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“You can learn from anyone. Even your enemy.”

- Gideon Penman of Muirwood Abbey

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

Earl of Dieyre

The rains paused mid-morning, but thick thunderheads shrouded the grounds and smothered sunlight. Thunder rumbled ominously. There was so much commotion in the manor house with the guests and retinue that Lia’s sleep was interrupted many times. Tiredly but with excitement, she made off towards the laundry to get away from the noise. She was surprised to find Colvin already there, twirling a stalk of purple mint, eyeing its color and breathing in its scent. He rose from the bench when she arrived.

“With the harsh weather, everyone is indoors,” he said with a frown. “Did you sleep?”

“Not well,” she confessed, summoning the gush of steaming water from the Leering with a thought and set the basket down next to it. “I have always been a light sleeper. The slightest little noise wakes me.”

“Someone dropped a platter of dishes,” Colvin said. “I tossed after that and finally came here to listen to the rain.”

Lia withdrew his shirt and dunked it in the trough. She remembered the last time she had washed one of his shirts, and the memory made her swallow against the tingle in her chest. “You seem fascinated by our purple mint. You were roaming in the herb field yesterday.”

“I intend to have a bush sent to my manor at Forshee. This is a different variety than what grows in my Hundred. Like the apples…there is something unique about Muirwood.”

Lia scrubbed the shirt against the ribbed stones and smacked it with a cake of scented soap. “Is it much different than Billerbeck Abbey, where you studied?”

“There is not much to compare,” he said, coming up behind her. He stared at the giant Abbey with a look of awe. “This is the oldest Abbey in the realm. Billerbeck was finished in my grandfather’s time. We do not have the rich history. Each kingdom has an Abbey of prestige. I am proud that ours is so…humble. It is not as ostentatious as Dahomey’s.”

Lia wrung the shirt, rinsed it, and wrung it again. She wanted him to tell her what he had been saving, but decided to draw out the conversation. “To be honest, I do not even know where Dahomey is. The Queen Dowager is from there, but that is all I really know about it. And that the word gargouelle is from their language.”

“I am proud that you remember the word still. There are dozens of other kingdoms beyond our shores. Hautland. Paeiz. Mon. Dahomey is south but we are separated by the sea. Our two kingdoms have fought for many generations but now is a season of peace because of the old king’s marriage of Pareigis. It is likely the young king will marry her niece to extend the alliance. The marriage negotiations are underway though she is still quite young.”

Having finished the shirt, she started on her soiled clothes. She thought it interesting he wanted to discuss marriage. “Is it true the Queen Dowager was only fifteen when she married the old king?”

“That is not an uncommon age for girls to marry.”

Indeed, Lia thought. She spoke aloud, “Yes, but not to men so old. Or do they? It seems that most of the marriages that I have seen here at Muirwood there is not such an age difference.”

“You have seen an Abbey marriage?” he challenged in a bemused tone. She could not discern his expression, nor mistake the tone of interest.

“Inside? No, never. The only time I went inside the Abbey was when I rescued you from the Pilgrim.”

“You are not allowed inside…”

“Obviously it was not with anyone’s permission, Colvin. The orb led me there because of the tunnels beneath the grounds. Which is how I found you and made it past the sheriff’s men. There was a room lower down, with rows of benches and a stone table. The Medium was very strong in there.”

“Speak no more of it,” Colvin said, looking at her with the twist of a smile, as if he could hardly believe what he was hearing. “It is forbidden for someone who is not a maston to enter. Or at least someone who is trying to become one.”

“So you cannot teach me what it meant? Those benches, the table?”

“Do not ask it of me.”

“Is that why many girls do not become mastons? Because they marry before they finish their studies?”

Colvin folded his arms, looking into the distance. “Yes, it happens often. My sister swears she will be a maston before she marries though.”

Lia squeezed the moisture from the sodden mass of clothes, glanced sidelong at him, and then started cleaning it again. “She chooses this to please you?”