The priests make a proposition

“You told me I could have my evening free,” Malcolm muttered.

“If I did, it wasn’t so you could spend it reading,” Sigefrith said. “Who are you? Alred? Even Alred isn’t reading tonight.”

“I know it, but I don’t feel like talking, drinking, or singing with the two of you tonight.”

“Iylaine no better?” Sigefrith frowned.

“Didn’t Alred tell you? She laid her head down on the table during supper and fell directly asleep. After sleeping all afternoon.”

“What did they do to her?” Sigefrith asked softly.

“I don’t know!” Malcolm snapped his book shut. “What do you want?”

“I know you don’t feel like drinking or singing tonight, but if you decide you feel like talking—or listening, rather—our three priests have returned already.”

“They have?” Malcolm cried and sat up. “That’s different!”

Fathers Brandt, Aelfden, and Brude had departed for the abbey in the hills two days before. Neither Brandt nor Aelfden had any use for the worldly old abbot and his sumptuous lifestyle, but since he was the highest ecclesiastical authority in the kingdom, Father Brude had been determined to include him in their discussions of the valley’s problems.

Malcolm thought Father Brude had unspoken reasons for visiting the abbot, and he was dying to find out what they were. Still, though he had thought from the moment they met that Brude was hiding more than he told, Malcolm had to admit he was fond of the Irish priest. He hoped Brude was merely circumspect, as Malcolm liked to think himself. Malcolm would be sorry to see him go, and not only because it was more fun to confess one’s sins in Gaelic.

Malcolm had also thought that Father Aelfden had something he had not yet told his cousin the King, and tonight his whole bearing seemed to confirm it. He did not turn his head when Sigefrith and Malcolm came in, and he sat with his shoulders slightly hunched over his chest, as if he meant to use his entire body to shield his secret. Malcolm was determined to keep a close eye on him.

“So what’s the good news from the abbey?” Sigefrith drawled as he went to sit beside Alred.

Father Brandt raised an eyebrow. “Did we say it was good?”

“It is not news,” Aelfden said in a low voice that Malcolm usually only heard when the priest was in the ecstasy of his murmured prayers. Malcolm also noticed his forehead was sparkling with sweat. “It is…”

“I shall remain an optimist until I die,” Sigefrith said grandly, as if he had not heard. “And so I shall hope until I die that the Reverend Father will have at least one selfless thought before he dies.”

“He does not wish to spread the mantle of his protection over our valley,” Aelfden said, “but to point out our catastrophe as proof of our perdition.”

“Elegantly said, Father,” Alred bowed.

The priest flushed, but after a brief discomposure continued eagerly: “We think it no catastrophe, but rather that our God has turned the curse into a blessing.”

At that moment Father Aelfden had the look of rapture that made some men call him mad, but Malcolm noted that the other priests listened to his words with earnest gravity. He also noticed that Aelfden, who ordinarily made much use of his thin hands to gesture as he spoke, kept them hidden away beneath the table. However, he seemed to find it so awkward that Malcolm could only suppose he was doing it deliberately.

Malcolm was dying to pretend to drop something or inspect his boot, but Father Brude sat between him and Aelfden, and he feared he would not be able to see what Aelfden might have been hiding on his lap. It might only have been that he had recently sliced his arms as far as his hands, but that would have been the first time the priest had been so careless. Malcolm suspected he was holding something.

“If you or God or any respectable beings are able to turn that pit into a blessing, I for one should love to see how,” Sigefrith said. “All the more so if you or He or they can turn it into a church again.”

“May I explain, Father?” Brude asked Aelfden.

Malcolm observed that Aelfden seemed surprised that Brude would defer to him, but he nodded.

“Since I have arrived here,” Father Brude said slowly, “I have witnessed things which have caused me great fear. But I believe now they are signs of a miracle.”

“If you can turn the pit into a miracle,” Sigefrith smiled, “that would please me almost as much as a new church.”

“Father Aelfden and Father Brandt have told me troubling things about the old,” Brude said. “The strange lights, the rats and insects in the font, the happenings in the catacombs, the—the demon… the profanations…”

Father Aelfden closed his eyes and seemed to be quivering with feeling. Malcolm could not guess which feeling, however.

“It had been in sorry shape when we arrived,” Alred said. “It may not have been our fault…”

“It was very old,” Sigefrith said quickly. “Older than a century or even two. At least the foundations and the catacombs were quite old.”

“Even so,” Brandt nodded.

“And on that first evening I spoke to Her Majesty the Queen,” Brude continued, “and I told Her Majesty that I was greatly troubled by what I had seen. And she told me that she was greatly troubled as well, and that she had been praying to Saint Catherine, who had always helped her in times of trouble. And I thought that this was a sign.”

“You chose the right day to say so!” Sigefrith cried and smacked his hand on the table in typical Sigefrith style, though it startled Father Aelfden out of countenance. “It is Saint Catherine’s own feast day today, and if I know my wife, she’s upstairs praying to her as we speak.”

“Even so,” Brandt said. “It is for this reason that we returned tonight, though the hour is late.”

“Do you wish to see her?” Sigefrith asked and began to rise.

“Perhaps later,” Brude said. “Perhaps she will wish to see. But first we shall show Your Majesty.”

“Show me what?” Sigefrith asked.

Malcolm sat forward eagerly. He had known Aelfden was hiding something on his knees!

Brude nodded at his neighbor, and Father Aelfden lifted a small casket from his lap and set it on the table. The black box was elaborately painted with curling flowers and colorful leaves, and its foreign style was unlike any Malcolm had seen.

Sigefrith smiled curiously at it. “Show me what, again?”

“First, we shall pray,” Brude said sternly.

Sigefrith and Alred exchanged a glance, but both bowed their heads.

“Father?” Brude prompted.

Aelfden started and looked at Brandt and then back at Brude. “I?”

“If you will.”

Aelfden bent his head at once and began a softly-​spoken prayer to Saint Catherine.

Malcolm dared lift his eyes long enough to glance at the priest. His haggard face had that look of rapture again, but the gravity of the faces on either side of it showed that those two men at least, who were perhaps best able to know, did not think him mad. There was something in that handsome box, and whatever it was, Malcolm thought it must merit the chills he was already feeling all down his neck and back.

Father Aelfden had a flair for the dramatic that brought many of the more excitable members of the parish to Saint Margaret’s chapel to hear the Masses he led, though they often quaked in fear of him and the doom he foretold them.

Now, after the amens had been spoken, Aelfden flipped up the lid of the casket with a quick gesture of his bony hand, and then he sat in silence before his thoroughly subdued cousin.

Malcolm could see nothing from where he sat, and it appeared that Alred was too well-​bred to lean in to look either. Only Sigefrith could see, and whatever he saw so astounded him that he could not even exclaim in typical Sigefrith style.

However, after only a few moments, an odor wafted its way over to Malcolm from the chest, and it alone was worth long contemplation. There were scents of sandalwood, cloves, and myrrh, along with other things he could not name. It was a smell akin to incense, but of some ancient, long-​forgotten, holier recipe.

“It is the first finger of the right hand of Saint Catherine of Alexandria,” Brude said softly.

Startled, Sigefrith sat up suddenly and crossed himself.

“Even the hand which the Blessed Mother lay in the hand of our Lord,” Father Brandt murmured.

“Gentlemen,” Sigefrith said and slid the casket down for Alred and Malcolm to see.

The casket was stuffed with a fat silk cushion, elaborately embroidered with threads of gold, but at the center of it, held against the cushion by jeweled bands, lay a slender finger. It was very dark and had an oily sheen, but it was perfectly, miraculously preserved, down to the elegant, oval fingernail at the tip of it.

“What do you put on it?” Alred asked after he had passed the casket down to the King again. “That scent…?”

“It is forbidden to put anything upon it,” Brude said reverently. “That is simply the odor of her blessed hand.”

“Even the odor of divine grace,” Brandt said.

“My wife will consider herself blessed if she is permitted to see it,” Sigefrith murmured. Malcolm had never seen him so moved by anything holy, though he supposed it was in part due to the thought of his beloved wife and how she would be moved by it.

“Her Majesty may consider herself blessed for her own sake,” Brude said. “But she may see it after we have finished talking.”

As if on cue, Father Aelfden reached up and gently closed the casket again.

Brude said, “His Holiness wished this relic to be brought to the Queen of Scots if I found that this valley was no place for it. But we think that it belongs here. Her Majesty’s devotion to Saint Catherine was a sign that pointed me to another sign. Does Your Majesty recall the night on which the church was destroyed?”

“I shall not soon forget it,” Sigefrith said.

“It was even on this night that my brothers arrived at Thorhold,” Father Brandt said.

“His Holiness desired an abbey to be founded here,” Brude said. “You may know that Lord Father Adalbert is not appreciated in Rome.”

“I did not know it,” Sigefrith muttered, “but it comes as no surprise.” Ever since the death of his first wife, Sigefrith had scarcely been on speaking terms with her uncle.

“Also,” Brude continued, “if the tree proved to be wicked magic but the people proved to be good Christians, His Holiness wanted an abbey founded here for their good, and with this relic to give the people an object worthy of the pilgrimages which some are beginning to make here.”

“You want to found an abbey here?” Sigefrith asked weakly.

“His Holiness wishes it.”

“Then I suppose I had better come to like the idea,” Sigefrith muttered and scratched his head in the typical Sigefrith gesture of consternation.

Malcolm knew that Pope Gregory had written a letter of greeting to Sigefrith Rex, and this papal recognition of his kingship was proving more awkward to Sigefrith than flattering. He did not want too much attention drawn to himself at this time, especially now that the Pope himself was struggling with the Emperor.

“I think we are good Christians here,” Alred said, “but what would His Holiness have said if he had known about our erstwhile church?”

“That is the miracle of which the Father spoke,” Father Aelfden said, crouching over the table with a hushed eagerness. “I did not know then that he was in possession of this holy relic, but we believe now that the church was accursed, and it was destroyed when we brought the bones of the saint into the hills overlooking it. Perhaps the Lord wished to clear the way for an abbey to be raised in her honor, or perhaps she herself worked the miracle. But I believe we have been greatly blessed, in Saint Catherine’s name.”

Sigefrith sat up in his chair. Malcolm knew that his relationship with religion had often been one of amused tolerance. He considered most of his appearances at Mass to be one of the duties of his kingship, and it was only the intervention of Queen Maud that had convinced him to stop hunting on Sundays. Now he was being asked to be patron to an abbey—in honor of a saint, and in recognition of a miracle.

“What does Lord Father Adalbert think of this?” Sigefrith asked warily.

“He does not approve,” Brandt said, “but the orders from Rome could not have been more clear.”

“He will say that it is an abomination,” Aelfden said, “but His Holiness will surely call it a miracle, and who will gainsay him?”

“Lord Father Adalbert,” Brandt muttered.

“Let him!” Aelfden cried. “He shall be known by his fruits!”

“He is even a ravening wolf in emperor’s clothing,” Brandt chuckled, “all in purple, and cloth-​of-​gold.”

“And shall we have such another?” Alred asked. “Or will you deign to be abbot, Father?” he smiled at Father Brandt.

“Not I!” Brandt gasped. “I am only a parish priest.”

“And son of a baron.”

“My lord’s kingdom is not of this world,” Brandt scolded with a smile. “Besides which, my beloved sister always said that red-​headed people should not wear purple.”

“And cloth-​of-​gold only as underclothes?” Alred tittered.

Father Aelfden clucked in annoyance. “We do not have orders from His Holiness, though I—”

“We do,” Father Brude interrupted. “Father Aelfden is to be made abbot.”

“I?” Aelfden choked.

“Even so, brother,” Father Brandt smiled.

“But I am only…”

“Aelfden of Lund,” Brude said, “whom everyone knows, and who shall be known as Aelfden of Lothere before long.”

“But I’m not…”

“Shall I tell His Holiness that he has erred?” Father Brude asked with an amused smile.

Father Aelfden did not have a reply for this, but Malcolm had never seen him looking so helpless.

“It’s an excellent idea, Father!” Alred laughed. “And a nice, scratchy cloth-​of-​gold loincloth will be just the thing to wear beneath your hair shirt!”