She crept along in his wake, breathing through her mouth.
Inside the wall, the one-storied buildings were arranged around a rectangular common. They were simple structures, and there was little art in their construction. One each for sleeping, eating, and praying, she thought, counting them. And one more for their grisly work… In the open courtyard, there was another structure, a narrow stone well house with a worn wooden door.
Of the Livonians and the ragmen, there was no sign.
“Where…?” Cnán hissed at Finn, who only shrugged in return. She moved a few feet farther along the wall, choosing a different gap to spy through. She squinted, shifting her body from side to side in an effort to see more of the courtyard. But it made no difference. The monastery was deserted.
“Where did they go?” she wondered aloud. It was possible they were inside one of the buildings, but she couldn’t fathom an explanation as to why. The gate had been opened readily enough, which meant they had been invited inside and were not—as Feronantus had mistakenly said—chasing the ragged hide workers. But what was so important in these buildings that they ran away from us? she wondered.
Finn tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at the top of the wall. He mimed climbing and held out his hands for her to use as a brace. “Oh no,” she shook her head, “I’m not touching that wall.”
“Would you prefer the front gate?” he asked.
“I would prefer not—”
A clank of metal against stone interrupted her, and they both returned their attention to the monastery.
Two Livonians had suddenly appeared and were standing next to the well house. One had put his shield down, leaning it against the wall. It was the sound of the metal rim scraping against the stone that had alerted them. The Livonians were sullen and angry—not with each other, she realized, but rather with an order they had been given.
“The two who fainted,” Finn whispered. “Guard duty.”
“Guarding what?”
As if in response to her question, the well house door creaked open to disgorge one of the raggedy monks. The Livonians kept their distance, and the monk jabbered animatedly at them in Ruthenian, stopping only when one of the knights put his hand on his sword hilt. Cackling like a diseased crow—and looking not unlike one as well—the rag-covered man scampered away, ducking into the nearest building.
Cnán eyed the well house. The hut was tiny, and while it might hold all three of the men and the well, she couldn’t imagine the Livonians tolerating the presence of the foul monk for longer than a heartbeat.
With the monk gone, the Livonians had no one to torment, and their attentiveness gave way to lethargy and boredom. The shieldless one began to cast about, his attention on the nearby ground. Looking for a place to sit down, Cnán thought, and she couldn’t blame his reticence.
“Caves,” Finn said.
“What?”
“Caves,” he repeated. “Under this hill.” He grabbed her shoulder, pulling her away from the wall. “We must tell Feronantus.”
“I was surprised when Illarion showed no interest in coming down here,” Roger muttered to Raphael. “Now I wish I had thought a little harder about what it signified.”
He was a voice from the darkness. During the first part of the expedition—a descent into cellars, subcellars, and crypts of the priory—Vera had lit their way with a torch. The depredations of the Mongols had left fine oils in short supply, and so this consisted of a rag on a stick, soaked in rendered animal fat that was available for purposes of illumination only because it had gone rancid. This had stunk even before she had ignited it and had produced a spreading plume of thick, greasy smoke that they could have followed with their noses even had they not been able to see its fitful yellow light.