Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

He stood obediently and followed the others out of the room and down the stair, but it became immediately apparent that only he, Baldwin, Sigfrid, and Ermanrich had been singled out. Perhaps Sigfrid knew why, or Ermanrich had heard something from his cousin, but Ivar dared not ask, not when Brother Methodius had already enjoined them to silence.

But quickly enough he began to fear the worst: Methodius led them to Mother Scholastica’s study and ushered them inside, then took up a station beside the door as a jailer bars an escape route from his prisoners. No one else was in the room.

Both shutters in the room stood wide, and dust motes trailed through the sunlight. Outside, a nun worked in the herb garden. From this angle Ivar could not tell if she was weeding or harvesting, only see the curve of her back and the stately, measured movements of a soul at peace with her place in the world and her understanding of God.

Ivar was not at peace.

Baldwin tugged surreptitiously at Ivar’s robe and angled his head, a slight jerk to the right. There, through an open door, another room could be seen with the base of a simple bed in view. There the old queen lay, failing fast—or so rumor had it. A robed figure, shawl cast over her head, knelt at the foot of the bed with her hands clasped in prayer. Ivar made a noise in his throat, surprised. Even with the shawl covering her wheat-colored hair, he knew her posture in prayer intimately by now; he dreamed of it at night.

Suddenly Mother Scholastica stepped into view, concealing Tallia as she crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her. The latch fell into place with an audible click. All four novices dropped at once to their knees in an attitude of humility. Ivar heard her walk across the room and settle into her chair. Crickets drowsed outside, their lazy rhythms punctuated by a sudden burst of song from a wren.

“Heresy,” said Mother Scholastica.

They all four, as one, looked up guiltily at her. But she said nothing more, and her face remained as still as if it were graven in stone as she regarded them in silence. Behind her, a blackbird flitted to perch on the windowsill. He wore his black plumage as boldly as any proud soldier wore his tabard, marked by a bright orange bill and an orange ring around his keen eye. He hopped along the sill as they stared. Ermanrich coughed, and the bird took wing, fluttering away into the garden.

“You have all been contaminated by the words of a girl who is not even sworn to the church. Is this not so? Will you swear before me that you have not been tainted by her false preaching? Will you swear that her false vision of the blessed Daisan has not tempted you?”

Each word rang like the iron-shod hooves of a warhorse charging to battle. Ivar cowered under the weight of her outrage. Ermanrich sniveled. With his hands clasped before him and his head bowed modestly, Baldwin looked the very picture of a saintly penitent—his goodness made manifest in his beauty—praying before God to be forgiven his sins, of which there were few and all of them trivial.

But not one of them—not even her favored young scholar, Sigfrid, promised at age six to a life of learning within the arms of the church—crept forward to swear what she asked.

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.”