Flesh and Spirit Read Online Free Page A

activities and selected a wooden bowl from the shelf. I almost moaned as he filled the bowl from the tureen, acquired a spoon, and dragged a low stool to my bedside.
    The good brother insisted I drink some concoction that tasted like boiled scrapings from a stable floor first of all. But after the first spoonful of the soup, I would have knelt to kiss the hairy toes that peeked out from his sandals had he but asked.
    â€œAbbot Luviar has been most concerned about you,” he said as I reveled in the savory broth and tiny bits of succulent poultry deemed suitable for an invalid. “He’s had prayers said, asked blessings as we sit at table. He’ll be in to see you now I’ve sent word you’re awake.”
    â€œMmm,” I said, holding the last warm spoonful in my mouth before I let it trickle down my throat. “Iero’s holy angels…all of you.” I was feeling quite devout.
    He grinned, an expression distinctly odd for a badger. “I’ll get you more.”
    I had never shared Boreas’s horror of monks, but then I had never been fool enough to creep over a priory wall with a bursar’s coffer on my back. Boreas had been sentenced to the loss of one hand, a flogging, and a week in pillory, but managed to escape before suffering any of the three. Now he was convinced that every monk and lay brother passed his description about the realm tucked in sleeves or under scapulars, and that every abbot and prior was determined to hang him.
    Sadly, my own direst peril had less to do with lawbreaking or sin than with birth and blood, circumstances for which no sanctuary could be granted. But I had no reason to believe that my loathsome family or the Pureblood Registry could find me here or anywhere. I’d shed them both at fifteen and had long since drowned myself in a sea of anonymity. I had no intention of bobbing to the surface. Ever.
    Two more bowls of the brothers’ heaven-kissed soup and I took even the changing of the dressing on my thigh with good humor. Warm, fed, and clean—indeed someone had washed me head to toe while I slept—and out of the weather, and no one coming after me with arrows, pikes, lances, or hands outstretched for money…perhaps the boy Jullian was indeed the archangel who guarded the gates of Paradise. The truest wonder was that he had let me in.
    I fell asleep as promptly as a cat in a sunbeam. When my eyes drifted open again sometime later, a long-limbed man of more than middling years sat on the stool at my bedside. A golden solicale dangled from his neck—the sunburst symbol of Iero’s glory worked in a pendant so heavy it must surely be an abbot’s ensign. Instead of effecting a modest tonsure like the infirmarian’s, he had shaved his head entirely clean.
    Holding in mind my present comforts, I bowed my head and shaped my greeting in the Karish manner. “In the name of holy Iero and his saints, my humblest gratitude be yours, holy father. Truly the One God led my wayward footsteps to this refuge when the world and all its ways had failed me.” I didn’t think it too grovelish.
    â€œIero commands us offer his hand in charity,” said the abbot, “and so we have done. It remains to be seen what he has in mind for you.” His full-shaven pate, fine arched nose, and narrow, pock-grooved face made his cool gray eyes seem very large.
    I squirmed a bit, suddenly feeling even more naked than I already was under my lovely blankets.
    A younger monk, full-shaven as well, but with unmarked skin and dark brows that made a solid line above deep-set eyes, stood a few steps behind the abbot, hands tucked piously under his black scapular. Though his expression remained properly sober, his brow lifted slightly and his mouth quickened with amusement as he observed me under the abbot’s eye.
    â€œWhat is your name, my son?” The abbot took no note of his attendant’s improper levity.
    â€œValen,