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“Hush, infant,” said Fortunatus as mildly as he ever could. Like Rosvita, he liked the bustle and hubbub now that their numbers had increased again. He turned back to Rosvita. “Not one soul in Darre has a bad word to say about Presbyter Hugh. Why should they? There’s no man with gentler manners or a more noble bearing.” Did sarcasm twitch his lips as he spoke? For once, she couldn’t tell.
“He is handsome,” said Aurea unexpectedly. She did not usually offer an opinion, nor was Rosvita accustomed to asking one of her. “But I haven’t forgotten that time at Werlida, with him and that wicked Eagle and good Prince Sanglant caught between them. Like my mother said, wolfsbane is a lovely flower to look at, but it’ll kill you the same as rotten meat.”
“A fine expression,” murmured Fortunatus with a chuckle, looking at the servant woman as if he’d never noticed her before.
She flushed. Aurea was old enough to be steady yet still young enough to think of marrying, if she found a husband who could offer her the security to make it worth her while to leave the king’s progress. So far she had not. And Brother Fortunatus certainly was not going to be the one to offer. Rosvita wondered if she would have to let the young woman down gently. Here in Darre, with such a high concentration of presbyters, she had seen mistresses aplenty, set up to live in small houses close by the Amurrine Hill. It was easier, in truth, for women to resist the whisper of temptation, since they had been granted hearts less susceptible to rash impulse. Even so, too many clerics turned their ears to the seductive voice of the Enemy.
Humankind was weak, despite what the blessed Daisan had preached. It was always a struggle.
“I pray you, Aurea, I would have bread, if there is any.”
“Of course, my lady.” Still red, and with a hand on her cheek to cover her blush, Aurea left the chamber.
“Sister Gerwita, now that I am better, I would like Brother Eudes and Brother Ingeld to attend me today as usual.” The young cleric nodded obediently and hurried out. Rosvita regarded Heriburg and Ruoda in silence, and they returned her gaze steadily. They were so young, but they had come from Korvei, chosen expressly by Mother Otta to be at Rosvita’s service. She sighed, understanding the need for allies, and returned her gaze to Fortunatus. “Go on, Brother. I trust we are alone now and cannot be overheard.”
He glanced again around the room, as if expecting to see a spy hidden in one of the corners, but, like Rosvita, he trusted the two girls. Enough light crept in that the painted walls swam into view: geometric borders framed by flowers and, within these, a series of murals depicting the deaths of the martyrs: St. Asella walled up alive in an anchorite’s cell; St. Kristine of the Knives; St. Gregory torn apart by dogs; the hundred arrows that pierced St. Sebastian.
“Do you remember the convent of St. Ekatarina?” he asked.
“How could I forget any of the things that happened there? Queen Adelheid trusts Hugh now because of the aid he gave us.”
“Sorcerous aid.”
Heriburg started, but said nothing. Ruoda leaned forward eagerly, her scarf slipping to reveal honey-colored hair.
“True enough,” agreed Rosvita. “Now we are all stained by it. Knowing what powers he has, we cannot speak against him, since we stood aside and let him use those powers to help us escape Ironhead.”
“I beg you, do not be so hard on yourself, Sister.” He paused, like a fox about to snatch an egg, and then slipped a hand up his sleeve. She heard rustling. “Do you recall the young lay sister, Paloma?”
“The young dove? Poor child, she will soon be withered by that hard work, and in such a lonely place.”
“She is here.”
“Here! In Darre?”
“Hush, Sister.” Was that sweat on his brow? Was he really so anxious? A breeze stirred the stuffy room, enough to waft away the worst of the closed-in smell. She had been cooped up here for many days, recovering from the fever. “I did not recognize her, but she knew who I was. She contrived to meet me after chapel, after Vigils, out among the hedges where I usually go walking until Lauds. She said she’d come from the convent at the order of Mother Obligatia, with a message for you, but that she could not get near enough because of your illness.”
“She could have come to one of us!” exclaimed Ruoda.
“You were not at St. Ekatarina’s,” he retorted. “She did not know you.” He turned back to Rosvita. “She brought this to me instead.”
He drew a tightly rolled length of parchment from his sleeve and handed it to Rosvita as though it were a sleeping snake that might bite. She unrolled it on the small table beside the east-facing window. As the sun nudged up over the horizon, its light splayed across the table, illuminating the lines drawn into the parchment before her.
“A map.”
Fortunatus rose to stand beside her, leaning on the table. Ruoda and Heriburg crowded behind him. They had all seen maps, mostly drawn in the time of the Dariyan Empire, in monastic libraries and at the schola at Autun. Emperor Taillefer had commissioned mapmakers to mark the boundaries of his holy empire but those that remained from that time looked rough and unpolished compared with the efforts of the ancient scholars. The great library in the skopos’ palace also kept a number of crumbling maps from the old days, frail papyrus that flaked away at a touch. This map was crudely drawn and freshly, even hastily done; inkblots had not been scraped off; the coastline of Aosta—well mapped by the sailors and merchants of the old empire—was barely recognizable; off the western coast only a simple oval, marked “Alba,” signified that large island even though Rosvita had seen in Autun a map delineating the southern coast, made in the time of Taillefer’s grandfather, who had married his younger son to the Alban queen.
“What are these marks?” Fortunatus pointed to scratches, like chicken’s tracks, set here and there across the land, erratically spaced, each one numbered. “Some of the numbers are repeated. What can they signify?”
Even without her dream, she would have known them. She had never forgotten reading in the chronicle kept by the holy sisters of the convent of St. Ekatarina. She had never forgotten the conversation she had had that fateful day.
“Mother Obligatia said that the abbesses who came before her believed that the stone crowns were gateways.”
“So they proved to be,” said Fortunatus, “but that does not explain—”
“Nay, Brother, look what she has written here.”
He frowned. “I fear my Arethousan has never been good, Sister. You know my failings. What does it say?”
