Child of Flame

“You are late, Sister Venia,” said the Caput Draconis, she who sat first among them. That damnable hound always lying at her feet growled.

“I beg your pardon. I lost my way again.”

“So do we all at times, alas. If you will sit, Sister Venia, then we may prepare ourselves.”

The hound lifted its head to watch as Antonia sat on the bench next to Brother Marcus. He acknowledged her with a quirk of his lips, nothing more. He wore the presbyter’s robe and cloak easily. Except for Anne, he had made the smoothest adjustment when they had fled south from the smoking ruins of Verna. Antonia still found the city of Darre confusing, a labyrinth of ancient ruins and modern timber buildings, courtyards and alleys, pastures and paved squares, and the palace compound a maze of corridors, chambers, and servants’ passages in which she often got lost even after all these months. Marcus had grown up here. To him, navigating in the skopos’ palace was as natural as breathing.

“I am not sure he is the right person to ask to join us,” Severus was saying. “I don’t trust him.”

Marcus laughed sharply. “Don’t trust him because you fear he’s ambitious, or because you’re jealous of his influence over the Holy Mother and the college of presbyters?”

“I trust no person who uses beauty as a weapon to gain advancement,” said Severus sourly. “Nor should you.”

“Beauty is not a weapon,” said Meriam softly from her couch, “but a gift from God. It would be a sin to shroud that which God have molded.”

“Women are always fools when thrown into the company of attractive men, or so I have observed,” muttered Severus.

“Even if that is true,” said Antonia, amused by the tenor of their conversation and especially by Severus’ indignation, “we are but six when we must be seven. Hugh of Austra is born of a noble line, he has Bernard’s book, he studies sorcery, and he seems pious. Must we cast away this opportunity to make our number whole again just because you don’t trust his handsome face, Brother Severus?”

He grunted irritably. “In my old monastery, we understood that vanity is a mortal sin.”

Anne raised a hand for silence. “Time is short, and our need is great.” Three lamps burned in this richly furnished chamber, enough to light the table and elaborately carved benches at which they sat. Tapestries softened the walls, but the lamplight barely illuminated the shadowed images of the holy martyrdoms of St. Agnes and St. Asella, youthful girls who, in the early days of the church, had chosen death over marriage to nonbelievers. “I saw last year at Werlida that Hugh had promise. That is why I let him take Bernard’s book.”

“You let him take it?” Severus sat back in outrage. He still bore scars on his face from the conflagration at Verna. Of all of them, except of course for poor dead Zoë, he had sustained the worst injuries. “After all I had done to erase that knowledge so that we alone would possess it?”

“Of course. I could have prevented him from leaving with the book, but I chose not to. Now that I see what he has made of his opportunity to gain in knowledge, I know that I was right to do as I did then. He is clever, and he seems to have tempered his obsession for Liathano, which hindered his ability to learn and wax stronger in knowledge.”

Antonia thought better of mentioning that illuminating episode in St. Thecla’s Chapel. Secrets, like treasure, were best hoarded until that day when they could be spent most usefully by the one who possessed them.

“The new year is almost upon us,” continued Anne, “and the rains will soon cease here in Aosta. Travel will be possible again. We must consider certain errands.” The gold torque, signifying her royal lineage, winked at her throat, barely visible beneath the rich wine-colored robes she wore to mark her status as a member of the Holy Mother’s innermost circle of counselors. It irked Antonia that Anne had simply walked into the skopos’ palace early last autumn and by means unknown to Antonia had gotten herself seated at once at the Holy Mother’s council table, especially since Antonia herself had been relegated to the schola as a mere cleric. But Anne’s power was not to be trifled with, or challenged. Not yet, anyway. “Sister Meriam, you must continue your work with Hugh of Austra.”

“So I will,” agreed Meriam from her couch. “It is always a pleasure to work with a young man whose manners are elegant and whose understanding is quick rather than dead. It goes slowly because he will not let the book out of his grasp, and he is often busy with other matters in the palace. But in any case, I urge caution.” She paused to catch her breath.