Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

“I cannot believe otherwise. I am alive because of it.”

Rosvita smiled. “I thank you, Eagle. I am not always sure that my path is a righteous one.”

“That is why we trust you, Sister, because you lead us with honesty.”

Unexpectedly, the words brought tears to Rosvita’s eyes. Hanna saw it, and she leaned forward as if to touch Rosvita’s hands but pulled back at the last moment with a wry smile, and hurried off on her errand. Eagles did not comfort noble clerics. It was not their place.

Yet the gesture reminded Rosvita of Hathui, whose dignity was unimpeachable. The Lord and Lady love us all equally in their hearts, Hathui had said. We are equal, before God.

Rosvita stepped outside, onto the porch, and watched the Lions and guardsmen at work, hammering, packing, hauling. There were sealed jars of oil and a basket of last year’s apples hauled up from a cellar. There were precious iron and bronze tools, copper-lined buckets, and baskets filled with iron nails and tallow candles. Skeins of spun wool, wool cloth, a churn, a cream pot and paddle, strickles, parchments still stretched on frames, an ox yoke but no ox, and the convent bell with its clapper sheathed. The library was an annex built off the chapel and sharing its tile roof, and here Fortunatus directed half a dozen nuns as they wrapped and stowed books in baskets and in crates being nailed together on the spot by a pair of Lions. Sister Acella emerged from the infirmary, carrying bundles of dried herbs.

“Sister Rosvita, how may we aid you?” asked Sister Hilaria, coming out onto the porch with Diocletia beside her. “If you will sit with the Holy Mother, we will do what we can.”

“Diocletia, if you will take an accounting of the bedding and household items in the hall, and pack what is necessary for the journey or too valuable to discard. Hilaria, I pray you, attend Sister Acella.”

Hilaria smiled sharply. Nothing escaped her. “I’ll see that no stray items are left behind.”

It was a relief to return into the hall and seat herself under the eaves beside Mother Obligatia. Princess Sapientia bided in the bed next to them, singing a nonsense song:

tru la tru lee tru lo tru lye

where the river flows, did the crow fly

“Books are a precious treasure,” said Mother Obligatia, when Rosvita had poured out her concerns to the old woman.

“Even books as dangerous as the ones hidden here?”

“Even so. In ancient days folk recalled all things in their heads and in this way passed down knowledge from mother to son and father to daughter. What is written in books is more easily lost.”

“Do you think so?”

“Think of the library at St. Ekatarina’s. I still weep to think of it abandoned, perhaps forever lost.”

“We have a copy of your chronicle. My history. The Vita of St. Radegundis.”

“So few! What if they were the only books which escaped this cataclysm? All of St. Marcia, lost!”

“There are other copies.”

“A few, and those scattered. Eustacia’s Commentary on her dream. St. Alisia’s Memoria, and the holy writings of the Holy Mother, St. Gregoria. St. Augustina’s wise words—although now that I think on it, she was a bit of a prig, running wild in her youth and then scolding others ever after. What of St. Peter the Geometer and his Eternal Geometry?”

“Which I do not fully understand.”

The abbess chuckled. “You are not the first to make that admission. What of the Catechetical Orations of St. Macrina? What of Biscop Ariana’s Banquet?”

“That’s a heretical text. By an Arethousan!”

“So it is, but so entertaining. Have you never read it?”

“I have not!”

“Ah! She had a wicked eye and a wickeder tongue, that one, rather like our dear Brother Fortunatus. I cannot believe it is better that even her heretical writings be thrown out. Best they be remembered, so we remember how to argue against them. They are chronicles in their own way. Like Euseb?’s History.”

“Like the Chronicle of Vitalia,” agreed Rosvita, recalling the books she and her novices had read in Darre, “and the Annals of Autun.”

“Just so. Memory is our armor, and our weapon, Rosvita. Otherwise we are vulnerable again and again.”

“So we are.” Rosvita squeezed Obligatia’s cold hands as gently as she would handle a newborn pup. “We must soldier on and do the best we can.”

“Where do we go?”

“To the regnant.”

“Ah. Then I shall meet my grandson-in-law.” She smiled. “I look forward to it. A fine, brawny, handsome man, so they say.”