“What are you doing?” hissed the senior monk, who’d instantly identified Frai Moldi as the problem. “You have gate duty.”
“Visitor,” Moldi whispered loudly, pointing at Tess. “Should I have let him starve?”
The senior monk sat beside Moldi, and they held a conversation with their faces until the end of the sermon. Tess watched, fascinated. The old monk’s face went from stern admonition to fatherly concern; the younger’s said piss off and then, when the old monk turned away, despair.
“…from myriad incomplete truths, a greater whole. So shall it be,” said the ancient abbot in conclusion. “So shall it be” echoed reverently around the hall, and then the food came out, more than Tess had seen since her sister’s wedding: roast venison, mutton, and boar, each with its own sauce; white bread; braised root vegetables; tender cabbage with apples.
“Introduce your guest, Frai Moldi,” said the senior monk, helping himself to parsnips.
Moldi pulled his pointy nose out of his wine cup and aimed it at Tess. “Brother Jacques do Mort, seminarian.”
Tess grinned again, but then she wasn’t sure whether he was joking or had forgotten her name in fact. “Brother Jacomo,” she corrected.
“Welcome. I’m Frai Lorenzi, head archivist,” said the older monk, bowing slightly. The bare patch atop his head was liver-spotted. “We should show you our library after dinner.”
“It’s the jewel of Santi Prudia,” drawled Frai Moldi. Tess cringed at his tone, but if Frai Lorenzi heard the sarcasm, he gave no sign. Frai Moldi, frowning, switched his empty cup with a novice’s full one. Tess knew that trick.
“Which seminary do you attend?” said Frai Lorenzi. He took small bites and chewed his food thoroughly, like an elderly rabbit.
“St. Gobnait’s, in Lavondaville,” said Tess. They’d surely identified her accent.
“Oh, indeed!” said the archivist with unexpected enthusiasm. “Is my cousin Bastien still prior there, or has he retired?”
Tess hesitated, causing Frai Moldi to freeze with his hand near Frai Lorenzi’s cup. He’d been about to make the switch but was relying on her for distraction. He bugged his eyes at her. “Ah-h-h,” said Tess, drawing it out, trying to hold the archivist’s gaze, “he hadn’t retired when I left, but I’ve been on the road for months, so it’s possible…” She waved her hands eloquently; Moldi made the switch. She may have smiled a little at this.
“Where are you traveling?” said Frai Lorenzi, noticing none of Moldi’s shenanigans.
“I’m following Prior Bastien’s advice, in fact,” said Tess. “I lost my faith, you see—”
“Your faith, or your vocation?” said Frai Lorenzi, tenting his bony fingers.
Tess could tell this question was a precipice over a deep philosophical ocean. “Both?”
“It’s a personal question, forgive me,” said the old archivist, “but vocation is something I think about a lot—how is it found, what is it for? Must the call come before the work, or will any good work, done with openheartedness, slowly begin to call to us?”
Frai Moldi rolled his eyes hard, then blinked as if he’d strained something.
This was an old dispute between them, evidently. Tess only half listened as Frai Lorenzi droned on about love and work; she was riveted by Moldi’s expression. It was a flat mask of scorn, and yet she could make out eddies beneath it—despair and desperation—as clearly as if he were transparent. His pink-rimmed eyes wouldn’t meet hers.
He was a wreck, the human version of Old Haunty. Tess felt like she was seeing herself at Jeanne’s wedding—but worse. A caricature. At least, she hoped she hadn’t been so obvious.
Moldi eyed her cup. Tess slid it across to him while the archivist was occupied pouring gravy. Moldi sneered, but downed her dregs at a gulp.
A tremor made the chandeliers swing and sent the gravy boat sailing off the end of the table. The room went quiet momentarily, and then the brothers went back to eating and debating the minutiae of history as if nothing had happened.
Anathuthia might have returned to her nest; Pathka would be wondering why Tess hadn’t. “Thank you for the meal and good company,” said Tess to the monks across the table, “but I need to be going.”
Frai Lorenzi looked mournful. “You can’t mean to sleep in the cold? Stay until morning, at least.”
Her ribs ached; a night indoors would do her good, and surely Pathka was enthralled with Anathuthia and wouldn’t miss her right away. Tess assented, which plainly delighted the old monk. He sent a grumbling novice to take over Frai Moldi’s gate duty, and then led Tess to the top of the room. Frai Moldi followed them, sullen and unsteady.
The head archivist introduced Tess to the abbot, Pater Livian, so old and frail that his skull seemed to shine through his skin.
“Stay as long as you will, Brother Jacomo.” The priors helped him to his feet. “But don’t be surprised if our library inspires you to join our order. It’s the finest in the Southlands.”
The library was apparently a popular after-dinner destination; Frai Lorenzi led Tess alongside a crowd of monks heading the same direction. They reached a high-ceilinged octagonal chamber full of writing desks, a scriptorium, which was the first room of the library. The brothers took their seats, ready to resume work. Many had brought unfinished cups of wine, which they set beside their inkpots. Tess wondered whether they ever picked up the wrong vessel to drink from, and if they minded.
Frai Moldi could open his ink one-handed, even drunk. He sharpened his quill against a stone and did not look at Tess.
The head archivist gave her a tour of four vaulted rooms resplendent with rich, dark wood, gilt columns, and stained glass. “We have more than five thousand volumes,” he said modestly. It was indeed magnificent, and if Tess had never seen the library at Castle Orison, which held the collections of St. Ingar, she might have agreed with the abbot’s assessment.
“Our scribes copy any new book that comes in,” said Frai Lorenzi. “Travelers like to dictate their adventures. We have books that exist nowhere else.”
Tess had a few stories worth telling. She wondered whether to offer them.
“Listen,” said Frai Lorenzi, lowering his voice and glancing toward the scriptorium. “Did you know Moldi before?”
“Before he lost his arm?” she reflexively whispered, guessing.
“No,” said the archivist, taken aback. “Well, yes, but I meant…You’re not an old comrade from his soldiering days?”
Tess must have looked as astonished as she felt, because Frai Lorenzi shook his head, frowning. “Forgive me. I thought maybe, because he brought you to dinner. Guests of your stature are supposed to eat in the kitchens. Also, you smiled at him and…that’s not how people usually react to Moldi.”
Frai Lorenzi tried to smile, but his shoulders sagged. As he led Tess back to the scriptorium, a tremor racked the library, strong enough to make the chandeliers dance and to knock large books off the top shelves. Frai Lorenzi scowled at this nuisance and found a lower shelf for the fallen books.
None of the monks commented on the tremor; they must endure these quakes often, and the sign above the stairs had called the nest a “meditation chamber.” There were probably volumes about Anathuthia in this very library.
“This monastery is how old?” she asked Frai Lorenzi, loudly enough for all to hear.
“Five hundred and eleven years,” he said proudly.
Several dozen pairs of eyes looked up at her. They knew. Men of knowledge, living above an enormous snake for five hundred years, keeping meticulous records? They couldn’t not know—the only question was whether they’d talk to her about it.
They certainly hadn’t shared their knowledge with the outside world. Will would have given his eyeteeth for the chance to interview one of these brothers, if he’d ever learned that they existed.