has.”
“I
pray
he hasn’t.”
“As do I. Let us think, though. If he has kept them alive, and they are not here, where would they have been moved to?”
“Somewhere secure, where they couldn’t escape and no one could find them. There’d have to be soldiers with them, and at least a few servants to handle the cooking and the like.”
Marian nodded. “Have any servants gone missing since the children were taken?”
Chastity frowned. “I cannot say for certain. I know there are a few I haven’t seen in a while, but no one moves about the castle as freely these days, so that may mean nothing. I will find out, though.”
“It would be a start, at least. If we could find the children and rescue them, put them somewhere safe, then maybe we could convince the nobles to unite against John.”
“It’s a lovely plan, Princess. It might even work if…”
She trailed off and Marian nodded.
“Yes, if…”
If the children are still alive.
She folded her arms across herself, seeking to keep out the cold that had nothing to do with the weather raging outside. She thought of those little ones, hungry, frightened, possibly even freezing to death somewhere if they were still wearing only the clothes they had on when they were seized. Even if John hadn’t killed them, it was possible the pox had, or that this cursed winter would soon enough.
* * *
Snow melted under the three-dozen men who knelt in the courtyard of the monastery. They curled into themselves, arms pulled close to their bodies, legs folded tightly under them. Numb fingers moved stiffly, painfully over worn knots in prayer ropes. The cold numbed their legs, their hands, their faces, and the slickly razored patch of scalp in the center of their tonsures.
The cardinal stood in front of them, watching the wisps of their breath as they prayed. The cold wiped away the distraction of the world, giving an overwhelming physical discomfort that corralled the mind into a place where prayer could be truly transcendental. God could be found there, in the icy wind and the bitter temperature. The cold could also kill a man, without him realizing it.
He watched their breath—especially Brother Kincannon, the thinnest of the monks there. As his body grew colder inside his breath would show less and less. If it disappeared, then the man might not live through the night.
Kincannon’s breath was a near transparent curl, like that of wood shaved from a joist or joint by a carpenter.
Moving his eyes along the rows of brown-robed monks, the cardinal counted one more time and, satisfied with his tally, he clapped his hands together, breaking the hum of murmured prayers with a sharp
crack
.
His palms tingled painfully afterward.
One by one the monks all looked up, some jumping as if they’d been struck, others moving slowly, as if rousing from a deep sleep.
“Rise and return inside,” he said briskly. “Food has been laid out, and warm mead to revive your insides. You have dined with Christ Almighty, now sup with each other in good fellowship, cleansed and braced by this exercise.”
They rose, the younger and sturdier helping their elders, as was the way of the order. In small groups they filed past him, some rushing forward into the halls of the monastery. One monk in particular waited toward the end of the line. He seemed not to feel the cold as sharply, given the breadth of his middle and his stoutness of limb.
The cardinal tilted his chin up, indicating to the fat friar that he should wait. As the door shut behind the last of the line, the monk spoke.
“Yes?”
The cardinal smiled, even though the cold air made his teeth hurt.
“Surely the mighty Tuck isn’t cold.”
Friar Tuck sniffed. “Not at all, but you said there was warm mead.”
“There will be enough” the cardinal reassured him. “I won’t make you tarry long.”
“Is there trouble? Something from the castle?”
The cardinal shook his head. “Nothing from there… but we are