The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

Ermanrich jumped to his feet and bowed respectfully. “So I do, Brother. I greet you in the name of God, Our Mother, She who delivered Herself of a child born of mortal parents who yet partook of no stain of the Enemy. This child She named Her Son, and through His suffering and redemption we ourselves can be saved.” Then he squared his shoulders stoutly, waiting for the rod of martyrdom, or at least a switch across the buttocks.

“A heretic,” said Brother Humilicus mildly. “I should have known. But, alas, we have fallen so far that I find I prefer a heretic who serves God with devotion than an abbot who mouths the truth but serves only himself. What is your name?”

“I am called Ermanrich, Brother.” He made the sign of respect to Humilicus, and knelt obediently. “I see you are engaged in God’s work, even if you are misguided. If you do not yet believe in the truth, then I will pray that God will lead you to the truth in time.”

Brother Humilicus merely glanced at the infirmarian, who busied himself brewing some kind of drink over by the cupboard where he kept his herbs and simples. “These are the days when all things are turned asunder. Abbots use the cloister as a whorehouse, and novices lecture their elders. Still, it is an odd coincidence. Biscop Suplicia came to me only yesterday to complain of certain paintings fashioned by the Enemy, telling the tale of this heresy, that have appeared here and there on walls in the city. It’s a foul hand that appears fair to the eye but conceals beneath its skin only maggots and worms.”

They endured a lecture from Brother Humilicus on the evils of heresy and disobedience, but Ermanrich’s presence had bolstered Ivar’s heart. For the first time in weeks, he felt hope stir. Perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps life was not a meaningless round of eating and shitting and whoring and vomiting after all.

Who was painting pictures in Gent?

In time, even Brother Humilicus had to leave off. He grudgingly allowed Ivar and Ermanrich into the church to pray at the service of Terce. But Humilicus had a monastery to supervise which he ran on a tight rein in Ekkehard’s absence. He did not like Ekkehard’s boys, as he called them when the prince wasn’t around, and he made no effort to include them in the daily round of monastic life. It was easy enough to slip out the servants’ gate and trudge alongside fields of winter wheat and rye, then cross the stone bridge into Gent. Because they were still novices, their hair hadn’t yet been cut in a monk’s tonsure, so they could pass for young fraters. Fraters passed aplenty through Gent on their way east to convert the heathens or to preach among the newly-converted tribes, the Rederii, the Salavii, the Polenie and the horse-sacrificing Ungrians, the red-haired Starvikii and the warrior clans who called themselves Rossi. Some of these fraters stayed a night at the guesthouse in the monastery, and sometimes Ivar would sneak away from the feasts in the dormitory hall to listen to them converse with Brother Humilicus about their adventures among the flat-faced Bodinavas who ate, peed, fought, fornicated, and gave birth all in the saddle, the dreadful Quman who took human heads and wore wings on their bodies, the Sazdakh warrior women who killed any man who set foot in their territory, or the mysterious Kerayit whose witch women were so ugly that one glance from their eyes would turn you to stone. They all knew tales of other fraters, their brothers in the church, who had been granted glorious martyrdoms among the savages, and they spoke of these blessed events in marvelous, gory detail.

“Look!” murmured Ermanrich, shaking Ivar and pointing to a whitewashed wall. Color crept out over the long white wall, an unfolding tale told with pictures: God reigns in heaven upon her high seat, holding the entire universe in Her hand; into the body of the blessed St. Edessia She miraculously places a holy child who partakes both of human nature and of God’s nature; he grows to be a man, and receives in a dream the Holy Word; he preaches, and followers come to him, chief among them Thecla, Matthias, Mark, Lucia, Johanna, Marian, and Peter; he is arrested on charges of sedition by the officers of the Dariyan Empire; he appears before the Empress Thaisannia, and when he refuses to honor her with sacrifices, she condemns him to a criminal’s death; he is flayed alive and his heart is torn out of his body, but where his blood falls on the earth, roses bloom.

They stared, and as they stared, Ivar became aware that townsfolk passed by the wall to point and whisper. Someone had placed a withered garland of autumn flowers below the painting that depicted Daisan’s suffering at the hands of the empress’ executioners.

He moved forward to cautiously touch the painting. The colors already cracked and peeled; a few storms would erase it, as though it had never been. But the images would remain in people’s hearts.