Prince of Dogs

“Pray you,” said Baldwin sweetly, “do not forget our good comrade Sigfrid, Mother Scholastica’s favorite. I am sure he, too, is not insensible to the favor you show us.”

Ermanrich fell into a fit of frantic coughing. One of the boys hovering at Reginar’s back tittered, and the young lord turned right around and slapped him hard. Then he spun and stalked away, his “dogs” scurrying after him.

Fittingly, at that moment Sigfrid came running out of the dormitory, his sharp face alight, his novice’s robes all askew. He did not notice Reginar. He never did. And that was the worst insult of all, although Reginar never understood that Sigfrid noticed nothing except his studies, his prayers, and—now—his three friends.

“I heard the most amazing news,” Sigfrid said as he halted beside them. He knelt with the practiced ease of a person who has spent years moving into or out of a kneeling position, as indeed Sigfrid himself cheerfully admitted he had, having come at age five to his vocation: monk-in-training.

“That was cruel,” said Ermanrich.

“What was?” asked Sigfrid.

Baldwin smiled. “Poor Reginar. He can’t abide that his own dear aunt, Mother Scholastica, favors a mere steward’s son and lavishes her favor—and her private tutorials—on that lowborn creature instead of on her nephew.”

“Oh, dear,” said Sigfrid. He looked concerned all at once. “I do not mean to make anyone envious of me. I have not striven for Mother Scholastica’s attention, and yet—” His face took on an expression of rapt contemplation. “—to be privileged to study with her and with Brother Methodius—”

“You know what they say.” Baldwin cut in before Sigfrid could launch into a long recitation—by heart, of course—of whatever horrific matristic text written centuries ago he had studied today in Mother Scholastica’s study.

“Why, no,” said Ermanrich. “What do they say?”

“That Lord Reginar was put into the monastery only because his mother detests him. Had she allowed him to become ordained as a frater and then be elevated to the rank of presbyter, he would have had to visit her every three years as is traditional, as long as she lives, and she decided it was better to put him in the monastery where she’d never have to see him again if she didn’t wish it.”

Ermanrich snorted, gulped, and began to laugh helplessly.

Sigfrid gazed sorrowfully at Baldwin and only shook his head, as if to remind the other boy that the Lord and Lady looked ill on those who spoke spitefully of others.

“I believe it,” muttered Ivar.

“I’m sorry, Ivar,” said Baldwin quickly. “I didn’t mean to remind you of your own situation.”

“Never mind,” said Ivar. “What’s done is done. What was your news, Sigfrid?”

“King Henry’s progress is coming here, to Quedlinhame, for the Feast of St. Valentinus. They expect the king today or tomorrow!”

“How do you know this?” Ermanrich demanded. “Not even Hathumod knows, for if she did, she’d have told me.”

Sigfrid blushed. He had a sensitive face, his expressions made interesting by the conflict between his studious nature and solitary soul on the one hand and the very real and passionate liking he had taken to his year-mates on the other. “Alas, I fear I overheard them. It was ill-done of me, I know—but I couldn’t wait to tell you, for I knew you would want to hear! Imagine! The king!”

Baldwin yawned. “Ah, yes. I’ve met the king.”

“Have you really met him?” demanded Ermanrich, laughing.

The schoolmaster appeared under the colonnade and they all leaped guiltily to their feet and with contrite faces made their way to the line. As first years, they took their place at the end, matched up in pairs. Before them walked Reginar and his sycophants, and in front of Reginar—although Reginar hated anyone to walk in front of him—stood the humble third years.

As they marched out of the dormitory and made their way along the path that led to the church, Ivar craned his neck when the brown-robed female novices came into view. For his pains he got a sharp whack on his shoulders from the schoolmaster’s willow switch. It stung, but in a way the pain helped him. The pain helped him remember that he was Ivar, son of Count Harl and Lady Herlinda. He was not truly a monk, not by vocation as Sigfrid was, nor was he resigned to his fate as was Ermanrich, sixth of seven sons of a marchland countess who, to her horror, had never given birth to a girl and had perforce made her eldest son her heir and after that hastily dedicated the superfluous boys to the church so they would not contest their brother’s elevation to the rank of count after her death. Unlike Baldwin, he had not escaped an unwanted marriage by begging to be put in the church.