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"Aye said, why did ye lie to me?" Elise demanded, angry.
I was back in the world of the breathing, my concentration broken. I shook my head to clear it, then turned to my lady.
She stood beside my open trunk, holding the Silent Monk’s robe in one hand and the iron crucifix in the other. "Ye said ye weren’t a Silent Monk – but look what I see here? Ye’ve turned Christian on me, haven’t ye?"
Ison laughed out loud.
I shook my head. "Another packed my trunk, and he used the robe and cross to protect my harp." Yet even as I shaped the words, I realized how strange that excuse sounded.
"And I see ye speaking as a Monk!" Angrily she shook the robe, and a scrap of tree bark rolled out. "Yer men tricked me, saying ye were a secret Bard – but now I see I’ve been used, the way you Christians always use women. Know, then, that my sister is a Warlocker, and my mother was a sword-woman, and I know enough of their arts to give you pain for pain."
"He’s no monk," Jason assured her, with a chuckle.
"I don’t think he’s even a Christian," Charles said.
"Then why was he hiding this?"
I reached down and picked up the scrap of bark. It had writing on it. "Use this to pass through the teeth of danger. May God protect you as one of his own, as all children of Man surely are."
I showed the note to Elise. She stared at it, then passed it to Charles, who slowly read the words out loud. "I guess it’s some sort of gift," he added.
Indeed. And I realized what the Monk of my vision had been trying to tell me.
