The Cross and the Dragon (39 page)

Plectrude paused, her head cocked again as if listening, and let out a giddy laugh. “We will live. Because of you, we will live through the winter.”

“How?” Alda asked, tears studding her eyes as she pulled on her shift, heedless of the sting of the fabric against her own welts. “Through prayer?”

“That and the wheat your mother sent us.” Plectrude beamed.

Alda froze and dropped her habit. Plectrude seized Alda’s hand and pressed the ring and amulet into it. Countless questions flooded Alda’s mind. She opened her mouth, but words failed her.

“It worked,” Plectrude sighed. “Saints be praised, it worked.”

“What worked?” Alda asked as she retied the ribbons and slipped her ring and dragon under her shift.

“When you rejoined your sisters,” Plectrude replied. “I gave your mother a letter and told her it was from you.”

“You lied to my mother? How could you?” Alda asked, tugging on her habit.

“Was it a lie? Did you not want to say, ‘Dearest Mother, we need grain’? Did you not want to instruct her on how she could give it to us without the abbess’s notice? Did you not want to say, ‘Seven days hence, after the prime bells toll on Nonnenwerth, send boats with as many sacks of grain as you can spare’?”

“Of course, but…”

“Fortunately, I can write,” Plectrude said. “When I saw Drachenhaus’s boats at our dock, I bade the men to stay until they heard the sext bells. I then made all haste to the abbess and told her of your conversation with Nanthild. I knew the news would send her into a rage. I begged her not to punish you, knowing my words would have the exact opposite effect.”

“Why?” Nanthild snapped. “What wrong did we do to you?”

“The abbess had to be distracted,” Plectrude said, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Discipline in this cellar was the perfect way to keep her unaware of what went on above.”

“While we were whipped,” Alda said slowly, “you were directing the men to fill our stores. That is why you were out of breath.”

“You both suffered for us all,” Plectrude said. “I ask your forgiveness, but I knew no other way.”

“You are forgiven. The stripes are a small price to pay for not starving. They will heal,” Alda said even though the welts still burned. “But why did you not tell me?”

“Alda, I needed you to be your willful self,” Plectrude said. “It gave me more time. And the abbess might have become suspicious if you were humble and obedient and might have tried to beat the information out of you, and then she would scatter our grain to the birds.”

“She wouldn’t!” Nanthild’s eyes widened.

“She would,” Plectrude said. “I have known this woman longer than either of you. When she has an idea, nothing will change her mind. She did not listen to me when I told her the Good Lord Himself plucked grain on the Sabbath and said, ‘Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath’ and therefore it is no sin to harvest on the Sabbath in a time of need. As far as she is concerned, she will obey the commandment, ‘Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,’ and all else fades.”

Plectrude gestured for the novices to accompany her up the steps. As Alda followed, she stammered, “I do not know how to thank you for returning my things. They are all I have left of my husband.”

When they all ascended the steps, Plectrude stared at the images of Christ and the Blessed Mother above the altar, but instead of the fear she had seen in Radegunde’s face, Plectrude’s eyes had the look of love like a daughter would have for her father.

“Sister Prioress,” Alda asked, “why does Mother Radegunde treat you so?”

“What do you mean?”

“She always rebukes you, even when you do her will.”

Plectrude gazed upon Christ. “She knows I do not believe her teachings. I do not see inflicting pain on the body as the path to God’s love. Christ took our pain and sin to save us. I believe He wants us to relieve the suffering of others — feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, schooling the children, sheltering travelers, tending the sick and crippled.

“And I remind her of her uncle’s sin. Even though my father acknowledged and dowered me, she still will not believe that I am the daughter of a bishop. She will never forgive that my mother was a commoner.”

“But you said your father acknowledged you.”

“She thinks he was tricked.” Plectrude rolled her eyes. “She thought her uncle could do no wrong until my birth told her otherwise. She hates me for that, and she hates me for keeping her and the abbey alive.”

“Keeping her alive?”

“Do you think the sisters would allow the abbess to starve them? Merchants have told me of well-timed accidents befalling harsh mistresses.”

Alda and Nanthild both gasped.

“The only reason the sisters have not fled this abbey is that I assured them we would have enough food to survive the winter, and I always keep my word,” Plectrude said. “I was not about to see the sisters or the tenants reduced to eating rats.”

“You have defied the abbess’s will before?” Alda asked.

“For the good of this abbey. In Radegunde’s heart,” the prioress said, looking at her hands, “she knows I subvert her will and that she needs me to subvert her will, although she believes my fate should be that of a fatherless whore.”

“But the sin is your father’s, not yours.”

“I have thought so as well, but she will not forgive me for not repenting that I am a natural child.”

“You have nothing to repent,” Alda said.

Plectrude shrugged. “I have long learned to ignore the abbess when she calls me a bastard or tells me that she allows me to stay here only as a favor to her favorite uncle.”

“Why do you stay?”

“This is the only life I have known. What would I do outside the abbey?”

“You could find a kinder mistress at a different abbey,” Nanthild said.

“Or a crueler one,” Plectrude replied. “Someone who takes joy in inflicting pain. Radegunde is cruel because she thinks it will save souls.”

“But why do you protect the abbess?” Alda asked.

“She is a kinswoman. Family is still family. Perhaps, she is my penance.” The prioress gestured for the novices to follow her to the altar. “Let us pray. When the abbess comes here at nones, I would advise you to throw yourself at her feet and tell her you repent. The abbess will say you are forgiven, and the matter will be closed.”

“I have done nothing wrong,” Alda said bitterly. “And you said what I did was not a sin.”

“Simply say you repent, do not say for what sin,” Plectrude said. “There must be some sin.”

Kneeling on the cold wooden floor, Alda could think of something to repent: wanting to take Plectrude’s inheritance. Plectrude was more worthy to succeed Radegunde. Plectrude could have left this place years ago, but she endured Radegunde because she loved Christ and this abbey. With a twinge of guilt, Alda realized she did not feel this passion. Alda loved Christ the way the laity loved Him — as one who loves her king or country.

Alda looked up at the painting of Christ in His majesty with His Mother beside Him. Heaven. To no longer feel hunger or pain or loss. She put her hand over her heart and pressed the ring and amulet to her flesh.
Hruodland.
She swallowed back the tears. It had been how long? Five months since he had died, and yet the sadness always returned.
Hruodland, I should have never loved you. Then I would not miss you so.

Chapter 26

The Nativity and Epiphany were lonely for Hruodland, even though he was surrounded by people. For four years, he had spent those holy days with Alda. As winter went on at the Abbey of Saint Stephen, he had one goal: return home.

He drove himself to walk normally, without crutches or wobbling steps. He did not care how many times he fell. He had to be ready for the journey home this spring. He had to silence those dreams of Ganelon hovering over him. He was torn between kissing Alda at their reunion and slapping her for not sending him a message. He was irritated with Gerard and Charles as well. Why were there no tidings of home or court?

Two weeks after Epiphany, Hruodland went to prime Mass at the church. It felt good to be in a church again amid prayers, candles, and incense.
Why did God allow the Roncevaux massacre to happen?
he asked Saint Sebastian.
Why did He spare me?

“Hruodland,” Judith called after the Mass, “the otter vest becomes you.”

“Thank you. Any word from my home?” he asked.

Judith shook her head. “You no longer need the hospital. Would you like to stay at my residence? You would be an honored guest.”

She was right. He did not need lay sisters tending to his every need. His speech was still somewhat slurred, but he was able to walk on his own and dress himself and use the privies without help. Still, he was not as strong as he had been.

“I accept your kind offer,” he said.

* * * * *

After dinner in the abbess’s residence, Hruodland asked Judith for a horse.

“You are not planning to travel in the middle of the winter, are you?”

“If I am to go home, I need to learn how to ride a horse again.”

“Of course,” she murmured, “let one of my servants help you.”

“As I have been telling your good sisters,” Hruodland said irritably, “I must do this without help.”

In midafternoon, a groom led the horse into an open courtyard. Hruodland suspected Judith had ordered the servant to bring the most docile animal he could find. Fidelis the wolfhound watched his master as Hruodland sized up the horse. It was a sleepy-looking brown mare whose shoulder was as tall as Hruodland’s neck. His first task: mount the horse.

So why was he hesitating? Hadn’t he been riding horses for as long as he could remember? Riding had become as natural as walking, so natural that he would leap onto the saddle. But right now, leaping onto anything seemed impossible.

It is only a horse.
He placed his hand on the pommel and tried to pull himself up, but his grip was too weak. He fell backward and landed in the icy mud.

As Hruodland cursed, Fidelis whined and licked his master’s face. Hruodland heard a stifled laugh. He looked up and saw the groom. He got to his feet and fixed his eyes on the servant, who was no older than twenty winters.

“Have you slain a Saxon charging at you on horseback?” Hruodland said, using the tone in which he spoke to the Bretons.

The young man stopped laughing. His eyes grew wide as Hruodland raised his hand to let a sleeve fall and expose a scar.

“I will speak slowly so you can understand me,” Hruodland continued. “I am a warrior. I have more scars than this from the Gascons, the Saxons, and the Lombards. I survived the massacre at Roncevaux, slaying many Gascons. I shall become strong again, and I shall remember how I was treated.”

The groom looked down, silent. Hruodland smiled. He still had the gift of command, the gift that had made the Bretons give him tribute for the king, the gift that had made his men follow him into battle. What this groom did not know was that Hruodland still could not remember the Roncevaux attack. Judith kept telling him how valiant he had been, and he believed her. The evidence he had of it was a thick scar near his heart.

* * * * *

As Lent approached, Hruodland pushed himself to relearn his old ways, to regain the muscle he had lost. He sparred with the guards of the monastery and practiced riding in the marshes outside the abbey’s walls.

The days lengthened and became warmer. Hruodland became angrier as Lent began and he still had no word from Alda or Gerard or Charles. He was going to start his journey home soon. Spring was returning. The grass in the marshes was sending up green shoots among the spring flowers, and the stream beside the abbey was swollen with rain.

After dinner one temperate day, he and Judith walked through the orchard cemetery, where buds of leaves and flowers were studding the trees and birds were building nests. Fidelis followed them, leaving paw prints in the moist earth. Hruodland had another favor to ask of Judith and felt guilty. Already, she had been so kind, although it bothered him that she was a coquette and looked at him longingly.