The Humming of Numbers (9 page)

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Authors: Joni Sensel

BOOK: The Humming of Numbers
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“And fierce claws!” he added, laughing. “And intense curiosity and eerie eyes and graceful movements and—” Feeling himself stumbling into dangerous territory, he shifted focus quickly. “I don't know if the number comes from the traits or the traits come from the number. I have just learned to match them up over the years.”
“Fine,” she said, in a mock huff. “I can be aloof like a cat, too.”
While she pretended to sulk, Aidan pondered, intrigued by the puzzle Lana had raised.
“I have wondered why people hum of the lowest numbers,” he admitted. “I think it might be because people are closer to God. And everything else in the world, everything with numbers higher than ten, is more connected to … well, everything else. So their numbers multiply with each other somehow.”
“So eleven is farther from God than everyone else?” Her voice, trembling, revealed that she was trying hard not to be hurt.
Aidan took a deep breath, searching for the right thing to say.
“No,” he replied quietly. “I didn't mean that. And I am
only guessing; I surely don't know. But I don't think your eleven is bad, Lana. I think you're just a little more connected to the rest of the world.”
He peeked sidelong at her, loath to see insult or annoyance on her face. She kept her gaze firmly fixed on the forest floor.
He bit his lip, then added, “I like hearing eleven.”
Her eyes flashed to him, but for only an instant. Sorry he'd said more than was needed, Aidan tucked his hands into the opposite sleeves and bowed his head. He saw a new value in the monks' rule of silence.
They each traveled in their own thoughts until Lana alerted him to the end of their journey at last.
L
ana led Aidan to a grove of old trees on a steep side of the hill. When he saw a large snag that had rotted away at the base, leaving a hollow, he pointed.
“Is that where you mean to hide?” The foxhole was large enough and sheltered from weather, but anyone walking past would see them curled inside.
“No. That makes my place better, because nobody would look farther than that.” She ducked past the snag and picked her way to another nearby giant. Battered by lightning or wind some years ago, the tree had uprooted and fallen. The cluster of broken roots at its base now arched high over their heads, splayed and curled like the legs of a spider. Rowan and ivy had taken root in mossy crevices between the uplifted roots, and saplings piggybacked all along the half-rotten trunk.
“Flying rowan, that's called, since it does not take root
in the earth,” Lana said, pointing to the green rowan sprays over their heads. “If I wanted to make a flying switch, so I could fly back home without fear of the raiders, that is what I would use.”
Aidan looked from the rowan to Lana, resisting the impulse to sidle away from her.
She rolled her eyes. “I'm teasing, for goodness' sake. If anyone can really fly by riding a branch, I haven't learned how.”
Aware that rowan was nonetheless sometimes called witch-wood, he asked, “Is that what you were trying to sell to the pilgrims?” When the abbot had asked where her false relics had come from, she had said that a tree sprite had shown her where to find them. Now, Aidan could almost believe it.
His question dispelled her playful smile. “That wood is nothing I know, Aidan. That's why I wanted it back. I was only trying to sell it because I was hungry.”
Her words filled him with sympathy and frustration. He hated feeling so powerless, and he had never suffered it with such impatience as he did in her presence. He resolved to mend that discomfort with action as soon as he could.
She led him nearer the upthrust wall of roots. A hawthorn shrub crowded the arch between two splayed roots and the trunk.
Hawthorn, hagthorn, bush of May,
Unlock your thorns for us today.
After reciting those lines, Lana reached to the hawthorn and drew aside a spiked branch. A passage lay behind it where the downed tree's enormous roots humped up from the ground, holding the fallen trunk in the air and leaving an arched hollow beneath them. Clotted dirt and more roots formed a back wall deeper inside. From outside the hawthorn, the tree cave was invisible from every direction.
“Duck down,” she said. “And mind the thorns. It doesn't know you.” She slipped under the cruel branch and disappeared into the dead tree's huge root ball.
The hawthorn sprang back into place. Aidan tried to brush it out of the way and promptly stuck himself.
“Ouch.”
The branches shivered and parted. Lana's face and hand appeared.
“Move more slowly. Come on.” She held the branch for him, backing in her crouch as he entered. The thorns caught his robe on all sides, but with her help he eased past.
Once inside, Aidan straightened cautiously. The nook extended almost his height at its peak. Nearly as wide, it ranged deep enough so that a cow could have sheltered there comfortably. Daylight filtered in through the hawthorn. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the murk,
but when they did, he saw that Lana had been here before. Candle stubs rested in a small wooden bowl stashed among the twisted roots. The dirt and crumbling rot under their feet had been spread with fern fronds, and a long-wilted daisy chain hung from a notch in the wood. Aidan only hoped that none of the humped roots supporting the tree's weight would choose today to settle deeper in rot.
“If we had a flint and char I could light the candles,” Lana said. “But we don't.” She perched on a knob of root-wood curving out as if for that purpose. “I've never been here at night, but I won't be too scared with you here. I know we're safe from people, at least.”
“This is a good hiding spot,” Aidan agreed. He took a deep breath, trying to ignore a sudden reluctance to be separated from her. “But I'm going to leave you here safe by yourself for a while. It will be dark soon, and I've got to find out what has happened at the abbey and see if it is wise for us to return yet.”
“No! Don't leave me!”
Her plea dug at him. He gritted his teeth, reminding himself she would be far safer here than with him.
“If the abbey's secure,” he promised, “I'll come back to get you.”
“What if you meet them again in the woods? And what if you can't find your way back in the dark? And what if the abbey's not safe? They might see you coming!”
Aidan dropped to his haunches before her. “Lana, I can't just hide here with you, not knowing. I'll—”
“Why not?”
“Because.” He floundered for a better answer, and added, “If the Norsemen are still here, the survivors and any of your father's men who escaped will be mustering to fight back. They'll need anyone they can get. Like me.”
“You're a monk! What do you know about fighting?”
“As much as any other commoner,” Aidan said, pushing back a hot flush of defensiveness. “I'll be back for you as soon as I can.”
“But—” She stopped. Aidan could read the question in her eyes anyway.
“If I don't come back,” he replied gently, “you'd better wait another full day before you come look, or at least until you're so hungry you don't have any choice. They won't stay forever.”
“Aidan!” The fright in her voice tore at his skin.
“You'll be all right,” he told her, trying to convince both of them. Though his head assured him this plan was best, his heart argued. Feeling his determination waver, Aidan turned to duck out before it failed completely. He hoped the hawthorn gate would let him go more easily than it had admitted him.
“Wait. Take this.”
When he looked back over his shoulder, she drew her
red yarn necklace over her head. The crossed twigs tied at its center were wound with a separate length of red wool.
“Your cross? Why?”
She rose to drape it over his head and tuck the bits of wood down the neck of his robe. Her touch, too familiar to be polite, made Aidan's skin tingle. He jigged nervously.
“It is not just a cross,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “‘Tis my charm from the flying rowan I showed you outside. 'Twill help protect you. Are the oak leaves still here or did they fall out?” She patted his chest.
Aidan opened his mouth to protest her motherly fussing, raising a hand to push hers away. Before he could, she found the leaves snagged in the wool of his robe. Her palm flattened there and she shifted closer, raising her eyes. Suddenly her touch didn't feel so motherly. The hand Aidan had lifted to remove hers only curled around her fingers instead. He could feel his heart beating hard beneath both of their hands.
“Lana,” Aidan murmured, unsure what words would follow.
“Be careful,” she said. She tipped her face down toward their hands, but he saw her cheeks bloom. “Come back.” Though she didn't look up, an impish grin appeared through her blush. “You still have to teach me to read.”
That grin was worse than her blush. Never in his life
had Aidan wanted to kiss someone so badly. He hadn't had much practice, and the scant kissing he had tried in the past had brought him more guilty thrill than pleasure. It had felt a bit sloppy and dangerous, as if drool might intrude at any instant. Kissing Lana would be different. He could tell by the hot tingling between them. It felt like the breathless moment between lightning and thunder.
Aidan closed his eyes, protecting himself from the pull of her lips. His face cramped in struggle. When he opened his eyes, he had remembered that he was a monk. Not a good monk; a good monk would have let go of her hand and moved away. Aidan let go of her hand to graze her jaw with his fingertips in wordless longing.
That proved to be a mistake. Lana's face tipped upward under his hand and as her eyes struck his, Aidan's mind stopped working at all. Without his meaning it, his hand curled to better fit her jaw, drawing her face closer. His lips met hers. She gasped delicately, and he felt the tiny intake of breath tug at him, moving his body to lean into hers.
Lana kissed him in return, and Aidan would have forgotten the abbey and the Vikings and everything else if she hadn't drawn away after a long, fiery moment. Her palm, still flat on his chest, pushed back with increasing pressure until finally he felt it. He caught himself. When
he again opened his eyes, unaware of when they had closed, she was staring at him, her own eyes drawn wide. Now her hand leapt away from his heart as if burned.
Aidan drew a ragged breath. His chest ached and pounded as though he'd been running.
“I didn't mean to do that,” he mumbled, more to himself than to her.
“I don't mind that you did.” Her cheeks blazing, Lana's gaze fell away. Her fluttering fingers twisted in a lock of her hair. Somewhere she'd lost the length of yarn that had bound it.
“I shouldn't have.”
“Why not?”
Aidan ran both hands through his hair and turned to go. Her question was too vast for him to even scratch at the answer.
“I'll be back,” he said, thickly.
“After that, you had better,” she said, her lips crushing a smile. The smile blinked out. “I might not have anyone else left.”
Her plaintive words snagged Aidan's heart. Images of burnt-out cottages and dead bodies filled his head and he turned back to her once more, in part to banish those thoughts.
“Here,” he said, dropping to one knee. He shoved
aside the fern fronds and drew four figures in the soft duff below:
.
“
Ah, bay, kay, dhay
,” he said as he drew. “The first four Latin letters.” He ran through their main sounds and added, “Learn them while I'm gone.” Without waiting for any reaction or letting himself be snared again by her eyes, he shoved through the hawthorn and escaped, oblivious to the scratches he took from the thorns.

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