Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

As she moved through the sunny scriptorium, she noted the scribes busy at their work, clerics from the king’s schola copying out capitularies, deeds, and charters as well as letters pertaining to the king’s business here and in the north. So many rounded shoulders, so many busy hands. Now and again clerics looked up from their work to nod at her or ask for advice. More by accident than design, she was now in charge of Henry’s schola. Queen Adelheid had her own schola, made up of clerics from Aosta and overseen by Hugh, who had been assigned as the Holy Mother’s official emissary to the Queen.

“Sister Rosvita, ought we to be writing this cartulary to establish the county of Ivria? Shouldn’t that properly be done in the Queen’s schola?”

“Nay, Brother Eudes, we mean to establish King Henry’s right and obligation to rule in these lands so that none will protest if the skopos agrees to crown him as Emperor. Therefore, any grant must come from Henry and Adelheid together.” She walked on, pausing where light streamed in to paint gold over the parquet floor.

“Sister, we have heard another report of heresy, this time from Biscop Odila at Mainni. How are we to answer?”

“Patience, Sister Elsebet. The skopos has already indicated that she will hold a council on this matter next year. Write to Biscop Odila that she must confine those who will not recant so that they cannot corrupt the innocent, but by no means to act rashly. Avoid at all costs any public trial, until after the council, because it is in the nature of people to make martyrs where they can. We must beware making martyrs of these heretics. Can you render that in your own words, Sister?”

Elsebet had been with a schola for ten years, just the kind of cleric who did better if given a little independence to work. She smiled sharply. “Of course, Sister Rosvita. I am glad that the charge of the king’s schola has fallen to you. In truth, the skopos’ clerics and presbyters rule with too heavy a hand for my liking. I daresay the custom is different here in Aosta than it is in the north.”

Farther on, Ruoda and Heriburg sat side by side, one white-scarfed head and one pale blue one, intent on their copying.

“How comes the work?” Rosvita asked quietly as she paused beside them.

They had, open on the lectern above them, the Vita of St. Radegundis. Heriburg was continuing the copy started by Sister Amabilia, and Ruoda had begun a second copy, which Rosvita hoped to send to Korvei for safekeeping.

“Well enough.” Ruoda had blotted a word and now scraped the offending ink away with her writing knife.

Heriburg was ruling a blank sheet of parchment. She did not look away from her work as she answered, her voice so low that Rosvita had to bend nearer in order to hear. “We dared not speak to you this morning, Sister, because of the many visitors you had in your chambers. We have more gossip than you could possibly want—”

“Never underestimate how much gossip can be useful to the king, Heriburg. Go on.”

Ruoda’s smile flashed, but she looked up only to read the next line from the Vita, above her, and to dip her quill in the inkpot.

“A Sister Venia came to the palace in the train of the Holy Mother, Anne, when she first appeared here last summer. An elderly woman with white hair and a pleasant, round face, well spoken, well mannered, well educated, and nobly born. She was heard to say only that she came out of the noble lineage of Karrone. Soon after she arrived a presbyter was heard to claim that she was his cousin, a granddaughter of the Karronish princely family who had been made a biscop and then detained for black sorcery, but he died soon after of apoplexy and could not therefore substantiate his claim. No one liked him anyway, so we hear. But in any case, Sister Venia made no enemies while she was here.”

“Was here?”

Heriburg studied the newly-ruled parchment, frowning as she measured the space and the amount she could fit into it and where she would break the words. She had left space for an illustration, but that work would go to Brother Jehan.

“Now she is missing, Sister. She was last seen in those desperate days after the death of the Holy Mother Clementia, may her memory be blessed, and before the arrival of Queen Adelheid and King Henry.”

“A strange thing, too,” murmured Ruoda, pausing to trim her quill, “because until we reminded people of the woman, it was as if everyone had forgotten her.”

“I hope you did not draw attention to yourselves.”

Heriburg glanced up, her face as bland as pudding but her gaze as sharp as pins. “Have you ever noticed the similarity in Dariyan of the words ‘forgiveness’ and ‘poison’? ‘Venia’ and ‘veneni.’ Many in the palace still wonder about Ironhead’s death, and about the death of the Holy Mother Clementia, may God have mercy on her. It is only a small slip of the tongue to introduce’ another name, and clerics are in truth the worst of gossips, given encouragement.”