His voice failed. She could hear his breath, so faint the flapping of a butterfly’s wings might have drowned it out. All at once she became aware of the world beyond her. The birds still sang. Were they singing of the deeds of Sanglant? But she could not understand their language. Berthold had clambered to the top of the outcropping and was surveying the lands below with evident pleasure. The vitality of youth sang out from his figure where he stood—never completely still—at the edge of a sheer drop-off. Villam had stationed himself at the base of the outcropping and was clearly annoyed, or worried, but unwilling to raise his voice and thus disturb the holy man.
It was hot, though the sun was hidden behind clouds. Sweat had broken out under her wool robe, trickling down her spine. She restrained herself from wiping her neck. Any movement on her part might cover Brother Fidelis’ next words.
She heard him shift within the tiny hut. “If only I would tell them what I knew of the secrets of the Seven Sleepers. But I swore never again to speak of these things. And yet …”
She waited. He did not continue.
From inside the hut she heard the sound of something being dragged, not something as heavy as a body, something light but solid. A shadow crossed the slit cut into the door, then a dark shape slowly emerged. Heart beating suddenly fast, Rosvita took hold of it and drew it out.
It was a book.
Laboriously bound, stitched out of parchment leaves, it was a book written in a clear, elegant hand.
“On this I have labored many years when I should have been meditating on the Holy Word of God in Unity. I pass it on to you, so that it will hold my spirit on this earth no longer. Godspeed, Sister. May Our Lady and Lord watch over your labors. Do not forget what you have learned here. Fare you well.”
She stared at the book. Inscribed on the cover were these words: The Vita of St. Radegundis.
Then, finally, his last words registered: Fare you well.
“Brother Fidelis?”
The sun came out from behind the clouds, blinding her momentarily, its light was so unexpectedly bright.
“Go, then,” his voice said, sounding in her ears. Spoken like a command, strong and firm, it was utterly unlike the frail voice with which she had conversed through the screen of branches.
She rose, keeping a tight hold on the book. “Fare you well, Brother. I thank you. I will keep your words locked in my heart.”
Did she hear him smile? It was only her fancy. The hut stood in front of her, small and ragged, as poor a hovel as any beggar might build for himself to keep the rain off his back. She backed away, not wanting to turn her back on the old man, for fear of seeming disrespectful. Stumbled over the ground.
Villam caught her arm. “The interview is ended?”
“It is over.” She looked back. No sign of life came from the hut.
“I heard nothing, and saw nothing,” said Villam. “Except my son, climbing like a young squirrel trying to dash its brains out on the cliffs below.”
“Let us go,” said Rosvita. She did not have the heart to speak of their conversation.
Villam accepted her reticence. He signed to his men. Together they made their way back along the trail, this time skirting the clearing of fallen stones. Rosvita was too sunk in thought to observe the clearing or even think much of it, though Berthold tried to detour over to one of the mounds and was stopped by his father.
King Henry would not like what Brother Fidelis had said, not if Henry wished to name Sanglant as his heir. It was all very well to say a bastard might inherit the throne in Salia. But not when the price was death, civil war, and the extinction of a noble lineage. Perhaps Henry would see reason. He was a good man and a good king, and he had three strong legitimate children.
But that was not what ate at her. Like a hand scratching at a door, the question nagged at her. Who were the Seven Sleepers?
In all her reading and study, preparing to write her work of history, she had come across a few references to the Seven Sleepers. It was an innocuous story, one of many set among the tales of the early martyrs; even Eusebe mentioned it, in passing, in her Ecclesiastial History.
In the time of the persecution of Daisanites by the Dariyan Emperor Tianathano, seven young persons in the holy city of Sai’s took refuge in a cave to gain strength before they presented themselves for martyrdom; the cave miraculously sealed over them and there they were left to sleep until …
Until when? That Rosvita had never learned, or even thought to ask. As she had learned over twenty years of studying the chronicles and interviewing eyewitnesses to events fifty years ago, not all tales were necessarily true.