The Islands of the Blessed - Nancy

“I know you did,” said Jack, thinking, All Northmen are crazy.

The next morning Thorgil, dressed in the finest robes King Brutus could supply, set forth on a white palfrey to visit the daughter of the Queen of Elfland. She wore a long, green dress and sky blue tunic. Around her waist hung a belt decorated with gold coins, and on her head was a white veil. Brutus had found her a diadem of amethysts for her brow. She could use only one hand, but she rode as well as any warrior with two. Horses instinctively obeyed Thorgil.

Jack and a pair of knights rode by her side, for it would have been dangerous for a lady to set forth in such finery without protection. “I hope you don’t have a knife concealed somewhere,” Jack said, knowing the shield maiden’s habits.

“Why on earth would you imagine such a thing?” cooed Thorgil. “Besides, none of those monks is going to search me.”

“Just don’t do anything awful.”

They came to the monastery and Father Severus observed Thorgil suspiciously. “You’ve changed a lot,” he said.

“Haven’t I?” warbled Thorgil. Jack closed his eyes and waited for a sarcastic follow-up, but she held out her arms to him instead. He helped her dismount.

“Don’t think I trust you,” the abbot said. “I’ve seen what your kind do. You’re not visiting Ethne alone, and if you try anything stupid, I have a dozen monks around here who used to be murderous felons.” He clapped his hands and a grim-looking nun appeared. It was the first time Jack had seen a nun, though he’d certainly heard about them. She was a great, strapping woman who could have wrestled an ox to the ground. Jack noticed a large scar on the palm of her hand. She had been subjected to a trial by ordeal.

“Sister Wulfhilda will escort you, Thorgil. She has the key to the door.”

“Why, thank you, Sister Wulfhilda,” the shield maiden said sweetly. Lifting the corner of her gown as elegantly as any lady of King Brutus’ court, she followed the nun into the chapel. Jack and the knights were forced to remain in the courtyard.

They waited. And waited. Father Severus went off to discipline a few monks for gluttony. He returned, glanced irritably into the chapel, and excused himself for prayers. The bell clanged for lunch. Father Severus hurried back to invite Jack and the others to join him.

Jack remembered the dining hall vividly and looked forward to a feast, but the menu had changed drastically since the year before. Gone were the juicy slices of ham, the roast capons, the oysters nestling on beds of lettuce. Now they were served barley bread mixed with ashes, to remind the monks of mortality, as well as nettle soup and cider that was well on its way to becoming vinegar. Each man was allotted a tiny hard-boiled egg, except those who were being disciplined for gluttony. They sat in a mournful row, following every bite with their eyes.

Father Severus spoke at length about the reforms he had made at St. Filian’s. “The monks attend prayers seven times a day, and the rest of the time they work. Every afternoon I counsel them on obedience. Wherever they walk, their heads must be bowed and their eyes cast down. They must be content with the most menial treatment. They must admit they are inferior and of less value than the vermin crawling upon a dog’s belly. Also, laughter is forbidden.”

Jack stifled a laugh of his own. How could anyone feel lighthearted after being told he was lower than a louse crawling on a dog’s belly? “Doesn’t fasting weaken you?” he said, looking at the line of mournful monks.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” scoffed Father Severus. “I’ve gone a month on seaweed and water alone. Those men’s bodies may be lean, but their souls are as fit as greyhounds. Or soon will be,” he said.

Jack dipped his bread into the nettle soup to make it soft enough to chew. “I’m curious about Sister Wulfhilda’s hand. Did she undergo a trial by ordeal?” he asked.

“You always were an observant lad,” the abbot said, not entirely pleased. “Wulfhilda fixed her husband a dish of forest mushrooms, and he died. She was accused of poisoning him.”

“It could have been an accident.”

“That’s why we have trials by ordeal, to sort accidents from evil,” said Father Severus. “I ordered the iron heated—using the large-size metal bar because of the seriousness of the charge—and Wulfhilda carried it the required nine steps.”

“You ordered it?” Jack said, horrified.

“You can’t think Brutus did,” said Father Severus. “That sorry excuse for a king couldn’t discipline a puppy for piddling on his foot.”

“But—” Jack was about to say, But you aren’t king when he remembered the Bard had said that Father Severus was the ruler in all but name. “It was so cruel.”

The abbot laughed cheerlessly. Apparently, laughter wasn’t forbidden for him. “Murder is cruel. Some of these monks are felons of the worst order, pardoned by the grace of God. If I relaxed my hold over them, they’d be at one another’s throats in no time. As it happens, Wulfhilda’s hand didn’t fester and she was proven innocent. I admitted her as a nun because she had nowhere else to go.”

And perhaps she could no longer earn a living, Jack thought.

He’d become aware of the restrictions such an injury caused from watching Thorgil. You couldn’t milk a cow or sew. You couldn’t spin thread, shuck peas, or braid hair. Much of what you did became slower and clumsier. It seemed insane that an innocent person had to maim herself just to prove she’d picked the wrong mushroom in the woods.

When they returned to the chapel, Jack saw Thorgil and Sister Wulfhilda laughing and talking in the distance. The abbot’s eyes narrowed, but by the time he got closer, all laughter had stopped. The nun’s head was bowed and her eyes were respectfully fixed on the ground. Thorgil perched on a bench, swinging her foot.

Father Severus produced a bag of silver from his sleeve and handed it to Jack. “You may tell Dragon Tongue I’ve fulfilled his conditions. Now he must fulfill mine. He must never ask to see Ethne again. Give me the key to her door, Sister Wulfhilda, and when you return to the convent, tell Sister Hedwigga to give you six strokes with the light cane. You know why.” With that, he turned and strode away.

“Pig,” said Thorgil under her breath. “You come with us, Wulfie. You’ll have much more fun.”

The nun shook her head. “I couldn’t go off with Northmen, not after what they did to the Holy Isle. But I’ll keep an eye on Ethne for you.”

The knights brought out Thorgil’s palfrey. The shield maiden rode away from the monastery looking as dignified as a court lady, until they reached the top of the hill. Then she hitched up her skirts and screamed, “Go for it!” The palfrey broke into a gallop and thundered down the other side. Jack had all he could do to keep up with her. The knights on their larger horses almost collided with the trees, but Thorgil zigged and zagged through them with ease. She pulled up at a crossroad where one road led to town and the other to Din Guardi. A noisy stream flowed along one side.

“Oh, Freya! What an awful place!” she cried, and then she screamed at the top of her lungs, making the palfrey dance sideways with alarm. “There! I feel better.” She leaped to the ground. “You can’t imagine how bad it is, Jack. Ethne’s body is crawling with lice, and her hair looks like a bramble bush. She’s so thin, I didn’t even recognize her. Her skin is covered in sores. I know I’m not the cleanest person around, but I would never, ever, allow myself to get into such a state. And she thinks it’s good for her soul!”

“Perhaps it is. She has to try harder than the rest of us,” Jack said.

“I don’t know what it takes to make a soul, but I’m sure it’s not providing a free lunch for lice,” Thorgil said passionately. “And Wulfie! Do you know what they did to her?”

“I heard about the trial by ordeal,” said Jack.

“The monastery confiscated her husband’s land, and when she was proven innocent, they didn’t give it back. I’m so glad we pillaged the Holy Isle.”

“Be quiet,” Jack said, glancing at the knights, but they were busy sharing a skin of wine by the stream. “The Holy Isle wasn’t like St. Filian’s,” he said in a low voice. “They were gentle folk who helped all who came to them. St. Filian’s was always stocked with renegades who were hardly better than pirates.”

“I know,” Thorgil said. “Brother Aiden is so decent, he makes even me feel sorry for burning the place down.” She took off her shoes and cooled her feet in the rushing stream. “What I don’t understand is why Father Severus is so changed.”

“The Bard says that power has corrupted him,” said Jack.

“Wulfie says he goes out during the dark of the moon,” the shield maiden said. “He walks in the forest, and when he returns, he locks himself in his cell and flogs himself with a whip.”

Jack went cold. He remembered the Bugaboo’s mother speaking about the Man in the Moon. He’s one of the old gods, she said. He’s doomed to ride the night sky alone, and being with him is like being lost on an endless sea with no star to guide you. He visits the green world only during the dark of the moon, and his conversation is both cheerless and disturbing. It was the Man in the Moon who had made an ally of Unlife.

But Father Severus didn’t believe in the old gods. He would surely ignore any voices he heard on his walks.

“Not only that, someone died in the infirmary and Father Severus ordered the monk who cared for him flogged. That’s his cure for everything.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it. We’d better go on to Din Guardi,” Jack said.

The Bard was sitting in the Swan Room, writing on a wax-coated tablet of wood with a metal stylus. It was a method Brother Aiden had shown him for organizing tasks. When the Bard had finished the list of chores, he smoothed out the wax so he could make another list.

King Brutus had been correct. The walls and curtains of the Swan Room were so white, the old man’s robes almost disappeared against them. Only his ruddy face and hands were clearly visible. He looked up expectantly.

“It’s as bad as you thought,” Thorgil told him. “Filthy, depressing, and dark. But Ethne still refuses to leave. I was able to smuggle everything in.”

“Smuggle?” said Jack.

The shield maiden grinned. “You’d be surprised by how much you can hide under a skirt—packets of dried meat, cheeses, the rest of Pega’s special scones, a knife, a small mirror, a comb. With all the buckets of water Ethne has stored at the back of her cell, she could withstand a siege. The nun Wulfhilda has promised to check up on her.”

“Excellent work!” the Bard complimented her. “Ethne may not want to leave now, but by the time we return from Notland, she’ll be ready. And if we don’t survive Notland, Skakki has promised to free her. I don’t think Father Severus will enjoy how he does it, and I don’t much care.”

Jack looked from one to the other, annoyed that they hadn’t included him in the plan. “How do you know Ethne will be ready?”

“We Northmen have much experience with hunger, especially during winter,” Thorgil explained. “At first you crave food all the time. You can’t think of anything else. But after a while you fall into a kind of trance and feel nothing at all. At the end of winter Olaf used to go around to the farms and wake people up. That’s what’s wrong with Ethne. She’s been eating that wretched monastery food for so long, her spirits are in a deep sleep.”