The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“Hindsight is a marvelous thing. It might have been an accident.”

“I no longer believe it was, and yet I have no proof. Did I not say who came to fetch me in Varre, what person took me away from St. Thierry? It was Sister Clothilde.”

“The same Clothilde who was St. Radegundis’ handmaiden and later her companion in the convent?”

“The same one. I never doubted that she was loyal to Radegundis. I believed then and believe now that she would have smiled kindly and cut the throat of any person who crossed her. No one ever crossed her.”

“Except you. For a novice to have carnal knowledge of a monk, both of them under her care, in the monastery—”

“Nay, Sister, she knew of it. She was the one who witnessed our pledge of marriage. She allowed it to happen. That is why I am telling you this. When I was young, I was too passionate and too starved to think clearly. But Brother Marcus asked questions that woke my memories, and now I can see patterns that I could not read then. You are a historian, Sister. I am sharing my secret with you because I think there is an answer to be found. I think now that they left me alive because I was ignorant.”

“Or because they thought you were dead.”

Mother Obligatia smiled bitterly. “You have a mind for this, Sister. But I am now determined not to let my secret die with me. I lost my first two children because I had no power in the world, no kin to protect me. I now rule as Mother over a tiny convent of six nuns and two lay sisters. That we guard a mystery within was the charge given to the mothers here centuries ago, but I wonder if the skopos and her advisers have forgotten its existence.”

“You have honored me with your confession, Mother.”

“Nay, I have only given you another burden. You have a keen mind and a level heart, Sister. I beg you, find out why a man calling himself Brother Marcus came to our guest hall last summer and asked for me by the name Lavrentia, which I abandoned long ago.”

The rock had a muffling effect, close and confining. On the king’s progress Rosvita had grown accustomed to the shouts of the wagoneers, the neighing of horses, the fall of rain, the heedless song of birds, the smell of the stable, and the laughter of wind on her face. Here, she couldn’t even hear the mice. Lord John and his men might labor a hundred miles away, for all that their work lay invisible and inaudible beyond rock walls. No vibrations, no cracks within the stone brought her any hint of the man who bided his time in the guest hall. Was Hugh still praying? Would God ever forgive him for his sins? Would God forgive her hers?

“There is so much to find out.” Rosvita turned the pages of the Vita to the end. Fidelis had mastered the art of script; even Sister Amabilia had found nothing to criticize in his precise hand. He had spoken of such peculiar things. “The birds sing of the child known as Sanglant,” she said, remembering his words. “Have you ever heard of the Seven Sleepers, Mother?”

“Of course. St. Euseb? tells the story of the Seven Sleepers in her History.”

“You have heard no other tale that mentions them?”

“I have not. Why would the birds sing of this Sanglant? What sorcerer understood their language?”

“I do not know.” Her eye followed the writing and her lips shaped the words, and then a thought occurred to her and she spoke out loud. “‘The world divides those whom no space parted once.’ Do you suppose, Mother, that Fidelis was thinking of you when he wrote those words? I assumed he was writing of St. Radegundis. He lived on the men’s side as a monk for the entire span of St. Radegundis’ life there, almost fifty years. Until her death, he would never have known a world without her in it.”

“Surely he wrote this Vita long after I had gone from his life. He must have repented if he went back to the church and became a hermit.”

“Or he felt he had no choice. But he wandered far from Salia in his later years. He was a curious man, the one flaw they could not smooth off of him.”

Mother Obligatia smiled as at a fond and distant memory. “He was a curious man once his interest had been roused.” The light of youth shone in her briefly, a glimpse of the fifteen-year-old girl who had captivated a fifty-year-old monk. Then she recalled who she was now, and she sighed. “God willed that I should spend my life in prayer. But sometimes I wonder what became of my two children. God forgive me, Sister. I am still afflicted with selfishness. In a way, I care nothing for your immortal soul or whether you condemn yourself by trafficking with an accused sorcerer. I want you to escape so that you can find out the truth, and I fear that if you surrender now, Lord John will imprison you and everyone in your party and hold you for ransom. You might be in his prison for years. You might die in Aosta. How then can you find out the truth? If there is no one to aid me, how can I be sure that no harm will come to those who live under my care?”