Saint Clew
It was but an hour later they began to gather in the large, lit nave. Murals of gods and saints looked down, their faces flickering by the gold light of candles in the wall sconces. Wolf remembered the tales any Sendic knew, that he had heard in his boyhood, how in the beginning there was darkness until the Lord of Light lit the great flame of creation. Even when the New Faith had come the old stories has not died. Those tales could never die.
That old world of magicks and witchcrafts, of giants and trolls and cold malevolent spirits, of fallible gods still worshipped by the Dayne, still worshipped by the Hale, quiet as it was kept, had been banished by the light of the new faith, the light of reason, the light not of many small gods without, but of God resting quietly within.
But just now there was the striking of a great tympani, and then a few moments later, the tympani boom came again, and beside him he looked to Myrne who looked up at him. They stared on as, to the slow repetition of the tympani, the monks and nuns entered, led by Gertrude in her dark habit. Odo’s White monks from across the sea were mixed with the black, and some acolytes not yet made, came in long white robes lifting up, on great golden candlesticks, burning white candles. Slowly they processed down the row between the people of the village who were gathered in the abbey kirk this night to witness the ordination of a new Abbess.
As the monks and nuns entered the hall, filling it with more lights and banishing the darkness, Hilda came in a white robe, bareheaded, her dark hair growing again.
They sang over Hilda as she knelt before the image of the Ard.
The sun grows dark,
The earth sinks into the sea,
The bright stars
From heaven vanish;
Fire rages,
Heat blazes,
And high flames play
Against heaven itself.
The incense burned at the altar, and Gertrude’s hands rested upon her. As Gertrude stood the other women undressed her until she stood bareheaded and old in plain white. They nuns and monks sang on.
Now Hilda stood looking much as she normally did, but that her robes were the robes Gertrude had worn earlier. A great black veil like a mantle draped her shoulders and fell to the ground, swating her white robe, and now Hilda was given a ring, and the great white candle that only the Abbess bore. A crown of flowers was placed on her head. None cheered, but all bowed to her, and then they watched as, like a dark bride, she was led to her quarters.
So now it was done, and now she was Abbess, and wouldn’t Ambridge be shocked by tomorrow? As she dressed down to her shift, and turned back the covers, Hilda thought of how lovely it would be to show her face in Edmund’s court and casually bring up the rumor of a plot.
“Lady?” Hilary called from outside.
“Hilary, it is late and I must rise early.”
“But I do not, and I am here to watch you.”
“Watch me?”
“After…” Hilary’s voice spoke from the other side of the door. “After you know what has been said is supposed to happen.”
Hilda went to the door to demand, “And how did you hear—?”
But as she opened it, the door flew back, and men dressed as monks, whom she had never seen, pushed her to the bed. She saw Hilary, terrified, a knife to her throat and now there was a blade to Hilda’s as well.
“Keep quiet,” one of the monks said, hiking up his robe as the others lifted Hilda’s. She made the highest noises she could until a dagger bled her cheek.
“Keep sweet,” he continued, “and this will all be over in a moment—”
But even at that moment he was silent, and blood falling from his mouth, he toppled across Hilda, a dagger in the back of his neck.
As chaos broke, suddenly, Osric Wulfstan, hair blazing, arms chopping methodically, was upon the other monks, felling them while yet another fell by dagger. Coming next into the room was Myrne, who quickly coldcocked the monk who had held Hilary, and behind her were Michael Flynn and Pollanikar.
Hilda sat on the bed, pulling her knees to her chest and rubbing her throat.
“Lady, forgive me,” Hilary fell to her knees. “A nun passed my door suggesting someone see to your welfare. She said she feared the danger you were in and so, after all your kindness, I could not see you alone. On my way here the monks, or the men I thought to be monks, found me. They said they would lead me to you because these chambers are new. I suppose they through my voice would make you open the door before the voice of a stranger, certainly of a strange man. I did not know. I am so sorry.”
“You could not know,” Hilda said, shaking her head as she rubbed her throat. “All monks must look the same to you, more or less. They used your kindness.”
Just then, Odo came storming in at the head of three of his own monks, looking more like a prince that a holy man.
“How in Hel did they get in here?” he demanded, then turning to Michael and Polly added, “How did you get in here?”
“There are many questions,” Abbess Hilda said, still rubbing her throat, “but there is no use trying to answer them tonight, and now that the threat has passed, let us dress after morning prayers and go on a journey. For the answers will best be found in Ambridge.”
