The Burning Stone

A shriek of frustration burst from the schoolmaster. Three monks leaped up, scuffled with the young novice, and hauled him away while he still shouted, his words muffled by a hand pressing his mouth closed. Ivar stood stunned while around him people burst into frenzied talk, pointing and questioning.



“That was Sigfrid,” whispered Baldwin. “Is he gone mad?”



“That’s what’s become of him without us to protect him.”



“We’ll have to get him free.”



“How can we get him free?” Ivar’s laugh left a bitter taste. He dragged Baldwin back by the elbow. “Let’s go. What if they find us here?”



He knew that look on Mother Scholastica’s face as, slowly, the multitude quieted in the face of her anger. She looked mightily displeased as she spoke to Brother Methodius. He nodded, knelt by the bier, kissed the dead queen’s robe, then left the church by a side door.



Mother Scholastica lifted her hands. “Let us pray, Sisters and Brothers. Let us pray that God forgive us our sins, and that through prayer we may follow the example of the blessed Daisan, he who was the child of God brought forth into this world through the vessel of St. Edessia, he who through his own efforts found the way to salvation that we all may follow. Let us pray that we may not be stained by those desires which the Enemy casts upon the ground like jewels, tempting us to pick them up for they glitter so brightly and their colors attract our eye. Let us be humble before God, for Their word is truth. All else is lies.”



“We must stay and listen!” hissed Baldwin. “Prince Ekkehard will be able to get Sigfrid free. His aunt can’t refuse him anything.”



“Do you think so? I know better.” He was bigger and stronger, and he was shaking with fury and helplessness as he hauled Baldwin backward.



“We’ll look more suspicious if we run away!”



At the threshold, the people who hadn’t found room inside pushed forward, trying to see what had caused the commotion, and those disturbed by Sigfrid’s outburst or by the squeeze inside pressed outward. Ivar followed their tidal flow, two steps forward, one back, two forward, until they came out into a drizzle and the finger-numbing chill of a mid-autumn day.



Baldwin pouted all the way down the hill. But for once Ivar wasn’t minded to give in to his pretty sulk. The only thing worse than abandoning Sigfrid was to be caught themselves. Mother Scholastica would not be merciful.



They stumbled down the road churned muddy by the crowd, slipped more than once until their leggings and sleeves and hands dripped mud. They had nothing to wash with, and so huddled in the loft while mud caked and dried, then crumbled with each least movement. Baldwin sulked with the only blanket wrapped around him. Ivar paced because he could not sleep, and it was too cold to be still.



Why had Sigfrid done it? Had he bided his time all this while only to burst like an overfull winesack at the sight of so many willing ears? Would he, Ivar, have done anything as courageous—and so blindly stupid? Was he brave enough to act on what he believed, to preach, as Tallia had, as Sigfrid had, and accept the consequences?



It was an ugly truth, but it had to be faced: He was nothing but a cold, miserable sinner.



“Oh, Ivar,” said Baldwin. “I’m so cold, and I love you so much. I know you’re just shy because you’ve never—”



“I have so!” he retorted, face scalding. “That’s how my father always celebrated his children’s fifteenth birthday. He sent me a servingwoman—”



“To make a man of you? It’s not the same. You were just using her the way Judith used me. You’ve never done it just for yourself and the one you were with. That’s different.”



“I did after that, when I—” When I thought about Liath. And she had thrown him away.



“Just doing it once won’t matter. You’ll like it. You’ll see. And you’ll be a lot warmer.”



It really didn’t matter, did it? That it did matter was the lie he’d been telling himself all along: look what had happened to Sigfrid. At least Baldwin cared for him, in a way Liath never had. He dropped down beside Baldwin and, cautiously, nervously, touched him above the heart. Baldwin responded with a sudden, shy smile, the touch of a hand on his thigh, sweet breath at his ear.



And then, after all, it proved easier to live only in sensation.



In the morning, Milo arrived out of breath, nose bright red from the cold. “Go out of town now,” he said, “and wait on the road to Gent.”



Beyond the gates they walked a while to warm themselves; as the traffic along the road began to pick up, Ivar got nervous. He used a stick to beat out a hiding place within the prickly branches of an overgrown hedge. There, with the blanket wrapped round them, they waited.