The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Feh! So he does!”

“This is signed with the name of Brother Marcus. Here is the man who dragged the filthy one. He has the look of a servant.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know. He looks as if he’s been knocked cold, but otherwise healthy. We must take these two to the Holy Mother.”

“That’s a long road.”

A warm hand touched his lips, then his throat, and last his eyes. “God Above! He’s like ice! I think he’s dying. Hurry! Send for Presbyter Hugh!”

Their voices faded into a hiss, but that, too, fell away as he sank into the silence of the pit.

XXIV

HIS VOICE

1

IT was raining again, a downpour that threatened to drown the newly planted seeds and sow the dreaded murrain among their precious sheep, for they’d heard rumors that the disease had blighted lands south of here. Ivar stood on the porch of the infirmary and listened to the gallop of rain on the sloping roof, accompanied by the coughs of the afflicted resting under the care of Sister Nanthild. Ermanrich, Hathumod, and Sigfrid were all sick with a pleurisy that had felled three quarters of their little congregation. One elderly nun had died, but the rest seemed doomed only to be miserable and weak for many weeks.

“There you are, Brother Ivar.” Sister Nanthild could barely walk with the assistance of two canes, and she never went farther than the porch of her infirmary, but she was nevertheless a fierce and wise ruler of her tiny domain. “Still healthy, I see. Are you chewing licorice root?”

“More than I ever wished to, Sister.” The taste had ruined his appetite, since every food now stank of aniseed.

She chuckled. “An obedient boy, even if you are a heretic. Is there aught Her Grace wishes from me? I can’t let you in to speak with your comrades. We rely on your health, Brother Ivar. We must take no chance that you catch the contagion.”

“I know.”

“You don’t like it.”

“Am I so easy to understand, Sister?”

Her smile was a well-worn crease in a wrinkled face. He had never seen her lose her temper, even with her most crotchety patients—and many tested her with their whining and complaints. “I have seen every condition of humankind in the course of my years, Brother. You are no mystery to me!”

The comment frightened him, although he knew it ought not to. He had worked hard to quiet the demons that pricked him, but she saw into his innermost heart.

“There, now, child. I do not know all your secrets, nor do I wish to know them. I have secrets of my own.”

“Surely you have led a blameless life!”

“When I was a young girl I was allowed to kiss the hand of the sainted Queen Radegundis. It may be that a trifling measure of her holiness blessed me with a long life and few troubles. But I have sown my share of ills in the world, as do we all. Now, then. How goes it with Her Grace?”

“She says to tell you, It is time.”

“Ah.” She went to the door and called to her assistant. “Sister Frotharia, fetch me the satchel hanging from the hook behind my chair.”

Coughs and groans greeted her words as patients sought her attention, and she gestured to Ivar to stay put and hobbled back into the long hall where the sick lay on pallets. After a while, Sister Frotharia came out onto the porch and, without a word, handed Ivar a satchel, then went back inside.

Ivar glanced up and down the porch, but of course he was alone. No one ventured out in such rain. The ground was slicked to mud, and even on the gravel pathways rivulets and puddles made walking perilous. Their guards rarely ventured within the limits of the palisade that ringed their holy community.

The satchel weighed heavily on his arm as he hurried out into the rain. The infirmary abutted the main compound. The guards posted at the door to the biscop’s suite stepped aside without speaking; they had served almost three months and glowered at him with the suspicion of men who have heard nothing but poisonous gossip. The guard was rotated through every three months; to this schedule Lady Sabella adhered with iron discipline. The usurper feared, Ivar supposed, that lengthy contact with Biscop Constance might corrupt the guards.

As it would.

Biscop Constance had certainly corrupted him. She possessed every quality that set apart those noble in spirit as well as blood: tall and handsome, prudent and humble, diligent and pious, farsighted and discreet, eloquent, patient, amiable, and stern.

“Ah,” the good biscop said, looking up as he entered. She sat as usual at her writing desk with two assistants beside her in case she needed anything.