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But when Biscop Antonia returned, still resplendent in her white vestments trimmed with gold, her biscop’s staff held confidently in her right hand, and listened to the whispered explanation of one of her clerics, she merely said:
“This one again? Brother Heribert, take a message to Count Lavastine that the boy will march with my retinue for the time being. Lavastine will make no objection.”
The cleric left. Alain knelt outside, miserable and frightened, while the tent came down and was packed into a wagon. Sorrow refused to budge from his side. No one spoke to him, only glanced at him sidelong, but two guards remained at his side.
Just as all was ready, the nobles mounting their fine horses, a commotion eddied through their ranks. A black shape darted free from behind a line of wagons and Rage bounded over to him, taking up her station beside Sorrow. No one tried to stop her. Her presence heartened him as nothing else could.
As the company started forward, two men-at-arms shoved him forward. He walked. What else could he do? Not knowing what to expect was, perhaps, the worst of it. Would he be punished? Executed? Fed to the guivre? He could not imagine what Biscop Antonia meant to do with him.
They marched all that day at a steady pace, stopping at midday to water the horses. They marched through hill country, mostly farm and pasture land with stands of forest topping the hilltops and long rides. It was easy country to move through, shallow fords, good grazing for the livestock that traveled with them, not a trace of any force loyal to King Henry.
But in the late afternoon the hills rolled into a long downslope that looked over the valley of the River Rhowne. From here, blurred by afternoon haze, Alain saw the stone tower of the cathedral of Autun, so far away it looked like a mason’s tiny model. They had come to the border of the lands controlled by the Duke of Varingia; beyond lay the heart of the old kingdom of Varre, known as the duchy of Arconia. And beyond the duchy of Arconia lay Wendar.
Army and train came to a halt and began to settle in for the night. Alain was directed by his guards to enter the tent. There, at the biscop’s order, he sat on a stool. The hounds followed him quietly and draped themselves over his feet.
She put him under the supervision of one of her clerics, a young man with pale blue eyes whom she named as Willibrod. Red lesions encrusted the cleric’s hands and neck. While he sat, he shaved wood into holy Circles of Unity and carved letters into the backs of those Circles. Oddly enough, he also bound strands of hair and bits of leaves and some other thing, plucked from what looked like the fletchings for an arrow, onto the backs of these Circles and then strung each one on a leather cord, to make a necklace.
“You are a cleric in training?” asked young Cleric Willibrod. “You are clean-shaven, as befits a churchman.”
Alain blushed, easy to see on his fair skin. It still embarrassed him horribly that he could grow nothing more manly than a bit of pale down on his chin. He had not shaved, and yet this cleric, who sat next to him, could not tell whether he was unshaven or clean-shaven.
“I was promised to the monastery,” he stammered out finally, “but I serve Count Lavastine now as a man-at-arms.”
The cleric shrugged. “It is not unknown for monk or cleric to serve in a lord’s army, for is it not sung that while Our Lady tends the Hearth, Our Lord wields the Sword?”
Biscop Antonia came in. Servants surrounded her, bringing a pitcher of water and a fine brass basin and soft white linen so she might refresh her face and hands. Others brushed dust and travel dirt off her vestments while a woman braided Antonia’s long silver hair, draping a shawl of white linen over the biscop’s head when she was through. Atop the shawl two clerics placed her hat—her mitre—the mark of her rank as biscop. Tall, pointed both at the front and at the back, the mitre was made of a stiff white cloth and trimmed with thickly embroidered gold ribbons. Two white and gold tassels hung from the back of the hat all the way to her feet.
A cleric handed Antonia her crosier and she turned, surveying her retinue with a kindly smile on her face as if to show her gratitude for their service. Her gaze came to rest on Alain. He bowed his head swiftly, mortified he had been caught staring at her and her ablutions. So he did not see her expression, only heard her voice when she spoke.
“There is another I requested be brought to me many days ago. He has not yet arrived?”
“Not yet, Your Grace.”
“I hope he can be with us by Compline.” She spoke mildly, even hopefully, but Alain now recognized the undercurrent that eddied around her. For all that her aspect was kind and her voice gentle, she did not allow her will to be disobeyed. Clerics scurried away; others took their place, and as a united party they processed out so the biscop could lead the service of Vespers, the evensong.
Cleric Willibrod, left in charge, allowed Alain to kneel and pray as Vespers was sung in another part of the camp. During the final psalm, two soldiers appeared at the open tent entrance. With them, as if he were under arrest, came Frater Agius. His brown robes looked travel-stained and rumpled, and he was limping. Alain was so surprised he jumped to his feet in mid-phrase.
Agius shook free of the guards. He knelt at once to finish the last lines of the psalm, and Alain, shamed by the frater’s piety, copied him.
“I thought you had stayed behind at Lavas town,” whispered Alain after the last Alleluia was sung. “I thought you did not intend to ride with Count Lavastine.”
“I did not.” Agius rose, glared at the guards, and limped over to wash his face out of the same fine brass basin used by the biscop. Alain was both astounded and entranced by this show of worldly vanity and arrogance on the part of Agius. The frater wiped his face and hands dry with the same soft white linen the biscop had used. “It is not my part in life to involve myself with the worldly disputes that tempt those who have been seduced by the glamour of earthly power and pleasures.”
“Then why are you here?” Alain demanded.
“I was summoned against my will.”
Agius promptly sat down in the cushioned chair which even an ignorant lad like Alain, unaccustomed to the ways of the nobility, could see was reserved for the biscop. This act of flagrant defiance set Alain shaking. The hounds, catching his mood, stirred restlessly, thumping their tails on the ground and lifting their heads to watch intently.
“I beg your pardon, Brother,” said Willibrod nervously. He began picking at the scabs on his skin. “That is Biscop Antonia’s chair. It is not fitting for a lowly brother to sit—”
Agius glared the poor cleric into silence.
Through the entryway, Alain saw torches flickering. Biscop Antonia had returned.
2
“IS it fitting,” asked Biscop Antonia in her mild voice after the outraged gasps of her servants had quieted, “that a simple frater of the church presume to sit in the seat of one whose elevation was ordained by the hand of the skopos herself?”
