The Seer and the Scribe Read online

  THE SEER AND THE SCRIBE

  SPEAR OF DESTINY

  A MEDIEVAL MURDER MYSTERY

  G.M. DYREK

  LUMINIS BOOKS

  Published by Luminis Books

  1950 East Greyhound Pass, #18, PMB 280,

  Carmel, Indiana, 46033, U.S.A.

  Copyright © G.M. Dyrek, 2011

  PUBLISHER’S NOTICE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover art design and interior illustrations for Spear of Destiny by G.M. Dyrek.

  Cover art direction by G.M. Dyrek and Elynn Cohen.

  Medieval border adapted from engraving by Master I. A. M. of Zwolle, The

  Netherlands, 1480-1490, entitled “Allegory of the Transience of Life.”

  ISBN-10: 1-935462-39-3

  ISBN-13: 978-1-935462-39-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Jeff and David,

  my encouragers, and to

  Hildegard and Volmar, their

  tremendous accomplishments,

  my inspiration.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to credit all my brilliant teachers who have influenced me over the past years with their finely crafted murder mysteries: Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, P.D. James, Umberto Eco, Ken Follett, Ellis Peters, Peter Tremayne, Laurie R. King, Ariana Franklin, to name a few of my favorites. Reading murder mysteries has always been a secret indulgence of mine and like any artistic apprentice, I’ve learned so much from these talented authors and owe them all an enormous debt of gratitude. On a similar note, I’d like to thank those authors that have taught me about the 12th century and Hildegard’s life and works, namely the works of Barbara Newman, Sabina Flanagan, Barbara Lachman, Anna Silvas, Priscilla Throop, Dr. Wighard Strehlow, Dr. Gottfried Hertzka, and Matthew Fox. It has been their meticulous research and translations which have fueled and enlightened my own research. We truly stand on the shoulders of giants.

  On a more personal note, I’d like to express my deepest heartfelt appreciation to my son David, who from infancy on has shaped my passion for storytelling and has always been my most enthusiastic supporter. As my first critic on the earlier drafts, his insightful comments strengthened the story considerably. I also owe a special thanks to my niece, Melissa McIntosh, whose image appears on the cover as Hildegard and my son David who posed as Volmar for both the cover and the inside illustrations. I will always be indebted to my husband Jeff, who has endured with such loving patience the temperament of a dreamer and optimist, while tirelessly editing my works over the years.

  None of this, however, would have been possible without the kind support, advice, and encouragement of my editor and publisher at Luminis Books, Chris Katsaropoulos, and the market director and president, Tracy Richardson.

  ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE SEER AND THE SCRIBE:

  “Dyrek draws readers into the world of medieval monastic life with a keen knowledge of the era and an eye for compelling characters. Opening the book will feel like stepping back into a long ago world of mystery, murder, and faith.”

  —A. LaFaye, award-winning author of Worth

  “The Seer and the Scribe has created almost a new genre; the book is a mixture of historical fiction, mystery, fantasy, and romance. The historical fiction takes place in the untapped 12th century, including secret societies, religious life, and the hierarchy of those in power. The twists and turns in the book weave a masterful and intriguing plot that appeals to a wide audience.”

  —Jim David, Seventh grade Social Studies teacher

  “This book takes you on a wonderful journey suitable for readers of any age. The Seer and the Scribe was captivating from page one, and my only complaint is that it had to end so quickly. I am anxiously awaiting Book Two and the further adventures of Volmar and Hildegard.”

  —Dr. Joel K. Barnes, Assistant Principal, Cleveland Middle School

  THE SEER AND THE SCRIBE

  SPEAR OF DESTINY

  A MEDIEVAL MURDER MYSTERY

  PREFACE

  At the Porter’s Gates of Disibodenberg Monastery

  27th of November, Thursday, in the Year of Our Lord 1102

  “There are no mysteries here, my son, no secrets, and certainly no romance. The brotherhood will be your new family. Through these gates, you will find only peace and quiet.” The words were whispered by the venerable lord Abbot Burchard, whose chilled, wraith-like breath wrapped around the trembling boy like a shroud.1

  There are truths worth knowing; yet, lies sometimes can feel better than truths. Volmar had seen more in his seven years than most, and knew a lie when he heard one. Nowhere on this earth would he find peace to still the inner torment he felt. Why not welcome this lie from the kindly holy stranger who promised him a new family, peace, and a quiet sanctuary away from the pain of his life?

  “Please sir, Anya has a fever and needs medicine.” Volmar spoke these words with clarity, having at last found his voice, his diction leaving no doubt of his upper-class pedigree. He reached awkwardly for a coin from his finely-tooled leather pouch, still trying to cradle his younger sister’s limp, lifeless head.

  The Abbot grimaced, knowing the difficulty any child had in facing the finality of death. “Keep your gold coins, son, only the Lord can save Anya. You must let her go, for she is in His care now.”

  Beyond exhaustion, beyond hunger, Volmar knew he had no fight left in him to resist. He lowered his deep-set, smoldering blue eyes and surrendered. There were no more tears left in him to be shed. Abbot Burchard gently lifted Anya, the last member of Volmar’s family, from his arms forever.

  BOOK 1: YOUNG APPRENTICES

  CHAPTER 1: ENTICEMENTS OF THE MIND

  The Stables of Disibodenberg Monastery

  10th of March, Wednesday, in the Year of Our Lord 1104

  “Take that, you belching beast!” Volmar swung hard, his long thin stick stinging the air, hitting the imaginary dragon directly between the eyes, cutting it in half. “Volmar!” Brother Hugo, the Keeper of the Stables, yelled out, his stern voice breaking into the boy’s daydream with grim vengeance.

  “I’m coming,” Volmar said, tossing his weapon into the grove of fruit trees and scooping up the pail of water he’d gone to the well to fetch. He raced back down the path from the well, the bucket cradled steadily in his arms so the water wouldn’t slosh over the sides.

  Dutifully, Volmar went to the trough in the stable and filled it with the cold water. He nodded to the sheep and pigs, acknowledging their bleating and grunts of thanks. He turned the bucket upside down and sat on it, warmed by the heat of the animals. By tending the livestock at the monastery he had learned the languages of the different animals and how to care for them, appreciating their simple, direct voices. People, though, were different, he mused. There was always tension between their spirits and the world, a tension which caused their voices to be discordant and misunderstood. Not so with animals.

  “Come over here, son, I want to show you one of life’s miracles.” Hugo was a morose, uncommunicative monk and spoke to others only on rare occasions. However, towards Volmar he talked continuously. It was as if he held a never-ending conversation with his young apprentice from sunup to sundown, going from one thought to the next with little pause.

  “Let me ask you, Volmar . . . Is reflection a vain pursuit?” he queried his young protégé.

  Volmar rose from the upturned bucket he had been sitting on, shaking his head automatically in dissent. He knew what was comin
g next.

  “I think not, my boy, for it allows us frail beings an opportunity to forget death and the endless, relentless march of time. It allows us to reflect on what lives on, beyond our years on God’s green earth.”

  Hugo reached into the compost pile with his bare hands and pulled up a fist full of greyish leathery-looking maggots. “Look here, Volmar. There is such complexity in God’s design, that these tiny maggots with their sharp little teeth give us the rich soil that puts food on our table and sustains our lives. Here, son, feel life’s mystery.” Hugo opened Volmar’s hand and dropped the crawling black dirt into it.

  Volmar cringed, remembering he had mucked out the stalls of the horses only this morning, while they smelled disgustingly of fresh manure. How could he tell his kindly Stable Master that he could not stand it whenever his hands were dirty?

  “Ah, breathe it in, son. Don’t you just relish the beauty of God’s magnificent plan?”

  The rusting iron gate swung open and Brother Paulus, the Infirmarian,2 walked in carrying a small scroll in his large hand.

  “Good day, Brother Hugo,” Paulus said, greeting the man whose face had suddenly turned upside down into a frown. Brother Paulus’s voice was rich and deep, fitting for a man of his gargantuan3 size.

  Volmar, supremely grateful for the diversion Paulus caused, allowed the fistful of maggots to fall through his fingers and wiped his hands quickly against the front of his loose, white wool shirt. The boy noticed with surprise that Hugo was treating this man’s visit warily, as a dog would to another dog who invaded his territory.

  “I’m working . . . which I see you are not,” Hugo said with little humor, forgoing any polite introductions.

  “I shall be blunt, Hugo, for I know you prefer it that way.” Paulus unrolled the parchment and handed it over to the stable master. “Abbot Burchard has agreed that Volmar becomes my personal apprentice. His writing, reading and understanding skills far surpass any of the other young boys, and I am in desperate need of a capable young scribe.”

  Hugo did not immediately answer. He was listening but with only half of his attention. He stared at the parchment and its cryptic lines, which Volmar knew were beyond his ability to interpret. With a grumbling humph, Hugo rolled the parchment up dismissively. “The boy has to have a say in his future, Paulus. It’s only fitting that he is given the choice. What say you, Volmar? This man wants to take you away from here . . .”

  Paulus quickly interrupted, “Only to the Infirmary, my son, where you can learn the healing arts and use the mind God has given you.”

  Volmar turned from one man to the other, realizing the enormity of this decision.

  “Be off with you, Paulus,” Hugo demanded, giving back the Infirmarian the parchment of agreement. “The Good Lord above knows this is where the boy belongs.” He made no efforts to restrain the triumph in his voice.

  Paulus accepted the parchment graciously, and studied the face of Volmar. “Is it your will that I leave?” he asked courteously, “For one so young and talented as you are there will always be conflicting choices.” Paulus himself knew the appeal of many interests. He became a healer at the late age of thirty, having spent most of his youth traversing the world as a traveling scholar. Something too, the Infirmarian failed to consider, was Hugo’s obvious affections for the boy. As an orphan himself, Paulus knew the power of such attachments. Wrenching one so young from a secure and predictable environment into one that changed daily, even hourly with the demands of the sick, certainly presented the boy a difficult predicament.

  “Thank you, sir, for your offer, I am indeed very grateful, but . . .” Here Volmar’s usual eloquence failed him. He searched for the words, turning instinctively to Hugo. Volmar’s unspoken feelings communicated his desire to Hugo, his desire to leave the stables for the intoxicating prospect of expanding his knowledge with this learned monk.

  Hugo’s incomprehension over the boy’s changed appearance slowly turned into a burning desire to be rid of his young charge. He finished off the boy’s thoughts by saying with a growl, “Be off with you both! But I warn you, child, the enticements of the mind will never replace the euphoria of hard work.”

  Hugo stood stoically to one side and let them by, silencing their apologetic whispers with a glare and a mouth shut tight.

  CHAPTER 2: THE SECRET VISION

  Country Road Leading to the Village of Sponheim

  29th of October, Monday, in the Year of Our Lord 1106

  Hildegard of Bermersheim tried not to listen to her parents arguing. The opulent carriage lurched to one side and the young girl slid up against its latched door, suddenly feeling the draft of the cool morning seeping through its cracks. She stretched out her hands and closed her eyes, imagining herself as light as a feather and with no strength of her own, being tossed about by the chilled breath of God.

  “From the day she was born, we agreed she would be our tithe4 to the church,” Sir Hildebert said, staring straight ahead. “I told you not to get so attached,” he added harshly, his square jaw clenched.

  Lady Mechtilde of Merxheim’s dark eyes flashed with unspoken hostility. “I am her mother. And I remember telling you I would do no such thing!” She wore a wig made from a peasant’s hair and, as was her habit, she touched it nervously to make sure it was still in place.

  “You have nine other children, woman! Surely you can part with one. Especially one so frail and . . .” he stumbled as if correcting himself, “. . . mystifying.” Cautiously, the old knight eyed his youngest daughter sitting across from him as if he wasn’t sure if she deserved his pity or his fear. He loosened his collar and, with unacknowledged discomfort, looked away from her. “Besides, the arrangements have been made. She will be well cared for.”

  “Are you sure?” Hildegard’s mother said, the doubt in her voice audible. “I’ve heard tales about this fourteen-year-old companion of hers, Jutta of Sponheim.”

  Sir Hildebert gave an exasperated sigh as he knocked his cane against the ceiling, signaling to the driver that he needed to take the curves with less enthusiasm. “Please tell me you’re not listening to the servants again.”

  “Sometimes I think they have more sense than we do,” she added sullenly, taking the silver filigreed clasp from her silken scarf and pinning it to the cape draped around Hildegard’s shoulders.

  “I thought I gave that to you on the eve of our wedding,” Sir Hildebert muttered.

  “You did. I want our child to have something precious from both of us.”

  Sir Hildebert rolled his eyes and grunted, “Humph . . . sentimentality, a woman’s frailty.”

  “And cold-heartedness, a man’s demise,” Lady Mechtilde responded with spite, giving him an incensed glare. She shifted her attentions back to Hildegard. “Poor child, her cape will have to do since we will no longer be responsible for keeping her warm.”

  Lady Mechtilde dabbed a stray tear with her handkerchief and turned to stare out the window. “Hildegard is such a sensitive child. I’m afraid Jutta will simply overpower her. I’ve heard that she has behaved scandalously ever since her father’s death. Imagine turning down so many eligible suitors! There’s even gossip that she wants her own anchor-hold5, a tomb to live and pray in all the rest of her days.”

  Sir Hildebert absently twisted his family’s signet6 ring on his finger. “Count Meinhard, Jutta’s brother, mentioned all this to me. I told you before, Jutta suffered a near fatal illness when she was twelve and promised God that if she lived, she would serve Him as a virgin the rest of her life.”

  “Well, she seems quite determined to keep her promise. I’ve heard they are considering converting the old stables at Disibodenberg monastery into an anchor-hold. I do not approve of my child being someone else’s consolation from Heaven. It sounds so . . .” she frowned, “so cold and lonely.” She gazed longingly at her daughter, who had her eyes closed and was now humming a lilting tune. “You must admit, Hildebert, more than any of our other children, Hildegard is the most prec
ocious. She has a beautiful voice and a clever mind.”

  “Yet she possesses a weak constitution, my dear. Hildegard would die trying to give a husband children, unlike our Irmengard or Clementia. We’ve gone over this several times. I would rather she be someone else’s comfort than our grief. Have you not heard what her own brothers say of her?”

  “Must you always speak this way in front of the child?” Lady Mechtilde motioned sympathetically to her eight-year-old daughter sitting across from them.

  “Why? She didn’t mince her words to them! She told them that they walk with the Devil and warned them that their children will one day turn against them. She didn’t even stop there! She said she had a ‘vision’ of them as adults crawling pitifully like spiders into a high stone tower!”

  Lady Mechtilde grimaced, “If it was Drutwin and Roricus, I don’t doubt it’s true,” she said, shaking her head with annoyance. “It would do them some good to listen to their baby sister’s warning. You must admit, they do act rashly and are entirely disobedient.”

  “Come now, think, woman! We’ve all witnessed Hildegard’s powers of foretelling the future and have heard her communing with the spirit world. It’s unnatural! She’s unnatural.” He glared across at his own flesh and blood as if she was diseased and now, as a last resort, required amputation. When he looked away, he concluded sharply, “These two young girls will suit one another, whether or not they make their home at Sponheim or Disibodenberg.”

  Hildegard stopped humming, suddenly fully aware of her parents’ painful attentions. She’d heard enough of her father’s reasoning and her mother’s pleading to know why they thought she was better off as a ward of the church. She opened her eyes, cupped her hands and blew on them, scattering imaginary seeds, remembering the secret vision she had had of her own future; of her own talents spreading and sprouting new growth that would last beyond her lifetime. She knew not what the seeds represented; only that she was destined to plant them. No, she consoled herself, her parents were both wrong. Her future resided not in their hands, as they thought.