The Rose of the Heptarchy

Chapter 6

Ella's heart tightened. She had left that mistake deliberately, but she wasn't sure if the flaw she'd revealed would expose her, or if such an error might be too amateurish.

"Moreover," the monk continued, "your letterforms are peculiar. Some of the strokes I've never seen before, yet they don't look like those of a complete beginner. Where was your teacher from?"

The handwriting issue had been resolved, but Ella realized the monk was not simply evaluating her skill—he was trying to place her origin, just as she had guessed his from his accent.

"I don't know," she said. "The old priest rarely spoke of his origins. He had an accent I wasn't familiar with, perhaps from somewhere far away."

The monk nodded, as if this answer matched his expectations in some way. "That is possible. Over the years, many monks have crossed the sea from Ireland and Brittany, each possessing their own style of writing."

He placed the piece of parchment on the table, weighed down one corner with a stone, and turned to her.

"I will tell the lord that your Latin literacy is genuine, though far from accomplished, yet sufficient to assist with copying. Until the lord sends men to verify your background, you may help me with simple tasks in the scriptorium—cleaning parchment, grinding ink, proofreading drafts. As for your final disposition," his voice remained calm, but there was a complexity in his green eyes that Ella could not fully decipher, "everything after that depends on the reply the lord receives from the north."

Ella could only lower her head and say, "Thank you, Brother."

"Call me Brother Aldhelm," he said. "If you are truly a lamb escaped from God's hand, this small scriptorium shall be your temporary fold. But if you are not..." He did not finish the sentence. He turned toward a wooden rack and took down a cloth-wrapped bundle, but the implication could not have been clearer.

Outside came the sound of hoofbeats and men's shouts—likely Wulfric setting out on patrol with his men. Ella looked out through the window opening, but could only see a patch of gray-white sky and the blurred shapes of distant trees. She had already spent one night in this world, and before the second night came, she needed to learn more about this estate, about Lord Blackwood, about Brother Aldhelm.

There were too many things she needed to know, and time slipped away as silently as sand in an hourglass, utterly beyond her control.

"Brother Aldhelm," she began, her voice careful, "may I ask a question?"

Brother Aldhelm looked back at her.

"What place is this? I lost my bearings during my escape. I only know I'm back within Wessex, but not on which lord's lands."

Brother Aldhelm set the cloth bundle on the table and slowly untied the cord. Inside were several worn manuscript pages in need of repair, the parchment edges tattered and fuzzy, some letters faded.

"This," he said, "is the manor of Lord Gavin de Blackwood. The local people call it Greyhawk Keep. It lies in the western marches of Wessex. A half day's ride west, and you can see the moors of the Dumnonians."

Ella's heart tightened as if squeezed by an invisible hand. Western Wessex. Dumnonia.

Now she understood why the lord had questioned "Oakley." The northeastern frontier lay hundreds of miles from western Wessex, with the entire kingdom and countless rivers, forests, and hills between them. In this age, such a journey would take more than ten days on horseback; it was nearly impossible for a lone woman to reach here on foot in a short time.

The answer she'd given in the chapel about her escape route had been enough for the moment, but the lord clearly hadn't believed it. That he hadn't exposed her on the spot might be due to some consideration she hadn't yet grasped—perhaps out of regard for the monk, perhaps for something else.

"I... have come a long way," she said quietly. That much, at least, was true.

Brother Aldhelm looked at her, and in those eyes so accustomed to parchment and ink, there flickered a light almost like pity.

"If you are hiding something, girl," he said, his voice falling so low no one outside could hear, "tell me now, while there may still be time. Gavin de Blackwood is not a cruel man, but he is a border lord. What a border lord cannot abide most is an unknown variable appearing within his lands."

Ella was silent for a moment. She could feel the truth on the tip of her tongue, like a burning stone—but she could not spit it out. A person from thirteen hundred years in the future, a woman who had crossed time and space to appear in a muddy landscape—who would believe such words? And even if someone did, what would await her? Being burned as a witch? Locked up as a madwoman? Disposed of quietly as some ill omen?

"I have nothing to hide, Brother," she said. "I am merely a woman who wishes to survive."

She had said these words to Wulfric the night before. Now, repeating them, they were still true—perhaps the truest thing she could say at this moment.

Brother Aldhelm regarded her for a moment, then sighed and handed the quill back to her.

"Then let us begin. First, retrace these faded letters. These are pages from the Vulgate Gospel of Matthew. They have been used for two generations, and if they aren't repaired soon, they will be lost."

Ella took the quill, sat herself properly on the stool, and drew the first damaged page close. The ancient scripture spread before her, the Latin letters arranged in dense rows, carrying the warmth and prayers of countless scribes. She dipped the quill, bent over, and began to retrace the faded holy words.

Outside the chapel, meanwhile, the manor’s daily life went forward as usual—the servants chopped firewood, fed the chickens, and stirred the barley porridge; the soldiers sharpened spearheads in the armory; and the blacksmith’s bellows wheezed and roared. Farther off, Wulfric rode a gray dappled horse, leading four mounted men across the freshly sown fields, heading northwest on patrol.

The sun rose slowly, casting the shadow of Greyhawk Keep's wooden palisade onto the muddy ground. Ella Mitchell sat at the narrow window of the scriptorium, quill in hand, two questions circling in her mind:

When the men the lord sent north returned with word that "the village of Oakley does not exist," how would she respond?

And before then, what cracks could she find among these medieval souls to make a life for herself in a world that was not her own?

The scent of ink spread through the air—ancient, faintly astringent, carrying hints of iron and charcoal. Outside the window, a bird sang, a species she did not recognize. Ella finished retracing a line of scripture, lifted her quill, and gazed at the square of sky framed by the wooden window.

She did not know the answers. But she knew that until she found them, she must write every letter correctly.

This time, she could not deliberately omit a single m.