The saint of the booksto.., p.1
The Saint of the Bookstore, page 1
Also by Victoria Goddard
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At the Feet of the Sun
Those Who Hold the Fire
Red Company
The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul
The Sisters Avramapul
The Bride of the Blue Wind
The Warrior of the Third Veil
Standalone
In the Company of Gentlemen
The Hands of the Emperor
Not Far From the Tree
Till Human Voices Wake Us
The Connoisseur
In the Realms of Gold: Five Tales of Ysthar
The Return of Fitzroy Angursell
Petty Treasons
The Tower at the Edge of the World
Aurelius (to be called) Magnus
Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander
Terec and the Wild
Watch for more at Victoria Goddard’s site.
The Saint of the Bookstore
Victoria Goddard
Copyright © 2022 by Victoria Goddard
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Author’s Note
One
It was a cold morning, leaving Yrchester on the first stagecoach of the morning: Mirabelle grumbled in a most un-nunlike manner as she wrapped herself up in an extra layer of shawls over her cloak, added a thick woollen scarf, and huddled over the heated brick in its felt cozy she’d prepared before leaving the coaching inn.
She was used to early risings—the first service of the day at her abbey was before dawn—but oh! These cold northern lands with their excessively long nights and cold, cold mornings.
It was three days into the new year, and Mirabelle did not want to be here.
Nor did anyone else; there was only one other passenger on the stagecoach, though the roof and baggage rack were piled up with wooden crates and barrels. Most of them seemed to contain vegetables or cheeses; Mirabelle recognized the makers’ stamps on some of the crates. She’d felt a lonely kinship with the crate marked St-Noray-sur-Bayre, which surely contained the delectable cheeses of her own abbey. Why, it was most likely Mirabelle’s own hands had shaped the wheels or washed them in herbed brine.
She could not feel too sorry for herself, when she travelled unexpectedly with her cheese. At least someone in this benighted country on the other side of the mountains had good taste.
It was too cold to read, and her fellow passenger—a stout matron with a small white dog on her lap, which surely provided a better source of warmth than Mirabell’s sooty brick—was soundly asleep. Mirabelle curled into her clothes and decided that it would probably be a good thing to say over her prayers. Mother Superior wouldn’t know, but the Lady might. And it was the Lady’s work Mirabelle was about, after all.
It warmed up over the course of the day, but night was already falling by the time they reached the dangerously storied eaves of the Arguty Forest. Mirabelle told over the Litany of Praises for the Lady of Winter, which was appropriate for the season and one of her favourite prayers, and hoped her holy task would protect the worldly stagecoach from any interference by the reputed highwaymen that commonly beset this road.
They were not stopped. The coach rattled along the frozen ground, the shaggy horses trotting easily. It was damp, and the air tasted oddly metallic; before long it began to snow.
By the time they came out the other side of the trees, the windows were caked with snow. Mirabelle somehow felt even colder, even though she was also sure the air should have been warmer, if it were snowing. Her brick was long since cold, and the woman with the little dog had gotten off at some point when Mirabelle had fallen into a fitful sleep.
She was stiff as a starched wimple by the time the stagecoach came to a halt. She roused lethargically when the door opened and a gust of cold, snowy air entered the carriage. “Off you go, miss,” the driver said. “Ragnor Bella.”
She unfolded herself, fumbled to pick up the brick before it fell on her feet, and gathered her skirts and shawls together. She exited without much—any—grace, and sighed as she blinked back the snow that had immediately settled in her eyes. The driver, a dark shape, closed the door with a decided click—Mirabelle stepped back away from the clots of snow that fell off the carriage—and swung back up into his seat. The horse, nothing loath to get out of the weather, started to move before he shook the reins.
Mirabelle watched the cheese crates go off into the gloom with a lump of sadness in her breast, and then tried to take stock of her surroundings.
Even in her few moments’ inattentiveness, the snow had grown thicker, whirling down in heavy wet flakes. Mirabelle drew her shawl over her face and tried to make sense of the buildings even as she winced at a dull snapping noise from the vicinity of her wimple. It was undoubtedly much more rumpled than it ought to be, after a day spent in the coach, but then again Mirabelle was also rather more rumpled than she probably ought to be. Or at least so Mother Superior sometimes told her. Mirabelle thought that the Lady surely had better things to do than worry about whether one of her cheese-making nuns was always perfectly ironed and starched. She was fastidious about being clean (a necessity in a dairy), and except for such an occasion as this, Mirabelle didn’t usually leave the cloister.
But this was an occasion where her other skills were needed. For Mirabelle had a very small and subtle gift of magic—so very small and subtle it had taken her a long time to realize she had it at all—one which was, generally, not much use. If she’d been able to do something relevant to cheese-making—ah! She could dream. If by the pricking of her thumbs she could magically tell the very moment a wheel was perfectly ripe …
Alas, she could not. She could only tell when someone was using magic to feign a miracle.
Ragnor Bella, entirely cloaked in a snowstorm, cold and dark this third day of the new year, seemed a highly unlikely location for a saint. But then, Mirabelle had spent enough time studying the abbey’s books to know that all locations were equally unlikely. And the purported miracle itself had taken place in Lind—heartland of the Lady’s church, an appropriate place if ever there were one. It was just that that the man in question was from Ragnor Bella.
Magician or fraud or saint, it was Mirabelle’s duty to assess the man, and the miracles, in question.
She peered around, but though there were a few dark shapes moving in and out of the faint lantern-lights hung beside some doors, she couldn’t see anything that looked—well, that looked like anything in particular. She’d been told by Mother Superior that there was no chapter-house in Ragnor Bella, and that the priests of the Lady’s churches lived well out of town, so that she ought to find a discreet and reputable hotel for the night or nights she required to find the reputed miracle-worker and determine whether he was the fraud he almost certainly was.
Mirabelle had never stayed in a hotel before. She was rather eager for the experience.
She went towards one of the lights, squinting against the snow as it stung her face—where she was from had much more civilized weather!—but a gust of wind threw someone against her—a young man with a ruddy beard, who cried an apology before whirling off into the dark again—and, turned around by the encounter, she stumbled into an alleyway where there was a blessed relief from the wind.
She kept close to the buildings, peering out of her shawl at the clacking wooden signs and occasional bay windows filled with wares. A haberdashers—a fish store—a butcher—some sort of ironmonger—and then she was suddenly in another open plaza, and the wind howled so viciously she instinctively turned her back to its blast.
Mirabelle was not a large woman, and her voluminous garments caught the wind like a kite; she was fair blown down the plaza, but she could see warm lights beckoning her, and praying to the Lady that this was a place she might find a moment to catch her breath and warm her frozen extremities, she let herself put her hand to the door and enter.
A bell jingled, and the wind gusted wildly with her. Mirabelle wrestled with the door, which did not want to shut against the wind, until someone threw himself at the door and heaved it shut against the snowstorm.
“Well!” the someone said. “That was a fine gust! Are you all right, miss?”
Mirabelle did look young, she knew. She attributed it to the dairying. All that cheese and buttermilk had to be good for something. Besides making to the glory of the Lady and the gastronomic and pecuniary health of the abbey, that is.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied, wiping her face as the snow melted. Oh, it was good to be inside—her hands and feet were tingling as they started to warm up. She shivered as tried to disentangle her shawl from her wimple and the throat of her cloak.
“Splendid! There’s a hook there by the door if you’d like to hang up your cloak so it can dry.”
The young man spoke with a well-edu
“Thank you,” Mirabelle said again, a little more deliberately, as she turned to the indicated hook and took off her cloak. A heavy cloak in plain dark wool hung there already. She set hers beside it, approving of such a useful garment, and was considerably surprised when she turned around to see that the young man who presumably owned the practical cloak was dressed in a long coat and knee-breeches in a sumptuous deep green velvet. Even Mirabelle knew that that style was at least two generations out of date. And that it had cost serious money when it was.
He was of university age, or perhaps a bit older, and perhaps that was enough—university students could get up to all sorts of fads and fashions. Mirabelle’s younger brother had spent most of last summer prancing around in a codpiece, at least according to her stepmother. Her brother had worn ordinary enough clothes when he came to visit her, but then again perhaps that had been in deference to his sister, the cloistered nun.
Anyway. The young man before her had returned to his seat behind the counter. He was writing something with one of the newfangled fountain pens, but alert enough to his surroundings to look up and smile a moment after she looked at him. “Can I help you find anything?” he asked pleasantly. “Or if you simply want to browse, that’s no problem either! Spend as long as you want. You can sit by the fire if you please, too. We’re open for another hour and a half.”
“Thank you,” she said a third time, and only now realized she stood inside a bookstore.
While Mirabelle was indeed a cloistered nun, sworn to poverty, and her main duties at the abbey were related to the dairy, she was Alinorel born and bred, and she loved books.
The store was a lovely space, books of all sizes and materials stored neatly on shelves and stacked in teetering piles in a few corners. No light came in from outside, but it was well-lit with oil lanterns, and there was a sizeable wood stove in the middle of the room throwing off a splendid heat. It was one of the newer kind with a tempered-glass door, so the bright flames were visible. Two chairs were drawn up on either side of it, and a kettle was hissing softly as it kept warm on the back plate. One of the chairs had a ginger cat curled up on its seat.
She took off her damp gloves and rubbed her hands. They were red and prickling from the cold, and she was glad to move closer to the fire to warm them.
Mirabelle liked this place, indeed she did. The young man would undoubtedly be able to direct her to a hotel once she was ready to leave, and perhaps she’d be able to begin her enquiries with him—a bookstore clerk was probably as good a source of the local gossip as anyone--but first, she decided, she would thaw herself out while browsing the shelves.
She had worked her way into the bookstore’s back room, where she discovered a handful of books on cheese-making, and was quite thoroughly absorbed when the door gusted open. The bell jangled loudly, and the bookstore clerk cried, “Oh, dear!” in alarmed enough tones that Mirabelle poked her head around the corner.
The clerk had shoved the door shut again, and was kneeling before a small person—a girl-child, six or seven at most—who was white and stiff with fright and cold. The girl was hardly dressed to go out, let alone in a horrible snowstorm: she wore a long night-gown, with an unbuttoned coat over it, but only stockinged feet, and neither mittens nor hat.
Mirabelle edged around the bookcases in case she could be of assistance. The clerk took the girl’s bare hands in his, frowning as he took in her lack of proper clothes. “You poor thing,” the young man said softy. “Are you wet right through?”
“C-cold,” the girl said, tears and snot running down her face. She was shivering violently, and Mirabelle was more than a little worried for her.
“Well, we’d best get you warmed up, hadn’t we?” The clerk spoke in a very soft, soothing voice. He reached for the girl’s coat, moving gently, and helped her take it off. The girl then grabbed his hand and refused to let go. “Here, let me take that … and let’s get those socks off, too. Will you let me have both hands? No? Well, that’s all right, I can make do with one … My friend only has one arm, and he does well enough.”
The girl was breathing fast, her eyes glazed and frightened. Mirabelle came forward, not certain what to do, not wanting to interfere but needing to help. “Can I do anything?” she said quietly.
The clerk jumped, evidently having forgotten she was there. “Yes,” he said without looking over, setting the socks to one side and touching the girl’s forehead, frowning. “Will you help her out of her nightgown?”
“N-no,” the girl said when the clerk tried to let go of her hand. “D-don’t go.”
“You’ll have to let me go for a moment,” the clerk said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Then I can take off my coat, and Miss—“ He glanced over at Mirabelle, and gave her a sudden, abashed smile. “Rather, Sister—”
“Mirabelle,” said Mirabelle.
“And Sister Mirabelle will help you off with your wet dress, and you can put on my warm coat. How does that sound, Miss—what is your name?”
“T-t-tabitha.”
“What a lovely name! Where’s your mother, Miss Tabitha?”
“D-d-don’t know.” Tabitha started to cry again, and the wind rattled the door. The clerk frowned.
“Well, let’s get you warm and dry first, and then we’ll see if the wind has died down a bit and we can go find your family, shall we? How does that sound, Miss Tabitha?”
Tabitha nodded jerkily and let go of the clerk’s hand, though she followed his movements with frightened eyes. He took off the green velvet coat.
“I’ll be right back,” he said in a low voice to Mirabelle. “We need to warm up her feet and hands first, but slowly, I think. Do you agree?”
Mirabelle had very little knowledge of healing, but that seemed sensible. They didn’t want to scald the girl, after all.
The clerk gave her a grateful smile and pressed the coat into her hands before hastening out the back door of the room.
Mirabelle could not help but admire the real velvet of the coat as she turned to the girl—Tabitha—who seemed to be collapsing now that the clerk had let go of her.
“Here now,” Mirabelle said hastily, and moved to strip off the girl’s wet night-gown and bundle her up again in the green velvet. The garment was far too large for her, but she sighed and relaxed into the warm cloth. “Smells good,” she said, nuzzling her face into it. “Is he coming back?”
“He is,” Mirabelle promised, even as the clerk came in. He had a wide wash-basin in one hand and a pitcher in the other, a cloth over his arm, and he seemed inured to the cool air despite being now only in his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat. That was silk, cream with green embroidery, which only added to the puzzle. Bookstore clerks might imitate aristocratic fashions, but they did not wear the real thing.
“Here I am,” the clerk said genially, kneeling before Tabitha. He set the basin on the floor and filled it halfway with water. “Sister Mirabelle, would you be so good as to pass me the kettle from the stove? There’s a pot-holder just beside you.”
Mirabelle did as she was bid, pouring a small amount of the hot water into the basin at his direction. He kept his hand in the water to test its temperature. “I think that’s enough for now,” he said. “We’ll add more hot water once you feet are a bit warmer, eh?” He smiled at Tabitha, who was still shivering and blue about her lips.
The clerk carefully moved the long ends of his coat out of the way, then dipped the girl’s feet into the basin. She hissed and whimpered, and he said, “I know, I know, it feels like pins-and-needles, doesn’t it? That’s your blood starting to move again.” He rubbed her feet with slow, gentle motions, the water splashing slightly under his gestures. Mirabelle’s own hands were tingling sympathetically as she imagined the girl’s cold extremities.
The clerk’s activities were helping, at any rate. The frighteningly white skin of her feet was beginning to grow gently pink, and her lips were not nearly so blue.
