And so, I had not set foot in a chapel in winters. But here I was, standing just inside one, listening to a priest read aloud from the journals of Saint Agnes, altruistic but tedious tomes about her life and the history of Eccleston. Helena sometimes quoted the journals. She said the writings of Agnes had given her a sense of self-worth after a young marriage. We had bonded, originally, over disapproving, disappointed husbands.
Trying to catch my breath, I listened to the old man’s droning.
“And, we, the people of this rich land, must also be rich in mind and in character, never forgetting that metals cannot replace mettle.” The priest looked up at the handful of attendees as if this was absolutely the height of comedy. Someone coughed out a polite chuckle and he continued to read.
I dared to peer outside of the narrow doorway. The man, face bent down as he climbed the slight incline of the street up to the chapel, was headed towards me. I jerked back inside. It had to be him. Striding up the short aisle to the front pew, I caused the priest to falter in his reading as he observed my quick movement. I sat, breathless, eyes closed, ignoring the glances of others and prayed, to Agnes, to Rodwin, to the pagan gods and saints of other countries, that I would not be found.
I sat in that pew for what must have been hours, after the priest closed the scriptures of Agnes, after the chapel emptied and the doors were closed and the priest retired to his office.
“In need of work, madam?” he had asked, although he must have seen the blue scribe’s dress I wore under the much ink-marked gray apron.
“Only a place to sit,” I had replied.
The priest had left me to my reflections and to wondering whether or not Thrush would be outside in the street when I left, whether or not he had seen my head outside of the archway.
2. Sanctuary
Looking back now, I realize I had been lost in thought, both particularly on that day and in that winter. Otherwise, I would have actually read the translations and copies Mischa and I had done of crumbling trade arrangements and concerned ambassadors’ missives. I would have noticed that Helena and Maureen, both talented illustrators, had been more often drafted into updating and copying maps than illuminating manuscripts. And on that day, I would have heard the shouts in the street, the clatter of hooves on stone and the distant clash of steel on steel. And I would have heard the slamming shut of a thousand doors because every soul alive on this continent knows that an invading Tintarian will only kill those found outside their own homes. But I had sat there, fretting. The priest, having likely taken a nap in his office, had been woken by a laundress delivering fresh linens to the chapel. As there was nothing worth stealing in Agnes chapels, he left and left the doors open for me to continue my ‘contemplation of our saint’s good sense.’ I sat there, trying to remember the last time I cried and if this was worth crying over. And I missed an entire invasion.
The shout of my name coupled with the sounds of a city in distress came through the flung-open doors. I turned in my pew and saw my three scribe friends standing in the archway, outlined by the red of a setting sun. My first thought was that it was late in the day. My second was that something was wrong because people were yelling outside.
“Edie, where have you been?” said Mischa, hurtling up the aisle to me.
Helena and Maureen were on her heels, asking the same.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get bread,” I sighed, looking over their shoulders at the now closed doors. “What’s going on?”
“Tintar invades,” cried Mischa. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you all those letters from ambassadors said Eccleston broke trade agreements with Tintar. I told you they would come for us! Tintarians are savages! They worship godforsaken trees and mountains! They eat raw fish and think nothing of killing anyone in their way. They are animals and they will kill us all. They are ruthless. And then there’s their king.”
“The Shark King,” I murmured.
“And the dragons,” added Maureen. “Aren’t they said to have dragons?”
Helena held her daughter’s hand tightly and nodded to me. “Mischa is right. We have stopped selling them our metals. Some of the mines are trading to any country but Tintar and some are dealing exclusively with Perpatane buyers, because they now pay in gold, not just silver. Tintar is a proud country and they, essentially, have a right to see that as an act of war.”
“Essentially?” snapped Mischa. “Essentially, my man says they will slaughter us within an hour of breaching the city wall.”
“These walls are not built for sieges,” said Maureen.
Helena shook her head. “We can only claim sanctuary indoors.”
“What?” I said, bleary and suddenly, ridiculously, hungry. It was well past the hour of the last meal of the day.
“The sanctuary doctrine of Tintar,” Mischa said, frustrated, seemingly hurt by my delayed understanding of her earlier concern for me.
“Oh,” I said, stupidly. “Oh, yes,” I said, more focused. “Oh, my gods, they are invading, aren’t they? Eccleston is being invaded.”
“Yes!” the three of them said, Maureen, desperate, Helena, in a begging manner and Mischa, now furious.
“Do we have time to make it back to our homes?” I asked.
Helena shook her head. “I saw men in the Tintarian black through the scriptorium window. They were not far away.”
I had never seen the black armor of Tintarian armies, only heard or read about it in historical accounts of battle and desolation. I swallowed. “Well, we can certainly claim sanctuary in a chapel of Agnes.”
“They only invade buildings of government and of monarchies,” Mischa said.
“So we’re safe?” Maureen asked.
