The Book of Earth (6 page)

“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.

Guillemo 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.”

She marveled that men seemed to find this so admirable a quality in each other. “I think the priest could drink more.”

“Yes, you would think that, if you’re not watching him carefully. But his cup hardly empties.”

Erde frowned. Perhaps she’d been feeling too poorly to be truly alert. “Well, I only had one cup of wine.”

“Even one can be too much for some, you know.”

“It made me sleepy.”

“Are you feeling better?”

“My stomach aches so oddly.”

“I’ll fetch Fricca for you when we get there.”

Erde nestled into the dark fabric of his tunic as if it were her pillow. The rhythm of the stairs was soothing. She could hear his heart beating. “Try my father’s rooms.”

Rainer nearly missed a step. “What?”

“Oh, you know what I mean. That’s where she is most times now. She’s more his chamber-woman than she is mine.”

“Erde! . . . my lady, I mean . . . ?” He shook his head helplessly.

“I’m not blind, you know.”

“Of course not.”

“I’m almost fourteen, for heaven’s sake!”

“So you are, my lady, so you are.”

She heard herself giggle and knew the wine truly had gone to her senses. Her only hope was to lie back and enjoy the ride. “Oh, Rainer, you’re so proper!”

“I am not,” he replied indignantly.

“You are! You used to call me princess.”

He paused again for breath on the top step, gazing down the dim curving corridor that led to the tower stair. “I used to call you a lot of things that aren’t right for us anymore.”

“Who says?”

“Well, uh . . . you know.”

“I want to know who says such things! I hate it when you call me ‘my lady.’”

“But that’s what you are.”

She knew that now was the time to ask him, now that the wine had loosed her tongue. “Rainer, are we not friends anymore?”

He headed down the corridor. “Friends? Sure we are.”

This was somehow not a satisfying answer, but his long-legged stride quieted her, made her thoughts drift. Her head ached as she thought about Fricca and her father and what they did together in his rooms. Was it the same as love? She knew she could question Fricca, who would eagerly supply every detail. But Erde couldn’t bear the thought of knowing such things about her own father.

However, her curiosity, being suppressed, was the more intense.

“Rainer, have you ever kissed anyone?”

“Hey! Are you
trying
to get me in trouble?”

Well, finally. She had shocked the formality out of him. “We used to talk about that sort of thing all the time.”

A pretty serving girl came out of a room ahead of them with an armful of linens. Seeing Rainer, she propped her load against the wall and smiled. He nodded stiffly and strode past. “Okay, sure, yes, I have.”

“Who? Friends?”

“That is none of your business.”

“Well, would you only kiss someone who’s beautiful?”