Chapter 15: The Hawthorn Altar

The abbey of St. Verren had one lamp lit in the whole infirmary, and the old chaplain lay under it.

He was ninety, perhaps older, thin and bald but for a white fringe.

A sister sat by his bed with a basin and said nothing as we came in.

Doran shut the door and set two wardens outside it.

"He has not spoken since the feast of the lanterns," the sister said. "He is not in pain. He is only leaving."

I lowered myself onto the stool beside him and took his hand.

It was cold and weighed almost nothing.

"Father," I said. "I am Marit Ashdown's daughter."

His eyes opened.

They were cloudy and pale, and they found my face slowly.

"Marit," he whispered.

"Her daughter. Liora."

"She had that jaw." A thread of a smile crossed his mouth. "Stubborn. I told her so at the altar."

Doran went still beside me.

"He wants to talk," I said. "He doesn't have the breath. Sister, will you witness what he says?"

The sister took out a pen and a sheet of paper without a word.

I put my other hand flat on the chaplain's chest.

I did not try to cure him, because old age is not a wound.

But the lungs under my palm were tight and wet, and I could ease them.

The gift came up, thin and weary.

I had given it away three times in two days, and my hands shook.

I held on until his chest rose and fell evenly.

The chaplain breathed in, deeply, for the first time in a month.

"Thank you, child," he said, and his voice was almost a voice. "Now. Ask."

"Did you marry my mother?"

"I married Marit Ashdown to Aldous Marchbanks in this abbey, before the hawthorn altar, twenty-five years ago this spring."

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