The consecrated oil in the small pewter ampulla was thick with winter frost.
Sister Oda warmed the metal between her palms as she knelt beside the third straw pallet along the east wall of the bakehouse. The young carter lying before her had taken an iron quarrel through his ribs when the gatehouse collapsed; his breath came in thin, bubbling whistles that flecked his lips with pink froth. His skin was the color of curdled tallow, but his dark eyes fluttered toward her as her woolen sleeve brushed his shoulder.
“By the seven mercies of Jude the Apostle,” Oda whispered, dipping her right thumb into the fragrant spikenard and pressing it to the center of the boy’s forehead. “May the Lord of the Threshold loose thee from the coil of thy sins, and receive thy spirit into the unburning light.”
The boy tried to murmur a response, but his chin fell slack, his head rolling sideways against the coarse sacking of the pillow. His pulse beneath her fingertips stuttered twice, fluttered like a moth against a windowpane, and ceased.
Oda drew the rough wool blanket up over his face, murmured the final commendation, and rose stiffly to her feet.
The bakehouse had become a tomb of shadows and smoke. Through the cracked high clerestory windows, the daylight was a greasy, yellow smudge that barely penetrated the haze of steam and vinegar. Twenty-four men lay on the pallets between the flour bins and the cooling racks, their low groans blending into…
