The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 98

The hounds sit obediently outside the church. He goes in with the others.

As they file through the transept and thence into the dark nave, he notices the Brother Sacrist hurrying into the church with more oil for the lamps burning at the five altars. The lamps flicker, wicks running dry, but as he takes his place with the other laborers at the back of the nave, as he murmurs reflexive words of prayer, the sacrist makes a startled exclamation and halts halfway down the aisle. A side door opens. The elegant abbot enters in company with the prior as well as certain nobly-cut figures unknown to him. Have these visitors been here before? Were they here yesterday? One is a remarkably beautiful young man, unnaturally handsome and strangely familiar, who smiles and nods whenever Father Ortulfus speaks without making any reply himself. His redheaded companion answers the abbot’s queries.

The lamps at the main altar and the seven stations dedicated to the disciplas burn strongly. Brother Sacrist hesitates in confusion but when Father Ortulfus lifts his voice in the opening chant, he slips into his place at the front with the other monastic officials, setting the unused pot of oil at his feet.

Father Ortulfus has a reedy voice, not full but true. “Blessed is the Country of the Mother and Father of Life, and of the Holy Word revealed within the Circle of Unity, now and ever and unto ages of ages.”

The liturgy slides by as smoothly as water pours down a rock. The abbot marks the stations of the service by moving from lamp to lamp in a complicated pattern that, were he attached to thread, might weave truth into the stone. Praying, Father Ortulfus seems agitated, distracted by a gnawing annoyance that causes his mouth to slip down into a fierce frown when he forgets himself. When he returns to the altar to deliver his homily, his indignation takes flower as he scolds the congregation with quotations from the Holy Verses.

“‘I have heard such things often before, you who make trouble, all of you, with every breath.’ It is the Enemy who makes you so stubborn in argument, who makes your speech trouble the hearts of the simple man and the credulous woman. ‘Can it be that God have thrown us into the clutches of malefactors, have left us at the mercy of those who are given over unto wickedness?’ If you will walk with God, then walk in silence and free your heart from the Enemy’s grasp. Let there be no more of these tales, which spread like a plague upon the Earth!”

The stone columns absorb this castigation in aloof silence. Carved flowers crown each column, and on this flowery support rest ceiling vaults ornamented with vines. High up on the wall above the central altar stand the stucco figures of martyrs, each displaying a crown of sainthood. Their grave faces do not move; they cannot, of course, they are only representations, and yet their steady gaze pierces to his heart.

Dead. Dead. Dead

All dead

Mice live in the nave. He has coaxed a few out of their hiding places when, late at night before Nocturnes, he can’t sleep and wanders like a shade from one place to another within the compound, rootless and lost. They shelter in his hands, so small and helpless and warm, giving him trifling comfort. Is that their scratching now?

He has had keen hearing ever since the day he bound himself to the Eika prince now known as Stronghand. He hears not the clatter of mice on wood but a human gasp and the scrabbling of fingers on another’s arm, seeking attention. Looking to the right, he catches sight of two men wearing the mended but clean tabards of Lions.

They stare at him in shocked amazement, mouths open, prayer forgotten. They are no longer listening to the abbot’s homily—any more than he is—as it thunders to a close and as the prayer for forgiveness swells up among the gathered monks, novices, laborers, and visitors.

They stare at him as though they recognize him.

The high halls reel around him. The vaulted ceiling shudders, and vines writhe. Distantly, he hears Rage whimper.

Isn’t that the young Lion called Dedi, who won a tunic off poor, foolish Folquin one night, gambling at dice? The older man called himself the boy’s uncle, and probably he was. Yet they died in the east long ago. Is this church a gathering place for dead souls caught in purgatory, like him?

Why isn’t Adica here with him?

He doubles over as men all around him drop to their knees in prayer, but he can no longer see or hear as he fights hot tears. Grief cuts into his belly. Claws are shredding his heart in two.

All he can do is sag forward beside the other laborers and hang on as the fit drowns him.

“Who is that young man she sees?”

The words dragged Hanna back as questions crowded her mind. How is it that he still lives? What grieves him?

Nay, she must concentrate. It seemed so long ago that she had last seen Liath, in disgrace at the palace at Werlida when she had married Sanglant against the wish of King Henry. She had ridden off secretly one night, never to return, but Hanna still saw her clearly, tall, a little too slender as if she never quite had enough to eat, her hair caught back in a braid, her eyes a fiery blue, as brilliant as the stars. In Heart’s Rest no one had ever believed Liath and her father to be anything except nobly born, brought down in the world by fortune’s wheel. But Liath had never treated Hanna differently by reason of birth. Liath had seen her as another soul, equal in the sight of God.