As Aleswina was making her way along the road toward the manor, Barnard was having a second tankard of ale and beginning to wonder if the story that a dark-cloaked monk was looking for him had been his neighbor’s idea of a joke.
In the first heart-stopping moments after he’d answered Maelrwn’s knock, Barnard had been overcome with the terror that his pagan past had been found out. His legs shaking, he’d leaned his back against the door to keep himself upright—terrified at the thought of be being accused of heresy and dragged screaming to the stake.
Then he rallied.
He ran to the kitchen to send his snooping servant woman home—certain she would betray him out of spite. Ordering the shrine brats (the mental phrase he used for the two foster sons he’d turned into slaves) to finish her work, he dashed to the storeroom where he kept the chests and crates and caskets of the things he bought at the market now that he could buy whatever he wanted. Pulling out every Christian icon and emblem he could find, he added them to the large gilded crucifix and several reliquaries he already had on prominent display in his front room. He always—even in bed at night—wore an ornate golden cross, but he hung two more around his neck for good measure.
Finally, after looking down the hall to make sure the boys weren’t spying on him, he tiptoed into his bedroom. After closing and barring the door behind him, he shoved a large clothes chest aside, pried up the secret panel, lifted up the strong box of coins and jewels that was all he had left of the shrine’s treasure, and counted out what he hoped would be a big enough bribe to send the monk off to burn someone else.
Walking up the front entrance of the manor house took all of Aleswina’s courage. The stone walls were as thick and fortified as the ramparts of Gothroc, and while she saw no guards and heard no dogs, any hopes she had for their breaking in at night died at the sight of the iron bars on the windows.
She paused at the front door, working up her nerve to knock. Reminding herself that she was a boy now, and not afraid of anything, she straightened her shoulders and pounded on the heavy oak door.
It flew open.
She blinked.
The man peering out looked so meek and humble she would not have known it was the evil, vile, wicked Barnard, except for his having only one eye. And when she said, “God be with you, Sir. I am Codric, sent to speak to you on behalf of the blessed Brother Cuthbert, who is come on a mission for the Bishop of Lindisfarne!” he squeaked like a mouse and made his sign of the cross backwards and upside down as he bowed and waved her inside.
There was no going back now! She tramped across the threshold into a large room filled with more religious art and artifacts than the convent chapel. There were pictures of beatific Christ babies hanging next to grown Jesuses being scourged with whips or nailed to the cross, portraits of Mary smiling at hovering cherubs and of her weeping over her dead son, and paintings of martyred saints—Ignatius getting eaten by lions, Lawrence roasting on a grill, and Bartholomew being skinned alive, as well as one she didn’t recognize who had an arrow sticking out of his eye. If she hadn’t been hardened to the perils of sainthood by seven years in the convent, she might have quailed. As it was, she was only disappointed that there was no sign of the boys. How would she ask about buying them if she didn’t see them?
Behind her, Barnard was glancing out the still open door for any sign of the actual monk.
Noticing this, Aleswina said, “Brother Cuthbert would have come himself, only he has taken a vow of silence.”
“Of course! Of course! You and your high—I mean, er, holy master have come from afar, and you must be thirsty. Come to the kitchen and I will get you some ale, and we can talk.”
The kitchen windows were barred as heavily as the front door, but the two boys were there.
Ignoring the chair Barnard pulled out for her, Aleswina sat down on one facing across the room at the counter where the bone-thin youngsters, both with an unmistakable likeness to Caelym, were moving warily about. The older one was making a show of being at work washing dishes while the younger stayed at his heels, getting in the way more than helping.
Barnard bustled about, taking two tankards from a cabinet and pouring a hefty draft of ale for each of them, before he took the seat he’d pulled out for her and cleared his throat.
“I, ah, I have not heard Brother Cuthbert’s name before. Is he—”
“My master, Brother Cuthbert, is renowned throughout Christendom for his selfless devotion to the One True God in holy alliance with the revered Father Adolphus!”
Aleswina’s only reason for mentioning Adolphus was to add credibility to Caelym’s false identity by naming someone she had heard talked about back in the convent—where she had not paid enough attention to know that the reason for the priest’s fame was his relentless pursuit and burning of heretics.
A nervous twitch appeared by Barnard’s remaining eye as he babbled, “Of course! Of course! I remember now and am honored, I mean blessed, that the Holy Brother Cuthbert should honor me with his, ah, your presence.”
Emboldened by seeing a man a head above her in height and three times her girth groveling, Aleswina repeated her entry line, “I am come in Brother Cuthbert’s stead because he has taken a vow of silence,” then added, “Brother Cuthbert labors selflessly to spread the Word of God, giving no thought for his own needs, while others, thinking only of their comfort in this world, have slaves and servants to cook their food and carry their loads.”
She hoped that by dropping this hint, she might get Barnard to offer to sell the boys to her.
Instead, he fell silent, looking down at the cup in his hands. While she was waiting for him to say something, she took the chance of looking past him to give the boys a small smile that she hoped they would take as reassuring. The smaller boy peeked around his brother’s side to look directly into her face, his lower lip pulled in and his eyes wide and wondering.
Kept isolated and destined for a celibate religious life, Aleswina had never given any thought to motherhood, but now she suddenly felt as if this little boy were hers, and that she would fight dragons to keep him safe.
Tearing her eyes away, she realized that Barnard was looking at her with an odd smirk on his face.
She’d given herself away, acted too much like a girl! Thinking quickly, she spat on the floor and scratched between her legs at the same time—and was relieved to see his expression turn nervous again and to hear him say, with a gasp, “Yes, well, your master must have some needs, and it cannot be an easy thing to be the only one in service and have to meet to the demands of even so devoted a monk.”
Aleswina held her breath, hardly daring to hope.
“So perhaps, then, it might be a help to have one of these boys to take back with you to join in that service?”
Steadfastly keeping her voice down and prepared to spit or scratch again, she said, “It would take both of them to be of enough service to satisfy Brother Cuthbert.”
“Both of them, then.” Barnard’s smirk returned.
“And how much?” She said in an offhanded sort of way.
Barnard was ready to have the price named as well and started by offering the lowest bribe he thought might be acceptable.
“Twenty-five sceattas.”
It was, in fact, a very modest bribe, but more than Aleswina was expecting as a price for two little slaves.
The afternoon light coming in through the window was beginning to fade. If she didn’t get the boys out quickly, it would be dark and Caelym would come and start wreaking havoc. Instead of making her own offer, she decided to try appealing to Christian charity. “I am sorry to say, people have been sadly lacking in their contributions of late—”
“Fifty sceattas! No, a hundred!”
Up until now, Aleswina had been feeling confident, even cocky. The last thing she expected was for Barnard to raise his price so much it so that she couldn’t even pay for one of the boys unless she went to get the gold coins from Annwr. Before giving up and going back empty-handed, she made one last try.
Remembering that her earlier reference to Father Adolphus had seemed to impress Barnard, she decided to evoke his name again. “A hundred sceattas? Can you not be more charitable than that to my master, Brother Cuthbert, who is on a secret church mission for Father Adolphus?”
With that final entreaty, she silently prayed that the miserable man would name a lower price.
Instead, Barnard cried out, “Please! Please! Wait!”
He jumped up from his chair and ran out of the kitchen. Hearing him banging doors and slamming things around, Aleswina thought he must have guessed the truth, but before she could gather her wits, grab the boys, and run, Barnard burst back into the room with two bulging leather bags clutched to his chest.
“Here it is, all of it! Take it! Take them! Go tell your monk that I love Jesus and that’s all I have!”
With that he broke out sobbing, but before she could ask him what the matter was, he thrust the bags into her hands, pushed her outside, tossed the two boys out after her, and slammed the door behind them.