Beneath Ceaseless Skies #24 Read online

  Rhiannon. Masquerading as the Voice of the Mother of God. How dare you?

  I did not. You were dying. If their assumptions made them act the quicker, I saw no need to correct them.

  He struggled to rise. Father Ambrose gave him his arm to lean on. Violets grew in profusion where Meurig had lain. Noticing this for the first time, Father Ambrose crossed himself. “To witness one miracle in a lifetime can be accounted strange and wondrous,” he said, “but you, my son, I suspect are filled with unnumbered miracles.”

  “No, Father Ambrose, I—”

  “And see here. Our Lady’s flower. These were not here before.”

  “Father, I—”

  “Hush now. You are weary.”

  They walked in slow procession back to the abbey. Meurig was glad of Father Ambrose’s wiry arm. He felt as if his bones had turned to jelly. And yet somewhere beyond his weakness, he felt something new and joyous, something he had not known, even in the days before Selwyn’s death when he had supposed himself happy. He had purpose now. Redemption might elude him, but it was better to save life than to take it.

  * * *

  Meurig’s strength returned and tales of his gift spread from abbey, village, and town. Saint-Sever became an island of health in the middle of desolation. Travelers told of great cities virtually deserted, of fields untended, harvests left to rot, corpses unburied. The abbey turned no one away, and Meurig filled his days with healing.

  One day as summer edged toward autumn, Chevalier de Moissac sent two armed men with a letter to the abbot. There was sickness in his household. Could Meurig come?

  Meurig did not like the idea of journeying to de Moissac’s stronghold. Yet perhaps the afflicted were too ill to journey to Saint-Sever. Should they die because he had a dread of iron?

  Caedmon urged him to stay. “Guillaume de Moissac is a profane man,” he said. “Let him humble himself by coming to Saint-Sever in person.”

  “Perhaps he is unable.”

  “The road is dangerous. De Moissac’s men are dangerous.”

  “Where is your faith, Brother Caedmon?” Father Ambrose asked.

  “Not with Guillaume de Moissac.”

  Father Ambrose glanced again at the letter. “It is Lady Alys who is ill. De Moissac’s mother has always been generous to the abbey.”

  Caedmon’s face lost color. He bit his lip. “At least, do not send Meurig alone, Father.”

  “I will not. You and I will also make the journey with him.”

  “Father, well or ill, Lady Alys will not want to see me.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  4.

  The chateau lay a half day’s ride northeast of Saint-Sever. Caedmon and Meurig rode on mules, Father Ambrose on an aged palfrey. Caedmon sat the mule as awkwardly as he walked, but kept his head bowed in thought. Meurig did not mind riding, but the nagging closeness of iron on the mule’s shod hooves and in the buckles and bits of harness set his teeth on edge. Father Ambrose, in spite of his age and arthritic hands, rode with grace and vigor. “I was not always an abbot,” he said, catching Meurig’s stare.

  De Moissac’s men provided escort. Unshaven and unwashed, their dark eyes darted about restlessly. Searching for bandits on the road, Meurig guessed. So why did he feel like a prisoner?

  The journey was a cheerless one. Fields of ripening wheat and rye waited for scythes that would not come. Crows gathered in great noisy flocks, their bellies so full Meurig wondered how they managed to fly. The stench of decay permeated the land.

  Late afternoon they rode into the courtyard of the keep at Moissac. By the dying light Meurig could see grass growing between the cobblestones. There seemed very few people about for so large an estate.

  They surrendered their mounts and a ruffianly old man led them inside the hall. “The Abbot of Saint-Sever, my lord,” he said.

  The interior looked more ill-kept than the courtyard. The rushes upon the floor had mildewed. Dust coated the dark walnut furnishings and furred the tapestries upon the walls.

  Guillaume de Moissac sat before the fire, a brace of wolfhounds sprawled at his feet. To Meurig’s relief, he was not wearing armor, but his tunic looked rumpled and sported more than a few stains. He held a cup of wine carelessly in one hand, scratched the ears of one of the hounds with the other. “I did not send for you, Father,” he said. “Nor for you, Brother Crookback.”

  “Nevertheless, we are here,” Father Ambrose said with some asperity. “It is customary to offer some refreshment to travelers who have journeyed to your aid.”

  “I am short of servants at present,” Guillaume said. “But you may help yourselves to wine.”

  “Never mind. Where will we find Lady Alys?”

  “The sickroom is at the top of the west tower.”

  “Are there others afflicted?”

  “I cast all out who had signs of the pestilence. Yet even I balked at tossing my mother over the wall.”

  “Your filial piety is exceeded only by your hospitality, it seems. Come, Meurig, Caedmon. I pray we are not too late.”

  De Moissac gave them a torch, but would journey no more than halfway up the winding stone stair.

  The sickroom itself was foul with dampness and decay. The bedding stank of urine and excrement. “They have simply abandoned their Lady to her fate,” Father Ambrose said, his voice shaking with anger.

  “I will fetch water and clean linens,” Caedmon said.

  Father Ambrose nodded, and placed the torch into its setting on the wall. He began to anoint the woman upon the bed.

  Meurig drew closer. The woman’s skin was parchment yellow and loose over her bones. Her hair, white and brittle with age, lay snarled upon her pillow. She lay helpless in her own filth. Shadows in the hollows of her eyes and cheeks gave her a skeletal appearance.

  Her eyes opened to reveal a cold, pale blue. She studied Father Ambrose a moment only, then Meurig felt her gaze. “Have you come, Imp, to take my soul to Hell?”

  Meurig felt a cold niggle of fear in his belly. Had her closeness to death allowed her to see past his borrowed human face and cropped ears?

  “No, Lady. I’ve come to help you stay in this world a little longer, if I can.”

  “Here’s water,” Caedmon said. He held a cup to the woman’s lips.

  She drank thirstily. “Sweet Jesu,” she said. “My other son. Behold, Healer. The Crookback’s twisted form houses a gentle nature. My other son is well-made, but twisted in his soul. And so are my sins made flesh.”

  “I am going to lift you from your bed, Lady,” Meurig said.

  “My rottenness will run out of me.”

  She weighed little more than a child. He gagged on the stench of sour flesh and foulness as he carried her to the narrow window. The press of bones moving beneath the sack of her skin felt strange against his palms.

  He forced the stench from his mind as he gathered himself for the familiar effort of healing. Dimly he was aware of Father Ambrose and Caedmon working quietly, removing the soiled mattress and bed linens, sweeping the floor, setting water to heat, lighting lamps. He could see an arrow-slit width of stars out the window.

  The sickness began to crawl from her. He gasped. Though Lady Alys was not heavy, Meurig’s knees began to tremble. His skin felt thick, as if he were being lowered into tar. He sank slowly to his knees, still clasping her close.

  The other healings had not felt like this. It was too much. She was too ill, or this pestilence was different. Or he was losing the gift. Pain dissolved his flesh. Darkness pressed against his eyes. Rhiannon. God of Caedmon. Root of the Great Tree. Selwyn, my brother. Help me.

  Light stabbed him, and heat, and cleansing white fire, burning away the ichor and despair of long sickness.

  Someone lifted Lady Alys from him. Someone pressed a cup of wine to his lips. Someone prayed.

  Meurig opened his eyes to find Father Ambrose close. “Meurig? I thought we had lost you. You were so cold.”

  “Lady Alys?”

  �
�Caedmon is with her. She is asleep. Peaceably. And already much stronger.”

  Meurig struggled to his feet. Lady Alys’ face had a flush of healthy pink. Caedmon was gently brushing out the snarls of her hair. “She is truly his mother?” Meurig whispered.

  “Yes.”

  She had loathed her hunchback son from birth. And yet Caedmon’s touch upon her betrayed no resentment or bitterness. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. If only he could understand forgiveness. If only he could earn it, or at least send Rhiannon home.

  “Meurig?”

  “I need air.”

  “Take my arm.” Father Ambrose supported him on the long climb down the tower stairs. “There is an elm tree in the garden. Will that do?”

  Meurig nodded.

  Moonlight revealed a garden as neglected as the rest of the household, but the elm was old and strong. Meurig put out his hand to the bark. Strength returned to him almost at once. He drew his hand back before even a single leaf began to curl and darken. His control was getting better.

  Father Ambrose rubbed a leaf with thumb and forefinger. “I do not understand this affinity you have with trees,” he said. “It troubles me.”

  “How can it be wrong to heal? I do try not to harm the trees overmuch.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I have a question, Father.”

  The Abbot sighed. “You usually have many questions, Meurig.”

  “Will you explain forgiveness to me?”

  Father Ambrose studied Meurig with the same intensity he generally reserved for his missal. “What is to explain?”

  Meurig took a deep breath. “If a man does wrong, and the one he wrongs forgives him, it still does not undo the wrong. So why forgive?”

  “To forgive shows a meek and charitable spirit. It lightens the heart of both the one who forgives and the one who needs forgiveness.” He clapped his hand on Meurig’s shoulder. “We are all sinners, yet with God’s grace we may all be forgiven. That is the way of Hope and Faith.”

  “And if those we wrong will not forgive? Or do not know how? Or perhaps are dead and cannot?”

  “Prayer and a contrite heart, my son.” Father Ambrose squeezed his shoulder gingerly. “What is it that weighs so upon you? I have sensed it from the first. You have not yet chosen Baptism and the True Faith, but perhaps you would like to confess yourself friend to friend, if not penitent to priest?”

  “My brother—”

  De Moissac’s wolfhounds bounded into the garden. The chevalier followed more leisurely. “Here you are,” he said,

  thumping Meurig and Father Ambrose upon the back hard enough to make both stagger. “Brother Crookback says our mother will live.”

  “Praise God in his mercy,” Father Ambrose said.

  “There’s a cold supper within. We shall drink deep in celebration.”

  “We are weary from our journey,” Father Ambrose said. “A room for the night is all we require.”

  “No carousal for you, either, young Meurig? You are not a monk yet.”

  Rhiannon’s voice in his head trembled with urgency. Refuse him.

  “Thank you, no,” Meurig said.

  “As you wish,” de Moissac said, his jovial manner falling away.

  Later, after nibbling on a bit of bread and cheese, and a judicious sip of wine, Meurig sought the bedchamber prepared for him.

  Let us be away from this place.

  “Tomorrow.”

  Tonight.

  “The beasts deserve rest. And what of Caedmon and Father Ambrose?”

  We can leave without them. And without the beasts.

  “Why?”

  I do not like the way de Moissac looks at me.

  “You fear him.”

  Rhiannon fell silent. Whether she was sulking or simply resigned, Meurig couldn’t tell.

  5.

  They took their farewells of Lady Alys in the morning.

  She seized Caedmon’s hand. “I was right to send you to the abbey,” she said, “though I sent you for the wrong reasons. Vanity was always my downfall. Pray for me, if you can find it in you.”

  “I will,” he said.

  “Father Ambrose. I will send a gift to the abbey before the first snow.”

  “You have always been generous to us, my lady. I shall add my prayers to those of your son.”

  She smiled and momentarily the years retreated. “Faith! I may reach Heaven after all.”

  Her smile faded as she studied Meurig. “You are both more and less than you appear to be,” she said. “Have a care on your journey. These are troubled times and saints have a tendency to die overyoung.”

  “I will, my lady,” Meurig said, “but I am no saint.”

  * * *

  “The chevalier went riding early,” the old manservant said as he led the saddled mules and palfrey from the stables. Meurig thought that just as well, though hospitality normally required a formal leavetaking of one’s host.

  The day was crisp and fair. Their mounts tugged at the reins, at odds with the reflective silence of Rhiannon, Father Ambrose, and Caedmon. Were they as eager to quit the gloomy keep as he?

  Meurig toyed with a bit of mane, frowned as he noted the browning of trees on either side of the road. Was this the normal turning of the season, or had the pull of life from so many healings spread farther than he’d ever intended? By the Great Oak, he hoped not.

  They had not ridden more than half a league when a horseman emerged from the wood. Meurig tensed. De Moissac.

  “Good morrow,” the chevalier said. “I did not realize you planned so early a departure. And without escort. You know the risks of brigands about.”

  “Our duties at the abbey are pressing,” Father Ambrose said. “And we have nothing to tempt a brigand.”

  “Not so,” de Moissac said. “There is your healer’s fine sword. What need has a healer for such a weapon?”

  Rhiannon clamored inarticulate alarm. “To deal with brigands, as you say,” Meurig said, silently reassuring her.

  “But are you strong enough to keep it?”

  “Let be,” Caedmon said.

  “Mind your own affairs, brother.”

  Father Ambrose interposed his horse between de Moissac and Meurig. “Tread warily, Guillaume de Moissac. You risk your immortal soul.”

  “Must you hide your cowardice behind a priest’s robes, boy?” de Moissac said.

  Meurig felt his face grow warm. Pride was a sin. Also wrath. But so was covetousness, and de Moissac’s eyes hungered. “I am not hiding.”

  De Moissac grinned. “Then dismount and battle with me. Let God favor whom He will.”

  Leather creaked as the chevalier swung down from the saddle. Meurig leaped to the grass. Caedmon scrambled down awkwardly, touched Meurig’s arm. “You do not have to do this.”

  “Brother Caedmon is right,” Father Ambrose said. “Remember the meekness of our Lord.”

  Meurig slipped the mule’s reins into Caedmon’s hand. “I am sorry, Father.” He drew Rhiannon, felt her metal warm and alive beneath his palm.

  He and Selwyn had fought for Rhiannon, though in play. Meurig tasted bile in the back of his throat.

  De Moissac is not your brother. And he will fight in deadly earnest.

  Grass damp with dew slickened the ground. Leaves of ash and oak and yew rustled in a breeze while carrion crows watched with dark interest. Mail gleamed in sunlight beneath the hem of de Moissac’s knee-length surcoat.

  Meurig clenched his teeth against the nearness of iron. De Moissac drew his sword and their blades clanged together. The chevalier’s sword snapped in midlength and Rhiannon screeched as she slid down to catch at his hilt.

  De Moissac’s eyes widened and he bared his teeth. “That’s two swords you have cost me.” With his left hand he drew a poniard and sliced down the length of Meurig’s forearm, scraping bone.

  Meurig dropped Rhiannon as the shock of cold iron took him. She bounced upon the grass, silverbrig
ht in the sun.

  De Moissac shoved Meurig aside. He swept Rhiannon up. “With this blade I will drive my enemies into the sea.”

  Meurig half rose, clutching his wounded arm. Already he could feel the poison iron at work in him. “Release her.”

  “Spoils of war,” de Moissac said. He thrust Rhiannon through Meurig’s belly.

  Rhiannon shrieked aloud. Caedmon and Father Ambrose clapped hands over their ears.

  Meurig gave a soft groan and sank to his knees, curling the fingers of his unwounded hand around the naked blade. Hot blood welled between his fingers.

  Caedmon caught Meurig before he toppled, eased him gently to the ground.

  Father Ambrose knelt at his other side, praying. Meurig felt scalding tears drop upon his hands, heard Caedmon weeping. He welcomed the warmth. The cold bite of iron hurt more than Rhiannon in his vitals.

  She still wailed. Not a human sound, nor a ferryshen one. Something of earth and metal, fire and rage. Possessed by a corrupt human hand. Trapped in sword form. Forever. Locked within her the memory of serving as the instrument of his death. As he had been Selwyn’s. Was this ferryshen justice? Father. Free her.

  De Moissac seized Rhiannon again, wrenched her free, scattering Meurig’s blood upon the grass. Light danced up her blade, flashed like strong sunlight over water. The keening stopped. She began to glow with white heat.

  De Moissac dropped the blade with a yelp of pain. Rhiannon sent hot rage leaping from her pommel to the chevalier. White flame licked at his hair, ran down his shoulders, blackened the fabric of his surcoat.

  De Moissac screamed. The air stank of roasting meat.

  “Rhiannon, no,” Meurig gasped. “Let him be. Come back.”

  The iron was poisoning him. His father remained silent, unyielding. Father. Forgive.

  Cool water upon his head. And again. And a third time. Meurig shivered.

  Father. Bring us home.

  A light touch upon him, a tracing of a pattern upon his brow, a scent of fragrant oil. More prayers. He’d not been paying attention. Father Ambrose disliked it when his mind wandered at prayers.

  Rhiannon, help me.