Valentine by Heather Grothaus Read Free Book Online

was empty, fortunate for the friends as they crossed to the particularly wide bank of shelves in the center of the right wall of the library—the only section that was not uniform with the rest of the room’s design. If one should look up at the exterior of the wall from the hill outside the abbey, it would appear that this section of Melk abutted the gatehouse directly.
    Valentine and Roman were at Adrian’s heels as he reached up with one arm—the sleeve of his robe sliding back to his elbow and revealing the misshapen muscles in his forearm—and pulled out a tome that seemed as anonymous as the ones stretching to either side.
    But at the book’s tilt, a soft click and then a softer creak sounded and a section of the bookshelf shifted. Adrian reached along the bottom of one of the shelves for the shallow handhold and pulled the secret door open.
    Then the trio stepped into one of Melk’s greatest treasures—the abbey’s true library, and the place that had been Valentine and his friends’ private refuge since their arrival late last October.
    This room, too, was filled with manuscripts, but unlike the ones that lined the shelves in the outer library, these books were not copied texts produced by the monks; they were original manuscripts written in the hands of their authors. Works on astronomy, mathematics, anatomy, architecture; writings of saints, popes, emperors, and kings—priceless firsthand accounts from the greatest geniuses who had ever lived.
    Victor and Constantine were already within, seated at the large, square table in the center of the room; Valentine thought they must have come up through the gatehouse. Adrian went to his high-backed chair set at an angle to the long, deep window that, from the outside, appeared to be nothing more than an arrow slit.
    Victor wasted no time. “We have a problem, gentleman,” he said, and his eyes locked on Valentine’s.
    Valentine sighed and then spread his arms wide and sank into a bow. “I am very sorry that I allowed the woman to breach the sanctity of the little wooden box.” He arose and let his arms fall as he looked around at his friends. “But I can assure you that I had no choice. She was determined to wait for Victor there, and I dared no refuse her lest she scream down the walls and disturb your holy silence.”
    Stan shook his head. “That’s not the problem, Valentine.”
    Roman took a seat across the table from the abbot, but Valentine preferred to stand. Close to the exit. He was not certain that this little meeting would not yet find him at fault.
    Victor continued. “You acted correctly in showing the lady to the red confessional, although I do wish you had paid more heed to my instructions for its use.”
    “Again, I apologize. I do hope the sack of coin we gifted you at our arrival helps to offset your annoyance with me,” Valentine said, speaking of the Chastellet gold carried by Roman on the men’s long flight from Damascus—the portion that had not been lost to Saladin’s guards.
    “It is in speaking of that coin that I have my own confession to make,” Victor continued.
    Valentine’s interest was piqued, and so he pulled out his chair and sat at last.
    “Perhaps a month after your arrival here, I entered into a deep introspection, not only of the facts that Constantine and the rest of you had presented to me about the charges against you all, but of my own soul and conscience.”
    Valentine glanced at Stan. How much of this explanation did Constantine already know? Likely all of it, Valentine mused. But that suited him well enough; Constantine Gerard was the general, after all. If anyone knew now how to be deliberate in actions and planning, it was he.
    “I worried that beyond giving the four of you asylum at Melk, there was little I could do to help you extricate yourselves from these wicked accusations. I want nothing more than for your names to be cleared. For Constantine to be reunited with his wife and son; Adrian, his