Carol Berg - Flesh and Spirit

Scrutari’s nostril’s flared in disbelief—as did mine, most likely. “Surely, holy fath—”

“Once you have reviewed the record Prior Nemesio will show you, your horse will be ready for your departure. Bear our prayers for good health and Iero’s blessings to the hierarch. Now please excuse us. We’ve business to attend before the bells ring for prayers.” The abbot’s demeanor stood no more yielding than a granite wall.

Though I applauded his decision, Luviar’s refusal made no sense, unless…I glanced at the young face beside me. Jullian’s eyes were fixed in the vicinity of Brother Nunius’s wrinkled neck, and his fingers clenched in a knot tighter than my own. He breathed in shallow fits.

“As you say, Father Abbot. I shall pass your message—and my conclusions—to the hierarch.” Stiff as Erdru’s prick, the pureblood touched his forehead and withdrew. Were I Abbot Luviar, I would not request any favors from the Scrutari-Consil family before Judgment Night.

An unruffled Prior Nemesio began the day’s business. Boring business. He invited Brother Nunius to speak on the fifteenth chapter of Saint Ophir’s Rule—that which addressed the management of an abbey’s lands and treasury and the apportioning of alms. My attention wandered.

Weak sunbeams shone through the lancet windows behind the abbot’s chair, transforming the colored glass into rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. I examined King Eodward’s features in the window, searching for some trace of the man I had met. He had been the exemplar of Ardran manhood—big and ruddy, beard and hair as red-gold as summer sunset, his bones sturdy and well formed, his face equally suited to laughter and sober intelligence. I glanced at Jullian—the boy was breathing again—and wondered about a rumored Pretender…a child…and an abbot who juggled hierarchs and purebloods and princes as if they were oranges. And told myself I was a lunatic.

By the time Brother Nunius’s sermon had labored to its conclusion, and the prior began assigning reading tasks for the day’s services and mealtimes, my eyelids were drooping. But somewhere between “Brother Aesculpius, Vespers” and “Brother Jerome, Matins,” he announced, “Brother Valen, Compline.”

Gods’ bones! They wanted me to read! Cold dismay wafted up my gown with the draft. My conscience bloomed hotly on my cheeks. Rabbitlike thoughts of escape drew my glance to the door, where I found Jullian staring curiously at me.

Except on the coldest or rainiest days, I was supposed to spend the hours between Terce and dinner pursuing my studies in my carrel in the north cloister. Brother Sebastian had selected a dreadfully thick book for me to study over the next months. I didn’t even know its name.

I riffled the pages of the book and contemplated the cloister garth and the shrine, mulling the problems of undead spirits and why one of them might have an interest in me, and of how I was to convince Brother Sebastian to read me the text I was supposed to proclaim at Compline.

I had already spent an hour concluding that I couldn’t possibly guess which of Saint Ophir’s brothers was a pureblood. My own appearance evidenced that “straight of hair, deep of color, short in stature, large in talent” was not an infallible guide to Aurellian heritage, but most purebloods did conform to the type. Whoever it was—and a careful recollection of every face in the chapter circle yielded no suspicion—either he was not insightful enough to connect me to the infamous Cartamandua recondeur or he had truly shifted his loyalties to the brotherhood and broken contact with the Registry. I was likely safe enough as long as I kept to my usual precautions. I hoped.

Inevitably, as it had all week, my mind returned to the incident in the wood. The more I recalled, the stranger it all was. The Harrowers had not been doing the same to Gildas as they had to Boreas. Sila Diaglou had said they wanted to “draw them out”—referring to her enemies. And Luviar and Thane Stearc had been running to the gates…

Ow! I bit my lip to keep from yelling aloud when Brother Sebastian’s knucklebone rapped my skull. I stuck my books in my pockets and traipsed after his wagging finger.

Though rigorous in matters of decorum, liturgical observance, and adherence to the Rule, the tidy Sebastian had been undemanding when it came to my studies. He seemed more than willing to believe that my healing shoulder wound restricted any writing tasks and that illness still caused my eyes to tire easily, limiting my reading. In the main, he complained I talked too much, and was forever exhorting me shift my verbal excess from flesh to spirit.

“Fine mornings are too rare of late,” he said as we left the cloisters for the maze of yew and hawthorn hedges in front of the church. “Let us discuss the lesson you were to master for today, and, at the same time, give praise for the sunlight. So, Brother Valen, the structure of virtue: Recite for me the seven great virtues and twelve great vices and expound upon their signs and meanings.”

If he had known my answers were all guesswork, he might have admired my cleverness at getting almost half of them right. Instead, he cheerfully scolded me as a slackwit, and charged me to obtain a wax tablet from Brother Victor and write out the two lists for the next morning.

“We do not expect every brother to be a scholar of Brother Gildas’s level, or even Jullian’s, who has as fine a mind as any student we have ever nurtured here. But you must master the basic precepts of divine order, be familiar with the holy writs, and the history—” The dinner bell brought a welcome reprieve from his kindly concern.

I’d grown quite fond of mealtimes, beyond the fine and plentiful sustenance. The week had taught me that the light-filled refectory was neither so serious nor so strictly quiet as the cloister or library, save during the actual reading that accompanied every meal. Which circumstance raised my hopes of garnering assistance to break the twin shackles of the Compline reading and my study text. Scrutari-Consil was gone. Gildas had shielded my abortive departure. Truly, excessive worry about the future wasted a man’s life.

“Iero’s grace, Brother Abelard,” I shouted in the ancient monk’s ear and took his arm on the refectory stair. “The sun feels a bit more seasonable today, does it not?” The crabbed old fellow frowned and shushed me, and shook off my hold. Horribly deaf, he proposed every morning in chapter to apply the rule of silence everywhere in the abbey.

Undeterred, I dropped back and offered my assistance to another of the elders. “Brother Nunius, someday perhaps you could teach me why we may give alms to ill-reputed women only in famine times. That part of the Rule left me confused.” At least I could speak of ill-reputed women.

“Indeed, it is a strict provision,” said the birdlike monk, graciously accepting my arm. “The fifteenth chapter is more important than most of us credit. Sometimes I believe I am the only one who pays it mind. You were not the only member of our family dozing this morning.”

Family! By the god’s toes, if I ever thought of the brothers as family, I’d bolt from here for certain. “Tell me, Brother, why does Saint Ophir forbid his brothers magic working? We’re taught that pureblood sorcery is a gift of the god”—and thus we pursued recondeurs as doubly damned, traitors to the divine, as well as to the king—“so should not our Rule promote its use in holy works?”

“An excellent question! Sorcery is a component of the earthly sphere just as wealth and gaming and pleasures of the flesh,” said the old man. “Whilst not evil in themselves, such worldly pursuits leave the soul ripe for the Adversary, who is ever seeking ways to subvert our better natures. Young fellows like you must work diligently to avoid such pitfalls as sorcery.”