a small animal might make when caught in a falcon’s claws.

“What are you now?” Father Ortulfus’ intent gaze might have been that of the falcon.

“I am grateful to be a common laborer, working in peace at this monastery.”

The sacrist appeared out of the clot of officials who had fallen back at the first sign of violence.

r 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.”

“These cannot all be true.” Father Ortulfus’ irritation scalded his tone.

“I am no one, Father.” He could not keep the bitterness from his voice, although he knew bitterness was a sin. He must not blame God for the happiness he had shared with Adica; too well he understood how brief life, and happiness, were. “I am just a bastard born to a whore and an unknown father.”