“Thank God you are come to us, frater,” she went on, taking another step closer. “You can pray with us. You can tell us what to do.” The youngest of the women had begun to sob, and half the children followed suit. “We ran with the children, but the others had to stand behind to stop the raiders from coming after us. Ai, God! What did we do to bring God’s wrath down on us in this way?”
“Come,” said the Aoi woman. “We go.” She pulled the reins out of his hand and started walking.
The old man fell to his knees. “You have come in answer to our prayer!” he wheezed. “It has been many seasons since a holy deacon sang prayers in our presence. We begged for God to give us a sign, when we hid from the raiders in the forest.”
“Did they come today?” asked Zacharias nervously.
“Nay,” replied the woman. “It were yesterday afternoon, late. We didn’t dare come back till this morning.”
“Then they’re not too close, surely,” said Zacharias, but the Aoi woman did not look back or wait for him. He gripped his walking staff higher, took a step. The younger women began wailing like ghosts cursed to wander aimlessly after death. He hesitated even as the sorceress crossed behind the palisade and vanished from his sight, moving ever westward. “I can’t help you,” he said at last.
“But you’re a churchman,” cried the woman. “Surely you will stay long enough to say the blessing over these brave dead ones so their souls can ascend to God!”
“God have forsaken us.” How he hated them at that moment for their weeping and for the way they looked at him for salvation. He couldn’t even save himself. “Pray to the old ones, as your grandmothers did. Maybe then your luck will return.”
He turned his back on them and followed his mistress. Their cries and weeping followed him for a long time in the quiet forest, even after he could no longer hear them.
4
THREE days after the Eagle had delivered his message, Lavastine’s party reached the convent of St. Genovefa. Some playful soul had carved the gates into the shape of two great dogs, and this same spirit pervaded the guesthouses as well where every mantle and beam seemed to hold its share of dog faces or dogs cavorting or at the hunt or resting quietly as if in expectation of the martyred saint’s imminent return to care for her beloved comrades. The abbess sent her own servants to wait on the count and his heir and cousin, and after they were settled invited them to dine.