“The undercrofts were gutted for the most. Naught burns like spilled oil and dry grain. We’ve a few bales of wool left, though smoked and charred, and Brother Jerome, Iero welcome his cook’s soul, fell to a Morian blade defending his last root cellar. But the orchard now”—the lay brother’s wide face crumpled like an old rag—“that weren’t the soldiers. No man, but only the One God himself sent us that trial. A root rot, Brother Gardener said, that spread through the trees at the same time the murrain come to the sheepfold. It’s the sickness in the world, as Father Abbot so often warned of, come to Gillarine at last…and now we’ve heard tidings of his own passing.”
Anselm’s stolid presence faltered but did not break. His gaitered sandals crunched the snow, and he encouraged the tired donkey with a soft pat and an assertive tug on the lead.
“Prior Nemesio has taken us well in hand. And the good God grants us fortitude. To share the trials of his poorest in this land must surely bring us grace. A blessing we’ve none with your appetite to feed.” He chuckled softly, then sighed. “We could use a cheerful story adventure as you’re wont to tell, though. We rejoice that our brothers live with the saints, and we know that Iero will give us all we need, do we but ask, but truly we feel a dreadful sadness come upon us with this untimely winter.”
Sadness. Yes. More than the failing light and ruined buildings. More than so many good men dead. Gods grant you peace and care, good Robierre, as you gave so many, and Jerome, may you feast at the god’s own table. A pervasive sorrow held the abbey in its grip, a grieving in the stones and earth that felt as if the sun would never relieve this falling night. The thick dry cloak Thalassa had given me felt thin as gossamer.
As Anselm and I led the donkey across the field toward the gatehouse, the shy lay brother continued his stories of the raid and its aftermath. I’d never heard so many words from the infirmarian’s assistant in all the weeks I’d lived at Gillarine. Perhaps trials did bring out new strengths in us.
Behind us, on the road that stretched northward toward Elanus and Palinur, Thalassa, her faithful Silos, and her five temple guards had vanished into the darkening forest, determined to reach Elanus before nightfall. My sister’s parting kiss yet burned on my forehead. A kiss from Thalassa. She must believe I was going to die in Evanore. Unfortunately, I could not ease her concern. What use would the Bastard find for a mind-dead former doulon slave?
“Thank you for rescuing me yet again,” I’d said after she yanked my head down and planted that unexpected kiss. Then I’d stooped to whisper in her ear, “Teneamus.”
I’d never seen her smile like that. Genuine. Pleased. Sad. “Hold on to your soul, little brother,” she’d said as she mounted her palfrey. “Be well.”
“I’d be happy enough with warm, Sinduria serena.”
She’d rolled her eyes and ridden away. I was happy she hadn’t told me whether I would ever see her again.
“I’ll put old Dob to shelter; then we’ll find you a bed and a bite,” said Anselm as we slogged through the gatehouse tunnel. A snarl of thick ropes and harness protruded from the drifted snow, and the wooden gates lay twisted from their hinges. “I needs must ask Father Prior if you’re to be housed in the dorter—which is now moved to the abbot’s house as it’s got a roof—or in the guesthouse. That new lord’s come today is most forbidding, I’ll say.” He nodded at Voushanti’s retreating back. The mardane had hurried off ahead of us to see where Philo and Melkire were bedded down. “Some folk I knew as a lad would call him marked of the Adversary. You’ve not renounced your vows, have you, lad, or been dispensed from them?”
“Just taken on new ones, Brother,” I said, feeling an unexpected heat in my cheeks. “Lord Voushanti is my new master’s proxy.”
We trudged through the Porter’s Gate and into the trampled gardens in front of the dark church. Anselm frowned. “So you’ll to the guesthouse, then. We’ve a fire laid. And you’ll need dry clothes. Secular garb. You take a good rest tonight, and I’ll put a flea in Father Prior’s ear to ask if Lord Stearc might have left some things would come near fitting you. I’ll send a posset as well, to stave off chills and damage from frostbite. Not so excellent as Brother Badger would have made for you, of course.”
Summoning a smile, I clapped him on the shoulder in thanks.
Once left alone, the sad emptiness of the abbey gripped my spirit sorely. Despite the cold, I lingered in the familiar paths and courts. To rush toward fire and food seemed somehow lacking in respect. So, rather than taking the straighter way to the guesthouse, I wandered past the church into the north cloister walk and looked out on the cloister garth—the abbey’s heart.
Rubble littered the square, the angular bulk of fallen cornices and corbels bulging awkwardly beneath the snow, alongside the birdcage shape of Saint Gillare’s shrine. Though every building showed damage, the primary target of the raid was obvious. The walls of the abbey library and scriptorium had collapsed completely, crushing the eastern cloister walk. Naught was left but heaps of scorched stones and charred beams. The chapter house on one side and the monks’ dorter on the other gaped open on the sides that had adjoined the library. Both structures were gutted shells. Of the jewel-like chapter-house windows, depicting Eodward and Caedmon, only one soot-marked pane remained, bearing the outline of an upraised hand.
So what had become of the magical lighthouse and its tools and books and seeds, gathered to sustain humankind past these dark times? Its creators had surely built it to endure through end-times chaos and destruction. Was this raid Bayard’s vengeance for the abbey’s sheltering Perryn? Or was this Sila Diaglou’s handiwork? The lighthouse would be anathema to her, a promise to undo the chaos she worked for. I thought back to her savage attack on Gildas…a ploy to “draw out” her enemies…and Luviar and Stearc and Gram running for the gate. Yes, she knew of the lighthouse and its creators.
Firelight flickered in the far corner of the cloister, where the great hearth of the calefactory was required to remain lit until Saint Mathilde’s Day. As I rested my back on a slender column, a handbell broke the oppressive silence, ten measured rings calling the monks to the Hours, a thin, strident summoning compared to the sonorous richness of the bronze bells fallen from the belltower. The pattern of two, three, and one, followed—Vespers, the Hour of peace. But I felt no peace and could not shake the sense that more than bodies and buildings had been shattered here.
I believed in the gods and their creatures—whether they were named Kemen or Iero, angels or Danae or gatzi. Even a dolt could see that the universe was no soulless clockwork, but infused with life beyond human understanding—wondrous and mysterious, perilous and exquisite. But as to whether the deities truly listened to our prayers or desired our votive gifts or libations or blood sacrifices, I’d been content to leave that study to wiser heads. And never had I given literal credence to the god stories and myths I’d been told—of Deunor’s stolen fire that lit the stars or of the Danae whose dancing nourished the world and held it together. Not until I looked on the ruins of Gillarine and knew in flesh and spirit, breath and bone, that the Canon, the pattern of the world, was truly broken.
Curious, apprehensive, I knelt at the edge of the cloister walk and brushed away a patch of snow. The grass of the garth, so thick and green but a month ago, lay yellow and slimy. I pressed my hands to the earth.
Nothing. No slamming darkness. No piercing light. No music of grief or longing to wrench my soul as it had every time I’d tested this particular patch of earth. I felt only the sickness of the outer world that had intruded here. Plague into the sheepfold. Rot into the orchard. Fire and death into the cloisters.