In the Ruins

  Why did we not think to do this sooner?

  It was a foolish thought. Until his escape, no one in Queen’s Grave had opportunity to speak freely to those outside.

  “You have until nightfall,” Tammus growled at last.

  Hugo hesitated, as if to argue, but did not. He snapped his fingers, and his men mounted and rode briskly to the gates, which were opened at Tammus’ order. After they rode through, the gates were shoved shut behind them.

  “Something’s wrong,” said Ivar.

  He dismounted. The bare ground, covered with a sheen of ice, crackled beneath his boots as he walked forward. He knew this landscape well enough. He had had many months to learn its contours. He had lost track of the time since he had escaped, but it had been nine or ten months, early summer then and the end of winter now. In that time the tidy gardens, fields, and orchards had gone untended, so it appeared. Worst, a dozen new graves marked the cemetery plot north of the infirmary. He recognized them because of the heaps of earth, yet not one bore a wooden Circle staked into the ground or a crude headstone.

  It was deadly quiet. Not a soul stirred, not even come to see what the noise was or to investigate the whickering of horses and the sound of armed men.

  He dropped his reins and ran for the compound, past the abandoned sheep pasture and the wildly overgrown bramble where once goats had feasted. The front door was stuck, canted sideways because of broken hinges. He yanked it open, grunting and swearing and crying, and tumbled into the vacant entry hall, sprinted, shouting, into the biscop’s audience chamber, but it, too, lay empty. Even her writing desk was gone. He bolted out into the courtyard. Sister Bona’s grave lay bare, untended except for a dandelion.

  Abandoned.

  Were they all dead? But if so, wouldn’t Captain Tammus have known? Or had he simply ceased to care?

  “Ivar?”

  He spun, hearing that gentle voice but seeing no one. “Hathumod? Ai, God!” He was weeping with frustration and fear. “Where are you? Where is everyone?”

  Forever ago, or so it seemed because it was a moment he preferred not to recall, pretty young Sister Bona had crawled out of the courtyard past a loose board. It jiggled now, and he grabbed it and wrenched it to one side, then cursed, because he’d gotten a splinter deep in his palm.

  Hathumod’s face blinked at him out of the shadows.

  “What are you doing in there?” he demanded.

  “Ivar! Oh, Ivar.” She was weeping. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I pray you, Hathumod. Come out! What are you doing in there?”

  She shoved the loose board aside and clambered out. Once, she would have been too stout to squeeze through, but she was so thin now that it hurt to look at her, all skin stretched over knobby bones. She had lost that rabbity look, although her protruding front teeth stood out more starkly than ever with no plump cheeks to give harmony to her features.

  “We have stores hidden in here that we don’t want the guards to know about.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  “We had to retreat to the amphitheater, at the head of the valley. It was too dangerous to stay here.”

  “Why?”

  She stared at him as if he had said something particularly stupid. “Because of the sickness, of course!” Her lips quivered. She burst into tears. “So many dead we couldn’t bury them decently. And we were all feared we would die, too.”

  “Who still lives? What of Sigfrid and Ermanrich? What of the biscop?”

  “Th–they live. Th–they aren’t the ones…. It’s been so awful.” She tried to gulp down her sobs. She rubbed angrily at her face, but she could not stop crying. His intense relief at discovering that some still lived made him furious.

  “Take me to them! We have only until nightfall.”

  “F–for what?”

  “To free you.”

  She wailed, bawling.

  He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Hathumod! We must go quickly!”

  “I—if only you’d come last autumn. Half our number are dead.”

  “Hurry!”

  He grabbed her wrist and she followed him meekly outside. Hugo’s men had fanned out to explore the compound, but Ivar called them back.

  “There are stores hidden behind a loose board in the courtyard. Get those, and abandon the rest. There was a terrible sickness here. The demons who cause it might still be lurking. Sergeant, stay here and make ready. Half your men and the mounts come with us.”

  They rode down the path that led past the vegetable garden and the grain fields. Hathumod wept, unable to stop herself.

  “Who feeds them?” asked one of the soldiers. “Ground’s not been broken up or even ploughed.”

  “The guards are feared to come in,” Hathumod sobbed, “on account of the sickness.”

  They had built a pair of huts within the hollow of the amphitheater, protected somewhat by the high ridgeline. Four scrawny goats grazed in brambles at the limit of their tethers. Six sheep mowed the amphitheater slope; none had lambed or were even pregnant. Ivar did not see the community’s ram.

  The monastics had heard the sound of horses and were waiting, clustered around the seated biscop. Like the others, Constance had grown thin, and thinness made her look old, frail, and weary. No more than a dozen huddled fearfully with the forest at their back. Ivar recognized Sigfrid’s impossibly petite form at once, but Ermanrich seemed to be missing. Nay, that was him standing next to Sigfrid, only he was shrunken in girth, a stick, looking none the healthier for having lost his energetic stoutness. His face was pale and his chin scumbled with a half grown beard, but it was his features that lit first.

  “Ivar! It’s Ivar! I knew he would come back!” He hobbled forward; something was wrong with his right foot, and as soon as Ivar dismounted he flung his arms around him in a warm embrace.

  “No time.” Ivar pushed him away. He gauged the heavens and the shifting light that marked the waning afternoon. “We must leave now, while we have the chance. We have an order, sealed by Lady Sabella’s seal and thereby binding. You are exiled from Varre, free to go as long as you cross into Wendar and do not return.”

  Some wept, but Biscop Constance in her calm way asked the first, and only, question. “Who has written this false command, knowing themselves a rebel against Lady Sabella? Such an act is treason, punishable by death. Was it one of the clerics I trained? I thought them all exiled from her court.”

  “It was Baldwin.”

  “Baldwin!” cried Ermanrich.

  “Baldwin can’t write,” objected Hathumod from behind him.

  “That is enough,” said Constance. “I will need assistance. I cannot ride.”

  Ivar nodded. “We have a cart and two mules to draw it. We have mounts for everyone. How are there so few left?”

  “There are three out in the woods gathering,” said Constance, “but it is true we are few in number. Sister Nanthild was first to die of the illness. It struck after the night of the wind. We lost half our number. It is only since we left the compound and came to live here that the deaths have ceased. I believe that the well is poisoned. You see how weak we are. If you had not come, Brother Ivar, I fear we would all have perished by summer from starvation. The guards refused to cross the gate or even bring us baskets of grain. The ram died, and the only pregnant ewe miscarried. We have not seen the sun for so many months we have forgotten what it feels like to enjoy its brilliant lamp. Plants cannot flourish without sun. Likewise, rainfall is erratic. God is angry, so I am convinced.”

  “We must hurry.” He did not like to think that it might all be for naught, that he might rescue them and yet still fail. The world had so changed that he no longer recognized it. Like a cloudy day, it had gone all shadowed and dim. “Let us go.”

  The three gone into the woods to forage were found. The rest had to bundle up their valuable possessions, to fold them into saddlebags and cloth sacks and or toss them into the back of the second cart or over the withers of their mules: b
lankets, cloaks, tunics, weed hooks, shovels, sickles, and scythes as well as awls, knives, kitchen implements, and a salt cellar; a silver ewer and four copper basins; needles, skeins of yarn, three spindles, and six fleeces also used for bedding; a leather chest containing the biscop’s scribal tools; two psalters, three Holy Verses, and four other books, one of them a scroll of St. Augustina’s Confessions and another a history of Varren princes. What remained of their stock of dried herbs taken from the infirmary and stored in a small wooden chest. An ivory-and-gold reliquary containing the bones of the left hand of the founder, Queen Gertruda.

  They met up with Sergeant Hugo at the gates with daylight to spare and rumbled out through the guards’ encampment in a silent line of riders with the two carts positioned in the middle of the procession. Captain Tammus stared. He seemed ready to spit, but like them, he said nothing. No one, apparently, wanted to risk touching them. Before they’d rolled out of sight, a half dozen guards ran through the open gates to see what they could loot. The last Ivar saw of the gate was the men running back out again with nothing in their hands, scared off, no doubt, by the sight of those forbidding graves.

  Then the curve of the road cut off the view, as it always did. Each path drew its own landscape. He understood that now. Something always got left behind, and sometimes it was even something you wanted to lose, but mostly the things you wanted to lose stayed with you.

  He laughed, and Sigfrid, riding awkwardly astride a donkey, turned to look at him.

  “How are you come to us, Ivar?”

  “Let us ride until nightfall. Then I’ll tell the tale.”

  They rode in silence, despite their joy, for it appeared Constance’s schola were too weary and exhausted to sing. Their pace was killingly slow, burdened by the grind of the two carts and the awkward seats of several of the monastics who, like Sigfrid, had never learned to ride and yet were too weak to walk far. Through stubbornness and God’s will they turned east onto a half hidden trail into the deeper forest and made it as far as that same clearing where Ivar had met Erkanwulf the previous summer. The thatched roof that covered the old stone chapel still held. They settled Biscop Constance and the weakest nuns in its shelter while the soldiers set up a half dozen traveling tents for the rest of them, in case it rained. The sergeant set out sentries and ordered a big fire built in front of the chapel. There was plenty of deadwood to be gathered and split for burning. Wind soughed through the leaves of the giant oak.

  “Erkanwulf and I saw shades here,” said Ivar, chafing his hands as he stood before the fire. “They killed some of the men pursuing us and drove the rest away, but they didn’t touch us. I don’t know why.”

  “We heard no news of that,” said Sigfrid. “Do you mean to say Captain Tammus suspected all along and sent soldiers to fetch you back?”

  “I must believe so. Did no one confront the biscop?”

  They turned. She had come forward, leaning on her stick and supported by Sister Eligia, one of the survivors.

  “We have heard nothing, no news at all from the outside world for the last nine months, Brother Ivar,” she said. A pair of soldiers rolled a log up behind her as a bench, and she sank down and thanked them graciously. “Sabella passed by to gloat that same day you left us, but she did little more than inform me of Tallia’s latest stillborn child as well as rumor from the south that the Wendish army had been lost in the east and that a cabal of malefici meant to cast a spell to drown the world in water. I could not make sense of her report. There came a night soon after when unnatural lightning coursed through the skies and a powerful wind ripped past us. Poor Brother Felix was crushed by a falling tree limb. Sister Gregoria broke her leg so badly that it festered and even Sister Nanthild’s medicines could not heal her. That was a grim omen, for soon after, the sickness struck us down one by one. Give us your report, I pray you, Brother Ivar. Did you reach my niece, Theophanu? Is it she who has sent you to aid us now?”

  Except for the sentries, every soul there drew close to hear.

  “Princess Theophanu sent word that she has no army and no treasure and cannot aid you, Your Grace.”

  Sister Eligia cried out, but Constance touched her forearm to quiet her. “Go on. How do you come to us now, then, with Lady Sabella’s seal?”

  “We took matters into our own hands, Erkanwulf and I.” He told the story at length, and was interrupted often. The soldiers who knew somewhat more of the matter offered comments at intervals. The sergeant brought around ale and cheese and days-old bread, and they drank and ate with a will, and gratefully, for they were all so hungry. When Ivar had finished his story, Constance nodded. She lifted both hands in the manner of a biscop calling her flock to prayers.

  “Let us sing in thanksgiving, Brothers and Sisters.” She had a light soprano, clear and true, and the others followed easily, accustomed to her lead.

  “Exalted be God, our deliverer,

  Who has rescued me from my enemies

  And saved me from lawless men.”

  But not delivered yet. Ivar brooded as the others settled down to sleep on blankets and furs. Having been cast out into the wilderness, they were content to be free. Ivar sat with knees drawn up and chin on knees. Beside him, Ermanrich snored softly.

  “You are troubled, Ivar,” murmured Sigfrid.

  “We must wait for Captain Ulric. It could all come undone if Lady Sabella suspects and sends another troop after us. If Captain Tammus rides quickly to Autun and discovers the truth.”

  “A journey of some days. We are safe for the moment. That isn’t what troubles you.”

  Ivar frowned, but it was Sigfrid asking: so frail in his body and so strong in his mind, a curious vessel for God’s favor but a precious and holy one nonetheless. “I wonder if I could have acted otherwise. I should have insisted that Hanna go with me when my father sent me south to Quedlinhame. I shouldn’t have spoken so harshly to her when we next met. What if Hanna won’t forgive me? Why was I so unfair to Liath as to think she might love me in the same way I loved her? Was I blind? And what of Baldwin?”

  “Are you afraid of Baldwin?”

  He shrugged off the question by turning it. “We would all be dead without his sacrifice.”

  “Yes,” agreed Sigfrid calmly, “but he was only following the example of the blessed Daisan, was he not? Not every person is given the blessing of sacrifice, Ivar. We have reason to hope that he will escape and reunite with us, do we not? God has rewarded Baldwin for thinking of others before himself.”

  “Is that meant as a rebuke to me?”

  “Only if you hear it that way.” Sigfrid chuckled. “I missed you, Ivar. No one else frets in quite the way you do.”

  The words cut through the knot that had for many days been stuck in his throat. Before he knew it, he was weeping, tears streaming down his cheeks as he struggled not to sob out loud and wake Ermanrich and the two soldiers who were crowded into the tent with them and sleeping soundly.

  After a while, Sigfrid asked, “What do you fear, Ivar?”

  “I fear I lost something, but I don’t know what it is. That I’ll only recognize it when it’s too late.”

  “Two days,” said Sergeant Hugo. It was agreed they dared wait so long in the clearing before moving east again through the forest. The first day passed quietly enough. Constance rested, yet was never alone. By turns, and as if by accident, each soldier approached her and spoke privately to her as a man might to his deacon when he had a trouble to confess. Some spoke at length, others more briefly.

  Hunters returned with two wasted and sickly deer, which they ate anyway because their food stores were so low, and a grouse, whose meat was shared among the monastics. The nuns gathered morels and blewits, and Hathumod found an old stand of couch grass in a nearby clearing and dug up the now-bitter roots. With these victuals they ate well enough, although they had to drink water from a nearby stream and many developed a flux.

  Sergeant Hugo and his soldiers went through all their tack, greasing and repairi
ng it. They carved arrows out of stout shoots in case they ran out of metal-tipped ones. The nuns scoured the woods for anything edible that might be dried or boiled for carrying.

  The second day Ivar spent most of his time with Constance recounting again and again the story of his travels with Erkanwulf, repeating details or, on occasion, recalling ones he had forgotten or overlooked. Every utterance made by Theophanu, Rotrudis’ children, or their courtiers had to be reexamined. Had he been Liath, he would have recalled every word he had heard, but he was not Liath. He was the flawed vessel, and he worried that he had forgotten something important.

  “Of the walls, again. There was building going on?”

  “No, but there was one scaffolding. That would have been on the western wall, I think. I remember the light shining on it as we rode out. No one was working there.”

  “Within the hall, was there any new work being done? Any repairs? Were the walls freshly whitewashed?”

  A whistle shrilled from the woods, down along the trail where the string of sentries ran out farthest.

  Sergeant Hugo jumped to his feet. Soldiers grabbed spears, swords, and bows. A bird’s trill rang out, and several among them whooped and clapped.

  Captain Ulric rode at the head of his troop, his usually pleasant features creased with anxiety and a certain grim relief at seeing them. The rest of his men spread out so as not to overwhelm the clearing. Soon there were almost threescore folk gathered around the ancient chapel: Hugo’s dozen, the fifteen monastics, and about thirty men at arms, all mounted, with the captain. It was strange, though, since Ivar had thought that the captain commanded almost a century of men.

  “We are at your service, Your Grace,” Ulric said after he dismounted and knelt before her. She extended a hand. He kissed her ring. “I pray pardon for coming so late.”

  “That you have done this much was beyond my expectation, Captain. I know all among you have kinfolk. A few have wives and children of your own. What will become of them? My half sister Sabella is known to wreak her revenge on the helpless when she cannot find those who angered her.”