Night Blooming Read online

  “And bring you peace,” the tertiary responded. He reached to take control of Alcuin’s mare’s reins. “You must be tired. Be welcome to this monastery, in the Name of God. There will be hot honied wine in the refectory; one of the slaves will show you the way.” He motioned to the nearest of them. “Bolbo, take these worthy travelers to the refectory and build up the fire.”

  Bolbo nodded and tugged at his forelock; he would not look at any of the exalted company directly, but motioned with his arm as a sign that they should follow him.

  “I’ll see your horses are stalled and cared for, and your oxen,” said the tertiary Fratre. “You have nothing to fear now you have arrived. Raffaell and Gabraell are powerful, and they protect those who come to them.”

  “Of course,” said Alcuin, rubbing his hands together briskly and bringing them up to his lips to blow on them. “We will follow your slave.”

  “Yes. Yes. Certainly. I will tell Abbott Ansigus that you are come shortly.” The tertiary Fratre did his utmost to smile encouragement and reverenced the group repeatedly.

  “I know that man,” Comes Gutiger muttered as he fell in slightly behind Alcuin.

  “What man?” Alcuin asked.

  “The warder, the one with the scars.” He scowled and sneezed.

  “How do you know him?” Alcuin inquired, not particularly interested.

  “I think he was a soldier once,” said the Comes, his face set in hard lines.

  “I should think so, by the look of him.” Alcuin ducked under the eaves of the building to which the slave had led them. “Is this the refectory?”

  The slave reverenced them and went through the stout door into a vestibule with a small reception room beyond, and the dining room to one side. He pointed to the reception room, where a smoldering fire provided a modicum of heat and a group of padded benches provided easier seating than the saddles had done. There were torches and braziers to augment the fire’s light.

  “Not much for talking, is he?” said the Comes.

  “The slaves here are not supposed to address their betters,” said Alcuin as he removed his pluvial and hung it on a peg on the wall. “There. You see? He is putting logs on the fire. We should be cozy in a little while.”

  Rakoczy, who had had little to say during the last part of their day’s journey, now tugged off his thick woolen mantellum and said, “It’s going to be a miserable night.”

  His remark proved to be the truth; the monks emerged from their chapel Vespers to offer a lively banquet of roast boar and pickled beef stuffed with onions, after which all the travelers retired to a number of small, unheated dormitories, each containing four cots, for a night’s sleep made easy by fatigue; not even the predawn Matins and Lauds could disturb them. Slaves awakened them at Prime to prayers and the milky morning light diffusing through thick, dank fog that sapped warmth from their bones and cut through their garments with the keenness of Damascus steel and made ghosts of breath.

  Rorthger met Rakoczy in the stable while most of the party lingered over a spartan breakfast of bread, cheese, and beer. “How are the horses?” He spoke in Persian.

  “Cold,” Rakoczy answered in the same tongue. “We’ll have to resist the impulse to let them run to warm them, for they will take true chills if we do. A pity we don’t have some of those Avar trappings.” He laid his arm on the rump of his grey.

  “The large triple sheepskins they put on their horses in snow?” Rorthger asked, and answered his own question. “Yes. That would be useful. For now, we could take our mantella and put them over their backs and flanks.”

  “And may do so,” Rakoczy agreed. “Do you have my woolen capa readily to hand? If you do, I’ll put my mantellum from his shoulder to his tail, and wrap myself in the capa.” He reached for one of the stiff brushes and began to groom his gelding, starting on the neck and working down and back. “His winter coat is thick, that’s something.”

  “But in this cold—” Rorthger said, and stopped. “It isn’t as severe as the Year of Yellow Snow, I’ll grant you that. But it is bad enough.”

  “I agree,” said Rakoczy mildly. “It has been more than three centuries, yet every cold winter makes me remember it in appalling detail.”

  “Do you think it will come again, such a winter as that was, lasting more than the year around?” Rorthger asked, his voice carefully neutral.

  “Eventually, but not, I would guess, for many years. I have lived a very long time, and I have seen only that one instance of such all-encompassing cold; I do not suppose another such will come in the next several centuries,” said Rakoczy. He looked away toward the open door, but seeing his twenty-eight centuries of life, not the drift of fog that blurred everything with its gelid gauzery.

  Rorthger opened one of the cases that lay near the stall. “Yes: you are right, of course. Here is your capa. The one with the badger-fur lining in the hood. The wool is double-thickness.”

  “Fine,” said Rakoczy, and took off his mantel, exchanging it for the capa and draping the long mantellum along the grey’s back. “The saddle-pad, if you will.”

  Rorthger handed it to him, and Rakoczy put it in place, the fleece side down. Then he lifted the saddle from where it rested on the support just outside the stall and settled it on the gelding’s back and reached for the girth under the horse’s belly, drawing it up to the single, large buckle at the edge of the tooled-leather skirt of the saddle. He flipped the stirrup-leathers and they dropped down into position, their large, triangular metal stirrups swinging a little. Then he took the breast-collar and buckled that across the grey’s chest “I’ll be ready to ride as soon as the rest are. Sooner.”

  From where he had just finished grooming his dun, Rorthger laughed a little. “What will you tell them if they ask you about how you have used your mantellum?”

  “I will say it is a custom of my people,” Rakoczy answered. “You had best use your mantellum the same way, or they may become suspicious.”

  They had just bridled their horses when Comes Gutiger came into the stable, wiping crumbs from his mustache. “There you are! You didn’t join us at table.”

  Rakoczy did his best to offer an ingratiating smile. “Those of my blood dine in privacy.”

  “So you’ve said, so you’ve said,” the Comes agreed, looking around. “Where are the stable-hands?”

  “I should imagine that they’re at morning prayers with the rest of the inmates,” said Rakoczy. “Even slaves must pray.”

  Comes Gutiger made an impatient slap at his thighs. “So you won’t entrust your horses even to monks, or the slaves of monks! It’s one thing to distrust Illustri and innkeepers, but monks!”

  “The habits of a long-time traveler,” Rakoczy said apologetically as he buckled the throat-latch of the bridle in place.

  “Great Karl won’t like it,” the Comes predicted with something akin to smugness.

  “You may be right,” Rakoczy conceded as he backed his grey out of the stall. “But this way, if anything goes awry, I can blame no one but myself.”

  “They are your horses,” Comes Gutiger conceded, and went to summon slaves to groom and saddle his mount, moving away as the stable-slaves answered his summons.

  “Have you broken your fast?” Alcuin asked as he came into the stable. He cocked his head at Rakoczy, adding, “Of course not.” He tapped his first finger to his chin. “You seem never to eat, and yet you maintain good flesh on your bones.”

  “I am nourished, as I told you,” said Rakoczy, securing his grey’s reins to the rail near the double doors.

  “Yes,” Alcuin mused. “That is apparent. And yet, I am astonished when you do not join us at table. No matter how your people do such things, all men must eat.”

  “So they must. My kin have our customs, as you have yours, and I honor them no matter where I am, or in what company.” Rakoczy stepped aside as Rorthger led out his dun. “I will groom our remounts, and then we will be ready to leave.”

  “Excellent,” Alcuin approv
ed. “You set a fine example for all our party.” This last seemed to be an oblique apology for his remarks about Rakoczy’s unfamiliar dining habits.

  “I have traveled a great deal,” said Rakoczy, patting his grey.

  “Using your mantellum to keep off the chill is a fine notion. Sant’ Martin would approve, lending your garment to a lesser creature. Will you also cover your remount?” Alcuin was paying close attention to everything Rakoczy did.

  “Much as I want to, it would not be practical. But I will hitch him to the second carpentum, and let the heat from the oxen help to keep our horses warm.” Rakoczy went to the stall where his second grey was tied and began to brush the bits of mud and other debris from his heavy winter coat. “Do we remount at mid-day?”

  “I suppose we will,” said Alcuin, stretching, his joints snapping and squeaking. “That ointment you gave me has eased the worst of my discomfort.”

  “Then I am well-satisfied,” said Rakoczy, continuing his task.

  “I thank you for providing it, and I thank God for giving you the knowledge of such simples.” He folded his hands and did his best to smile. “The journey will soon be over.”

  “I pray so,” said Rakoczy, bending to brush off the mud around the grey’s pasterns.

  Alcuin studied the foreigner for a long moment. “Well, I must tell the rest to hasten.” With that, he left the stable, only to return shortly with the rest of the traveling party. “Look,” he said, pointing to Rakoczy, “the foreigner once again gives the blush to us all.”

  One of the men-at-arms cursed and was immediately hushed by a monk. Comes Gutiger was already hectoring the stable-slaves to redouble their efforts. “It will be mid-morning before we leave at this rate!”

  “Speak lightly,” Alcuin admonished. “It is not your place to hound these slaves.”

  Comes Gutiger kicked at the ankle of one of the slaves. “Hurry!”

  “Comes!” Alcuin said sharply. “If the slave must be beaten, it is for the Prior to do it, not you.” He went to supervise the yoking of the oxen, checking the carpenta at the same time, urging everyone to work with dispatch. “Do not be laggard. We are to reach the court of Karlus today. We do not want to arrive at an unseemly hour.”

  The slaves redoubled their efforts and worked in determined silence while the rest of the company came from the refectory and made the habitual inspection of their tack before instructing the slaves which horses to saddle and which to tie to the carpenta. The oxen shuffled and were given handfuls of grass for cuds, then led out into the narrow courtyard in front of the stable; shortly thereafter, the horses were ready and the missi dominici ordered the riders to mount and the drovers to take their places in the carpenta.

  The party left the monastery as the monks were beginning Terce, their prayers preparing them for their day’s labors. The chanting followed Alcuin’s company a short way down the road, and then the fog muffled even that reassuring sound as they proceeded on toward Aachen.

  It was approaching mid-day when there was the first intrusion on their journey: somewhere deep in the trees came the sound of galloping horses, the breaking of branches, and the baying of hounds.

  “The hunt is out,” said Alcuin, and said to Comes Gutiger, who rode on his right side, “A pity that we cannot join them.”

  “It is, it is,” said the Comes, his rough features brightening at the sound of the chase.

  “What do they hunt, do you think? Stag? Boar? Bear?” Alcuin grinned. “If they find game, we will have a feast tomorrow!”

  “And sport today,” said Comes Gutiger, clearly disappointed that he could not join the hunters.

  Riding behind Alcuin and the Comes, Rakoczy looked about uneasily; he could hear something not a horse running nearby, and that troubled him. He reined in and let Rorthger catch up with him. “Is my spear ready to hand?”

  “Which one?” Rorthger asked.

  “Make it the heavy one. Can you take it from our supplies? It may be unreachable, but I hope it is not.” He paused, paying keen attention to the noises coming from beyond the trees. The hounds were nearer; but the mist was still thick, and he could not make out precisely where they were, for the woods echoed and distorted sound.

  “I’ll try,” said Rorthger. “I can get your Byzantine long-sword.”

  “Better than nothing,” said Rakoczy. “If you will fetch it?”

  “At once,” Rorthger declared, and rode to the third carpentum, signaling the drover to let him climb aboard. After a nod from the drover, Rorthger swung out of the saddle and onto the narrow rear platform of the carpentum, secured his dun’s reins to the square-bodied wagon, and climbed through the rear door, to emerge a few moments later with a Byzantine long-sword in his hand. He loosened his horse’s reins, mounted up again, and rode up to where Rakoczy was, at the edge of the roadway. “Your sword, my master,” he said, and handed it to him by the quillons.

  “Thank you, old friend,” said Rakoczy, and gave the sword an experimental swing, reminding his hand of its heft.

  “It’s just the hunt,” said Rorthger, puzzled by Rakoczy’s edginess.

  “It is the hunted that concerns me,” Rakoczy countered. “I am certain that whatever they’re chasing could break onto the road at any time.”

  “And you want to be prepared,” said Rorthger. “Do you think it is boar?”

  “Possibly,” said Rakoczy, and noticed the men-at-arms exchanging suspicious glances. “They’re troubled, too.”

  “About the game or about your sword?” Rorthger asked, his tone sharp.

  “Both, I would guess,” said Rakoczy, holding his grey at the edge of the track.

  “Magnatus,” called out Alcuin, “what are you doing?”

  “I am keeping watch, in case the game they are chasing should come this way,” Rakoczy answered. “It would cause much disorder to have a stag run into our midst, or a boar.”

  “The missi dominici can do this,” Alcuin reminded him.

  “So can the men-at-arms, but they need not; I have some experience in dealing with hunts,” he said, and thought that often as not he had been the prey, not the hunter. He continued to listen, aware that the hunt was coming closer.

  “Very well,” said Alcuin, a querulous note in his voice. “In such fog we need all the eyes we have.”

  “Amen,” said Rakoczy.

  Rorthger swung his dun back toward the rear of the party, where the other servants rode. He brought his horse into line with the others and said, “My master has need of my assistance.”

  “So it seems,” said one of the other servants, and added, “Foreign ways.”

  “That they are,” Rorthger agreed, unwilling to be offended by the remark.

  The noise in the forest increased, and the horses became fretful, tossing their heads and sidling, needing to be urged forward with spurs and the pressure of legs.

  Rakoczy, who was nearer to the screen of brush and trees than the rest, held his grey firmly, ready to pull the gelding’s nose down to his toe if the horse should try to bolt. The grey minced along, eyes rolling and sweat frothing around the breast-collar.

  Suddenly the sounds became loud, and a moment later, a bear came running out of the misty trees, its tongue lolling, panting heavily. At the sight of the travelers, it stood upright and advanced on the group, its forepaws swiping the air in front of it; the party on the road was thrown into disorder: horses reared, squealing in fright, and even the stolid oxen broke into a lumbering run, pulling the carpenta bounding behind them.

  Holding his grey as steady as he could, Rakoczy set the gelding running at the bear, his Byzantine sword swinging up from beneath as he passed dangerously close to the infuriated creature. The long, blue blade caught the bear just below the ribs and sank deeply in. Rakoczy wheeled his gelding and rode a short distance away while the bear staggered, bellowed, and fell forward, forcing the sword through its body and out its back.

  Alcuin managed to halt his mare and bring her back toward the dying bear. �
��Very impressive,” he said to Rakoczy, wheezing a little from his unexpected tussle with his mount.

  Whatever response Rakoczy might have made was silenced as the brush at the side of the road was trampled down; a huge bay stallion rushed onto the road, his rider whooping and laughing, brandishing a long hunting spear and swearing merrily. Almost immediately there were a dozen more huntsmen around him, paying little heed to Alcuin’s party.

  The man on the bay stallion was proportionally as large as his horse: tall, broad-shouldered, big-bellied, with white hair and beard, he swung his horse around and went to look at the fallen bear. “With a sword!” he exclaimed in a high voice. “Who has done this?”

  Alcuin maneuvered his mare through the crush and reverenced the big man from his saddle. “It was the foreigner, Rakoczy, there on the grey, Optime Karlus,” he said.

  “Rakoczy!” the King summoned. “You did this?” He pointed to the bear.

  Rakoczy dismounted and reverenced the King. “I did,” he said.

  “Fine sport! A true eye!” Karl-lo-Magne swung out of his saddle and strode over to the bear: Rakoczy stared, for although he had been told the man was tall, he had not expected someone who was head and shoulders above him. “It may be you are wasted on the clerics,” he said, and laughed at his own remark; the huntsmen with him joined in his laughter.

  Alcuin spoke up at once. “Wherever you need this foreigner to be, that too, shall be my desire. I will relinquish my claim upon his talents at a word from you.”

  “Generous, Flaccus,” said Karl-lo-Magne, using one of his court nicknames for the Bishop. He looked at his companions. “Have the carcase fetched and dressed. We dine on bear tomorrow. And see that the foreigner gets his sword back.” With that he got into the saddle again. “I will receive you as soon as you reach Aachen,” he said to Alcuin. “Make sure the foreigner is with you.” He did not wait for an answer or a reverence; he set his bay stallion bounding down the road, his companions trailing after him.