“Biscop Antonia must mean to use magic,” Alain whispered, glancing back at the clerics. They were praying and did not seem to be attending to their captives’ conversation. “She has used it before.”
“But for what purpose?” Agius murmured. “And how? There were a few among those in the schola, when I attended the king’s progress as a boy, who might know or guess. Margrave Judith’s bastard son, for one. He was always interested in what the clerics never wanted to teach him. But the forbidden arts never interested me. I had already discovered the lost words of the blessed Daisan and the suppressed testimony of his holy disciple St. Thecla—”
He broke off and stood. Sorrow raised his head and growled, low in his throat. Alain sprang up just as the biscop swept in with her retainers. Her robes bore a sheen of raindrops, glittering in the torchlight. The air that swelled into the tent on her heels was laden with moisture. Distantly, Alain heard drunken singing, something bawdy. Sabella had recently dismissed her latest concubine in favor of a younger, handsomer man, a free-born soldier in Duke Rodulf’s guard. There had been a bitter if brief confrontation between the two men five nights ago, in which the abandoned man had come off poorly. The cast-off lover was now the object of ridicule and of a great deal of bad verse.
“Cleric Heribert,” said the biscop. The young cleric came at once and knelt before her. “See that a bed is set here, in the corner with our other guests.” By this euphemism she always referred to Alain and Agius. “Then go and bring her here. We must make room. More have come to join Sabella’s army. ‘So shall all the people gather in the house of righteousness.’”
“‘Do not invite all comers into your home,’” retorted Agius. “‘Dishonesty has many disguises.’”
Antonia spared the frater a pitying glance, as one might to a boy who, old enough to herd the goats, still wets himself. Then she turned her kindly gaze on Alain. Sorrow growled. Alain set a hand on the hound’s muzzle, silencing him. “Come, child,” said the biscop, ignoring the hound’s hostility. “We will speak while I am readied for bed.”
Willibrod brought a stool for Alain and hovered anxiously behind him while the biscop’s other servants helped her with her mitre and vestments, lifting them off and folding them carefully into the elaborately carved and painted chest that sat at the foot of her camp bed. The biscop wore a robe of fine white silk beneath. She sat and one of her servingwomen unbraided and rebraided her hair while Antonia toyed with a gold Circle of Unity studded with gems. Alain watched, by turns, his hands and then hers.
“You are continuing your lessons in the evenings?” she asked.
“I am, Your Grace.”
“Read to me.” She took from the bed a book so beautifully bound in a carved ivory case that when she opened it and handed it to him, he was at first afraid to touch it. She nodded that he was to take it from her.
Gingerly, he took the book out of her hands. At first he just gaped at the pages. The facing page was beautifully illuminated with an image of the seven disciples raising their hands toward the heavens, celebrating the miracle of the Pentekoste. The scrollwork was traced in gold ink, and the large initial letter that initiated the text held within its heavy black outline countless tiny owls perched on a narrow Tree of Wisdom, each clutching in one claw a tinier scroll or pen, all of which had been executed in cunning and meticulous detail. He had never touched anything this rich before.
“Read, child,” she repeated.
Haltingly, he began to read. “‘So it happened that when seven times seven days had passed after the Translatus, Thecla heard the voice of the blessed Daisan and her vision was restored. He showed himself to her and her companions and gave proof that he was alive. He spoke to them for seven hours, teaching them about the God of Unities and the Chamber of Light.’”
Heart pounding, he stopped and took a few gasping breaths. It was bad enough to read when Agius stood over him, but Antonia’s watchful gaze made him terribly nervous. Agius had knelt, as he always did when anyone read from the book of Holy Verses.
“You have improved,” said Antonia. “But you are still far from fluent. Go on.”
He sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Lady and Lord above. He could puzzle out the language of the church, Dariyan, but the truth was that any book but this would have been impossible. He had heard this story so many times in Osna church, when Deacon Miria read aloud from the Holy Verses or told the story in loving detail from memory, that if he did not recognize a word, he still knew what ought to come next.