Chapter Two
At the hour of vespers, shortly before dark and barely two hours before Viollette was most rudely immolated in the neighboring town of Avranches, the novice Adam crept down the stone passage away from the refectory. Adam, one of the youngest at the monastery, had already eaten. Far down the halls he could hear the gentle murmuring of the weekly reader. His barely moving lips would have betrayed to an observer how well he knew the schedule; this was vespers, and at vespers would be heard four Psalms, with a responsory, a hymn, a versicle, and a canticle. And, of course, for the Duke, La Chanson de Roland.
He wondered to himself if his master were at supper, and then caught himself. How could he doubt his master? True, Adam had not seen him all day, but he had never known Lucius to forsake his duties. Ahead he saw a faintly burning light and recognized the library entrance.
The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent,
Thou art a priest forever …
Adam could not help his temptation to be stealthy. The visitor in the library was strange, to him and to the monastery, and he could not help an uncommon fear of the man that had come so recently to stay at Mont Saint‑Michel.
The light spilled out into the carved hallway through the slightly ajar wooden door, and Adam took a breath before pulling it open a bit more so that he could look inside.
The man in the library heard the noise but did not feel like acknowledging it. He preferred to let the boy sneak around.
In the doorway, Adam watched the man silently turn the pages of the book that seemed to absorb him. The stranger sat in a large, obstinately functional wooden chair and was turned three quarters away from the boy. Adam stood in silence, taking in the enigmatic figure, the glistening, iron-gray hair and the thin black cord that held tight to the back of his head, which Adam knew held in place the patch over his left eye. Faintly, in the air that drummed with the distant Psalm at vespers, he could hear the slow, steady breathing of this strange man who seemed to be as old as time itself.
Adam had to speak. “You are the one called Macduff.”
“Hmm,” came the answer, while the iron head stayed focused on the book. Adam was not sure if this were an answer or not.
The boy stepped closer to the table, directly beside the oil lamp that burned in the Psalm-murmuring air. “They say you came from across the sea; that you are not a monk.”
Adam knew he himself had been brought to Mont Saint-Michel as an infant, dedicated by impoverished parents to the greater glory of God, as solemnly admonished by Saint Benedict. Adam had been reminded so many times, and so he had worked hard to learn the ways of the Order. But he still couldn’t help his curiosity.
“Are you?”
A page turned. “No.”
“The Duke’s men, who are on the grounds of the monastery, are not monks.”
Macduff looked up at the boy for a second, then back at his book, trying not to lose the rhythm in what he was reading. “No.”
“But you are not one of them, either.”
“I should think not.”
“I should think you are a monk, after all.”
Macduff looked up again. “And why is that?”
“You read like a monk and you don’t like to talk.”
The Iron Thane turned this over in his mind for a second. It occurred to him that for this lad, whether he knew better or not, there were two races of men, the monks of the monastery and the court of the Duke of Normandy. Naturally this would be the case, as cenobites rarely, if ever, left the grounds. And here was Macduff, a new race. He rather liked that.
“I’m not a monk.”
“Do you want to be a monk?”
Macduff thought for a second and a wrinkle bent the thin scar that traveled down his face. “I don’t know.”
“Why do you spend all of your time in the library and sleep in a monk’s cell, then? Surely the Duke could entertain you better.”
“The Duke is a busy man,” said Macduff, as he tried to return to his book.
“Did you trade your eye for knowledge?”
The Iron Thane glanced up. “What?” The boy showed the faintest inkling of a nervous smile, then shut it away when he met the piercing iron gaze.
“My master tells old stories sometimes; he translates them. He says there is much to be learned, that they tell us things about our own beliefs, even if they don’t speak of them exactly. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of knowledge. In the old texts my master reads …”
“Odin traded his eye for knowledge,” finished Macduff. He held the book flat in his hands, his finger on his place. That was a sophisticated joke, Macduff decided. “Yes. There is much to be learned from all stories. All things, in fact.” He let out a sigh and began to return to his reading, then thought better of it and looked back at the boy. With his right hand he calmly folded over a page and set the book down. “What was your name, lad?”
The boy’s eyes widened as if he were about to shriek. “How could you do that?”
Macduff eyed the boy incredulously. “What are you talking about?”
Adam frowned as if he were scolding a blasphemer. “You folded that page. You didn’t even use a bookmarker. I could get you one, you know. It’s not as if we don’t have them.”
Macduff breathed coolly. “Why should I not fold back the page? It works just as well.”
“After what you just said about the value of stories you show such disrespect for books …”
“My dear boy.” Macduff sighed. “What was your name?”
“Adam.”
“Adam.” Macduff’s finger lightly played on the cover of the book. He took another breath, deeply this time, savoring the moment of learning. “My dear young Adam, this … carcass … is not a book.”
“You are very strange; I can see why you are not a monk. What is it then, if it is not a book?”
Macduff smiled. “Hmm,” he said, enjoying his game. “It is a list. A recipe. A script, if you will. You, the reader, make the book, but the book does not in itself exist between these decomposing covers. You read the script; you are, in your mind, actor, patron, director. Critic, ultimately. This collection of pages is just the beginning of a greater creation.”
Adam tried to follow this nonsense. “If what you say is true, then what of the writer of the books? Great men wrote them and they know much more than I what is to be said and learned. This one, the one you are reading, this is Cynewulf’s poetry. Cynewulf surely knew more than I, and besides, the book is complete in itself.”
“Is Cynewulf alive, do you think?”
“No.”
“No, then, he is dead. Most of the great men are dead. All that greatness and essence has been snuffed out and all that is left is in the few scrawled words they left behind. Cynewulf may be great, but he still waits patiently for you to read him, and his books are incomplete without you. Without the reader, they are lines unspoken, scripts with neither reader nor audience. Recipes with no food and no cook. In a very real way, then, the book is not complete after all. Until you read it.
“My point, lad, is that in all of your deference and study you must remember who you are and realize that you are sharing—on equal terms—with the messenger on the other side of the page.”
Adam stayed silent for a second trying to absorb this. “Well, you still should use a bookmarker. If you keep folding the pages down and everyone else does the same the book will not be around for the future.”
Macduff nodded thoughtfully. “True. You have a point. But I think one crease was a worthy price for our little lesson, aye?”
“I still don’t quite get your meaning. ‘The messenger on the other side of the page—’”
Adam was interrupted by the soft chuckle of another man in the doorway of the library. Macduff glanced over to see a man in a long, black robe. He had his hood down and his shaved head gleamed in the lamplight. This was the Prior, second only to the Abbot himself.
“I think our respected guest is telling you that men live on in their words when they are gone. Or that when they are gone it is as though they never lived at all, and the text lives by itself. I have heard both of these confusions. You must forgive me, Macduff, but I wish you would not fill our young brethren’s heads with such stuff.”
Macduff half smiled. “Do you find it disagrees with Truth?”
“I find it … almost blasphemous,” the Prior said smoothly. “But then I do not know what they teach in Alba. You are, of course, free to remain as long as you like.” He looked at the boy. “But this novice has his own education to undergo. I apologize if he has disturbed you. He will, of course, be admonished.”
“Hardly necessary,” said Macduff, slowly. “It was I who engaged the boy in conversation.”
“Ah,” said the Prior. “No matter.” He turned to the boy. “Come, Adam, it will be compline soon and you should retire. We must observe silence.”
“But bedtime is not until after compline—”
“Just as the young must eat early, so they should retire. And they should obey, above all else. Come,” he gestured towards the hallway. “Away.”
Adam looked at Macduff and Macduff nodded. Adam scurried toward the door and stopped only when the Prior touched him on the shoulder.
“Adam?”
“Yes?”
“You have not by any chance any idea where your master is?”
“I thought he would be at supper.”
“Supper is over now, but Lucius was not there. Have you seen him today?”
“No,” Adam shook his head. Macduff tried not to appear to be listening but knew the Prior was watching him. “No, not today.”
“Ah. Run along, then. We will speak later.”
The Prior watched Adam disappear down the hallway and turned back toward Macduff, extending a hand to grasp the door handle. He said nothing to the strange Scot, but only looked him in the eye.
As the door closed, whatever was meant, Macduff saw only suspicion and fear. It was a look he knew well.
O O O
Susan heard a voice say:
Time to reenter the world of men …
There are places within places, and without placement. There are places that move and occur only in a way that the geography of man cannot abide. Such was the Heath where existed those three eternal guardians of fate known as the Sisters. The Heath would change as often as the Sisters would, but it was eternal, outside of time, outside of known space. It was one eternal morning, then, that the dew fell nimbly off the form of the Sisters as they awoke and felt once more the pull and nip of human time.
The First Sister, Susan, sat up awake and looked out on the Heath. All the familiar sounds came to her: the babbling brook, the faint paddling of swans, the steady gurgle of the cauldron. The wind in the world-tree. A shadow moved in the eternal grass and found its corporeal form, became a cat, and padded softly up to her. Susan winked at the ancient beast playfully and it reached out with a paw and batted a lock of hair from her eye.
Susan stretched and turned to see Joly at the cauldron. The waiflike Third Sister continued stirring and looked over at Susan. Her eyes lit up in greeting, excited, as was her nature. She did not speak. Across her throat the scar still showed, where a violent, warring elf had nearly torn her head off.
Susan leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, trying to remember what had brought her awake, what it was she had heard. As she reached over to scratch Graymalkin’s black head, a shadow on the ground caught her eye. Two shadows, in fact, one larger than the other, circling around her. She looked up and saw an owl, wings wide-stretched and chasing (or being chased by) its master, whose short, yellow hair and nimble form was recognizable immediately.
The blonde Sister looked down for a second when she felt Susan’s gaze. She nodded at her owl and the two dropped, down and around, until the green-robed Ruthe stood beside her.
“Susan.”
Susan nodded again and looked out on the brook. A slight fog lay on the water, and it whipped and swirled at the beckon of the swans’ wings. “Are you aware …”
Ruthe bit her lip slightly and looked over at Joly, who watched them in silence. “I was wondering if you would feel it, too.”
Woodick, Ruthe’s familiar whose form was an owl, shrugged his wings on Ruthe’s shoulders and watched the First Sister. He knew that the orders, in the end, came from Susan.
“We may have to …”
“I don’t want to go back,” said Ruthe. There. She had said it.
Susan shook her head and rose. The blue gown swayed around her bare feet as she stepped softly toward the cauldron. “I don’t even know what it is yet; you may not have to.”
Ruthe looked at the cauldron and at the mute Joly. “Where …”
Joly’s thoughts shot forth a picture, of blue crystals and red blood, splashes on stone. Snakes.
Susan leaned on the cauldron and stared. “Scandinavia, I think. An upset of some kind. A ripple in the circle, as it were.”
Joly only saw images; it was Susan, in the end, who could understand, and when Ruthe moved to speak again, Susan’s hand flew up to silence her. She seemed agitated and stared for what may have been an eternity into the churning waters. The dead gods … the lost ones … human nails and sacrifice. Unbinding … Who?
Susan’s eyes grew wide and she straightened up. The mist that played on the brook slithered toward her and began to take shape behind her as she quickly stepped over to the tree and pulled a large piece of bark from it. She was whispering as she peeled away the slice, then turned to Ruthe only long enough to say, “I have to go.”
No sooner had she looked at Ruthe and the bark had softened and lengthened into a cloak. No sooner had she slung the blue cloak over her shoulders and donned the hood, and the mist beside the cauldron bubbled and solidified into a great steed, black as night and ready for the journey. The horse snorted and Susan was to it and on its back before Ruthe had even taken all of this sudden activity in.
“Susan, I know you like to rise active, but …”
“I’ll be back soon. Keep the fires burning. Watch Graymalkin.”
“Susan?” Ruthe looked at Joly for a bit of help, dumbfounded. Susan was already whisking the reins and heading straight for the great tree. The horse started moving faster now and a glowing crack opened on the tree, whistling and blowing an eternal wind that held the world together. “Where are you going, Sister?”
Susan pulled on the reins, and the horse stopped at the portal that now lay open for them to enter. She turned around and looked back at her Sisters. How much they did not know …
“Where are you going?”
Susan took a breath and whipped the reins again. “Hel,” she said, and in the blink of an immortal eye, the horse and the rider disappeared.
O O O
The feet of Lucius of Avranches stepped into the ashes and the eyes in Lucius’ head looked at the smoldering heap that had been the witch’s house. Lucius himself still watched in wonder at the ruins revealed by the torch he carried but did not carry. What was happening? Why am I here? Among blackened wood and burnt books, the feet slowly moved, sliding pieces of the charred house aside, as if in search of something.
An evil woman has been slain, said the ancient voice within him. Burned.
What are we looking for?
Don’t you know? asked the voice, and for the first time it occurred to Lucius that this creature that possessed him knew that he was still here. And the creature was enjoying it.
Where …
Books. Wood. Ashes. Bone.
Lucius saw his hand reach down and push away a piece of wood to reveal what appeared to be a charred human thigh-bone protruding from a large heap of wood and ashes. His hand tugged on the bone and the pile moved a bit, but it would not come loose. The body was still in one piece. Lucius’ eyes traced up the heap and his free hand moved again, pushing aside board after board. Finally, the hand grasped a large plank and tipped it over to the side, and a layer of wood and ash slid off.
There, underneath, was the body. Or what was left of one. It was a spindly hulk of black coal, still smoking, which occasionally, as at the shoulders and breast, showed white where a bit of bone had somehow escaped the lick of the ravenous flames.
The dead witch’s legs were forward and the body seemed to be sitting up, as if seated against the back of a chair. Lucius saw, though he could feel nothing, that he was dropping to his knees, on level with the charred carcass, and he saw his own, other-controlled hand push the torso back to lay it against the pile of wood and ash behind it. A loud, sickening crack reported the breakage of the lower spine and the body fell back.
The torch-hand thrust the handle of the torch into a pile of wood beside Lucius’ body so that both hands could be free.
What are you …
Lucius saw his gentle monk’s hands go forward to the blackened ribcage; his fingers slid down the ribs, then the hands pushed through the brittle once-flesh, between the ribs on either side of the breastbone, and coiled around burnt bone. Then, the hands picked up the torso and twisted it around so that it was facing him, sternum in line with Lucius’ own. The spine cracked a bit more, complaining of the alteration. The black skull had little melted hairs on the top and the teeth looked like they were grinning at his trapped eyes.
What …
Suddenly, in one vicious movement that Lucius could not believe, the hands tore the ribs backward, and the breastbone went to one side while the other half of the ribs went to the other, and then the torso lay splayed open like a sliced loaf of burnt bread.
The organs were smoking, half burnt and heated. Cooked. Lucius watched in horror as his right hand reached out and shoved a collapsed, smoking lung out of the way. The heart was revealed, cushioned in its place, half burnt and hanging from the abandoned blood vessels that once ran blood through it. For a second the hand ran its fingers gently down the side of the organ, and then in one movement it gripped the heart and ripped it free from its smoking home.
Next Lucius saw himself sitting there controlled by an ancient, sad force, with a human heart in his hand, and he realized that no matter what he did, he would be held responsible, and that if the truth were known he was allowing all of this to happen, and he really could rebel if he wanted to, but he suddenly had no idea …
Then he held the heart up to his face and saw prophecy at work.
And he ate it.