Brethren by Robyn Young

Author:Robyn Young [Young, Robyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 9781101662199
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2007-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

23

The Royal Palace, Paris

NOVEMBER 1, 1266 AD

Elwen lifted her skirts and stepped lightly through the mud. It had begun raining in the night and the area around the chapel was sodden. In the damp morning the majestic structure seemed rather gray and forlorn, the many stone faces that peered from its walls darkened by rain. Opposite the porch was an old yew. Elwen stooped under its low, brushy branches and waited, her eyes on the closed doors of the chapel.

In her service to the queen, Elwen had been inside Sainte-Chapelle on several occasions. But the first time had been the most memorable. She had discovered the two-story structure, hidden by a wall and surrounded by trees, two days after her arrival in Paris. She had entered the porch to peek through the doors, and it was there that King Louis had found her. Terrified that she would be reprimanded, Elwen had been astonished when the king, smiling down at her, had ushered her inside. She had tried to look everywhere at once as the king had led her through the ground floor. Her gaze was saturated by the magnificence of the interior: the monumental stained glass, the vivid colors of the murals, the lifelike statues bowing from the walls. On the first floor, the king’s private chambers, was a marble stand before an altar on which was placed a small, crooked piece of wood. Elwen had been amazed to discover that this seemingly worthless object, conveyed from Constantinople, had compelled the king to build the chapel that enclosed it. But when Louis had told her in deep, reverent tones that it was a piece of Christ’s crown of thorns, Elwen had understood completely. It was like the treasures she collected: The stick wasn’t really a stick, but the external manifestation of all that the king held dear—his faith, his dreams. They had knelt together before that fragment of ancient wood for almost an hour. Elwen had never felt so safe, so warm as she had when kneeling on the icy stones beside the King of France. She in her plain white apron and gown, hardly daring to breathe in that stillness, him in his vermilion cloak trimmed with ermine, eyes closed in prayer. Since that day, the king had rarely acknowledged her presence in his household, but, for Elwen, that single moment had been enough.

She wrapped her arms tighter about her, worried that the enchantments of Sainte-Chapelle might delay the troubadour for some time yet. She had been waiting for an opportunity to meet with Pierre de Pont-Evêque for four days, but a persistent following of twittering ladies and inquisitive lords had been continually clustered around him. Everard had said that she had to take the Book of the Grail from Pierre before the reading.

The Great Hall was now being readied for the performance: trestles set with jugs and goblets; walls decked with banners; torches lit. There was an added air of excitement and festivity as today was All Hallows.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.