The Burning Stone
Page 186

“Dead, now, so they say.” Heribert had started to put away his tools. Now he paused. “Do you think Sister Zoë is the one trying to kill you?”
“Who can know? Sister Zoë and Brother Severus prefer not to speak to me at all. They despise me, I think. To Sister Meriam, I am an object of complete indifference. To our fine and mighty Sister Anne, I do believe I am only another tool, one she hasn’t yet discovered a use for.” He gestured toward the older woman who sat next to the voluptuous Zoë. “Only Sister Venia treats me kindly.”
Heribert colored. “The more subtle they are the more fair they appear. Do not trust her.”
“So you have said before, and since she is your aunt, I suppose I must trust your judgment since you surely know her far better than I do. A fair face can conceal a foul heart.” He grinned, thinking of Hugh. Although it was certainly no Godly sentiment, he liked to remember how he’d last seen Hugh, bleeding and beaten on the ground, at the mercy of the dogs. But thinking of the dogs made him think of his father, and he sighed. Two of the servants brushed against him, their light touch like balm on his scratched-up skin.
“You’d think Sister Anne would put a stop to the attempts to kill you,” Heribert was saying as he tied up his tools in a cleverly-sewn pouch of his own devising.
“Maybe it’s a test. Or perhaps she doesn’t know.”
Heribert laughed sharply. “I don’t believe there is anything she doesn’t know. But surely Liath might have some insight into her mother’s mind that we lack. You should confide in her.”
He considered, but finally shook his head. “Nay. It would worry her needlessly, and she would insist we leave—and that, I fear, would cause more problems than it would solve in every way. She needs to be here, at least until the child is born and she has recovered her strength.” Then he smiled wryly. “And in any case, Heribert, I haven’t found that she can keep secrets very well, although she thinks she does. If she gets angry, she’ll blurt it all out and accuse everyone just because she is so indignant on my behalf. I like knowing that they don’t know that I know.”
“Unless they do know that you know, and, knowing that, know that you believe that they don’t know that you know, so that this is only a more convoluted game than even you perceive, my friend.”
“Ah, but you forget that I was raised on the king’s progress. Certainly I have seen almost every knot that can be tied when it comes to intrigue.”
Heribert hesitated, looking troubled. “You must be careful, my lord prince,” he said, using the title as he always did when he meant to tease, or to be serious. “A nest of mathematici is a nest of dangerous creatures, indeed.”
“Why do you stay, Heribert?” asked Sanglant suddenly.
Heribert’s smile was mocking. “I fear leaving more than I fear staying. I’m not a brave man, as you are, my lord prince. I’m not a warrior in my heart, as many churchmen are. I’m afraid of what they’ll do to me if I try to go. In any case, there is no way out except through the stone circle, none that I’ve ever found. I don’t know the secrets of the stone.” He put his leather tool pouch away in the shed he and Sanglant had built beside their working ground, where Heribert now slept. “Truth be told, I’m content here. I was never given a chance to build before.”
“Well, my dear friend,” replied Sanglant, standing, “it’s a handsome edifice you’ve built. But right now I want to be clean. Shall we go?”
The servants swirled around him as he rose, tickling his chin and tweaking his ears. He had enough natural quickness that he could pinch them in turn, a form of teasing they delighted in because he could do no harm to their aetherical bodies. Laughing, he chased them until they scattered, their delicate laughter chiming on the breeze. Heribert only shook his head and, together, the two men went to the pond to wash themselves free of the sweat and dust of an honest day’s work.
Sister Venia, formerly known as Biscop Antonia of Mainni, watched her illegitimate son and his companion vanish into the dusk. Perhaps it was inevitable that the two men, thrown together under such circumstances, would become friends. Whatever his virtues, Prince Sanglant was uncouth, uneducated, and only half human, scarcely a fit companion for a young man who had been molded carefully from childhood on to become the ornament of wisdom and the shining vessel of God’s grace. Still, the prince could hardly fail to be uplifted by the company of such an astonishingly fine young cleric.
“I don’t like the way he looks at me,” said Sister Zoë abruptly. “He has a lewd eye.”