“He is my nephew,” said Aunt Bel coolly. “His father promised him to the monastery. He enters the novitiate on St. Euseb?’s Day.”
“I am surprised that you would enrich the King’s monastery with such a well-grown lad.”
“The church serves Our Lord and Lady. What goes on in the world concerns them not at all,” retorted Aunt Bel.
Dhuoda smiled gently, but Alain, backing away, thought her expression haughty. “What goes on in the world concerns them as much as it concerns any of us, Mistress. But never mind. That oath, once taken, I will not attempt to break.”
The conversation traveled on to kinder subjects, last fall’s harvest, the newly minted sceattas bearing the impression of the hated King Henry, trade from the southern port of Medemelacha, rumors of tempestari—weather sorcerers—causing hail and ice storms along the border between Wendar and Varre.
Alain stood in the shadows and listened as the evening wore on, coming out into the light of the lanterns posted around the long table only to pour ale into empty cups. Dhuoda’s deacon was, by chance, a woman of great learning and had a particular interest in old tales. To Alain’s surprise she agreed to recite a poem.
In those days when the Lost Ones held sway
When these lands lay under the hand
Of the people born of angels and human women,
Out of their people came one who ruled
As emperor of men and elvish kind both.
These skills he had, that he could bind
And he could weave, and out of the stars
draw down to him the song of power.
These arts we call by the name of sorcery,
He was taught them by his mother.
In those days out of the north
In the bright spring there came a dragon,
To all the lands bordering the sea
it laid waste.
But the emperor came himself to fight it, and though it wounded him unto death, in the end with his last strength he cast a great spell and turned the creature into stone. And here it lay, the ridge that bounded Osna Sound, known to all as the Dragonback.
Alain watched them: the arrogant chatelaine, her attendants, the learned deacon and the young frater, who, a man, was sworn to the order of wandering priests rather than to a monastery where a man would be interred for his entire life within the walls of a single cloister. If only he could travel, even if just once, to Lavas Holding, as his father had before him. If only he could pledge service for a single year to the count. His father had gone there seventeen years ago and served the elder Count Lavastine for one year, as was customary, but he had returned home with an infant in his arms and a sorrow in his heart. He had never married, to his elder sister’s dismay, but had turned his heart to the sea and now was gone more than he was home.
Bel had raised the child, since hers was a generous heart and the child was healthy and strong.
What was it like, the place where he had been born? His mother had died three days after bearing him, or so his father had always claimed, but perhaps someone there remembered her.
Alain blinked back tears. He would never know. Tomorrow, on St. Euseb?’s Eve, he would leave to pass the night in vigil outside the gates of the monastery, as was customary for conversi, those who wished to convert to the service of Our Lord and Lady as adults or young persons just come to adulthood.
The next day he would swear his oath and be lost inside the monastery walls. Forever.
“What is it, Alain?” asked his cousin Stancy, coming to stand beside him. She touched his cheek with her fingers. “Weep if you must, but go with a good heart. Think of what great good your prayers will bring to your kin. Think even that you will learn to write and read, and perhaps you will come to be as learned as the deacon there. Then you can travel to many far places—”
“But only in my mind,” he said bitterly.
“Ai, my little one, I know your heart. But this is the burden that has been given to you to bear. You may as well bear it gladly.” She was right, of course. She kissed him affectionately and went off to the back of the hall to fetch more oil for the lanterns.
3
ST. Euseb?’s Eve dawned clear and fine. The netting shed doors creaked lazily all morning in a soft spring breeze. Red streamers painted with the Circle of Unity snapped and fluttered from every eave in the houses set around the village common.
Every person in the village came to the common to watch Chatelaine Dhuoda collect taxes. Vats of honey. Ambers of ale, both clear and dark. A cow or five wethers. Geese. Cheese. Fodder. Smoked salmon and eels. Aunt Bel had fine brooches brought from the south by Alain’s father to pay in lieu of oil and ale. One farmer signed his son into service to the count for five years so that he would not have to turn over his two best milking cows. Another couple had a slave, a young girl brought north from Salia, whom they could no longer feed. Dhuoda looked her over, pronounced her fit enough, and took her as payment. Old Mistress Garia, who had five adult daughters who were all as accomplished at weaving as she was, presented, as usual, lengths of finely-woven cloth which Dhuoda received with evident pleasure. A few paid in coin, and only a very few were marked delinquent since Osna was a wealthy place and the townsfolk here were, Alain knew by his father’s reports, prosperous.