Read Flesh and Spirit for Free Online Page A

the entire way.
    At least it seemed I’d managed to keep us in Ardra. Even ravaged by war and fiendish weather, my birth province was yet the fairest of Navronne’s three. Morian was flat and ugly, its sprawling ports and trade cities infested with plague, mosquitoes, woolen mills, and rapacious trade guilds. And our proximity to Evanore, that land of devils’ mountains, yet left me queasy. Evanore’s duc, Prince Osriel, forbade purebloods entry into his lands. I’d been taught that his border wards would boil a pureblood’s brains until they leaked out his ears.
    I grimaced and rubbed my shaggy head.
    Jullian hunched his thin shoulders and dropped his voice. “I’ve heard a battle was fought at Wroling a sevenday since, Prince Perryn’s army routed by Prince Bayard and the Harrower legions. Gerard, another aspirant who took up the sanctuary watch after me, was told to watch for survivors, though Brother Porter said he’d heard they were all captive or dead, every one.”
    Disgust at the waste raised my bile. As far as I was concerned, they could give the cursed throne to the Harrower priestess, Sila Diaglou—or to this Ardran child Pretender whom no one sober had ever seen. “Does your abbot favor Prince Perryn, then, to be willing to take in what’s left of his men?”
    “The abbot holds Gillarine as a neutral field,” said the boy. His wide blue eyes shone, declaring his faith that a sainted man could make even such a ridiculous thing be true. “King Eodward built the abbey years and years ago. On holy ground, the story says. He gave the Hierarchs of Ardra dominion over it, but only as long as they fulfill the terms of his grant—to preserve and protect all knowledge and all supplicants—even those who know naught of Iero or his holy writs. He said the angels themselves, sent forth to journey among men, would know of this place, and might find their way here in their need.”
    I couldn’t imagine the warring princes honoring so magnanimous a legend. But it sounded very nice. Far better than any number of places Boreas could have abandoned me.
    “Holy ground this might be,” I said, “but alas, no one will ever mistake me for an angel. Your wise abbot can tell you.” Which left open the question Gildas had brought to the fore. Why would a perceptive holy man admit a stranger to his household so readily? Were his stores so plentiful he could afford to take on any vagabond who happened by? Serena Fortuna had ever been kind, but sensible caution had kept me free.
    A blast of wind rattled the horn windows, ruffling the parchment and plants on Robierre’s worktable and setting his hanging herb bundles swaying. The spring auguries taken by Prince Perryn’s pureblood diviners predicted the coming winter would be the worst in living memory. Of course, a blind birdwit could predict that did he but bare his skin to the wind these past days. And the Reaper’s Moon had not yet shone.
    I scooted a little deeper in the bed. The more I considered a house full of kindly fellows given to charity and good cooking, the better it sounded as a winter haven, prayers and bells notwithstanding. If I’d imagined it so easy to join up with a Karish brotherhood, I might have done so years ago. Best keep the path smooth.
    “So, Jullian, clearly you are not some villein boy sent here to be a mere kitchen drudge forever…but schooled. An aspirant…preparing to take vows yourself when you’re old enough. Perchance…being a scholarly boy…of course, you can read?”
    He sat up proudly. “Both Navron and Aurellian, though my Aurellian is not so fine. I read it as well as any in the abbey, but to think out the words to write a new text and set them together with proper variants is very hard. Not that my writing hand is ill. Abbot Luviar says I could scribe for the saint at heaven’s gate. He’s even allowed me to help in the scriptorium. Not to write, of course, not yet, but to clean the pens and brushes, help mix the