The Humming of Numbers (6 page)

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Authors: Joni Sensel

BOOK: The Humming of Numbers
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A
idan stared. It took several long seconds for him to overcome his surprise enough to speak. He had been so focused on the sound of twenty-seven that he had not heard the whir of her eleven behind him. Certainly he heard it now, verifying the tale his eyes told.
“What are you doing here?”
Lana moved closer. “I saw you running. So I followed.”
“You fol—You're supposed to be in the kitchen!” Rory's words came back to him, and his astonishment rolled into suspicion. He cast his gaze into the shadowy trees, looking for spies.
“Did they send you after me?” he wondered, dropping his voice. “Are you here to tempt me or something?”
Her eyebrows shot up, then a smirk rose on her lips. “This is Glendermor Wood, not the Garden of Eden. And you're the one with the fruit, though I don't think it—”
“Stop playing games. Why did you follow me?”
She huffed. “I was sent to the well. The back gate to the fields was unguarded, so I ran. I was already half escaped by the time I saw you.”
He blinked, dubious. “So they don't know you're gone? Nobody sent you?”
“Well, they've probably noticed by now. There was shouting somewhere behind me.”
Aidan groaned. That meant he'd be paying a price, maybe even getting the whip. “I'll probably be lashed over you!”
A fold appeared in her brow. “Aren't you running away, too?”
“Of course not! I was sent on an errand, that's all!”
“Oh.” Disappointment lay clearly over her face—disappointment and sudden mistrust. She backed up a step. “Well, I'm sorry you'll be punished on my account. Truly I am. Will they really flog you? I thought monks were supposed to be kind.”
He turned away with a frustrated snort. “They'll say my soul matters more than my skin.” Sun dappled the trees all around them, and the dancing light made the clearing and Lana both seem unreal. Aidan prayed this might turn out to be a dream. But the thumping of his chest and the sound of his own breathing were too strong for any illusion.
“But you're not a prisoner,” Lana added. “I am. And I hate it. So I'm running away, even if you're not.”
“Donagh will just find you again.”
“Not if I go far enough,” she replied. “Not if I hide.”
Concern uncoiled through the anger and amazement in his chest. “Where? And what will you eat? Where will you sleep?”
“‘Tis not winter yet. I know my way in the woods. There are hazelnuts and berries, wild carrots and garlic. And I can steal leeks and turnips by night.”
Aidan regarded her, trying not to be impressed by her calm and almost sorry to feel his anger fading.
“The woods are full of rogues at night, Lana. Bandits and worse. You can't go about by yourself. You'll be hurt, if not killed.”
Her face never shifted, but a tight swallow gave away her own fears. “I thought your God would protect me?” she asked. Her sarcasm failed.
Aidan didn't bother to answer. He dumped the oak apples and eased toward her, afraid she might bolt. Wary, Lana stood her ground. Aidan looked her square in the face and reached to take both her shoulders as if reasoning with an obstinate child. The wool of her mantle was unexpectedly thin under his fingers, betraying the tension beneath it. Her eyes latched onto his, and Aidan could feel her desperation pushing past her bold front.
“You can't,” he repeated, more softly. “Just go back now to the abbey. You'll probably be punished, but not beaten or starved or left in a heap by men with no decency.”
She studied his eyes. Aidan wished she wouldn't. Realizing how little space separated her body from his, he felt blood pounding through his neck and down every limb.
“Why do you care?” she whispered. Her breath smelled of the creamy cheese that Brother Galen must have fed her.
Several safe answers occurred to Aidan but could not find the way to his lips. At such close range, her high-pitched, trickish eleven seeped in through his ears and muddied his brain.
“You're an eleven.” He heard the words as if someone else had spoken them. “I've never met an eleven before.”
Her face puckered. “What's that supposed to mean?”
Feeling exposed and out of control, Aidan let go of her arms and turned abruptly to retrieve his oak apples. He was in danger of forgetting himself and his duties. What if he'd been right about spies, and some hidden monk watched from the trees?
“Never mind. Do what you will. I've got to get back.” He shot her a glare. “If they'll still have me, once the abbot learns you've escaped.”
She crouched to help him, infuriating him.
“Come with me instead,” she said softly.
“Be serious.”
“I am serious,” she told him. She continued gingerly, as though stepping out on a wobbly bridge. “We'll be safer together. We could pretend to be pilgrims. The churches, at least, will feed us if we—”
“What makes you think I want to leave? I'm supposed to take my vows soon. I want to be a monk and work in the scriptorium!”
Lana lifted oak apples into the fold of his robe. Without looking at his face, she asked, “Then why haven't you spoken a single word of God or your love of Him to me?”
He stammered, sure she must be mistaken but unable to think of an example.
She added, gently, “We've talked more of my sinful father than your holy one.”
“I'm a monk, not a priest,” he growled, not understanding why her words were making him angry. “Not even that, yet.”
Reaching into a pocket of her mantle, she drew out a handful of crimped rose petals. Through the haze of frustration in Aidan's head, the puddle of red yelped forty-four at him.
“I'd better give these back to you,” she murmured. “You may need God's grace more than I do, Aidan.”
Confused and defensive, he let his gaze bounce between the spill of color in her palm to her face. He almost hadn't heard her words. The red forty-four zinging at him from
her palm resonated with the undernote of four in Lana's eleven, whisking his breath away. The harmony sang of blood and pain, but also of an irresistible fire in the cold universe.
“There's that look in your eyes again,” she said. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he protested, appalled that she had spied his distraction.
“No, 'tis not nothing. You sometimes look at me as if it is all you can do not to—”
He grabbed her wrist, his hand flashing before he could stop it. The rose petals scattered, thankfully muting their hum.
“Not do what?” he hissed. “What I'd like to do right now is slap you. I know I would not be the first.”
She nibbled her lips, looking not afraid but suddenly shy. Her knee pressed into the dirt. Before Aidan could react, she leaned forward to brush her lips against his flushed cheekbone.
“That,” she said, not lifting her eyes from the ground.
Aidan couldn't breathe. One moment he itched to strike her, the next he wanted to wrap himself in her fair, eleven-ish skin, envisioning things worth a month of confessions. He jumped up the moment his legs would obey him, forgetting to keep hold of his robe. The oak apples
spilled again. Lana cringed. Not finding some accusation he wanted, he spun on his heel, but his feet would not carry him farther. He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and folded his arms tight over his chest, fighting himself. He had to find some grace that would lead him through this completely unexpected trial. Where was the Holy Spirit when he needed a beacon?
“I'm making you unhappy. I'm sorry,” came her voice, soft, from below. Movement rustled behind him. “I'll go.”
Aidan prayed for help not to turn back around, but either the prayer or the Divinity failed him. She'd risen and fled a few paces away, walking backward to watch him. Her determined face lit when she saw him turn. That shine in her eyes drove a hot spike through Aidan's body as tangible as the thrust of a spear. He knew he was lost.
“Don't leave,” he said.
“What else can I do?”
He raised his hands to his face, hiding it.
“Don't look at me. Just let me think.”
He might as well have asked her to let him fly, but after a moment of blind silence, with only the sound of the wind laughing in the trees, thoughts shuddered back into his head. He held still and tried not to chase them, hoping they'd settle and then follow, one on the other, as they once had done routinely.
When he finally lowered his hands, he was startled to find her within arm's length again. “Don't stand so near me,” he pleaded.
Her face twisted in dismay, but she took a few steps back.
“Listen to me,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. “Let me take you back to the abbey and tell them I caught you. That's the only thing that might save me. I spoke to you of the Gospels, and Christ moved your willful heart, and you saw your mistake. They won't punish you much if you can convince them you've become filled with the Spirit. I can give you words to say. All right?”
“That would be lying, Aidan.” She sounded amused, sparking his fury again.
“Go tell the truth to the Devil, then. That's the best I can do.” He snatched up the accursed oak apples once more. She didn't help this time, but she didn't leave, either. When he rose, his robe weighted, he was careful not to look at her. He spun and strode away as fast as he could.
A
idan might have more easily escaped Lana if he'd had both hands free to cover his ears.
“I'll go back with you,” she said, trailing behind him. “As you said. On one condition.”
Disbelief bubbled into his throat, choking him. She had a lot of nerve, setting conditions. “What?”
“You teach me to read.”
Laughter leapt from Aidan and he almost spilled the oak apples yet again. He threw his free arm over his face to hold in the immodest sounds. His sleeve muffled them well enough, but the trapped foolery ricocheted inside him, flattening his anger and the fear behind it.
“Why not?” she demanded. “Learned women are judges and poets and scholars, and I've even heard of churches led by women bishops and priests.”
Aidan exhaled hard, struggling to control his voice.
Moving forward again, he said, “Go ask them to teach you to read, then. When will I have time or freedom to do it? If the abbot lets me back in at all, I'll probably be stuck in a penitent's cell for a week. You might be locked up for good. I won't dare say two words to you.”
He risked a quick glance toward her. Stubbornness stamped her face.
“What do you want with reading, anyway?” he wondered.
“There's a part of your Bible I want to read for myself.”
Aidan gaped, not sure she wasn't taunting. “Which part? Why?”
“Where it speaks about the Tree of Knowledge,” she said.
Still doubtful, he replied, “Scripture is no matter for jest.”
“'Tis no jest,” she said, hurrying to keep up with his long strides. “See, we call hazels the Tree of Wisdom, but I'm not sure that's the same. Do you think the words might have changed? Father Niall tells about the first woman biting an apple. But I've eaten apples. They don't make you any smarter that I noticed.”
“It is not about being smart,” Aidan told her. “The tree you mean was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil—knowing right from wrong. That's why Adam and Eve had to cover their nakedness. They suddenly understood it was wrong.”
She gave him a long look, and he thought for an instant she was going to argue with him. It would be just like her
to declare nothing wrong with nakedness. Instead, she replied, “I think the real fruit might have been hazelnuts. There are many tales about hazelnuts bringing knowledge into the world. And divining, of course. You can divine almost anything with the right hazel rod: metal and water and jewels, or danger and thieves … .”
He grinned, amused by her simple folk beliefs. He'd watched the divining of water himself, but the rest were little more than charlatans' tricks. “Good things and evil ones?” he teased.
“Yes.” Her eyes flashed at his gentle mocking. “You said something before, something strange,” she went on. “You said I was eleven. Obviously I am not eleven years old. What did you mean by that?”
His grin fading, he watched the forest soil beneath his feet for several long strides. He didn't want to hand her a weapon she could use against him, and he feared he'd be doing just that if he told her the truth. Yet she had answered his questions honestly enough.
“If I tell you, will you come back to the abbey?” he asked, not trusting the evidence that she seemed to be following him there anyway. “And behave?”
“If you have any chance to teach me to read, any chance at all, will you do it?” she countered.
“Fine.” He shrugged, never believing for a moment that it would come to pass.
“Good,” she agreed. “We have a deal. So what's eleven? And then you can tell me what to say when we get there.”
Aidan squinted, trying out words in his mind before voicing them. “Did you ever hear a sound,” he began, “a harsh sound, maybe, that you could almost feel on your skin?”
“Like rocks scraping? Sure. Or hammering at the smithy.”
“When I look at different people or things, I can hear a sound like that, a sort of buzzing around them. Hear it or feel it, or both. Different things make different sounds, and every sound is a number. Objects sometimes confuse me because they're quiet and they hum more than one sound at a time and I don't really understand how they add up. But people are loud, and their numbers are easy. My best friends have always been threes. My mother's a four. Your father's an eight. I don't trust people who make me hear seven. They're smart but they're—” He stopped, realizing he was beginning to babble. “I'm not explaining this very well.”
“Well … maybe not,” she said. “But I think I understand what you mean.”
Her words hooked him like a fish. He breathed carefully, not wanting to disrupt the novel sensation that someone had even tried to understand.
She caught his eye. “So you hear eleven when you look at me?”
“Yes. High and sharp. I've been hearing numbers my whole life, and I've never met a person higher than ten.”
“Eleven is a magic number, you know,” she said, after a moment. “Powerful magic.”
Aidan knew little of numerology beyond the numbers that repeated themselves in the Gospels, fours and sevens and twelves, but he believed her. He could hear the potency of her number in its sound.
“Thank you, Aidan,” she added. “I think that's a compliment. It makes me—” She jerked to a stop, her head rising into the breeze.
“Do you smell that?”
Aidan inhaled. His nose caught the same seared air. A spike of alarm passed through him as his memory interpreted the scent.
“That's not wood smoke,” he said. “That smells like fields burning!”
“Or thatch!” She ran a few paces, then whirled back toward him. “Oh, Aidan, not raiders … is it?”
His mind raced, trying to find another explanation, one that wouldn't carry so much dread. He noticed, then, the hush that had befallen the woods along with the smell of burning. Not a bird tweeped. He released his collected oak apples once more, hoping fervently he'd be picking them up again soon.
Seeing them spill, Lana tensed to bolt. He grabbed her.
She pulled him several steps before he managed to yank her to a halt, his lips near her ear.
“It might be,” he said, low. He scanned the forest around them. “It might be Vikings, Lana, and if we're not careful we'll be dead.”
She whimpered. “Or worse.”
He let his eyes touch the pale skin of her throat. Instinct flared within him, leaving his muscles tingling and primed for a fight. He felt protective of her, even possessive. For the first time, his body's reaction to her did not make him feel guilty. “Yes. Come on.” He pulled her into the shelter of the nearest tree.
“No. Not this one,” she said, glancing up to its boughs. Pulling from his grip, she darted to another tree not far ahead.
Too worried to be annoyed, Aidan followed, searching for any hint that they weren't alone. Foreign raiders had never attacked within his memory, but he'd heard plenty of stories, horrific stories, from not far downriver. Fearsome and implacable pirates, the Norsemen swept down upon farm holdings and monasteries alike, marauding faster than local men could muster. They stole every item of value they could carry, torched anything that would burn, raped women, took slaves, and slaughtered anyone who got in the way. Aidan sent a quick prayer that if the
river had conveyed such menace here, his family would stay far out of its reach.
“Don't run wild,” he said, as much to himself as to Lana. “It might just be a cottage fire or something.” He double-checked his bearings. “Stay here, out of sight. I'm going to the edge of the wood to take a look.”
“No, don't leave me alone!”
His feet already in motion, he jittered to a stop and looked back. “Well, come on then!”
“Wait. I'm almost done.” Lana had plucked a small branch from the tree and was busily snapping off twigs and stripping its bark with her teeth.
“Done with what?” He watched an instant without recognizing the Y-shaped bit of wood she'd formed. “Whatever it is, there's not time.”
“You want to walk right into them?” she demanded. “Just be still a minute.” Holding her hands over her head, she balanced one leg of the twig on the pad of each thumb and pointed its stem toward the sky. She pivoted in place, her eyes closed and her feet mincing in a small circle.
With a start, Aidan realized she had created a makeshift divining rod like those used to site wells. “You're dowsing water?” he demanded, uncomprehending. “Now?”
“Not water,” she retorted. “Danger.” The stem of the wand dropped abruptly to point almost due east. She
opened her eyes to see where she and her divining rod faced. “'Tis hazel wood, and it has never been wrong for me, Aidan. Whatever it is, it lies that way. And not very far!”
“The abbey lies that way,” he said, a chill tickling his shoulders.
“Then we can't go there.”
“Don't be stupid! If it is the Norsemen, the only place that might be safe is behind the abbey's ramparts.”
“It is
not
safe, not now. Or else they're between it and here.” She clutched Aidan's arm. “Do you think they might have already hit the homes just downriver?” Her voice careened higher, rasping of one. The jagged sound of that number made it hard for Aidan to think.
“It might be nothing,” he said, although his instincts said different. “Listen. Let's …” He wanted to simply head back the direction he'd come, but her conviction was too powerful to ignore completely. “Let's circle around south, toward Kilcarrick Hill. From that vantage we can see what's on fire.” He didn't add that from there it would be a relatively short, downhill dash to the abbey if need be.
Lana never released her clutch on his sleeve as they sprinted through the trees. Aidan drew her into the shadows of tree trunks and scouted a clear path to the next, then they ran and ducked again. The need to hurry and the desire to hide tugged equally at them. The stench of burning grew thicker by the moment.
Finally the land sloped up under their feet. Aidan could see blue sky beyond the last clump of trees on the shoulder of the stony hill. He'd just plotted the way in his mind when a bell sounded. Its peals were not the familiar, measured tones calling monks to their afternoon prayers. Instead the bell clanged in frenzied, toneless panic.

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