The Book of Earth Read Online Free PDF

with pick and hand. But the baroness had been tall and thin, as Erde would be also.
    “There will be room enough,” she murmured sadly.
    Beside her, Rainer shifted, cleared his throat, and said nothing. She wished they could hold hands like they used to in church, keeping each other awake on cold mornings during the sermon. She wanted to weep and lean into him, as she would do with her great horse Micha, exchanging her grief for his warmth and solidity. But she knew if she slipped her hand into his, Rainer would stiffen and ease hishand away. Besides, her father would be angry if he spied her disgracing him with childish tears and displays of emotion. Erde sighed deeply and kept her eyes dry.
    The white-robes ranged themselves before the grave like a military escort, at rigid attention in two rows of fifteen, waiting for the stragglers to arrive. To Erde it felt as if she was their prisoner, instead of them being guests of the castle. When the court had finally assembled, one white-robe stepped forward as Brother Guillemo would be expected to do. He signaled the pallbearers to set down the bier. Four of the baroness’ most favored retainers, the old herald among them, took up the damp embroidered edges of the linen to lift the slight still weight and lower it into the shallow pit. The fifteenth Baron von Alte stood at the head of the grave and gazed down at his mother’s shrouded remains, frowning.
    The white-robe who had come forward began the ritual of burial. He kept his head down and his voice low and reverent until the section of the rite where the priest addresses the congregation. Then he let both rise, and augmented his performance with gestures. His cowl slid back a bit as he warmed to a lecture on the wages of sin, warning of a nearby day of reckoning. Erde waited for him to mention dragons but he only decried the wickedness of the worldly in a more general sort of way, exhorting all present to stand beside him in the coming battle against the evils abroad in the land, to take responsibility and clean out the “sinkholes of depravity” in their own back gardens.
    Erde was disappointed. She thought his harangue a standard one and over-rehearsed. Tor Alte’s own chaplain was also dull but at least he’d known the baroness, and would have done better by being able to say something personal. What did catch her interest was noting that the haranguer was not the same man who’d passed as Brother Guillemo a few hours earlier. Covertly, she located her own candidate in the back rank, but this time she forgot herself and stared too long. His eyes, darting about, met hers and held piercingly until she could gather her wits enough to glance away.
    Her heart thudded. She felt short of breath. Throughout the rest of the long, sleet-sodden ceremony, Erde pressed as close to Rainer as he would allow, and did not look up again.

C HAPTER T HREE

    A t the funeral feast that evening, a third false-Guillemo took the place of honor at the baron’s right.
    Candles flared at the high table and the hearths burned bright. Precious oil smoked in every lamp on the three great wagon-wheel chandeliers. Three days had passed since word had come of Brother Guillemo’s offer to reroute his pilgrimage in order to bury the baroness in the full authority of the Church of Rome. The baron’s chamberlain had been frantically gathering food and arranging the precise protocols of seating and serving. Household and guests crowded the long horseshoe of stout wooden trestles, grateful for the ceremonial excuse to eat all they could get their hands on.
    Tray after tray of roasted meats and sauced vegetables paraded past the high table for inspection. Meanwhile, the new false-Guillemo engaged Baron Josef in a peculiarly one-way conversation. Seated to her father’s left, Erde listened while pretending not to. This man’s voice was deep like the other two Guillemos’, but more nasal. Her girl-child’s enforced experience as a listener told her