Night Blooming (73 page)

From across the square Vulfoald spoke up loudly. “Your man has nothing to fear from Gohewin.”

“But you, yourself, reminded him that the woods are dangerous,” Rakoczy said, and swung up onto his grey. “Let me see how your men are faring in the forest. The more I can tell the Emperor that is to your credit, the more likely he is to be willing to issue a lenient decision.”

Vulfoald sighed. “If you insist.”

“It is in your best interest,” Rakoczy told him.

“So you say,” Vulfoald responded. “Well, come this way,” he went on, dropping his voice. “The King forbade us to use our language and put us under the authority of the monks, and hobu like you, and he expects we will accept his dictates without question?”

Rakoczy could not dispute any of this, so he said, “He is the one whose decision will leave its mark on your village for generations to come. It is fitting that you do everything you can to show your worth to the Emperor.” He could tell from the set of Vulfoald’s shoulders that he believed none of this, and as he followed him toward the edge of the trees, he wondered if anything he said would prevail with the determined Majore.

T
EXT OF A LETTER FROM
F
RATRE
L
OTHAR IN
R
OMA TO
C
ARDINAL
A
RCHBISHOP
B
RUNEHAUT OF
M
ARMOUTIER CURRENTLY RESIDING IN
R
OMA, DELIVERED BY HAND TO THE
C
ARDINAL
A
RCHBISHOP BY
F
RATRE
L
OTHAR.

To the most illustrious Primore, the Cardinal Archbishop Brunehaut of Marmoutier at the Basilica of Santi Sergius and Bacchus the Martyrs at the Viminalis Gate at Roma, the most submissive greetings of Fratre Lothar, monk and pilgrim currently residing at the monastery of Sant’ Ioannes the Frank, on the first day of May in the Pope’s year 801.

Primore, I send this to you with the full and certain belief that it is my duty to serve you and the Church before the Emperor as it was my duty to serve the Emperor before the Church when I was still a soldier. It is fitting that I should address you, for you are the most powerful Churchman I have had the honor of meeting. I kneel at your feet and trust you will make use of everything I impart to you for the glory of God and His Church.

It happened fourteen nights ago that I went to Mass at Santa Maria Gloriosa and there encountered a number of Frankish monks who reside here in Roma. As men will do, we repaired to the refectory after Mass and drank new wine from Compline until Vigil, for at Santa Maria Gloriosa Vigil is kept in addition to Nocturnes. As wine loosened our tongues, many of us spoke of what our lives had been before we entered the Church. Most of the accounts were not unusual—much the same for many of us. One had been a butcher and still slaughtered for his Fratri, one had been a merchant, one had been a fisherman, one had been a notary, one a farrier, one a cooper, another a smith, and other such trades.

There was one monk, however, a Fratre Grimhold, who became quite drunk, and in that state, talked about his present labors here in Roma on behalf of a certain Frankish Bishop whose name he did not speak, but whose agent he has been for some years. I must report what he said, for if even half of it is true, he is doing things contrary to the conduct demanded of monks by Pope Leo. I shall give you all the information this monk imparted in his drunken state, and I pray that you may determine the truth of it.

I have prayed about what I heard and I have asked my Abbott if I should do this, and I have followed his counsel in preparing this for your consideration. If you doubt any particular in what I say here, I will present myself to you to answer any questions you may have, and swear on the altar of God that I have told you what was said to me. It is my intention to say everything that I was told, to keep nothing back and to add nothing.

The monk, Fratre Grimhold, said he had done much to advance the cause of the Church by ridding it of its enemies within. All of us in Orders are bound to do this, within the framework of our vows, and any monk failing to act in this manner is aiding our foes as much as if he foreswore his vocation in favor of advancement among our opponents. We are pledged to maintain the True Church at all costs. This is a laudable goal, and one that any devout Christian must support. But it is also true that there are acts that monks should eschew. From what Fratre Grimhold said that night, he has not allowed the Commandments to limit his zeal. The Frankish Bishop who has given orders to Fratre Grimhold has gone well beyond the restrictions monks should observe. I have taken some time to try to verify his claims, and I will include what I have learned in this account, so that you may decide for yourself how much credence to lend to these accounts.

This Fratre Grimhold said he had killed Churchmen who were employed by the Greek Church and the Patriarch who are supposed to do their utmost to turn the Roman Church to serve Greek ends. He swore that the deaths were justified, and that he had refused to carry out one killing because he was uncertain about the man’s importance in the course of the Roman Church. And it is the killing he has done that troubles me. He has killed four men, three of them Churchmen, and he has not been apprehended for these acts, nor has he been called before any Court, Royal or Papal, to answer for what he has done. The first Churchman he killed was a priest from Neapolis who had sheltered many Greek religious who had come to that city to aid in keeping the Greek churches established during the time of Belisarius and Narses open and receiving souls into them. He said this killing was necessary, and one that anyone would support who put his faith in the Pope. The second killing was of a courier who had accepted bribes from Greek prelates for showing them the texts of the messages he carried on behalf of the Pope and the Cardinal Archbishops. This was the most laudable killing, and one that I learned did take place in the manner he described. There was another Churchman killed, and he claimed to have killed a Carinthian Bishop who had gone over to the Patriarch. I cannot find confirmation for that death, but I believe it can be found. Fratre Grimhold said he had put the man into a well, where he could not escape and would vanish utterly; I cannot find any references to a missing Carinthian Bishop, but if the killing was so clandestine, there may be an account of one disappearing and it may provide an explanation for his being gone.

The man he said he could not kill was a foreigner sent here with the White Woman, the one who is now an anchorite, because his Bishop thought the presence of this foreigner compromised her holiness, and it may be so, but Fratre Grimhold was not convinced that his death was required, and for that reason, if no other, he was certain that he could not, in good conscience, kill the foreigner. The foreigner has gone from Roma some months since and if his going has enhanced the White Woman’s reputation, there is no indication of it, so Fratre Grimhold may have been right in his hesitancy.

I listened to all this monk said, and I cannot help but think that he is a dangerous man to have here in Roma. I implore you, Primore, to call this man before you and ascertain the true extent of his activities, and see he is properly disciplined for all he has done.

This is submitted to you with a humble heart and the whole devotion of my soul. If I have erred in any way, I ask you to correct my faults and show me the means to contrition for my sins. May God and Christ show you Their Will and give you wisdom to judge this matter so that the Church is vindicated and the Emperor upheld. I am certain that God will reveal all things to His servants if He is satisfied that we have made ourselves worthy of His Mercy and the Glory of Heaven. I pray that the Church may be preserved from all evil, and the Pope be delivered from iniquity.

Amen

Fratre Lothar

by the hand of Fratre Nicetius

Chapter Fourteen

A
S
V
ESPERS SOUNDED
, Bishop Berahtram made his way toward the anchorites’ chapel at Sant’ Ianuarius, determination in his stride and stern purpose in his face; his task was clear and he would not fail, not for himself, but for the honor of Sant’ Ianuarius and the Church. In this remote place God would give him victory over the Anti-Christ, and the Pope would be saved from the evil he had been commanded to guard; it would be shown that this manifestation of the wounds of Christ was the work of Satan, and would be known for the temptation to Pride it was. That revelation could only occur away from the Courts and cities of the Emperor and the Pope, and no place was more suitable than Sant’ Ianuarius: the convent, perched on the edge of a cliff high above an unapproachable valley, constantly moaned with wind, a continuing reminder of the ignominy of humankind and all the works of the world. Bishop Berahtram thought the convent a particularly suitable one for the sixty-seven women who lived in it, for their withdrawal from the world was reinforced by the isolation of Sant’ Ianuarius itself. Not even the eighty-nine slaves who served the nuns had much contact with the rest of his bishopric, or the villages farther down the mountain.

The nuns in the main chapel had begun chanting their prayers when Bishop Berahtram opened the fourth anchorite’s cell and addressed the white-skinned woman who stood swaying slightly near the single, high window that provided the only light in the cubiculum. She stared at the Bishop, and finally said, “Sublime,” in a harsh, soft voice.

“You may come to your chapel for Vespers,” Bishop Berahtram said to Gynethe Mehaut. “I will hear you Confess.”

Gynethe Mehaut blinked, steadying herself against the wall. For the last four days she had survived on a half-loaf of bread and a skin of water; during that time she had prayed without ceasing, chanting the Psalms over and over until her voice was now almost gone, hardly more than a hushed whisper; the chanting had long since become a rasp. After five nights without sleep, she found it difficult to concentrate. She blinked again, keeping her eyes closed a bit longer than before.

“You will not rest!” Bishop Berahtram ordered her. “Not until you have made a complete Confession of all your sins.”

“No,” she muttered. “I will not.” She put her bandaged hands to her face.

“You must remain awake,” said Bishop Berahtram, his voice taking on a harsh edge. “If you cannot do what God requires of you here, you must be sent to another nunnery where the Rule is more strictly enforced. The Pope commands it.”

Gynethe Mehaut nodded several times and tried to focus her attention on the Bishop, but she found it difficult to do, for this man seemed to be a vision or a dream, one moment as real a presence as the stones around her, the next as elusive as a specter.

“You have a duty to perform, Sorra,” said the Bishop, his manner as demanding as any Potente’s.

Gynethe Mehaut concentrated on what the Bishop said, and forced her tongue to respond. “I am devoted to the Church and the God we serve.” It came out sing-song and with little meaning to her, but it was enough to satisfy him for the moment.

“The chapel is waiting. You must recite Vespers. Then I will hear your Confession, and
then
begin your night devotions.” He stood a little straighter. “You are sworn to make this a holier place than it is now. If you fail, you will show that you are the handmaiden of Satan, as Bishop Iso believes, and many others fear. For the sake of your salvation, keep your vows.”

“It is my duty,” said Gynethe Mehaut, as she had said twice a day since she arrived at the convent three weeks ago. She took a faltering step toward the door, feeling dizzy from the effort. As the light from the torch in the corridor struck her, she turned her face away, flinching at the sudden brightness; her head throbbed, and there was a steady ache of hunger gripping her.

“How can you be so lax?” Bishop Berahtram demanded as he followed after her. “You wobble with every step. Are you so afraid of the altar that you cannot reach the chapel without losing your way? Does the presence of God so distress you?”

“I am … weak,” she said, trying to moisten her cracked lips, and finding her tongue dry.

“You are unable to do what you have been ordered to do?” he challenged. “You say you’re not capable of doing the penance expected of you?”

“I … pray for strength,” she murmured, stumbling a little on the uneven floor.

“As well you might,” said Bishop Berahtram. He pointed to the chapel door. “You know what you must do.”

“I know, Sublime, and I am grateful,” she said, and winced at the high trill of laughter that came from the nearest anchorite’s cell.

“Pay no heed to Sorra Riccardis Vigia,” Bishop Berahtram warned her. “She is possessed by demons when night falls.”

“Hers is a terrible laugh,” said Gynethe Mehaut. She thought it sounded like the howls of wolves that often filled the winter’s nights at Santa Albegunda; her memory grew stronger as she knelt at the door of the chapel and began to make her way on her knees toward the altar.

“It is always so with demons,” said Bishop Berahtram, coming to stand over her. “Begin your Office, and remember to include the penitential prayers at the end.”

“Yes.” Gynethe Mehaut stretched out facedown before the altar as she had done so many times before, in this convent and in others, although tonight they all seemed fused into one, an unbroken stream of devotion that had brought her to a pervasive torpor of spirit. She wondered vaguely if Priora Iditha, or Sorra Celinde, would come to take her back to her cubiculum when she was finished. But no, she remembered. Not here. Here she was in the care of Abba Dympna and Bishop Berahtram. Her thready voice sounded through the chapel, as monotonous as anything she had ever heard, except the droning of bees. The words made little sense to her, although she felt shame that she paid so little attention to them.

“You repeated the same verse three times,” Bishop Berahtram said, cutting into her drifting thoughts. “The same words:
‘He has given redemption to His people: He has made His covenant with them for eternity: holy and glorious is His Name.’
”