The Book of Earth Page 4

  “The king?” The false-Guillemo let just enough space fall between his words to invite comment. “You will surely pardon a visitor’s ignorance, lord baron, but from what we have heard in our travels, you will be lucky indeed if help comes from that quarter.”

  Erde was shocked. The king had surely had his troubles of late, but in her grandmother’s court, such disrespect would not have been allowed, even from a foreigner who could be supposed not to know any better. But Baron Josef merely reclaimed his knife and ate, his glance steady on his guest.

  “I mean, of course, from which of your king’s empty storehouses is such relief to come?”

  The baron chewed thoughtfully. “Ah, yes, from where is relief to come? Nearer at hand, perhaps.”

  “Perhaps, my lord.” Again, the pause. The false-Guillemo’s hands were folded tightly on the table in front of him. “But we must not hope for help from an earthly king when the Church is our only salvation. Six bad years. Six, you know, my lord, is the Devil’s number.”

  The baron speared another morsel, nodding.

  The false priest leaned closer, the folds of his cowl falling about his face so that his deep voice resonated out of pure darkness. “It is not Heaven who punishes us, my lord, nor chance who visits with these plagues. God has sent his Word to our brethren, and we have received it. The true cause is Nature, the Devil’s fancy woman, and her host of beasts and sorcerers, turning our own lands against us. A conspiracy of mages, lord baron, of mages, witches, and women, that God calls us to rise up against and vanquish in His Name! What do you say to that?”

  A conspiracy of mages, indeed. Erde found herself wishing she could call up the Mage-Queen herself to spirit this horrible man away, all the way back to Rome with every one of his so-called brothers. She noted her father’s faintly arched brow and watched his interest, captured initially by the priest’s political innuendo, fade before this onslaught of religious rhetoric.

  “Good brother, I await further enlightenment.”

  The not-priest heard the invitation but not its skepticism. “There are dark forces abroad, my lord! Dark forces that thrive on our weaknesses. We’ve been too careless of Nature, sir. We’ve relaxed our guard, let her evade our discipline, let her emissaries invade our lives, our very homes. Our women talk of cycles of the moon instead of gifts from God. Our children run loose in the land like young animals, empowering the very forces that seek domination over us! Nature readies herself, my lord. She calls her creatures to her, and soon . . .”

  Through the drone of the false-priest’s tirade, Erde became aware of a door opening, a scuffle, of shouts rising above the chatter of the diners, a man crying out Brother Guillemo’s name as he was subdued by three guardsmen who’d been handy to the entrance. The candle flames danced on the high table and she heard the soft rasp of Rainer’s sword easing from its sheath.

  The false-Guillemo broke off his speech and sprang from his seat, arms spread wide. He stood for a moment, poised, letting his cup spill and roll to the floor, its clatter punctuating the sudden silence his gesture created. “Soldiers, I beg you! Let this good man be! He does no harm to call my name!”

  The other white-robes rose as one to second his protest.

  The three guardsmen looked to their captain. In the breathless hush, the pinioned man worked an arm free and reached toward the false-priest with a desperate cry. “Brother, they have come! Protect us, poor sinners all! Have mercy on us!”

  Ladies giggled and whispered as the false-Guillemo pushed back his chair and shouldered his way through the throng of his hooded brothers toward the door. “Who comes, friend? What has you so frightened?”

  “The dragons! The dragons come!”

  In Erde’s breast, hope stirred along with apprehension. Dragons? The white-robes murmured and stirred, flowing like a frothy torrent in the false-priest’s wake.

  “My lord?” asked Rainer quietly from beside the baron’s chair.

  “Religion’s his bailiwick.” The baron sipped his wine. “Let him handle it, if he’s so eager.”

  Rainer raised his sword, letting the blade flare in the lamplight, then sheathed it. The guardsmen let the man go.

  “You know this man?” the baron asked Rainer. A hovering servant filled his cup again.

  “No, my lord. But I’ll ask around later.”

  The newcomer was middle-aged and pasty, as if his job kept him well out of the sun. He fell to his knees on the slate floor, weeping at the false-priest’s feet as the other white-robes converged around them, hiding both from sight. The courtiers waited, tittering among themselves, eager for the excitement.

  “What now?” the baron murmured, easing forward in his chair.

  “Another switch?” Rainer suggested, and Erde breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn’t blurted out her Great Discovery to him. Had the entire court been aware of it? She reminded herself to listen to Alla more. Clearly, not saying anything was just part of the game.

  “He’ll have to get down to business sooner or later,” said the baron. “Now that he knows I’m not going to poison him.”

  “But can you trust him to tell you what his business is, my lord?”

  The baron offered his guardsman an icy profile. “I can trust myself to figure it out, Captain.”

  Rainer’s head dipped. “Of course, my lord.”

  “Brothers!” A new voice rose from out of the throng around the door. “Give the man room to speak!” The white-robes drew aside. Erde’s real-Guillemo now knelt beside the weeping man, his hood thrown back, revealing a bald head and large, commanding eyes. He pressed the man’s hand piously to his chest. A guffaw from one of the guardsmen’s tables against the far wall was quickly hushed.

  “Yesss!” hissed the baron thickly. “Now we’ll see what he’s about.”

  “It’s really him now!” Erde whispered before she could stop herself.

  Rainer grinned and nodded, but Baron Josef turned and stared her into silence. The wine sparkle in his eyes was blurred and watery.

  “Holy father, help us!” the weeping man pleaded.

  “We are all brothers here, my friend,” Guillemo reproved gently. He rose, pulling the man up with him. His hands were small, Erde noticed. Darkly furred and delicate. “Have you your voice back now? Can you tell us what you saw?”

  “Ohhh!” Ragged sleeves fell back from the palest flesh as the man waved his arms and tried to cover his head. “A great rush of wings past the wheat field, Brother, and a shadow like blackest night falling over the barnyard! And an awful stench, like a hot wind from the very bowels of hell itself. It’s the evil come hunting us, surely, just like you prophesied! See, here, its terrible mark!”

  “Where? What?”

  The man offered his forearm. “Its awful spittle fell in flaming gouts and burned me.”

  Guillemo grasped the arm with both hands to display to the crowd like a relic. A few red welts marred the hairless skin. “Lo!” the priest exclaimed. “The mark of Satan!”

  In the clamor of derision and dismay that followed, the baron tapped his front teeth with the point of his knife and gestured to his captain to move closer again. “Do you believe in dragons, Rainer?”

  “Actual dragons, my lord, or convenient ones in our neighborhood?”

  The baron chuckled. “Just so! The man is clever, though.”

  “Sly. Send him packing.”

  “Not until I’ve plumbed his uses.”

  “I’d say it’s you he seeks to use, sir.”

  “Don’t cross me, boy!” the baron snapped. “You think I don’t see what he is?”

  Rainer straightened abruptly. “Your pardon, my lord!”

  Erde dared a glance. Rainer’s mouth was tight with shame, and she understood his confusion so well. It was like that with her father. Often he tricked you with invitations to intimacy, when really all he wanted to do was to hear himself talk. Sometimes it seemed the baron preferred his subordinates to be crafty rather than intelligent.

  G
uillemo sat the raving man down on one of the benches emptied by his entourage. His small hands soothed the man’s thin shoulders. “Now, my friend, I have no doubt you believe what you saw, but perhaps you were only napping and woke from a bad dream, burning yourself on the hearth grate . . .”

  “Oh, no, Brother, I swear . . .”

  “Tch, man! Never swear unless you’ve a Bible to hand!” The priest cocked his head and offered his audience a worldly glance. “Perhaps, brother, you felt a particularly dark cloud passing over?” His gesture was derisive, and the court laughed with him.

  “No, I . . .”

  “Do you think we are so important, so special here in Tor Alte that the Devil would choose to single us out?”

  The man became confused. “But how,” he wailed, “are we to know?”

  Brother Guillemo smiled at him then, a smile like embers bursting into flame on a darkened hearth. He smoothed back the man’s disordered hair as if he were a child and kissed his pale brow. “Oh, my good brother, hear the Truth. No one is too small to avoid the Devil’s attention and . . . you will know because I will tell you.”

  Guillemo was bulky but agile. Levering off the man’s shoulder, he sprang onto the bench and spread his arms. His abrupt move, so like an attack, drew gasps around the horseshoe. Swords clanked among the baron’s Guard and nearby, a woman shrieked.

  “Listen, oh my people! For what if this man speaks true?” His voice was as deep as his fellows’ but more resonant. Erde felt it vibrate within her chest. Beside her, the baron sat forward with renewed interest. Guillemo slewed his riveting glance around the hall and pointed at the most crowded table. “Do you know him?”

  “Aye!” shouted someone, but Erde thought it came from among the white-robes.

  “Is he a good man?” Guillemo demanded.

  “Aye!” several more voices answered.

  “A humble man?”

  “Aye!”

  The priest reached behind him to grab the man’s burned arm and exhibit it once again. “Then are we not fortunate for this good and humble man who brings us the first true sign? He did not cower in terror of the Darkness but came straightway to report its approach!” He looked down, over the thick brush of his beard, pacing the length of the bench and scowling. “Be wary, oh my people! Be alert to every sign, to every chance of a sign, to every possibility that the Moment is come!” He let his voice drop, as if speaking in private meditation. The only other sound in the hall was the crack of the hearth fires and the chicken-crone snoring in a corner. “For this evil is everywhere, and the innocent are the most easily corrupted.” He looked up, singled out a pretty woman nearby. “A young soldier’s wife had a sickly child. Instead of bringing him into God’s church for a holy blessing, she buys a talisman from an old hag who lives at the end of the village.” He stamped his foot, pointing suddenly at the entrance. “And thus, the Devil has a foot in her door!”

  Several people glanced nervously behind them.

  Guillemo paced along the bench again, turned, and paced back. “Remember, oh my people! The Devil’s only foothold in this world is in our hearts! If we would deny him there, he would never triumph! But we do not deny him! Every day without thinking we let him in! A child talks back to his father! A woman argues with her husband! A young girl buys a love charm and, oh my people, see how we suffer for it! See how the lands dry up and the babies starve! See, see . . .”

  Guillemo reached both arms above his head as if grasping for the sky, then clapped his palms to bulging eyes and fell gasping to his knees on the tabletop. “See! Oh, I see, my good people! I see the winged servants of Satan abroad in the land, searing the fields with their foul breath, blackening the waters with their reptile slime, setting them to boil with the acid of their tongues! I see demons marching against us, led by the secret army of witches and warlocks who hide now among us waiting for the Devil’s call! Oh! I see the air aflame with dragons! I see the witch-child and the Devil’s Paladin . . . oh . . . !” His face scarlet and swollen, the priest doubled over on the wide boards of the trestle, moaning, scattering cups and platters. Several of the white-robes rushed to aid him, raising him bodily, settling him back on the bench, brushing at his robe and plying him with water and wine. Erde sat frozen in her chair. She hoped she had only imagined that, the moment before he’d collapsed, this final, real, and terrifying Fra Guill had caught her eye.

  When it was plain that the priest’s vision had passed, the court relaxed, having finally been granted the spectacle they had sat down to receive in his company. On his bench in the midst of his solicitous brothers, Guillemo contrived to look ordinary once more, nodding and smiling, wiping his brow on his sleeve, blotting the saliva from his beard.

  The baron watched him fixedly. He drained his wine cup and signaled for more. “See how well he plays them.”

  Erde wondered if his envy was as clear to everyone around him as it was to her. She wished Alla was there, but the castle midwife was not invited to formal events, and nobody else was listening. The real Guillemo had enraptured them all.

  When the priest recovered himself, he asked for the man who had brought the dragon sign and led him to a seat himself, boldly setting him down to a meal at the baron’s table. Then he made his way to the place his former self had vacated, bowing deeply before easing into the broad velvet-cushioned chair. “Your pardon, my lord baron, for this untimely disturbance . . . I fear God does not warn ahead when he sends his Holy Word to me.”

  Baron Josef studied him for a moment with pursed lips. Unlike his substitutes, the real Guillemo returned the stare unflinchingly. Finally, the baron nodded, as if some negotiation had passed between them. He signaled for wine to be poured for them both, and the priest did not refuse.

  “God’s Word must not be denied,” agreed the baron. “Tell me, does God fear we harbor witches at Tor Alte, Brother Guillemo? Should I be checking my stables for dragon scat?”

  Erde could not decipher the priest’s cocked eyebrow. Was it the expected disapproval or was it amusement?

  “The Devil’s minions are everywhere, my lord.”

  “Indeed they are.” The baron eased himself back into the velvet cushion of his chair. “I don’t recall hearing before of a Devil’s Paladin, Brother. Who might he be, fallen angel or human man?”

  “He is in the vision, my lord. I myself do not yet comprehend it.”

  The baron swirled the wine in his cup. “Sometimes I think my mother was a witch.”

  “God forbid, Baron, for today she lies in holy ground!”

  The baron’s laugh was careless. “Well, I mean, how else could a woman hold a throne so long? But you were speaking of the children.” He waved an unsteady hand. “Before all this. Pray do continue.”

  “Was I?” Guillemo smiled guilelessly. He tasted his wine, then drank deeply. “With all the excitement, I’ve quite forgot.”

  “The naughty children,” the baron prodded. “Running loose in the woods.”

  Guillemo chuckled. “The woods, my lord?”

  “Yes, yes, like little animals. Erde, my sweet, are you listening?”

  “Of course, Papa.” Erde sipped at her wine. Hoodless, Brother Guillemo was ugly, with his ferrety nose and his pockmarked skin. But his transforming innocent smile could make you question whether you’d misjudged him. Then he leveled a predatory eye on her and Erde was sure she had not. A true priest in God’s grace should not stare so.

  “Not your children, of course, my lord,” said Guillemo.

  “I’ve only the one, Brother, was widowed early. A motherless child, you know, can run a bit wild. Yes, I think even my daughter could benefit from some proper schooling.”

  Erde sipped again, to appear occupied. She wished they wouldn’t talk about her as if she weren’t sitting right next to them.

  Guillemo contrived to look both sympathetic and disapproving. “Surely, my lord, a girl her age already has what schooling befits a woman.”

  “Ah, yes, but her grandmother had
her own ideas. So, needless to say, there’s work left to do. Fortunately, she’s hardly grown. But growing fast, very fast.” He threw Erde the odd look he had earlier, from her chamber door, only this time he smiled, as if at a secret between them.

  “She’s very dark,” the priest remarked. “Unusual.”

  “Her mother’s blood.”

  “Lovely . . .” the priest murmured.

  No, a priest should not stare so. Erde looked down, breathless and sick under their shared regard, wanting to rush from the hall and not stop until she was away from the heat and the smoke and breathing free in the sharp mountain air. The need seized her until she was dizzy with it. She grasped for her wineglass and missed.

  The baron saw her color go, and raised his arm with a quick snap of his fingers. “Captain!”

  Rainer was ready behind the baron’s chair. “My lord?”

  “I think the child has had enough feasting for one evening. Please see her to her room.”

  “Of course, my lord.”

  Erde summoned enough presence of mind to say her proper good nights at the high table, but she was glad of Rainer’s steady arm as she tottered from the hall. In the outer corridor, her vision swam, her knees buckled. Rainer caught her about the waist and picked her up without thinking.

  “Shall you carry me, then?” she asked foolishly.

  The guardsmen stared straight ahead. “It appears I shall, my lady, you not being much able to walk and all.”

  “Am I not too heavy?”

  Rainer laughed softly. “No. Not too heavy.”

  “I could walk, you know.” But it felt better to rest her head against his chest as he paced down the long side hall, to be with someone who was not always judging her and finding her lacking. The dizziness subsided, though the nausea remained. She wanted only to go to bed.

  “I hope you’re not picking up the drinking habit, my lady.” He paused and readjusted her weight to carry her up the broad central staircase.

  Erde snorted rudely. “It’s my father who’s drinking too much!”

  “Ah, but my lord baron can drink most of us under the table.”