《Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars #2)》


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    PROLOGUE


    1


    ALL spring they managed to stay alive by hiding in the abandoned tannery quarter, coming out only at night to scrounge for food. After a few nights, running from the dogs, hiding in the pits, they became accustomed to the stink. Better to stink like the tanners, Matthias pointed out to his sister, than be torn to pieces by dogs.


    Anna reflected silently on this. It gave her some small satisfaction to know that if they were caught by the Eika savages, if they were run down by the dogs and rent arm from shoulder, leg from hip, at least they would smell so badly of chicken dung that surely not even those hideous dogs would eat them. Or if the dogs did eat them, then maybe their flesh, immersed so many times in oak bark tannin that their skin had begun to take on a leathery cast, would poison the creatures; then, from the Chamber of Light where her spirit would reside after death in blessed peace, she could watch their writhing, agonized deaths.


    All spring there was food to be scrounged, for those who had escaped the city had fled without having time to fetch anything and those who had not escaped were dead. Or so at least observation told them. Half-eaten corpses lay strewn in the streets and alleys, and many houses stank of rotted flesh. But they found stores of vegetables in root cellars and barrels of ale in the common houses. Once, they foolishly ventured to the kitchens of the mayor¡¯s palace where they found sweetmeats that made Anna, who stuffed herself with them, violently ill. Matthias forced her to run, gagging, with a hand clapped over her mouth to keep it in and in such pain she thought her stomach was going to burst, all the way back to the tanneries so she could throw it up into the puering pits, a stew of chicken dung mixed with water that would, he prayed, hide the smell of fresh human vomit.


    No dogs came ¡¯round the tanneries for a long while after that. Perhaps the Eika had given up hunting their human prey or deemed there were none left worth hunting in the empty city. Perhaps they¡¯d sailed down the river to hunt in greener pastures. But neither child dared climb the city walls to the parapet to see how many Eika ships lay beached along the river¡¯s edge. Now and again they saw Eika walking those parapets, staring north toward the sea. Now and again they heard the keening and howling of the dogs and, once, the screams of a human, whether man or woman they could not tell. They kept to familiar haunts and stayed mostly in the little shed where Matthias had slept after he had been apprenticed to a currier the winter before the Eika attack. Left behind, forgotten, in the confusion of the attack and the hopeless street-by-street defense of the city, he had had the wits to take refuge with his younger sister in the foul tannery pits when he saw the dogs hunting through the city. That was why they had survived when so many others had died.


    But come summer, they used up their last stores and had to dig in untended gardens for those half-grown vegetables that had fought past the weeds. They learned to hunt rats, for there were rats aplenty in the empty buildings, fat ones well fed on dessicated corpses. Anna found herself with a talent for stone throwing, too, and brought down seagulls and complacent pigeons and once a feral cat.


    Come summer, more Eika came, and these Eika brought human slaves with them, gleaned from a distant harvest.


    When one fine summer¡¯s morning the Eika returned to the tanning quarter with slaves brought to work in the tannery, the two children fled to a loft and cowered behind tanned hides which had been hung to dry from the crossbeams. When they heard voices, the creak and scrape of a body climbing the ladder, Matthias boosted Anna up to one of the great beams. Her terror added strength to her tugs, and with him scrambling on the uneven plank wall and her pulling, they got him up beside her. There they huddled, clinging to the beam and shaking with fear. The stink of the tannery protected them no longer. The trapdoor opened at the far end of the loft.


    Anna sucked down a sob when they heard the first whispery soft words¡ªan Eika speaking a language they could not understand. A dog yipped and growled outside. As if in reply a human voice¡ªbelow, from over by the puering pits¡ªyelped in pain, then began screaming and pleading pointlessly and unintelligibly, screaming again until at last, mercifully, the screams cut off with a gurgle. Matthias bit his lip to keep from crying out. Anna¡¯s eyes filled with tears that slipped down her cheeks; she grasped the wooden Circle of Unity that hung on a leather cord at her thin chest¡ªher mother¡¯s dying gift to her¡ªand traced her finger around its smooth circle in silent prayer as she had seen her mother do many times, though this wordless prayer had not availed her mother against her final illness.


    Footsteps shuddered on the rungs. A body scraped, half metal, half cloth, heaving itself up and over onto the loft floor. A man grunted, a human sound, curt and yet familiar in its humanity.

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    The Eika spoke again, this time in recognizable if broken Wendish. ¡°How soon these is ready?¡±


    ¡°I will have to look them over.¡± The man enunciated each word carefully. ¡°Most likely all are ready if they¡¯ve been here since¡ª¡± He broke off, then took a shuddering breath. Had he witnessed that killing just now, or only listened to it, as they had? ¡°Since spring.¡±


    ¡°I count, these,¡± said the Eika. ¡°Before you come, I count these skins. Less than I count come to me when they ready, I kill one slave for each skin less than I count. I start with you.¡±


    ¡°I understand,¡± said the man, but the children could not see him, could only hear, and what emotion they heard in his voice they could not interpret.


    ¡°You bring to me when ready,¡± said the Eika. The ladder creaked, and this time they recognized the slight chime of mail as the Eika left the loft and climbed back down, away, to wherever Eika went when they were not hunting and killing.


    Still the children clung there, praying the man would go away.


    But instead he moved slowly through the loft, jostling the hides, rubbing them, testing them. Counting them. A loose plank creaked under his foot. The quiet rustle of a hide sliding against another marked his progress, and the huff and stir of leather-sodden air in the dim room, spreading outward from his movements, shifted and swirled about them like the exhalation of approaching death, for discovery would indeed mean death.


    Finally it was too much for Anna, who was three winters younger than Matthias. The sound got out of her throat, like a puppy¡¯s whimper, before she could gulp it back. The man¡¯s slow quiet movement ceased, but they still heard his breathing, ragged in the gloom.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± the man whispered, then muttered a Lady¡¯s Blessing.


    Anna set her lips together, squeezed her eyes shut, and wept silently, free hand clutching the Circle. Matthias groped for the knife at his belt, but he was afraid to pull it out of its sheath, for even that slight noise would surely give them away.


    ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± the man said again, and his voice shook as if he, too, were afraid.


    Neither child dared answer. Finally, thank the Lady, he went away.


    They waited a while and climbed down from the beam.


    ¡°I have to pee,¡± whimpered Anna as she wiped her nose. But they dared not leave the loft and yet, sooner or later, they would have to leave the loft or starve. She peed in the farthest darkest corner and hoped it would dry before anyone came back up. There were other chores for the new slaves in the tannery¡ªhides to be washed and hair and flesh scraped from them, new pits to be filled for puering or drenching, hides to be layered in with oak bark, saturated in the tannic acid, or, tanning completed, rinsed off and smoothed before drying. There were other lofts where hides waited, drying, in silent darkness, until they were ready for the currier. No reason anyone should come up here again this day.


    But that evening they heard steps on the ladder. No time, this time, to scramble up on the beam. They huddled behind the far wall, wrapping themselves in a cow hide.


    They heard, instead of words, the soft tap of something set down on wood. Then the trap closed and footsteps thumped down the ladder. After a bit Matthias ventured out.


    ¡°Anna! Quietly!¡± he whispered.


    She crept out and found him weighing a hunk of goat¡¯s cheese in one hand and a dark, small, misshapen loaf of bread in the other. A rough-hewn wooden bowl sat empty beside the trap. She stared at these treasures fearfully. ¡°If we eat it, then he¡¯ll know we¡¯re here.¡±


    Matthias broke off a piece of cheese, sniffed it, and popped it in his mouth. ¡°We¡¯ll eat a bit now,¡± he said. ¡°What difference does it make? If we don¡¯t get out of here tonight, then they¡¯ll discover us sooner or later. We¡¯ll save the rest for after we¡¯ve escaped.¡±


    She nodded. She knew when to argue, now, and when to remain silent because argument was pointless. He gave her a corner of cheese; it tasted salty and pungent. The bread was dry as plain oats, and its coarse texture made her thirsty. He divided the rest of the food into two portions and gave half to her. Both carried leather pouches, tied to their belts, for such gleanings as this. Such necessities the ruined city provided in plenty, taken from empty houses and shops or¡ªif valuable enough¡ªpried from the dead. Water, clothing, knives or spoons or even an entire timbered house furnished with fine painted furniture and good linen, none of this they lacked; only food and safety.


    They waited until no crack of light gleamed through the plank walls onto the warped floorboards, until gray shadow became indistinguishable from black. Then Matthias eased open the trap and slid over the edge as quietly as he could.

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    ¡°Lady!¡±


    A man, not Matthias, spoke. Anna froze. Matthias grunted and dropped to the ground.


    ¡°There now,¡± said the man, ¡°don¡¯t pull your knife on me. I won¡¯t hurt you. Lady Above, I didn¡¯t think any soul had survived in this charnel house. You¡¯re just a child.¡±


    ¡°Old enough to be apprenticed,¡± muttered Matthias, stung, as he always was, because this man¡¯s voice was like their uncle¡¯s and his taunt the same one. Only perhaps, Anna thought, this man had spoken with awed pity, not with contempt, when he called Matthias a child. She had a sudden rash intuition that this man could be trusted, unlike their uncle, and anyway, if Matthias was now caught, it was better to die with him than to struggle on in a fight she could never win alone. She swung her legs out and climbed quickly and quietly down the ladder.


    Matthias swore at her under his breath. The man gasped aloud, then clapped a hand over his mouth and stared furtively around, but they remained alone. No one moved through the tanning grounds this late. The quarter moon lit them, and thin ghostly shadows cut the pits with strange patterns. Anna grabbed her brother¡¯s hand and held on tightly.


    ¡°Ai, Lady, and a younger one still,¡± the man said at last. ¡°I thought you was a cat. Are there more of you?¡±


    ¡°Only us two,¡± said Matthias.


    ¡°Lord in Heaven. How did you survive?¡±


    Matthias gestured toward the pits, then realized the man might not be able to see his movement. ¡°There was food enough to be scrounged, until now. We hid here because the dogs couldn¡¯t smell us.¡±


    The man squinted at Anna in the dim light, stepped forward abruptly, and took her chin in his hand. Matthias started forward, raising his belt knife, but Anna said, ¡°No,¡± and he stopped and waited.


    After a moment the man let go and stepped back, brushing his eyes with a finger. ¡°A girl. You¡¯re a girl, and no older than my little Mariya. The Lady is merciful, to have saved one.¡±


    ¡°Where is your daughter?¡± asked Anna, bold now. This man did not scare her.


    ¡°Dead,¡± he said curtly. ¡°In the Eika raid that took my village not a month ago. They killed everyone.¡±


    ¡°They didn¡¯t kill you,¡± said Anna reasonably, seeing that he looked alive and not anything like the shade of a dead man¡ªnot that she had ever seen such a thing, but certainly she had heard stories of them such as come back to haunt the living world on Hallowing Eve.


    ¡°Ai, they killed me, child,¡± he said bitterly. ¡°Killed all but this husk. Now I am merely a soulless body, their slave, to do with as they will until they tire of me and feed me to the dogs.¡± Though he spoke as though living exhausted him, still he shuddered when he spoke of the dogs.


    Anna sorted through this explanation and thought she understood most of it. ¡°What will you do with us?¡± she asked. ¡°Won¡¯t the Eika kill us if they find us?¡±


    ¡°They will,¡± said the man. ¡°They never leave children alive. They only want grown slaves strong enough to do their work. But I heard tell from one of the other slaves that there are no children in Gent, no bodies of children, simply no children at all. It¡¯s a tale they whisper at night, in the darkness, that the saint who guards the city led the children away to safety or up to the Chamber of Light, I don¡¯t know which.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s true,¡± muttered Matthias. ¡°All the children are gone, but I don¡¯t know where they went.¡±


    ¡°Where are your parents, then?¡± asked the man. ¡°Why were you not taken to safety, if the others were?¡±


    Anna shrugged, but she saw her brother hunch down as he always did, because the misery still sank its claws in him although she did not recall their parents well enough to mourn them.


    ¡°They¡¯re dead four summers ago,¡± said Matthias. ¡°Our da drowned when he was out fishing, and our ma died a few months later of a fever. They were good people. Then we went to our uncle. He ran, when the Eika came. He never thought of us. I ran back to the house and got Anna, but by then there was fighting everywhere. You couldn¡¯t even get to the cathedral where most folk fled, so we hid in here. And here we stayed.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a miracle,¡± murmured the man. Out of the night¡¯s silence came sudden noise: dogs barking and a single harsh call, a word neither child understood. The man started noticeably. ¡°They come ¡¯round in the middle night to count us,¡± he said. ¡°I must go back. I won¡¯t betray you, I swear it on Our Lady¡¯s Hearth. May Our Lord strike me down with His heavenly Sword if I do any such thing. I¡¯ll bring more food tomorrow, if I can.¡±

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    Then he was gone, retreating into the night.


    They relieved themselves quickly in one of the stinking pits filled with dung and water, and paused after to look up at the strangely clear sky, so hard a darkness above them that the stars were almost painful to look upon. They heard the dogs again and Matthias shoved Anna onto the ladder. She scrambled back up, and he came up behind her and closed the trap. After a hesitation, but without speaking, they devoured the rest of the cheese and bread¡ªand waited for tomorrow.


    2


    THE next night, long after sunset, the man came again and tapped on the door softly and said, ¡°I am your friend.¡±


    Cautiously, Matthias opened the trap and peered down. After a moment he climbed down. Anna followed him. The man gave them bread and watched silently as they ate. She could see him a bit more clearly tonight¡ªthe moon was waxing, and its quarter face slowly swelled, bubbling toward the full. Not particularly tall, he had the broad shoulders of a farmer and a moon-shaped face.


    ¡°What are you called?¡± he asked finally, hesitantly.


    ¡°I am called Matthias, and this is Anna, which is short for Johanna. Our ma named us after the disciplas of the blessed Daisan.¡±


    The man nodded, as if he had known this all along or perhaps only to show he understood. ¡°I am called Otto. I am sorry the bread was all I could bring. We are not fed well, and I dare not ask the others for a share of their portion. I don¡¯t know if I can trust them, for they¡¯re no kin of mine. Any one of them might tell the Eika in return for some reward, more bread perhaps.¡±


    ¡°It is very kind of you to help us,¡± said Anna brightly, for she remembered that their ma had always told her to be polite and to be thankful for the gifts she received.


    The man caught in a sob, then hesitantly touched her hair. As abruptly, he backed away from her. ¡°Or perhaps, like me, the others would gladly help, if only it meant finding a way to see two more brought free of the savages. It isn¡¯t as if the Eika play favorites. I¡¯ve never seen them seek to turn their slaves against each other by handing out special treatment. They despise us all. All are treated the same. Work or die.¡±


    ¡°Is it only here,¡± asked Matthias, ¡°in the tanneries, that they¡¯ve brought slaves?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ve opened up the smithies, too, though they¡¯ve no one trained here in blacksmith¡¯s work. But we¡¯re slaves and expendable.¡± His voice was hard. ¡°It¡¯s fortune¡¯s chance I was sent here to the tanneries, though it stinks like nothing I¡¯ve smelled before. It¡¯s whispered that at the forge men are burned every day and the Eika as likely to slit a burned man¡¯s throat as to let that man heal if he can¡¯t get up and keep working. I saw those Eika. I saw one pushed into a fire. It didn¡¯t burn. The heat left no scar on its body. They don¡¯t have skin, not like us. It¡¯s some kind of hide, like a snake¡¯s scales but harder and thicker. Dragon¡¯s get.¡± He hawked and spat, as if to get the taste of the word out of his mouth. ¡°The spawn of dragons and human women, that¡¯s what they say, but I don¡¯t see how such an unnatural congress could take place. But we should not speak of this in front of the child.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve seen nothing she hasn¡¯t seen also,¡± said Matthias softly, but Anna felt at once that the man¡¯s simple statement, protecting her, confiding in the boy, had won over her brother¡¯s trust.


    She finished her bread and wished there were more, but she knew better than to ask. Perhaps he had given them his entire ration. It would be rude to demand more.


    ¡°Fortune¡¯s chance,¡± the man whispered bitterly. ¡°Fortune had smiled more sweetly on me had she let me die with my children. But no.¡± He shook his head, shifting, casting a glance back over his shoulder nervously, for surely he had reason to be nervous, as did they all. ¡°For everything, a reason. I was spared so that I might find you.¡± He took a step forward, clasped Matthias by the hand and with his other hand touched Anna¡¯s hair gently. ¡°I will find a way for you to escape here, I swear it. Now I must go. I tell them I use the privies each night at this hour, so I must get back. The Eika are strange creatures. Savages they are, surely, but they are fastidious; but perhaps that only goes to show that ¡®the path of the Enemy is paved neatly with well-washed stones, for the waters cleansing them are the tears of the wicked.¡¯ We may make soil only in one place, no pissing even except where they tell us to or on the new skins. That is why we may come out for a few moments¡¯ freedom in this way, even at night, for they cannot bear the stink of our human bodies near their own. But I dare not stay longer.¡±

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    He came again the next night, and the next, and the next after that, bringing them pittances of food but enough to stave off starvation. Ale he brought also and once wine in a flagon, for there was little water to be found in and about the tanning pits and all of it foul-tasting.


    He quickly discovered that Matthias had more knowledge of the tannery and its workings than any of the slaves set to work here; in three months¡¯ apprenticeship, Matthias had learned the rudiments of currying and tanning, enough to know what went on at each station and with each tool. The boy he treated politely, even kindly, but it was Anna he truly doted on. She sat on his lap and he stroked her hair and once or twice forgot himself and called her ¡°Mariya.¡±


    No one disturbed the hides in their loft. Otto explained that he was in charge of overseeing them, and no slave had time to look into another¡¯s business. After several more nights passed, he began bringing more food.


    ¡°The Eika have increased our rations. They brought in more slaves to work the bakeries, but also, my boy, what you have told me and I have told the others is helping us work. They are pleased with us, so they feed us better.¡± The moon was full, now, and Anna could see his expression, which was, as always, grim. ¡°No good fortune for those taken to the smithies, or so I hear. As many are dragged out dead as walk in alive. Beasts!¡± He hid his eyes behind a hand, but she could see the anguished line of his mouth. ¡°Soon the hides will be dry and they will be carted off, and then there will be no place for you to hide.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ll hang up more hides, won¡¯t they?¡± asked Anna.


    ¡°Ah, child.¡± He pulled her tight against his chest. ¡°That they will, but I can¡¯t hide you here forever. I¡¯ve asked here and there, but I don¡¯t know how to get you out of the city, except¡ª¡±


    ¡°Except what?¡± demanded Matthias, for he, too, Anna knew, had been talking to her about any possible way for them to escape from the city. Perhaps they could have done it during the spring, had they not been so frightened, but they had been frightened, and the dogs had roamed the city every night. Now, with slaves in the city and all the gates watched¡ªor so he assumed¡ªit would be even harder to escape.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know. It¡¯s just a story, and I don¡¯t know whether to believe it.¡± But he clutched Anna, his lips touching her hair, a father¡¯s kiss. ¡°I¡¯ve heard some say there¡¯s a creature, a daimone, held prisoner in the cathedral. They say the Eika enchanter lured it from the heavens above where such creatures live and imprisoned it in a solid body like to our own. He keeps it chained to his throne.¡±


    Anna shuddered, but she felt safe on Otto¡¯s lap; he was holding her so securely.


    ¡°I am thinking,¡± continued the man slowly, ¡°that the magi say daimones know secrets hidden from human ken. If it is true the saint beloved of this city saved the children, if it is true she led them by hidden ways out from the cathedral to safety, then might not this daimone know of that hidden way? For can daimones not see into both the past and the future, farther than mortal eyes can see? If you offer the creature some gift, and if it hates the Eika as much as we do, might it not tell you of this secret way? It is a small chance, surely, but I can think of no other. The gates are guarded day and night and the dogs roam the streets.¡± He shuddered, as they all shuddered, at the thought of the dogs. ¡°You are children. The saint will smile on you as she did on the others.¡±


    ¡°You will come, too, won¡¯t you, Papa Otto?¡± Anna rested her head on his chest.


    He wept, but silently, tears streaming down his face. ¡°I dare not,¡± he said. ¡°I dare not attempt it.¡±


    ¡°You could escape with us,¡± said Matthias. ¡°God will show you mercy for your kindness to us, who are no kin of yours.¡±


    ¡°God might, but the Eika will not. You don¡¯t know them. They¡¯re savages, but they¡¯re as cunning as weasels. They mark each slave, and if one slave goes missing, then others get staked out in front of the dogs and the dogs let loose on them. That way if any slave tries to escape, he knows what will happen to those left behind. I will not cause the death of those I work beside. I could do nothing to save my family. I will not save myself and by so doing kill these others who are as innocent as my dear children. But you two might escape, if you can find and speak to this daimone.¡±


    ¡°But what could we bring it?¡± Matthias asked. ¡°We have nothing¡ª¡± Then he halted and Anna saw by his crafty look that he had thought of something. He reached into his boot and drew out the prize of their extensive collection of knives, secreted here and there about their bodies. This one, looted from the corpse of a stout man richly dressed in the kind of clothes only a wealthy merchant or a noble could afford, had a good blade and a finely wrought hilt molded in the shape of a dragon¡¯s head, studded with emeralds for eyes. By this measure Anna saw Matthias trusted Otto fully; the knife was too valuable to show to anyone who might covet it and easily take it by force from a lad and his young sister.

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    Otto¡¯s eyes widened, for even by the moonlight the knife¡¯s quality was evident. ¡°That is a handsome piece,¡± he said. ¡°And a worthy gift, if you can get so far.¡±


    ¡°But how will we get into the cathedral?¡± asked Matthias. ¡°The Eika chieftain lives there, doesn¡¯t he? Does he ever come out?¡±


    The slow quiet brush of summer¡¯s wind, the night breeze off the river, stirred Otto¡¯s hair as he considered. Anna smelled on its wings the distant tang of iron and the forge, a bare taste under the stench of the tanning pits so near at hand. The man sighed at last, coming to some conclusion.


    ¡°It is time to trust others. This information I cannot gain on my own. Let us pray, children, to Our Lady and Lord. Let us pray that we weak mortal folk can join together against our heathen enemies, for now we must trust to others who are no kin of ours except that we are humankind standing together against the savages.¡±


    With this he left them.


    The next night he brought a woman, stooped, scarred, and weary. She stared for a long time at the children and said at last, ¡°It is a miracle they could have survived the slaughter. It is a sign from St. Kristine.¡± She went away again, and he gave them their nightly ration of food.


    The next night he brought a young man who had broad shoulders but such a weight on them that he looked as bent with age as a man twice his years. But seeing the children, he lifted up and became a man proud of his youth and strength again. ¡°We¡¯ll show those damned savages,¡± he said in a low voice. ¡°We¡¯ll never let them have these. We¡¯ll beat them in this. That will lend us strength in the days ahead.¡±


    The next night Otto brought a robust woman who still wore her deacon¡¯s robes though they were now stained, torn, and dirty. But she nodded, seeing the children¡ªnot surprised, for surely she had by now heard tell of them. She bent her head over clasped hands.


    ¡°Let us pray,¡± she murmured.


    It had been a long time since Anna had prayed. She had forgotten the responses, but she traced around the smooth wood of her Circle of Unity carefully with a finger as the deacon murmured the holy words of God, for that was the prayer she knew best. Otto watched her, as he always watched her: with tears in his eyes.


    ¡°This is a sign from God,¡± the deacon said after her prayer. ¡°So will They judge our worthiness to escape this blight, if we can save these children who are no kin of ours and yet are indeed our children, given into our hands, just as all who live within the Circle of Unity are the children of Our Lady and Lord.¡±


    Otto nodded solemnly.


    The deacon rested a hand on Matthias¡¯ shoulder, as if giving a blessing. ¡°Those who get water from the river and bring it here have spoken now with those who get water for the smithies, and of those in the smithies some carry weapons to the cathedral, where the chieftain sits in his chair and oversees all. Other slaves who sweep and clean the cathedral meet at times with those who carry weapons from the smithies, and this information they have given us.¡±


    She paused at a noise, but it was only the wind banging a loose shutter. ¡°The chieftain leaves the cathedral four times each day to take his dogs to the necessarium¡ª¡±


    ¡°The necessarium?¡± asked Anna.


    This question stirred the first faint smile Anna had seen on any of the slaves¡¯ faces, even on Otto¡¯s. ¡°Pits. Holes dug in the ground where such creatures relieve themselves, for even such as they are slaves to their bodies. As are all of us bound to mortal matter. Now hush, child. Though it was a fair question, you must listen carefully to my words. Once each day all Eika leave the cathedral, with their dogs and the few slaves who attend them there. They go to the river to perform their nightly ablutions¡ª¡± She raised a hand to forestall Anna¡¯s question. ¡°Their bath. At this time, which is the time Vespers would be sung each evening, the cathedral is empty.¡±


    ¡°Except for the daimone,¡± said Otto.


    ¡°If such a creature truly exists. So say the slaves who clean there, but it may be that their minds are disordered by their proximity to the savages, for none has been allowed close to this creature, which is said to be chained with iron to the holy altar. By their description it seems to be more of a dog than a man. One man said it has human speech, but another said it can only yip and howl and bark. To this plan, if the saint grants us a miracle, we must trust. Now do you understand?¡± She asked this of Matthias and studied him carefully in the moon¡¯s waning light as he nodded, once, to show he understood. Anna nodded also and took Matthias¡¯ hand because she was so frightened.

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    ¡°Tonight,¡± said the deacon. She looked at Otto and he nodded, though his hands clenched.


    ¡°Tonight?¡± asked Anna in a whisper. ¡°So soon¡ª?¡± Impulsively she darted forward and clasped her arms round Otto¡¯s body. His clothes hung on him, a once stout man made thin by privation and grief, yet still he felt sturdy to her. He held her tightly against him, and she felt his tears on her cheeks.


    ¡°We must move immediately,¡± said the deacon. ¡°You might be discovered any day. It is indeed a miracle you have not been found before this.¡± She frowned, and the moonlight painted her face in stark, suffering lines. ¡°We know not if some fool will betray us all, thinking to gain favor in the eyes of the Eika. But there is no favor to be gained with the savages. They are no kin to us. They have no mercy for their own kind, and less than that for us, and so shall we have no mercy for them. Now. Make your farewells, children. You will not see Otto again.¡±


    Anna wept. It was too hard to leave him behind, the only person besides Matthias who had shown her kindness since her parents died.


    ¡°Take news,¡± said Otto. He still held Anna, but she knew he spoke to Matthias. ¡°Take news to others that some are yet alive in this city, that we are made slaves. Tell them the Eika are massing and building their strength, that they are using us to forge weapons and craft armor for them.¡±


    ¡°We¡¯ll come back for you,¡± said Matthias, his own voice choked with tears. Anna could not speak, could only cling. Otto stank of the puering pits, but they all of them stank of the tannery; it was a good scent to her now, a familiar one that promised safety. Out beyond the tanning pits lay the great wide world which she no longer knew or trusted.


    ¡°Ai, Lady,¡± whispered Otto. He kissed Anna¡¯s hair a final time. ¡°Perhaps it is worse this way: that you have given me hope. I will wait for you, as well as I can. If you live, if I survive, if we are reunited, then I will be as your father.¡±


    ¡°Come, children,¡± said the deacon, taking their hands after gently prying Anna free from Otto¡¯s grasp.


    Anna cried as she was led away. She looked back to see Otto staring after them, hands working at his sides, opening and closing, and then his face was lost to her, hidden by night and distance.


    The deacon took them to the edge of the fetid trench where the slaves relieved themselves. ¡°Wait here,¡± she said. ¡°A man will come for you.¡±


    She left and returned to the building where the slaves slept. Somewhat later, the young man they had met before arrived.


    ¡°Come,¡± he said, hoisting Anna onto his back. ¡°We must run all the way to the forge.¡± So they ran, hiding once for the man to catch his breath and a second time when they heard the howling of the dogs nearby, but they saw nothing. Only ghosts walked the city at night. It had been so long since Anna had ventured out into the ruined streets that the open spaces and angular shadows, the simple emptiness, made chills crawl like spiders up and down her skin.


    The young man left them, quite unceremoniously, by another trench, this one equally filled with the stink of piss and diarrhea. But it was yet a good, decent, human smell, not like the dry metallic odor of the savages.


    A woman found them there. She stared at first, then handled them, touching their lips, their hair, their ears.


    ¡°You are real,¡± she said. ¡°Real children. They murdered mine. Come. There is no time.¡± She led them at a loping run farther into the labyrinth of the city, on to another trench, another group of slaves. By this way, from trench to trench, they passed through the city.


    ¡°That is our only freedom,¡± said the man who took them at last within sight of the cathedral even as they saw the first stain of light in the eastern sky. ¡°They are savages, the Eika, but they cannot stand the least stink of human piss or shit near them. I¡¯ve seen a man killed for loosing his bowels where he was not meant to, though he could not help himself. So we may come out to relieve ourselves, one by one, and if we say we are having the cramping, then we are allowed a little more time. Now. This is as far as I or any of us can take you. Hide here, under these rags next to the trench, for the Eika never come near these trenches. Do not move, do not stir, even if you hear the dogs. Perhaps they will discover you and kill you. We all will pray that they do not. Be patient. Wait out the day. You will know by the light and by the horn they blow and by the great size of the procession when they go down to the river. Be careful, though, for they do not all go; some remain behind to guard the slaves who sleep in that building across the way, which they call the mint. For all I know, some may remain behind here in the cathedral as well. What is inside the cathedral I do not know. That you must discover for yourselves. May God go with you.¡±

 Page 8

    He clasped their hands in his, first Anna and then Matthias, as the sign of their kinship. Then he directed them to lie flat and covered them with the stinking, filthy rags. Anna heard his footsteps recede. Something crawled over her hand. She choked off a gasp. She dared not move, hardly dared breathe. But for the first time in so many days and weeks she held an odd, light feeling in her heart. It took a long time to decide what it was, and finally she recalled Otto¡¯s last words to them:


    ¡°You have given me hope.¡±


    Amazingly, even almost smothered as she was by the foul-smelling heap of rags, she slept.


    3


    HOWLS woke her. She jerked up and at once Matthias shoved her down to keep her still. She made no sound.


    Rags slipped, giving her a view of the steps of the cathedral and avenue. Not five paces from her, a man stopped, turning his back to the pile of rags, and pissed into the trench. Then, straightening his clothes, he edged closer and crouched down. Of all the slaves she had seen he looked best kept; his tunic was not encrusted with dirt, though it was not precisely clean either. He toyed with the rope belt hung low on his thin hips and glanced back once over his shoulder, toward the cathedral steps. Through the gap in the rags Anna could see on those steps another slave. This person¡ªshe could not tell if it was a man or a woman¡ªwashed the gleaming white stone steps with rags and a bucket of water.


    The man cleared his throat and spoke in a rush. ¡°As soon as all have gone down the road, run inside into the nave. Stay in the shadows if you can and go to the end, where you will find the altar. There you will find the daimone. Approach it softly. It can be violent, or so we have seen. None of us speaks to it. That is forbidden.¡±


    He stood and walked away, and that was the last they saw of him, for first he vanished from their restricted view and then, coming back into sight on the steps, he was suddenly engulfed by dogs.


    A horn blasted, a sharp, painful sound. A swarm of dogs surged down the stairs, growling and barking and yipping and howling like mad things. Anna whimpered and then stuck a hand in her mouth, biting down hard, to stop herself from crying out loud. They were monsters, huge hulking things as tall at the shoulder as she was, with long lean haunches and massive shoulders and yellow eyes that sparked with demon¡¯s fire. Their mouths hung open perpetually to display their great teeth and red, lolling tongues. They bowled over the two slaves, overwhelmed them until all she could see was a frenzy of dogs, roiling and leaping and biting each other and only God knew what else. She shut her eyes and groped for her Circle. Matthias choked down a sob; his grip on her tightened. She dared not look. She did not want to see.


    A voice roared, a great bellowing powerful shout. She squinched her eyes shut as hard as she could, but Matthias tugged on her and her eyes opened. Eika strode down the steps now, sickly things with their scaled hides. Yet each one, though a savage with nothing of humankind in it, had a brutish strength and the gleam of animal cunning in its bearing and in its sharp ugly face. They grabbed the frenzied dogs by their back legs and yanked them away, struck them hard blows with their clawed hands or the hafts of their spears. The Eika yipped and howled at the dogs as if they were kin and could understand each other in their beast¡¯s language.


    Behind them came the oddest looking pair of Eika she had yet seen. The first was a huge brawny creature dressed in gold-and-silver chains studded with bright gems, and its companion was an Eika as scrawny as the human slaves and itself clothed only in a single rag tied about its hips. A leather pouch hung from the belt around its waist; it carried a small wooden chest braced against one scrawny hip. The huge Eika waded into the seething mass of dogs and proceeded to strike about himself, roaring and laughing as he tossed dogs aside and beat them away from their prey.


    One dog at last broke away and bounded down the steps. Many of the Eika warriors followed after it. As if this defection signaled their defeat, the rest of the dogs retreated from the Eika chieftain¡¯s wrath¡ªor his humor, for why else would he station slaves on the steps right then, knowing what the dogs would likely do to them?¡ªand loped away down the steps, turning to follow the others down toward the river. As they cleared the steps, their passing revealed two ravaged, red heaps of¡ª


    This time she clamped her eyes shut and did not look, willed herself not to look, and heard only Matthias gulping under his breath, trying to keep silent because any noise would doom them.


    Finally he whispered, ¡°They¡¯ve gone. They¡¯ve carried the two¡ªthem¡ªaway. Come now, Anna. Don¡¯t lose heart now when we¡¯re so close.¡±


    He scrabbled at the rags, dug himself free, and jumped to his feet, then yanked her up. He ran and she ran behind, stumbling, gasping for breath because she was so scared and because she had almost forgotten how to run and because her legs were stiff from so many days lying still. They came under the shadow of the cathedral wall and ran up the steps. Blood still stained the stone next to an overturned bucket of water, and runnels of pink water seeped down the steps toward the avenue below. Rags were strewn everywhere, stained with blood.

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    The great doors stood open, but because the sun set behind the cathedral, little light penetrated the interior by this, the eastern entrance. They ducked inside, and at once Matthias threw himself against a wall and tugged Anna down beside him. He put a finger to his lips. They stood there in shadow and listened.


    And heard ¡­ the music of chains, shifting, whispering, as some creature tested its bonds and found them as unyielding as ever.


    Matthias crept forward to hide behind one of the great pillars of stone that supported the great roof. Here, in the side aisle, they remained in shadow. The nave itself, the vast central aisle of the cathedral, was brighter, lit by windows built high into the towering walls that faced north and south. Brightest of all was the altar, lying in a wash of light from seven tall windows set in a semicircle at the far end of the church, encircling the Hearth.


    A heap of refuse lay next to the altar.


    Matthias slipped forward to the next pillar, using it as cover to get close to the altar. Anna followed him. She wanted to grab hold of his belt, to cling, but she did not. This she had learned: They must both be free to move quickly.


    It was silent. The stone muffled sound, and the outside world seemed far away in this place¡ªonce a haven but now the camp of savages. She felt their musty scent against her the way dry things dragged against the skin cause a tingling in fingertips and neck; she smelled it the way a storm announces itself by a certain feeling in the air long before the first rolling peal of thunder is heard and the first slash of lightning seen in the dark sky. They ruled this space now, which had once been sacred to God.


    She caught up to Matthias and leaned on the cool, stippled stone. He touched her briefly, then darted forward to the next pillar.


    The refuse heap by the altar stirred and came to life.


    Not rags but dogs, starting out of sleep, scrambling up, alerted.


    ¡°Run,¡± moaned Matthias. He shoved her back, toward the door, but it was too late, the door was too far away. They could never run as fast as the dogs, only hide from them. And there was no place to hide here.


    The dogs bolted toward them. Anna ran, stumbled, jerked herself up.


    ¡°No!¡± she screamed, for Matthias had run out into the nave, out into the path of the dogs to try to distract them so that she could run free.


    ¡°Go! Go!¡± he shouted.


    But she ran to him. It was better to die with him, torn to pieces by the dogs, than live if he were dead. Ai, Lady. What did it matter? There was no way to live in this city except as a slave of the Eika, if that could be called life.


    She reached him just before the dogs did, the hideous dogs. She flung her arms around her brother and braced herself for the impact, for death. Please, Lady, let it be quick.


    A hoarse cry¡ªnot human words, not any words she recognized¡ªcame from the direction of the altar, punctuated by noises that sounded like growls and yips. The dogs clattered to a halt, nails slipping and sliding on the stone paving, and they stopped a body¡¯s length from the children, growling, glaring with sparking yellow eyes. Then, when more of those hoarse words came, they slunk away, tails down, still growling but now submissive to the creature that rose out of the heap of rags by the altar, a heap which was not rags after all but the daimone itself.


    Not human, certainly not that. This much Anna saw easily in the fading light that penetrated the cathedral nave. It was tall and human-shaped, but the Eika were human-shaped and they were no kin to humans. It had covered itself modestly with clothing, though cloth and tunic were shredded by teeth marks and as ragged as if strips had been torn off at random. Gold cloth bound its forearms, this also torn and ripped in many places as though the dogs had gnawed and worried at it, seeking flesh underneath. It wore an iron collar around its neck; to the collar was fastened a thick iron chain, and that chain was fastened to the heavy block of stone that was the altarstone, the Hearth of Our Lady.


    It stared at them with eyes as inhumanly green as the emeralds that studded Matthias¡¯ fancy dagger, and as if that stare reminded him of the chosen gift, Matthias slipped the dagger out from his boot and held it forward, hilt first, in offering.


    ¡°Come,¡± said the daimone in its hoarse voice.


    They dared not disobey, for it spoke in the tone of a creature used to obedience and, in any case, it controlled the dogs by some daimonic magic. And why not? It was not human, it was an aetherical creature, something that flew bodiless through the vast impenetrable heavens far above the mortal earth, far above the changing moon; it would not fear human children nor hesitate to command them.


    They crept closer, and this time Anna held tight to Matthias¡¯ belt with one hand and her Circle with the other, chewing at her lower lip. She sniffed back tears, but she did not flinch as the dogs circled them, smelling their feet and nipping forward only to be brought to heel by the harsh words of the daimone.

 Page 10

    Closer yet, then close enough that Matthias could reach out and hand the knife to the daimone. It took it and with sudden furtive haste glanced around the shadowed nave, peering into the colonnades, then tucked the precious weapon in among the filthy rags it wore to cover itself. It stood there silent, listening, and they grew silent as well, but Anna heard nothing and Matthias made no sound.


    Anna stared. She thought that, perhaps, when the enchanter had called the daimone down from the heavens and when the magic had imprisoned it in a body made of earth, the daimone had tried¡ªgiven now no choice¡ªto form itself into a human body. For it was very like a human: human eyes though they were of a stark green color and somewhat pulled at the corners, as if distorted; human skin though it had the tint of bronze as if the metals hidden in earth had leached out to the surface; a human face though with broad, prominent cheekbones; and no trace of beard though it was clearly male. But had not God made humans both male and female? Why should They not make daimones likewise?


    And it spoke human speech, though slowly, as if not much practiced at it. To the dogs, in that other language of beasts, it spoke more fluidly.


    ¡°Why have you given me this knife?¡± it asked. Its voice likewise, she thought: a human voice but with that hoarse edge to it, not quite formed.


    Matthias dipped his chin for courage and faced the creature squarely. ¡°In trade for the secret of St. Kristine, who led the other children to safety.¡±


    ¡°Who led them to safety,¡± it echoed.


    It stared at them for what seemed forever until Anna thought it had not understood what Matthias said, only mimicked the sounds. The dogs sniffed at her feet, and a hundred prickles ran like poisonous creatures up and down her back. The Eika procession would return at any moment.


    The creature flung up its head as a dog does at a sudden sound. ¡°Quickly,¡± it said. ¡°Beyond the tower stair lies a door to the crypt. In the crypt lies the path you seek. Go free.¡± That fast, it changed before their eyes to a mad thing. It grabbed the heavy chain that bound it and yanked violently. It threw back its head and howled, and the dogs set up such a yammering and howling and barking that Anna was deafened.


    Matthias grabbed her hand. Together they ran into the shadow of the colonnade and all the way back along the nave while the daimone hammered the chain against the stone paving like a wild beast and the dogs leaped and barked around it, some nipping in at its body to be met by elbow or fist.


    ¡°God help the poor creature,¡± muttered Matthias. They came to the end of the colonnade and into the long entryway which ran perpendicular to the nave, itself now draped in shadows as the sun set outside and the interior darkened and the poor mad daimone finally ceased its frantic and useless efforts to free itself. Magic it might have, to control the dogs, but not magic enough to free itself from the Eika enchanter.


    The door that opened onto the stairwell which led to the crypt stood before them, dark, somber wood scored with deep scratches as if someone had clawed at it, trying to get in. Matthias set a hand on the latch, jiggling it tentatively to make sure it wasn¡¯t stuck or squeaky.


    In the new silence Anna heard the noise first, the scuff of a foot on stone. She whirled and then, because she could not help herself, let out a low moan of fear. Matthias looked back over his shoulder. She felt him stiffen and grope for the knife he always tucked in at his belt.


    Too late.


    An Eika stood in the shadows not ten strides from them, next to the great doors. It stepped out from its hiding place and stared at them. It was tall, as most of the savages were, but more slender than bulky; its body winked and dazzled in the last glint of sun through the high windows because it wore a girdle of surpassing beauty, gold-and-silver chains linked together and bound in with jewels like a hundred eyes all storing at them, who were at last caught.


    She was too terrified even to whimper. She loosened her hand from her Circle and traced it, a finger all the way around the smooth wood grain, the Circle of God¡¯s Mercy, as her mother had taught her many years ago: the only prayer she knew.


    The creature moved no farther, not to retreat, not to charge.


    But Anna saw the strangest thing she had yet seen in her entire life, stranger than slaughter and death and the horrible dogs and rats feeding on a bloated corpse. The creature wore a necklace, a plain leather thong knotted in several places as if it had broken more than once and been tied back together, and on that leather thong, resting against its gleaming copper-scaled chest, hung a wooden Circle of Unity, the sign of the church. Just like hers.


    Still it did not move, nor did it raise its head and howl an alarm. But, just like her, it lifted a single finger and traced the round shape of the Circle, as she had done.

 Page 11

    Matthias shook himself as if coming out of a dream. He lifted the latch, grasped Anna by the arm. ¡°Don¡¯t look,¡± he said. ¡°Don¡¯t look back. Just follow me.¡±


    He dragged her inside, shutting the door after them though there was no light to see by. Together they stumbled down the stairs into the black crypt.


    No one¡ªno thing, no creature, no sound of pursuit¡ªcame after them.


    ¡°It¡¯s a miracle,¡± she whispered, and then stumbled as she took a step down only to find there were no more steps; the impact jarred her entire body. She lost hold of Matthias and groped frantically, found him again, and clutched his hand so tight he grunted in pain, but she would not lessen her grip on him. She could see nothing, not even her hand in front of her face.


    ¡°Look,¡± whispered Matthias, and his whisper faded into the blackness, and she heard it filter away into some vast empty unknowable expanse.


    She saw it first as luminescence, a faint glowing light. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she gasped and gagged, for the crypt before them was filled with skeletal corpses and all of them in the same stage of decay although they no longer stank of rotting flesh.


    ¡°Look there,¡± whispered Matthias. He pointed, and she could see his arm lifted in the gloom and see beyond it a throbbing light as faint as the soul¡¯s breath might appear if it were visible to the human eye. ¡°Come!¡± he said urgently, and they began the gruesome task of picking their way through the litter of corpses.


    ¡°Fighting men, these were,¡± he said. ¡°Look. Some are still wearing surcoats, what you can see of them.¡±


    Some indeed wore gold surcoats bearing the sigil of a black dragon. Anna did not know what this meant, only that the one time she had seen a procession go by, bearing a banner to mark the passage of a noble lord or lady, it had not been this one but some other creature, a hound perhaps or a horse. This mystery¡ªwho were these soldiers? Had they died in the last battle, when the city was overwhelmed? How had they come to be dumped in this holy crypt like so much refuse?¡ªshe could not answer.


    Gaping skulls grinned up at them, but Anna no longer feared them. They were dead; they had fought to save their kin, their human brothers and sisters, and so they would not disturb her and Matthias now. In this way she was able to find a path through their bodies, to nudge them gently aside when necessary. Once, when she saw a knife protruding from a rib cage, she carefully pried it out and took it for herself, thanking the poor dead soul who had in this way saved it for her. You never knew when you might need another knife.


    Beyond the dead soldiers they followed the light farther into the crypt, past the gravestones of the holy dead, those who were once biscops and deacons and good men and women who labored for the church, until they came to a secret corner and found there what the daimone had promised them: a staircase leading down into the earth, illuminated by the whisper of light that had led them there.


    Anna felt hope swell in her heart, of itself a light against the darkness of despair and dread.


    Matthias hesitated and then, not looking back, started down the stairs, testing each one carefully before he set his full weight on it. Because he still held her hand, because she feared more than anything else in the world losing him, she had to follow. Yet she looked back over her shoulder¡ªthough she could see nothing but darkness behind them¡ªand spoke a solemn vow:


    ¡°We¡¯ll come back for you, Papa Otto, for you and all the others but especially for you.¡±


    The stairs led down a long way and all of it in darkness. They felt their way along, groping along the wall with the flats of their hands, and when at last the stairs ended and the wall curved and then straightened, a breeze caught her lips and she tasted something strange on it, something she had not tasted for many months: fresh air untainted by a city¡¯s death, and green things growing in plain good earth, not in the crevices between fallen stones.


    They walked for a long while, resting a few times although never for long.


    When they emerged from the tunnel, it was dawn.


    They came out of a cave¡¯s mouth to see a field of oats run wild and a few buildings that looked abandoned. Behind the narrow cave mouth rose a ridge of rock and up this Matthias scrambled, Anna right behind him. From the ridge they looked back over the empty countryside to the city below, resting like a jewel on an island in the middle of the broad river. From this distance one would never guess what lay inside. It looked like a perfect toy model of a city, untouched, gently gleaming in the early morning sunlight.


    ¡°I should have killed it,¡± said Matthias.


    ¡°Killed what?¡± she asked. ¡°The Eika?¡± Without thinking, she clasped her Circle of Unity. She could not stop thinking about the Circle of Unity that had hung at its chest.

 Page 12

    ¡°The daimone,¡± he said. ¡°I should have killed it with the knife. Then it would have been free of the mortal body and able to go home to the heavens. Wouldn¡¯t that have been a better trade?¡±


    Anna shook her head. ¡°I don¡¯t think any human can kill a daimone. They aren¡¯t like us, they don¡¯t have our blood, and maybe they don¡¯t have blood at all the way we do. You would just have made it mad.¡±


    He sighed. ¡°Maybe so. But I pity that poor soul. If it has a soul.¡±


    She hesitated, but then she asked, ¡°Do Eika have souls?¡±


    ¡°Of course not!¡±


    ¡°But that one¡ªit saw us, and it let us go. It wore a Circle, Matthias. If it wore a Circle, isn¡¯t it kin of ours because it also believes in God?¡±


    ¡°It just stole it from a body and wears it as a trophy. I don¡¯t know why it let us go. Maybe St. Kristine watched over us and blinded its eyes.¡± He turned his back on the city and began to climb back down the hill. ¡°Come, Anna. I don¡¯t know how far we¡¯ll have to walk before we find people.¡±


    But St. Kristine, while surely saving them, had not blinded the Eika¡¯s eyes. Anna knew that. It had seen her touch her Circle, and it had copied her movement. It had let them go, knowingly, deliberately. Just as every human slave in the city had conspired to set them free, which was only what they would have done for their own kin.


    It was a beautiful summer¡¯s day and they walked free through bright woods and drank from free-flowing streams and ate, carefully, a few moist berries. At dusk Matthias saw a campfire. The astonished woodsmen¡ªset here in the forest to hunt and to keep an eye out for Eika incursions¡ªgladly traded them food for one of the extra knives, and let them sleep huddled by the coals. In the morning one woodsman escorted the children to the nearest village.


    ¡°Let me give you some advice,¡± said the woodsman, who was small and wiry and cheerful, and who had lost one finger on his left hand. ¡°There¡¯s little room in Steleshame these days, with all the refugees. But you¡¯ve value in the news you bring, so don¡¯t sell it cheap, and you might get to stay there. Ask for an apprenticeship, lad, and something to keep your sister busy with and cared for until she¡¯s old enough to marry. Lady¡¯s Blood! It is a miracle. We never thought to see any other folk walk alive out of the city. How did you survive? How did you get free?¡±


    Matthias told a brief version of the story, but when he got to the end, he didn¡¯t mention the Eika. For the Eika was not part of Matthias¡¯ story. And yet the Eika puzzled Anna most. But she kept silent. All humans hated the Eika. They had every reason to, for the Eika were savages and their dogs the most hideous creatures living.


    ¡°Your brother will no doubt find work with a tanner, child,¡± the woodsman said to Anna. ¡°Have you any skills?¡±


    She did not mean to say it. It popped out unbidden. ¡°When I¡¯m old enough, I¡¯ll travel like the fraters do. I¡¯ll bring the Holy Word and the Circle of Unity to the Eika. They can¡¯t be meant to be savages.¡±


    He laughed, but not unkindly, only shaking his head as adults did when children said something they considered silly. Matthias shushed her and made a face.


    But the day was very beautiful, and they were free, and perhaps if they brought news that slaves still lived in the city, someone¡ªsome noble lady or lord¡ªmight lead an expedition to free the others. If only Papa Otto and the rest could hold on for that long.


    She thought for a long while as she walked through the woodland. She and Matthias had lost both father and mother and been given into the callous care of their uncle. Yet it was not their uncle¡ªtheir only remaining kinsman¡ª who had saved them. He had tried only to save himself and she supposed she would never know if he still walked among the living or rotted among the forgotten dead. It was Papa Otto¡ªno blood father of theirs¡ªand the other slaves who had saved them. If they, who were not her true kin, could act as kin, then was it not possible that even an Eika could become kin? This thought she held like a gift in her heart. Matthias had given the daimone the knife, which it could use to defend itself or free itself if such were possible, and in exchange it had given them freedom.


    But in the end, after all that had happened, it was the solitary Eika who had stayed its hand and let them go.


    PART ONE


    DIVINATION BY THUNDER


    I


    THE MUSIC OF WAR


    1


    HE smelled the storm coming before the first rumble of thunder sounded far in the distance. The dogs stirred restlessly and nipped at him, but he slapped them aside until they whined and hunkered down at his feet.

 Page 13

    Bloodheart appeared not to have heard the distant thunder. The Eika chieftain sat on his throne, just out of reach of his captive¡¯s chains, and measured leg and arm bones that had been scraped clean of flesh. Tossing aside those he did not want, he sawed off the knobby joint ends of the bones until he had half a dozen smooth white lengths of various sizes collected in his lap. With a sharp stick he hollowed out the bones, cleaning out the marrow. Then, using a stone burin mounted on a stick, he drilled holes down the length of the hollow bones. All this he worked in silence, except for the hasp of the obsidian saw, the rasp of wood scraping, and his muted grunting breaths as he twirled stick between palms to drive the drill through.


    Beyond, other sounds made a counterpoint to Bloodheart¡¯s task. The old priest crouched on the marble floor as he tossed out finger bones into a random pattern read and swept aside; outside, Eika soldiers played a game on the cathedral steps which involved a head in a sack; thunder muttered far away, and the Veser River, a low roar too faint here for human ears to hear, sang its constant familiar chant.


    The dogs, slinking away, gnawed at the discarded bones, cracking them open for the marrow inside. The most faithful brought a few bones back to drop at his feet, his portion as their lord. God knew he was hungry all the time now, but never let it be said he had stooped to this: eating human remains.


    He fought back the shattering despair. It came on him in waves as out of nowhere, out of the shadows or out of Bloodheart¡¯s enchantment that shackled him here, bound by more than iron. Caught in a sudden fit of uncontrollable shaking, he clutched chains in his hands and scraped them violently against the marble floor until his skin was rubbed raw and the chains polished to a shining gleam but with no least weakening of their heavy links.


    Only then, when the dogs began to growl around him sensing his weakness, when his blood dripped on the pale marble to form little rosettes of agony against cold stone, did he remember himself, cuff them into submission, and look up.


    Teeth bared, Bloodheart grinned down from his chair. ¡°Prince of dogs,¡± he said, his voice as whispery as the flutter of birds in the eaves. ¡°Shall I make a flute out of your bones when you are dead?¡±


    ¡°You will never kill me,¡± he replied in his hoarse voice. Some days, these were the only words he remembered how to say.


    But Bloodheart was not even listening. Instead, the Eika chieftain lifted the smooth white tubes one by one to his lips, testing their tone. Some breathed high, some low, and on them, switching from one to the next, he played a ragged melody while at last lightning flashed, seen through the great cathedral windows, and thunder broke overhead, and the Eika soldiers outside laughed uproariously in the sudden drenching rain and continued their game.


    2


    ¡°TWO months!¡± King Henry paced under the awning while rain drizzled beyond the overhang, dripping down the sides of his tent, curling down tent poles in slow streams. ¡°I have wasted two months on these dammed stubborn Varren lords when we could have been marching on Gent!¡±


    Liath had taken shelter under a wagon; with night watch ahead, she had been permitted an afternoon¡¯s nap. Thank the Lady the rain had not drenched the ground. She was still dry, and now she listened as Henry¡¯s advisers rallied around him, soothing his temper.


    ¡°You could not have left Varre behind that quickly,¡± said his favored cleric, Sister Rosvita, in her usual calm voice. ¡°You have done the right thing, Your Majesty, the only thing you could do. Your anger toward the Eika is justified, and when the time is right, they will suffer your wrath.¡±


    ¡°The time will never be right!¡± Henry was in one of his rare sour moods. Liath could see only legs and torsos from this angle, and while any soul would have known Henry by the belt he wore embossed and painted with the badges of each of the six duchies whose princes owed allegiance to him as king regnant, on this day he was also recognizable by the sheer irritable energy he projected as he paced from one corner of the carpet to the other. ¡°Five sieges we have laid in, in the last two months.¡±


    ¡°None of them lasted more than five days,¡± said Margrave Judith with disdain. ¡°None of these Varren nobles had any stomach for a fight, knowing Lady Sabella was defeated.¡±


    ¡°Your Majesty.¡± Now Helmut Villam weighed in, and the others paused to listen respectfully to the words of a man whose age and experience of hard campaigns eclipsed even that of the king. ¡°Once Lady Svanhilde surrenders to your authority, we can turn east. You have sent what Eagles you can to the Wendish dukes and nobles, to raise the alarm. But do not forget that after the battle we fought near Kassel, your forces are too weak in any case to attack the Eika at Gent. It will take time to assemble a new army.¡±

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    ¡°Damn Sabella,¡± said Henry. ¡°I was too lenient with her.¡±


    ¡°She is our sister, Henry,¡± said Biscop Constance. Though the rebuke was mild, only one of Henry¡¯s powerful younger sisters would have dared utter it.


    ¡°Half sister,¡± muttered the king, but he had stopped pacing.


    ¡°She is safely confined under my authority in Autun, where I will soon return,¡± added Constance, who despite her youth had the grave authority of a much older woman. He grunted, acknowledging this truth.


    They began to talk about the disposition of this latest siege, invested yesterday afternoon, and what route they would take when they at last marched east through northern Arconia back into Wendar.


    The rain slackened and stopped. Liath wormed out from under the wagon, strapped on sword and quiver and draped her saddlebags over her shoulder, then went hunting for food. Rations had been scarce the past several weeks. Hard as it was to feed the king¡¯s progress, it was more difficult still in these days of summer before the harvest came in. That they marched through lands hostile toward the king did not help matters any. Although the former kingdom of Varre was by right of succession under Henry¡¯s rule, the number of recalcitrant nobles and reluctant church leaders in Varre amazed even Liath, who had long ago gotten used to being an outsider.


    Yet despite the hardships, she was as content as she could be. She had food, most of the time, and such shelter as a wagon or tent awning afforded. She was free. For now, it was enough.


    The camp sprawled in a ragged half circle around a wooden palisade, the outer ring of Lady Svanhilde¡¯s fortress. The two siege engines and three ballistas sat just out of range of an arrow¡¯s shot from the wall; hastily dug ditches protected their flanks, and a wall of mantelets shielded the men who guarded and worked the machines. On either side of the mantelets a picket of stakes stood, protecting the camp from a charge of cavalry. The first line of mud-streaked tents, some listing under the weight of rain puddles caught in canvas, stood somewhat back from these stakes, and the tents of nobles and king yet farther back, almost into the trees. The patchwork of tents and wagons left many gaps and wide stretches of open ground, but Henry had been careful to avoid trampling the ripening fields. He needed grain to feed his retinue.


    Certain of the camp followers had set up stalls or brought wares from nearby villages to sell. Indeed, the army¡¯s camp resembled a large disorganized autumn market more than it did any other army Liath had ever seen.


    In Arethousa, a precise order of march prevailed and every tent had its specific site rated in order of proximity to the emperor.


    In Andalla, the Kalif had his own compound made of manteletlike frames draped with bright fabric. Only the favored few were allowed inside this compound, and the Kalif himself from his place of seclusion ordered the generals who led his troops into battle.


    In that almost fatal passage across the deserts west of Kartiako, so many years ago now, she remembered a silent and deadly army whose robes were the color of sand and who seemed to move as with the wind¡¯s speed and sudden gusting shifts of direction. She and Da and a dozen others were all that had survived of the one hundred souls who had started the trek in a vast caravan. She had been so hungry, and too young truly to understand why there had been no food toward the end of that terrible journey.


    Now she stared, caught by the enticing smell of a rack of pig meat roasting over a fire. The robust woman tending it looked her over.


    ¡°Any coin?¡± she demanded. Her accent had the broad Varren lilt. ¡°What do you have to trade?¡±


    Liath shrugged and made to move on. She had nothing, only her status as a King¡¯s Eagle.


    ¡°Here, friend.¡± A Lion halted beside her. Ragged around the edges of his well-worn tunic, still, he had a friendly smile. ¡°Don¡¯t just walk away. We serve the king, and such as her must feed the king¡¯s servants.¡±


    The woman spit on the ground. ¡°If I feed the king¡¯s servants all that I have, for no return, then I¡¯ll have nothing to feed my own kin.¡±


    ¡°You came to take coin off of us, good woman,¡± said the Lion with a laugh, ¡°so don¡¯t complain if you must feed those of us who have no coin. We only came here because your Varren lords rebelled against the king¡¯s authority. Otherwise we¡¯d not have been graced with the vision of your beautiful face.¡±


    This was too much. She smiled at his smooth flattery, then recalled her irritation. ¡°It isn¡¯t my fault the nobles quarrel. And it wasn¡¯t Lady Svanhilde that followed the king¡¯s sister, it was her reckless eldest son, Lord Charles. Poor woman. She had only boy children and loved them too well.¡±

 Page 15

    ¡°My mother had only boys,¡± retorted the Lion, ¡°but we none of us gave her reason to be ashamed. Come now, give this loyal Eagle something to eat.¡±


    Grudgingly, the woman did so, a fresh piece of pork spitted on a twig. The Lion handed her a round of flat bread, coarse flour mixed with a paste of dried berries, their usual rations when all else was gone. It was still warm from baking.


    ¡°Thank you,¡± she said, not quite knowing how to respond to his kindness except to identify herself. ¡°I¡¯m called Liath.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m known as Thiadbold. You¡¯re the Eagle who rode in from Gent,¡± he added. ¡°We remember you. Those of us who serve the king, and who don¡¯t have noble kin¡ª¡± Here he grinned. He had a shock of red hair and part of one ear missing, the lobe sliced cleanly off and healed now into a white dimple. ¡°¡ªmust watch out for each other as we may. Will you drink with us?¡±


    The camp of Lions, sited near the king¡¯s tent, was much reduced. The first King Henry had commissioned ten centuries of Lions. In these days, at least five of those centuries served in the eastern marchlands, protecting market cities and key forts from the incursions of the barbarians. Two Lion banners flew at this camp, marking the two centuries who marched with the king. But even considering those men who stood watch at this hour, Liath could not imagine that more than sixty men out of two hundred had survived the final battle with Lady Sabella.


    ¡°I can¡¯t,¡± she said with some regret. She was not used to sitting and chatting in the company of soldiers¡ªor anyone else, for that matter. Even some of the other Eagles thought her aloof and had told her so, being by nature an independent group of souls who had no reluctance to speak their minds when in the company of their own kind. ¡°I stand watch tonight.¡±


    He nodded and let her go.


    In the woods beyond she heard the bleating and lowing of livestock, kept well away from the tempting fields. Some soldiers, too, had been commandeered from those recalcitrant Varren lords who had fled home after Sabella¡¯s defeat and hoped to avoid the king¡¯s notice. These sat sullen in their own camps, watched by the king¡¯s men. A few brace of young noble lordlings and a handful of their rashest sisters had come along as well, some as hostages, some for the hope of war and booty at Gent or farther east in the marchlands. At least some of these had gear and horses but, all in all, Henry¡¯s army had lost much of its strength.


    By the time she got back to the king¡¯s tent, she had licked every last spot of grease off her fingers. The king had gone to his bed and his noble companions had retired to their own tents.


    Hathui handed her a skin filled with ale. ¡°You¡¯ll want this,¡± she said. ¡°If we don¡¯t take this damned city by tomorrow, we¡¯ll be forced to drink water. Now I¡¯m to bed.¡± As the king¡¯s favored Eagle, she slept just inside the entrance to his tent, along with his other personal servants.


    Liath got the night watch because she could see so well in the dark, but she also liked it because it left her alone with her thoughts. Some nights, though, her thoughts were no fit companion.


    Gent.


    She could not bear to think of Gent and what had happened there. Sometimes, at night, she still dreamed of the Eika dogs. It was better to remain awake at night, if she could.


    With the sky overcast, she could not observe the heavens. Instead, she walked through her city of memory. Only standing alone through the night, freed from Hugh and no longer under the eye of Wolfhere, dared she risk the intense concentration it took to order her city and remember.


    The city stands on a hill that is also an island. Seven walls ring the city, each one pierced by a gate. At the height, on a plateau, stands the tower.


    But on this journey into the city, she crosses under the threshold of the third gate, which is surmounted by the Cup of Boundless Waters. She enters the fourth house to the left, passing under an archway of horn.


    Here resides her recollection of Artemisia¡¯s Dreams, and here she walks into the first hall and enters the second chamber, first book, second chapter. Why do these dreams of the Eika dogs torment her? Do they mean something she ought to interpret, or are they just the memory of that awful last day in Gent?


    But Artemisia gives her no respite, once she has read the various symbols installed in the little chamber, each one a trigger for some portion of the words written in the book.


    ¡°¡®Let me tell you that if you want to make sense of your dream, it must be remembered from beginning to end, or you cannot interpret it. Only if you remember it completely, can you explore the point to which the vision leads.¡¯¡±

 Page 16

    But she never recalled beginning or end to the dreams, only the sudden madness of the dogs feeding among the pale tombs of the dead, in the darkness of the crypt at the cathedral in Gent.


    Wind soughed through the trees. She shook herself and shifted. Her knees ached from standing so stiffly. Down by the siege engines several campfires burned. Figures shifted, a change of guard. She watched as a man¡¯s figure stooped, adding wood, then straightened and moved out of her sight into darkness. Drizzle started up, pattered for a little while, and gave way to a weighty night¡¯s stillness, more sticky than hot. One of the servants emerged from the tent, staggering with sleep, relieved himself, and went in again.


    Slowly the clouds began to break up. Stars shone here and there through the rents, ragged patterns formed and concealed as quickly as she could recognize them. The waning crescent moon appeared in a gap, then vanished. Above, the wheel of the heavens turned and winter¡¯s sky rose¡ªthe sky seen in the late autumn and early winter evenings, here marking the advent of late summer¡¯s dawn. The first hint of light colored the tents and palisade wall a murky gray, gaining tone as, above, the faintest stars faded from view.


    A man¡¯s figure moved down by the siege engines, scurrying along the wall of mantelets. One of the campfires was doused. She started forward in surprise, then saw half a dozen shadowy figures heave themselves over the mantelets and drop to the ground behind.


    Raiders from the fortress.


    ¡°Hathui!¡± she cried, then drew her sword and dashed down the slope, shouting the alarm as she ran.


    A horn sounded, and men began to yell. ¡°To arms! To arms!¡±


    As she ran through the foremost tents, soldiers fell in beside her or hurried before, all running to protect the front line. Below, a man screamed in pain. Swords rang, the clash of arms and the pound of blade against shield. A sudden fire bloomed at the base of the leftmost siege engine and by its unruly light she saw the skirmish unfold and spread as men leaped forward to beat down the flames while others took up blazing brands to look for their enemy¡ªor start new fires.


    Dawn grayed the horizon. As if in answer to the call to arms now ringing through camp, the gates of the fortress swung open. More than a score of mounted riders, pennants held high upon their up-raised spears, galloped through the yawning gate and drove down toward the engines.


    Liath saw them coming, heard voices beyond her shout warnings, heard the shrill of horns from King Henry¡¯s camp as they blared a warning, but she had more pressing matters before her.


    The raiders had put one ballista to the torch with a flaming pitch that refused to yield to water or blanket. A solitary Lion¡ªone she didn¡¯t recognize except by his tabard¡ªdefended another ballista from three of the raiders. With torch and sword he held them at bay. Another raider lay dead, nearly decapitated, at his feet. They had not yet trapped the Lion against the ballista, but they would in a moment.


    ¡±Eagles don¡¯t fight, they witness.¡± So Hathui always said. But he would die without her help.


    She plunged in, parrying blows, and took up a position to his left. He greeted her with a slurred ¡°gud morn¡¯n.¡± Despite the odds, she sensed he was smiling. The raiders hesitated, faced with two where there had been one. She shifted, feinting to attack, when the Lion changed position beside her and his face fell within her view. His cheek had been split by a slash; a permanent toothy grin showed through the rivulets of blood. For an instant too long the ghastly grin caught her eye. One of the raiders rushed her from the left. She turned, catching his blow on her quillons, but the weight of his charge drove her to her knees. She strained up, locked in a test of strength as the man tried to force her down. The injured Lion thrust his lit torch into a second raider¡¯s face, stunning him, and then two more Lions ran up.


    One was Thiadbold. She recognized him by his red hair; he had not had time to put on a helmet. That fast, he drove his sword to its hilt through the abdomen of the raider who grappled with her. They stood embraced above her, the impaled man flushing and twitching, his sword arm pinned to his side by the body of the man who killed him. Thiadbold had wrapped his free arm tight around his prey, holding him as he would a shield, until he was sure that all of the fight had drained from the body. The raider¡¯s sword fell from his limp hand. Thiadbold stepped back to let the corpse fall, twisting his own sword free.


    Liath rolled out of the way of the body, then jumped to her feet as the two remaining raiders gave ground¡ªbut not fast enough. Cut down, they dropped, screaming, and lay still.


    The injured Lion turned to beat again at the fire that scorched the ballista. Blood dripped down his tabard.

 Page 17

    ¡°Fall back!¡± cried Thiadbold, his words underscored by a heavy drumming throb, the pound of hooves and the ominous call of a low-pitched horn. ¡°To the camp! To the king!¡±


    She saw at once what the ruse had been. The raid on the siege engines had diverted their attention from the picket of stakes that protected the flanks of the camp. The horsemen from the fortress pressed forward at full charge and with spears lowered. With the stakes now uprooted or cut down, they had a clear sweep into camp.


    ¡°We have too few to repel the charge!¡± cried Thiadbold. ¡°Eagle! Fall back!¡±


    She obeyed, and they made room for her behind them, for of all the men hacking around at the remains of the raiding force, falling back to set a position against the charge of heavy horse, she was the only one without some kind of armor.


    The injured Lion had salvaged bolts from the ballista and these he handed to his fellows. ¡°Brace with these,¡± he shouted, his voice heavily slurred. ¡°It¡¯s our only chance to stop the charge. Eagle!¡± He nodded toward her, his sliced cheek still seeping blood. ¡°Shoot into the faces of the horses. That might hurt their charge.¡±


    Men stumbled forward through the dawning light, forming a line where once the pickets had stood. New raiders, emboldened by the defensive posture of the king¡¯s troops, set to work on the now undefended engines.


    ¡°The king!¡± voices shouted far behind her. ¡°The king rides forth!¡±


    She hunched down behind the line of Lions and men-at-arms, a few of whom held the long ballista bolts inclined forward like spears. While the others braced themselves, spear butts dug into the ground, she sheathed her sword and readied her bow. Her mind had gone still and quiet; empty. She nocked, drew, and shot, but lost sight of the arrow in the gloom. The pounding of hooves drowned her; she could not even hear the Lions next to her speaking. Beyond, the fortress lay still. No footmen or archers had followed the lord¡¯s charge out the gates. She nocked another arrow, drew¡ª


    The horsemen were upon them. She had only an instant to register their tabards, sewn with the device of a swan. The lead horseman, made bright by his shining mail and gleaming helm and the white coat of his horse, cleared them with a great leap. His fellows broke through, some of the horses jumping, some simply shattering the line with their weight. Only one horse faltered, screaming in pain as a spear caught it in the chest, and went down. A Lion dragged the rider from his horse.


    She followed the charging horsemen with her nocked arrow but could not release it for fear of hitting the king¡¯s people. By now, all was chaos in the camp. The lord leading the charge had little interest in the infantry who hurried forward. His milites behind him, he headed for the tent that flew the king¡¯s banner: a huge red silk pennant marked with an eagle, a dragon, and a lion stitched in gold. His charge carried him through camp, scattering the disorganized troops who lay in his path.


    King Henry had not waited for his lords. With a quilted jacket and steel cap he had mounted, taken up St. Perpetua¡¯s holy lance, and now, with no more than a dozen mounted riders at his back, he raced toward the fray. The king broke from a cluster of tents into the small parade that separated the high nobility from the rest of the camp. Henry drove his horse into a charge, lance lowered, and galloped forward in a headlong fury. Others, shouting, tried to divert his charge, but the king¡¯s horse was evidently possessed by the same fury that, smoldering for so long, had finally burst into full flame. These riders would feel the wrath that Sabella, as his kinswoman, had been spared.


    From the opposite end of the parade, the lord and his retinue approached, also at full gallop. As they passed the last tent of the lower camp, the right leg of the lord¡¯s mount caught the guy rope, toppling the tent and throwing lord and horse to the ground with terrific force.


    ¡°Up, you!¡± cried Thiadbold, jerking Liath to her feet. A few men lay moaning or quiet on the ground around her. The rider, pulled from his horse, was dead.


    She ran up the hill with the others.


    Henry barely had time to pull up his charge as the lord¡¯s companions scattered in confusion. The king laid his lance against the man¡¯s chest. The lord¡¯s face was hidden by mail that draped down from the nasal of his gold-trimmed helmet.


    ¡°Yield!¡± cried the king in a voice that carried across the camp and caused a sudden stilling hand to press down on the battle. The man did not stir but, one by one, his companions were slain, disarmed, or forced to surrender.


    ¡°Liath! To me!¡± Liath ran over to Hathui and stood panting beside her. ¡°Eagles don¡¯t fight,¡± added Hathui in an undertone. ¡°They witness. But you did well, comrade.¡±

 Page 18

    Henry did not move, simply sat his patient horse with the lance point pressed up under the mail, hard into the lord¡¯s vulnerable throat.


    In this way he waited as his Wendish lords hurried to form up around him, the crippled Villam chief among them. Margrave Judith directed the mopup: prisoners herded into a group, horses tied up, the fires put out¡ªalthough two of the ballistae had already collapsed into ashy heaps.


    As the sun rose, the gates of the fortress yawned open again. A great lady, mounted on a brown mare whose trappings had as much gold and silver woven into them as a biscop¡¯s stole, rode between two deacons dressed in simple white and two holy fraters in drab brown. Her retinue, all unarmed, crowded behind her. Already a wailing had risen from the back of their ranks, keening and mourning.


    Henry gestured with his free hand and his men parted to let Lady Svanhilde through his lines. She approached, was helped to dismount by one of her stewards, and knelt before the king.


    ¡°I beg you, Your Majesty,¡± she said, her voice shaken with grief. ¡°Let me see if my son yet lives. I beg you, grant us your mercy. This was no plan of mine. He is a rash youth, and has listened too long to the poets singing the music of war.¡±


    ¡°You would have been better served to come before me yesterday, when first we arrived,¡± said the king, but he withdrew his lance from the body.


    Lady Svanhilde unbuckled the helm and drew it back. Her sudden gasp made clear what was not yet apparent to all. The young man was dead although no mark of war stained his body. He had died in the fall from his horse. His mother began to weep, but in a dignified way.


    ¡°This gives me no pleasure,¡± said the king suddenly in a voice made hoarse by remembered grief. ¡°I, too, have lost a beloved son.¡±


    She pressed a hand to her heart and stared down for a long time on the slack face of the young man. She was an old woman, frail, with thin bones. When she stood, she needed help to rise. But pride shone in her face as she regarded the king who sat above her, still mounted, his holy lance given into the care of Helmut Villam. ¡°He followed Lady Sabella, although I counseled against it.¡±


    ¡°And your loyalties?¡± demanded Biscop Constance, who had come forward now that the fighting was over.


    ¡°Your Grace.¡± Lady Svanhilde inclined her head, showing more respect to the biscop than she had to the king. ¡°We bow to the regnant.¡±


    Margrave Judith snorted. ¡°Now that you are compelled to!¡±


    ¡°Necessity breeds hard choices,¡± said the lady without flinching. ¡°I will do what I am commanded, because I must.¡±


    ¡°Let her be,¡± said Henry suddenly. ¡°Feed us this night, Lady Svanhilde, give us the tithe I ask for, and we will be on our way in the morning.¡±


    ¡°What tithe is that?¡± Several Wendish lords gasped to hear a defeated noble question terms.


    ¡°I need men, horses, and armor to retake the city of Gent, which has fallen to the Eika. This is the tax I set upon you and all the other Varren nobles who followed Sabella. Her fight cost me much of my strength, which you and your countryfolk will return to me.¡±


    Lady Svanhilde poured the king¡¯s wine and served him with her own hands at the feast. Her children served his children, the two margraves, the biscop, and certain other high nobles whose rank demanded they be served with equal honor to the rest. Liath, standing with Hathui behind the king¡¯s chair, tried not to listen to the rumbling of her own stomach. As one of the lucky ones, she would get leftovers from the feast fed to the nobles.


    As usual, Lady Tallia had pride of place beside her uncle, King Henry, but the young princess merely picked at her food, contenting herself with so little that Liath wondered how she could keep up her strength.


    ¡°As you see,¡± said Henry to Lady Svanhilde, indicating Tallia, ¡°Sabella¡¯s only child rides with me.¡± He looked carefully at the three children serving at the feast. One, a girl of about twelve years of age, had a face pale from crying; as her aunt¡¯s heir, she served the king¡¯s children, Theophanu and Ekkehard. Svanhilde¡¯s two sons served the other high nobles. One was a boy of no more than eight, so nervous that a steward hovered at his elbow, helping him to set platters down without breaking them and to pour without spilling. The other was a boy somewhat older than Ekkehard, not yet at his majority. His manners were perfect and his expression grimly serious.


    ¡°These are your remaining children?¡± asked Henry.


    Svanhilde gestured to a steward to bring more wine. ¡°I have a son in the monastery my grandmother founded. This boy, Constantine¡ª¡± She indicated the elder of the two boys. ¡°¡ªis to join the schola at Mainni next spring, when he turns fifteen.¡±

 Page 19

    ¡°Let him join my schola instead,¡± said the king. ¡°Sister Rosvita supervises the young clerics and the business of the court. She would be glad to attend to his education.¡±


    ¡°That would be a great honor,¡± said the lady without emotion, glancing toward Lady Tallia. She, like everyone else there, understood that her son was now a hostage for her good behavior and continued support.


    Hathui cleared her throat, shifting to stretch her back. ¡°Indeed,¡± she murmured so that only Liath could hear, ¡°the king¡¯s schola has increased vastly in numbers in these last two months, so many young lords and ladies from Varre have come to join us. They almost make up for the lack of Princess Sapientia.¡±


    These sudden and occasional outbursts of sarcasm from Hathui never failed to surprise Liath. But since Hathui always grinned after speaking them, Liath could not be sure whether she disliked the nobles or merely found them amusing.


    Liath followed the movements of young Constantine as he was brought before the king to kneel and be presented to Henry. He was even allowed to kiss the king¡¯s hand. Would she have wished for such a life? To be given into the king¡¯s schola, where she might study, write, and read all she wished¡ªand be praised for it? If Da hadn¡¯t died¡ª


    But Da had died. Da had been murdered.


    She touched her left shoulder, where, when she wasn¡¯t riding, she usually draped her saddlebag. She felt light, almost naked, without it, but she had to leave her gear wrapped in her cloak in the fortress stables. She hated to leave the bag anywhere, for fear someone would steal both it and, more importantly, the precious book hidden inside, but she¡¯d had no choice. At least this time one of the Eagles had been left behind to guard all their various possessions while the others came to stand attendance on the king and remind these Varren lords of the king¡¯s magnificence and his far-reaching strength.


    Lions stood here, too, ranged along the walls. She caught sight of Thiadbold, by the door that led out of the great hall to the courtyard and kitchens. He was chatting with one of his comrades.


    Above the buzz of conversation she heard Margrave Judith address the king. The imposing margrave terrified Liath even though Liath was certain that Judith could not know who Liath was and had no reason to connect an anonymous Eagle with her own son. Hugh was abbot of Firsebarg now, which lay west of here in northern Varingia. He had no reason to attend the king¡¯s progress. At first, she had been afraid that Henry¡¯s progress through Varre might take them that far, but it had not because on this journey, Henry did not need to visit a place loyal to him.


    ¡°I will take my party and ride east to my marchlands,¡± Judith was saying. ¡°I will raise what levies I can, Your Majesty, but with the harvest coming, with winter after and then the spring sowing, it will be next summer before I can march on Gent.¡±


    ¡°What of this marriage I¡¯ve heard you speak of?¡± asked the king. ¡°Will that delay you?¡±


    She raised her eyebrows. A powerful woman of about the same age as Henry, she had borne five children, of whom three still lived, and had outlived two husbands. Unlike Lady Svanhilde, these travails had not weakened her, and she could still ride to battle, although she had sons and sons-in-law to do that for her now. Despite herself, Liath had to admire Judith¡¯s strength¡ªand be grateful that strength wasn¡¯t turned against her.


    ¡°A young husband is always eager to prove himself on the field,¡± she said. This statement produced guffaws and hearty good wishes, to which she replied, in a stately manner, ¡°I see no reason he can¡¯t fight at Gent, once we reach there. But I must return to Austra to marry, and I promised I would collect my bridegroom this past spring.¡± Her lips quirked up, and she looked rather more satisfied at the prospect than Liath thought seemly. ¡°The delay brought on by Sabella¡¯s rebellion was unexpected. I hope his kin have not given up on me.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s hot in here,¡± muttered Liath.


    ¡°And not just because of the conversation,¡± retorted Hathui with a grin. ¡°Go outside for a bit. You won¡¯t be needed.¡±


    Liath nodded and sidled away from the high table. Pressing back along the wall, she got caught in an eddy of servants bringing the next course, roasted pheasants arranged on platters with their feathers opened like a fan behind them. From this vantage she could hear the conversation at the nearest table, where Sister Rosvita sat with her clerics.


    ¡°I hope he¡¯s as handsome as they all say her first husband was,¡± one woman was saying.


    ¡°Her first husband wasn¡¯t handsome, dear Sister Amabilia,¡± said the plump young man sitting beside her. ¡°He was heir to considerable lands and wealth because his mother outlived her sisters and gave birth to no daughters. It was the margrave¡¯s famous Alban concubine who was so handsome. Isn¡¯t that right, Sister Rosvita? You were with the court then, weren¡¯t you?¡±

 Page 20

    ¡°Let us keep our minds on Godly subjects, Brother Fortunatus.¡± But after uttering this pious sentiment, Sister Rosvita smiled. She was famous at court for her great learning and wise counsel, and for never losing her temper. After two months with the king¡¯s progress, Liath could not help but admire her from afar¡ªespecially having heard Ivar sing her praises so often in Heart¡¯s Rest. ¡°I can¡¯t recall his name now, but in truth, he was memorably beautiful, the kind of face one never forgets.¡±


    ¡°High praise from you, Sister Rosvita,¡± said the one called Amabilia. ¡°Even if you do remember everything.¡±


    The stream of platters and pheasants passed. Liath hurried on and made it to the door.


    ¡°Thiadbold.¡± She stopped beside the red-haired Lion. ¡°What of the man this morning, whose cheek was cut so horribly? Will he live?¡±


    ¡°He¡¯ll live, though he won¡¯t be charming any of the women with his handsome face, alas for him.¡±


    ¡°Will he still be able to serve as a Lion? What will happen to him if he can¡¯t?¡± She knew all too well what it meant to have neither kin nor home.


    ¡°A Lion who is unfit to serve because of a wound in battle can expect a handsome reward from the king, a plot of land in the marchcountry or fenland.¡±


    ¡°Aren¡¯t those dangerous and difficult places to farm?¡±


    ¡°In some ways, but you¡¯re free of service to the lordlings who demand tithes and labor. The king only demands service from you to man the marchcountry watchforts. Even a man as scarred as poor Johannes will be can find a wife if he has a plot of land to pass on to their daughters. There¡¯s always a strong woman to be found, a younger sister, perhaps, who¡¯d like to forge out on her own and will overlook an unsightly scar.¡± He hesitated, then touched her, briefly, on the elbow. ¡°But mind, Eagle, we Lions will remember that you came to his aid.¡±


    Behind them, at the table, the king rose and lifted his cup, commanding silence. ¡°In the morning we march east, toward Wendar,¡± the king announced. Several of the younger lords cheered, happy at the prospect of marching nearer to those lands where fighting might be expected. ¡°But let us not rejoice in a hall of mourning. Let us remember the lesson of St. Katina.¡±


    Since St. Katina had been tormented by visions of great troubles lying in wait for her village in the same way a beast of the forest lies in wait for an innocent fawn, Liath wondered that King Henry would want to remind his retinue of her story. But this was her feast day, and her visions had proved truthful.


    ¡°¡®Do not let fear draw a veil across your sight,¡¯¡± said Biscop Constance.


    ¡°¡®Do not forget that which troubles you.¡¯¡± The king stared past his cup toward a vision only he could see. ¡°It has been sixty-seven days since I learned of the death of¡ª¡± Here he faltered. Never could he bring himself to say the name out loud. Better that he never do so, thought Liath bitterly, so as not to bring pain blooming fresh out of her own heart. ¡°Since the Dragons fell at Gent.¡±


    Certain of the young lords in the back of the hall called out a toast to the bravery of the fabled Dragons. Some of them, no doubt, had hopes that Henry would name a new captain and form a new troop of Dragons, but he had not once spoken of such a thing in Liath¡¯s hearing. They drank, toasting the dead Dragons, but Henry only sipped at his wine.


    Villam changed the subject at once, discussing the road back. They would ride southeast until they linked up with the Hellweg, the Clear Way, that began in easternmost Arconia, then cut through northwestern Fesse and from there into the heartland of Saony.


    ¡°It is too late to hope to reach Quedlinhame for Matthiasmass,¡± the king said, ¡°for the harvest will be over. But we may reach there in time to celebrate the Feast of St. Valentinus with my mother and sister.¡±


    Quedlinhame. Wasn¡¯t that where Ivar had been sent? Liath glanced toward Sister Rosvita, who was smiling at some comment made by Sister Amabilia. Thinking of Ivar made her think of Hanna. Where was Hanna now? How did her journey prosper, she and Wolfhere? Once Hanna had spoken of Darre as if it were a city built from a poet¡¯s song, all breath and no substance. Now Hanna would see it herself.


    ¡°Then,¡± the king was saying, ¡°we will swing south, to hunt.¡±


    ¡°What are we hunting?¡± asked Villam.


    ¡°Troops and supplies,¡± said King Henry grimly. ¡°If not for this year, then for the next.¡± The thought of Gent was never far from his mind.


    3


    ANNA had to walk farther into the forest than she ever had before in order to find anything to harvest. The woods nearest to Steleshame had been picked clean by the refugees from Gent. Matthias didn¡¯t like her to go out into the woods alone, especially as the border of the forest itself steadily shrank back as refugees culled what they could in berries and roots, let their livestock graze away the under-growth, and then cut down the trees themselves for shelter and fuel.

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    She and Matthias had survived in Gent for a long time, all alone. Surely she could survive a few expeditions into the forest, where the worst predators were wolves and bears¡ªif any still roamed here now that the forest had been hunted clean by the foresters who guarded the pathways against Eika scouts and who supplied Mistress Gisela and the refugees in Steleshame with fresh meat.


    But there was not enough for everyone. There was never enough for everyone.


    She used a stick to beat a pathway through the leaves and undergrowth. Burrs stuck to her skirts. Sharp thistles pricked her feet. She had a welt on one cheek and a tear in her shawl where it had gotten caught on a dead branch. Fearful of losing her direction, she scored a line in the trees she passed so she could follow this trail back; she and Matthias had plenty of knives, four of which they had so far traded for canvas and a steady supply of eggs. But stopping to score every third or fourth tree made slow going¡ªand her feet hurt from stones and stickers.


    Ahead, a dense thicket glistened with berries, bright red balls no bigger around than the tip of her little finger. She bit into one carefully; its sour bite made her wince, and a sharp tang burned her tongue. But she picked every last one nevertheless, dropping them into the pouch she had brought along. Maybe they were poison, but certain wisewomen in the camp knew which could be eaten raw, which eaten if cooked, which could be used for dye, and which were simply useless. Scrambling through the thicket looking for more of the berries, she found the real treasure. A tree had fallen and left space and enough sun for a garden of wild onions.


    She got down on hands and knees to dig them up. Matthias would be so proud of her.


    When the twig snapped, old reflexes kept her still. She dared not even raise her head. Only that stillness saved her. They walked past on the other side of the thicket, and when they whispered, one to the other, she knew by the whispery flute of their voices and the harsh unintelligible words that Eika stalked these woods.


    Ai, Lady. Were they hunting for Steleshame? Would they never let the refugees rest? Would they find her? She knew what they did to children.


    But she kept her hands buried in the dirt, the smell of onions sharp in her nostrils, and prayed to the Lord and Lady, lips forming unspoken words. If she could only stay still, and hidden, they would pass by without seeing her. Then she could run back and warn Matthias¡ªand all the others.


    She heard the snick, like a nail flicking against a kettle, heard a hiss of air and then a sudden grunt. A howl of rage pierced the air not ten paces from her, at her back. She dared not move. She stifled a sob, grasping onions and dirt in her hands as, behind her, foresters converged on the Eika and a bitter fight ensued.


    ¡±Don¡¯t run,¡± Matthias had always counseled her. ¡°If you run, they¡¯ll see you.¡± And anyway, if she ran, she¡¯d probably never find this trove of onions again.


    A man shrieked. Branches snapped and splintered in a wave of sound, and a heavy weight hit the ground so hard and close behind her that she felt the shudder through her knees. An arrow thunked into wood. Metal rang, meeting another blade. A man shouted a warning. Many feet crashed through the undergrowth and someone cursed.


    Then came many voices raised at once, running feet, undergrowth torn and broken, and a drumming like many blows thrown down upon the earth¡ªor on some object.


    Silence.


    She dared not raise her head. A thin liquid puddled by her left hand, lapping over and wetting her little finger. It stung like the kiss of a bee. Moving her head a bare fraction, she risked a glance back over her shoulder.


    An outflung hand reached for her. Eyes stared at her, and lips pulled back from sharp teeth, a mouth opened wide in a last grimace. Every part of her that was not her actual physical body bolted up and fled, screaming in terror¡ªbut her training held. She did not move, and after an instant of such terror that her stomach burned, she realized the Eika had fallen, dead, almost into her hiding place.


    Farther away, she heard foresters talking.


    ¡°I only saw two.¡±


    ¡°They scout in pairs.¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s their dogs?¡±


    ¡°Ai, Lord, have you ever seen their dogs, lad? Scout with them dogs and you tell everyone where you¡¯re passing. They never scout with their dogs, and it¡¯s just as well for us. I swear the dogs are harder to kill than the damned savages.¡±


    ¡°What do we do with these two, now?¡±


    ¡°Leave them be and let the maggots and flies have them, if such creatures can even eat Eika.¡±


    Shuddering, she picked herself up, wiping her fingers clean of the greenish liquid that had oozed from the wound where an arrow had embedded itself in the Eika¡¯s throat. She had harvesting to do. The onions came up easily, but she trembled as she worked, even knowing the Eika couldn¡¯t hurt her now.

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    ¡°Hey there! What¡¯s this?¡±


    Men thrashed through the undergrowth and she glanced up to see two of them hacking at the thicket, then peering over the broken and crushed leaves, at her.


    ¡°Ai, I know you,¡± said one of the foresters. ¡°You¡¯re the child what came out of Gent early summer.¡± He didn¡¯t ask what she was doing; he didn¡¯t need to. ¡°God¡¯s blood, but you came close to having your throat slit, lass. You¡¯d better get back to town.¡± He waved his companion away. ¡°What have you found there, child?¡±


    ¡°Onions,¡± she said, suddenly afraid he would take them away from her.


    But he merely nodded, pulled a colored stick from his belt, and stuck it beside the tree to mark the find. ¡°Don¡¯t take them all, now. That¡¯s the problem with you folk, you take everything and don¡¯t leave anything to go to seed for next year. You must husband what you find, just as a farmer saves seed to sow and doesn¡¯t use it all for bread.¡±


    She stared at him, waiting for him to move off, and he sighed and stepped back. ¡°Nay, child, I¡¯ll take nothing from you. We¡¯re better off who live out here than you poor orphans nearby the town. That Gisela, she¡¯s a cunning householder and would indenture you all if she had room for it. Go on, then.¡±


    She jumped up and scuttled away, clutching the precious onions against her. After she could no longer see the foresters, she stopped to make a fold in her skirt, laying the onions in the fold and tucking the fabric up under her belt, a makeshift pouch for her new treasure. She peered up through leaves at the sky. It was hot, if not unpleasant, but well past noontide¡ªtime to be heading back so that she would not be caught out after dark. She arranged her shawl on her back to drape over one shoulder and around the opposite hip. With a practiced backward motion she filled this sling with firewood: anything loose, dry, and not too heavy for her to carry.


    Thus laden, she arrived back at camp in the late afternoon. She drew her sling of firewood over the lump in her skirt, hiding her trove of onions as she cut across the camp on her way to the tannery. Once this stretch of ground had also been woodland, harvested under the supervision of Gisela, mistress of the holding of Steleshame which sat on the rise above. Now Anna saw only stumps where there had once been scrub forest. Goats had eaten the last of the greenery except in the carefully fenced and hoarded vegetable patches. All the scattered seeds had long since been eaten by chickens and geese, and any least stick or twig had gone to cookfires. When the rains fell, mud washed every pathway into a river of filth that wound through the maze of shelters and huts.


    Here, at Steleshame, many of the refugees from Gent had encamped last spring, washed up like sticks and leaves after a flood. News of so many children had excited the concern or greed of folk living west of the holding, and about a third of the orphans had been taken away to towns and villages, some to good situations, some, no doubt, to bad.


    But hundreds remained behind. Most had nowhere else to go. Some refused to leave the vicinity of Gent, while others were simply too weak to attempt to walk to more distant settlements. Not even Mistress Gisela¡¯s displeasure could force them to move on.


    Into this camp Anna and Matthias had wandered just after midsummer. Matthias had been lucky to trade intelligence about Gent for employment at the tanning works, which lay outside the Steleshame palisade next to the sprawling refugee encampment.


    Now as late summer heat became stifling, a sickness afflicted the weakest in camp. Certain wisewomen called it a flux, a curse brought on by the enemy¡¯s swarm of malevolent helpers. Others called it a spell called down on them by the Eika enchanter, while yet others blamed the presence of malefici¡ªevil sorcerers¡ªhidden in their own camp. Every day a few parties of desperate souls trickled away, seeking their fortune elsewhere. Yet for every person who left, another would likely wander into the camp a day or week later telling tales of Eika atrocities in some other village within reach of the Veser River.


    At the tannery, where Anna and Matthias slept in a crude shelter strung up behind the drying sheds, the sickness had not yet taken its toll. But they had cider and bread as well as eggs to eat every day, and Anna supposed the stink of the tannery drove away evil spirits.


    As she scurried through camp, she prayed the pungent smell of earth and onions would not give away her secret good fortune. She was not big enough to fight off any but a smaller child, if it came to that.


    ¡°Settle down, now, children. Sit down. Sit down. My voice isn¡¯t what it used to be, alas, but if you will all be quiet, I will tell you the tale of Helen.¡±

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    Anna paused despite knowing she ought to hurry right back to Matthias. With the aid of a stout walking stick, an old man shuffled forward and laboriously seated himself on a stool set down behind him by a girl. Many young children crowded ¡¯round with gaunt faces upturned. She recognized him, just as she recognized the children: They, too, were refugees from Gent, the only ones who had escaped the Eika attack. No older children sat here; like Matthias, they had taken on the responsibilities of adults or been adopted by farmers to the west. They worked the tanneries and the armories, assisted the blacksmiths, chopped and hauled wood, built huts, broke virgin forestland to the plow, sowed and tended fields, and hauled water from the stream. It was children Anna¡¯s age or younger who were set to watch over the very smallest ones, even those toddling babies whose nursing mothers had to spend all of their day working to make food and shelter.


    The old man had been an honored guest at the mayor¡¯s palace in Gent; he was a poet, so he said, accustomed to sing before nobles. Yet if this were true, why hadn¡¯t the mayor of Gent taken him along when he had traded some part of the wealth he had salvaged from Gent to Mistress Gisela in exchange for her allowing him to set up housekeeping within the palisade wall of Steleshame? The old man had been left behind to fend for himself. Too crippled to work, he told tales in the hope of gaining a pittance of bread or the dregs from a cup of cider.


    He cleared his throat to begin. His voice was far more robust than his elderly frame.


    ¡°¡®This is a tale of war and a woman. Fated to be an exile not once but twice, first from her beloved Lassadaemon and then from her second home, red-gated Ilios, she suffered the wrath of cruel Mok, the majestic Queen of Heaven, and labored hard under the yoke of that great Queen¡¯s fury. High Heaven willed that she walk the long path of adventure. But in the end she succeeded in founding her city, and thus in time out of these tribulations grew the high walls and noble empire of Dariya.¡¯¡±


    The poet hesitated, seeing his audience grow restless, then began again¡ªthis time without the stiff cadence that made the opening hard to follow. ¡°Helen was heir to the throne of Lassadaemon. She had just come into her inheritance when usurpers arrived. Ai, ruthless Mernon and his brother Menlos marched with their terrible armies into the peaceful land and forced poor Helen to marry that foul chieftain, Menlos.¡±


    ¡°Were they like the Eika?¡± demanded a child.


    ¡°Oh, worse! Far worse! They came out of the tribe of Dorias, whose women consorted with the vile Bwrmen.¡± He coughed and surveyed the crowd, seeing that he had their attention. Anna liked the story much better told this way. ¡°They made Helen a prisoner in her own palace while Mernon went off to conquer¡ªwell, never mind that. So Helen escaped and with her faithful servants fled to the sea, where they took ship. They set sail for Ilios, where her mother¡¯s mother¡¯s kin had settled many years before and built a fine, grand city with red gates and golden towers under the protection of bright Somorhas. But Mernon and Menlos prayed to cruel Mok, the pitiless Queen of Heaven, and since she was jealous of beautiful Somorhas, she cajoled her brother Sujandan, the God of the Sea, into sending storms to sink Helen¡¯s ship. ¡®How quickly night came, covering the sun! How the winds howled around them! How the waves rose and fell, first smothering the bow of the ship, then sinking so low that the very bottom of the sea was exposed!¡¯¡±


    Beyond the old man¡¯s shoulder Anna could see the palisade and heavy gates of Steleshame proper. The gates were always shut, even during the day. Some in the camp grumbled that it was more to keep out the refugees than to guard against an Eika attack, for everyone in camp knew that within Steleshame they ate beans and bread every day, even the servants. Now, one of the gates to this haven of plenty opened, and five riders appeared. They rode out on the southeast track, along which part of the refugee¡¯s settlement had sprawled.


    The poet¡¯s story¡ªeven as the storm-tossed ship ran aground on an island filled with monsters¡ªcould not compete with such an unusual event. Anna followed the others as they ran to line the road, hoping for news.


    ¡°Where are you going?¡± children shouted to the riders as they passed through the camp. ¡°Are you leaving?¡±


    ¡°Nay,¡± shouted back a young woman outfitted in a boiled leather coat for armor, with a short spear braced against her stirrup and two long knives stuck in her belt. ¡°We¡¯re riding to the stronghold of Duchess Rotrudis, down to Osterburg where it¡¯s said she holds court at Matthiasmass.¡±


    ¡°Will she come to rescue us?¡± demanded several children at once.

 Page 24

    The other riders had gone on, but the young woman lingered, eyeing the crowd of children with a frown, shaking her head all the while. ¡°I don¡¯t know what she¡¯ll do. But we must ask for help. More Eika scouts are sighted every day. More villages are burned. Their circle is growing wider. Soon they will engulf all of us. There are too many people here already. Mistress Gisela can¡¯t support them all.¡±


    Her comrades called to her and she urged her horse forward, leaving the camp behind.


    Most of the children wandered back to the old poet and told him what the rider had said.


    He snorted. ¡°As if Mistress Gisela supports any but her own kin and servants, and those with coin to pay for food and protection. Alas that there is no biscop here to feed the poor.¡± Anna noticed all at once how thin he was. A film of white half-covered his left eye, and his hands had a constant small tremor.


    ¡°Who is Duchess Rotrudis?¡± she asked.


    Trained as both listener and singer, he found her in the crowd and nodded toward her, acknowledging her question. ¡°Rotrudis is duchess of Saony. She is the younger sister of King Henry. Alas that the Dragons fell. That was a terrible day.¡±


    ¡°Why hasn¡¯t the king come to rescue us?¡± asked a boy.


    ¡°Nay, lad, you must recall that the world is a wide place and filled with danger. I have traveled over its many roads and paths. It takes months to get news from one place to another.¡± Seeing their expressions shift from hope to fear, he hurried on. ¡°But I have no doubt King Henry knows of the fall of Gent and mourns it.¡±


    ¡°Then why doesn¡¯t he come?¡±


    He only shrugged. ¡°The king may be anywhere. He may be marching on his way here now. How can we know?¡±


    ¡°Have you ever seen the king?¡± Anna asked.


    He was surprised and perhaps taken aback by her question. ¡°I have not,¡± he answered, voice shaking and cheeks flushed. ¡°But I have sung before his son, the one who was captain of the Dragons.¡±


    ¡°Tell us more of the story,¡± said a child.


    ¡°Tell us something that happened to you, friend,¡± said Anna suddenly, knowing she ought to return to the tannery but not quite able to tear herself away.


    ¡°Something that happened to me,¡± he murmured.


    ¡°Yes! Yes!¡± cried the other children.


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to hear more of the lay of Helen?¡±


    ¡°Did it happen to you?¡± asked Anna. ¡°Were you on the ship?¡±


    ¡°Why, no, child,¡± he said, half chuckling. ¡°It happened so long ago that¡ª¡±


    ¡°You were a child then?¡±


    ¡°Nay, child. It happened long before Daisan received the Holy Word of God and preached the truth of the Unities, bringing Light to the Darkness. It happened long, long ago, before even the old stone walls you see in Steleshame were built.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve never been inside Steleshame,¡± Anna pointed out. ¡°And if it happened so long ago, how do you know it¡¯s true?¡±


    ¡°Because it has been passed down from poet to poet, line for line, even written down by the ancient scribes so it would be remembered.¡± Then he smiled softly. Amazingly, he still had most of his teeth, but perhaps a poet took better care of his mouth, knowing that his fortune rested there and in what he could recall from his mind. ¡°But I¡¯ll tell you a story that happened to me when I was a young man. Ai, Lady! Have you ever heard of the Alfar Mountains? Can you imagine, you children, mountains that are so high that they caress the heavens? That snow lies thick upon them even on the hottest summer¡¯s day? These mountains you must cross if you wish to travel south from the kingdom of Wendar into the kingdom of Aosta. In Aosta you will find the holy city of Darre. That is where the skopos resides, she who is Mother over the Holy Church.¡±


    ¡°If the mountains are so high,¡± asked Anna, ¡°then how can you get over them?¡±


    ¡°Hush, now,¡± he said querulously. ¡°Let us proceed with no more questions. There are only a few paths over the mountains. So high do these tracks rise along the rugged ground that a man can reach up and touch the stars themselves at nightfall. But every step is dangerous. No matter how clear at dawn, each day may turn into one of blinding storm¡ªeven at midsummer, for summer is the only season when one may cross the mountains.


    ¡°Yet some few attempt the crossing late in the season. Some few, as I did, try it even as late as the month of Octumbre. My need was great¡ª¡± He raised a hand, forestalling a question. ¡°It had to do with a woman. You need ask no more than that! I was warned against attempting the crossing, but I was a rash youth. I thought I could do anything. And indeed, as I climbed, the weather held fair and I had no trouble ¡­¡±

 Page 25

    He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper that still carried easily over the crowd. Every child hushed and leaned forward, mirroring him. ¡°The blizzard hit without warning. It was the very middle of day, a fine day, a warm day, and between one footstep and the next I was engulfed in storm. I saw nothing but howling white wind before my eyes. The cold pierced me like a sword, and I staggered and fell to my knees.


    ¡°But I would not give up! Nay, not when she awaited me in distant Darre. I staggered forward, crawled when I could no longer walk, and yet the storm still raged about me. The cold blinded me, and I could not feel my feet. I stumbled, fell, and tumbled down a slope to my death.¡±


    Here he paused again. Anna edged forward, hand tight over the bulge of onions. No one spoke.


    ¡°But alas, the fall hadn¡¯t killed me. I tried to open my swollen eyes. As I groped forward, I felt grass under my hands. A stream ran not a man¡¯s length from my body, and there I crawled and drank my fill of its clear water. I splashed it on my face and slowly I could see again. Above me, beyond the steep slope down which I had fallen, the storm still raged. A few flakes of snow drifted down on the breeze to wet my face. But in the vale it was as warm as springtime, with violets, and trees in bloom.¡±


    ¡°Where were you?¡± Anna demanded, unable to keep still.


    But now memory made him look down. His old shoulders hunched, and he sighed heavily, as if sorry to have remembered this tale. ¡°I never knew. Truly, it was a miracle I did not die that day. There was a ring of trees, mostly birch, and a little grassy meadow, but beyond that I never managed to go. A hut stood at the edge of the meadow. There I slept and recovered my strength. Every morning I would find food and drink outside the door, sweet bread, strong cider, a stew of beans, tart apples. But no matter how I tried to stay awake, I never could. I never saw what creature brought me the food. When I was strong enough, I knew it was time to leave, so I went.¡±


    ¡°Didn¡¯t you ever find it again?¡± asked Anna. Other children nodded their heads, marveling at the thought of an enchanted place where food appeared miraculously each morning.


    ¡°Nay, though I traveled three times more over that pass. I searched, but the way was closed to me. Now I wonder sometimes if it was only a dream.¡±


    ¡°Could we take him in?¡± she demanded at dusk as she and Matthias feasted privately on onion stew and roasted eggs. ¡°He¡¯s just a frail old man. He can¡¯t eat much, and he hasn¡¯t anyone else to take care of him. There¡¯s room for him to sleep here.¡± With the flap pulled down snug to protect them from wind and rain, their little lean-to did indeed have room for one more to sleep¡ªjust barely.


    ¡°But what good would he be to us, Anna?¡± Matthias had gulped down his portion more like a dog than a boy, eating the egg first and the stew after. Now he wiped the sides of the blackened pot clean with a dry hunk of bread he¡¯d saved from his midday meal.


    ¡°We weren¡¯t any good to Papa Otto!¡± she retorted. ¡°Oh, Matthias, he knows the most wonderful stories.¡±


    ¡°But they¡¯re not true.¡± Matthias licked the last crumbs off his lips and eyed the old pot with longing, wishing for more. Then he took Anna by the wrist and shook her. ¡°They¡¯re just tales he made up. He as good as admitted it was a dream¡ªif the whole thing even happened at all! That¡¯s how storytellers make their stories sound true, by pretending it happened to them.¡± He shook his head, grimacing, and let her go. ¡°But you may as well bring the old man here to us, if he¡¯s no other place to sleep. It¡¯s true enough that Papa Otto and the other slaves in Gent helped us for no return. We should help others as we can. And anyway, if you have him to care for, maybe you won¡¯t go wandering out into the woods and get yourself slaughtered by Eika!¡±


    She frowned. ¡°How do you know his stories aren¡¯t true? You never saw such things or traveled so far.¡±


    ¡°Mountains high enough that their peaks touch the sky! Snow all the year round! Do you believe that?¡±


    ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t I believe? All we¡¯ve ever seen is Gent¡ªand now Steleshame and a bit of forest.¡± She licked the last spot of egg from her lips. ¡°I bet there¡¯s all kinds of strange places just as fantastic as the stories the poet tells. You¡¯ll see. I¡¯ll bring him here tomorrow. I bet he¡¯s been to places no one here has ever heard of. Poets have to do that, don¡¯t they? Maybe he knows what the Eika lands look like. Maybe he¡¯s seen the sea that Helen sailed across. Maybe he¡¯s really traveled across the great mountains!¡±

 Page 26

    Matthias only snorted and, as the last daylight faded, rolled up in his blanket. Exhausted by his day¡¯s labor hauling ashes and water and lime, he quickly fell asleep.


    Anna snuggled up against him, but she could not go to sleep as easily. Instead, she closed her eyes and dreamed of the wide world, of a place far from the filth of the camp and the lurking shadows of the Eika.


    II


    IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOUNTAINS


    1


    THE hawk spiraled far above, a speck against the three mountain peaks that dominated the view. It sank, then caught an updraft and rose, wings outstretched, into the depthless blue of the sky. Here, where human paths arched closest to the vast and impenetrable mystery of the heavens, Hanna could believe that anything was possible. She could believe that the distant bird, hovering high overhead, was no hawk at all but a man or woman wearing a bird¡¯s shape¡ªor else that it was a spirit, an angel disguised in plain feathers, surveying earth from the heights.


    Or perhaps it was only a hawk, hunting for its supper.


    A thin crest of breeze touched her ears, and she thought she heard the bird¡¯s harsh call; its slow spiral did not alter. As she waited, the heavens shaded from the vivid blue of afternoon into the intense blue-gray of impending twilight. Shadow crept up the stark white peaks as the sun sank in the western sky.


    Where had Wolfhere gone, and why was he taking so long to return?


    The path wound farther up into heather and gorse, sidetracked by heaps of sharp boulders and the high shoulder of a cliff face. Beyond, the dirt track lost itself in a narrow defile. Wolfhere had bade her wait here while he walked on ahead, disappearing through the narrow gate of stone and crumbling cliff into the vale that lay beyond. Through the gap Hanna saw the rippling tops of trees, suggesting a cleft of land that ran lush with spring-fed plants. She had seen other such valleys in these mountains, sudden gorges and startlingly green vales half hidden by the jagged landscape. Beneath the scent of gorse she smelled cookfires and a distant whiff of the forge.


    Why had Wolfhere wanted her to accompany him this far, and no farther?


    ¡°Stay here and watch,¡± he had said. ¡°But on no account follow me and let no other follow me.¡±


    What was he hiding? What other did he expect to follow them up here, on this goat track he called a path? She turned to look back the way they had come. At first she thought they had been following a goat track along the heights towering above the ancient paved road that marked St. Barnaria Pass. But no goat¡¯s track sported a thin trail of wagon wheels, although how a wagon could possibly be dragged up here was more than she could imagine.


    It was very strange.


    A few steps back, an outcropping gave her a good view down onto the pass below. The road had been built during the old Dariyan Empire by their astoundingly clever engineers. In the hundreds of years since then, not even winter storms had washed it away, although many of its stones were cracked or upturned by the weight of snow, the thawing power of ice, or the simple strength of obstinate grass. Its resilience astonished her.


    The hawk wafted lazily above. She blinked back tears as her gaze caught the edge of the sinking sun. Specks swam before her eyes; then she realized that two more birds had joined the first.


    Her neck hurt from staring upward for so long, but in her seventeen or so years of life she had never imagined there might be a place like this. She knew the sea and the marsh, rivers and hills and the dark mat of forest. She had now seen the king¡¯s court and the glittering parade of nobles on his progress. She had seen the Eika raiders and their fearsome dogs so close she could have spit on them.


    But to see such mountains as these! The peaks were themselves presences, towering creatures hunched in sleep, their shoulders and bowed heads covered by drifts of snow deeper than anything Hanna had ever seen. Last winter she would have laughed at any poor soul foolish enough to suggest that she, Hanna, daughter of the innkeepers Birta and Hansal, would herself journey across those mountains wearing the badge of an Eagle. Last winter her mother and father had arranged for her betrothal to young Johan, freeholder and farmer, a man of simple tastes and no curiosity, his gaze fixed on the earth.


    Now, as summer flowers bloomed alongside the high mountain pass, she¡ªmercifully unbetrothed¡ªwas on her way south across the Alfar Mountains, an agent of the king on an important errand to the skopos herself. Truly, her life had taken a sudden and surprising turn. How distant Heart¡¯s Rest seemed now!


    From the outcropping she could see down to the road and, farther back, partially hidden by the thrusting shoulder of a ridge, the hostel where their party had halted for the night. The stone buildings nestled into the ridge¡¯s spine. Under the protection of the skopos, the hostel was run by monks from the Order of St. Servitius. According to Wolfhere, those monks stayed up in these inhospitable heights through the winter. A merchant in their party had been snowed in one terrible winter, or so he claimed, and he had regaled the party with a horrific story of fire salamanders, cannibalism, and avenging spirits. The story sounded so true when he told it, but Wolfhere had stood in the shadows of the campfire that night, shaking his head and frowning.

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    She had seen heaps of snow in shadowed verges beside the road and huge fields of ice and snow on the slopes above, giving credence to the tale, but she had also seen flowers aplenty, pale blue, butter yellow, scarlet and orange, scattered across tough grass and ground-clinging shrubs. She had seen sky so deep a blue that it shaded into violet as if brushed with a stain of beet juice. She laughed at herself. Their party included a bard journeying to Darre to make his fortune, and he never used such prosaic images as beet juice to describe the sky.


    No one traveled the mountains alone, not even King¡¯s Eagles. They had found a party assembling in the city of Genevie and joined it. Now they counted among their companions the bard, seven fraters, a high and mighty presbyter returning to the skopos with an important cartulary and his train of clerics and servants, and a motley assortment of merchants, wagons, and slaves¡ªand the two prisoners she and Wolfhere and ten of King Henry¡¯s Lions escorted to the palace of the skopos in Darre.


    A breeze skirled down from the heights, and the sun slid behind a low-lying ridge. The moon¡¯s pale disk gleamed softly against the darkening sky. Dusk. She shuddered.


    Where was Wolfhere? How was she to make her way back down that path in darkness? What if he had fallen and hurt himself?


    A bird called. She had a sudden, awful feeling of being watched.


    She spun and there, perched on a stub of rock jutting out from the cliffside that demarked one side of the narrow defile, sat a hawk. She let out a nervous chuckle and fanned herself, abruptly flushed though the day was cooling fast. The hawk did not stir. Uncanny, with eyes as dark as amber, it stared unblinking at her until she felt chills run up her back.


    And there was something else ¡­ a suggestion of something hovering just where the path dipped out of sight. Something there and yet not there, a figure glimpsed out of the corner of her eye, a pale woman creature whose skin had the color and texture of water. But when she looked directly, she saw nothing, only shadows sliding along the rock like the ripple of water over pebbles in a stream.


    The hawk launched itself up in a flurry of wings. She ducked instinctively and heard a gasp. Was it her own or someone else¡¯s, someone hidden?


    The hawk was gone. A light bobbed into view. Wolfhere, whistling, came up the path around the shoulder of the cliff face.


    ¡°Lady Above!¡± she swore. ¡°I thought you weren¡¯t coming back.¡±


    He stopped and looked around, then cocked an eyebrow and resumed walking past her and down the path toward the hostel. To keep in the light she had to hurry after; the moon was not yet half full and did not give enough illumination for her to negotiate the hillside track.


    ¡°Where did you get that lantern?¡± she demanded, angry that she had waited for so long but would evidently get no explanation.


    ¡°Ah,¡± he said, hoisting the lantern a little higher.


    He did not intend to answer her. Fuming, she followed him down the path, stumbling now and again over a rock or a thick tuft of grass grown untimely in the middle of the track. By now the hostel appeared below them only as a dark encrustation against the blacker ridge; a single lantern burned at the enclosure¡¯s gateway. So did a light burn all night, every night, a beacon for any lost traveler caught out and struggling toward safe haven just as after the body¡¯s death the soul struggles upward to the Chamber of Light¡ªor so the bard had said, thinking it a poetical conceit.


    ¡°Where did you go?¡± Hanna asked, not expecting an answer. Wolfhere gave her none. She watched his back, his confident walk, the gray-silver gleam of his hair in the twilight, his ancient, seamed hand steady on the lantern¡¯s handle.


    Hanna did not distrust Wolfhere, but neither did she precisely trust him. He kept his secrets close by him, for secrets he clearly had. Starting with the one he had never answered: How had he come so fortuitously this past spring to the inn at Heart¡¯s Rest just in time to save her dear friend Liath from slavery? He had freed Liath and taken her away from the village, made her a King¡¯s Eagle like himself. Like a leaf drawn in the wake of a boat, Hanna had been dragged along also. She, too, had been made a King¡¯s Eagle, had left the village of her birth to begin these great adventures. Wolfhere was not a man of whom one asked questions lightly, but Hanna was determined to see Liath remain safe. So she had asked questions, which was more than Liath was willing to do. How had he known Liath was in Heart¡¯s Rest and in danger? From what was he protecting her? Wolfhere had never taken offense at those questions; of course, he had never answered them either.


    They left the narrow defile and mysterious valley behind and, soon enough, the hillside path deposited them on the smooth stone of the old Dariyan road a few hundred paces from the enclosure¡¯s gateway. Stars bloomed above, a sudden harvest of bright flowers; ahead, a lantern flared as it swung back and forth in the breeze.

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    On a bench beside the gateway sat a monk, brown-robed, hooded, and silent. The lantern hung from a post, illuminating him in a pool of soft light. He lifted a weather-roughened hand at their approach and without speaking opened the gate to let them in. Because she was a woman and thus could not be admitted to the innermost cloister, she had seen few of the monks. Of those, only the genial cellarer¡ªthe monk in charge of provisions¡ªand the guest-master seemed willing, or permitted, to speak to visitors. Many monks and nuns took a vow of silence, of course. The brothers at Sheep¡¯s Head were rumored never to speak at all once they had passed out of the novitiate, communicating only with hand signs.


    Wolfhere opened his lantern and blew out its flame. Together, they trudged in pale moonlight past the ripe-smelling dung heap. A fence scraped her thigh and she smelled the rich tang of plants as they walked alongside the garden. Beyond this enclosure stood half a dozen squat beehives. Finally, they came in among the outbuildings: stables, kitchen, bakery, kiln, and forge¡ªdark and empty at this hour except for a single form sitting beside the dull red coals, tending the fire. The hostel of the monks of St. Servitius was famous, Wolfhere had told her, not just because some of them lived here the winter through, despite snow and ice and bitter cold, but also because they kept a blacksmith.


    As they came up to the guest house, a young monk, unhooded, hurried out the door and away to the right, toward the infirmary. His reddish-pale hair and coltish gait reminded Hanna abruptly and painfully of her milk brother Ivar.


    Was he well? Had he forgiven her for choosing to stay with Liath rather than go with him?


    Wolfhere sighed suddenly and squared his shoulders. Shaken out of her thoughts, Hanna heard shrill voices from the entryway. They mounted the wood steps into the entry chamber, now lit by four candles, and right into the middle of an argument.


    2


    ¡°THIS guest house is reserved,¡± said a sallow man Hanna immediately identified as the insufferable manservant to the presbyter, ¡°for those who arrive on horseback. It is quite impossible that these common soldiers be stationed here.¡±


    ¡°But the prisoners¡ª¡± This objection, raised by the inoffensive guest-master, was quelled at once by the presbyter himself, who now stepped out of the shadows.


    ¡°I will not let my rest be disturbed by their shuffling and muttering,¡± said the presbyter, his Wendish marred by a thick accent. He had a thin, aristocratic voice, fully as imperious as that of the nobles she had observed during her weeks attending King Henry¡¯s progress. But of course he, too, was a man of noble birth; with a perpetually curled-down lip, soft, white hands, and the imposingly portly demeanor of a man who feasts more days than not, one could never have mistaken him for a farmer or a hard-working craftsman. ¡°The two guards who are standing watch over the prisoners must be moved. If that means the prisoners must be moved, so be it.¡±


    Wolfhere responded blandly. ¡°Are you suggesting Biscop Antonia and Brother Heribert be quartered in the stables with the servants?¡±


    The presbyter¡¯s eyes flared, and he looked mightily irritated, as if he suspected Wolfhere of baiting him. ¡°I am suggesting, Eagle, that you and those you are responsible for do not disturb my rest.¡±


    ¡°Your rest is of supreme importance to me, Your Honor,¡± said Wolfhere with no apparent irony, ¡°but I swore to King Henry of Wendar and Varre that I would deliver Biscop Antonia and her cleric to the palace of the skopos, Her Holiness Clementia. This building¡ª¡± he gestured to stone walls and tight shutters,¡°¡ªgrants me a measure of security. You know, of course, that Biscop Antonia is accused of sorcery and might be capable of any foul act.¡±


    The presbyter grunted. ¡°All the more reason to remove her from this guest house.¡± He signed to his manservant, turned with a swirl of rich fabric, and climbed the steps into the gloom above where another servant waited to light him to his chamber.


    Wolfhere turned to the guest-master. ¡°My apologies for inconveniencing you again, good brother. Have you any other chamber that might serve our purpose?¡±


    The guest-master glanced at the presbyter¡¯s manservant, who sniffed audibly, steepled his fingers, and tapped his thumbs together impatiently. ¡°At times it happens that a brother or traveler is disturbed by evil spirits who have insinuated themselves into his mind, and at those times we must isolate him in a locked chamber in the infirmary until an effusion of herbs or a healing can extricate the creature from his body. It is not what I would choose for a biscop, even one accused of such, um, undertakings, but¡ª¡± He hesitated, perhaps fearing that Wolfhere¡¯s reaction would be as explosive as that of the presbyter, but in the end he glanced again toward the manservant. Worse to insult a presbyter than one of King Henry¡¯s Eagles, especially considering¡ªHanna reminded herself¡ªthat they were not in Henry¡¯s kingdom now.

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    ¡°That will do very well,¡± said Wolfhere easily. ¡°But will it inconvenience the Brother Infirmarian?¡±


    ¡°I think not. At this time we have only one aged brother resting there who is too feeble for our daily rounds.¡±


    ¡°Hanna.¡± Wolfhere nodded at her. ¡°Go fetch the other Lions. Once the Brother Infirmarian has made all ready, we will transfer the prisoners to their new cell.¡±


    Satisfied, the manservant hurried up the stairs to deliver this news to his master. The guest-master grimaced, then quickly smoothed the expression over as he retreated out the door. Hanna moved to follow him, but Wolfhere said her name softly. She turned to see him open the lantern¡¯s glass shutter and reach inside. He murmured a word under his breath, and the touch of his fingers to the dark wick ignited a flame. She started back, surprised, but he merely handed the lit lantern to her and waved her away. Outside, Hanna hoisted the lantern to light her way to the stables.


    The guardsmen had already bedded down for the night on the straw in the loft, wrapped in their cloaks. They rousted easily enough. King¡¯s Lions all, they were used to night alarms and swift risings for an early march, and they followed her back to the guest house without grumbling. They served the king and did not complain at the tasks given them. Such was the strength of the oaths they had sworn to Henry.


    At Hanna¡¯s entrance, the guest-master nervously shook his ring of keys and led the way into the back passage where two Lions stood guard at a locked door. Inside the chamber, Biscop Antonia sat, wide awake, in the room¡¯s only chair while Brother Heribert sat on the edge of one of the two beds, fingering the silver Circle of Unity that hung on a chain at his chest. A carpet, thrown down as a courtesy, covered the plank floor; the windows were closed and shuttered, barred from the outside.


    ¡°Your Grace,¡± said Wolfhere. ¡°I beg pardon for disturbing you, but it has become necessary to move you to different quarters.¡±


    A stout woman of respectable age, Biscop Antonia wore her episcopal dignity with gentle authority and a benign expression. ¡°No unbearable hardship afflicts the faithful,¡± she said mildly, ¡°for is it not said in the Holy Verses that ¡®thy daughters and sons did not succumb to the fangs of snakes?¡¯¡±


    Wolfhere did not reply but merely signed for her and the cleric to precede him out the door. Heribert rose and went out first. A quiet, attractive, neat young man, he had the soft, delicate white hands of an aristocrat born, one who had never put those hands to labor more taxing than prayer, the folding of vestments, and the occasional writing of a deed or royal capitulary. All the monks here in the hostel of St. Servitius had, like Hanna, work-roughened hands, but Heribert was a cleric whose duties were to pray, read, and act as scribe in the episcopal chancellery or the king¡¯s chapel. With her hands folded quietly in front of her, Antonia followed after him, smiling and nodding first at Wolfhere and then at Hanna.


    The single mild glance she gave Hanna made the young Eagle horribly uncomfortable. Biscop Antonia appeared as kindly and wise as an old grandmother who had lived her life in perfect harmony with the God of the Unities and been blessed with a prosperous family and many surviving grandchildren. But she was accused of base sorcery, such as even the church could not countenance, and Hanna herself had heard the biscop speak words of such searing contempt at the parley before the battle between King Henry and his sister Sabella that she knew Antonia¡¯s kindly mien disguised something dark and unpleasant beneath.


    Better not to be noticed by such folk. Or, as the saying went in Heart¡¯s Rest, ¡°Let well enough alone and turn over no rock unless you care to be knowing what¡¯s underneath it.¡±


    But after one glance, Antonia no longer appeared to notice Hanna. As the guards escorted them out of the building and down the stony path to the infirmary, she kept up a one-sided conversation with Wolfhere. ¡°I have been reflecting on the words of St. Thecla, in her Letter to the Dariyans, when she speaks of the law of sin. Is not God¡¯s law higher than the law of sin?¡±


    Wolfhere grunted. His lips twitched as if he were restraining words. He turned so that the lantern light hid his expression in shadow.


    ¡°And yet do we not, in our ignorance, in our flesh, remain slaves to the law of sin?¡± she continued. ¡°By what means do they judge who have not wholly united themselves to the life-giving law of the God of the Unities and the Holy Word?¡±


    Wolfhere made no answer. They came to the infirmary steps. Here the Brother Infirmarian met them, lantern in hand, and showed them to a small cell where he had hastily erected a cot next to the single pallet. He bowed several times, bobbing up and down so that the lantern light rose and dipped nauseatingly; he was clearly distraught at the idea of closing a holy biscop into such mean quarters, but he obeyed the commands of his superiors¡ªand Wolfhere carried letters from both King Henry and Biscop Constance as proof of his authority to carry out his mission.

 Page 30

    Antonia and Heribert walked into the cell. The Brother Infirmarian shut and locked the door behind them and hung the key on a ring at his belt. Two Lions stationed themselves on either side of the door. Wolfhere directed two more Lions to sleep outside on the ground beneath the shuttered and barred window that let air into the cell.


    ¡°On no account,¡± Wolfhere finished, looking sternly at the Infirmarian, ¡°is any person to enter into that cell without me beside him.¡±


    Then he and Hanna and the other six Lions returned to the stables. In the loft, Hanna kicked hay into a pile, threw her cloak over the prickly mound, and pulled off her boots before lying down and shaking her blanket open on top of herself. Wolfhere bedded down in the hay beside her. Already she heard the snores of the soldiers from the other end of the loft.


    She waited for a long while but was not sleepy. The loft door stood open to let in air. Through it she saw the black hulk of mountain, a blot against the night, and a single patch of sky brilliant with stars.


    ¡°You don¡¯t like her,¡± she whispered finally, thinking that Wolfhere, too, did not sleep.


    There was a long pause and she began to think the old man was in fact asleep, that she had mistaken his breathing.


    ¡°I do not.¡±


    ¡°But if I didn¡¯t know what she had been accused of, if I hadn¡¯t heard her speak that one time, at the parley with Lord Villam, then I would never suspect she was¡ª¡± She hesitated. Wolfhere made no comment, so she went on. ¡°It¡¯s just hard to imagine she could do such terrible things¡ªmurder a lackwit in cold blood so she could raise creatures to control Count Lavastine¡¯s will, cast a spell on the guivre to put it under her power, and send her servants to catch living men for it to feed on. It¡¯s just that she seems ¡­ such a good and generous soul, so mild and compassionate. And she is a biscop besides. How can the Lady and Lord allow a person with such an evil heart to be elevated in Their church?¡±


    ¡°That is indeed a mystery.¡±


    This answer did not satisfy Hanna, who frowned and shifted on her makeshift pallet. Under the cloak, hay poked through the cloth against her back, tiny blunt pinpricks. She wiped the dust of old hay and last summer¡¯s straw from her dry lips. ¡°But you must have some idea!¡±


    ¡°She is related on her mother¡¯s side to the reigning Queen of Karonne, and her kin on her father¡¯s side had land near the city of Mainni, where she was some years ago elevated to the episcopal chair. Do you suppose the skopos nominates only the most worthy?¡±


    ¡°I thought women and men who entered the church entered to serve God, not their own desires and ambitions. Deacon Fortensia cares faithfully for our small village though she herself resides a half day¡¯s walk farther north, at the church of St. Sirri. The monks at the monastery at Sheep¡¯s Head are¡ªwere¡ª¡± For had not Eika killed them all? ¡°¡ªfamed for their devotion to Our Lady and Lord.¡±


    ¡°Some do enter the church to serve God, and do so faithfully throughout their lives. Some see in the church an opportunity for advancement. Others are put in the church against their will.¡±


    As Ivar had been.


    ¡°Are all who serve in the church faithful to God alone?¡± Wolfhere continued. ¡°What of Frater Hugh? You were acquainted with him, I believe.¡±


    Hanna shut her eyes and turned her face away, ashamed to remember so clearly and with still a betraying warmth in her throat. Only Wolfhere¡¯s unheralded arrival had saved Liath from a lifetime of servitude to Hugh. Beautiful Hugh.


    Wolfhere grunted, but he might simply have been settling himself more comfortably on the hay. He said nothing more and for once she did not want to ask any more questions. He had an odd, perhaps a deliberate, way of turning questions back on the one who asked them. She set her cheek against the folds of her cloak and shut her eyes. The light snores of the men-at-arms, the rustling of mice scurrying on their nightly rounds, and the quiet noises of the horses stabled below lulled her to sleep.


    3


    THE rats came out at night to gnaw on the bones. The whispering scrape of their claws on stone alerted him, brought him instantly out of his doze. Most of the dogs slept; one whined in a dream and thumped his whipcord tail against the cathedral floor. The Eika slept, sprawled across the stone as if it were the softest of featherbeds to them. They loved the stone the way a nursing child loves its mother¡¯s breast, and nuzzled near it whenever they could.


    Only he did not sleep. He never slept, only napped, caught moments of dream and then bolted awake as a muzzle nudged him, testing, or as Eika laughed and poked him with their spears, or if he heard a human voice cry out in agony and hopeless pleading. That was the worst, the slaves¡ªfor he knew the Eika had brought human slaves into the city when summer came and that he could do nothing to help those poor souls.

 Page 31

    Gent had fallen, and he would have died protecting her, only he could not die. That was the curse his mother had put on him at his birth: ¡°No disease known to you will touch him, nor will any wound inflicted by any creature male or female cause his death.¡±


    He could not sleep, and when he was lucid, he wondered if the periods of madness, the shaking, the fits of insensibility when he would come to suddenly and realize it was night when last it had been dawn, were a mercy set on him by the Hand of Our Lady. An educated man might have known disciplines of the mind with which to combat this prison that was as much of spirit as of chains. But he had only been trained for war. That was his lot, the bastard son of the king, the child whose birth gave Henry the right to be named Heir to the throne of Wendar and Varre: to become a fighter and defend his father¡¯s realm.


    He had always been an obedient son.


    Would his father send soldiers to rescue him? Yet surely Henry thought him dead. It was Gent they must rescue. No king could leave such an important city in barbarian hands.


    And even if he were rescued, what if his father no longer wished to acknowledge him, seeing what manner of creature he had become?


    He vaguely recalled a dream in which two children had visited him¡ªexcept there were no children in Gent, not any more. She had led them to safety, long ago.


    Once children had flocked to him, but these two children had been afraid of him. They had seen not a prince but an animal; he had seen their reaction in their eyes. Were they only mirrors created in his mind? A vision through which he could see himself and what he had become? Or had they really been here?


    As rats scurried through the refuse, he searched under the rags that were all that was left of his clothing¡ªand found knife and badge. Their knife. Her badge, the badge of the Eagles. Only it was not her badge, it was another badge, that of a man who had fallen and whose name he could not recall. But it represented her, it held her warmth, for she had been like a warm thing, like a star fallen to earth and trapped in a human body as he was trapped in these chains.


    The rats scrabbled among the bones. Slowly, he eased the knife out from under his torn and ragged tunic. This knife had been a gift, of sorts, an exchange¡ªthough he would have told the children the secret of the saint¡¯s tunnel without any gift. He would have told them because it was his duty to aid them, to aid all of the king¡¯s subjects. He was captain of the King¡¯s Dragons and obliged by his oath to the king, his father, to protect and defend the king¡¯s possessions and everything and everyone that the king ruled.


    Rats were not subject to the king.


    The bones lay within reach of his chains, and he was quick and silent but for the scrape of chains as he moved, sticking one on the point, grabbing another by the tail. It squeaked wildly and scrabbled helplessly at his fingers. He killed them. The dogs stirred, waking. The Eika slept on.


    He growled the dogs down, and they subsided. They fed better than he did, because they did not scorn human flesh. He skinned the rats and, because he had no fire, ate them raw.


    No better than the Eika, less than a man, more than a dog, he would have wept at his own savagery, but he had no tears. He never got enough to drink. Sometimes the priest remembered to set out water for him. Once a slave had done so, and been killed for her pains.


    The Eika slept on. He sawed at the chains with the knife, but the work only dulled the blade. At last, he tucked it away again and curled up among his chains. The iron collar at his neck chafed his skin, and he shifted to ease the raw ache. The Eagle¡¯s badge lay cool against his skin, next to his heart.


    Ai, Lady, if only he could sleep for one night, soundlessly and without dreaming, without interruption. If only he could rest. But the dogs panted, wakeful now, smelling death.


    4


    AWAKE.


    Something was wrong. Hanna knew it instantly, but it took her three breaths to identify what it was. A cold hard wind blew into the loft, scattering hay and chilling her limbs, and a soft cold thing settled on her lips. Without thinking, she licked it. Snow.


    More snow settled on her face, blown in from outside as the wind rose and moaned in the beams. The unlatched loft door banged incessantly. A dog barked. Distantly she heard voices shouting an alarm, and then the wind gusted so hard it shook the very timbers of the stables and jarred the Lions awake.


    She rolled up onto her hands and knees, groping in the blackness for her boots. She found Wolfhere¡¯s blanket with her hand.


    He was gone.


    A bell began to toll, a dull reverberating sound that shook through her. It seemed to call in a thick oppressive voice: Fire! Storm! Attack! Awake! Awake!


    She got hold of her boots and tugged them on, then crawled, found the trapdoor and the ladder by touch, and eased herself over and climbed down. Above, one of the soldiers called to her, but the wind howled and screamed at such a pitch outside that she couldn¡¯t make out his words. She found the floor and stood, clutching the ladder, trying to get her bearings. The horses had gone wild with fear; the voice of the monk in charge of the stables was a murmur running beneath the roar of the storm as he attempted, in vain, to calm them. The bell tolled on and on as if for a hundred newly dead souls being rung up through the seven spheres of Heaven to the Chamber of Light above.

 Page 32

    ¡°Hanna.¡±


    She jerked around but could not see Wolfhere, for it was utterly black inside.


    ¡°I¡¯m at the door,¡± he said.


    Gingerly, she crossed to him. Bitter cold air streamed in through the cracks in the plank door. With each gust the door shuddered and shook and even, once, bent inward as if the wind were trying to break it down. Wolfhere had to lean hard against the door to keep it closed. Upstairs the loft door stopped banging abruptly.


    A heavy object slammed against the stable door. Wood ripped and splintered, but the door did not give way, though she felt Wolfhere press farther into the door to hold it shut. Then, like the whisper of mice in the walls, she heard a voice from outside.


    ¡°Please. I beg you, if any are inside, let me enter.¡± It was the guest-master.


    At once Wolfhere unlatched the door. Wind blew the door open. It smashed into Hanna, a haze of pain all along her right side, and as she stumbled back, it slammed all the way open and hit the inner wall so hard the top hinge tore free. A hooded figure staggered in, propelled by the tearing wind.


    No wind, this. No storm either, not as she knew storms. Half stunned, Hanna stared in disbelief. Outside she could not even see the shadows of the other outbuildings or the cloister. She could see neither sky nor moon. The world was a ghastly gray-white. They stood isolated in the middle of a howling blizzard.


    She could no longer hear the bell.


    Snow spun into the stables, blasting her face. Within, in the darkness of the stables, a horse broke free. She heard the swearing of the stablekeeper as he fought the animal back to its stall.


    ¡°Hanna!¡± Wolfhere had to shout to be heard above the gale. ¡°Help me!¡± They grasped the shattered door and together yanked it back to the broken hinge to shove it closed against the cold hand of the wind. Despite the cold, she was sweating with fear and exertion. Her hand slipped on the weathered wood, and a splinter jabbed in just as Wolfhere grunted and put the pin through the latch.


    ¡°I can¡¯t risk light,¡± he said, turning. ¡°A broken lantern in this storm would burn this place down around us.¡±


    The guest-master had crumpled to the floor, and now Hanna could faintly discern his shape, made manifest more by the thin coating of snow on his robe and hood than by his own substance. He was muttering a prayer in Dariyan, the language of the church. She could not follow the words. He sounded half delirious, like a man raving with fever.


    A man cursed above; one of the soldiers, a bulky shadow in armor, came down the ladder, swearing with such a foul string of curses that it took her a few shocked moments before she realized he was not angry but terrified.


    ¡°Did you see them?¡± he demanded as he thudded into the ground. Outside wind screamed, and hail peppered the walls like pebbles flung in volleys; the stables, the very wood structure of them, groaned under the onslaught.


    ¡°Things,¡± said the guest-master in a terrified voice as the wind battered at the stables and hail pounded on the roof and walls. ¡°Ai, Merciful Lady protect us from such visions. Protect us from such creatures. Such creatures as must be conceived in feculence and expelled from their dam¡¯s soiled flesh in base darkness. So came they down from the mountainside. So fell they down upon the wind. And such a stink they had to them that the hair on the back of my neck stood on end and my body shook with terror and the guests came rushing out of their chambers all crying and sobbing and one indeed could only babble like a child and he glowed as if he had been lit afire.¡±


    ¡°Brother, take hold of yourself,¡± said Wolfhere sternly. ¡°Tell me what you saw.¡±


    ¡°I have told you! They were living beings and yet like no creature I have ever seen. They had no limbs but only a thick dark body like an incorporeal staff as thick around as my own poor flesh. They sang in dire voices but in a language most foul-sounding if it was language at all. The wind bore them down from the mountain and the storm came with them as if they had raised it out of the air or from corrupt magics, for it is like no storm I have ever seen and I have lived here at this hostel for almost twenty years and served God in Unity faithfully, so help me. Ai, Lord in Heaven. That this terrible sight had never been given me for I have not the strength¡­.¡±


    ¡°Hush,¡± said Wolfhere. He shifted. ¡°Lion. Watch over this good brother. Hanna. Dare you walk outside with me?¡±


    Her shoulder and hip throbbed from the pain of being struck by the windblown door. Shifting to her right leg brought stabs of pain bad enough to make her wince.


    ¡°Hanna?¡±


    ¡°I can go,¡± she said.


    First Wolfhere found rope hanging on the wall, which he tied round his waist and then, by touch, round hers. The Lion braced himself against the door as Wolfhere unlatched it, but even so, the wind flung the soldier backward, and he skidded back, dragging his heels against the dirt floor. Wolfhere tugged Hanna after him. Together they forged out into the blizzard.

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    They staggered under the press of wind. Not six steps out Wolfhere began shouting at her, though she could scarcely hear him over the roar of the wind. She looked behind. She could not see the stables; night and storm buried them in darkness. Panic gripped her. She could not breathe. Her hands curled tight, so cold so fast she could no longer feel them.


    Wind struck. She had to lean, hunched over, in order not to be thrown down by the force of wind and snow and¡ªmore than that¡ªa peppering against her skin, stinging and harsh, as if the gale were stripping the mountains themselves of all their earth, scraping soil and rock off them to reveal the bones beneath.


    Something brushed her. She screamed. She could not help herself. Some thing, some creature, but like no creature she ever seen or dreamed of. Then it was gone, vanished into the night, but there was another, and a third, streaming past her, borne on the gale. Towers of darkness, they were blacker even than the night itself, like a glimpse of the Abyss, the pit of the Enemy in which the wicked fall endlessly, never reaching bottom. With them, of them, around them swirled the stench of burning iron. Hanna heard their voices like the muttering of bells beneath the tearing wind, wordless and yet sentient.


    From out of the blackness she heard a low rumbling roar that surged and swelled to a terrible crashing booming shuddering thunder that went on and on.


    The rope at her waist pulled taut as Wolfhere reeled her in and shoved her back toward the stables. ¡°Go!¡± he cried. ¡°We dare not¡ª¡±


    She stumbled back. Groping, she found the door; shaking, she fumbled with the latch, and at last they got it open and fell inside. The soldier slammed the door shut and latched it behind them. The roar deafened her; it filled the air as if it were itself part of the air. Then, slowly, it sub-sided, faded, until once more the wind was all the sound they heard, the endless tearing wind and the hail of rain and snow and pebbles against the wood walls.


    Inside, it was warm and dark. The nervous horses stamped; the stablekeeper spoke in a soothing voice. Hanna heard, also, others of the Lions moving ¡¯round the stable, calming the animals. The guest-master sobbed softly.


    ¡°What was that noise?¡± she asked as the building creaked and groaned and the wind shook the rafters and the low throb of bells numbed her down to her boots. Her hip and shoulder ached. She rubbed her hands to warm them.


    ¡°Avalanche,¡± said the guest-master through his tears. ¡°Ai, Lady, I know that sound well, for I have lived in these mountains twenty years. And close by, it was. I fear me that the cloister¡ª¡± No farther could he go. He began to weep again.


    ¡°What were those creatures?¡± she asked.


    Wolfhere untied her. ¡°Galla,¡± he said. The word had a hard, foreign, ugly sound, the ¡°g¡± more of a guttural ¡°gh.¡±


    ¡°What are galla?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Something we should not speak of now, with them walking abroad, for they might hear their name spoken a third time and seek us out who know of them,¡± he said in such a tone she knew he meant to say no more. ¡°We must wait out the storm.¡±


    It was a long night. She could not sleep, nor did Wolfhere, though perhaps some of the Lions did. That the guest-master did sleep, fitfully, she knew because his weeping slackened at last.


    Just as the gale slackened at last. Come dawn, Wolfhere ventured out with Hanna right behind him. It was a cloudless morning, the sky a delicate, washed-out blue. The mountains stood in all their glory, white peaks gleaming in the pale new sun. There was not a breath of wind. But for the debris scattered everywhere, the gate and much of the fence enclosure knocked down, the woodpile torn apart and scattered, shutters torn from hinges, and goats milling in confusion in the middle of the garden, she would never have guessed there had been a storm at all. Oddly, the beehives stood unscathed.


    But the infirmary was gone.


    There monks and merchants scurried, a swarm of them buzzing round the huge pile of boulders and earth that covered what had once been the infirmary. Built of stone and timber, it was obliterated now, melded with the great bank of mountain that had slid down on top of it.


    They hurried over. The monks had managed to pull from the rubble the bodies of their ancient brother and of two Lions. Of the other two soldiers¡ªHanna recognized these as the two who had been posted outside, along the wall behind the cell that had imprisoned Antonia and Heribert¡ªone had a broken leg and the other lay on the ground, moaning, his skin unbroken but something broken inside him. The Brother Infirmarian knelt beside him, probing his abdomen gently. Tears wet the monk¡¯s face.


    ¡°It happened so fast,¡± the monk said, looking up when Wolfhere knelt beside him. ¡°I ran outside, hearing the noise, and then saw¡ªnay, I did not see it but felt it, felt its power. Then the avalanche came. Lady forgive me, but I ran. Only when I saw it was too late, only when I saw the infirmary would be overwhelmed, did I recall poor Brother Fusulus, who was too weak to save himself.¡±

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    ¡°You were spared,¡± said Wolfhere, ¡°because you have yet work to do in this world. What of this man, here?¡±


    The Infirmarian shook his head. ¡°God will decide if he is to live.¡±


    Wolfhere rose and paced over the edge of the avalanche. Hanna followed him but kept back, not wanting to venture too close. She could see the bones of the infirmary underneath rock and rubble, mortared stones torn up by their roots, planks strewn like so much offal, a bed overturned but its rope base untouched, a three-legged stool with one leg broken, dried herbs once tied in bundles now scattered every which way on the torn grass.


    ¡°What of the prisoners?¡± asked Wolfhere when he turned back to the others.


    The abbot himself came forward. He had been soothing the presbyter, who had already sent his servants to the stables to make ready to leave. ¡°We cannot find their bodies,¡± he said. ¡°This is most distressing. The rocks have buried them utterly. We will try to dig them out, but¡ª¡±


    ¡°No matter.¡± Wolfhere surveyed the huge scar, the trail of the avalanche, that now scored the side of the ridge. Something shifted in the rubble and a few pebbles bounced down to land at his feet. He backed away nervously. ¡°Search only if it is safe. The prisoners are lost to us now.¡±


    ¡°What will you do?¡± asked the abbot. ¡°What of the two injured men? Brother Infirmarian says this poor man must not be moved any distance, and the other will not be able to walk for many weeks.¡±


    ¡°Can they remain here until they are healed?¡±


    ¡°Of course.¡± The abbot directed his monks to move the injured men away.


    ¡°Come, Hanna,¡± said Wolfhere. He walked back toward the stables, leaving the Lions to help.


    ¡°Why did you say it in that way? That the prisoners are ¡®lost to us.¡¯ Not that they¡¯re dead.¡±


    He looked at her curiously. ¡°Do you think they are dead? Do you believe she lies there under the rocks? That someday, if the monks can dig the building out, they will find their two crushed bodies or their shattered bones?¡±


    ¡°Of course they must be dead. They were locked in the cell. How could they have escaped¡ª¡± Seeing his expression, she broke off. ¡°You don¡¯t think they¡¯re dead.¡±


    ¡°I do not. That was no natural storm.¡±


    No natural storm. A blizzard blown up in the midst of mild summer weather. Strange unnatural creatures he had named galla walking abroad, stinking of the forge.


    ¡°Where will she go, Hanna? That is the question we must ask ourselves now. Where will she go? Who will shelter such as her?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡±


    ¡°Sabella might, if she could reach Sabella. But Sabella is herself in prison, so Wendar and Varre are closed to Antonia, for now.¡± He sighed sharply and stopped at the stable door, turning back to look up at the mountains, so calm, so clear, above them. ¡°I should have known. I should have prepared for this. But I underestimated her power.¡±


    ¡°Where will we go?¡±


    He considered. ¡°Alas, I fear we must split up. One of us must continue on to Darre to lay the charges against Biscop Antonia before the skopos. That way we remain prepared, whatever Antonia means to do. One of us must return to Henry and warn him, and hope he believes us.¡± He smiled suddenly then, with a wry expression that made Hanna remember how much she liked him. ¡°Better that one be you, Hanna. You will take four of the Lions, I the other two¡ªwhen I journey back this way, I will pick up the two who remain here, if they survive.¡±


    She had grown used to Wolfhere and now, abruptly, was afraid to travel without him. ¡°How long will it take you? How soon will you return to Wendar?¡±


    He shrugged. ¡°I cannot say. I may be able to get back across the pass this autumn, but most likely I won¡¯t be able to return until next summer. You must convince Henry, child.¡± He touched her, briefly, on her Eagle¡¯s badge, newly made and still as bright as if the memory of Manfred¡¯s death lit it. ¡°You have earned this, Hanna. Do not think you are unequal to the task.¡± He went inside the stables.


    Hanna lingered outside, staring up at the three great peaks so beautiful, so silent, so at peace in their vast strength, their sheer living force, that it seemed impossible to believe at this instant that three¡ªbrief¡ªhuman lives had been extinguished in the shadow at their feet. What was it the bard had called them? Youngwife. Monk¡¯s Ridge. Terror. She shaded her eyes against the rising sun and looked for the hawk, but no birds flew in the sky this fair morning.


    She would return to Wendar, to the king¡¯s progress, without seeing the city of Darre and the palace of the holy skopos. Without seeing, perhaps, a few elves or other strange creatures not of humankind. And yet, this also meant she would return to Liath sooner.

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    Thinking of Liath made her think of Hugh, though she did not want to think of Hugh. Beautiful Hugh. And thinking of Hugh made her remember what he had done, and so she thought of Ivar. Ai, Lady, where was Ivar now? Had he reached Quedlinhame safely? Did he like it there? Was he resigned to his fate? Or did he still fight against it?


    III


    THE CLOISTER


    1


    IVAR hated Quedlinhame. He hated the monastery, he hated the daily round of monotonous prayer, and most of all he hated the novices¡¯ dormitory, which was a narrow barracks of a building where he spent all of his nights and much of his day in miserable silence along with the other novices. Worst, because of the careful reckoning of days at Mass and in prayerbooks, he knew exactly how many days he had been imprisoned here.


    One hundred and seventy-seven days ago, on St. Bonfilia¡¯s Day, he had knelt before the postern gate in a cold rain and after a night of utter wretchedness had been admitted onto the grounds of Quedlinhame. They did not even give him a tour of the famous church. Instead, his new keepers immediately led him to the novitiary and locked him in with the rest of the poor souls consigned to this purgatory.


    The poor male souls, of course. Quedlinhame was a double monastery; the abbess, Mother Scholastica, ruled over both monks and nuns who lived apart but prayed together. The novices¡¯ dormitory let out onto a small cloister, a courtyard marked off by trim columns. A high wood fence ran down the center of this cloister, dividing it into two smaller courtyards, one for the male novices and one for the female novices whose dormitory lay on the opposite side.


    Ivar prayed briefly at that fence every day unless the weather was awful, once in the morning just after the service of Terce and once in the afternoon before Vespers. Or at least, he appeared to be praying. In fact, in these, his only unsupervised moments of the day, he studied the wood planks. In the last five months, he and the other three first-year novices had examined that fence finger¡¯s breadth by finger¡¯s breadth, each upright plank, each horizontal beam, each crack and warp and weathered knot. But he could not find any chink through which to see onto the other side.


    Were the female novices young? Almost certainly. Like him, most of them would have been put into the church¡ªmost willingly, some not¡ªby their families when they reached adolescence.


    Were they pretty? Perhaps. This goal he had set himself soon after he arrived: to identify each female novice by name and face. It kept him from going crazy, even though he knew it was wrong and against the rules. Or perhaps because it was against the rules.


    Right now, his fellow first-year novice, Baldwin, had finished digging dirt out from under his nails with his shaving knife and now he stuck that knife into the minute gap between two warping planks. He wiggled the blade back and forth in what Ivar supposed would be a vain attempt to try to widen the gap enough to peer through. Baldwin, however, would not give up. In all things, fair-haired Baldwin knew that eventually he would get his way.


    Ermanrich lumbered up and plopped down beside Ivar. He shivered in the cool autumn wind, which Ivar found pleasant after a hot summer confined within walls, but Ermanrich, though stoutest in body of their band of four, was also most susceptible to fevers and runny noses. He coughed now and wiped running eyes and squinted at Baldwin¡¯s handiwork.


    ¡°There must be a weak spot,¡± Ermanrich muttered. He picked at his nails, which were dirty from turning over soil in the garden now that all the vegetables were harvested. ¡°Hathumod says the first years all think Baldwin is very handsome.¡± Hathumod was Ermanrich¡¯s cousin and in her second year as a novice. She and Ermanrich had mysterious ways of communicating which Ivar had not yet divined the nature of.


    ¡°What does Hathumod think of our Baldwin?¡± Ivar asked.


    ¡°She won¡¯t say.¡±


    Baldwin glanced at them and grinned, then went back to his work.


    He had every reason to be vain of his looks, but of course, according to his own account, it was those looks that had landed him in the monastery. He was, indeed, the handsomest fellow Ivar had ever laid eyes on ¡­ with the exception of Frater Hugh.


    Ai, Lady! Even thinking of that bastard Hugh made Ivar angry all over again, trapped by helpless fury. He had tried to free Liath but had been made to look a fool and then gotten condemned to this life in the bargain. All of it Hugh¡¯s fault, that damned arrogant handsome bastard. What had happened to Liath? Was she still Hugh¡¯s concubine? At least, if reports were true, Hanna was with her.


    Ivar could not begrudge Hanna her choice¡ªservice with Liath rather than with him. Liath needed Hanna more than he did, and anyway here at Quedlinhame he was not allowed to converse with any woman except Mother Scholastica. He had brought two male servants with him, and they tended to his clothing and his bed and with the other servants tidied the dormitory and in general did whatever manual labor he himself did not have time for, since as a novice his main duties were to pray and to study. Had he brought Hanna, she would have been sent to work as a laundress or cook, and he would never have seen her. Better that she stayed with Liath.

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    He sighed heavily.


    Ermanrich touched a hand to his elbow, though novices were not supposed to touch, to form bonds of affection and sympathy. They were meant to devote themselves only to God. ¡°You¡¯re thinking of her again,¡± said the stout boy. ¡°Was she really as pretty as Baldwin?¡±


    ¡°Utterly unlike,¡± said Ivar, but then he smiled, because Ermanrich always made him smile. ¡°She was dark¡ª¡±


    ¡°Dark like Duke Conrad the Black?¡± asked Baldwin without looking up from his scraping at the fence. ¡°I met him once.¡±


    ¡°Met him?¡± demanded Ermanrich.


    ¡°Oh, well, not met. I saw him once.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know if they look anything alike,¡± said Ivar. ¡°I never saw Duke Conrad. How did he get to be so dark?¡±


    ¡°His mother came from the east. She was a princess from Jinna country.¡± Baldwin had a treasure trove of gossip about the noble families of Wendar and Varre. ¡°She was a present to one of the Arnulfs, I forget which, from one of the sultans of the east. Conrad the Elder, who was then Duke of Wayland, took a fancy to her and because King Arnulf owed him a favor, he asked for the girl. She was just a child then, but very pretty, everyone said. Conrad had her raised as a good Daisanite, for she came of heathen fire-worshipers. When she was old enough, he took her as a concubine, but of all his wives and concubines only she conceived by him, so perhaps she knew some eastern witchery, for the rumor went round that Conrad was infertile because of a curse set on him by one of the Lost Ones he raped when he was a young man.¡±


    Ermanrich coughed again and cocked one eyebrow up.


    ¡°You don¡¯t believe me?¡± demanded Baldwin, cheek ticking as he tried to suppress a grin.


    ¡°Which part do you wish to know that I believe?¡± asked Ermanrich.


    ¡°And then what happened?¡± asked Ivar, trying to imagine this Jinna girl but only able to see Liath in his mind¡¯s eye. The thought of her made his heart ache.


    ¡°She gave birth to a baby boy, the second Conrad, whom we now know as Conrad the Black. He succeeded to the duchy when his father died. She still lives, you know, the Jinna woman. I don¡¯t know what her old name was, her heathen name, but she was baptized with a good Daisanite name, Mariya or Miryam. Something like that.¡±


    ¡°They let a bastard inherit?¡± asked Ermanrich, looking skeptical.


    ¡°No, no. At the end of his life, when it came time to name his heir, Conrad the Elder claimed he had been married to her all along. The first tame deacon he got to say she was present at the ceremony then turned out to have been only ten years old when the marriage was supposed to have been solemnized. So Conrad finally made a huge bequest of land to the local biscop and she agreed that God had sanctified the union before the child¡¯s birth. Look! I¡¯ve made a crack!¡± He leaned down and stuck his perfectly-proportioned nose up against the wood, closed one eye, and peered through the tiny gap with the other. Then he withdrew, shaking his head. ¡°All I can see is warts. I knew they would have warts.¡±


    ¡°Dearest Baldwin, doomed by warts to a life in the monastery,¡± said Ermanrich in a sententious voice. ¡°Now move and let me try.¡± They changed places.


    ¡°Hush,¡± said Ivar. ¡°Here comes Lord Reginar and his dogs.¡±


    Lord Reginar had a pack of five ¡°dogs¡±¡ªthe other second-year novices¡ªand a thin face made ill-featured mostly because of its habitual sour expression.


    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± he said, pausing beside the three first-year boys. He touched a scrap of very fine white linen to his lips as if the stench of the first years offended him. ¡°Are you at your daily prayers?¡± That he meant to insinuate something was clear, though what exactly he meant was not.


    Ivar stifled a giggle. He found Reginar¡¯s conceit so pathetic, especially compared to that of Hugh, that he always wanted to laugh. But a count¡¯s son never ever laughed at the son of a duchess and one who, in addition, wore the gold torque around his neck that symbolized he came of the blood of the royal family and had a claim¡ªhowever distant¡ªto the throne.


    Ermanrich clasped his hands tight and leaned against the fence, covering the telltale signs of cutting. He began to murmur a psalm in the singsong voice he used at his prayers.


    Baldwin smiled brightly up at the young lord. ¡°How kind of you to deign to notice us this day, Lord Reginar,¡± he said without any obvious sign of sarcasm.


    Ermanrich made a choking sound.


    Reginar touched his lips again with the linen, but even he¡ªyoungest son of Duchess Rotrudis and nephew of both Mother Scholastica and King Henry¡ªwas not immune to Baldwin¡¯s charms. ¡°It is true,¡± he said, ¡°that two marchlanders and a minor count¡¯s son are unlikely to receive attentions from such as myself every day, but then you are entitled to sleep near me, as are all these others.¡± He gestured toward his sycophants, an indistinguishable collection of boys of good family who had had the misfortune to be dedicated to the monastery last year, together with Reginar, and had by necessity¡ªor by force¡ªfallen into orbit around him.

 Page 37

    ¡°Pray you,¡± said Baldwin sweetly, ¡°do not forget our good comrade Sigfrid, Mother Scholastica¡¯s favorite. I am sure he, too, is not insensible to the favor you show us.¡±


    Ermanrich fell into a fit of frantic coughing. One of the boys hovering at Reginar¡¯s back tittered, and the young lord turned right around and slapped him hard. Then he spun and stalked away, his ¡°dogs¡± scurrying after him.


    Fittingly, at that moment Sigfrid came running out of the dormitory, his sharp face alight, his novice¡¯s robes all askew. He did not notice Reginar. He never did. And that was the worst insult of all, although Reginar never understood that Sigfrid noticed nothing except his studies, his prayers, and¡ªnow¡ªhis three friends.


    ¡°I heard the most amazing news,¡± Sigfrid said as he halted beside them. He knelt with the practiced ease of a person who has spent years moving into or out of a kneeling position, as indeed Sigfrid himself cheerfully admitted he had, having come at age five to his vocation: monk-in-training.


    ¡°That was cruel,¡± said Ermanrich.


    ¡°What was?¡± asked Sigfrid.


    Baldwin smiled. ¡°Poor Reginar. He can¡¯t abide that his own dear aunt, Mother Scholastica, favors a mere steward¡¯s son and lavishes her favor¡ªand her private tutorials¡ªon that lowborn creature instead of on her nephew.¡±


    ¡°Oh, dear,¡± said Sigfrid. He looked concerned all at once. ¡°I do not mean to make anyone envious of me. I have not striven for Mother Scholastica¡¯s attention, and yet¡ª¡± His face took on an expression of rapt contemplation. ¡°¡ªto be privileged to study with her and with Brother Methodius¡ª¡±


    ¡°You know what they say.¡± Baldwin cut in before Sigfrid could launch into a long recitation¡ªby heart, of course¡ªof whatever horrific matristic text written centuries ago he had studied today in Mother Scholastica¡¯s study.


    ¡°Why, no,¡± said Ermanrich. ¡°What do they say?¡±


    ¡°That Lord Reginar was put into the monastery only because his mother detests him. Had she allowed him to become ordained as a frater and then be elevated to the rank of presbyter, he would have had to visit her every three years as is traditional, as long as she lives, and she decided it was better to put him in the monastery where she¡¯d never have to see him again if she didn¡¯t wish it.¡±


    Ermanrich snorted, gulped, and began to laugh helplessly.


    Sigfrid gazed sorrowfully at Baldwin and only shook his head, as if to remind the other boy that the Lord and Lady looked ill on those who spoke spitefully of others.


    ¡°I believe it,¡± muttered Ivar.


    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Ivar,¡± said Baldwin quickly. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean to remind you of your own situation.¡±


    ¡°Never mind,¡± said Ivar. ¡°What¡¯s done is done. What was your news, Sigfrid?¡±


    ¡°King Henry¡¯s progress is coming here, to Quedlinhame, for the Feast of St. Valentinus. They expect the king today or tomorrow!¡±


    ¡°How do you know this?¡± Ermanrich demanded. ¡°Not even Hathumod knows, for if she did, she¡¯d have told me.¡±


    Sigfrid blushed. He had a sensitive face, his expressions made interesting by the conflict between his studious nature and solitary soul on the one hand and the very real and passionate liking he had taken to his year-mates on the other. ¡°Alas, I fear I overheard them. It was ill-done of me, I know¡ªbut I couldn¡¯t wait to tell you, for I knew you would want to hear! Imagine! The king!¡±


    Baldwin yawned. ¡°Ah, yes. I¡¯ve met the king.¡±


    ¡°Have you really met him?¡± demanded Ermanrich, laughing.


    The schoolmaster appeared under the colonnade and they all leaped guiltily to their feet and with contrite faces made their way to the line. As first years, they took their place at the end, matched up in pairs. Before them walked Reginar and his sycophants, and in front of Reginar¡ªalthough Reginar hated anyone to walk in front of him¡ªstood the humble third years.


    As they marched out of the dormitory and made their way along the path that led to the church, Ivar craned his neck when the brown-robed female novices came into view. For his pains he got a sharp whack on his shoulders from the schoolmaster¡¯s willow switch. It stung, but in a way the pain helped him. The pain helped him remember that he was Ivar, son of Count Harl and Lady Herlinda. He was not truly a monk, not by vocation as Sigfrid was, nor was he resigned to his fate as was Ermanrich, sixth of seven sons of a marchland countess who, to her horror, had never given birth to a girl and had perforce made her eldest son her heir and after that hastily dedicated the superfluous boys to the church so they would not contest their brother¡¯s elevation to the rank of count after her death. Unlike Baldwin, he had not escaped an unwanted marriage by begging to be put in the church.

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    No. He had been forced to take the novice¡¯s hood. Forced because he loved Liath and she loved him and he would have taken her away from Hugh, and this had been Hugh¡¯s way of revenging himself on Ivar.


    No. He never minded the pain or the austerities of a novice¡¯s life. The pain, even of the willow switch, reminded Ivar daily that he would, somehow, avenge himself on Hugh and save Liath from Hugh¡¯s clutches. No matter that Hugh¡ªbastard though he was¡ªranked far above a minor count¡¯s youngest son. No matter that Hugh¡¯s mother, a powerful margrave, was an acknowledged favorite of King Henry.


    By hating Quedlinhame, Ivar kept himself strong enough to hate Hugh. Somehow, some way, Ivar would have his revenge.


    2


    BLOODHEART had sons. As time passed, Sanglant learned how to recognize them: by their ornamentation. Only the sons of Bloodheart could stud their teeth with gems; the mail skirts they wore, as intricate as lace, were gilded with gold and silver and woven with bright stones and flashing jewels; a stylized red-ocher arrowhead, symbol of their father¡¯s hegemony, figured prominently in the pattern of colorful painting with which they decorated their torsos.


    As summer passed into autumn and the vast nave of air in the cathedral grew steadily colder, sons came and went from their favored place in front of Bloodheart¡¯s heavy chair. They left for expeditions whose fruit brought gold, cattle, slaves, and a harvest of endlessly fascinating small items: an eagle-feather quill, a length of sky-blue silk, a sword with an ornamented gold hilt, vases carved out of horn or marble, an arrow fletched with the iron-gray feathers of a griffin, a turquoise pendant engraved with sixpointed stars inlaid with gold, a silver paten, a bloodstone cameo ring, a linen tablecloth embroidered with silk, slivers of ossified dragon¡¯s fire sharpened into thin blades, a hoard of green beads, translucent angel¡¯s tears polished and strung together as a necklace, silk bed-curtains, and silk-covered pillows. Bloodheart tossed one of the pillows to Sanglant, but the dogs ripped it to pieces and bits of its feather stuffing floated, spinning in the still air, for the rest of the day.


    One son haunted the cathedral more than the others, favored or in disgrace, Sanglant could not tell. He was easily distinguished from the others: He wore at his chest a wooden Circle of Unity, no doubt a trophy ripped off a corpse, and he had taken upon himself the odd habit of, once a day, overseeing the slave who brought bucket and rags to clean up the spot where, at the limit of his chains, Sanglant relieved himself. This humiliation Sanglant endured in silence. It was, in its own way, a mercy not to be left to fester in worse filth than what he already had to suffer.


    But Bloodheart was fickle, or perhaps it served his purposes to act so.


    Day by day more Eika trickled in until their numbers swamped the cathedral. They were like a swarm of locusts, all of them pestering him with pricks of their spears, with spit, with dogs sent to fight him until the tunic he had wrapped his forearms in lay in shreds on the floor and his skin was a mass of bleeding scrapes and bites. But it would heal. It always did, cleanly and without infection. Some of the dogs died, to be eaten by his pack and, finally, by him as well; this food he could not scorn, because he had so little. The dogs that fled him were quickly killed by their pack brothers.


    The Eika cheered on these battles, ringing him and shouting and calling out encouragement. Since he understood so little of their language, he could not tell whether they hoped he died, or whether his living was entertainment enough. They sang until all hours of the night and seemed to have no need of sleep, nor could he sleep in any case, with the dogs testing him and the curious coming to stare and point and howl with laughter at the sight of a halfhuman prince among the dogs.


    Bloodheart sat and surveyed all from his throne, and his priest crouched at his side, scratching the scars on his scrawny chest now and again, rolling bones to read the future, caressing the little wooden chest which he kept always beside him.


    But at last, on a day made warm by the press of bodies and cold by the gloomy light that filtered in through the windows, Bloodheart rose and howled them to attention.


    ¡°Which of you has brought me the greatest treasure?¡± he cried, or so Sanglant assumed, because at once the sons came forward with magnificent treasures, some of which Sanglant had seen before, some of which were new: gold chalices; a necklace of emeralds; a sword of such terrible beauty and slender killing sleekness that it must have come from the forges of the east; a woman¡¯s veil woven so cunningly that it could have been a spiderweb unfastened from branches and gilded with silver and pearls; rings made gaudy with precious stones; a reliquary of ivory and gold and pearls; a Quman bowcase¡ª

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    Sanglant shut his eyes. He had to lean forward onto his hands, swept by such a powerful memory of Liath walking ahead of him through the stables, her body ornamented by a bowcase incised with a griffin devouring a deer, that he trembled. His dogs growled, always alert to weakness. Bloodheart barked out words, and Sanglant jerked up, ready to fight. Never let it be said that he did not fight until his last breath.


    But Bloodheart¡¯s attention was on another. He called one of his sons before him, the one who wore the Circle. This one, young and straight, had less of the bulky mass of his brothers, but there was yet something about him that was different, something Sanglant recognized but could put no name to, unless it was intelligence.


    Bloodheart gestured to the treasures scattered like leaves at his feet. He spoke, indicating this last of his sons. What had he brought?


    The other Eika howled and dogs began barking and howling in response. Never allowed to leave the city, this Eika son could hardly have been expected to find and bring home treasure. But perhaps he was in disgrace, and this, finally, was the moment Bloodheart had chosen to make the point.


    The young Eika stood calmly under the storm of their howling and derision. At last, seeing they had not made him cower, they quieted. He did not speak immediately. He waited, and when he did speak, he spoke only to his father and, amazingly, in good Wendish.


    ¡°I bring you the most precious treasure,¡± he said, his voice as smooth as the tone of the bone flutes Bloodheart played each day. ¡°Wisdom.¡±


    ¡°Wisdom!¡± Bloodheart grinned, flashing gems. ¡°What might that be?¡±


    ¡°Which of your other sons can speak the tongue of the human kind?¡±


    ¡°Why should they? What use are the humans to us? They are weak, and being weak, will die. We will take what we want from them and go on our way.¡±


    ¡°They have not died yet.¡± He did not look toward Sanglant. ¡°The humankind are as numerous as flies on a corpse. Though we are stronger, we are fewer.¡±


    Murmuring, the others grew restless at an exchange few of them could understand.


    ¡°What matters it if we are fewer,¡± said Bloodheart, ¡°if they are weaker?¡± But he still spoke Wendish, to Sanglant¡¯s surprise. ¡°What matters it as long as we kill twenty for every one of our brothers who dies?¡±


    ¡°Why must we kill so many if we could gain more with less killing?¡±


    Bloodheart¡¯s laughter sounded long and ominously in the echoing nave. Abruptly, he spat at the young Eika¡¯s feet. ¡°Go back to Rikin fjord. You are too young to bide here any longer. Your captivity weakened you, and you are not strong enough to fight this war. Go home and rest with the Mothers. Prove yourself there in the fjordlands, bring the other tribes under my heel, and perhaps I will let you return. But while you are under my displeasure, let none among my sons speak to you in the language of true people, but only in the language of the Soft Ones. I have spoken.¡±


    He turned, spat toward Sanglant, and seated himself on his throne. The priest translated his words in a quavering voice, and then the hubbub began, so loud with howling and laughter and harsh words, with the scraping and banging of spear hafts on stone, and with the stamping of heels to the ground that Sanglant was deafened.


    The Eika princeling stood his ground, oblivious to the taunts and the abuse. When at last Bloodheart began to distribute gifts to his favored soldiers, he alone left quietly, without looking back¡ªout to the lit world beyond this stone and timber prison. A breath of wind touched Sanglant¡¯s lips. He licked it, moisture from rain almost painful on his dry tongue.


    Free to go, even in disgrace.


    The madness came as a cloud covers the sun. But he fought it this time, fought succumbing to it. He did not want to fall into madness in front of so many, an animal in truth. But the dogs circled in, and the black cloud descended, and he forgot everything except his fear that he would be chained here forever.


    3


    A rich autumn light streamed in through the schola windows, bathing Ivar in such a soporific warmth that he nodded, then jerked himself back to attention as the schoolmaster paused beside him.


    ¡°Mundus, munde, mundi, mundo, mundum, mundo, Ivar. Certainly if you would bestir yourself, you could master Dariyan easily. Ermanrich, pay attention. Ah, yes, Baldwin, of course you are doing well; it just needs more practice. See, it is mundi here, not mundo, in the vocative.¡±


    The schoolmaster moved forward to the second-year novices, whose study of Dariyan, the language of the old Empire and now of the Daisanite Church, was more advanced than that of the first years¡ªall but Sigfrid, who spoke and read Dariyan fluently.

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    Ivar yawned and painstakingly impressed the word into the wax tablet. He was a slow writer and reader, having only learned the alphabet upon leaving the world and entering the monastery. Mundus, the world. Ivar very much wanted to be out in the world right now. He shifted, trying to get comfortable on the hard wooden bench, but of course it was impossible to get comfortable. One was not meant to be comfortable in the monastery but rather and always discomforted by one¡¯s own unworthiness in the face of God¡¯s majesty.


    However, if he slid forward just so, he could lean a little farther into the sunlight that spilled over the table. The heat of the sun melted through the coarse fabric of his robe. The warmth was too powerful a spell. Ivar dozed off over his tablet while the schoolmaster, lecturing to the row of third-year novices, droned on about the elegant style on display in St. Augustina¡¯s City of God.


    Something nudged Ivar¡¯s foot, and he snorted and started awake, losing his grip on his stylus. It fell to the stone floor, and the sound of its impact in the silent chamber resounded in his ears at least as loudly as if one of the huge stone pillars in the church had just crashed down.


    But Fortune was with him this day, as She had not been yesterday when he had been caught trying to look at the female novices. Ermanrich¡ªfor he was the culprit who had nudged him awake¡ªmade a quick sign with his free hand: Look.


    The schoolmaster had walked to the door and was now speaking in a low voice with Brother Methodius, prior of the monastic half of Quedlinhame as well as Mother Scholastica¡¯s deputy. Finally he turned back to survey his pupils and signed: Stand.


    Dutifully, they stood. Ivar stooped to grab the stylus off the floor and set it next to the tablet, for once free of the punishment that would normally attend his carelessness.


    ¡°Come.¡± Brother Methodius stepped forward. ¡°You are to be granted the honor of attending the adventus of King Henry. Keep silence, I pray you, and keep your heads bowed humbly.¡± His eyes glinted, and Ivar thought the good brother suppressed a smile. ¡°No doubt Our Lord and Lady will forgive you a single glance at the magnificence of the king¡¯s progress as it passes by, if you are not yet strong enough to resist such temptation.¡±


    He signed in the hand language learned by all the monks. Come. The novices formed rows quickly, for they had by now much practice in obedience. But even Sigfrid¡¯s eyes were wide with awe at the thought of seeing the king.


    Ivar had never seen the king, of course. Heart¡¯s Rest and the North March of Wendar was too far north, too remote, and too poor to be of much interest to the king; the counts of the North March were left to rule as they wished, unless that rule came into direct conflict with the king¡¯s authority. During Ivar¡¯s lifetime such an incident had never happened, but his father, Count Harl, could dimly recall an expedition by the King¡¯s Dragons¡ªhis elite cavalry¡ªto put down a northern rebellion in the time of the younger Arnulf many years ago.


    Here at Quedlinhame, of course, they could expect to see the king frequently. King Henry preferred to spend Holy Week at the foundation ruled over by his sister, Mother Scholastica, and inhabited by his widowed mother, Queen Mathilda, now a nun. In autumn, as it was now, the king and his court often rested here on their way to the royal hunting lodges in the Thurin Forest.


    The king! Even Ivar, who tried very hard to dislike everything at Quedlinhame excluding his new friends, could not help but be excited. As they walked down the steps from the schoolroom and out of the dormitory, he noticed as if for the first time what a veritable hive of activity the great monastery had become. Servants swept pavement or whitewashed exterior walls. Women aired out blankets and featherbeds at the guest houses. By the kitchens, wagons waited in neat rows, their beds heaped with vegetables, casks of ale, baskets of ground wheat and rye, and crocks of honey. Cages of chickens stood stacked by the slaughter pit and a half dozen servants worked feverishly, chopping off heads, while others carried the dead chickens to huge vats of boiling water and threw them in to scald off the feathers. Butchered pigs and cattle hung, draining, from the beams of the slaughterhouse shed. The bakery fires roared, and the smell of cooking permeated the air.


    The line of novices joined that of the assembled monks and they walked out together under the great archway that spanned the gate. Up until the time of the first Henry, Quedlinhame had been a fortress, part of the vast inheritance his wife, Lucienna of Attomar, had brought to their marriage. Together they had dedicated both the fortress and their only daughter Kunigunde to the church, and at age sixteen she had become first abbess¡ªfirst ¡°Mother¡±¡ªof Quedlinhame Convent. During her long rule the foundation had expanded to include monks¡ªwhich unfortunate ambition had transpired in the end to bring Ivar here to this prestigious foundation against his wishes.

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    Not even these troubling thoughts could dampen Ivar¡¯s excitement as the entire community left the enclosure in dutiful silence and walked down the hill on the stone-paved avenue that led through town. They walked out beyond the town walls and along the road for at least a mile. They passed townsfolk, standing at the side of the road, who had left their tasks and brought themselves and their children to witness the arrival of the king. Out here, newly sown fields of winter wheat wore brown earth laced with shoots of tender green as their autumn garb. The view behind was dominated by the great hill on which stood the ancient fortress that was now the monastery; the towers of the church pierced the deep blue of the heavens, reaching toward God. They halted on either side of the road, two lines of simply-clad brothers and sisters of the church and the many layservants who served them and God both¡ªperhaps two hundred souls in total.


    Ivar heard the king¡¯s progress before he saw it. He heard a muttering as of many feet and hooves and rolling wheels, felt the subtle vibration as a tremor rising up through the soles of his feet. He heard them singing, many voices raised in a joyful psalm. The strength of their combined voices, the sheer power of it, made him shiver with joy; not even a full prayer service and the chanting and singing of the monks and nuns in unison at Quedlinhame made him feel this sudden pull to be torn away from his own person and become some other one, one who could join in the concordia, the power that attended upon the king¡¯s presence.


    I sing of loyalty and justice.


    I will raise this psalm to Thee, Our Lord and Lady Who are God in Unity.


    I will follow a wise and blameless course whatever may befall me.


    I will go about my house in purity of heart.


    I will set before myself no sordid aim.


    I will hate disloyalty.


    I will silence those who spread tales behind men¡¯s backs.


    I will not sit at table with those who are proud and pompous.


    I will choose the most loyal for my companions; my servants shall be folk whose lives are blameless. Morning after morning I will put all wicked men to silence


    and I will rejoice in all on God¡¯s earth which is good.


    The schoolmaster always enjoined his pupils to keep their heads bowed and their eyes toward the ground, for in this way they made themselves smaller and indicated their insignificance. But as the cavalcade drew near enough that he could hear the small noises of a hundred or more souls in movement, Ivar could not help himself. He had to look.


    Ermanrich stirred beside him, and Baldwin drew in a sharp, surprised breath. Only Sigfrid kept his head dutifully bowed.


    A King¡¯s Eagle rode in front, as herald. She wore the scarlet-trimmed cape and the brass badge of an Eagle, and she stared straight ahead at the road before her; she had a hard, interesting face, broad shoulders, and the look of a person sure of her position and name in the world. In her right hand she held a staff, its haft wedged against her boot. The king¡¯s banner draped from the staff, curling down to hide the hand itself, for there was no wind to lift the banner.


    Behind her rode six young nobles honored this day with a position at the head of the procession. They, too, carried pennants, one for each of the duchies under Henry¡¯s rule: Saony, Fesse, Avaria, Varingia, Arconia, and Wayland. Ivar guessed the four boys and two girls to be about the same age as himself; the girl holding the standard of Arconia had hair as pale as wheat and fingers so delicate that he wondered how she had the strength to grip the banner pole. He wondered whose child she was. If only he had been sent to court, instead of to Quedlinhame, then he might have ridden proudly at the front of such an adventus¡ªan arrival¡ªas this! His gaze skipped back to the riders who followed directly behind the pennants.


    In this group of nobles, each one attired magnificently in fine embroidered and trimmed linen tunics, in fine leather riding boots, with handsome fur-trimmed capes or richly colored wool cloaks thrown over all, the eye still leaped immediately to King Henry. Ivar had never seen him before, yet he knew instantly that the middle-aged man riding in the center was the king though he wore no crown. He needed no crown. The weight of his authority was like a mantle cast over his shoulders. He wore clothing no plainer and no richer than the others, one prince among many, but the leather belt that girdled his waist, embossed with the symbols of each of the six duchies that made up the kingdom of Wendar and Varre, and the many small and subtle gestures of the others as they deferred to him, proclaimed him prima inter pares, first among equals. From the back of a handsome bay mare, he surveyed the hooded monks and nuns, most of whom still stared fixedly at the ground, with stern approval for their humility.

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    Just as he passed the ranks of the novices, his eye caught Ivar¡¯s gaze. One royal eyebrow arched, intrigued or censorious. Ivar blushed and dropped his gaze.


    He saw booted feet march by, heard the renewed voices of many men lifted in song: The King¡¯s Lions had been granted the honor of marching directly behind the king. They halted suddenly and their song cut off, to be replaced by the stillness of a fine autumn day, the creak of leather, the restlessness of horses farther down the line, the barking of a dog.


    Ermanrich shifted next to Ivar and whispered to Baldwin. ¡°If only I were closer.¡±


    Startled, Ivar glanced up at the same time as did Sigfrid. Their view was partly blocked by the ranks of Lions, sturdy men clothed in fighting gear and gold tabards marked by a black lion, but beyond the milites¡ªthe fighting men¡ªand the nobles, the king had ridden forward with only the Eagle in attendance to greet Mother Scholastica.


    She was also mounted, as befit a woman of royal birth come to greet her brother; she rode on a mule whose coat was so polished a gray as to be almost white. In her dark blue robes, adorned only with the gold Circle of Unity hanging at her chest, with her hair drawn back under a white scarf and her face guileless and calm, she appeared every bit as regal as her elder brother. Of course it was not fitting that a woman of her ecclesiastic rank dismount to greet anyone except the skopos, but neither could the king dismount to greet her. So the king had ridden forward on his mare to meet her, and now, with the two animals side by side, the royal siblings leaned across the gap and gave each other the kiss of family, once to each cheek, as greeting.


    ¡°And if,¡± continued Ermanrich in that whisper, ¡°you took Master Pursed-Lips¡¯ willow switch¡ª¡±


    Baldwin started to snicker.


    ¡°¡ªand gave a quick twitch of it to the mare¡¯s hindquarters, what do you think would happen?¡±


    Sigfrid snorted and clapped a hand over his mouth. Ivar was so aghast at Ermanrich¡¯s imagining either Mother Scholastica or the king made ridiculous by a bolting horse that he started to giggle.


    That same willow switch lashed hard against his rump and he yelped. Then Ermanrich gulped down a yelp as he, too, was disciplined.


    ¡°Keep silence,¡± hissed the schoolmaster, stationing himself behind the four boys. He did not, of course, switch either Baldwin or Sigfrid, and poor Sigfrid looked horrifically guilty, for had he not responded by laughing at Ermanrich¡¯s jest? Ivar bit his lip as he blinked back tears; his buttocks stung. Ermanrich had his usual sly grin on his face. He had unknowable reserves and rarely showed any visible sign of feeling pain. The schoolmaster cleared his throat and Ivar hastily looked down just as the king and his sister parted, her mule being brought around by a servant so abbess and king could lead the procession up to the monastery together.


    On past Ivar¡¯s station marched the Lions, then the rest of the train, a stamp of feet and hooves and rumble of wagons. Beyond, toward town, people shouted and cried out praise to the king.


    Ivar¡¯s rump still smarted. He could practically feel the schoolmaster¡¯s breath on his neck, but the schoolmaster had moved on. A sudden feeling like the whisper of elfshot made his neck prickle. He glanced up, or he would have missed her.


    ¡°Liath!¡± He almost fell forward. The three other boys jerked their heads up and stared. Baldwin whistled under his breath.


    Liath! He could never mistake her for someone else: dark hair, golden-brown skin, her height and slender frame. She wore the cape and badge of a King¡¯s Eagle. She wore the badge of a King¡¯s Eagle! Somehow she had gotten free of Hugh.


    Envy pierced him, as ugly an emotion as he had ever felt. Who had helped her? He did not want to share that victory, share her gratitude, with anyone. Had she freed herself? Surely not. Hugh would never let her go. Perhaps Hugh was dead; yet not even that thought satisfied Ivar. He, Ivar, son of Harl and Herlinda, must be the one to kill Hugh¡ªor, preferably, to humiliate him.


    As wagons rumbled by, he could only stare at her receding back, at the braid that hung in a thick line to her waist. She looked closely at the ranks of hooded monks, their heads bowed modestly so none might see their faces. She knew he was here, didn¡¯t she? Surely she remembered he had been sent to Quedlinhame, only because he had tried to help her.


    As he watched her ride away, he almost wept, yet was so filled with joy that he thought he must shine with it. Now, as she passed the last line of layservants, she stopped looking. She stared straight ahead instead, gaze fixed on some unseeable point, perhaps on the church towers whose gilded roofs glinted in the noonday sun. She was lost to him as the king¡¯s progress rode into Quedlinhame and the train¡ªwagons, produce, servants, spare horses, tents, furnishings, the entire ponderous cavalcade that attended the king¡ªtrundled past, kicking dust up into his teeth.

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    Still he stared after her, keeping his head lifted defiantly as the long train passed, the last of the courtiers and their attendant servants at the end. He searched them all, looking for Hanna. Hanna had sworn to stay by Liath. But of Hanna he saw no sign.


    The willow switch surprised him. This time it landed on his shoulders and he actually grunted out loud, it hurt so badly.


    ¡°It is unseemly to stare,¡± said the schoolmaster coldly. ¡°You bring notice on yourself.¡±


    Ivar clamped his lips shut over a retort. Now he could not get angry. Now he must plan. Liath had come to Quedlinhame and though the novices rarely stirred outside their dormitory and courtyard, though they were always heavily supervised, he would find a way to let Liath know he was here. He would find a way to see her, talk to her. To touch her.


    Even thinking such a thing was a sin.


    But he didn¡¯t care.


    The last of the train rolled by. The monks and nuns fell into place behind the king¡¯s progress. Bells rang in Quedlinhame. Someone at the head of their procession began to sing and the others joined in as they walked back toward town, following the king.


    O God, endow the king with Thine own justice, and give Thy righteousness to the king¡¯s heir so this one may judge Thy people rightly and deal out justice to the poor and suffering.


    By this time the road was a swirling, choking mass of dust made no better by the hysterical townsfolk who swarmed in behind the line of monks and nuns. Their excitement was itself a creature, huge and perilous and joyful. Was this not the king? There would be a ceremony later, after the king had washed himself and greeted his sainted mother in quieter rooms. Queen Mathilda was not strong enough for a public greeting. Then Mass would be sung in the town¡¯s church, and as many townsfolk as could manage would crowd into the church to see the king robed and crowned in royal splendor, his sacred presence a reminder of God¡¯s heavenly grace and Henry¡¯s earthly power. After the Feast of St. Valentinus tomorrow, townsfolk could bring their grievances to the king¡¯s personal attention, for he would rest in town for Hallowing Eve and the holy days of All Souls and All Saints which followed. Only then would he and his retinue ride on to Thurin Forest, where they would hunt. Ivar envied them the freedom to hunt.


    But he had his own hunting to do. Somehow, at some time in the excitement during the next three days, Master Pursed-Lips would stray from his attentiveness. He would forget to watch quite as closely. Somehow Ivar would find a way to contact Liath.


    4


    LIATH had searched the line of monks along the roadside, but their heads had remained bowed, their faces hidden. So she rode on into Quedlinhame, through the town, and up a winding road that led to the top of the hill where thick walls protected monks and nuns from the temptations of the world; so Da had said to her. Had he been a brother here once?


    Beyond the monastery gate, layservants took the horses and led them away to the stables. She started after them, swinging her saddlebag off the horse and draping its weight over her shoulder¡ªthen heard her name above the clamor of horses and wagons.


    ¡°Liath!¡± Hathui hailed her.


    Liath threaded her way through the mob, avoiding a whippet hound snapping at the end of a leash, stepping over a fresh pile of horse manure, waiting as a noble lady still mounted on a fine gray gelding crossed in front of her.


    ¡°Come. We are to attend the king.¡± Hathui smoothed down her tunic and straightened the brass badge that pinned her cloak. Then she frowned at Liath. ¡°You should have left your gear with the horse. It¡¯ll be safe in a convent, I should think!¡±


    Liath attempted a smile. ¡°I didn¡¯t think. I just grabbed it.¡±


    Hathui crooked an eyebrow. She was not a woman easily fooled nor one to succumb to nonsense. ¡°What¡¯s in there so precious that you¡¯ll never let that bag leave your side?¡±


    ¡°Nothing!¡± It was said too quickly, of course. Liath shifted the saddlebag on her shoulders, shrugging the back pouch aside where it had gotten tangled with her bow quiver. ¡°Nothing special except to me. Something Da left to me. The only thing I have left of him.¡±


    ¡°Yes, so you¡¯ve said before,¡± replied Hathui in the tone of someone who doesn¡¯t believe what she is hearing. ¡°But if Wolfhere minds not, than neither shall I. He may settle this with you when he returns.¡±


    Which, Lady grant, might be many months from now. Though she missed Hanna bitterly, Liath did not regret that she would not see Wolfhere until next year, when he and Hanna could cross back over the mountains from Darre and return to the king¡¯s progress. She liked Wolfhere, but she could not trust him.

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    Monks walked through the gate. She looked for Ivar¡¯s pale, familiar face.


    ¡°Come, come, Liath. We wait upon the king. He does not wait upon us. Why are you staring so?¡±


    Liath shook off the older woman¡¯s hand and followed beside her as they crossed the field. Ahead, the king and a few of his most trusted retainers gathered by the stairs that led up to the church¡¯s portico. ¡°I know someone who is a novice here¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ivar, son of Count Harl and Lady Herlinda.¡±


    Liath glanced sharply at her. ¡°How did you know?¡±


    ¡°Hanna told me. She told me all about Ivar, her milk brother.¡±


    It stung, the dart of jealousy, that Hanna had formed such a friendship with this tough marchlander woman. Liath liked Hathui but could never be comfortable with her. She dared not trust anyone she had met after Da¡¯s death. Trusted no one now, except Hanna. Except possibly Ivar, if she could find him.


    No one else, except Sanglant¡ªand he was dead.


    ¡°Never meant for me even if he had lived,¡± she muttered.


    ¡°What?¡± asked Hathui. Liath shook her head, not answering. ¡°Hanna said Ivar loved you,¡± Hathui added in an altered tone of voice. ¡°Do you feel guilt for it still, that Frater Hugh condemned him to a life as a monk though it was no wish of the boy¡¯s? Only because he interfered with what Hugh wanted?¡±


    ¡°Hanna told you a great deal,¡± said Liath, voice choked.


    ¡°We are friends. As you and I might be, but you are such a strange, distant creature, more like a fey spirit than a woman¡ª¡± Hathui broke off, not because she wished to avoid offending Liath¡ªHathui said what she meant and intended no offense by it¡ªbut because they had reached the king. King Henry caught sight of Hathui and indicated with a gesture that she should walk behind him as they proceeded into the church. Liath stumbled over her own feet and hurried to catch up, not knowing where else to walk except behind Hathui. In the midst of so many fine nobles she could nurse her pain in private because, to the noble lords and ladies, she was merely an appendage of the king, like his crown or scepter or throne, not a real living person they had to take any notice of. She was simply an Eagle, a messenger to be dispatched at the king¡¯s whim.


    Hanna had every right to tell Hathui whatever she wished, had every right to count Hathui as a friend. Wolfhere and Hathui and poor dead Manfred¡ªthe three Eagles who had rescued her from Hugh¡ªsurely knew or guessed the truth of her relationship to Hugh, knew that he had kept her warm in his bed though he was a holy frater and dedicated to the church, that he had gotten her with child and then beaten her nearly to death for defying him, after which beating she had miscarried. In the end, worn down by exhaustion and fear, she had given him The Book of Secrets and all it represented: her submission to him.


    Only the arrival of Wolfhere and his two companion Eagles had saved her. They had rescued her from Hugh; she had not truly escaped him. Liath glanced up at Hathui¡¯s sturdy back, she who walked directly behind the king. Hathui had not once treated Liath with disrespect or scorned her, even knowing she had been a churchman¡¯s slave and concubine. Hathui might be only a freeholder¡¯s daughter, but the freeholders of the marchlands were notoriously proud. The king himself had seen fit to bestow on Hathui his favor. In the four months Liath had ridden with the king¡¯s progress, she had seen how Hathui was called frequently to the king¡¯s side, how he now and again asked her advice on some matter. This was indeed a signal honor for a woman born of common farmers.


    Yes, Hanna had every right to count Hathui as a friend. But that endless niggling fear pricked at Liath: What if Hanna came to prefer Hathui? What if she loved Liath the less for liking Hathui more? It was a weak, unkind thought, both toward Hanna and toward Hathui. Liath could even now hear what Da would say were he alive to hear her confess such a thing: ¡°A rosebush can give more than one bloom each season.¡±


    But Da was dead. Murdered. And Hanna was all she had left. She wanted so desperately not to lose her. ¡°No use fretting about the donkey,¡± Da would say, ¡°when he¡¯s safe inside the shed and you¡¯ve loose chickens to save from the fox.¡±


    At that moment Hathui glanced back at her and gave her a reassuring smile. They entered the church. It was surprisingly light inside the nave, a long lofty space with a wooden ceiling made of a checkerboard of crossbeams. A double row of arched windows set high in the wall, well above the decorative columns that lined the nave, admitted this light. The party walked forward solemnly so that Henry and his sister could kneel before the Hearth. Liath admired the parallel rows of columns, two round columns alternating with every square one to form the central nave. Eagles and dragons and lions adorned the capitals, carved cunningly into stone; these symbols of power served to remind visitors and postulants alike whose authority reigned here, second only to God in Unity. The floor was paved in pale yellow-and-dun granite. She tried, superstitiously, not to step on any of the cracks seaming the blocks into a larger whole.

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    The king mounted the steps at the far end of the nave and knelt before the Hearth. Liath knelt with the others, many of whom perforce had to get down on their knees on the stairs in all manner of awkward positions. Her knee captured the trailing end of Hathui¡¯s cloak so that the poor woman could not kneel forward comfortably, but it had become so very quiet in the church that Liath dared not shift even enough to loosen the cloak from her weight.


    Mother Scholastica said a prayer over the Hearth to which the assembled nobles murmured rote responses. Liath could not keep her eyes from the Hearth, where a sparkling reliquary cut entirely from rock crystal and formed into the shape of a falcon rested next to Mother Scholastica¡¯s hand. Beside the reliquary stood a book so studded in gems and coated with gold leaf that it seemed of itself to emanate light.


    Blessed and sanctified, King Henry rose, shook off his cloak into the hands of a waiting servant, and beckoned to Hathui and his two most trusted advisers: the crippled margrave, Helmut Villam, and the cleric, Rosvita of Korvei. Hathui beckoned to Liath, and the two Eagles hastened to follow these notables as they descended the stairs and exited the church by a smaller door that led into quarters reserved for the mother abbess and her servants.


    In an insignificant room just off the abbess¡¯ private cloister, King Henry knelt beside the low bed on which his mother lay. He kissed her hands in greeting, as any son gives his mother the honor due her. ¡°Mother.¡±


    She touched his eyes gently. ¡°You have been weeping, my child. What is this grief for? Do you still mourn the boy?¡±


    He hid his face even from her, but not for long. A mother¡¯s demands must be acknowledged. At last he set his face against the coarse wool blanket¡ªfit for a common nun but surely not for a queen¡ªand wept his sorrow freely while the others turned their gazes away.


    They had all knelt in emulation of the king. Liath, at the back, studied their faces. Hathui stared steadily at the rough flagstone floor of the cell, her expression one of mingled pity and respect. The old margrave, Helmut Villam, wiped a tear from his own cheek with his remaining hand. Mother Scholastica frowned at the display¡ªnot at the sight of a grown man crying, for of course the ability to express grief easily and compassionately was a kingly virtue, but at the excessive grief Henry still carried with him at the death of a son who was, after all, only a bastard. The cleric had no expression Liath could read on her intelligent face, but she glanced Liath¡¯s way, as if she had felt her gaze upon her, and Liath looked down at once. ¡°Don¡¯t let them notice you,¡± Da had always said. ¡°Safety lies in staying hidden.¡±


    ¡°Now, child,¡± the old queen was saying to Henry. Though her body was weak and her voice tremulous, her spirit clearly had not quailed under the burden of her illness. ¡°You will dry these tears. It has been half a year since the boy died¡ªand an honorable death he had, did he not? It is time to let him go. Is this not the eve of hallowing? Let him go so that his spirit may ascend, as it must, through the seven spheres to come to rest at last in the blessed Chamber of Light. You bind his soul to this world with your grief.¡±


    ¡°These are heathen words,¡± said Mother Scholastica abruptly.


    ¡°It is a heathen holy day, is it not, though we have given it a Daisanite name?¡± retorted the queen. Married young, she had borne at least two of her ten children before she was Liath¡¯s age, or so Liath calculated. She was at most fourteen years older than Henry, who was her eldest child. Her hair, uncoifed in the privacy of her cell, had a few brown strands still woven in among the white. Whatever sickness ravaged her came not only from the assault of time but also from a more physical malady. ¡°We speak of Hallowing Eve still and pray to all the saints on these days when the great tides of the heavens bring the living and the dead close together¡ªbring them so close that we might even touch, if our eyes were open.¡±


    Liath caught in a sob. As she listened to the old queen speak, she recalled Da so vividly that it was almost as if she could see him standing beside her, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye.


    ¡°It is a form of respect,¡± continued the old woman, ¡°that I think God will not begrudge us.¡±


    Mother Scholastica bowed her head obediently, for although she was mistress of Quedlinhame and Mother over all the nuns, including Mathilda, she was at the same time this woman¡¯s daughter. Mathilda had been queen once and was a powerful woman still, queen by title though she no longer sat upon a throne.


    ¡°Henry, you must let him go, or he will wander here forever, trapped by your grief.¡±


    ¡°What if he can¡¯t die as we do?¡± asked Henry in a rasping voice. ¡°What if his mother¡¯s blood forbids him entrance to the Chamber of Light? Is he then doomed to wander as a shade on this earth forever? Are we never to be reunited in the blessed peace of the Light?¡±

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    ¡°That is for Our Lord and Lady to judge,¡± said Mother Scholastica sternly, ¡°not for us to trouble ourselves over. Many books were written by the ancients on this question¡ªwhether the Lost Ones had souls¡ªbut this is not the time or place to debate that issue. Come, Henry. You are tiring our mother.¡±


    ¡°No,¡± said the old queen. ¡°I am not tired. If you speak to me of your grief, Henry, perhaps that will ease it.¡± She looked up, her gaze sharper than Liath had expected from a bedridden woman. ¡°Villam is here.¡±


    It struck Liath suddenly that Helmut Villam was as old as Queen Mathilda. Despite his crippling injury, he had far more vigor, the energy of a much younger person. The margrave came forward, kissed her hand, then retired to the door. The queen acknowledged Rosvita next, clasped the cleric¡¯s hands in her own in the sign of fealty. ¡°My History?¡± she asked with a gentle smile. ¡°How does it progress?¡±


    The cleric¡¯s smile in answer was brief but sweet. ¡°I hope to complete the First Book this year, Your Majesty, so that you may have it read to you and learn of the illustrious deeds of the first Henry and his son, the elder Arnulf.¡±


    ¡°Do not tarry too long, my sister, for your words interest me greatly, and I fear I have not too many more days upon this earth.¡±


    Rosvita bowed her head, touching her forehead to the old queen¡¯s wrinkled hands. Then she stood and retreated.


    ¡°Who are these?¡± the old woman asked, looking at the two Eagles.


    Henry glanced back. At first he appeared surprised. Then he registered Hathui. ¡°My faithful Eagle,¡± he said wryly. He looked beyond Hathui¡ªLiath flinched when his powerful gaze focused on her. For an instant it was like Hugh¡¯s gaze, penetrating, absolute; like the strike of lightning, it could obliterate her. But Henry only marked her and looked away without further interest. ¡°This other Eagle was at Gent. Together with Wolfhere she witnessed the destruction of the Dragons and the death of¡ª¡± His voice broke, unable to speak the name of his dead son.


    ¡°Together with Wolfhere,¡± said the queen thoughtfully, as if the name meant something to her. Liath stared at the gray stone, at its uneven surface and rough grade. No polished marble or fine granite blocks graced this common nun¡¯s cell. ¡°Come forward, child.¡±


    One did not disobey a queen, even one who now professed to be a nun, not when she used that tone of voice. Liath hooked a foot under her body, stood, took seven small steps forward, and knelt again. Only then did she look up.


    Gray eyes as cool as winter storm clouds and yet with a deep calm beneath them met Liath¡¯s gaze. ¡°You are some relation to Conrad the Black, perhaps?¡± Queen Mathilda asked. ¡°I have seen such coloring nowhere else, except perhaps in¡ª¡± She made a tiny gesture with one hand, a scissoring of fingers quickly made and quickly vanished. Mother Scholastica rose and left the cell. Henry still gripped his mother¡¯s other hand, the one that lay so still upon the rough wool blanket. Mathilda had the most delicate wrists Liath had ever seen on an adult. Her small hands were weathered with work, for Queen Mathilda was famous for serving in common with the other nuns, such was her humility. ¡°You are no relation?¡±


    Liath shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.


    ¡°You were in Gent?¡±


    Liath nodded. Lady Above, please let her be satisfied with this knowledge; please let her not demand that Liath tell the entire awful heart-wrenching tale again, so that she had to live through it again: that last vision seen through fire, Sanglant struck down by an Eika ax and Bloodheart gloating above his fallen body, holding aloft in his bare bloody hand the golden neck torque that signified the prince¡¯s royal kinship.


    At that moment Liath realized Queen Mathilda did not wear the golden torque, though her son and daughter did. But she was not born of the royal lineages of Wendar and Varre. She had only married into the family. At this moment, under that calm gray but utterly penetrating gaze, Liath could not remember where Mathilda came from, of what kin, of what country¡ªonly that she had ruled as queen beside Arnulf the Younger, his second wife, and that she now examined Liath with keen interest and not a little understanding.


    ¡°You knew Sanglant,¡± she said.


    Liath nodded, dared say nothing in answer. I loved Sanglant. But the prince was not for her; even Wolfhere had warned him away from her. ¡°Down that road I dare not walk,¡± Sanglant had said to her, for was he not an obedient son? ¡°Be bound, as I am, by the fate others have determined for you. That way you will remain safe.¡±


    But the fate that had bound Sanglant, captain of the King¡¯s Dragons and bastard son of a king, was nothing like the fate she struggled against, whose bonds she could not even recognize. Just as well, she thought bitterly, that he was killed. It was only safe to love someone who was already dead.

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    Her expression betrayed her.


    ¡°The last,¡± said the queen, comprehending the whole, ¡°if not the first. Pretty enough that any might understand why he was tempted. That is enough, child. You may go.¡±


    Liath was mortified. To be discovered, to be seen through so easily, and by a woman who did not even know her! Henry was staring morosely at the far wall, idly twisting the signet ring on his right hand, not paying attention. Villam had gone outside to the sun. Only Hathui and Rosvita witnessed. Perhaps the queen had spoken too softly for them to hear. Liath dipped her head obediently and retreated, still on her knees, back to the safety of the door and Hathui¡¯s shadow.


    But a queen¡ªa girl brought from foreign lands to marry an older and possibly indifferent man¡ªsurely must learn to study faces and puzzle out intrigue from every line and utterance. After all, she had gotten her son onto the throne of Wendar and Varre despite the claim of the elder half sister¡ªArnulf¡¯s only living child from his first and some said more legitimate marriage. It would not do to underestimate a woman like Mathilda, no matter how weak she looked now.


    Liath was allowed to leave, although Hathui remained with the king and the king appeared determined to remain for some while with his mother. Outside, no one asked her to run errands or carry a trifling message. She couldn¡¯t enter the innermost cloisters, of course, but when the king¡¯s progress had come to Quedlinhame it was impossible to stop visitors from wandering the grounds and gardens of the monastery. She climbed the outer wall and found a vantage point from which to look down over the foundation.


    All monasteries¡ªwhether housing monks or nuns¡ªwere built on the same general plan, one laid out three centuries ago by St. Benedicta, founder of The Rule. Liath had seen plans of various monasteries, and once she had seen a thing and committed it to memory, it was the work of a moment to dredge it up again. Mathilda. She searched in the city of memory. Past the gate surmounted by the Throne of Virtue stood the halls of the kingdoms. She found the one inscribed with the Dragon, Lion, and Eagle of Wendar and went inside. On the dais Henry sat alone now that his queen, Sophia, had died. Behind him, through a curtain, lay the chamber of Arnulf the Younger, flanked on the right by his first wife, Berengaria of Varre, and on the left by Mathilda. This seated statue of Mathilda held in its right hand a scroll bearing the names of her nine children and in its left, signifying her descent, a small banner embroidered with the sigil of the kingdom of Karrone.


    Liath backtracked to the hall of Karrone. There among the gathered dead and living nobles of the royal house, all cast in stone, she found Mathilda. Granddaughter of Berta, princess and later Queen of Karrone, the first Karronese prince to defy her Salian overlords and style herself regnant. Daughter of Berta¡¯s only son, prince and later King Rodulf, the last of Berta¡¯s five children, all of whom had held the throne, each in succession. Having seen the chronicle of the monks of St. Galle, Liath could even recall the dates of their reigns and their deaths. Rodulf had reigned from 692 until 710. His death had brought forth two claimants to Karrone¡¯s throne: his niece Marozia and his grandson, Henry. Marozia had seized the throne by right of proximity, and Henry, newly crowned king of Wendar and Varre, was too young in power to contest her. Instead he had married his younger brother Benedict to her daughter, also called Marozia; these two now reigned in the mountainous kingdom of Karrone as Queen Regnant and King Consort.


    All of this Liath remembered, and much more besides. It was only in the central tower, the highest point in the city itself, that a door stood which she could not unlock¡ªbehind it rested Da¡¯s secrets, all he had kept hidden from her. She shook her head impatiently and scanned the monastery, searching for a small building with its own cloister, set apart from the others: the novitiary.


    Eventually the novices would have to emerge from the novitiary, to pray, to attend to their bodily needs, to perform manual labor. The Rule enjoined that all nuns and monks spend some part of each day in labor, ¡°for then are they truly laborers for God when they live by the labor of their hands.¡±


    She hunkered down to wait, finding a patch of warm autumn sun and tugging her cloak tight around her. The sudden cold autumn wind on her neck made her shudder, and she was abruptly seized with an unreasoning panic, heart pounding, breath caught in her throat and her hands trembling as if with a palsy. But Hugh wasn¡¯t here. He wasn¡¯t here. She still had the book, and other weapons besides. To calm herself, she touched them one by one, like talismans: Her short sword rested easily on her left hip; her eating knife nestled in a sheath; the weight of her bow, quiver, and arrows made a comforting presence on her back.

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    Ai, Lady! Surely she was safe from Hugh now.


    The door to the novitiary opened and a double line of brown-robed novices, heads bowed humbly, emerged from the novitiary and walked in strict columns by paved paths, then dirt ones, out to the gardens. Liath jumped up to follow them. Certain of the noble lords and ladies lounged at their leisure on the withering autumn grass or admired the late flowers in the herb garden; unlike Liath, they ignored the novices¡ªall, that is, except the wheat-haired girl Liath recognized as Lady Tallia.


    As the column of novices passed Tallia, she knelt on ragged grass and bowed her head in prayer. Liath found the girl¡¯s piety grating and excessive, but others praised her for it. Liath had been on the road for too long to find it admirable that Tallia ruined her gowns by using them to wash the Hearths of churches, scraping her pale fine hands raw in the process. That was all very well for a noblewoman who could replace such fine stuffs, but something else again for those who had little to spare. Tallia might fast at every opportunity and turn away fine meats and soft breads and rich savories, but at least she had such food to turn away. Liath had traveled the roads with Da for eight years. She had seen faces gaunt with starvation because the last harvest had run scant; she had seen children scrabbling in the dirt for precious grains of wheat and rye and oats.


    Some among the novices did not ignore the nobles. Some looked up, curious¡ªas she would have been curious, in their place. The watching schoolmaster scurried down the line and applied his willow switch to shoulders. They plodded out to the gardens where a ridge of soil lay dry and crumbling on one side from a summer under the sun and fresh and moist on the other where the novices had turned it up the previous day. With hoes, pointed sticks, and shovels, they commenced digging the unturned earth.


    Liath picked her way down the steep stone stairs and took a circuitous route across the grounds. Lady Tallia had ventured to the edge of the garden and Liath saw her pleading with the schoolmistress¡ªfor both male and female novices worked in the gardens this day, though at separate ends as was proper. After a bit, the schoolmistress relented and handed the girl a stick. With this in hand, she promptly climbed over the little stone fence that served to keep vermin out of the vegetables and with more enthusiasm than skill commenced digging beside the other female novices, oblivious to the stains that now accumulated on the hem and knees of her gold linen gown.


    Liath circled in and took up a stance east of the novices, where she pretended to study the towers of the church. She busied herself with her cloak, flashing its scarlet trim.


    Of a sudden she saw him, caught with his astonished gaze on her and his hoe frozen in the dirt. He nudged the boy next to him. Ai, Lady! Even from this distance Liath could see that his friend was remarkably handsome. The handsome boy elbowed another and that one the next until four faces stared at her while she stared back.


    Ivar! He gaped at her for long stunned moments, then straightened, yanked his hoe out of the earth as if he meant to run over and greet her¡ªand suddenly hunched over again to strike his hoe back into the dirt. All of them did, dutiful novices attending to their labor just in time for the schoolmaster to pass them by, willow switch in hand, and glower first at them and then, briefly, at the Eagle who was making a spectacle of herself so close by sheltered novices.


    It would be impossible to speak to Ivar.


    Impossible.


    At that moment she noted the long narrow shed with many plank doors which sat out away from the cloister: the necessarium. Even holy church folk must attend to the needs of the earthly body. She looked back toward Ivar. He was chopping the hoe onto the dirt with one hand, pointlessly but enough to make it look as though he were working, and with his other hand making signs. Though Da had taught her the silent hand language used by nuns and monks, she stood too far from Ivar to read what he said, and she dared not move closer since the schoolmaster had already marked her. Instead, knowing Ivar watched her, she ostentatiously stretched one arm up over her head and slowly lowered it until her hand pointed toward the necessarium. She turned her back on the gardens and walked over to the long shed.


    Picking a door at random¡ªnot at the very end, not in the middle¡ªshe pulled it open, paused so that Ivar had time to mark her, then stepped up onto a rough raised plank floor and closed herself into the gloom.


    Lady Above! It stank of piss and excrement. But there was room to turn around and also, because this was a royal monastery, a sanded wood bench with a hole cut in the middle on which to sit. She sat on the edge of the bench, extremely careful to make sure no trailing end of cloak snaked down the hole to the pit below, and covered her nose and mouth with an edge of that cloak. In this way, shielded somewhat from the ripe smell of human waste by the honest scent of good plain wool, she waited.

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    She waited for a long time, so long, in fact, that the smell began not to bother her as much, and the occasional sounds as doors banged open or shut and folk¡ªmonks, nuns, and courtfolk alike¡ªwent about their business in the long shed began to have a kind of monotonous lulling pattern to them. Suddenly, a hand scraped at the rope handle. She shrank back into the corner as the door opened.


    As quickly, a brown-robed figure slipped inside and closed the door behind him. She stood up, and because the space between bench and door was so narrow and because her left foot had gone numb, she staggered. He embraced her, steadying her, and clasped her hard against him. His hood fell back. She stood there, stiff and dumb, and he began muttering her name over and over as if he knew no other word and kissed first her neck and, as he got his bearings, her ear, her cheek and finally her mouth.


    ¡°Ivar.¡± She slid a hand between them. He was taller than she remembered, filled out, broader in the shoulder. His embrace¡ªso unfamiliar and yet utterly familiar¡ªreminded her of long-ago nights in Heart¡¯s Rest when she and he and Hanna would run laughing out of a rainstorm and huddle together in the shelter of the inn stables. But they had so little time. ¡°Ivar!¡± she said urgently, pulling away.


    ¡°Say you will marry me,¡± he said softly, lips moist against her skin. ¡°Say you will marry me, Liath, and we will escape from here somehow and make our way in the world. Nothing will stop us.¡± He took in a sharp breath to speak more passionate words yet, then grunted. ¡°Ai, Lord! What a stink!¡±


    She muffled her giggles in the coarse fabric of his robe; he buried his face in her hair. In moments she was crying softly and he was, too. She closed her arms about his torso and hugged him tightly. Kinless, she had no one left her but Ivar and Hanna.


    ¡°Ai, Liath,¡± he whispered. ¡°What will we do? Whatever will we do?¡±


    5


    NIGHT came as it always did, whether this day¡¯s night or the next one he did not know. He no longer had any conception of time, only of the stone beneath him, the rain¡ªor lack of it¡ªon the roof, the dogs growling around him, the slaves scurrying about their tasks, bent and frightened, and the Eika on their way in and out of the cathedral, always moving. Sometimes they left him alone through days and nights he could no longer keep track of, for there was still a world outside although he had long since forgotten what it looked like. Most of the dogs went with them, then, although some few always stayed beside him. He was never truly alone. Perhaps it was better that he was never truly alone. Without the dogs, he would have forgotten that he existed.


    Sometimes when they left him, he could only stare at nothing, or else at the stippling in the marble stone with its veins running away into nothing, or else at the scars on his arms and legs which were in all stages of healing, some still oozing blood, some pink, some scabbed, some the white of a cleanly healed wound.


    Sometimes he was seized with such a restless surge of energy that he paced in the semicircle that was the limit of his chains, or lunged, or ran in place, or sparred with imaginary sword or spear against an imaginary opponent, the old drill he had learned so well that his body knew it by heart though he could not now put words to its movements. Only the chains hindered him. Always the chains hindered him, the iron collar, the heavy manacles chafing his wrists and his ankles.


    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you dead yet?¡± Bloodheart would ask with irritation when he returned, or in the mornings when light flooded in through open doors and the painted windows shone with stories from the Holy Verses: the blessed Daisan and the seven miracles; the Witnessing of St. Thecla; the Vision of the Abyss of St. Matthias; the Revelation of St. Johanna: ¡°Outside are dogs and murderers, fornicators and sorcerers, and all who love deceit; only those whose robes are clean will have the right to enter the gates of the blessed city.¡±


    Dog he was now. Murderer he had once been named by the mother of a young nobleman who had rebelled against the king¡¯s authority and paid for that rebellion with his life and the lives of his followers; no doubt the families of the barbarians who had invaded Wendar¡¯s borders and been killed by his Dragons in fair combat felt the same, but they never came to court to face him or his king. Fornicator¡ªwell, he could not regret a single one of the women he had slept with, and he had never heard that they regretted the act either.


    He would have used sorcery to escape this torment had he known how. But that gift, said to be the life¡¯s blood of his mother¡¯s kin, he knew nothing of. She had abandoned him, and he had taken up instead the birthright of his father¡¯s people. Trained to fight and to die bravely, he knew nothing else. He had nothing else.

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    The brass badge pressed painfully against the joint where arm met shoulder as he shifted, trying to find a comfortable position so that the chains did not rub him raw.


    The Eagle¡¯s badge. Her image came to his mind¡¯s eye as sharply as if he had seen her yesterday. Her name he remembered, when he had forgotten so much else: Liath.


    ¡°My heart rests not within me but with another, and she is far away from here.¡± Was it true? Or had he only spoken those words as defiance, as a shield against Bloodheart¡¯s enchantment? What if it were true? What if it could be true?


    There was a world beyond this prison, if he could only imagine it. But when he imagined life, he imagined war, battle, his brave Dragons dying around him. That imagining always led him here, chained to the altar stone in this cathedral. What was the name of the city?


    She would know.


    Gent. It was in Gent he waited, imprisoned, scraping sometimes at his chains, sawing at them with the knife when the Eika were absent, but he could not get free.


    Yet as the holy man is freed from the world by contemplating God, surely he could free at least his mind from this prison by contemplating the world outside. He was not a holy man, to meditate on Our Lord and Lady, although surely he ought to. He was too restless for that holy peace, and uneducated in the disciplines of the mind.


    The world outside waned from autumn to winter. It was cold. The dying sun would be reborn, as they sang in the Old Faith, and then spring would return. And he would still be chained.


    She had led others to freedom. If he only imagined himself walking beside her through a field of oats, then Bloodheart could touch him no longer.


    6


    YOUNG Tallia, her wheat-colored hair and wheat-colored gown rendering her almost colorless, knelt on the hard stone floor before Mother Scholastica¡¯s chair. The girl carefully avoided the carpet laid on the floor, as if she dared not succumb to the luxury of padding beneath her much-abused knees.


    ¡°I beg you!¡± she cried. ¡°I want nothing more than to dedicate my life to the church in memory of the woman I was named after, Biscop Tallia of Pairri, she who was daughter of the great Emperor Taillefer. If you would let me pledge myself as a novice here at Quedlinhame, I would serve faithfully. I would humble myself as befits a good nun. I would serve the poor with my own hands and wash the feet of lepers.¡±


    The king, pacing, turned at this. ¡°I have had several marriage offers for you, none of which I am tempted to act on at this time¡ª¡±


    ¡°I beg you, Uncle!¡± Tallia had the dubious ability to make tears spring out at any utterance. But Rosvita did not think this entirely contrived: The girl had a kind of tortured piety about her, no doubt from living with her mother Sabella and her poor idiot of a father, Duke Berengar. ¡°Let me be wed to Our Lord, not to the flesh.¡±


    Henry lifted his eyes to heaven as if imploring God to grant him patience. Rosvita had heard this argument played out a dozen times in the last six months¡ªindeed, Tallia seemed to have memorized the speech¡ªand the cleric knew Henry wearied of it and of the girl¡¯s dramatic piety.


    ¡°I am not opposed to your vocation,¡± said the king, turning back finally and speaking with some semblance of patience, ¡°but you are an heiress, Tallia, and therefore not so easily removed from the world.¡±


    The girl cast one beseeching glance toward Queen Mathilda, who reclined on a couch, then clasped her hands at her breast, shut her eyes, and began to pray.


    ¡°However,¡± said Mother Scholastica before the girl could get well-launched into a psalm, ¡°we have agreed, King Henry and I, that for the time being you will reside with the novices here at Quedlinhame. But only until a decision has been made over what will become of you.¡±


    By this means, of course, Henry and Scholastica placed Tallia as a virtual hostage in the middle of Henry¡¯s strongest duchy. But Tallia wept tears of gratitude and was finally¡ªthank the Lady¡ªled away by the schoolmistress.


    Queen Mathilda said, into the silence, ¡°She seems fierce in her vocation.¡±


    ¡°Indeed,¡± said Henry in the tone of a man who has been pressed too far. ¡°Her privations are legendary.¡±


    Mother Scholastica raised one eyebrow. She studied the owl feather¡ªher quill pen¡ªthat lay by her right hand; touching its feathers briefly, stroking them with the tip of a finger, she looked at her mother. ¡°Excessive piety can itself be a form of pride,¡± she said drily.


    ¡°So did I observe in you,¡± said the old queen with the barest of smiles, ¡°when you were young.¡±


    ¡°So did I come to observe in myself,¡± said Mother Scholastica without smiling. Here, in her private study with only family and clerics in attendance, she had let slip her white scarf to reveal hair, rather lighter than Henry¡¯s, liberally sprinkled with gray. Only three years younger than Henry, she looked perhaps ten years younger. This contradiction was much debated in the matristic writings. Women, blessed with the ability to bleed and to give birth, suffered from that birthing if they took advantage of the blessing, while those who pledged themselves and their fertility to the church, living their lives as holy virgins, often lived much longer lives. Mathilda, who had given birth to ten children and been widowed at the age of thirty-eight, looked as ancient and frail as Mother Otta, the abbess of Korvei Convent, but Mother Otta was ninety and the queen only fifty-six.

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    Now, later that same day, these thoughts came back to Rosvita as she knelt with the congregation in the Quedlinhame town church. Thunder rumbled in the distance as Mother Scholastica intoned the final words of her homily.


    ¡°The Lady does not give out her blessing freely. This is God¡¯s way of teaching a lesson to humankind. Although the gift of bearing children is certainly a blessing, the means by which we mortals can in some measure know immortality, all earthly beings are tainted with the infinitesimal grains of the primordial darkness that mixed by chance with the pure elements of light, wind, fire, and water. That intermingling brought about the creation of the world. And those of us who live in the world are thereby stained with darkness. Only through the blessed Daisan¡¯s teaching, only through the blinding glory of the Chamber of Light, can we cleanse ourselves and attain a place at Our Lord¡¯s and Lady¡¯s side. So ends the teaching.¡±


    The brethren¡ªmonks and nuns from Quedlinhame¡ªsang the Te Deam, the hymn to God¡¯s glory. Their voices blended with the fine precision of a choir used to singing in concord. With this music as accompaniment, King Henry entered the church in formal procession.


    Rosvita stifled a yawn. It was so very muggy for this late in the year, and she was not as young as she once had been. It was no longer easy to stand¡ªor kneel¡ªthrough an entire service. For how many years had she traveled with the king¡¯s progress? How often had she seen the banners representing the six duchies carried in and displayed, symbol of the king¡¯s earthly power? How many times had she watched the ceremonial anointing, robing, and crowning of the king on feast days? Yet even now as King Henry ascended the steps that led to the altar stone and Hearth, the familiar quaver of awe caught in her throat.


    Bareheaded but clad in a robe woven of cloth-of-gold, his shoes detailed in gold braid, King Henry knelt before his sister, Mother Scholastica, offering himself before the Lady¡¯s Hearth. Every soul knelt with the king. The abbess combed his newly cut hair with an ivory comb encrusted with gold and tiny gems. She anointed him with oil, on the right ear, from the forehead to the left ear, and on the crown of his head.


    ¡°May Our Lord and Lady crown you with the crown of glory, may They anoint you with the oil of Their favor,¡± she said.


    Assisted by certain local nobles singled out for this honor, she placed the robe of state over his shoulders; trimmed with ermine, woven of the finest white wool, the cloak bore the emblems of each duchy embroidered across its expanse: a dragon for Saony, an eagle for Fesse, a lion for Avaria, a stallion for Wayland, a hawk for Varingia¡ªand a guivre for Arconia.


    ¡°The borders of this cloak trailing on the ground,¡± the abbess continued, ¡°shall remind you that you are to be zealous in the faith and to keep peace.¡±


    Rosvita shuddered, thinking of the guivre¡ªthe terrible basilisk-like creature¡ªwhose presence had almost won the Battle of Kassel for Sabella.


    But Sabella had not won. A monk and a boy had killed the guivre, surely a sign of God¡¯s displeasure at Sabella¡¯s attempt to usurp her half brother¡¯s power. Henry¡¯s luck¡ªthe luck of the rightful king¡ªhad held true.


    Now Mother Scholastica handed Henry the royal scepter, a tall staff carved out of ebony wood and studded with jewels, its head carved into the shape of a dragon¡¯s head with ruby eyes gleaming.


    ¡°Receive this staff of virtue. May you rule wisely and well.¡±


    On this staff the king leaned as Mother Scholastica crowned him in the sight of all the folk who were present.


    ¡°Crown him, God, with justice, glory, honor, and strong deeds.¡±


    A great sigh swept through the crowd, mingled awe and pleasure at the rare sight of their king crowned and robed in the sight of God and his countryfolk.


    From the gathered host a single voice cried out: ¡°May the King live forever!¡± Other voices from the crowd answered the first with the same words until the acclamation was a roar of approval.


    From her station on the steps below the Hearth, Rosvita surveyed the assembled courtfolk, brethren, and local nobles come from their estates to watch the ceremony and to feast after with the king and his retinue. She sought in their faces some clue to their state of mind. Few of the nobles here would harbor any sympathy for the recently imprisoned Sabella. But in other duchies the king¡¯s position was not so strong. That was why he had to travel constantly across his kingdom: so that his people could see him; so that his nobles would be reminded in ceremonies like this one that he was king and therefore had authority to rule; and so that Henry, appearing before them, could demand troops and supplies for his wars¡ªin this case, for an assault on Gent.

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    The boom of thunder rolled, shaking glass windows and causing one child in the back of the nave to start crying.


    What did the thunder portend? Those called fulgutari claimed they could divine the future by observing the sound and appearance of storms and the direction of thunder and lightning. This display now, with great booms of thunder rattling the church and lightning scoring bright flashes against the lowering sky of late afternoon, seemed to underscore Henry¡¯s power, as if God in Their Unity reminded the assembled people that he had received God¡¯s grace.


    But perhaps it portended other things. Divination by thunder was condemned by the church as were all forms of divination, for women and men must trust to God and not seek knowledge of what is to come. It was sacriligious even to think of heathen practices.


    Rain lashed the windows. The side doors were opened to allow the poor to process through in an orderly line. None complained that, waiting outside, they had gotten soaked through. They waited gratefully for this chance to be blessed and touched by King Henry himself, for was it not true that the anointed king¡¯s touch might bring healing?


    Rosvita yawned again. She ought to be watching the holy blessings, but she had seen this same scene, albeit rarely with the dramatic background of thunder and lightning, so many times before on the endless itinerant progress of the king. Could the heathens foretell the future from the sounds and directions of thunder? Surely not. Only angels and the daimones of the upper air could see into the future, and back into the past, for they did not live in Time in the same way humans did. But, alas, she could never help thinking of such things, sacrilegious though they might be. She would be damned by her curiosity; Mother Otta of Korvei Convent had told her that so many times, although not without a smile.


    Thunder rumbled off into the northwest, and the rain slackened as the last of the poor and sick shuffled past King Henry for the ritual blessing. The nobles shifted restlessly¡ªas restless as the weather or as their fears that Henry would demand large levies from them in the coming season of war.


    At last the final hymn was sung. A happy babble of voices filled the church as the king led the procession out of the church. In the royal hall, the Feast of All Saints would be celebrated. Rosvita followed the king together with the rest of his retinue, nobles and townsfolk crowded behind, all eager to partake in some way of the meal, even if it was simply bread handed out from the doors. Her stomach, like a distant failing echo of the thunder, rumbled softly, and she chuckled.


    In the morning, still driven by nagging thoughts of thunder and portents, she availed herself of Quedlinhame¡¯s excellent library. She ought to be working on her History of the Wendish People, but she knew from long experience that until this nibbling curiosity was satisfied, she would be able to think of nothing else.


    Rosvita turned first to Isidora of Seviya¡¯s great encyclopedia, the Etymologies, which contained descriptions of various forms of sorcery and magic. But Isidora¡¯s book had only a passing reference to the fulgutari.


    Dissatisfied, Rosvita replaced the volume in its cabinet and latched the door. The library had long since outgrown its original chamber and now several smaller rooms contained the overflow books. She stood in one of these chambers now; the Etymologies had been consigned here not because the work was unimportant¡ªfar from it¡ªbut because, Rosvita thought uncharitably, Quedlinhame¡¯s librarian was incompetent and disorganized. There was no logical order to the placement of the books, and in order to find which cabinet any book might reside in, one had to consult the catalog¡ªwhich sat on a lectern in the central library hall. Rosvita sighed. In wrath, remember mercy. No doubt her own faults were greater than those of the librarian.


    As she crossed back through the warren of dark rooms, she saw a cloaked figure standing in the pale light afforded by a slit of a window high in one stone wall: one of the King¡¯s Eagles.


    She paused in shadow and stared¡ªnot at the young woman, for this Eagle was instantly recognizable for her height and coloring, but at what she was doing. Clerics took little notice of Eagles, who were recruited from the children of stewards, freeholders, artisans, or merchants. Clerics wrote the letters and capitularies and cartularies which were handed over, sealed, to the king¡¯s messengers. Eagles carried those messages; they did not read them.


    A very few, like the infamous Wolfhere, had been educated¡ªas had, evidently, this strange young person as well.


    The young Eagle stood and, in light surely too dim for any human eyes to see finely written calligraphy, read a book. Her finger traced the lines of text and her lips moved, her profile framed by dust motes floating downward on the thin gleam of light. So intent was she on her reading that she remained oblivious to Rosvita¡¯s presence.

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    In the silence of Korvei Convent, where nuns communicated by hand signs, Rosvita had learned the trick of reading lips. She had even used this skill to learn things forbidden to novices. Now, curiosity piqued, she tried to puzzle out syllables and sound from the movements of the young woman¡¯s lips¡ª


    ¡ªand was baffled. The Eagle read not in Wendish or in Dariyan, but in another language, one Rosvita could not ¡°hear¡± through seeing. Where had such a young person learned to read? What on earth was she reading?


    Rosvita glided softly out of the room, passed through an arch, and emerged into the library hall, blinking at the sudden shift in light. Here, at individual carrels, several nuns read. Cabinets stood along the walls, shut and latched. The catalog rested on a lecturn carved with owls peeking out from oak trees. It lay open. Rosvita skimmed the titles listed on the page: St. Peter of Aron¡¯s The Eternal Geometry, Origen¡¯s De Principiis, Ptolomaia¡¯s Tetrabiblos, Abu Ma¡¯shar¡¯s Z?j al-haz?r?t.


    Rosvita blinked back amazement. Could it be this book that the girl read? She recognized the language, here transposed into Dariyan script, though she could not read Jinna herself. Did the girl claim Jinna ancestry, revealed in her complexion? Had she been trained to read the Jinna language? This was a mystery indeed. The young Eagle would bear watching.


    Given the company it kept, the book appeared to be about matters astronomical. Surely even the librarian here, for all her faults, would catalog books about the weather¡ªwhich took place in the sky¡ªnear to those about the heavens. Rosvita flipped idly through the pages, searching for what she was not sure, but could find nothing that seemed to be what she wanted.


    Distracted, she shrugged and stretched and examined the room. From here she could see into the scriptorium, where nuns and monks worked in silence writing correspondence and making copies of missals and old texts. The monastery had recently received from a sister institution six ancient papyrus scrolls written in Dariyan and Arethousan. These were being recopied onto parchment and bound into books.


    Drawn by the light pouring in through the windows and the quiet murmur emanating from the scriptorium, Rosvita wandered past the cabinets and out under a wall set with arches into the scriptorium. Here some of the novices had assembled to observe the scribes at work¡ªwork they would themselves be engaged in once they became monks. One restless boy, his hood slipped back to reveal curly red-gold hair and a pale freckled face, sidled up to the schoolmaster and made a hand sign: Necessarium. With obvious disgust, the schoolmaster signed assent. No doubt the poor boy had been consigned to the monastery against his will and now chafed at the discipline: Rosvita had seen such novices in her time at Korvei.


    With a sudden and violent start she recognized the boy. Ivar had not yet been born when she entered Korvei Convent, and she had actually only met him on two occasions. Perhaps she was mistaken; perhaps this was not Ivar at all but merely a northcountry boy who resembled him in coloring. But their father, Count Harl, had written to her not six months ago telling her that Ivar was to be pledged as a novice at Quedlinhame. It had to be him.


    Ivar hurried out of the scriptorium, not noticing Rosvita. But he went on into the library rather than going outside. And meanwhile, three other novices distracted the schoolmaster, asking him about a parchment laid on one of the desks. Clearly they meant him not to notice where Ivar had gone.


    So Rosvita followed him.


    He hurried through the library hall and vanished into the warren of dim rooms beyond. She entered cautiously and was quickly rewarded by the sound of voices, so soft that had she not been listening for them she might have thought it the sough of the wind heard through the windows. By listening for direction and sound, as the fulgutari were said to observe the movement of storms, she managed to creep close enough to overhear without being seen.


    ¡°But your vows¡ª¡±


    ¡°I care nothing for my pledge! You know that. My father forced me to become a novice here, just because of¡ª¡± Here he bit off a word. ¡°I¡¯m not like Sigfrid, I have no vocation. And I won¡¯t be like Ermanrich who resigned himself long ago¡ª¡±


    ¡°But is it so easy to be released from that pledge? Ai, Lady. Ivar, I¡¯m flattered¡ª¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t want to marry me!¡±


    Rosvita almost stumbled and gave herself away, but she had just enough presence of mind to lay a palm against the carven door of one of the cabinets: the same one, she noted with a dry smile, in which resided Isidora¡¯s Etymologies. She recognized the image carved into the oak door. It was St. Donna of Pens, the famed librarian of the first convent founded by St. Benedicta, holding scroll and quill pen. If only Quedlinhame¡¯s librarian had followed the good saint¡¯s example, this fine collection of books would not be arranged in such disorder.

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    Lady and Lord! Her little brother, now a novice, wanted to marry some unknown and unnamed woman! Their father would be furious.


    ¡°Ivar,¡± said the unknown and unnamed woman in a calm voice. Her accent was slight but peculiar. ¡°Ivar, listen to me. You know I have nothing, no kin¡ª¡±


    This was all it took, that he would become infatuated with a kinless woman! No wonder Count Harl had sent him to the monastery: to get him out of trouble.


    ¡°¡ªor none who know me. I have safety in the Eagles.¡±¡ªThe Eagles!¡ª¡°Surely you understand that I can¡¯t marry you unless you offer me that kind of safety.¡±


    The Eagle Rosvita had seen loitering in this chamber earlier had waited here for this very assignation! At that moment, groping as for a stone, Rosvita could not recall the young woman¡¯s name. Instead, the cleric leaned against the carved cabinet doors and settled herself for a long wait while she listened to her brother launch into an impassioned, if whispered, plea for love, marriage, indeed every part of the world which six months ago on entering Quedlinhame he had sworn to renounce forever.


    7


    ¡°I¡¯LL leave the monastery,¡± Ivar concluded. ¡°We¡¯ll travel east and find service in the marchlands. There¡¯s always need for soldiers in the east¡ª¡±


    ¡°But don¡¯t you understand?¡± she said with fine disregard for his sincerity. Did she not think he could do what he pledged? Did she not understand that he would do anything for her? ¡°Until you had such a place, until I was assured of such a place, I can¡¯t leave the Eagles. How can you ask me to?¡±


    ¡°Because I love you!¡±


    She sighed, brushing a hand across her lips, breathing through her fingers. He wanted to kiss those fingers but dared not. After their first embrace¡ªin the privies¡ªshe had become, not cooler but more distant.


    ¡°I love you as well, but as a brother. I can¡¯t love you¡ª¡± Here the hesitation. ¡°¡ªin that way.¡± Her second hesitation was longer and more profound. ¡°I love another man.¡±


    ¡°You love another!¡± Angry, he said the first name that came to his lips. ¡°Hugh!¡±


    She went still and cold and deathly rigid.


    ¡°Ai, Lord, forgive me, Liath. I didn¡¯t mean to say it. I know¡ª¡±


    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter.¡± She shook herself free. Dim light sifted in through the stout cabinets of books, books upon books upon books, so many that their weight alone felt like a pile of stones crushing him. Just as Liath¡¯s words crushed him. ¡°This man¡¯s dead. I trust you, Ivar, but if it ever came to pass that all obstacles were put aside and we married, you must understand I could never love you in the way I loved him.¡±


    If. ¡°If¡± sounded to Ivar like a very good word.


    ¡°Lady!¡± She rested a hand¡ªtoo briefly¡ªon his shoulder. The warmth of her flesh burned him through his coarse robes. ¡°I sound so selfish. But I¡¯m alone in the world. I have to protect myself.¡±


    ¡°No, I am here.¡± He gripped her hand in his, the clasp of kinship. ¡°I am always here. And Hanna is with you, surely.¡± In the privies, he had not had time to ask about Hanna, only time to arrange this meeting¡ªonly time to kiss her. He had dreamed of Liath last night and embarrassed himself in his sleep, but the others, Baldwin, Ermanrich, and Sigfrid, had helped him hide the traces.


    ¡°Hanna was sent south with Wolfhere, to escort Biscop Antonia¡ª¡± She shook her head, impatient with herself. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t know about that. I beg you, Ivar, understand that¡ªit¡¯s not just Hugh I need to be safe against. It¡¯s ¡­ it¡¯s other things, things that chased Da and me for years until they finally caught up and killed him, and I don¡¯t know what they are. Ai, Lady.¡± She leaned forward, against him¡ªbut not to embrace him as he wished, only to whisper as if she feared the walls themselves, the books in their silent waiting, might hear. ¡°Do you understand?¡±


    A year ago, Ivar would have dismissed all these concerns with a wave of the hand and with grandiose plans that came to nothing. But he was older now, and he had, amazingly, learned something.


    ¡°All right, then,¡± he said, as calmly as he could, for she was still leaning against him. ¡°You will marry no man but me.¡±


    She gave a caught-in laugh, more a sob perhaps. ¡°I could never have married him. If not him, then you, because I can trust you.¡± But she said it wistfully, as if she still mourned that other man whose name she dared not utter out loud.


    Ivar felt he might float, he was so happy. She trusted him.

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    In time, he thought, she would forget the other man. In time she would love Ivar alone and only remember as a kind of hazy dream that she had spoken so about another man, a dead man. A dead man was no rival to a living one. And, because he had learned, for the first time he thought rather than acted impulsively. She was kinless, so needed kin, clan, family. There was Hugh to deal with; but Ivar wanted his revenge on Hugh, and he understood Hugh well enough to know that if Ivar had Liath, then, sooner or later, Hugh would appear. There remained only how to get out of the monastery. He must find a way to escape. But this would take planning.


    ¡°It will take time,¡± he said at last and with reluctance. ¡°Will you wait for me?¡±


    She smiled sadly. ¡°I will stay an Eagle. That much I can promise you. They are my kin now.¡±


    ¡°Hush,¡± he said suddenly, pressing her away from him. A rustling more like mice than wind sounded from the hidden corner of the room. ¡°Who¡¯s there?¡± Ivar demanded.


    She came out quietly from behind a row of cabinets. It took Ivar a few moments to recognize her in the dim room, and then his mouth dropped open in astonishment.


    ¡°Are you my sister Rosvita?¡± he demanded.


    ¡°Ai, Lady,¡± swore Liath. She jerked away from him.


    ¡°Yes, Ivar.¡± As soon as the cleric spoke, he knew it for truth. ¡°My brother,¡± she continued, expression bland and eyes bright with¡ªlaughter? anger? He did not know her to be able to judge. ¡°My brother novice,¡± she went on, gesturing toward his coarse brown robe, ¡°this is most irregular. I will have to report you to Mother Scholastica.¡±


    But at those words, Ivar exulted. ¡°Very well,¡± he said, drawing himself up. ¡°I will go willingly.¡± Brought to Mother Scholastica¡¯s notice for the sin of consorting with a woman, surely¡ªsurely¡ªthe mother abbess would throw him out of Quedlinhame once and for all time.


    It was a serious enough offense that Ivar had only to wait through Sext, the midday prayers, kneeling like a penitent on the flagstone floor in front of Mother Scholastica¡¯s empty and thereby imposing chair, before the door opened behind him and the abbess entered her study. Rosvita walked with her. Ivar could not read his sister¡¯s expression. He wished he knew her, so that he might guess what she had told the abbess, might guess whether Rosvita was sympathetic or hostile to his cause. But he did not know and dared not guess.


    ¡°I gave you no leave to look up, Brother Ivar,¡± said Mother Scholastica.


    He flinched and dropped his gaze, watched feet shift, a dance whose measure and steps he could not follow. To his horror, Rosvita retreated from the room to leave him alone with the formidable abbess. He clenched his hands together, wrapping the fingers tightly around each other, and bit down on his lower lip for courage. His knees hurt. There was a carpet, but he had been strictly enjoined not to kneel upon anything that would soften his penance.


    Mother Scholastica sat down in her chair. For a long while, though he dared not look up, he knew she studied him. A knob, an uneven hump in the stone, dug into his right knee. It was so painful he thought he would cry, but he was afraid to utter any complaint.


    She rules with a rein of iron, so they all said. She was the king¡¯s younger sister. Why had he ever ever thought, in that wild liberating moment in the library, that he could face her down?


    She cleared her throat as a prelude to speaking. ¡°In our experience,¡± she said, ¡°when the king visits Quedlinhame with his court, there runs in his wake like the wash of a boat on the waters a shiver of restlessness through those of the novices and some few of the brothers and sisters who are not at that moment content in their vows. Always a few, seduced by the bright colors and the panoply and the excitement, mourn their loss of the world and seek to follow the king. It is our duty to rescue these fragile souls from their folly, for it is a fleeting temptation, dangerous but not, I think, unforeseeable.¡±


    ¡°But I never wanted¡ª¡±


    ¡°I did not yet give you leave to speak, Brother Ivar.¡±


    He hunched down, nails biting into knuckles. She did not have to raise her voice to make him feel humiliated and terrified.


    ¡°But I do mean to give you leave to speak. We are not barbarians, like the Eika or the Quman riders, to enslave you for no cause but our own earthly enrichment. It is your soul we care for, Ivar. Your soul we have been given charge of. That is a heavy burden and a heavy responsibility.¡± She paused. ¡°Now you may speak, Brother.¡±


    Given leave to speak, he also took the chance to shift his right knee off the digging knob of rock. Then he took a breath. Once begun, he could not hide his passion. ¡°I don¡¯t want to be here! Let me go with the king. Let me be a Dragon¡ª¡±

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    ¡°The Dragons are destroyed.¡±


    ¡°Destroyed?¡± The news shook him out of his singleminded fury.


    ¡°They were overwhelmed by a force of Eika, at Gent.¡±


    Destroyed. Trying to make sense of this, he looked up at her. He had never actually seen Mother Scholastica from this close before; only the rare novice, like Sigfrid, came into contact with the abbess. She had a handsome face, her hair tucked away inside a plain linen scarf draped and folded over her head and twisting in neat lines down over her shoulders. She wore dark blue robes to distinguish her from the other nuns, a gold Circle of Unity studded with gems on a gold chain that hung halfway down her chest, and the golden torque that signified her royal kinship around her neck. Her gaze remained cool; she was not one bit flustered by this meeting or by the circumstances which had brought him here. He had a sudden, awful notion that she had judged many a boy or girl whose complaint was similar to his.


    He would not let himself be overawed by her consequence! He was also the son of noble parents, if not of a king. ¡°Then¡ªthen they¡¯ll need more Dragons,¡± he blurted out. ¡°Let me go, please. Let me serve the king.¡±


    ¡°It is not my decision to make.¡±


    ¡°How can you stop me if I refuse to take vows as a monk when my novitiate is ended?¡± he demanded.


    She raised an eyebrow. ¡°You have already pledged yourself to enter the church, an oath spoken outside these gates.¡±


    ¡°I had no choice!¡±


    ¡°You spoke the words. I did not speak them for you.¡±


    ¡°Is a vow sworn under compulsion valid?¡±


    ¡°Did I or any other hold a sword to your throat? You swore the vow.¡±


    ¡°But¡ª¡±


    ¡°And,¡± she said, lifting a hand for silence¡ªa hand that bore two handsome rings, one plain burnished gold braid, the other a fine opal in a gold setting, ¡°your father has pledged a handsome dowry to accompany you. We do not betroth ourselves lightly, neither to a partner in marriage¡ª¡± He winced as she paused. Her gaze was keen and unrelenting. ¡°¡ªnor to the church. If a vow can be as easily broken as a feather can be snapped in two¡ª¡± She lifted a quill made from an owl feather from her table, displaying it to him. ¡°¡ªthen how can we any of us trust the other?¡± She set down the feather. ¡°Our oaths are what make us honorable people. What man or woman who has forsworn his noble lord or lady can ever be trusted again? You swore your promise to Our Lady and Lord. Do you mean to forswear that oath and live outside the church for the rest of your days?¡±


    Said thus, it all sounded so much more serious. No man or woman who made a vow and then broke it was worthy of honor. His knees ached; his back hurt. His hood had slipped back, and the hem of his robe had doubled up under his left calf to press annoyingly into the flesh.


    ¡°No. I¡ª¡± He faltered. Had he actually imagined scant hours ago that he could get the better in a debate with Mother Scholastica?


    ¡°Why now, Ivar?¡± She, too, shifted in her chair, as if her back hurt her, and for one uncharitable moment he hoped it did. ¡°You are a good boy and never rebellious, never like this. Was it the king¡¯s arrival?¡±


    He flushed. Of course she must already know.


    ¡°You are tempted by the presence of so many women who are not bound by vows,¡± she went on, as if toying with him, though her voice remained level and her expression clear and calm. ¡°Do not be ashamed to admit such to me, Ivar. I understand that we who pledge ourselves to the church have to battle the temptations of the flesh in order to make ourselves worthy. Those who remain in the world do their part as well, but theirs is a different path. We in the church strive to set the darkness behind us, to make of ourselves an immaculate chamber, to set aside the taint of darkness that lies within each of us, that is part of each of us. For did the blessed Daisan not preach that although we are bound by our nature, God¡¯s goodness to humankind was in giving us liberty?¡±


    ¡°¡®Keep clear of all that is evil,¡¯¡± responded Ivar dutifully, for these sayings had been drilled into the novices, ¡°¡®which we would not wish to befall ourselves.¡¯¡±


    ¡°Good is natural to us, Ivar. We are glad when we act rightly. As the blessed Daisan said, ¡®Evil is the work of the Enemy, and therefore we do those evil things when we are not masters of ourselves.¡¯¡±


    ¡°But¡ªbut I don¡¯t want this path. Not this one. I want¡ª¡±


    ¡°Can you be sure?¡±


    ¡°It isn¡¯t women¡ªit isn¡¯t just any¡ª¡±

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    ¡°One woman?¡±


    He betrayed himself, but surely that did not matter. She already knew. He caught in his breath abruptly, a stab of pain in his lungs. What had happened to Liath? What if she was thrown out of the Eagles?


    ¡°A woman who traveled with the king¡¯s progress,¡± continued Mother Scholastica in that same emotionless voice. Not emotionless, no¡ªshe spoke without being torn by emotion, without the violent feelings that ripped him apart from within.


    Ai, Lord. The memory of embracing Liath¡ªeven in the stink of the privies ¡­


    ¡°This, too, will pass, Ivar. I have seen it happen so many times.¡±


    ¡°Never!¡± He leaped to his feet. ¡°I will always love her! Always! I loved her before I came here, and I will never stop loving her. I promised I would marry her¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ivar. I beg you, take hold of yourself and remember dignity.¡±


    Panting with anger and frustration, he knelt again.


    ¡°As the blessed Daisan said, ¡®For desire is a different thing from love, and friendship something else than joining together with evil intent. We ought to realize without difficulty that false love is called lust and that even if it gives temporary peace, there is a world of difference between that and true love, whose peace lasts till the end of days, suffering neither trouble nor loss.¡¯¡±


    He could not speak. He stared fixedly at one of the paned windows which let light into the study. A branch scraped the glass as it swayed in a rising wind, and the last remaining leaf dangled precariously, ready to fall.


    ¡°You must have your father¡¯s permission to marry. Do you?¡±


    There was no need to answer. He wanted to cry with shame. None of this had gone as he had planned.


    ¡°Do not think I take this lightly, child,¡± she said. He risked a glance up, for a certain note of compassion had surfaced in her tone. She did indeed have an expression on her face that he could almost call sympathetic. ¡°I can see you are firm in your resolve and passionate in your attachment. But I am not free to let you go. You were given into my care by your father and your kin, you spoke your vows¡ªwillingly, I thought¡ªand were taken into this monastery. It would be unwise of me to let every young person walk free at each least impulse toward the world.¡±


    ¡°This isn¡¯t an impulse!¡±


    She lifted her ringed hand for silence. ¡°Perhaps not. If it is not an impulse, as you claim, then time will not dull it. I will send a message to your father, and you will wait for his reply. What you propose is not an undertaking to be entered into lightly, just as we should not any of us enter into the church lightly.¡± By this mild rebuke she scolded him. ¡°There remains also the young woman to be considered. Who is she? She has a name, I have discovered¡ªan unusual name, Arethousan. Who are her kin?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know anything about her,¡± he admitted finally. ¡°Not really. No one in Heart¡¯s Rest did.¡±


    ¡°Is she of noble birth?¡±


    He blinked. Perhaps silence was the better choice. Liath and her father had been close with their secrets. And her father had died¡ªalthough only Liath had claimed it was murder; Marshal Liudolf had decreed the death came of natural causes.


    ¡°Answer me, child.¡±


    He did not like the stern look Mother Scholastica fixed on him. ¡°I¡ªI think so. Her father was educated.¡±


    ¡°Her mother?¡±


    He shrugged. ¡°She never had a mother. I mean¡ªwe never knew of her mother.¡±


    ¡°Her father was educated¡ª? Was he a fallen monastic, perhaps? Ah, yes, I see it in your face.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know that he was. But we all thought he must have been a monk once, or perhaps a frater¡ª¡±


    ¡°If he left the church, he would scarcely speak of such an act out loud. Educated in and then fled from the church. You are sure she was his child?¡±


    ¡°Yes!¡± he exclaimed, indignant on Liath¡¯s behalf.


    ¡°Not his concubine or servant?¡±


    ¡°No! Of course they were father and child.¡±


    ¡°It might explain all,¡± said Mother Scholastica, musing now; she appeared to have forgotten Ivar¡¯s existence, and certainly cared nothing for his indignation. ¡°Why she could read Jinna.¡±


    Read Jinna? What else was hidden in Liath that she had never shared with him? He had a sudden sick intuition that Frater Hugh might not have been interested in Liath only for her beauty and youth.


    ¡°Dark of feature. A fallen churchman. Perhaps my mother was right. A frater may travel as a missionary to the four quarters of the world, even unto the Jinna heathens who worship the fire god Astereos. Such a man might have been seduced by the potions and perfumes of the east, such a man might have forsworn his oath to the church and gotten a child on an eastern woman and then, as an honorable Daisanite, refused to leave the child behind to be raised as a heathen. That would explain her complexion and her ability to read. Well, Ivar.¡± The abrupt change of subject startled him, her sudden cooling of interest in him. ¡°It is good you confessed this to me. Return to the novitiary. You will study. You will obey. In time, if you do your duty and remain meek and humble, I will call you here again and let you know what answer your father has given.¡±

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    The interview was over. She signed with her hand the gesture for departure, and he knew there was no point in protesting. But he could not leave one question unasked, even if he was punished for asking it.


    ¡°What will happen to Liath? Because of what I did, I mean.¡±


    She favored him with a sudden smile, and its power¡ªits approval¡ªstruck him as if he had been granted a glimpse of the Chamber of Light in all its brilliance through a crack in the gates. ¡°That is the first time in this interview you have spoken of her need and not your own. She serves as a King¡¯s Eagle, and I have heard no complaint of her service there. It will continue. Now.¡± He bowed his head over clasped hands, was allowed to kiss her opal ring, and backed out of the room, stumbling down backward over the doorstep.


    Master Pursed-Lips waited outside, as glowering as any looming storm cloud. Mercifully, he withheld the willow switch.


    ¡°You may be certain,¡± said the schoolmaster in his disagreeable voice, ¡°that you and your fellows, whose connivance in this matter has been duly noted, will be confined in the novitiary for the remainder of the king¡¯s visit, and closely guarded thereafter. Take no notion in your mind to escape and run after them. We have dealt with these kinds of things before.¡±


    Spoken ominously, the schoolmaster¡¯s threats proved true. The king¡¯s progress left the next day and although the other novices got to leave the barracks and line the road to lend pomp and dignity to the departure of king and court, Ivar, Baldwin, Ermanrich, and Sigfrid were left behind. They waited out the dreary interlude in the courtyard, taking turns with their knives at the fence.


    ¡±She¡¯s really in love with you?¡± demanded Baldwin.


    ¡°Why should that surprise you? Am I that ugly?¡± Ivar wanted to slug his friend.


    Baldwin looked him over consideringly, then shrugged. ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°But if she¡¯s an Eagle,¡± pointed out Ermanrich, ¡°then she can¡¯t be of noble birth. Why would your father ever allow you to marry a common-born woman?¡±


    ¡°But her father was in the church, and educated,¡± Ivar protested. ¡°He must have come out of a noble lineage!¡± Thinking about it only made it worse, but he couldn¡¯t help thinking. Mother Scholastica had promised to send a message to his father. He would have to be patient¡ªand Liath had promised to wait.


    Sigfrid had been given his turn with Baldwin¡¯s knife and he was trying to wiggle the little gap into a wider gap, something they could actually see through. Now he glanced over his shoulder toward the empty courtyard, then leaned forward to the others. ¡°While I was waiting for my lesson,¡± he said in a low voice, ¡°I heard that Lady Sabella¡¯s daughter is going to be held here until King Henry decides to marry her off or let her become a novice.¡±


    ¡°Ah,¡± said Baldwin. ¡°The young Lady Tallia. I met her once.¡±


    Ermanrich snorted.


    ¡°Oh!¡± said Sigfrid in the tone of man who has opened the door only to find a snake in his room. ¡°I didn¡¯t think it would work.¡±


    ¡°Hush,¡± said Baldwin. ¡°Move this way, Ermanrich. Ivar, get on your knees as if you¡¯re praying. Move over here.¡±


    Sigfrid had accomplished the deed. Pressure had forced one thin plank to slide behind another, and now they had a gap through which they could see a thin strip of the other side of the courtyard.


    Baldwin hunkered down and flattened his face against the fence. He gasped and jerked back. ¡°There¡¯s someone there!¡± he hissed. ¡°A novice!¡±


    ¡°Does she have warts?¡± asked Ermanrich.


    ¡°Be serious!¡± Baldwin stuck his right eye against the gap again, closing his left and squinching up his face to see better. After a pause, he backed away and spoke in a whisper. ¡°She¡¯s kneeling just opposite us. I think it¡¯s Lady Tallia!¡±


    Ermanrich whistled under his breath.


    Even Ivar was impressed. ¡°Let me look,¡± he demanded. Baldwin scooted back and Ivar pressed his face up against the fence. The wood scraped his skin. Ermanrich¡¯s breath blew against his neck as if, with enough force of will, the other boy could see through Ivar¡¯s eyes.


    She had thrown back her hood and he recognized her at once: the wheat-haired girl who had carried the banner of Arconia¡ªher father¡¯s duchy¡ªat the forefront of the procession the day King Henry had arrived at Quedlinhame. Only three days ago! How much had happened since then.


    She prayed, thin hands clasped before her breast, pale lips touching her knuckles. Then, abruptly, her eyes opened and she looked straight at him. She had the palest blue eyes, like a many-times-washed indigo tunic bled so fine that only the memory of blue remained in the threads.

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    ¡°Who are you?¡± she whispered.


    Ivar jerked back from the fence.


    ¡°She said something!¡± exclaimed Ermanrich. He stuck his face up against the fence. ¡°Are you Lady Tallia?¡± he whispered.


    Baldwin pulled Ermanrich back from the wall and wedged himself in as Ermanrich made a grunt of protest.


    ¡°You must not look upon me,¡± she said in that same quiet voice, as soft as the wind brushing Ivar¡¯s hair. His hood had fallen back, and he hastily jerked it up over his head, looking guiltily back toward the barracks. The layservant left to watch over them was not in sight. ¡°It is not seemly for you to stare so,¡± she continued. In the silence of the courtyard they could hear her words clearly. She hesitated, then went on. ¡°But that we have stumbled upon this opportunity to converse¡ªthat, surely, is God¡¯s doing, is it not?¡±


    ¡°Oh, certainly,¡± said Baldwin blithely, although, obedient to her wish, he had now drawn back from the gap in the fence. ¡°Are you to be a nun?¡±


    Sigfrid made a choked noise in his throat and immediately assumed a position of prayer. The layservant had walked back into view, a surly, stout man no doubt angered at having to watch over four disobedient novices rather than the colorful departure of king and court. All four boys hunkered down in attitudes of contrite prayer.


    From the shelter of the colonnade, the layservant could not hear Tallia¡¯s faint voice, but the four boys could. ¡°It is my most devout wish to become a nun. Unless I can be a deacon, but they will not let me out into the world except to marry me to some grasping nobleman.¡±


    ¡°Why would you want to be a deacon?¡± asked Sigfrid. ¡°In the cloister, we can devote all our hours to study and contemplation.¡±


    ¡°But a deacon who lives in the world can bring the true Word of God to those who live in darkness. If I were ordained as a deacon, I could preach the Holy Word of the Redeemer as it was taught me by Frater Agius, he who was granted God¡¯s favor and a holy martyrdom.¡±


    A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, like drums beating for the departure of the king. Ivar smelled rain on the wind. Dark clouds scudded overhead.


    ¡°Who is the Redeemer?¡± asked Ermanrich, his bland, friendly face bearing now a confused expression.


    ¡°That¡¯s a heresy,¡± whispered Sigfrid, but he did not move.


    Baldwin did not move.


    Ivar did not move. He wanted to hear her speak again. She had a kind of monotonously fascinating voice, pure and quietly zealous. And she was female, and young.


    ¡°For the blessed Daisan was born not of earthly mortals but out of Our Lady, who is God. He alone was born without any taint of darkness. So did he suffer. By the order of the Empress Thaisannia, she of the mask, he was flayed alive because of his preaching, as was their custom with criminals and those who spoke treason against the Dariyan Empire and its ruler. His heart was cut out of him, and where his heart¡¯s blood fell and touched the soil, there bloomed roses.¡±


    Sigfrid made the sign of the Circle against what is forbidden¡ªagainst this most erroneous and dangerous heresy. But he did not move away. None of them moved. They were caught there, spellbound, as the thunder rumbled closer and the first drops of rain darkened the dirt around them.


    ¡°But by his suffering, by his sacrifice, he redeemed us from our sins. Our salvation comes through that redemption. For though he died, he lived again. So did God in Her wisdom redeem him, for was he not Her only Son?¡±


    She would have gone on, perhaps she did go on, but the wind picked up and lightning flashed bright against lowering clouds and thunder pealed overhead. The stinging bite of rain drove them to the shelter of the colonnade. Whether she ran in as well Ivar could not know, but he imagined her, kneeling still, soaked and pounded by rain as she prayed her heretical prayers. That image disturbed him greatly for many nights to come.


    IV


    ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM


    1


    THE king and his entourage rode south from Quedlinhame. Liath rode northeast through scattered woodland amid rolling hills with a message for Duchess Rotrudis, the king¡¯s sister. She followed the Osterwaldweg, a grassy track that ran north from Quedlinhame and slanted east-northeast at the confluence of the Ailer and Urness Rivers, themselves tributaries of the Veser. In the morning the track, crisp with frost, glittered in the cold sun as though an angel had blown its sweet breath over the rutted road. By evening, wagon traffic, sun, and the usual passage of a swift autumn storm overhead had turned the path to a sludge that would refreeze over the long night.


    It was always windy and sometimes quite chill, but in the late afternoon the sun would often shine brightly. During those times Liath would find a patch of sunlight while her horse foraged along the verge of the track. Sometimes, if the way lay empty, she would open The Book of Secrets and read words she had long since memorized or puzzle over the brief Arethousan glosses in the inner book, the most secret ancient text. Alas, without time to study or preceptor to continue her teaching, she had already forgotten much of what little Arethousan she had learned from Hugh. But perhaps if she forgot everything he had taught her, she would truly be free from him.

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    Other times, frustrated by her ignorance, she would simply close her eyes and imagine Da beside her on the quiet road. The sun¡¯s warmth was like his presence, soothing and secure; oddly, she could never imagine him by her on cloudy days. Perhaps his spirit, looking down on her from the Chamber of Light where he now resided at peace, could only see her when his view down through the seven spheres was unobstructed.


    ¡°Do you suppose,¡± she imagined him asking now, ¡°that souls have sight? Or is that sense reserved for those who wear an earthly body?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re trying to trick me, Da,¡± she would answer. ¡°Angels and daimones don¡¯t wear earthly bodies. They wear bodies made up of the pure elements, fire and light and wind and air, and yet they can see with a sight that is keener than that of humankind. They can see both past and future. They can see the souls of the stars.¡±


    ¡°Some have argued they are the souls of the fixed stars.¡± Thus would the argument be joined, over free will and Fate and natural law. And if not that argument, then a different one, for Da had a fine treasure-house of his own, knowledge earned over many years of study, and though his ¡°city of memory¡± was not as finely honed as Liath¡¯s¡ªfor he had taught her skills of memory which he had only mastered late in life¡ªit was yet impressive. He knew so much, and all of it he meant to teach to his daughter, especially the secrets of the mathematici, the knowledge of the stars and of the movements of the planets through the heavens.


    A sudden gust of wind fluttered the pages of the open book, set on her knee. Snow swirled past, but there were no clouds in the sky now. The cold wind brought memory.


    Wings, settling on the eaves. A sudden gust of white snow through the smoke hole, although it was not winter.


    Asleep and aware, bound to silence. Awake but unable to move, and therefore still asleep. The darkness held her down as if it were a weight draped over her.


    A voice of bells, heard as if on the wind. Two sharp thunks sounded, arrows striking wood.


    ¡°Your weak arrows avail you nothing,¡± said the voice of bells. ¡°Where is she?¡±


    ¡°Nowhere you can find her,¡± said Da.


    ¡°Liath,¡± said a voice of bells, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.


    Heart beating wildly, she dared not move, but she had to look. Snow spun past like the trailing edge of a storm, flakes dissolving in the sun. A feathery gleam lit the track where it bent away northward, a roiling in the air like the fluttering of translucent wings as pale as the air itself.


    Something came toward her down the road.


    The fear bit so deep, like a griffin¡¯s beak closing on her throat, that she could not draw breath. Certainly she could not run. Da¡¯s voice rang in her ears: ¡°Safety lies in staying hidden.¡±


    She did not move.


    ¡°Liathano.¡±


    She heard it then, clearly, the voice made of the echoes of bells ringing away long into an unbroken night. She saw it though it was not any earthly being. It did not walk the track but rather floated above it, as if unable to set its aetherical being fully in contact with the dense soil of the mortal world. It came down the track from the north, faceless, with only humanlike limbs and the form of a human body and the wings of an angel to give it shape.


    It called her, alluring, not unmusical, with that awful throbbing bass vibrato in its tone. It wanted her to answer. It compelled her to answer.


    But Da had protected her against magic. Silent, as still as stone, she did not move. She held her breath. A leaf blown free by the wind fluttered over her arms and came to rest on the open book, and then a second, as if the earth itself collaborated in hiding her.


    The creature stalked past her, still calling, and went on up the road to the south and, at last, out of her sight. A single white feather swirled in the eddy left by its passing and drifted down to the ground. It was so pale that it shone like purest glass. Where she had tied it to a leather cord to hang around her neck, the gold feather left to her by the Aoi sorcerer burned against her skin as if in warning.


    Still she did not move. She was too stunned to move. She sat so still that eventually a trio of half-wild pigs, all tusks and bristles and sleek haunches, ventured out onto the path to investigate this bright interloper. But as soon as the lead pig nudged the white feather with its snout, the feather spit sparks, flashed and, with a whirlpool of smoke, dissipated into the air. The pigs squealed and scattered.


    Liath laughed almost hysterically, but as soon as the fit passed, she was swept by such anger that she could barely get the book back into the saddlebag because her hands shook so. Was it such a creature that had murdered Da? Even that very one? Anger and terror warred within her, but anger won out. It hadn¡¯t seen her. Da¡¯s magic still protected her; whatever spell he had laid on her long ago had not died with him.

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    With anger came revelation: All those years she had thought him a failed sorcerer when instead he had poured that power into keeping her hidden.


    ¡°I swear to you, Da,¡± she whispered, standing beside her horse with her eyes turned to the heavens where, perhaps, his soul looked down upon her, trapped on the mortal earth, ¡°that I¡¯ll find out what it was that killed you.¡±


    ¡°Nay, Liath, you must be careful,¡± she imagined him saying to her. He was always so afraid.


    And for good reason. Was it the aetherical daimone itself that stalked them, or a human sorcerer, a maleficus, who had drawn it from its sphere above the moon and coerced it to do his bidding?


    ¡°I¡¯ll be like a mouse,¡± she murmured. ¡°They¡¯ll never see me. I promise you, Da. I¡¯ll never let them catch me.¡± With that, in her imagination, he seemed to be content.


    A distant flock of sheep crested a rise and disappeared out of her view, an amorphous body herded by unseen dogs and a single shepherd. She did not want to stay here, where the creature had come so close. Apprehensive now and still unnerved by that unearthly sight and by the horrible, sick fear that had come over her when its inhuman voice spoke her name, she mounted and rode on. On this, her third day out of Quedlinhame, she could expect to come by nightfall to the palace at Goslar, so Hathui had told her. Please the Lady that she did; she did not want to sleep alone this night. And from Goslar, if the weather held, another four days of steady riding would bring her to Osterburg, the city and fortress favored by Duchess Rotrudis.


    But when she rode into Goslar that evening, it was to find a large retinue already inhabiting it. A groom took her horse and she was brought at once into the great hall. There, seated on a chair carved with dragons and draped with gold pillows embroidered with black dragons whose curling shape and fierce demeanor echoed those of the King¡¯s Dragons, waited Duchess Rotrudis herself.


    ¡°What message does Henry send to me?¡± she asked without preamble as soon as Liath knelt before her. She did not resemble those of her siblings Liath had seen: Henry, Mother Scholastica, and Biscop Constance; she was not handsome nor had she any elegance of form. Short, stout, and with hands as broad and red as a farmer¡¯s, she had a nose that looked as if it had been broken one too many times, and old pockmarks scarred her cheeks. Even so, no one would have mistaken her for anything but one of the great princes of the land.


    ¡°King Henry speaks these words, my lady,¡± began Liath dutifully. ¡°¡®From Henry, King over Wendar and Varre, to Rotrudis, Duchess of Saony and Attomar and beloved kinswoman, this entreaty. Now that winter is upon us, it is time to think of next summer¡¯s campaign. We must drive the Eika out of Gent, but for this endeavor we will need a great army. Fully half of my forces died at Kassel. I have taken what I can out of Varre, and asked for more, but you, as well, must bear this burden with the others. Send messengers to your noble ladies and lords that they will increase their levies and send troops to Steleshame after the Feast of St. Sormas. From this staging place we will attack Gent. Let it be done. These words, spoken in the presence of our blessed mother, represent my wishes in the matter.¡¯¡±


    Rotrudis snorted, took a draught of wine, and called for more wood on the hearth. ¡°Fine words,¡± she said indignantly, ¡°when it is my duchy that the Eika ravage now. They are not content with Gent. My own city of Osterburg has been attacked!¡±


    ¡°Attacked!¡± The memory of Gent¡¯s fall hit Liath as hard as a sword¡¯s blow, and she swayed back, horrified.


    ¡°We drove them off,¡± said the duchess bluntly. ¡°It was only ten ships of the damned savages.¡± She handed the gold cup to her cupbearer, a pretty young woman dressed in a plain gown of white linen. With a grunt, she heaved herself up and walked over to look down on Liath. Pressing the tip of her walking stick under Liath¡¯s chin, she lifted the Eagle¡¯s head up so she could examine her face. ¡°Are you some relation to Conrad the Black?¡± she demanded. ¡°His by-blow, perhaps?¡±


    ¡°No, my lady. I am no relation to Duke Conrad.¡±


    ¡°Well-spoken, I see,¡± said the duchess. ¡°Too old to be his get, in any case.¡± She had a limp and one swollen foot, and when she sat heavily down in her chair, the pillows sighed beneath her. A servant hurried forward to prop the foot up on a padded stool. All along the walls rich tapestries hung, a sequence depicting a band of young ladies on the hunt, first after a stag, then a panther, and last a griffin. ¡°You tell this, then, to my dear brother Henry. Good God, where is he now, dare I ask?¡±


    ¡°He and the court have ridden south¡ª¡±

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    ¡°To hunt in Thurin Forest, no doubt!¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lady.¡±


    ¡°While my villages burn under the raids of the Eika! Ah, well, no doubt he¡¯ll claim he must meet and trouble every southern lord in order to get them to pledge troops for next summer¡¯s war. A war every summer, that is Henry for you.¡± She put out her hand and her cupbearer placed the gold cup in her hand. The duchess examined its contents, then frowned. ¡°Here, child, my cup is empty.¡± A boy dressed in a neat white linen tunic rushed over, took the cup away, and returned with a full one. A cleric leaned over and whispered into the duchess¡¯ ear.


    Liath wished the noble lords would think of placing carpets or pillows down in front of their chairs so that her knees might have some respite.


    ¡°True enough,¡± commented Rotrudis to the cleric before returning her attention to Liath. ¡°Tell Henry that I expect more help from him. These Eika are like flies swarming around fresh meat. What if I can¡¯t wait for next summer?¡±


    ¡°I have no further message from the king, my lady. But¡ª¡± She hesitated.


    ¡°But? But! Go on. I¡¯m no fool to think Eagles don¡¯t notice that which others might miss.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s true, my lady, that Henry¡¯s forces were badly hurt at Kassel. His complement of Lions went from perhaps two hundred men to a bare sixty, and though he has sent for more centuries from the marchlands, there is no guarantee those men can march so far so fast or that the marchlords will be able to let them go.¡±


    ¡°Huh. The Quman haven¡¯t raided for years. I think there¡¯s no threat there. But go on. What of the Varren lords?¡±


    ¡°They, too, suffered at Kassel, though under Sabella¡¯s banner. But the king has collected levies from them and expects more to be sent in the spring.¡±


    ¡°That isn¡¯t good enough! I¡¯ve had to send my own son Wichman and his band of reckless young gadflies to Steleshame to restore order. What has Henry risked?¡±


    This was too much. Furious, Liath lifted her gaze to stare straight at the duchess. ¡°King Henry lost his son at Gent!¡±


    Courtiers murmured, shocked at her tone, but the duchess only laughed. ¡°Here¡¯s fire for you! Well then, it¡¯s true enough that Prince Sanglant died at Gent together with the Dragons, but that¡¯s what the poor boy was bred for, wasn¡¯t it?¡±


    ¡°Bred for?¡± said Liath, appalled.


    ¡°Quiet! You have spoken enough. Now you will listen to my words and carry them faithfully back to my dear brother. I need more help, and I need it soon. According to my reports, there¡¯s not a village left standing within a day¡¯s ride of Gent, and half the livestock stolen from the villages within three days¡¯ walk likewise and my people slaughtered, frightened, and running with a scant harvest to feed them this winter and no chance to sow in the spring, if the Eika aren¡¯t driven out. These Eika raid up the Veser as they wish, although winter¡¯s ice may dull their oars in the water, and none of the waterways are safe¡ªnor will they be after the thaw come spring. Tell Henry this: I know where our royal sister Sabella is. If he cannot help me, then she will¡ªand bring me those lords who pledged loyalty to her, if Henry can¡¯t.¡±


    She paused, sipped wine, winced as she shifted her foot on the stool. ¡°Now then, have you understood it all?¡±


    Liath could barely speak, she was so astounded at the reference to Sabella. ¡°That¡¯s the message you wish me to take back to King Henry?¡±


    ¡°Would I have spoken it if it were not what I wished delivered to him? Your duty is not to question, Eagle. Yours is to ride. Go on, then. I am done with you.¡±


    Liath rose, backed away, and retreated to the farthest corner of the hall. Was she meant to ride out immediately into the twilight? Where anything might await her? But a steward led her to a table placed in the back of the hall while the nobles began their evening¡¯s feast. Here, with some of the other servants, she was fed royally, a fine meal of goose, partridge, fish braised in a tart sauce, mince pie, and as much bread as she could eat together with a sharp cider. The nobles¡¯ feast went on forever, what with singing and dancing and tales, and even when the last platter of food was taken away, they still drank so heavily that Liath was surprised they hadn¡¯t emptied the cellars.


    She crept away from the table at last and curled up in the corner, and yet woke intermittently throughout the long night, roused by their laughter, each time seeing through the haze of smoke and torchlight the nobles still drinking, singing, wrestling among the young men, and boasting while they paced the floor and drank again. Only at dawn, when she struggled to her feet and made ready to ride, had they at last given up the night¡¯s carousing and themselves gone to their beds.

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    2


    KING Henry and his court were out hunting when she rode into the broad enclosure that formed the northernmost of the royal hunting lodges in the Thurin Forest. It had taken her seven days to ride here, pushing her pace and changing horses at Quedlinhame. This time, at the monastery, she had been restricted to the stables; she¡¯d had no chance to contact Ivar again. On the road, she¡¯d seen no trace of the mysterious creature who had passed so close by her before.


    Great hall and barracks, kitchens, smithy, storerooms, stables, and a few guest houses made up the hunting lodge. A large grassy field surrounded these buildings, bounded by a steep-bedded, narrow river on one side and the palisade wall on the others. Servants scurried here and there about the lodge. Liath heard the squeal of pigs being driven to slaughter for the night¡¯s feast. A veritable army of servants swarmed around the cookhouse¡ªset well away from the great hall in case of fire¡ªand farther, down a grassy slope to the river, servants aired linen and featherbeds and washed clothes.


    Once she crossed under the palisade gate, a groom took her horse and informed her that the king was gone for the day. Liath was glad to miss the hunt. She could take no pleasure in hunting some poor, terrified creature¡ªit reminded her too much of her own life.


    She settled her saddle and harness in the same empty stall where she found Hathui¡¯s familiar gear, saddlebags and rolled-up wool blanket. Hathui had gone out with the king. She crouched to open the bag, set her hand on the book within¡ªand hesitated. Had the daimone appeared¡ªtracked her down¡ªbecause she had opened the book out on the road? Or because she had, in her thoughts, recalled Da¡¯s death? Or had it only been coincidence that the creature had appeared then? She closed the flap and tied the pouch shut, shoved the saddlebag under her saddle, then went outside.


    It was a fine blustery autumn day with clouds aplenty and the scent of cooking fires heavy on the wind. Brittle leaves of faded yellow and orange rolled across Liath¡¯s boots, blown by the wind. Goats grazed on the verge of the forest on the other side of the river, attended by a solitary shepherd. No one marked her. They were all too busy.


    The morning¡¯s sun which had shone on her earlier had now vanished, shrouded by the wings of a coming storm. This was the season of storms, blown in one after the next. She shivered, thinking of the Eika, themselves a storm blown in from the north; it was still painful to remember the fall of Gent.


    Yet the world beyond seemed far away, here deep in the heart of the forest. No one lived here, no freeholders or peasants working a noble lady¡¯s estate or church lands farmed the steep hills and densely wooded valleys. The Thurin remained a forest wilderness, and here the king hunted most autumns.


    The cool bluster of the day drove her to seek shelter in the great hall. But to her surprise and dismay, clerics tenanted the great hall, half a dozen garbed in neat robes. She had thought they, too, would be out hunting.


    Instead, they sat quietly at the long tables where, in the evenings, the king and his court feasted. They went about the king¡¯s business while the king went about his pleasure. Goose quills bobbed evenly, dabbed in ink, letters curving across parchment or vellum.


    Liath took a step back, but it was too late. At the chair nearest the door sat Ivar¡¯s sister, Rosvita. She looked up, caught sight of Liath, and beckoned to her. A bound book, parchment pages folded into a quire, some of them not yet cut, lay open on the table before her. Her fingers were stained with ink.


    Cautiously, Liath ventured closer.


    ¡°You are back, Eagle,¡± said the cleric.


    ¡°I am, Sister. I bring a message from Duchess Rotrudis for the king.¡±


    ¡°You left Quedlinhame swiftly,¡± observed Rosvita, ¡°and must not have tarried there long on your way back.¡±


    Ai, Lady! In all that had happened since, Liath had scarcely thought about poor Ivar. What was it Da had always said? ¡°When the wolf has your arm in its jaws, then use the other to tickle its belly.¡±


    ¡°What are you writing?¡± Liath asked, but the words written in fresh ink caught her in their spell and she read out loud:


    ¡°Then Henry, born to Kunigunde, Duchess of Saony, and her husband, Arnulf of Avaria, became duke by reason of his mother¡¯s death and his elder sisters having died before him. But Queen Conradina, who had often tested the valor of the new duke, was afraid to entrust to him all his mother¡¯s power. By this attitude the queen incurred the indignation of the entire Wendish army. She then spoke many words in praise of the new and most noble duke, promising to bestow on Henry great responsibilities and to glorify him with honor. But the Wendish soldiers were not deceived. The queen, seeing that they were more unfriendly than usual, and realizing that she could not destroy the new duke openly, tried to find a way to have him slain by treachery.

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    ¡±She sent her brother with an army into Wendar to lay it waste. But when he came to the city which is called Gent, it is related that he boastfully stated that the greatest trouble he anticipated was that the Wendish would not dare show themselves before the walls so that he could fight them. With this boast still on his lips, the Wendish came rushing upon him and once the battle was joined they cut down his army of Arconians and Salians and Varingians with such slaughter that, as the bards tell us, the Abyss must indeed be a large place if it can contain so great a multitude of the slain.


    ¡°Eberhard, the queen¡¯s brother, was freed from his fear that the Wendish would not put in an appearance, for he saw them actually before him, and he fled from them.¡±


    ¡°A history!¡± Liath exclaimed. She turned her gaze to Rosvita only to see the older woman staring at her with an ominous smile touching her lips. All the other clerics had ceased their writing to stare at this oddity, a King¡¯s Eagle who could read the language of educated church people, Dariyan.


    Ai, Lady. She had betrayed herself again, and this time in front of the king¡¯s schola, his retinue of educated clerics.


    ¡°I am working on a history of the Wendish people,¡± agreed Rosvita without any sign of astonishment, unlike the others. ¡°I am relating here the story of how the first Henry, Duke of Saony, became King of Wendar upon the death of Queen Conradina.¡±


    ¡°What will you write next?¡± Liath asked, hoping to distract her.


    Rosvita coughed politely, and the other clerics hastily and obviously went back to their work. She set down her quill¡ªa magnificent eagle¡¯s feather, surely the mark of great favor from the king or his mother¡ªbeside the book. ¡°Queen Conradina was herself wounded in battle, and thus finding herself burdened with disease as well as the loss of her earlier good fortune, she called her brother Eberhard to her side and reminded him that their family had every resource that the dignity of the rulership demanded¡ªevery resource except good luck. She gave to Eberhard the insignia of their royal ancestors¡ªsacred lance, scepter, golden torque, and crown¡ªand told him to take the insignia and give them to Duke Henry along with his allegiance. Soon after this she died, a brave and valiant woman, outstanding both at home and in the field, well known for her liberality¡ª¡±


    ¡°Both in and out of bed,¡± said one of the clerics, and others laughed and then quieted when Rosvita signed for Silence.


    ¡°Eberhard offered both himself and the treasures to Henry, made a peace treaty with him, and established friendship. That friendship he kept faithfully to the end. Then, at the city known as Kassel, in the presence of all the great princes of the realm, he made Henry king.¡±


    ¡°Of course,¡± said Liath. ¡°And now the first Henry¡¯s great-grandson, our Henry, is King of Wendar and Varre.¡± She bowed slightly, backing up. ¡°I beg pardon for disturbing you, Sister. I will leave you and these others to your work.¡±


    She turned and hurried out the door, then leaned against the wall and thanked Lady and Lord that she had escaped their scrutiny. The faint lime scent of freshly washed plaster burned in her nostrils and with it burned a wash of envy. Had events transpired differently that dimly recalled day nine years ago, she might have taken orders herself and become a cleric. She could have sat together in the company of others like herself, and written, and read, and talked. How strange that Ivar chafed where she might have found happiness. But it was not to be.


    Still, seeing the clerics made her wistful¡ªand bold. She walked back to the stables, feeling a sudden urge to touch the book again, even if the act itself of touching the book brought her into danger.


    The dim light in the stables draped like a cloak of secrecy thrown over her shoulders, giving her courage. She pulled The Book of Secrets out of the saddlebag and opened it delicately. She waited a moment, but no cold wind disturbed the stillness of the stables. Even for her salamander eyes, it was too dark in the stables to read. Instead, she simply sat touching the book, the binding, the grain of the leather, the parchment leaves and the fragile touch of the innermost book, ink on papyrus.


    She laid her check against it, breathing in its dry perfume. Da¡¯s book. All she had left of him and everything he had given to her. Ai, Lady. He had given her all that he had, literally; all the power that was in him. She had only doubted him because she hadn¡¯t understood.


    It was never safe, not for her. She no longer wondered at Da¡¯s exaggerated vigilance, his fastidious wariness, his attention to each least detail at every monastery guest house, at every isolated inn or farmer¡¯s shed they had bedded down in. Not any more.

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    Hugh had understood Da¡¯s power better than she had, it seemed. Wind rattled the stable doors and she started around, but it was natural wind. She could smell rain, though none yet fell, could hear the clatter of bare branches outside as the storm¡¯s breath, running before it, stirred the trees in anticipation of its coming. Hugh.


    That suddenly, as if the name itself had magic, she shuddered, trembling violently, and caught the book against her chest as she fought back tears. She must not, could not, give in to the old fear. She had escaped him.


    ¡°Eagle. Liath.¡±


    She jerked, startled, and spun around, but it was too late. She had been run to ground, cornered, and cut off.


    Rosvita had come after her.


    3


    ROSVITA knew she would be damned for her curiosity, so she had given up trying to stop herself from succumbing to its lure.


    She had blotted the fresh ink carefully and left the book open to dry, pushed back her chair, and risen to follow the young Eagle. Since the incident in the library at Quedlinhame, she had not been able to stop thinking about the young Eagle.


    Once out in the courtyard she saw the young woman vanish into the stables, so she followed, tracking her to an empty stall where she sat alone in the gloom.


    ¡°Eagle. Liath.¡±


    As soon as she spoke the words, she saw the object the girl clutched to her chest like a frightened child. It was a book. Surprised and puzzled, Rosvita acted before thinking. She stepped forward and plucked the book from the Eagle¡¯s grasp. The girl gasped out loud and jumped up, but Rosvita had already retreated to the door and thus the Eagle had perforce to follow her outside as a starving dog slinks at the heels of a woman gnawing on a succulent rib of pork.


    ¡°I beg you¡ª¡± stuttered the girl, face washed gray with fear. She was of good height but so slender that she appeared frail.


    At once, faced with such an expression of abject misery and terror, Rosvita relented. She handed back the book and yet, as the young woman locked the book under her left arm, immediately regretted her own act of generosity. The title was lost in the folds of the Eagle¡¯s cloak. What on God¡¯s earth did an Eagle mean by carrying a book? And what kind of book was it? But Rosvita was too wise to attempt a direct assault.


    ¡°I can¡¯t help but wonder where a woman such as yourself learned to read Dariyan so fluently,¡± she said. ¡°Are you church educated?¡±


    The girl hesitated, her fine mouth turning down stubbornly. Then, with an effort, she smoothed her expression. Rosvita had studied faces for too many years not to recognize a person who wanted to remain unnoticed and unremarked¡ªalthough how, with such a striking face, this young person thought she could remain unnoticed, Rosvita could not fathom.


    ¡°My da educated me,¡± she said at last.


    ¡°You mentioned him to Queen Mathilda, did you not? He was in the church?¡±


    She shrugged, not wanting to answer.


    ¡°Perhaps he left the church after you were born,¡± suggested Rovita, trying to sound sympathetic, trying to worm her way past the wall the girl had thrown up. ¡°Does he have kin? Do you know who your people are?¡±


    ¡°I have been told he has cousins at Bodfeld. But they disclaimed the kinship after¡ª¡± She broke off.


    That, Rosvita saw, was the girl¡¯s weakness. Once begun, she would forget to stop. ¡°After he acknowledged you as his child? Or had he already left the church?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± said the girl, a little rudely.


    ¡°I beg your pardon. But then, I was often told by my mother abbess that my curiosity is unpardonable.¡± Rosvita offered a smile. The girl almost smiled back, but did not. The fierce blue of her eyes, as brilliant as sapphires or the blue depths of fire, shone bright against her dusky skin. ¡°Your mother?¡±


    ¡°Is dead. These many years.¡±


    ¡°And now Wolfhere has taken you on as his discipla. Perhaps you knew him before?¡±


    ¡°No, I didn¡¯t¡ª¡± She shook her head impatiently. ¡°He took me into the Eagles. He saved me from¡ª¡± She winched her right arm more tightly against her side, concealing the book.


    Lady Above! Had she stolen it from the library at Quedlinhame?


    It was time for the direct approach. ¡°What book is that?¡±


    Rosvita had never seen anyone look quite so fragile and terrified. Had the girl stolen it? Ought she to seek justice in this case, and force her to tell the truth¡ªor was it better to be merciful and let her confess in due time?


    ¡°It¡ªMy da gave it to me,¡± the girl said at last, in a rush. ¡°It¡¯s the only thing I have left of him.¡±

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    A rumble of thunder sounded closer now. Rain brushed the cleric¡¯s cheeks and struck her hands like thoughts falling from the heavens to disturb what little peace of mind she had ever managed to secure. So many thoughts distracted her, like the drops of rain increasing in frequency now: old Brother Fidelis and his legacy, the Vita of St. Radegundis, which he had given to her; his last whispered mention of Seven Sleepers, daimones or humans or some other creatures whose power he feared; the terrible and mysterious disappearance of Villam¡¯s son, Berthold, and his six companions, in the stone circle in the hills above Hersford; her History, which she really must continue working on so that it might be finished before the old queen died; the book that this vulnerable girl clutched to herself so tightly.


    The book. Rosvita knew at that instant, as if the sound of thunder divined it, that she would somehow, in some way, get a look inside that book.


    Suddenly, as lightning flashed and a fresh peal of thunder cracked and roared in response, the girl spoke. ¡°Do you know how to read Arethousan?¡±


    Rosvita arched one eyebrow. ¡°Yes, I do. I learned from Queen Sophia herself.¡± The girl remained silent, quite unlike the unrolling turmoil in the sky. Seeing an opening, Rosvita continued. ¡°Would you like to learn Arethousan? You read Dariyan very well.¡±


    She bit her lip. She was tempted.


    Tempted. This Rosvita understood. This fault she knew how to nurture, although surely it was a sin to do so. ¡°I can teach you Arethousan. I saw you reading in the library, a Jinna work, I believe, one of the astronomers. That was just before Ivar¡ª¡±


    ¡°Ivar,¡± whispered the girl, looking embarrassed.


    ¡°My brother Ivar,¡± agreed Rosvita, and saw at once the wedge through which she could penetrate this girl¡¯s defenses. ¡°Did he ever speak of me? You knew him in Heart¡¯s Rest, I believe, before he entered the church.¡±


    ¡°He always spoke of you with respect,¡± she admitted, ¡°though he never wanted to emulate your vocation!¡±


    ¡°So he gave me reason to understand.¡±


    The Eagle flushed and looked away, embarrassed either to replay that scene in the library in her own mind or to remember that another had witnessed the whole. ¡°He trusts you.¡±


    Rosvita took in a careful breath, measuring her words. This moment was the crucial one. Here might all be won, or lost.


    ¡°Sister!¡±


    She almost cursed out loud, managed not to. She glanced toward the sound of the voice and grimaced. A middle-aged man with dark hair and undistinguished features¡ªa King¡¯s Eagle¡ªled his horse through the gate into the courtyard.


    ¡°I beg you, Sister, I bring an important message.¡± He led the horse forward¡ªit was limping¡ªand halted before her. ¡°Sister,¡± he repeated respectfully.


    Lady¡¯s Blood! Granted this distraction, the girl escaped, slinking away like a hunted creature escaping the hounds. It was too late to call her back, and in any case, Rosvita knew her duty: The man looked worn, weary, and as if his feet hurt him.


    ¡°Where have you come from?¡± she asked politely. It was not, after all, his fault, not precisely, anyway. By such means did God remind her of her duty.


    ¡°I am the herald for Princess Sapientia.¡±


    ¡°Sapientia!¡±


    ¡°I was meant to ride in half a day before her, to make sure her lodgings were properly prepared, but my horse came up lame, so I am¡ª¡± He halted, silenced by the ring of harness and by the laughter and animated cheer of voices carried on the wind in a sudden lull. Lightning brightened the darkening sky; thunder, almost on top of them, cracked and rolled, shaking the shutters. It began to rain.


    The riders appeared in the gate, laughing, untroubled by storm and rain. It was a small retinue, not above twenty riders together with several wagons and a number of servants walking beside, but clearly a noblewoman¡¯s party. A banner sodden with rain fluttered limply in the wind. The horses wore rich caparisons, and the soldiers were outfitted in good armor.


    The princess rode at the front. Rosvita judged she could scarcely be more than four months gone, given that she had only ridden out on her heir¡¯s progress some six months ago, but the princess was of such a slight build that even through her heavy wool traveling tunic Rosvita could see the telltale swelling of her belly.


    But the cleric¡¯s gaze skipped almost immediately away from the princess to the man riding with easy grace beside her.


    Rosvita¡¯s mouth dropped open. Without any words being spoken, she knew this man was the father of Sapientia¡¯s as yet unborn child. Knew it, as she was meant to know, as all were meant to know, by the little gestures of intimacy he and the princess exchanged. Truth to tell, she was scandalized, although after so many years in the king¡¯s progress she had thought herself inured to scandal.

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    The Eagle, still beside her, grunted, acknowledging her surprise. ¡°Not quite what anyone expected.¡±


    And yet, after a moment¡¯s consideration, Rosvita realized she was not at all surprised. Henry¡¯s grief had rendered him incapable of sending his eldest legitimate child on her way for her heir¡¯s progress, as was traditional. He had left that duty to another, to Judith, margrave of Olsatia and Austra.


    This, of course, was the inevitable result.


    4


    SHE jammed the book into the saddlebag, cursing herself under her breath. Why must she continually betray herself? Wouldn¡¯t it be better to stop pretending to be what she was not¡ªa simple, uneducated Eagle? Why not confide in the woman? She looked trustworthy enough, and she was Ivar¡¯s sister.


    Yet Rosvita had lived for many years in the circle of the king¡¯s progress. She could not be a simple woman, uncomplicated in the way Ivar was; she might involve herself in many intrigues unknown to Liath, dangerous to Liath. As a good churchwoman, surely she would not be sympathetic to tales of daimones and the forbidden knowledge of the mathematici.


    I would never know. I can never know whom to trust. That is why Da told me to ¡°Trust no one.¡±


    Thunder boomed. The entire stables shook under that great crack and rumbling roar. She jumped, startled, hating herself for being scared all the time. If only Hanna would return, but she could not expect Hanna for months. And with Hanna would come Wolfhere and his damnable questions and his watching eyes.


    And yet, was not Rosvita more likely to be trustworthy than Wolfhere? Liath liked Wolfhere¡ªthat was the worst of it¡ªbut she could never trust him. He had known both her mother and father. He knew what she was, and he wanted something from her, just as Hugh had wanted¡ª


    But she was not going to think about Hugh. She could not. Hugh looked like someone who could be trusted. Beautiful Hugh. She touched a hand to her cheek, remembering the pain when he hit her.


    ¡°You are free of Hugh,¡± she whispered, if only to stop this pointless endless fruitless speculation.


    Thunder cracked and rumbled on and on and on, directly overhead. She shuddered, seized by a sudden intense wave of fear, as if fear were a living being, a daimone that had set its claws into her and tightened them, drawing blood and entrails and sucking all the spirit out of her. Rain drummed on the roof.


    Abruptly the doors to the stables opened and servants and horses flooded in. They talked all at once, chattering, excited, exuberant. She shrank back into the stable where her and Hathui¡¯s gear lay together. Hiding in shadow, she listened: Sapientia, sent off on her heir¡¯s progress after the battle at Kassel, had returned to the king¡¯s progress triumphantly pregnant with the child who, if born alive and healthy, would guarantee her claim to become ruler after her father.


    On the heels of their arrival the hunters returned, escaping the full force of the storm. Every stall was needed to stable horses. Liath gathered up her and Hathui¡¯s meager bundles and hauled them up to the loft where she arranged them in a safe corner. It took time. It kept her out of the way. It made her just another anonymous servant, someone who would be overlooked.


    But not, alas, forever.


    Hathui, wet through, came up the ladder and onto the plank floor. She wrung water out of her cloak. Her hair lay matted to her head and in streaks down her neck.


    ¡°You¡¯re back!¡± she said with surprise.


    ¡°I am.¡±


    ¡°You should have been waiting for the king,¡± scolded Hathui. Then, distracted by the stamp and bustle of folk below, she added, ¡°I hear Princess Sapientia has returned, though I haven¡¯t seen her.¡±


    ¡°I haven¡¯t seen her either,¡± said Liath. ¡°She and her party must have been riding just behind me.¡±


    ¡°They came in by the western road.¡± Hathui gathered her saddlebags and bedroll. ¡°I¡¯m off to Quedlinhame to announce the news to Queen Mathilda and Mother Scholastica. You must go now and attend the king. At once.¡±


    Liath nodded dutifully. She nudged her saddlebags into the corner and threw her bedroll over them to conceal them. Hathui hoisted her bedroll over her shoulders and, with a brisk nod at Liath, climbed back down the ladder. Liath followed.


    Rain pounded outside. She paused as Hathui got a new horse, freshly saddled. Ducking out by a side door, she hesitated under the eaves as water coursed down from the thatch roof and puddled at her feet, as rain pummeled the dry-packed earth of the courtyard into a shallow sea of mud. Hathui, coming outside by the main stable doors, swung onto her horse and forged out through the open gate into the teeth of the storm. Liath gazed across the courtyard at the whitewashed wall of one long side of the great hall, where all the living and feasting and sleeping went on. It looked no different than it had an hour ago, when she had entered hoping to find solitude there. But now, as if brought by the storm, she felt that wave of fear again, such a hideous swell of dread that her knees almost gave out under her.

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    She must not give in to the old fear. She touched the hilt of her sword, her ¡°good friend,¡± and shifted her shoulders to feel the comfortable weight of her bow, Seeker of Hearts, and her quiver full of arrows.


    She braced herself against the wall, then thrust forward into the storm, dashing as fast as she could across the sloppy ground. She reached the other side without being too thoroughly drenched, and a Lion standing guard under the protection of the eaves gave her a smile for her trouble and opened the door. Warmth and smoke roiled out. She stepped up to enter the hall.


    It was much changed now. The industrious clerics had been overwhelmed by loud, wet, laughing, bragging courtiers, noble folk newly ridden in from the hunt. Though a large chamber, the hall seemed cramped, reeking with the smell of wet wool and sweaty, jovial men and women. Liath weaved her way through them toward the hearth at the other end of the hall, where the king¡¯s chair stood. With each step, dread clawed in her, a sharp-fingered hand digging through her soul, groping up the paved streets of her city of memory on the track of her sealed tower. She had to force each foot forward, one step after the next.


    What was wrong with her? Why had this fear come on her?


    How much easier it would be to turn and flee. But that was what Da had done, and in the end it hadn¡¯t saved him. In order to live, she was going to have to do better than Da.


    They parted before her, making way for the King¡¯s Eagle. Henry sat in his chair, looking tired. With one hand he toyed with a hound¡¯s leash, knotted and tangled. His other hand rested on a thigh; he opened and closed it over and over. He looked distracted, staring without seeing toward his two younger children who sat on stools beside the fire. Sapientia stood beside him, shifting restlessly from one foot to the other, glancing again and again toward a knot of people kneeling to her left. These, her courtiers, stooped over a finely carved chest in which she probably had stored her fine clothing as well as mementos of her sacred progress, whose successful outcome would mark her as fit to rule as Queen Regnant after Henry¡¯s death.


    Thunder boomed, rattling the timbers and shaking the barred shutters, and hard on top of that came a second crash, resounding through the hall, stilling their chatter. The princess¡¯ courtiers rose and transformed themselves into a new pattern, one made bright and focused by the man who stood at their heart, the man at whom Sapientia stared, her gaze fixed avidly and jealously on his face.


    His beautiful face.


    As the thunder faded, Liath heard the gentle snap and rustle of the hearth¡¯s fire.


    Hugh.


    PART TWO


    CAPUT DRACONIS


    V


    THE HAND OF THE LADY


    1


    WIND scours his skin but he minds it not. Mere cold, mere sting of blown snow, cannot drive him from the stem of the ship. He sails on the wings of the storm, driving down on the northcountry to tear out the throats of those warleaders who have refused to bare their throats to his father, Bloodheart. This was the duty given him.


    His nestbrothers laughed and howled their derision, for they see this as his punishment. Did he not prove himself weak when he got captured by the Soft Ones? Does he not further display his weakness because he wears the circle at his chest, the circle that is the mark of the God of the Soft Ones?


    He knows that Bloodheart meant the duty as punishment. Sent back to the northcountry, land of OldMother and the WiseMothers, he will not gain booty and glory by raiding all winter into the lands that lie near the city the Soft Ones call Gent but which Bloodheart has renamed Hundse, ¡°to treat like a dog.¡±


    But his nestbrothers cannot think more than two steps before their eyes. They do not understand, and he does not tell them, that he wears the circle not because he believes in the God of the Soft Ones but rather as a mark of his link to Alain Henrisson, the human who freed him. They do not understand that their brother, who returns in disgrace to the northcountry, will be the one who holds his claws to the throats of the rebellious warleaders.


    Someday, somehow, Bloodheart will die. It is the way of males to die. It is the way of the OldMother to stiffen and grow old and climb at last to the fjall of the WiseMothers. There, with her mothers and grandmothers and greatgrandmothers unto uncounted generations, she will dream of the past and of the future and of the stars that lie like thoughts strewn across the fjall of the heavens far above, too steep a climb for mortal legs.


    And when Bloodheart dies, who will the warleaders of the northcountry remember? The ones who raid and burn in the southlands, far away from the homelands? Or the one who drove into their halls and plundered their gold and stole and slaughtered their slaves? The one before whom they bared their throats?

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    The mewling and sobbing of a slave disturbs him. The dogs are restless, but he no longer lets them feed on obedient slaves. This lesson he learned from Alain: Impulse must not govern action. The other RockChildren, rowing, glance his way with their bitter eyes; they want to challenge him but dare not. They did not fight their way to a man¡¯s form out of the nestlings sired by Bloodheart. They come from other nests, other valleys, other dams. They serve Bloodheart and his litters. They do not contest him.


    But they still watch. He dares show no sign of weakness in front of them, or else they will not fight for him when it comes time to bring the rebellious warleaders to heel, the independent ones who raid as all the RockChildren did before Bloodheart¡¯s hegemony: as they wish, with no coordination, with no greater vision leading them. They are no better than dogs! How they matured into men puzzles him sometimes, but he does not worry himself about it. That is a question only OldMother and the WiseMothers can answer.


    He steps down from the stem and makes his way across the rocking ship. The beat and rise and fall of the waves is like a second breath to him; he does not falter although the swells are steep here where the seas sing with the joy of coming storm.


    He stops at the stern where the slaves huddle. Miserable creatures. One¡ªbearded as all the older males are¡ªstares defiantly at him for a moment; then, remembering, the male drops his gaze swiftly and hunches his shoulders, waiting for the death blow. Another would kill the male simply for that glance. But he knows better.


    Nurture the strong ones. In time they can become useful tools.


    He leans down and presses the tip of a claw gently but firmly into the edge of one soft eye of the defiant male, as if to say. ¡°I have noticed you.¡±


    Then he shoves aside the others to find the one who moans and mewls and groans. This one has the stink of blood and feces about her. She is a female of middle years, haggard of face, thin, her skirts stained with blood and diarrhea, the sign of an illness he has learned to recognize. Every Soft One he has ever seen excrete such a foul combination of blood and pus and stink dies after a day or three of agonizing pain. Some of his nestbrothers in Gent would wager over how many days one stricken by the disease could live. But he has also noticed that this disease can pass itself on to others if not eradicated quickly. What good does it do the miserable creature to lie there in pain and her own fetid mess?


    He does not, of course, want to stain his claws with her tainted fluids. He fetches a spear, its iron point honed into a fine instrument of death. He places the tip of the spear against the female¡¯s breast. She whimpers and sobs, still clutching her belly, and the others draw away, but no one tries to stop him. They fear him. Surely they know she is doomed. Not even the prayers they mouth to their god can save her.


    This is the other lesson he learned from Alain: to be merciful. With a single thrust, he pierces her chest.


    *   *   *


    Alain started up, gasping, hands clutched to his chest. The pain that stabbed into him faded as Rage and Sorrow stirred, woke, and licked his hands until he calmed. The dream had been so real. But all the dreams of Fifth Son seemed this real. Somehow the blood they had exchanged so many months ago linked them now irrevocably. He saw with Fifth Son¡¯s eyes and knew his thoughts. He lived, in those sleeping hours, in Fifth Son¡¯s metal-hard skin.


    Shuddering, he let the two black hounds nuzzle him until the wave of revulsion passed. The revulsion brought in its wake shame. What right had he to judge another creature, even an Eika?


    A flame lit suddenly, seen through the gauzy veil that separated his side of the tent from his father¡¯s.


    My father.


    The veil was pushed aside. Count Lavastine looked in, candle and holder gripped in one hand and the other still caught in the thin fabric of tent wall.


    ¡°Alain? I heard you cry out.¡±


    Alain swung his legs off the cot and looked up at his father. If he stood, he would top Lavastine by half a head; at this vulnerable time of night, with the count dressed in shirt and linen drawers, he remained seated. Lavastine let the fabric wall fall behind him and crossed to Alain.


    ¡°Are you well?¡± He placed the back of his hand against the boy¡¯s cheek. It was not precisely a tender gesture¡ª Lavastine did not have tender impulses¡ªbut the simple display of concern moved Alain deeply.


    ¡°I am well. I had a bad dream.¡±


    Terror padded in from the other room and nipped at Rage. Lavastine cuffed them gently, almost absently, and they both settled down comfortably together, a quivering mass of black hounds.


    ¡°You are concerned about the battle.¡±

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    Ai, Lady, the dream had been so vivid that Alain had forgotten about the work they meant to do at dawn.


    ¡°No,¡± he said truthfully. ¡°I am troubled by dreams of the Eika prince.¡±


    Lavastine began to pace. Terror yawned, stretched, made as if to rise and pad after his master, and then bared teeth, nipped sleepily at Rage again, and settled back to sleep. ¡°Do not fear my anger, Alain. You were honest with me, and I have forgiven you for freeing the savage. Is it the Eika you fear? Perhaps you¡¯re afraid the prince you let go will be among them and you don¡¯t know if you can kill him, if it comes to that?¡±


    ¡°He isn¡¯t among them. He¡¯s sailing north. He was sent back to his own country by his father to bring to heel all the warleaders who haven¡¯t yet accepted Bloodheart as chief over all the Eika. King, I suppose we might say.¡±


    As soon as he spoke, Alain realized how strange this statement must sound. Lavastine turned and, in the warm light of the candle, he gave that grimace which was his smile, not an expression of warmth, precisely, nor yet of amusement. ¡°Son.¡± Always, these past months, he savored the word, son. ¡°If it is true you have dreams that are also true visions, I wish you never to speak of them to anyone but me. Never to a deacon or any person in the church.¡±


    ¡°Why not?¡±


    ¡°They might claim you have been touched by God and try to take you away from me. I will not let you go, not as long as I am alive.¡±


    Alain shivered. ¡°Don¡¯t say that,¡± he whispered. ¡°Don¡¯t speak of death.¡±


    Lavastine reached, hesitated, then touched the boy on his dark head, laying his hand there almost tenderly, certainly possessively. ¡°I will not let go of you, ever, Alain,¡± he repeated. With a shake of his head as a dog shakes off water, he pulled away and crossed to the other side of the tent, hooking the fabric wall up over a post. ¡°I smell morning,¡± he said. ¡°Come, son. It is time to arm for battle.¡±


    The hounds roused and with their waking roused the servants, who hurried to bring lit lanterns and clothing. They dressed the count and his heir in padded jackets to cushion their bodies from the weight of their armor. Alain had spent the summer training in armor, becoming accustomed to its weight and feel along his body: heavy mail hauberk, soft leather hood over which a servant slipped and tightened a mail coif and, on top of that, a conical helmet trimmed with bronze. Another servant bound his calves with leather strips wound from ankle to knee. This was far better armor than anything he could have hoped to wear as a man-at-arms.


    He did not think about battle¡ªif it came to that¡ªas the servant hung belt and short sword at his hips. Outside, he took a spear from the rack set up beside the tent. The long haft of oak was strengthened by a twining ribbon of blue leather that wound from butt to lugs, the ¡°wings¡± projecting out on either side just below the blade. Grooms brought their horses. Without too much trepidation, Alain swung up on his. He was a natural rider¡ªLavastine had stated more than once, in his emphatic way, that this was clearly a sign of Alain¡¯s noble blood. He might well have been born to the saddle, but he had truly only learned to ride after that day in the month of Sormas when Lavastine had acknowledged him as son and heir. He was untried and inexperienced, especially when it came time to ride into a skirmish where he might see actual fighting. But a count¡¯s son did not walk into battle. So he would ride.


    Lavastine mounted his fine gray gelding, Graymane, and nodded at Alain as if to say: ¡°Are you ready?¡±


    Alain nodded in turn. He would not disappoint his father.


    Wasn¡¯t riding to war what he had dreamed of all his life? His foster father, Henri the merchant, and his Aunt Bel had pledged him to the church, to live out his life as a monk at the Dragon¡¯s Tail Monastery. But the Lady of Battles had appeared that stormy spring day when Eika had burned the monastery and slaughtered all the monks. She had given him a rose that never wilted and could never be crushed, a rose he kept wrapped in a little cloth bag and wore on a leather thong around his neck. She had taken a pledge from him. ¡°Serve me.¡± He had sworn to serve her in order to save Osna village from the Eika attack but also because what she promised him was his heart¡¯s desire. For that, knowing that the man who raised him had promised him in good faith to the church, he still felt guilty.


    Birds chirped, and the gray light that heralds dawn rose around them, etching the skeletal lines of trees against the seamless expanse of sky. Above the trees stars shone. Trained by a navigator, Alain could not help but note stars and constellations and wonder at their omens. The wandering stars moved on the backdrop of the sphere of the fixed stars, the highest of the seven spheres beyond which lay the Chamber of Light. Their threads wove power that guided Fate and could be wielded by hands trained in that craft. Or so it was claimed, though such teaching was condemned by the church.

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    The pale rose beacon of Aturna, the Magus, shone near the zenith in the constellation known as The Sisters, and Mok, planet of wisdom and bounty, made her stately way through The Lion. Beyond Aturna to the west, the jewel of seven stars clustered closely together and known as ¡°the Crown¡± glittered so brightly he thought he could see the mysterious seventh sister among her six bolder siblings. Bow and Arrow, the arrow tipped with the bright blue brilliance of the star Seirios, pointed toward the Hunter with his belt of gems and his left shoulder tipped with red¡ª the star called Vulneris. But as Alain stared, recalling the knowledge taught him by his foster father, the stars faded with dawn. Soon the light of the rising sun would obliterate this sight, as Lavastine meant to obliterate the Eika camp.


    Lavastine lifted a hand for silence. His men-at-arms quieted to gather around him. These were the cavalry, some twenty experienced men, the best of his fighters. The infantry was already in place. The scouts, by now, would be creeping down to the shoreline to do their duty.


    Lavastine left nothing to chance, not when he could help it.


    They started out slowly, each armed servant holding on to a horse¡¯s bridle and leading them across the rough ground. It grew lighter as they crossed down through forest, picked their way across a blackened field that had once been ripe oats, and came out on a sandy hill that overlooked sea and shore. There, on a rocky rise just above a river¡¯s mouth, Eika had built a winter camp.


    The sea shone and glimmered in the east where the first line of light touched it, spreading over the waves. From the beach down by the river, as if it were an echo of the sun¡¯s light, fire sprang up among the ships


    ¡°Forward,¡± said Lavastine calmly. He was always calm.


    Alain was sweating with excitement. Someday, perhaps, the bards would sing of this battle. He followed his father down, the other mounted soldiers ranged around them, protecting them. No nobleman sent his soldiers into battle alone; that would be dishonorable as well as disloyal. So must his son¡ªhis bastard son, only recently proclaimed as his legitimate heir¡ªbe seen capable of riding to war and fighting in battle.


    Lavastine glanced, just once, toward Alain, as if to say: ¡°Don¡¯t fail me.¡±


    An alarm shrieked¡ªthe howling of dogs and the blast of a horn¡ªfrom the Eika camp. Like hornets, Eika rushed from their shelters and out of their palisade to save their ships.


    Archers hidden in the brush on the steep slopes of the ridge lit arrows from coals concealed in hollow tubes they had carried with them and began to shoot into the enclosure. The infantrymen, who had waded out along the shore, closed in on the surprised Eika from the river¡¯s mouth. And from behind, the claw that closed the pincer¡¯s mouth, rode Lavastine with his cavalry.


    It took every ounce of skill Alain had to keep his horse running with the rest, to keep his balance, to simply stay with them and keep hold of his spear¡ªnot be jounced off or have his attention wrenched away by a hundred distractions. The cloth shelters in the enclosure burned with a spitting, furious flame. The ships did not burn as brightly, but shapes swarmed over them, dousing the flames and howling their rage while the lightly armed scouts scuttled away to safety.


    Then the cavalry hit the first rank of the Eika, those who had seen them coming and turned to fight. Alain rode right over one. He did not even tuck and thrust with his spear, did not even parry, just rode, hoping the horse knew what it was doing. He did not. He was dimly aware that beside him Lavastine thrust and stuck with his spear, striking home into an Eika chest, tugged, then gave up the spear and rode on. Soldiers pounded after them, leaving behind a mass of trampled Eika. Beyond, a larger clot of Eika struggled with the infantry. On foot the Eika had the advantage over the smaller, weaker men. With axes hacking and shields used like weapons, striking and punching, Eika clawed and fought their way through the foot soldiers. But even in the fury of battle some turned, alerted by the cries of their brothers and the pounding of hooves.


    He was upon them. Skin of copper, of bronze, of gold or silver or iron, they resembled creatures poured out of metal into a human mold, and yet they were not human at all. One cut at him, its teeth gleaming sharply white, its hair the dead color of bleached bone. He parried with his spear, felt the ax blade cut and hang up in the leatherbound haft. He tugged, suddenly frantic, and the Eika dropped its shield and drew its knife. Horrified, Alain released his hold on the spear and, as the creature staggered back with its lips frozen in a ghastly grimace, he jerked his sword from its sheath, lifted it high¡ª


    ¡ªand in that moment, with the Eika off-balance before him, with the skirmish swirling forward as other horsemen pressed Eika back and Lavastine shouted to urge them on, in that instant before his father looked around, before his father would see him frozen, a coward, he knew he could not do it.

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    He could not kill.


    The Eika cast away ax and spear and leaped forward with its knife, a wicked obsidian blade. Alain tried to lift his short sword to parry, but he was paralyzed with that revelation.


    He could not kill.


    He was not worthy. He would never be a soldier. He had failed his father.


    He was going to die.


    The sun flashed fire in his eyes, blinding him. Or was it death that he did not yet feel, a knife buried in his eye or throat, that blinded him? He dropped his reins and instinctively held up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. A shadow swooped down over him. An iron-gray broadsword cut down across his sight. The Eika fell, cut down in midleap, and collapsed to the earth.


    Alain gasped and groped for his reins before the horse could feel he had lost control; but this was a trained warhorse. It moved forward with the others. Who had come forward? Who had saved him? Who had witnessed his cowardice?


    He turned. Her gaze was at once distant and utterly piercing. The rose burned at his chest like a hot coal pressed against his skin.


    She spurred her horse forward, his horse responding not to his limp control but somehow to hers, though she did not touch it, though she did not hold its reins.


    ¡°Stay beside me,¡± she said, whether words spoken through her lips or ringing in his mind he could not tell. I am the Lady of Battles. She had a terrible beauty, seared by hardship and agony and the wild madness of battle. She drove her white horse, and with him beside her, surged forward through the Eika, striking to each side, so smooth in her movements that he knew she had ridden to war for so many years that she no longer had to think in order to kill.


    Beyond her rode Lavastine, face grim and focused on his task. He took no pleasure in battle; this was duty. He parried a blow and cut in his turn, striking down a silver-scaled Eika; in that instant, as the Eika fell before him, Lavastine looked right past the woman and with that glance marked Alain and went back to the fight.


    Now the cavalry drove the Eika back into the waiting line of infantry. Crushed between foe and foe, the Eika fought with hopeless fury or struggled to run free. But Alain, with the Lady of Battles at his side, remained untouched. She struck down any of the savages who lunged at him or hacked at him with ax or spear. He managed to stay seated on his horse. On her other side, Lavastine fought with the same steady imperturbable calm.


    Alain jerked his horse left to avoid trampling an infantrymen. The two lines had met at last. Lavastine peeled aside and with a shouted command led Alain and a dozen others down toward the shore. Some Eika ran flat out for the ships; others fought as the horsemen came up behind them. But the savages were broken now. Each one fought only for its own life, or for death. Down at the beach one ship was halfway into the water; Eika jostled each other for a place in its belly, grappling for oars, shoving it out into the current. The other two ships burned with an oily smoke that stung Alain¡¯s nostrils, bringing tears to his eyes and a cloudy haze over his vision.


    ¡°Rein in!¡± cried Lavastine.


    Alain blinked back tears and passed a hand over his eyes.


    ¡°Well done,¡± said the count.


    Alain wiped tears from his checks and looked at his father with surprise. Well done? To whom was he speaking?


    Soldiers circled them, weapons held at the ready. They waited on that verge where sandy soil turns into grassy beach and watched a single ship as it hove to into the current, watched as oars beat the water and the ship was swept out to sea. A few arrows, shot harmlessly from the rocking belly of the boat, splashed in the shallows or skittered away into the reeds.


    The Lady of Battles was gone. At his chest he felt only the cool, soft lump that was the little leather pouch.


    The soldiers ranged ¡®round as they shook themselves free of the last eddies of skirmishing. A few Eika had plunged into the river to swim after the receding ship. Most lay dying on the ground. A few men were wounded, one or two with mortal wounds, but Lavastine¡¯s tactics had worked with that same blunt effectiveness with which Lavastine himself approached life.


    ¡°Well done, my son,¡± repeated Lavastine. He lifted his sword; a viscous fluid the greenish-blue color of corroded copper stained the blade. With it held high, he addressed his soldiers. ¡°My trusted companions, now you have seen this boy prove himself in battle.¡±


    One of the cavalrymen spoke. ¡°I saw him strike down four with his own hand, my lord. He had the battle fury on him. He shone with it. I will follow Lord Alain gladly.¡± To Alain¡¯s horror, he saw respect in the soldier¡¯s eyes.


    As soon as this was spoken, others began to talk. Others, too, had seen a kind of unearthly glow around the lad.

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    ¡°But I did nothing,¡± he protested. ¡°I was afraid. It was the hand of the Lady of Battles which protected me, which struck down those Eika.¡±


    As soon as the words passed his lips, he wished he had not spoken. They misunderstood him utterly. They none of them had seen her. They took his words as modesty, and as piety. They believed he had accomplished those deeds when in fact he had proved himself unworthy and only been saved by her intervention.


    Some of the men drew the Circle at their breasts. Some murmured with awe and amazement. Others bowed their heads. Lavastine stared at him hard, and then, as if he could not help himself, he gave that grimace which to him was a smile.


    ¡°God in Unity have set Their Hand on you, my son,¡± he said with pride. ¡°You are meant to be a warrior.¡±


    2


    LAVASTINE and his retinue celebrated the Feast of St. Valentinus at the holding of Lord Geoffrey¡¯s wife, Lady Aldegund. All summer Lavastine had drilled Alain in the art of war and the rules of proper conduct, both of which were necessary¡ªmore than necessary, given the particulars of Alain¡¯s birth¡ªfor Alain to impress those noble families and other stewards and servants who gave allegiance to the counts of Lavas. Wealth Alain would inherit from his father, but there were many other virtues he must display in abundance in order to rule as count after him. All of these virtues Lavastine had and to spare: shrewdness, military prowess, boldness, liberality, and a stubborn and dogged determination to defend his possessions and prerogatives.


    ¡°They are treating you well?¡± Lavastine asked that evening as they made ready for the feast, which would be held in the great hall.


    ¡°Yes, Father.¡± Alain stood very still, admiring the fine brocade that trimmed Lavastine¡¯s indigo tunic while a servingman wrapped strips of linen around Alain¡¯s calves, binding his loose hosen tightly against his lower legs. A buckle worked of tiny panels of cloissonne interspersed with garnets mounted in gold cells clasped the narrow leather belt he wore to hike his tunic up around his knees; its richness still stunned him. The tunic itself, woven of wool, was dyed with woad to a rich afternoon blue. He recognized the color from cloth dyed and woven in Osna village by his Aunt Bel and old Mistress Garia, both of whom had daughters and distant kin and servantwomen trained in weaving.


    But she¡¯s not my Aunt Bel, not anymore. She¡¯s only the common woman who raised me.


    So had Lavastine decreed. Alain had heard nothing from his old family since the count had sent a reward of sceattas to Bel and Henri, payment for the years they had fostered Alain. Had they forgotten him so quickly, not even to send word of how they and Stancy and Julien and little Agnes and the others fared?


    This thought, and the traitorous wrench of sorrow it produced in his heart, he kept to himself.


    All was ready at last; in the company of kin they need wear no weapons. The hounds had been penned outside, since it was not safe¡ªto the others¡ªto bring them indoors in an unfamiliar hall. Alain followed Lavastine down the stairs from the loft where they, as honored guests, would sleep with their servants this night. Together, he and his father came into the long hall. Every tapestry in the holding had been aired and now hung to decorate the walls. Fire burned in the central hearth where six months ago Lavastine¡ªunder Biscop Antonia¡¯s spell¡ªhad set his hounds on his own kinsman, Geoffrey, and on Geoffrey¡¯s young wife.


    Now, Alain felt that every eye there turned to measure him. Lavastine they had forgiven for the madness set on him by another, but Alain did not think Lord Geoffrey and the others quite believed that Lavastine truly intended to make this unknown and illegitimate boy his heir.


    They were all terribly polite as he took his place on his father¡¯s right side. That place, the one of greatest honor, had once been given to Lord Geoffrey; of all Lavastine¡¯s kin, Geoffrey was his nearest blood relation¡ªor had been, until Alain.


    Lady Aldegund, as hostess, sat on Lavastine¡¯s left. After a prayer, she directed her servants to pour wine at the upper table and cider to those at the lower tables. She handed Lavastine the cup that she, as hostess, and he, as honored guest, were to share; he bowed his head and offered it back to her, so she might have the first taste.


    ¡°Let us give this toast,¡± said Lord Geoffrey with that same polite smile fixed on his face, ¡°to the newly discovered son and heir of my cousin, Lavastine.¡± He drank and handed his cup to Alain.


    Lavastine¡¯s men-at-arms toasted heartily, with cheers. From Aldegund and Geoffrey¡¯s people the salute was subdued, even perfunctory. Lavastine studied the assembled crowd¡ªquite fifty people¡ªwith narrowed eyes and his habitual half-frown, but he made no comment. He was no fool. He must know that many folk would not gladly accept the illegitimate son over the legitimate third cousin. Servants brought in the first course, a variety of fowl, chickens, geese, moorhens, and quail, all steeped so heavily in spices that Alain feared he would get sick to his stomach.

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    ¡°You found no more winter camps?¡± asked Lord Geoffrey, leaning past Alain to address Lavastine.


    Lavastine lifted his cup to lips and made a small gesture with his free hand.


    Alain started. ¡°Why, no, Lord Geoffrey,¡± he said dutifully, seeing that his father meant for him to answer, ¡°we found no more. It is not usual for the Eika to winter in these lands.¡±


    Geoffrey¡¯s mouth twisted into a smile. ¡°Indeed not, Lord Alain. This is the first time we have seen any Eika on our shores after Matthiasmass, and yet my own men burned a winter camp a month ago. Now you bring news that not one week ago you destroyed another. I wonder if the Eika mean to begin a new campaign. What if they want our land as well as our gold?¡±


    ¡°Do they farm?¡± asked Alain.


    Geoffrey blinked. Aldegund took the cup from Lavastine and answered for her husband. She was a year or two younger than Alain, and her first child lay asleep in a cradle upstairs. ¡°I would suppose that savages know nothing of farming. My kin have held estates in these lands since the time of the Emperor Taillefer. All the Eika ever want is gold and whatever other wealth¡ªslaves, iron, coins, jewelry¡ªthey can carry away.¡±


    ¡°But why would they want land, if not to farm it?¡± asked Alain. ¡°Or to pasture sheep and cattle?¡± He saw at once he had asked the wrong question. He had asked the sort of question Aunt Bel would ask. The other noble folk ranged along the table turned to listen¡ªto see him make a fool of himself.


    He refused to oblige them. And he refused to be ashamed of the common sense Aunt Bel had taught him.


    ¡°If the Eika are now making winter camps, then we must ask ourselves why they do this now, this year, when they did not before. Isn¡¯t it true that there is one who stands as king among them, this Bloodheart? They have always been raiders before. Each ship is ruled over by a separate warleader. Now one Eika unites many tribes, and he has taken Gent, the very city where King Arnulf the Elder crowned his children and laid his claim for them to be rulers over Wendar and Varre together.¡±


    The nobles grumbled, forgetting their distrust of Alain when reminded of their grievance at old King Arnulf, grandfather of the current king, Henry. Once, as princes and counts and noble ladies and lords of Varre, they had crowned their own sovereign ruler and fought their own private battles for influence in the Varren court. Now, outsiders in a court dominated by nobles of Wendish blood, they waited, discontent. Some of these men had ridden with Sabella in her rebellion against Henry. Some of these women had sent supplies and gold to enrich Sabella¡¯s war chests and maintain her army. Now Sabella was a prisoner and her rebellion ended; Lavastine had pledged himself loyal to King Henry, and in return Henry had acknowledged Lavastine¡¯s bastard son as the count¡¯s heir.


    The bastard son who had to prove himself worthy, in their eyes. ¡°Now some of the Eika acknowledge a king,¡± he continued, ¡°while others build winter camps in Varren lands. What does this mean?¡±


    ¡°Indeed,¡± said Lavastine. ¡°What does it mean, Lord Geoffrey? Have you thought on this puzzle, cousin?¡±


    By his expression, Geoffrey clearly had not. He took a gulp of wine to cover his discomfiture and set the cup down hard on the table. A few soldiers, at a lower table, laughed; Lavastine¡¯s men, they had seen Alain in battle and now seemed as willing to follow where he led as were Rage and Sorrow and the other black hounds.


    I am not worthy.


    And yet, if the Lady of Battles had appeared to him and not to the others, was that not a sign of his worthiness? Did he not carry the rose, the mark of her favor?


    A servingwoman refilled Lord Geoffrey¡¯s cup and lingered just long enough to look over Alain impertinently but with obvious interest; he flushed, suddenly warm. And why shouldn¡¯t he be? The hall was certainly warm enough to suit the coldest heart.


    ¡°Have you formed some opinion yourself as to the Eika¡¯s reasons, Lord Alain?¡± asked Aldegund with a sharp tinge to her voice, like malice. A sweet-faced woman, scarcely more than a girl, Aldegund had not accepted Alain and, except for her marriage to Geoffrey, Lavastine had no claim over her. Her kin had their own lands and estates, their own connection to Varren nobility and to the Wendish kings. She made a gesture and the servingwoman moved away to tend to other cups.


    ¡°I have.¡± His flush deepened as he heard his own words. It sounded so very¡ªproud. But a count¡¯s son was allowed some arrogance; indeed, it was expected of him.


    ¡°Go on.¡± Lavastine gestured with his cup.


    Alain allowed himself a drink of wine for courage¡ªsuch very fine wine, carted in from Salia, and so much of it¡ª before he continued. ¡°I think Bloodheart means to make of himself a king to rival King Henry, or King Lothair of Salia. But when a king or queen is made, there are always princes who chafe under this rule. Some of these warleaders might not like being under the hand of another Eika, even one said to be a powerful enchanter. Yet if their own people wish to gain Bloodheart¡¯s favor, those warleaders and the men loyal to them might be driven out of their own lands because they are rebels. Perhaps that is why they winter here. They may have nothing to go back to.¡±

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    ¡°It is possible,¡± said Geoffrey grudgingly, finishing their shared cup. His wife sent a servant at once to refill it.


    ¡°Is it not just as likely,¡± asked an older man whom Alain identified as Meginher, one of Aldegund¡¯s many maternal uncles, a fighting man who had a considerable reputation, ¡°that these winter camps have been built at the order of this Bloodheart?¡±


    ¡°Why do we suppose,¡± asked Aldegund sharply, ¡°that these Eika behave in any manner like ourselves? They are savages, are they not? Why should they act as we do? What do we truly know of them?¡±


    I know what I see in my dreams. But he could not speak of those dreams out loud. His father had forbidden it. He bowed his head before her superior wisdom, for though she was young, she was a woman, lady of this estate and fashioned in the likeness of Our Lady, who orders the Hearth of Life. Men were fashioned for rougher work, and though certainly they were usually skilled beyond women in combat and hard labor, everyone knew, and the church mothers had often written on, the greater potential of women for the labors of the mind and the arts. These blessings, like that of childbirth, were granted to them by the grace of Our Lady, Mother of Life.


    ¡°We know little of the Eika,¡± said Lavastine curtly. ¡°While we still have good weather, however, myself, my son, and these of our men-at-arms who accompany us will patrol the coasts for as long as we can. We will march west to Osna Sound next. The last and worst incursion of the Eika came there two springs ago, as you know.¡±


    ¡°Ah.¡± Lord Geoffrey leaned forward with new interest. ¡°There is a village at Osna Sound. Isn¡¯t that where you were fostered, Lord Alain? I remember when you came to Lavas town along with the other laborers who owed their year¡¯s service.¡±


    ¡°You do?¡± asked Alain, surprised that as important a man as Geoffrey had noticed an insignificant common boy like himself.


    But Geoffrey looked down swiftly, and Alain glanced at his father to see that Lavastine had fixed an expressionless¡ªyet for that very reason intimidating¡ªstare on the other man.


    Meginher snorted and turned to his cup, taking a swig of wine. Servants staggered in under the weight of a roasted boar and several haunches of venison decorated with pimentos. Alain could not help but think of Lackling, who had eaten gruel all his life with a few beans or turnips if there were extra. Poor bastard ¡­ just like Alain, only how different Lackling¡¯s fate had turned out to be. He had never been given leave to eat food this rich, except the last scraps taken from the table if he could grab them before they were thrown to the pigs.


    ¡°Of course,¡± said Lavastine, relinquishing the cup to his hostess, who had it filled once again with wine, ¡°any person would have noticed your quality at once, Alain, for it was preordained that you take your place among the magnates and potentes, was it not? Twice now you have distinguished yourself in battle.¡± He said this firmly and clearly so that every person in the hall heard him. He gestured toward the captain of his cavalry. ¡°Is it not true, Captain?¡±


    The soldier stood. He, like the others, had bent his knee before Alain four days ago after the battle¡ªand not just because Lavastine wished them to do so. ¡°I have fought for the counts of Lavas since I was a lad, and I have never seen anything like this. I remember when the boy killed the guivre at the battle outside Kassel. Even so, to see him ride through his first battle as a true soldier, to see him strike to either side with no sign of fear, with such strength, with such fury that it shone from him as if he had been touched by the saints and God Themselves, to see him slay Eika on his right hand and on his left, I could see he had been born to the life of a warrior.¡± The other men¡ªthose of Lavastine¡¯s soldiers who had survived the battle¡ª pounded cups and knife hilts and empty platters on the table as they roared their approval.


    Alain leaped up. ¡°It was the hand of the Lady of Battles, not my own,¡± he insisted, ¡°which killed those Eika.¡±


    ¡°Sit,¡± said Lavastine softly and, as obedient as the hounds, Alain sat.


    The others murmured, but Lord Geoffrey made no more comments about Alain¡¯s service as a laborer at Lavas Holding, and Lady Aldegund turned the talk to more innocent subjects: the year¡¯s harvest, the new wheeled plow, and how the mild summer and autumn presaged a good growing season which would, in turn, presage a rich harvest of taxes.


    A third course was brought in, veal and lamb spiced with cumin and pepper and other exotic flavors and condiments. A poet, trained in the court chapel of the Salian king and now singing for his supper at the lesser courts of nobles, sang from an old and lengthy panegyric in praise of the Salian Emperor Taillefer as Alain picked at his food.

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    ¡°As did the mariners of old, I set sail to test my weary limbs against the storms of the sea, to try my ship against the ocean waves. I set my gaze to that beacon which gleams from afar. That light is the name of Taillefer. Look! The sun shines no more brightly than the emperor, who illuminates the earth with his boundless love and great wisdom.¡±


    The poet went on in this manner, extolling the virtues of the long-dead emperor while Alain wondered how the noble lords and ladies could possibly eat as much food as they were stuffing into their bellies at this feast. He had gone hungry from time to time¡ªeveryone did¡ªbut he had never suffered; Aunt Bel was prosperous enough to be able to set aside some portion every year against a catastrophically bad harvest. But he had seen the poor who lived from hand to mouth, their children in perpetual want, begging at the church with legs and arms as thin as sticks and faces bleak with hopelessness. In good years, of course, such people found day labor and managed, but in bad years even the prosperous stared into the gaunt face of hunger.


    ¡°For although the sun knows twelve hours of darkness, Taillefer, like a star, shines eternally. He enters first among the company, and he clears the way so that all may follow. With heavy chains he binds the unjust and with a stiff yoke he constrains the proud. With a stern hand he teaches the impious to love God.¡±


    The servants brought in a fourth course of clear soup together with a bread so white and fine it seemed to dissolve on Alain¡¯s tongue.


    ¡°Taillefer is the fount of all grace and honor. His achievements have made him famous throughout the four quarters of the earth. He is generous, prudent, just, pious, affable, handsome, outstanding at arms, wise in conciliation, compassionate to the poor, and gentle with the weak. Never before did there speak such an eloquent lecturer; the sweetness of his words surpasses those of Marcia Tullia, the orator of ancient Dariya. He alone has penetrated the hidden paths of knowledge and understood all its mysteries, for to him God revealed the secrets of the universe. He has discovered every secret of the mathematici and the secret hidden words and the ways of the stars in their courses and the means by which their powers may be drawn down into the hands of humankind. No navigator has studied the heavens with greater keenness.¡±


    After the soup came apple tarts, pears steeped in honey, and a custard. The creamy mixture of milk, honey, and eggs melted on Alain¡¯s lips like nectar, and he thought that perhaps he could endure another entire poem cataloging the dead emperor¡¯s virtues if only he could make room in his belly for several more helpings of custard. Mostly, however, he wanted to go to sleep. It was well into night now; candles and torches burned, illuminating the feast and the faces of women and men eating and drinking their fill, passing cups from mouth to mouth, sharing bites of apple tart, getting up to stretch their limbs. A constant stream of people went to and from the forecourt, so sodden with wine that they had to relieve themselves. Some of the soldiers, made restless by the long court poem, called for a stanza from the Gold of the Hevelli. Instead, the learned poet launched into a long digression¡ªevidently part of the poem¡ªin which Taillefer oversaw the construction of a new palace at the city of Autun, where he had most often lingered with his court. His workers labored eagerly, raising straight columns and a high citadel, digging into the earth to find hot springs for the baths the emperor loved; the most favored workers built a church fit for a hallowed king. ¡°They labor as do the bees in summer¡±¡ªat which point the poet went into a second long digression, this one on the nature of bees.


    It was time to go outside. Alain excused himself and left the hall. As he came out into the cold autumn night, he sucked in a deep breath of clean air. Inside, smoke from hearth and torches had wreathed the air with a heavy perfume; he was dizzy from it and from the wine. Aunt Bel had never served such wine at her table! Or such a plethora of dishes, each one as exotic as if it had been itself carted to this land from the fabled East. But he was becoming accustomed to feasts.


    Feeling suddenly guilty for his good fortune, he walked farther out into the night and relieved himself against a tree. The chill air had the effect of sharpening his senses, and he heard the crack of a branch under a foot and the long scrape of cloth pulled across twigs before he saw the shadow slip toward him. He hastily tied his hosen and stepped back, then let out a breath; it was only one of the servingwomen who had lost her way or also come out to relieve herself.


    ¡°My lord Alain,¡± she said. She stumbled and gave a little cry. He started forward and put out an arm to catch her. She pressed herself against him. She had firm breasts and a provocative swell of belly and hip beneath her long gown. ¡°It¡¯s a cold night. The hayloft is much warmer than it is out here.¡±

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    He was suddenly much warmer than he had any right to be on such a cold night. Somehow, her moist lips nuzzled his neck; her breath smelled of sweet custard. Somehow, her hand slipped around the curve of his buttocks.


    ¡°My¡ªmy father expects me inside.¡±


    ¡°Inside you shall be, my lord, if you wish it.¡±


    The sudden heat that transfixed his body scared him, and yet, the more she stroked his body, the more he felt it. He fumbled at her shoulders as she maneuvered him back, pinning him up against the tree.


    ¡°You¡¯re very handsome,¡± she murmured.


    ¡°Am I?¡± he asked, surprised. No woman except the bored Withi had ever shown interest in him before he became Lavastine¡¯s heir. But the thought vanished as does mist under the sun when she kissed him, moving her body against his and taking hold of his hands, guiding them.


    If this was the fire of lust, then it was no wonder people succumbed to it. But, kissing her, he made the servingwoman in his mind into an image of Tallia, and the thought of kissing her, of being free to do so, of meeting her in the marriage bed ¡­


    ¡°Ah!¡± sighed the woman. ¡°That¡¯s better. Not as inexperienced as you look, my lord.¡± She deftly slid her hands along his belt and unfastened the buckle. ¡°I¡¯ve a brother who will be ready for service next spring. He¡¯s a good strong boy.¡± The belt, and extra length of tunic held up by it, slipped down to around his knees. ¡°He¡¯d make a fine man-at-arms.¡±


    At this moment, she could have asked for anything and he would have given it to her. She took his hands and helped them slide her own tunic up, to her knees, to her thighs, baring pale legs, to her hips ¡­


    From the kennels erupted a sudden uproar of barking and maddened howls and men¡¯s shouts, punctuated by a scream. Alain knew those howls: Lavastine¡¯s hounds. His hounds.


    ¡°I beg you,¡± he said, so out of breath he might as well have been running. He tried to slide out away from her, caught his back on a branch that stabbed in just below his shoulder blade. He stumbled, took a step, tripped over his not-quite-fastened belt, and fell hard to his knees. The jolt brought tears to his eyes. His skin was on fire.


    ¡°My lord Alain!¡± She came to his rescue, helping him up, fumbling with the belt.


    ¡°I don¡¯t mean¡ªI¡¯m sorry¡ªbut the hounds¡ª¡±


    Her face was a flash of pale skin and dark eyes in the light of a thin crescent moon. ¡°Of course you must go.¡± She had remembered the hounds, and what he was. Now she was frightened of him, she who had held all the power moments before.


    He hastily tucked his tunic in over his belt so he wouldn¡¯t trip on its length, then ran for the kennels, which lay out behind the great hall in the lee of the stables.


    The hounds had gone mad, ravaging a man who lay like a rag doll in their midst. Alain waded in and dragged them off the poor man, who by now bled from a score of bites and ragged tears.


    ¡°Back! Back!¡± Made strong by anger and fear and the still coursing memory of the servingwoman¡¯s caresses, Alain hoisted the man up and hauled him out of the kennel, kicked Terror back, scolded Rage and Sorrow, who slunk together to a corner and hunkered down as if ashamed of themselves. As they should be! One of the handlers slammed the gate shut behind him. He let the man down onto the ground and examined his legs and arms, which had taken the worst of it from the hounds. The man writhed on the ground, moaning and crying and begging for mercy.


    It was one of Lord Geoffrey¡¯s men.


    ¡°How did this happen?¡± he demanded, looking up at the others, a ring of Lavastine¡¯s soldiers who were obviously drunk.


    ¡°He said such things, my lord,¡± said one, young enough and drunk enough to be brash. ¡°He said things about you, my lord, but he never saw you in the battle against the Eika. He never saw you kill the guivre and save Count Lavastine¡¯s life. He had no right to say such things and he wouldn¡¯t believe us, what we said, so it came to¡ª¡±


    Those weren¡¯t shadows on the soldiers¡¯ faces, but bruises. ¡°It came to a fight?¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lord.¡±


    ¡°How did he get into the kennel? Ai, by Our Lord! You.¡± He gestured to one of the handlers. ¡°Run and get the herbwoman who lives here. There is such a one, surely? Ask at the stable.¡± The handler obeyed, dashing off.


    The soldiers did not answer at once. But he could guess how it had all happened. While he allowed himself to be seduced, this other game had unfolded here. Even now, watching the man weeping with pain before him, watching as blood pooled on the ground, running his hands over the man¡¯s skin to find the gaping wounds, he knew this man could die. If he did not succumb to loss of blood or the simple trauma, he might well die later of infection.

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    ¡°Ai, Lady!¡± He hated himself at that moment. Slowly the encounter by the tree unwrapped itself from the heat of lust and he saw it more clearly. Perhaps the woman really had thought him handsome. Certainly, he had found her desirable. But she would never have thrown herself against him if he hadn¡¯t been Lavastine¡¯s heir. She had wanted something from him¡ªa position for her brother in his retinue. This coin she had to offer in trade. Had he been simple Alain, foster son of Henri the merchant, he would have had nothing to give her in return. She would not have looked twice at him, just as the girls at Lavas Holding had never looked twice at him before this summer except that one time, on a dare. And this summer, under stern orders given by the count himself to Cook who had delivered those orders to all the servingwomen in Lavas Holding, none had dared approach him for fear of the count¡¯s wrath. The man who had made a bastard intended that illegitimate son to make none of his own.


    ¡°My lord, I beg you, forgive us.¡± The three soldiers knelt before him. The stench of mead on their breath was almost enough to stagger Alain where he crouched beside the ravaged man. ¡°But he made such claims! He said any boy could claim to be a bastard, that any noble lord might tumble a woman or two and think nothing of it¡ª¡±


    As he had been about to do, without thinking at all!


    ¡°¡ªand so we said we¡¯d see how well he did, claiming to be Lavastine¡¯s heir.¡±


    Alain let out a breath. ¡°So you threw him into the kennel.¡±


    They didn¡¯t answer, nor did they need to.


    Men from the stables came running up, and there was shoving and angry words. The man on the ground ceased his muttering and lapsed into quiet.


    ¡°You¡¯ve killed him!¡±


    ¡°Bastard lovers! Our lord Geoffrey is a true nobleman!¡±


    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t know a noble lord if he bit you in the¡ª¡±


    ¡°Quiet!¡± cried Alain, standing. He set a hand on the gate and shook it, and that shut every one of them up and brought Rage and Sorrow to the gate, panting to be let out. He opened it, chased the others back, and let Rage emerge. Sorrow whined at being left behind and thumped his tail against wood, barking once.


    ¡°Take this man and give him care. All who witnessed, come with me. This will be settled.¡±


    They followed like sheep, the handlers¡ªsome Lavastine¡¯s, some Geoffrey¡¯s¡ªthe three soldiers, and a pair of Geoffrey¡¯s men-at-arms who had been comrades to the injured man and who now admitted to having goaded him on. Except for the handlers, they were all drunk. Rage herded them to the doors which led into the hall. Alain stepped across the threshold and was assaulted at once with a haze of smoke. The annoying buzz of whispering voices made an undertone beneath the ringing tenor of the poet.


    Lady and Lord Above! The poet was still going on. It was no wonder the Salian king had thrown him out to make his fortune elsewhere.


    ¡±In the woods every manner of wild beast makes its lair. Through these glades the admirable hero, Taillefer, would often go hunting and give chase with hounds and spears and arrows. At the very dawn of day, when the sun first rises to spread its light upon the fields and the great city, a band of nobles waits at the threshold of the emperor¡¯s bedchamber, and with them wait the emperor¡¯s noble daughters. A clamor arises in the city, a roar lifts into the air, horse neighs to horse, and hound strains at its leash. At length all set out. The young men carry the thick hunting spears with sharp iron points, and the women carry linen nets fastened with square mesh. A throng encircles the emperor, and he and his daughters lead their black hounds with leashes round their necks, and in their excitement the hounds snap at any person who comes near them except for their master and his children, for even the dogs in their dumb loyalty bow before such bright nobility ¡­¡±


    *   *   *


    The poet was last to see and last¡ªfinally¡ªto stop talking.


    Lavastine rose from behind the long table at the far end of the hall. ¡°What does this mean, Alain?¡±


    Alain walked forward with Rage padding obediently at his side. Every soul in the hall shrank back from the hound who panted with mouth open, revealing her teeth. ¡°There has been a fight outside. One of Lord Geoffrey¡¯s men-at-arms was thrown into the kennel and badly torn. He may yet die.¡±


    Geoffrey leaped to his feet. A moment later, Lady Aldegund rose together with her uncle. At a sign from her, Geoffrey sat down; the uncle did not. The girl set a hand briefly on his hand as if to remind herself that she had the weight of his arm to back her up.


    ¡°How did this happen?¡± she asked.

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    ¡°I believe,¡± replied Alain calmly, ¡°that they had all drunk too much.¡±


    ¡°It is my man who may die!¡± exploded Lord Geoffrey, jumping again to his feet.


    ¡°Sit down, cousin,¡± said Lavastine in a cool voice. Geoffrey sat. Aldegund and her uncle did not.


    ¡°If he dies,¡± said Aldegund, ¡°there will be a price to pay.¡±


    ¡°And so shall those men responsible pay it,¡± said Alain, halting just before the table like a supplicant. Except that, with Rage at his side and, indeed, a growing anger in his heart, he did not feel one bit as if he had to beg anyone¡¯s pardon. ¡°They will pay the proper fine to the man himself if he is crippled or to the man¡¯s kin if he dies. But the man, or his kin, must also pay a fine.¡±


    Geoffrey gasped. ¡°Why is that?¡± demanded Aldegund.


    This, here and now, was the test of wills¡ªand of whether the illegitimate son deserved what he had been given.


    ¡°All of these men took part in the fight or witnessed the fight, and they will swear before your deacon and Count Lavastine¡¯s clerics that the man involved spoke words disloyal to Count Lavastine, lord of his lord.¡±


    At that even Lady Aldegund blushed, for every person there knew what sort of things a tongue loosened by too much mead might have said: not against the count himself ¡ªno one disputed Lavastine¡¯s deeds or prerogatives or virtues¡ªbut against the count¡¯s judgment.


    There was a long silence.


    At last Lady Aldegund inclined her head, acquiescing to Alain¡¯s judgment in the matter. Her uncle sat down and, after a moment, she did as well. Lavastine sat, too, and took the cup she offered him.


    Alain bowed his head. Rage snuffled into his palm, smelling something of interest there¡ªperhaps the lingering scent of the servingwoman. Ai, Lady; as if the thought made her appear, there she stood beside Lavastine, filling the count¡¯s cup. She glanced up, briefly, at Alain, and then away. She did not look at him again. The feast proceeded without incident, and the poet¡ªwhose diction and voice were decent enough¡ªwas encouraged to sing something more popular.


    Only in the morning when they had ridden away from the holding and lost sight of it past hills and forest did Lavastine comment on the incident.


    ¡°I am pleased with your cleverness.¡±


    ¡°But¡ª¡±


    Lavastine lifted a hand, which meant he had not finished and did not yet wish for Alain to reply. Dutifully, Alain waited. ¡°But you must not be unwilling to boast of your accomplishments, Alain. To display prowess in battle is a fine thing for a man in your position. You must not boast immoderately, beyond what you deserve, but it is just as bad to claim false humility. Modesty is a virtue for churchmen, not for the son and heir of a count, one who will lead these same men and their younger brothers and cousins and their sons into battle. They must believe in you, and they must believe that your good fortune will lift them as well and keep them alive and prosperous. That the Lady of Battles, a saint, has given you her favor¡ªthat will weigh heavily with them. But you must not mire yourself in humility. You are not a monk, Alain.¡±


    ¡°I was meant to be one,¡± he murmured.


    ¡°Not anymore! We will no longer speak of this, Alain. A good man remembers and honors his oaths. In time, when you are an old man and have an heir who is ready to take your place, then perhaps you can retire to a monastery and live out the rest of your years in peace. But that oath was made for you by others, before it was known who you were and what role you have to play. You never stood before the monastery gate and pledged yourself to the church. That you think of this obligation at all is to your credit. But it is not to be spoken of again. Do you understand?¡±


    Alain understood. ¡°Yes, Father,¡± he replied. The hounds, on their leashes, padded obediently alongside.


    Lavastine took in a deep breath of the autumn air. ¡°No need to hasten to Osna Sound.¡± He turned to survey his retinue. ¡°We¡¯ve heard no reports of Eika wintering there. I think we may take a few days to go hunting.¡±


    VI


    THE CHILDREN OF GENT


    1


    SPADES stabbed into loose dirt. From where she stood, Anna caught flecks of soil on her cheek, spray thrown out as the gravediggers filled in the latest grave. They had buried twelve refugees in a mass grave this bitter cold morning, including a young mother and her newborn babe.


    Anna had been on her way to the stream, but it was hard not to stop and stare. A few ragged onlookers huddled in the wind. Rain so cold it felt like droplets of ice spattered down, and she tugged her tattered cloak tighter about her shoulders. Here in the camp, corpses went naked into the grave since the living had need of the clothes off their backs.

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    A child no more than two or three winters old bawled at the lip of the pit. It had straggly hair that might have been blond once, a face matted with filth, a dirty tunic, and nothing covering its feet. It also looked about to fall into the pit with the dead folk. She set down her buckets and hurried forward just as the child slipped and fell to its rump on the crumbling slope.


    ¡°Here, now,¡± she said, grabbing it by the arm and pulling it back. ¡°Don¡¯t fall in, child.¡± Looking around, she hailed one of the diggers. ¡°Where¡¯s the child¡¯s kin?¡±


    He pointed into the grave, where woman and infant lay bound together by shreds of old cloth, all that the folk in the camp could spare to make sure they weren¡¯t separated in death. With a stab and a heave, he tossed another spadeful of earth onto the grave. A shower of dirt scattered across the waxy faces of mother and child.


    ¡°Isn¡¯t there anyone here to look after it?¡±


    ¡°It was crying when we came to carry away the corpse,¡± he said, ¡°and it¡¯s crying still. Ach, child,¡± he added, ¡°perhaps it was a blessing that the children of Gent escaped the city, but most of them are orphans now, as is this poor babe. Who¡¯s to care for them when we can¡¯t even care for our own?¡±


    The child, safe away from the rim, had now fastened onto her thigh and it snuffled there, smearing her tunic with snot as it whimpered and coughed.


    ¡°Who, indeed?¡± asked Anna softly. With a finger she touched the Circle of Unity that hung at her chest. ¡°Come, little one. What¡¯s your name?¡±


    The child didn¡¯t seem to know its name, nor could it talk. She pried its arms off her leg and finally, with some coaxing, got the child to drag one of the empty buckets. In this way, with the baby toddling along beside her, they made it to the stream, where they waited in line to dip their wooden buckets into the water.


    ¡°Who¡¯s this?¡± asked one of the older girls, indicating the child who stood fast at Anna¡¯s heels like a starving dog. ¡°I didn¡¯t know you had a little brother.¡±


    ¡°I found him by the new grave.¡±


    ¡°Ach, indeed,¡± said an older boy. ¡°That would be Widow Artilde¡¯s older child.¡±


    ¡°Widow?¡± asked Anna. ¡°But she was so young.¡± Then she realized how stupid the comment sounded as the older children snickered.


    ¡°Her husband was a militia man in the city. I suppose he died when the Eika came.¡±


    ¡°Then you know her?¡± Anna tried to draw the child out from behind her, but the child began to bawl again.


    ¡°She¡¯s dead,¡± said the boy. ¡°Had the baby, and they both of them caught sick and died.¡±


    ¡°Doesn¡¯t anyone want this child?¡±


    But having filled their buckets, the others were already walking away, hauling the precious water back to camp or to Steleshame. So she let the child follow her back to the shelter she and Matthias called home. Indeed, the child seemed unlikely to let her out of its sight.


    ¡°God forfend!¡± exclaimed Helvidius when she ushered the child into the shelter of the canvas awning. A fire burned brightly in a crude hearth built of stones, and the old poet sat on his stool watching over the pot in which they kept a constant hot stew made of anything edible they could scavenge. Today it smelled of mushroom and onion, flavored with the picked-over bones of a goose. The remains of yesterday¡¯s acorn gruel sat in their one bowl next to the fire. Anna handed spoon and bowl to the child. The spoon dropped unregarded from its hand and it used its dirty fingers to shovel down the lukewarm gruel.


    ¡°What¡¯s this creature?¡± demanded Helvidius.


    ¡°One more helpless than you!¡± Anna had taken the buckets of water around to the tanners in exchange for scraps of leather. ¡°Can you help me make it something to wear on its feet?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re not taking this brat in, are you? There¡¯s scarcely room for the three of us.¡±


    But Anna only laughed. The old poet was always grumpy, but she didn¡¯t fear him. ¡°I¡¯ll let him sleep curled at your feet. It¡¯ll be like having a dog.¡±


    He grunted. The child had licked the bowl clean and now began to snivel again. ¡°Dogs don¡¯t whine so,¡± he said. ¡°Does it have a name?¡±


    ¡°Its mother¡¯s dead, and no one else claimed it. You watch over it while I go haul more water.¡±


    She made four more trips down to the stream. At this time of year, with the winter slaughter underway, the tannery was busy with many new hides, so Matthias had seen to it that she could take his place hauling water and ash for the tanning pits or collecting bark from the forest. He had taken on more skilled work scraping or finishing skins which had cured over summer and autumn. She didn¡¯t mind the work. The activity kept her warm and gave them a certain security that many of the other refugees, dependent on what they could scavenge from the forest or on Mistress Gisela¡¯s charity, did not have.

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    Yet although the winter slaughter went on, and meat was salted or smoked against the season to come, little of that meat reached the refugees. Once a day a deacon distributed a coarse oat bread at the gate, but there was never enough to go around.


    Now, when Anna returned to their shelter from her last trip to the stream, it was to find the child wailing, old Helvidius vainly singing some nonsense tune with all the enthusiasm of a woman proposing marriage to a dowerless man, and Matthias glowering over the stewpot.


    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± Matthias demanded as she shoved the canvas awning aside. The canvas didn¡¯t really keep out the cold as much as it kept in some of the heat in the fire and their massed bodies. It did keep off rain tolerably well. Still, her toes and fingers ached from the chill and her nose was running. ¡°Where did this come from?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s a child, Matthias,¡± she said.


    ¡°I can see it¡¯s a child!¡±


    ¡°It had nowhere else to go. I couldn¡¯t just leave it to die! Not after St. Kristine saved it from death at the hands of the Eika.¡± The child sniffed and babbled something unintelligible but did not let go of the old man¡¯s knee.


    ¡°And it stinks!¡± added Matthias.


    It certainly did. ¡°Master Helvidius¡ª¡±


    ¡°I didn¡¯t know it couldn¡¯t take care of such things itself!¡± the old man wailed. ¡°I¡¯m a poet, not a nursemaid.¡±


    ¡°Well, you must learn how to watch over the child, since it will be under your care all day,¡± she said tartly.


    ¡°Under my care all day!¡± he cried.


    ¡°You mean to keep it?¡± Matthias looked appalled.


    There was a sudden silence.


    ¡°We must keep it,¡± said Anna. ¡°You know we must, Matthias.¡±


    He sighed, but when he did not reply, she knew she had won.


    ¡°Well, then,¡± said Helvidius grudgingly, ¡°if we keep it, we must name it. We could call it Achilleus or Alexandros, after the great princes of ancient Arethousa. Or Cornelius, the Dariyan general who destroyed proud Kartiako, or Teutus of Kallindoia, famous son of the warrior-queen Teuta.¡±


    She had coaxed the child over to her and, by the door flap, was now peeling off the soiled cloth that swaddled its bottom. She laughed suddenly. ¡°You¡¯d best find a girl¡¯s name, Master Helvidius. We¡¯ll call her Helen, for didn¡¯t Helen survive through many trials?¡±


    ¡°Helen,¡± said the old poet, his tone softening as he regarded the child. ¡°Fair-haired Helen, true of heart and steadfast in adversity.¡±


    Matthias snorted, disgusted, but he was careful as always to share out the stew equally between them as they each took turns spooning stew out of their shared bowl.


    It was dusk outside, almost dark, when they heard shouts from the roadway. Anna thrust little Helen into Helvidius¡¯ arms and ran outside with Matthias. They heard a great commotion and hurried to where the southeast road ran alongside the tanning works in time to see an astonishing procession ride past¡ªnoble lords on horseback and more men-at-arms, marching behind them, than she could count.


    Even in the twilight their arms and clothing had such a rich gleam that she could only gape at their finery. They laughed, proud, strong young lords, a handful of women riding in their ranks, and appeared not to notice the ragged line of people who had gathered to watch them arrive.


    The gates of Steleshame had already opened and there, lit by torchlight, Anna saw the mistress of Steleshame and the mayor of Gent waiting to welcome their guests.


    ¡°Where are you from?¡± Matthias shouted, and a man-at-arms called back, ¡°We¡¯ve come from Osterburg, from Duchess Rotrudis.¡±


    When they returned to the shelter and gave their news, Helvidius was beside himself. ¡°That would be one of the duchess¡¯ kinsmen,¡± he said. ¡°They¡¯ll want a poet at their feasting, and where there is feasting there are leftovers to be had!¡±


    *   *   *


    In the morning she rose with Matthias at the first light of dawn and in the cold dawn began her daily haul of water. The stream ran with a bitter ice flood over her bare fingers, but its chill was nothing to the cold fury that seized her upon returning to their little shelter.


    Helvidius and Helen were gone and with them the old poet¡¯s stick and stool and her precious leather bag of dried herbs, onions, four shriveled turnips, and the last of the acorns. No sooner had she stuck her head under the canvas, searching to see what else the old man had taken, than a spear butt prodded her in the back and a harsh voice ordered her to come out.


    ¡°I thought we¡¯d cleared this place,¡± said a soldier to his companion, eyeing Anna with disgust. ¡°These children are as filthy as rats, each and every one.¡± She gaped at the two soldiers¡ªwell fed, well brushed, and warmly dressed¡ªwho confronted her. ¡°Go on, then, girl¡ªor are you a boy?¡±

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    ¡°Go where?¡±


    ¡°We¡¯re clearing out the camp,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯ll be marching east, where we can find homes for you orphans. Now go on, get your things or leave them behind.¡±


    ¡°But my brother¡ª¡±


    This time when he jabbed her with the butt of his spear, his touch wasn¡¯t as gentle. ¡°Take what you need, but only what you can carry. It¡¯s going to be a long march.¡±


    ¡°Where¡ª?¡±


    ¡°Move!¡± His companion walked on, poking a spear through hovels and the other pathetic shelters the refugees from Gent had put up beyond the tannery, but they were already empty. Indeed, the camp itself was far more quiet than usual, but now that she listened, she heard the nervous buzz of voices from down by the southeast road.


    Though she had five knives tucked here and there inside her clothes, she knew it was pointless to resist. She scrambled back inside the canvas shelter, grabbed the pot and bowl, nesting the one inside the other, rolled up their blankets and tied them with a leather cord, and bound up her shawl to make a carry pack. She began to take down the canvas shelter.


    ¡°Here, now, leave that!¡±


    ¡°How can I leave that?¡± she demanded, turning on him. ¡°What if it rains? We¡¯ll need to shelter under something!¡±


    He considered this, hesitating. ¡°We¡¯re to shelter at church estates, but there are so many of you ¡­ perhaps it¡¯s wisest to have some shelter of your own. If the weather turns colder, or there¡¯s snow ¡­¡± He shrugged.


    ¡°Is everyone leaving?¡±


    But he wouldn¡¯t answer more of her questions, and she sensed that time was short. The rolled-up canvas was an unwieldy burden, and together with buckets, blankets, and pot she could barely stagger along under the weight.


    The sight of the refugees made her sick with terror. Herded into a ragged line along the road, she realized suddenly how very young they all were. For every twenty children there was, perhaps, a single adult¡ªeven counting the soldiers, all of them grim as they held spears to prevent any child from slipping out of line. The sheer amount of bawling and wailing was like an assault, a wave of fear spilling out from the children who had escaped Gent and now were being driven away even from the meager shelter they had made here at Steleshame.


    Anna spotted Helvidius. He leaned heavily on his stick and little Helen, beside him, sat on the stool with the precious bag of food draped over her lap. She cried without sound, and yellow-green snot ran from her nose. The old poet¡¯s face brightened when he saw Anna.


    ¡°Where¡¯s Matthias?¡± she asked as she came up beside him.


    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± said the old man. ¡°I tried to tell them I¡¯m a great poet, that the young lord will be angry at them for sending me away, but they drove me out and didn¡¯t listen! I think they mean to march these four hundred children to the marchlands. I suppose there¡¯s always a need for a pair of growing hands in the wilderness.¡±


    ¡°But this isn¡¯t everyone.¡±


    ¡°Nay, just those deemed useless and a burden. When we first got here from Gent last spring, some third of the children were taken away by farming folk who live west of here, for a strong child is always welcome as a help to work the land. And those who work now for Mistress Gisela, like the blacksmiths¡ªthey¡¯ll stay. And a few families who hope to go back to Gent in time, but only those which have an adult to care for the children. Nay, child, all the rest of us will be marched east to Osterburg and farther yet, past the Oder River and into the marchlands¡ª¡±


    ¡°But how far is it?¡± Helen began to cry out loud, and Anna set down the pot and hoisted the little girl up onto her hip.


    ¡°A month or more, two months, three more like. Lady Above, how do they expect these children to walk so far, and how do they intend to feed them along the way?¡±


    Three months. Anna could not really conceive of three months¡¯ time, especially not with winter coming on. ¡°But I don¡¯t want to go,¡± she said, beginning to cry, beginning to panic. ¡°It¡¯s better to stay here, isn¡¯t it?¡±


    Someone had managed to get a flock of goats together, and in truth the goats milled no more aimlessly than did the frightened children. Pinch-faced toddlers whined and wriggled in the arms of children no older than eight or twelve. An adolescent girl with a swelling belly and her worldly goods tied to her back held tightly onto two young siblings who could not have been more than five or six; they, too, carried bedrolls tied to their thin shoulders. Two boys of about Anna¡¯s age clung together. A girl tied cloth around the feet of a small child to protect it against frost and mud. A little red-haired boy sat alone on the cold ground and sobbed.

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    ¡°Saved by a miracle,¡± murmured Master Helvidius. ¡°And now what will become of us?¡±


    The young lord and his retinue waited beside the gate to Steleshame. They only watched, mounted on their fine horses, but the sick feeling in her chest curdled and turned sour. They only watched, but they would enforce this order. Any child who ran into the forest would be hunted down and brought back. Mistress Gisela stood beside them. Anna imagined she surveyed the chaos with satisfaction. Soon she would be rid of most of the refugees who had been such a burden on her, and if Helvidius was right, she would keep exactly those people who would do her the most good.


    Ai, Lady. Where was Matthias?


    ¡°I have to go find Matthias!¡± she said to Helvidius. ¡°Keep watch over¡ª¡± She set Helen down and the little girl set up a howling.


    ¡°Don¡¯t leave me!¡± he gasped, suddenly white and leaning on his stick as if he might fall the next instant. ¡°If they go¡ª I don¡¯t believe I can walk so far alone, me and the child¡ª¡±


    ¡°I won¡¯t leave you!¡± she promised.


    ¡°Anna!¡±


    Matthias came running with one of the men from the tannery. They conferred hastily with a sergeant, who stepped back from the pungent smell that clung to their clothes. Quickly enough, Anna, Helvidius, and little Helen were called out of the line.


    ¡°Yes,¡± said Matthias, ¡°this is my grandfather and my two sisters.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re to stay here, then,¡± said the sergeant, and dismissed them by turning away to order his soldiers into formation, a group in the van and one at the end and some to march single file on either side of the refugees. Anna could not tell whether this was meant to protect the refugees or to keep them from escaping the line.


    ¡°Come on, then, lad,¡± said the tanner with a frown, glancing toward the mob of children and away as quickly, as if he didn¡¯t like what he saw. ¡°Let¡¯s get back to work.¡± He walked away.


    Anna started after him. She had no desire to stay and watch.


    ¡°Anna!¡± Matthias called her back. ¡°We¡¯re to get a hut. Give the canvas over to those poor souls, and the pot, too. And you may as well give over the food as well, what poor scraps there are. There¡¯s so few of us left here that we won¡¯t want for so much, not until late in the winter, anyway, and those scraps will help them better than us.¡±


    She stared as the soldiers at the van started forward. Slowly, like a lurching cart, the line of children moved forward, and the wailing and crying reached a sudden over-whelming pitch. ¡°I can¡¯t do it,¡± she said, sobbing. ¡°How can you choose? You do it.¡± She blindly thrust canvas, pot, and food pouch into Matthias¡¯ arms and then grabbed Helen up and ran as well as she could back toward the tannery precincts. She could not bear to watch the others march away into what danger and what uncertainty she could not imagine, only dreaded to think of walking there herself. Ai, Lady, what would they eat? Where would they shelter? What if the cold autumn winds turned to the cruel storms of winter? How many would even reach the distant east, and what would become of them, saved from Gent and yet driven away from this haven, such as it was, by the greed of householder and duchess working in concert?


    And yet perhaps it was too hard to shelter so many here with no rescue for Gent in sight¡ªfor surely no one expected the young lord and his retinue to drive the Eika away on their own.


    Helen had stopped bawling and now clung to her in silence. She paused on the rise and stared back as the mob of children, hundreds of them, started walking reluctantly, resignedly, toddlers stumbling along in the wake of elder children, thin legs bare to the cold, their pathetic belongings strapped to backs already bowed under the weight. They had so far to go.


    Tears blinded her briefly as a glint of sun struck out from a rent in the clouds and shone into the midst of the line of children. She blinked back a blurring vision of a bright figure walking among them, a woman robed in a white tunic with blood dripping down her hands, and then the vision vanished. Anna turned away to look toward the young lord who surveyed this exodus with dispassion.


    Master Helvidius hobbled up beside her, so exhausted from the morning¡¯s excitement, his legs buckling under him, that she and Matthias had to half carry him back to the tannery. Little Helen walked beside them singing a tuneless melody, and by the time Master Helvidius and Helen were settled in the shelter of a lean-to set up against the tannery fence, and Matthias sent back to work, and Anna gone out again to the stream to haul water, the line of refugees had vanished from sight.


    Only the deserted camp remained.

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    2


    ANNA had never seen a noble lord so close before. Nor had she ever imagined that a table could groan under the weight of so much food. She had never seen people eat and drink as much as these did: Lord Wichman, eldest son and second child of Duchess Rotrudis, his cousin Lord Henry¡ªnamed after the king¡ªand their retinue of young nobles and stalwart men-at-arms. The young nobles boasted about the battles they would fight with the Eika in the days to come. The men-at-arms, who drank as lustily as their noble masters, were wont to get into fistfights when their interest in Master Helvidius¡¯ lengthy and complicated court poems waned.


    It had not taken long after the departure of the refugees for the mayor of Gent¡ªdesperate to find amusement for Mistress Gisela¡¯s noble guests¡ªto remember that he had left a court poet out among the refugees and to wonder if the old man had remained behind.


    ¡°You¡¯ll go to his summons?¡± demanded Matthias that next afternoon, amazed and appalled, ¡°after he deserted you here when he took the rest of his servants inside the palisade?¡±


    ¡°Pride hath no place among the starving,¡± said Master Helvidius. So each evening he took Anna with him to carry his stool and help support him on the long walk up the rise that led to the inner court, and of course Helen had to tag along as well, for there was no one else to watch over her with Matthias working until last light each day. The tanners and smiths and foresters worked long hours and harder even than they had before, for they now had over seventy men and thirty horses to care for, feed, and keep in armor and weapons besides those they had brought with them.


    Over the next many days Lord Wichman¡¯s force marched out every day, searching for Eika, fighting a skirmish here, burning a ship there, each feat of arms retold in great detail at the night¡¯s feast. Helvidius quickly became adept at turning the details of these expeditions into flattering paeans to Lord Wichman¡¯s courage and prowess, which the young Lord never grew tired of hearing.


    Anna grew equally adept at grabbing half-eaten bones off the floor before the lord¡¯s dogs could get them, or at begging crusts of bread from drunken soldiers. Master Helvidius, fed at the high table, slipped her food from the common platter, delicacies she had never before tasted: baked grouse, black pudding, pork pie, and other savories. Helen was content to sit sucking her thumb in a corner, by the hearth, eating what was offered her; the rest Anna saved in her pouch and took back to Matthias in the mornings¡ªshe, Helen, and the poet had to sleep in the hall because once night fell, the gates to Steleshame remained shut.


    Sleeping on the floor of the newly built longhall in Steleshame was a more luxurious bed than any she had slept on before. It was never bitter cold inside even as autumn eased into winter and the days grew short and gray. Little Helen got roundness back in her cheeks, and Master Helvidius¡¯ legs got stronger, although he still needed his staff to walk.


    ¡°They¡¯ve turned all the lands round Gent into pasture, I swear,¡± said Lord Henry, Wichman¡¯s father¡¯s sister¡¯s son. He was a young man, not much older than a boy, with dark hair, a fresh scar on his cheek which he wore as proudly as his sword, and a boastful tongue. ¡°There¡¯s enough cattle out there trampling good fields to feed an army a thousand strong!¡±


    ¡°Why have none wandered back to us?¡± demanded Gisela.


    ¡°They¡¯re tended by slaves and guarded by Eika.¡±


    ¡°Do the Eika have so many soldiers still wintering there?¡± asked the mayor nervously.


    ¡°We haven¡¯t ridden close enough to the town to count them,¡± said Lord Henry, glancing reproachfully toward his elder cousin. ¡°But we might still do so, if we dared more.¡±


    Young Wichman merely belched in reply to this appeal and called for Mistress Gisela¡¯s pretty young niece to fetch him another cup of wine. He had, as Master Helvidius said, ¡°an itch between his legs,¡± though she didn¡¯t quite understand what that meant except that he pestered the young woman in a way the niece didn¡¯t like, yet no one else seemed inclined to prevent.


    Helen had already fallen asleep. Anna curled up beside her, smoke and warmth a haze around them, and closed her eyes while Master Helvidius droned on, his slightly nasal voice intoning the lay of Helen. Neither he nor the young lord ever seemed to tire of the long poem¡ªand what the young lord wanted the young lord got.


    ¡°¡­ Now the servants removed the tables, and while the second course was brought, as much talk sprang up among the banqueters as echoed in the hall like the din of battle. But King Sykaeus raised his cup and called silence to the hall. Huge bowls were brought and filled to the brim with wine, and out of these the king himself filled the first cup and this he passed among the company.

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    ¡°Thus he entreated Helen for the story of Ilios. ¡®Fair and noble guest, tell us your tale from the beginning ¡­¡¯¡±


    A dog nosed Anna awake, sniffing her face and licking the dried juice of meat off her fingers. She could tell by the somber gray of light within the hall that dawn was close at hand. Helen lay fast asleep on a heap of dirty rushes, her breath a liquid snore. Helvidius had fallen asleep still sitting, head draped over the table; he would regret that later, when his muscles stiffened.


    She had to pee.


    She got up and picked her way over the sleeping servants, tiptoed around the men-at-arms who reeked of ale and piss and sweat. Outside, in the open dirt yard, she crept around to where a line of privies had been dug up against one palisade wall, well away from hall and longhouse. The sky grayed toward twilight and the last stars shone faintly, fading into the growing light of dawn.


    The stone keep stood like a stolid, faithful servant, its shadow blunt against the lightening sky. Outbuildings were scattered about; she saw a flash of coals, bright red, from one of the open huts. Smiths and tanners worked outside the palisade wall now, so their stink wouldn¡¯t disturb the sleep of the householder, her kin, the mayor of Gent and his retinue, and their noble guest.


    Here, by the privies, the noble guest was clearly disturbing Mistress Gisela¡¯s niece.


    ¡°I beg you, Lord Wichman,¡± said the young woman, twisting away as she tried to hurry back to the safety of the hall, ¡°I have much work to do.¡±


    ¡°What better work than what I can give you, eh?¡±


    ¡°My lord.¡± She tugged out of his grasp and slipped sideways, trying to escape into the gloom. ¡°Forgive me, but I can¡¯t stay.¡±


    Angry, he grabbed at her cloak, jerking her up short. ¡°I hear it said you thought yourself good enough for my bastard cousin Sanglant. Surely you¡¯re good enough for me!¡±


    At first, Anna thought the slow hiss came from the niece, preface to an angry outburst. Then she saw a pale stream of light trailing above the distant treetops, undulating in languid curves. A great golden beast rose into the sky, and as the sun¡¯s rim pierced the bowl of the horizon, its roar shuddered the air.


    The niece screamed and bolted. Young Lord Wichman, still groggy from a night of drinking, gaped at the sky, groping at his belt to draw his sword. He staggered back and Anna shrieked as the dragon, its golden scales more blinding than the sun, flew directly over the holding. Gouts of flame boiled upward into the clouds, the hiss of fire meeting ice. Anna had never seen anything so beautiful or so terrifying.


    ¡°Dragons!¡± shouted guards from the wallwalk.


    Lord Wichman sheathed his sword and cursed. His bland face suddenly creased with delight, and he spun and ran toward the stables, shouting. ¡°To arms! To arms!¡±


    The alarm sounded, horn blasts piercing the quiet of dawn.


    ¡°Dragons! Dragons!¡± The cry lifted again as men-at-arms scrambled out of the hall and servants brought horses from the stables.


    She had to get back to Master Helvidius and Helen. Ai, Lady, she had to get back to Matthias who, with the other tanners and laborers, slept outside the main palisade in little enclosures sheltered with mere fences, more to keep livestock out than to protect against fearsome beasts. But could anything protect against a dragon?


    The huge creature rose sluggishly, each flap of its wings like a sheet of gold thrumming and throbbing in the air. Slowly it banked and turned for a second pass. Before she knew what she meant to do, she ran for a ladder and climbed up to the wallwalk to get a better look. It was madness; ai, Lady, indeed, she was crazy and Matthias would say as much, but even Matthias must be astonished by the sight. This seemed more uncanny, more miraculous, than the daimone chained in the cathedral. She had to get a better look. And perhaps from this angle she could see the tannery.


    She had to hop and scramble up, hooking her arms over the top of the palisade and brace herself on the logs, in order to see over. What she saw caught her breath in her throat.


    The guards at the gate yelled again: ¡°Dragons!¡±


    But they were not pointing at the sky.


    Through the deserted camp, strewn now with the remains of hovels and shelters, littered with garbage and beaten to dirt churned muddy by yesterday¡¯s rain and frozen by the last night¡¯s frost, rode a hundred horsemen. Their helmets gleamed, fitted with polished brass. Their gold tabards shone as brightly as the dragon¡¯s scales, each one marked with a menacing black dragon, miniature hatchlings that rippled and moved as the Dragons approached.


    As from far away she heard a man shout in a thin, hysterical voice: ¡°Don¡¯t open the gates! Don¡¯t open the gates!¡±

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    Fire sparked from the hooves of the Dragons¡¯ horses as they pounded through the empty camp. There, by the stream, fire leaped into the scatter of buildings that marked the tanning works. Anna screamed, pointing, but it was useless. No one could hear her. No one would hear her.


    They weren¡¯t Dragons at all. She saw now the gaping holes in the tabards, the gleam of bone where ragged mail parted to reveal a skeletal jaw or flesh scored deep from a putrefying wound. Empty eyes stared from beneath nasals. Skin peeled away from bone where the morning wind whipped them clean. They made no sound.


    Yet they came on.


    Months ago she had seen them lying dead in the cathedral crypt at Gent. They were not Dragons at all, only the remains of them, only the memory of that force that had fought against the Eika. What terrible magic had raised them from the dead?


    The gates yawned open, and out from Steleshame rode young Lord Wichman and his retinue. They shone as bright as their enemy, and they charged with abandon.


    ¡°Anna!¡±


    She fell, caught herself on the lip of the walk, and half slid down the ladder.


    ¡°Anna!¡± Fright made Master Helvidius able to walk without his staff. ¡°Child! Child! Come in! The Eika are attacking! Come to shelter!¡±


    ¡°Where¡¯s Helen?¡±


    ¡°In the hall. Still asleep.¡± The old poet wept with fear. ¡°Go get her and then come to the keep, but make haste, Anna! Hurry! There¡¯s not enough room¡ª¡±


    ¡°Matthias¡ª!¡±


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing we can do for him! Go!¡±


    She ran across the yard. A spinning ball of flame hurtled past and smacked into the dirt: a torch cast from outside. It guttered and failed, but she heard more torches thunk onto the roofs. Most slid down the slope of roofs, plummeted to earth, and were stamped out, but a few caught and began to burn.


    As she came to the great doors that opened into the long hall, she saw Mistress Gisela¡¯s niece slap a ladder against the side of the house. Climbing to the top, with another woman halfway up behind her, she took buckets of water drawn from the well and threw water onto the roof, wetting it down. To the left, half hidden by the bulk of the hall, Anna saw other people struggling to save the old longhouse whose thatch roof had caught fire.


    She had to shove and elbow to get inside, for people ran every which way, some in, some out, some no place at all but frozen in terror or dithering in circles. A table had been knocked over; dogs gulped down the remains of food, lapped at puddles of ale.


    Helen had retreated to a corner beyond the great hearth and there she sat, utterly silent, thumb stuck in her mouth. Anna hoisted her up to her hips. She was such a tiny thing that she was no burden.


    But it was harder to get out than in. The mayor and certain of his servants crowded the door, seeking shelter, and Anna could not fight past them. Their press against her caused her to stumble and fall to one knee, and for a horrible instant she thought she and Helen would be trampled.


    Smoke stung her nostrils, and suddenly the cry arose: ¡°Fire! Fire!¡±


    She found a wedge through which to shove herself, got herself to the wall, and hurried down the hall¡¯s length past the open hearth to the far wall where stood the single window, now shut against winter. She set Helen down, dragged a chest over and, getting up on it, pounded the shutters open. Tugging the little girl up behind her, she swung a leg over the sill, and dangled there. Together they dropped, hitting the ground hard just as a shower of embers floated down from above. The little girl began to cry. Anna scuttled backward, jumped up, and lifted Helen to her back.


    In this way, with Helen fairly choking her with thin arms vised round her neck, Anna threaded her way through the chaos of the yard up the rise to the stone keep. Inside, the storerooms were pungent with barrels of salted meat, with ale and wine, with baskets of apples and unground oats and moldering rye. Master Helvidius cowered behind a chest, weeping softly. Anna thrust Helen onto his lap and climbed the ladder to the second level. There she found six grim-faced men laying arrows, point down, against the wall on either side of the six arrow slits.


    ¡°Here, child,¡± said one, beckoning to her. ¡°Stack these neatly.¡± He left without ado, and she hurried to carefully place the arrows in a line, pausing once to lean into the slit and peer out.


    Her view gave her a vantage of the ground just beyond the gates. There, in a melee more like the frenzy of market square on the busiest autumn day in Gent, Lord Wichman, Lord Henry, and their riders battled Eika, cutting about themselves, parrying ax blows. A line of men-at-arms struggled forward, shields held high against the press. Eika swarmed everywhere. The huge Eika dogs darted through the swirling fight, ripping and rending. Of the horrible Dragons there was no sign, nor any remains.

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    An ax hooked over Lord Wichman¡¯s shield, dragged, tugged, and there was a sudden titanic struggle as the young lord grappled with an Eika soldier braced at his horse¡¯s shoulder. Then¡ªsliding, gripped, tugged¡ªhe fell from his horse and vanished under a hail of flailing arms.


    Anna gasped out loud and jerked back, bumping into the careful rack of arrows. With a clatter, they fell, but the sound was drowned out by a howl sent up from outside¡ªthe young lord¡¯s riders had gone mad with fury.


    Anna began to cry.


    A man shoved her away roughly and began to set up arrows again. A woman called up from below.


    ¡°The longhouse is burning! We¡¯re getting a flood of people in here. What shall I do?¡±


    ¡°Squeeze in as many of the young and weak as you can!¡± shouted the man next to Anna. ¡°But any who are able-bodied must take to the walls. It¡¯ll be slaughter if the Eika get through those gates. Anything they can fling down¡ªanyone who can lift a hoe or spade or shoot a bow or stab with a spear¡ª¡± He spun round. ¡°Girl! Don¡¯t be hamhanded again. Now set these arrows upright for those who will need them later!¡±


    He climbed down the ladder.


    She did as she was told. Such a din of wailing and shouting had arisen from within the holding¡ªthe squawking of chickens, the barking of dogs, the screams of horses and men¡ªthat she could only stay moving by pretending nothing was happening, by hearing nothing at all. She concentrated on each arrow as she leaned it with fletching upright against the stone wall.


    Smoke billowed in from outside, but she could not, dared not, look again out through the arrow slit. A hugely pregnant woman came up the ladder, blood streaming from a gash on her forehead. With a grunt, she heaved her ungainly bulk up over the lip, got to hands and knees, then with a shove from foot and hand got herself up. She stationed herself with a bow by one of the slits. The man whose place she took scrambled down, disappearing below.


    Soon, other women and one adolescent boy had stationed themselves by the arrow slits, each with a bow. The boy played nervously with an arrow, rolling it through his fingers. More people clambered up the ladder and cowered, some weeping, some stunned, against the walls and then along the floor until there was scarcely room for anyone to move. And yet more tried to come up, and more yet. Such a noise swelled up from this mass of terror-stricken people and from the battle raging outside that Anna could only hunker down, clap hands over ears, and pray. The sting of burning timber and thatch made her eyes burn, and the fear made her heart thud hard in her chest. Her breath came in gasps.


    ¡°Come, child,¡± said a woman¡¯s brusque voice. Anna looked up into the heat-seared face, blackened with soot, of Mistress Gisela¡¯s niece. Dozens of tiny burns and charred holes from flying embers pitted her clothing. ¡°Hand me arrows as I shoot.¡±


    ¡°Who are you shooting at?¡± she breathed. Horror rose in her throat until it choked the breath out of her and she thought she would fall and faint.


    But the woman only took careful aim and loosed the arrow and, without thinking, Anna handed her another. She nocked and aimed and shot while screams pierced above the clamor of battle and fire roared and dogs howled and a horn blared long and high and distantly a man¡¯s voice shouted: ¡°Form up to my left! Form up to my left!¡±


    One by one Anna handed her the arrows, and as each one was nocked and loosed, the young woman¡¯s expression wavered not at all from blank concentration. Only once did she grunt with satisfaction, and once she whimpered, suddenly made afraid by some sight in the yard beyond. But she gulped down her fear as everyone had to, or die through being helpless. That was the way of war.


    One by one, Anna handed up the arrows until they were all gone.


    3


    IN the end the Eika retreated, but by that time Steleshame lay in shambles, a quarter of the palisade wall burning or battered down, the longhouse in flames and the outbuildings in ruins. Only the newly built hall still stood, though it was scorched. Some of the roof tiles had fallen in where the smoke hole opened and both doors had been wrenched off their hinges.


    It was a miracle anything at all had survived. Of the Dragons there remained no sign, but everyone agreed they, like the flying dragon, had arisen from the Eika enchanter¡¯s magic, a false vision used to strike fear into their hearts and render them incapable of fighting.


    It had not worked, not this time.


    ¡°That is the weakness of illusion,¡± Master Helvidius said when the people hiding in the stone keep ventured out to the horrible scene opening before them in the yard. ¡°Once you know it is illusion, it is easier to combat.¡±

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    Anna held little Helen tightly on her hip as she picked her way through the rubble to the gate. She kept her eyes fixed on her feet, so she wouldn¡¯t have to see the dead bodies. There were a lot of dead, human and Eika alike. If she didn¡¯t look, then maybe it would be as if they weren¡¯t there.


    Soldiers staggered through the gates, leading wounded horses, carrying their dead or injured comrades. Some of their number wandered the killing field, sticking Eika through the throat to make sure they would not rise again. A sudden shout rose from their midst as a figure armed in mail, his tabard rent and bloody, shoved himself up from the ground where he had been pinned down by a dead Eika.


    It was Lord Wichman himself, by a miracle unharmed except for the battering his mail and helmet had taken. But he had not gotten far before he dropped to his knees and wept over the body of his young cousin, Henry, who had fallen by the gates. Mistress Gisela appeared beside him. Roused by her appearance, the lord rose and began directing the soldiers as they methodically looted the Eika corpses of weapons, shields, and whatever fine mail armor the creatures wore round their hips, mostly silver and gold wrought into delicate patterns.


    Anna spied a knife lying in a pool of muck and blood. She knelt quickly, grabbed it, and tucked it into her leggings. Its blade pinched her calf, but she went on.


    Beyond, both smithy and tannery burned. A few men had begun to cast dirt onto the fires.


    ¡°Here, now, child,¡± said a soldier, coming up beside her. ¡°Get back inside. You don¡¯t know how far the Eika have run. They might come back any moment.¡±


    ¡°Were those truly Dragons? All dead and rotting?¡±


    ¡°Nay. They were Eika. They only looked like Dragons until they got close. Then we saw through the enchantment.¡±


    ¡°Did we win?¡±


    He snorted, waving a hand to indicate the destruction. ¡°If this can be called winning. Ai, Lord, I don¡¯t know that we beat them. Rather, they got what they wanted and left.¡±


    ¡°But what did they want?¡± she demanded. ¡°My brother¡ª¡± She faltered when she saw the flames that raged round the row of small huts abutting the tannery fence. She began to snivel and Helen, catching her fear, started to cry.


    ¡°They drove off the livestock.¡± The soldier grimaced as he raised his left arm, and she saw a gash running up the boiled leather coat he wore, a slash running from waist to armpit. Underneath, a thin stream of blood seeped through his quilted shirt, but he seemed otherwise unharmed except for a cut on his lip and a purpling bruise along his jaw. ¡°I saw them myself. I¡¯d guess they were raiding for cattle and slaves more than to kill my good Lord Henry, namesake of the king, bless them both.¡± He drew the Circle of Unity at his breast and sighed deeply. ¡°Come, child, go on in.¡±


    ¡°But my brother worked at the tannery¡ª¡±


    He clucked softly and shook his head, then surveyed the scene. The old camp looked as if it had been flattened by a whirlwind. A single chicken scratched diligently beside a hovel. Two dogs cowered under the shelter of a single straggly bush. ¡°Thank God the refugees had already left. Come, then, we¡¯ll go down and see, but mind you, child, you¡¯ll go up again when I tell you.¡±


    By the time they got down to the stream the tannery fire was under control, though still burning. She saw a body, charred and blackened, over by the puering pit, but it was too large to be Matthias. This body alone remained; of the other inhabitants of the tannery, none could be found.


    ¡°There¡¯s nothing here, child,¡± said the soldier. ¡°Go on back where it¡¯s safe. I¡¯ll ask about. You say his name is Matthias?¡±


    She nodded, unable to speak. Helen sucked her thumb vigorously.


    With this weight on her, the walk back up the rise to the wrecked palisade seemed forbidding and it exhausted her. Helvidius found her sobbing just inside the gate, and he took her into the hall just as a cold drizzle began to fall.


    He brought her heavily watered cider and made her drink, then fussed over Helen, complaining all the while. ¡°The livestock stolen! Food stores trampled or spoiled or burned! What will we do? How will we get through the winter without even enough shelter for those left? What will we do? Without fodder, the young lord will ride back to his home, and then who will protect us? We should have gone with the others.¡±


    But by the hearth Mistress Gisela had called a council. A stout woman, she gripped an ax in one hand as if she had forgotten she held it. Blood stained her left shoulder, though it did not appear to be her own. Beyond, in the farthest corner of the hall, the pregnant woman who had been shooting from the keep leaned against the wall, panting, then got down on her hands and knees as several elderly women clustered around her. A boy carried in a pot of steaming water, and Gisela¡¯s niece hurried forward with a length of miraculously clean cloth.

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    ¡°Lord Wichman! I beg you,¡± Gisela was saying, ¡°if there is not enough fodder for those of your horses which remain ¡­¡±


    But the young lord had a wild light in his eyes. With his helmet off and tucked under one arm, he warmed his free hand over the fire while a man-at-arms wiped the blood from his sword. He had a fine down of beard along his chin, as fair as his pale hair. ¡°Did you see the dragon?¡± he demanded. ¡°Was it a real thing, or another enchantment?¡±


    Master Helvidius hobbled forward, Helen dragging on his robes. ¡°My lord, if I may speak¡ª¡±


    But the young lord went on, heedless. ¡°Nay, Mistress, I won¡¯t let the Eika drive me away! Are there no old wise-folk here, who can braid a few spells of protection into being? Give us those, Mistress, and we¡¯ll raid as the Eika do, like a pack of dogs harrying their heels!¡±


    ¡°But we¡¯ve lost full half our livestock, or more! And I hear now from those who escaped into the trees that a good half of my laborers were herded away to be slaves!¡±


    ¡°Or eaten by the dogs!¡± said a sergeant.


    Mistress Gisela set down the ax and looked about for support. ¡°Is Mayor Werner not here? He will advise as I do. How can I support my own people and yours as well, Lord Wichman?¡±


    ¡°The mayor is dead, Mistress,¡± said Wichman. ¡°Or had you not heard that news yet? How can you not support me? I am all that stands between you and another Eika raid. And let that be an end to it!¡± He handed his helmet to the sergeant, stomped his boots hard to shake dirt off them, and sat on a bench, beckoning to Gisela¡¯s niece to serve him drink.


    Anna began to shake. All of a sudden the cold struck her, and she could not stop trembling. Helvidius limped over and threw a bloodied cape, trimmed with fabulous gold braid embroidery, over her shoulders. ¡°Here,¡± he said. ¡°Him as owned this before won¡¯t be wanting it now.¡±


    She began to cry. Matthias was gone.


    In the far corner, the pregnant woman¡¯s grunting breaths, coming in bursts, transmuted into a sudden hiss of relief. The thin wail of a newborn baby pierced the noise and chaos of the hall.


    ¡°It¡¯s a boy!¡± someone shouted, and at once Lord Wichman was applied to for his permission that the woman might name her son Henry in honor of his dead cousin.


    Ai, Lady. Matthias was gone.


    He did not appear that day or the next among the dead pulled from fallen buildings nor among the living who crept out one by one from their hiding places. Amid such disaster, one boy¡¯s loss made little difference.


    VII


    BELOW THE MOON


    1


    BISCOP Antonia had a high regard for her own importance. Granddaughter of Queen Theodora (now deceased) of Karrone, youngest child of Duchess Ermoldia (now deceased) of Aquilegia, daughter of two fathers, Prince Pepin (now deceased) of Karrone who had sired her and Lord Gunther (now deceased) of Brixia who had raised her, most favored cleric of King Arnulf (now deceased), she had been ordained twenty years ago as biscop of Mainni when the previous biscop had suddenly died. Antonia did not like to be kept waiting.


    She was being kept waiting now, and in the most unsightly hovel, a small shepherd¡¯s cottage with a bare plank floor, unwashed walls, no carpet, and one narrow bench. On that bench she sat while Heribert stood by the single window and peered out between the cracks in the barred shutters. There was not even a fire in the hearth, and it was bitterly cold. Heribert shivered, thin shoulders shaking under an ermine-lined cloak and two thick wool tunics.


    ¡°Come away from the window,¡± she said.


    He hesitated, and she frowned. ¡°It¡¯s growing late,¡± he said. ¡°Rain has started falling again. It looks as if it¡¯s more ice than rain. If someone means to come, then they must do so soon or we will be left here in this Lady-forsaken place to face nightfall.¡±


    ¡°Heribert!¡±


    ¡°Yes, Your Grace.¡± Nervously, he touched the holy relics hanging in a pouch at his neck and backed away from the shutters.


    The roof was, thank the Lord, sound enough. No rain leaked through to drip on the uneven plank floor. A single lantern that hung from a hook by the hearth gave light to the single room. Antonia had not failed to notice that it had burned for hours now with no change in the level of oil. So, she supposed, their mysterious confederate meant to put them on notice that she¡ªor he¡ªhad arts of magic at her disposal. Someone not to be trifled with.


    As they are trifling with me!


    Antonia did not like to be trifled with. Only disobedience in those sworn to obey her annoyed her more. She glanced at Heribert, watched him pace back and forth before the cold hearth, now rubbing his arms. He sneezed and wiped his nose, and she hoped he was not getting sick. This frustration also nagged at her: Some of the magi knew arts by which a sorcerer could bring heat or cold. These were not arts she had mastered or even discovered the secrets of. The irritating thing about hidden words was that they were hidden, and difficult to dig out of whatever cave or ciphered manuscript or reluctant, stubborn mind she found them in.

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    Wind shook the cottage and rain lashed the walls and roof. Surely no one would venture out to this isolated hillside in such weather. Why had she responded to the summons? For weeks now they had been led through the hinterlands of Karrone and northernmost Aosta like idiot sheep. Lured by signs as elusive as sparrows, she found at each turn that these mysterious messages fluttered away just when she thought she might grab hold of them. But she had nowhere else to go. She could not return to Mainni, not yet, not now. The courts of King Henry of Wendar and Varre and Queen Marozia (her aunt) of Karrone were closed to her; they would only detain her again and send her south to Darre to await trial before the skopos. Many lesser nobles might take her in for a month or two, not yet knowing of the accusations made against her, but she hated living on the sufferance of others.


    If she could not clear herself, if the false and misguided testimony of others was to be used against her, then she would simply have to bide her time until she could rid herself of her enemies. Until that time, she followed such will-o¡¯-the-wisps as had led her here, to this Lady-forsaken cottage on a windswept barren hillside on the southern slopes of the Alfar Mountains. They had only reached the spot with difficulty; poor Heribert had had to walk alongside her mule up the rugged path that led here. Technically, she supposed, this cottage rested in the queendom of Karrone or perhaps on the northern boundaries of one of the Aostan principalities. But it was so isolated that in truth no princely jurisdiction reigned here, only that of wind and rain and the distant mercy of God in Unity.


    The latch snicked open. A gust of wind slammed the old door so hard against the wall that one of the door planks splintered. Heribert yelped out loud. He lifted a hand to point.


    She rose slowly. Biscop Antonia, granddaughter and niece of queens, did not show fear. Even if she were afraid.


    A thing loomed outside the door, not one of the dark spirits such as she had learned to compel but something other, something made of wind and light, shuddering as rain rippled its outlines and wind shredded its edges into tatters. It wore the form of an angel, of which humankind is but a pale wingless copy, and yet there was no holy Light in its eyes. By this means Antonia knew the creature was a daimone coerced down from a higher sphere to inhabit the mortal world for a brief measure of time.


    If a human hand could control such as this, then certainly she could learn to compel such creatures. She gestured Heribert to silence, for he was mumbling frantic prayers under his breath as he clutched his holy amulet.


    ¡°What is it you want?¡± she demanded. ¡°Whom do you serve?¡±


    The thing stretched as if against a hidden mesh of fine netting. I serve none, but I am bound here until this deed is accomplished.


    It had no true mouth but only the simulacrum of a mouth, a seeming, as its corporeal body was obviously more seeming than physical matter. The rain, now waning, fell through it as through a sieve. Beyond it, through it, she saw the stunted trees and wild gorse as through thick glass, distorted by the curves and waves of its form. It was as restless as the wind, chafing in a confined space. Antonia was entranced. Into how small a space could such a creature be bound until it screamed with agony? Would fire cause it to burn? Would iron and the metals of earth dispel it or obliterate it entirely? Would water wash it away or only, like the rain, pour through it as a river pours through a fisherman¡¯s net?


    ¡°Do you not serve that person who has bound you?¡± she demanded.


    I am not meant to be trapped here below the moon, it answered, but not with anger or frustration such as she understood. Such as humankind felt. It had no emotion in its voice she could comprehend.


    ¡°Ai, Lady,¡± murmured Heribert behind her, his voice made delicate by terror.


    ¡°Hush,¡± she said without turning to look at him. His sensitivity irritated her at times; this was one of them. Sometimes boys took too much of their nature from their father¡¯s transitory and fragile seed and not enough from their mother¡¯s generative blood. ¡°It cannot hurt us. It does not belong to this sphere, as any idiot can see. Now come forward and stand beside me.¡±


    He obeyed. It had been a long time since he had failed to obey her. But he shook. Those pale, soft, perfectly manicured hands clutched at her cloak and then, sensing her displeasure, he merely sniveled and twisted the rings on his fingers as though the fine gems encrusted in gold¡ªgems dug from the heavy earth¡ªcould protect him from this aery being.


    ¡°What is it you wish, daimone?¡± she asked the creature, and it swayed at the utterance of the word, ¡°daimone,¡± for any being, mortal or otherwise, is constrained by another¡¯s knowledge of its name and thus its essence.

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    I wish to be free of this place. It stretched again. The rain had passed and the wind lulled, but still its shape was blown and whipped by unseen and unfelt winds, perhaps not earthly winds at all but a memory of its home in the upper air, above the sphere of the moon. Come. I will lead you to the one who awaits you.


    ¡°Dare we go with it?¡± whispered Heribert, nearly on his knees with fright.


    ¡°Of course we dare!¡±


    In this way she had been punished for the one sin, the one occasion of weakness. She had been younger and not¡ªthen¡ªimmune to the desires of the flesh, though she had rid herself of such desires since that time some twenty-six years ago. And to have succumbed to his blandishments, of all people! His concupiscence was legendary. He simply could not keep his hands off women, of any station. Someday that desire would be his downfall, she sincerely hoped.


    The child gotten of the union she loved immoderately¡ªshe recognized that¡ªbut she also despised him, because he was weak. Yet he was hers, and she would take care of him. She had in the past, and she would in the future.


    ¡°Come, son,¡± she said sternly. Without more than a squeak, Heribert followed her over the threshold. The sky was clearing rapidly. The glowering front receded to the east, tearing itself to shreds against the imposing heights of the mountains. Behind it, ragged bands of high white clouds striped the sky.


    Like the storm, the daimone receded before her. It did not walk; neither did it fly. Like the wind, it simply moved across the land. Its humanlike shape bulged and shrank in conformity to its own nature or to the weather in some far-off clime. It moved up the hill on a muddy footpath, though it left no imprint of its passage except the disturbance in the air that was its presence. She followed, wondering what had become of the mule and the old laborer who had led her and Heribert up to this abandoned cottage. It was very very cold, far too cold to stay in the heights overnight. The laborer, cowed by her importance, had asked no questions and had himself no answers to give her, though she had compelled answers from him; he was as stupid as the beasts he shepherded.


    They walked until Heribert coughed as he labored upward and even Antonia felt winded. The daimone, of course, showed no sign of strain; it could easily have outpaced them, but did not. Antonia wondered if such creatures felt impatience. Was it without sin, as all humanfolk were not? Or was it beyond salvation, soulless, as some in the church claimed?


    They crossed a field of rubble.


    ¡°It¡¯s an old fort,¡± said Heribert, his words more breath than voice; he coughed more frequently as they climbed higher. But she heard spirit in his voice. Old buildings were his passion; had she not forbidden it, he would have left her to train as an architect and builder in the school at Darre or traveled even as far as Kellai in Arethousa to become an apprentice in the schools there. But if he went so far away from her, then she could not watch over him. Now, of course, he never questioned her at all.


    He paused, leaning on dressed stone tumbled to the ground, and surveyed the ruins. ¡°It is an old Dariyan fort. I recognize the pattern.¡±


    ¡°Come,¡± she said. The daimone had not waited; it coursed ahead like a hound that has scented its prey. ¡°Come, Heribert.¡± With a wrench, he pulled himself away from this strange ruin, an old fort lost¡ªor abandoned¡ªin such desolate country.


    They climbed and, in the odd way of slopes in such country, ground that seemed level ahead proved to be the crest of a hill. Coming over it, they saw in the vale below a ring of standing stones.


    ¡°A crown!¡± breathed Heribert. He stared.


    Antonia gazed with astonishment. Broken circles she had seen aplenty; they were well known in the border duchy of Arconia at whose westernmost border stood the city of Mainni¡ªacross the river to the west of the cathedral lay the kingdom of Salia. But this circle stood upright, as if it had been built yesterday. It did indeed have a superficial resemblance to a giant¡¯s crown half buried in the earth, but that was peasant superstition, and Antonia despised the credulity of the common folk.


    The daimone surged down through bracken; bare twigs whipped at its passing as if a gale had torn through them. She sent Heribert to find a trail, and on this paltry track¡ªthe poor lad had to beat back as much undergrowth as if there had been no path at all¡ªthey descended into the vale. Down in the bowl the wind slackened to silence, and the undergrowth gave way to a lawn of fine grass clipped as short as if sheep had grazed here recently.


    The daimone circled the standing stones and paused before a narrow gateway made of two upright stones with a lintel placed over them. Air boiled where the creature stood, like a cloud of translucent insects swarming. Antonia halted just far enough away from it and looked in through the flat gateway toward the center of the stone circle. She felt, in her bones and as a throbbing in the soles of her feet, the power that hummed from the circle. The ground here was impossibly flat, as if it had been leveled by human labor¡ªor some other force.

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    Heribert gazed at the sky, then at the circle, and whispered, ¡°It¡¯s the eastern-facing doorway. Does that mean something?¡±


    ¡°Of course it means something,¡± she said. ¡°It means this doorway looks toward the rising sun, perhaps at midwinter or midsummer.¡±


    He shuddered. As the sun set behind the hills opposite them, west across the eerie architecture of stones, it threw long shadows out from the stones that made weird patterns, almost like writing, on the short grass. The rising moon, its pale face lifting above the distant mountains, heralded night.


    Enter by this gate, said the daimone.


    ¡°Certainly,¡± said Antonia graciously. ¡°I will follow you.¡±


    I go no further. I cannot enter the halls of iron. My task is done once I have guided you here.


    ¡°If we choose not to go?¡±


    It vanished. One moment its disturbance roiled the air, the next the sun slipped down below the hills and the moon breathed paler light across a landscape empty of wind or the pulsation of air that had marked the daimone¡¯s presence.


    ¡°What do we do?¡± whimpered Heribert, shivering harder. ¡°We don¡¯t know what¡¯s in there. How could anyone drag such huge stones up these foothills?¡±


    ¡°We enter,¡± said Antonia calmly. ¡°We have no fire, no food, no shelter. We¡¯ll freeze out here. We have chosen to put ourselves at the mercy of our mysterious correspondent. We must go forward.¡± And take our revenge for this insulting treatment later, she finished in her own thoughts. Such sentiments she could not share with poor, weak Heribert.


    She did not wait for him to go first. They would be here all night while he gathered up his courage. ¡°Take hold of my cloak,¡± she said, ¡°so that we can by no means become separated.¡±


    ¡°But it¡¯s only a stone circle. We¡¯ll freeze¡ª!¡±


    When she walked under the threshold, the heavy stone lintel almost brushed her head; Heribert had to duck. But they did not come out into the empty center of the circle with the twilit sky above them and tattered clouds blowing past the rising moon.


    Once under the circle, once circled by stone¡ªbelow her feet, above her head, and on her right and left¡ªthey crossed into earth without any obvious transition. They walked into a darkness relieved only by a pale globe receding before them¡ªthe constant moon¡ªand yet when she put her hands out to either side she pressed stone walls, ragged to her touch. Stone made a ceiling above them, and smooth paving led their feet forward into the hidden dark.


    Heribert caught in his breath and tugged at her cloak. ¡°We¡¯re in a tunnel!¡± he gasped.


    ¡°Come,¡± she said, more impressed than afraid. ¡°This is powerful magic. Let us see where it leads us.¡±


    2


    THERE are spirits burning in the air with wings of flame and eyes as brilliant as knives. They move on the winds that blow above the sphere of the moon, and now and again their gaze falls like the strike of lightning to the earth below, where it sears anything it touches. Their voices have the snap of fire and their bodies are the conjoining of fire and wind, the breath of the sun coalesced into mind and will.


    All this she sees inside the vision made by fire. Here she runs as would a mouse, silent and watchful, staying in the shadows. She braves the unknown passageways and the vast hidden halls where other creatures lurk. This skill alone¡ªthat of seeing through fire¡ªDa did not strip from her, or perhaps the skill manifested only because Da died. It may be all that saves her, if she can learn to use it to spy on those who seek her out, to hide herself from whatever¡ªwhomever¡ªmurdered Da.


    It may even be that someone who also can see within the vision made by fire can help her. Can save her.


    Ai, Lady, no one can save her. Hugh has returned, as he promised he would. How foolish she was to think she had escaped him. All this time she thought she had at last won free of him, but she cannot now and never will be free of him on the realm of earth where his power is vast and hers insignificant, only here, in the vision made by fire, where he cannot follow her. And in the vision made by fire, other things stalk her.


    She needs help so desperately and she does not know where to turn.


    Through the endless twisting halls she seeks the gateway that will lead her to the old Aoi sorcerer.


    There! Seen in shadow, in a dark dry corridor walled in stone, she sees two people walking, searching as she is.


    There! A boy sleeps with six companions, heads pillowed on stone, feet and knees covered by heaps of treasure, armbands of beaten gold, rings, gems, vessels poured out of the silver of moonlight, and smooth scarlet beads that are dragon¡¯s blood turned to stone with exposure to the air.

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    There! Creatures move and crawl among the tunnels, misshapen knuckles tamping down soil clawed from the dank walls. Like the Eika, they seem fashioned more of metal and soil than of the higher elements, trapped forever by the weight of earth that courses through their blood and hardens their bones.


    When she at last finds the burning stone that marks the gateway to the old sorcerer, he no longer sits beside it rolling strands of flax into rope against his thigh. He has left that place, and she does not know where to find him. But she has to keep looking. Because he is one of the Lost Ones, he is not human and surely therefore not bound to human concerns, to human intrigues and jealousies, to human lusts for power and possession. He might know the answer. He might know the pattern of the paths she must unravel.


    Perhaps Da left her a message here, secreted in the labyrinth in such a way that she alone can find it. He must have prepared for this, knowing he might be gone and that she yet lived. Behind the locked door in her tower in her City of Memory there burns a fiery light; is it Da¡¯s magic, hidden away? Is it the living manifestation of the spell he cast over her? If she had the key, could she open the door? Did Da hide the key here, somewhere in these halls whose pathways she cannot trace unless she explores them?


    And yet, what will happen if she does unlock the door?


    A whisper of breath touches the back of her neck. She shudders. Her back stings as if, simply by closing in on her, the creature blisters her with its poisonous intent. Is this what Da felt? Some thing always getting closer, always coming up behind him? Did he know it would kill him in the end?


    She begins to run through the halls seen in the vision made by fire, although on the realm of earth her body sits silent and still in front of a roaring campfire. But the creature is stronger than she is, here, in this place. It knows these paths, and it is looking for her.


    ¡°Liath.¡±


    It knows her name. She flees, but there is nowhere to go. Da used his magic to conceal her from their eyes on the realm of earth, but here she is vulnerable to their sight¡ª and there, where she is hidden from them, she is vulnerable to Hugh.


    Fear leaps and burns in her heart like wildfire. She is lost. Gasping, weeping, she forces herself to stop. She turns to face what stalks her, but she sees no thing, no shadow, no creature or human form; yet she knows it has marked her and that it closes in. It wants her. The air itself carries the sound of her breathing, the simple heat of her being, to the ears of that which listens for her.


    This¡ªone creature or many working in concert¡ªkilled Da.


    She feels their breath like air stirred by an arrow, an arrow whose sharp point seeks her heart. In this place, she has no weapons.


    Nay, she has one weapon here: the gift given to her by the old Aoi sorcerer.


    ¡°Ai, Lady,¡± she breathes, a prayer for strength. Closing her hand around the gold feather, she escapes the maze.


    3


    SIDE paths fainter than the breath of a dying baby teased Antonia¡¯s vision, but she could catch only glimpses of what lay down their paths: halls piled with treasure; a sleeping boy; a young woman running in fear; the fading image of an old, old monk with one hand laid tenderly upon a book while the other lifts to ward off the clutching fingers of daimones whose insubstantial hands reach right inside his body for whatever secret he has hidden within his heart. A hound barked. An owl hooted and struck in the depths of night. A man¡ªno man, but an elven prince armed in the style of the ancient Dariyans¡ªfought to save a burning fort from the assault of the savage Bwrmen and their human allies. A dragon slept in enchanted sleep beneath a ridge of stone. A young man sat in sunlight and surveyed the quiet sea. Did she recognize him? The vision was too brief for her to look more closely.


    Were these glimpses of the past or the future or the present?


    She could not know. She was entirely lost; she knew that she existed only because her son dragged at her cloak. At least his terror was so great that he was mercifully silent rather than gibbering prayers and psalms.


    God would see them to safety, or God would see them dead.


    If the first, then certainly she would discover the secrets of this place and bind to herself the knowledge of how to coerce daimones down from the upper air and lead unsuspecting souls into a prison as torturous as this. She fully expected the Abyss to open at her feet at any moment and give her a gratifying vision of the punishment of the damned.


    If the second, then she was content to know that her soul¡ªand that of her son, of course¡ªwould ascend as did the souls of all the righteous to the Chamber of Light beyond the seven spheres.


    Stairs opened before them. Wind brushed her face. The pale round moon wavered before her eyes, high above, and she realized with a start that she was looking up the stairs to the world above, to an actual night sky now shot through with stars. Behind her, Heribert moaned slightly as she had heard laboring women do when the child was, at long last, finally and safely birthed.

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    She shook him off brusquely and climbed the stairs. He came up so close behind that his boots clipped her heels but, this once, she did not berate him for his carelessness. She sensed that at long last they had come to the place where she would learn what she wanted to know.


    The stairs brought them up out of the earth into the center of a small stone circle, seven stones placed equidistant from each other on a grassy sward. Beyond, like hulking beasts against the heavens, three mountains loomed. They had not returned to the first stone circle, that was obvious, but Antonia guessed they still walked among the Alfar Mountains.


    Her second thought, unbidden and unwelcome, was that it was surely no longer late autumn. The air was clement, the night mellow and almost warm. But the moon remained full, much farther gone in the sky than it had been when they entered the first stone circle. They had walked beneath the earth, guided by the moon¡¯s distant light, for many hours¡ªand it was nearing dawn.


    The stone circle stood on a low hill. Beyond, down the slope and half hidden by trees, stood several buildings. The sinking moon still gave enough light that she could make out the rest of the little valley: a copse of lush trees, a few neat strips of cultivated field, a vineyard, squat boxes for bees, a chicken shed, and the leaning wall of a stable set into the steep side of a mountain. A single lantern burned by the gate that led into the enclosure. A stream whispered, murmuring, in the distance. High cliff walls enclosed them, shutting out half the night sky in which stars dazzled, uncloaked by any sign of cloud.


    A hand brushed her cheek and she started. ¡°Heribert.¡±


    He stood three steps behind her, too far away to have touched her. He seemed to have been struck dumb.


    ¡°Biscop Antonia.¡± The speaker stepped out from behind one of the stones and made the gesture that in the sign language of the convent signified Welcome. She gave no obeisance. ¡°I am glad you chose to follow my messenger.¡±


    ¡°Who are you?¡± demanded Antonia, annoyed by her lack of deference. ¡°Are you the one who has led us this far?¡± She had many more questions, but she knew better than to ask them all at once.


    ¡°I am the one who has brought you here, for I have seen your promise.¡±


    Promise! Antonia snorted, but held her tongue.


    ¡°You may call me Caput Draconis.¡±


    ¡°The head of the dragon? A strange name, or title, to give oneself.¡±


    ¡°A strange road has brought us all here, and we must tread stranger and more dangerous paths yet if we are to succeed. You are not trained as a mathematicus?¡± The question was, in fact, a statement, waiting on Antonia¡¯s acknowledgment.


    ¡°I know that the constellation known as the Dragon is the sixth House in the great circle of the zodiac, itself called the world dragon that binds the heavens.¡± Antonia did not like to be toyed with in this manner. She did not like to be reminded that others might know things she did not.


    ¡°So it is. And it wields its own power. But the stars do not in their movements gather as much power as do the seven erratica, which we know as the planets: Moon, Erekes, Somorhas, Sun, Jedu, Mok, and Aturna. I speak of the ascending and descending nodes of the moon, where that vessel crosses the plane of the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the path on which the planets move, which we also call the world dragon that binds the heavens. South to north the moon ascends across the ecliptic, and that is the caput draconis, the head of the dragon. North to south she descends, and that is the cauda draconis, the tail. Every twenty-seven days, in the sphere above us, the moon moves from caput to cauda and back again. In every movement we observe in the heavens, there is power to be taken and used.¡±


    ¡°And these are the secrets hoarded by the mathematici? By such as you?¡±


    The woman lifted her hands, palms up and open, empty, to reveal that she needed no weapon cast of brute metal or grown out of earth in order to triumph over her adversaries.


    ¡°The teachings of the mathematici are forbidden by the church,¡± Antonia added.


    ¡°And you were being sent to Darre to stand trial before the skopos on the charge of maleficent sorceries whose use is forbidden by the church. I know of you, Antonia. I know your skills. I need them.¡±


    ¡°I tire of this portentousness,¡± said Antonia bluntly. ¡°Did you compel the daimone? Can you teach me such power?¡±


    ¡°Indeed I can, and more besides. Your great talent is for coercion. I need that talent, for I only possess it in small measure.¡±


    ¡°You have drawn down and trapped a daimone! Is that, to you, possessing only a ¡®small measure¡¯ of talent?¡±


    ¡°For compulsion, yes. With the others I can draw down such creatures, but our ability to coerce them is sorely limited. The one you met we could only command to a single task¡ªto find you and guide you to the circle by whose path you then came here. But I cannot, as you evidently can, command spirits and beasts to kill¡ªunless it is already their own desire to do so.¡±

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    ¡°Is that what you want? To kill someone?¡±


    The other woman smiled slightly.


    ¡°At what do you wish to succeed, Caput Draconis?¡± Antonia said, curious now. She hated being curious. It put her at a disadvantage.


    ¡°I want only that we might all become closer to God,¡± murmured the woman.


    ¡°A worthy goal,¡± agreed Antonia. The moon set, and with its passing came the first glimmers of dawn. A bird sang. Stars had faded. Clouds massed now at the second of the three snow-covered peaks that guarded one side of the little valley. Thin streamers of mist rose from the ground and seemed to coalesce into shapes with human limbs and human hands and half-formed human faces. But that surely was only a trick of the light.


    ¡°But I must know if you have the strength and the will to aid us,¡± continued the woman, looking past Antonia to what stood behind her. ¡°Some offering. Some sacrifice ¡­¡±


    Antonia knew at once, and a small fire of anger bloomed inside her. Such presumption! ¡°Not that,¡± she said. ¡°Not him.¡± She refused to show weakness by turning to make sure Heribert was still in one piece.


    Now there was enough light for Antonia to see the other woman¡¯s face: pale of complexion, it had a certain distant familiarity about it¡ªbut, as with the sparrows, she could not grasp how she knew it. She could have been as old as Antonia or as young as Heribert; no obvious sign of age, or of youth, marked her. Her hair remained tucked away in a scarf of gold linen. She wore a fine silk tunic dyed a rich indigo and leather shoes trimmed with gold braid. At her throat she wore the golden torque that signified royal kinship in the realms of Wendar and Varre and Salia. Though the granddaughter and niece of queens, Antonia had no right to such a symbol of her royal kinship. Karrone had been a principality allied to Salia not three generations ago, in the time of Queen Berta the Cunning. Berta had been the first of its rulers to style herself ¡°Queen.¡± Neither did the petty princes of the many warring states of Aosta wear the torque. They, too, could not trace their royal blood back to the forebears of the legendary Emperor Taillefer.


    ¡°Very well,¡± said the woman. ¡°Not him. But let that, then, be your first lesson. That is why you are neither caput nor cauda draconis but rather seventh and least of our order. You can only take as much power as you are willing to give of yourself.¡±


    Antonia did not agree, but she was too wise to say so out loud. She gestured to Heribert, and he crept up beside her. She noted with some approval that, though he was silent and certainly quite frightened, he held himself straight and with the pride of a man who will not bow before fear. Or perhaps he had been stricken dumb by a spell thrown on him by this woman. He was not, as was his habit when nervous, murmuring a prayer.


    ¡°What do you want from me, then?¡± asked Antonia.


    ¡°I need a seventh. I need a person who has strong natural powers of compulsion, as you do. I am trying to find a certain person and bring that person here, to me.¡±


    Antonia thought about power. Imagine how much good she could do with greater powers, with the ability to compel others to act as she knew they truly wanted to. She could return order to the kingdom, return herself to her rightful place as biscop and Sabella to the throne that was lawfully hers. She could go farther even than that: She could become skopos and restore the rule of God as it ought to be observed. ¡°Let us imagine that I agree to join you. What happens then?¡±


    ¡°To come into our Order you must give something.¡±


    ¡°What is that?¡±


    ¡°You would not give me the young man. So give me your name, the secret, true name your father whispered in your ear as is every father¡¯s right when a child is born of his begetting.¡±


    Antonia flushed, truly angry now. This was impertinence, even from a woman who wore the golden torque. Although by what right she wore that torque Antonia, who knew the royal lineages of five kingdoms as if they were her own names, could not guess. ¡°My father is dead,¡± said Antonia icily. ¡°Both of my fathers. He who sired me died before I could walk or speak.¡±


    ¡°But you know.¡±


    She knew.


    And she wanted the power. She wanted the knowledge. She could do so much with it. So much that needed to be done.


    She spoke it, finally. After all, Prince Pepin had not lived long afterward. His spite could not haunt her, for it had fallen with him into the pit.


    ¡°Venenia.¡± Poison.


    The woman inclined her head respectfully. ¡°So shall you be called Venia, kindness, in memory of that naming and to honor a new beginning. Come, Sister Venia.¡± She stepped outside the circle of stones. They followed her out onto grass moist with dew. Heribert gaped and knelt to touch, wonderingly, a violet.

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    ¡°Come,¡± repeated the woman as she set off along a well-worn path that wound down the gentle slope toward the buildings below. A man dressed simply in a tunic and drawers came out to the gate and snuffed the lantern. Goats left the shed and moved in a mass¡ªherded by what manner of creature Antonia could not tell¡ªup into the gorse and heather.


    ¡°It¡¯s so beautiful,¡± breathed Heribert.


    It was beautiful as the sun rose and light washed over the little valley, all greens and rich browns, with a rushing stream bubbling and boiling through pastureland. The woman smiled at the young cleric, then continued down. Heribert hurried after her. Antonia lingered, staring at the peaks as the sun, rising in the east, set their proud heads glaring, ice glinting fire. She recognized them now, those three high peaks: Young Wife, Monk¡¯s Ridge, and Terror. Just over the steep, impassable ridge on which the goats grazed so peacefully rested the hostel run by the monks of St. Servitius, hospitable souls making shelter for those travelers who braved St. Barnaria Pass.


    VIII


    THE HARVEST


    1


    ALAIN sat on Dragonback Ridge, halfway down the spine of the Dragon¡¯s Tail, and watched the surge and fall of waves on the shore. Rage and Sorrow sat beside him, tongues out to catch the wind off the bay. Two men-at-arms loitered at a discreet distance. A seagull circled in the wind over the water; a tern took careful steps through the surf on the gravelly beach below. To the left, along the curve of the beach where it grew sandier, ships lay at their winter¡¯s rest, set up on logs. Out in the surge, dark heads bobbed in the swells: seals ¡­ or mermen.


    He scanned the distant islands, studded like jewels along the horizon, where fishermen and merchants might take refuge in times of storm if they were out on the open sea. He had survived a storm, caught out on these heights. That storm had changed his life.


    After hunting, Lavastine and his retinue had ridden to the ruins of Dragon¡¯s Tail Monastery. Alain could not imagine what his father expected to find there. Surely the villagers had gleaned from the wreckage every last unscorched bench and table and scrap of cloth, beehives, paving stones, spoons, knives, bowls, lanterns, candle wax and candles, salt basins, pickaxes, spades, hatchets, sickles, pothooks, baskets, shingles, all the fine small tools of the scribe¡¯s trade, parchment leaves scattered from books whose jeweled covers had been ripped off and carried away by the Eika raiders. Anything that could be hauled would have been taken away and put to use, or shipped to Medemelacha for trade.


    But the sight of the destroyed monastery had upset Alain so much that Lavastine had allowed him to go on ahead. Alain could have walked the long path along the rocky ridge all the way to Osna village but now, as he stared at the sleeping ships below, he knew he was afraid to meet the man he had called ¡°Father¡± for most of his life.


    He shut his eyes. The wash of late autumn sun was not warm enough to heat his fingers. The hounds whined; Sorrow stuck her moist nose into Alain¡¯s palm. He set that palm down on gritty rock. In the old story, a Dariyan emperor versed in magic had come to this land and turned a dragon into stone, into this very ridge that swelled from the head up across a great back and down to the tip of the tail¡ªwhere lay the now-burned monastery. Was there a dragon lying in enchanted sleep beneath this rock? If he stayed still enough, could he feel the pulse of the dragon¡¯s heart¡ªor only the fine grains of rock ground by wind, rain, and time into granules that crunched under a man¡¯s boot?


    As a boy, he had climbed this ridge many times, seeking a sign of the dragon¡¯s presence. He had never found any, and Aunt Bel had told him more times than he could count that he dreamed so much he was as likely to stumble off the edge of the path and into the waters below as make his way safely through the world. ¡°The world is here, Alain¡± she would say, knocking on the tabletop with her knuckles, then doing the same, sharply, to his head, ¡°not here, though I think sometimes this table and your head are made of the same thing.¡± But she would smile to take the sting out of the words.


    But if he only had the hearing of Fifth Brother, the keen hound sense of Rage and Sorrow, could he not hear the dragon¡¯s breath under the weight of earth? Sense the contour of its spine under rock, the texture of its scales under dirt? Touch its dreaming mind, so like to his own?


    The earth shuddered and moved beneath him.


    He jumped to his feet, shaken and frightened. Rage barked and Sorrow howled, as if baying at the absent moon. The two men-at-arms hurried forward.


    ¡°My lord Alain, are you well? What is it?¡± They kept well clear of the hounds, who snuffled at rock and dirt, ignoring the soldiers.

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    ¡°Did you feel it?¡±


    ¡°Ah, yes.¡± The men turned as the faint jingle of harness, the clop of hooves, and a murmur of jovial voices drifted up to them. ¡°You¡¯ve good hearing, my lord, as good as those hounds, I¡¯d wager. There come my lord count and the others.¡±


    Count Lavastine and his company emerged from the winter forest and made their way up the path to the high ridge. Even after two months on the road fighting Eika and mopping up ragtag packs of bandits, and after a week of hunting in the dense forest a day¡¯s ride east of here, the count and his retinue still looked impressive with banners flying and dressed in tabards dyed bright blue and embroidered with two black hounds¡ªthe mark of the Lavas counts. Count Lavastine let none of his personal guard go into battle unarmed, and each man had at least a helmet decorated with blue ribands, a spear and a knife, and a padded coat under the tabard. Some, if they could afford it or had been lucky enough to glean such winnings from the field, had more armor: a boiled leather coat or a scale hauberk, a leather aventail, even leather bindings on their arms and legs. Like any good lord, Lavastine was generous with his winnings and always gave his men-at-arms their fair share of the spoils.


    Alain mounted his horse and rode dutifully alongside his father. They crested the dragon¡¯s back and started down the slope of shoulders and neck. A jutting boulder at the base of the ridge, lifting the height of three men, was commonly called the dragon¡¯s head; it was crowned with a scraggly yew tree and the stubble of old climbing roses, planted years ago.


    By this boulder the people of Osna village waited to greet Count Lavastine. Osna village was an emporium¡ªa trading port¡ªand as such it needed protection. Count Lavastine provided that protection ¡­ at a price levied in goods and services. And in any case, as Aunt Bel used to say, ¡°It¡¯s wisest to greet politely those as have better weapons than you do.¡±


    Everyone stared at him. Embarrassed, he fixed his gaze on the reins twisted across his palm, but he still heard whispers, his name a mutter in the background.


    They rode through the palisade gate and past the fields, halting in front of the church made proud and handsome by the contributions of Osna¡¯s wealthiest families. But their wealth was nothing compared to the wealth he had seen at Biscop Constance¡¯s palace and at the king¡¯s court, or to that he enjoyed every day as heir to a count.


    The rough-hewn longhouses, built of undressed logs patched with mud and sticks, looked shabby compared to the palaces of the nobly born. Yet weren¡¯t they good houses built of good timber by the willing hands of good people? He had always thought himself well off when he lived here¡ªthough he had forgotten how strongly the village smelled of fish.


    Was it pride that made him see modest Osna village differently now? Or only the experience of the wider world?


    Deacon Miria declaimed a formal welcome. Count Lavastine dismounted, and Alain hurried to do the same, handing his reins to a groom but keeping a firm hold on the leashes of the hounds. He looked about him, then, and saw many familiar faces, people he had grown up with, people he knew well¡­.


    But he saw not a single member of his family.


    Not my family any longer.


    Not one of them stood among the crowd.


    ¡°Come, my lord,¡± said Deacon Miria. ¡°I trust you will find the lodgings here in Osna village not beneath your notice.¡± She led them away ¡­ to Mistress Garia¡¯s long-house. The men-at-arms remained behind to be dispersed into other households.


    Why were they not honoring Aunt Bel with their presence?


    Their path gave him a view of the entrance to Aunt Bel¡¯s longhouse. A woman stood in the threshold, a ladle in one hand and the other holding a toddler on one hip. It was not Aunt Bel.


    Why was old Mistress Garia¡¯s daughter standing in the entrance of Aunt Bel¡¯s house as if she lived there?


    Afternoon eased into dusk. Garia and her daughters laid out a feast at which her own sons and grandsons served the count, his heir, and his most honored retainers.


    Though a feast by Osna standards, it was poorer fare by far than the feast celebrated at Lady Aldegund¡¯s manor. The bread was dark, not white; besides the ubiquitous fish, there were only two kinds of meat, pig and veal, and they were spiced only with pepper and such herbs as could be found locally; there were apples baked in honey but no sweet custard to melt on his lips. He blushed, thinking of the servingwoman and what she had wanted.


    At a remove between courses, Mistress Garia came forward to offer Count Lavastine her eldest grandson as a retainer, to serve the count as a permanent member of his guard. ¡°It is hard, indeed, my lord, to find places for all my grandsons. Our Lady has blessed my line with many healthy children, but the girls will inherit the workshop, and we do not yet have the means, as some do¡ª¡± For the first time, her gaze darted to touch on Alain¡¯s face, then away. ¡°¡ªto build another ship. Meanwhile, the boy is almost sixteen. I hope you will honor us with your notice.¡±

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    Your notice.


    At those innocuous words, every person present turned to stare at Alain. ¡°I¡ª¡± he started to say.


    Lavastine raised a hand. Alain fell silent. ¡°In the spring, I will know my requirements. I will send word with my chatelaine, Mistress Dhuoda, when she comes around on her usual progress.¡±


    Terror stood, baring his teeth, and Mistress Garia drew back, frightened. Alain quieted the hound and got him to lie down. Sorrow nudged up against him, sticking his head under Alain¡¯s hand for a caress. The company returned their attention, firmly, to the table.


    After the main courses, instead of entertainment, Count Lavastine questioned the townsfolk of Osna about the Eika.


    Two Eika ships had been sighted the summer after the monastery had been sacked, another three this past summer, but they had all sailed by Osna Sound, keeping out beyond the islands. No reports had come of villages nearby being burned; no one had heard any rumors of winter encampments. A forester¡ªone of Garia¡¯s cousin¡¯s sons who ranged wide looking for game and exceptional stands of timber¡ªhad seen nothing along the coast for two days¡¯ walk in either direction, nor had he heard tales from those he met on his travels.


    Lavastine questioned the merchants in greater detail, and from them he heard more varied stories. None had himself run afoul of Eika, but merchants traded not just goods but gossip. Four Eika ships poised along the coast just north of the rich emporium of Medemelacha had suddenly turned north and sailed away. A noble¡¯s castle in Salia had been the scene of a vicious attack; one city had held out two months against a siege; refugees from a monastery burned on the island kingdom of Alba had arrived in a skin boat in Medemelacha late in the summer with an awful tale of slaughter and looting.


    Alain sat dutifully and listened, but what he most wanted to ask he dared not ask: Where was Henri? Why did he not sit among the Osna merchants? What had happened to his family?


    Not my family any longer.


    Mistress Garia¡¯s bed, the best in the house, was given to the count and his heir for the night. Their servants commandeered pallets or slept on the floor around them, and, in the warmth of the longhouse with a hearth burning throughout the cold late autumn¡¯s night, all were comfortable. The smell of old timber, the wreath of smoke curling along the roof beams, the smell of babies and sour milk nearby and of livestock crowded into the other end of the hall comforted Alain; they reminded him of his childhood. He had slept in such a house for many years, and his dreams had been good ones.


    In the morning he drew Deacon Miria aside as the grooms saddled the horses and the soldiers made ready to leave. ¡°Where are Bella and Henri? What has become of them and the family?¡±


    ¡°Alain!¡± Lavastine had already mounted and now gestured impatiently for Alain to join him.


    ¡°You¡¯re a good boy, Alain, to ask after them,¡± she replied with a look compounded of sympathy, distaste, and amusement. Then she recalled to whom she was now speaking. ¡°My lord.¡±


    ¡°But where are they?¡±


    ¡°At the old steward¡¯s house. They come to Mass each week faithfully, but many of the others can¡¯t forgive them their good fortune.¡±


    ¡°Alain!¡±


    ¡°Thank you!¡± He would have kissed the old deacon on the cheek but he was not sure, with so many folk standing about and staring, if the gesture was one he was now allowed to make. She inclined her head with formal dignity.


    He mounted. As the count and his retinue rode out of the village, children trotted at a safe distance behind them, giggling and pointing and shouting.


    ¡°What did you ask?¡± demanded Lavastine.


    They rode past the stink of pig sties and the winter shelters for the sheep and cows. They crossed through the southern palisade gate and skirted the stream which was bounded on its eastern shore by a small tannery and the village slaughterhouse¡ªstill busy with the butchering of the animals who couldn¡¯t be wintered over. Alain held a hand over his nose and mouth until they got downwind. If the stench bothered Lavastine, he did not show it; his attention remained focused on Alain.


    ¡°I asked about my foster family,¡± said Alain at last, lowering his hand. ¡°I found out where they¡¯ve gone to.¡±


    ¡°They¡¯ve gone somewhere?¡± Lavastine said without much curiosity, although for an established family to pick up and move was unheard of.


    ¡°They¡¯ve taken the steward¡¯s house¡­.¡± He hurried on since Lavastine clearly did not know what he meant. ¡°It¡¯s a small manor house. It was built in Emperor Taillefer¡¯s reign for the steward who oversaw these lands then. That was before the port was established. An old man lived there. He was the grandson of the last steward, but he¡¯d little to keep and no servants ¡­ the fields went fallow. And he¡¯d no ship to send out, though there¡¯s a decent landing spot below the house.¡±

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    ¡°Make your point, son, if there is one you intend.¡±


    But the road made Alain¡¯s point for him: The packed-dirt way forked ahead. The wider left fork continued south, where it would eventually veer east to join the road that took the traveler to Lavas Holding.


    ¡°The path to the right leads to the steward¡¯s house, which lies down in a sheltered vale by the bay.¡±


    ¡°And?¡±


    But Alain knew he would never forgive himself if he did not see them. ¡°I beg you, Father, may we go see them?¡±


    Lavastine blinked. He looked, for an instant, the way a man might who has just been told that his wife has given birth not to a child but to a puppy. But he pulled up his horse just before the fork in the road, and his soldiers, obedient, halted behind him.


    Alain¡¯s breath ran shallow as he tried desperately to hold back further words, but could not. ¡°I beg you,¡± he burst out. ¡°Just this one time.¡±


    Alain knew of no window into Lavastine¡¯s soul and thoughts. His curt speech, his brusque gestures, his impatience and his efficiency, all melded into a whole so seamless that Alain could only suppose, as the church taught, that the outer man mirrors the inner. Only Frater Agius had taught differently: that an outer seeming might mask the inner heart¡ªjust as pious Agius had, until the end, concealed his belief in the heretical doctrine of the flaying knife and the death and redemption of the blessed Daisan.


    ¡°Very well,¡± said Lavastine crisply. Whether he approved this course or disliked it Alain could not have said, nor did he really wish to know. He had to see Aunt Bel and Stancy and Julien and little Agnes and the baby, if it still lived. He had to speak with Henri, to be sure that he didn¡¯t¡ª


    Didn¡¯t what?


    Didn¡¯t condemn him as an oath breaker for not entering the church?


    He took in a breath and started forward. His mare, a meek creature at the best of times, picked her way through the litter of leaves shrouding the trail. Lavastine let him lead their little cavalcade down the narrow path that wound through oak and silvery birch, maple and beech. He saw the outline of buildings past bare branches, a small estate with a house, stables, cookhouse, and outbuildings set around an open court that could also serve as corral. They passed out of the forest and into the scrub surrounding the estate, stumps not yet burned and dug out, brushy undergrowth and new seedlings struggling up toward the light, strips of field cut out of the brush, wisps of winter wheat growing in neat green rows along soil ridges.


    It took him a moment to recognize the young man standing in unmown grass at one end of a long log set up on sawbucks. Stripped of bark and being planed down to an even curved round, the log had the lean supple strength necessary for a mast. At the far end of the log, scraping, stood Henri, his back to the road; Alain knew him instantly. The young man at the near end had the broad shoulders of a soldier, but when he turned to stare, Alain realized this was his cousin Julien, filled out to a man¡¯s stature now and half a head taller than he had been two winters ago.


    Julien saw the cavalcade and cried out so loudly that first two children and then Aunt Bel came to the door of the house; several laborers Alain did not recognize emerged from the workshop. Henri looked up once and with a deliberate shrug went back to his work. But the others flooded out, all of them, Aunt Bel and Stancy, and little Agnes looking more like a woman than the girl Alain remembered. Even the baby toddled out, curly fair hair wound down around thin shoulders. Stancy had a new baby in a sling at her hips. A woman in the robes of a cleric hurried forward to stand next to Aunt Bel. A small child Alain did not recognize stood, mouth open and stick upraised, forgetting the geese she had been set to watch over. The birds strayed into the woods, but only Alain noticed because everyone else was staring at him.


    Aunt Bel walked forward to place herself between her family and the count¡¯s entourage. She folded her hands respectfully before her and inclined her head in the same manner, not quite as an equal but neither as a servant. ¡°My lord count, I give you and your company greetings to this house.¡±


    ¡°Mistress Bella,¡± said Lavastine in acknowledgment, a fine mark of notice since Alain hadn¡¯t imagined the count remembered her name.


    The cleric murmured a blessing upon them all.


    The geese were wandering unnoticed back in among the trees while the child gawped at the soldiers in their blue tabards and at the banners that fluttered in the breeze.


    ¡°The geese!¡± Alain blurted as the first one vanished from his sight. There was a sudden flurry in the crowd. The goosegirl began to sob, frozen in place. Julien ran toward the wood, but that only startled the geese and sent some flapping every which way while the others hissed and snapped; one bit a laborer hard on the fingers.

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    Alain dismounted and flung his reins to a groom. ¡°Move back,¡± he said to the laborer and the few children who had pressed forward. ¡°Down,¡± he called to the hounds, who had started to bark and strain against their leashes. They stilled obediently. ¡°Julien!¡± he scolded, coming up beside his cousin, ¡°you know that¡¯s no way to bring in geese.¡±


    ¡°Yes, my lord,¡± mumbled Julien, red in the face.


    Alain blushed. Had he sounded so proud? But the geese were scattering and the goosegirl had now hunkered down on her haunches and started bawling outright. He squatted beside her. ¡°Hush, child.¡± He reached out to touch her dirty chin. ¡°This will not bring them back. Now you go stand there, by the gate to the pen, and you shut it tight once they¡¯ve all gone in.¡±


    His fine clothing and his clean face and hands overawed her; he saw that by her expression and the way her gaze darted from hands to face to tunic and back again. Her bawling ceased and, though tears still ran down her cheeks, she obeyed him. He went a few steps into the forest and began the onerous job of coaxing the flustered and annoyed geese back out of the trees and into the pen. But he spoke softly and moved slowly, and in time they came, suspicious and ill-tempered but not, at this moment, intent on inflicting bodily harm. Long necks arching, still hissing at the audience of family and soldiers, they followed Alain to the pen and went inside as meekly as geese were able. At the gate, one gander hissed and retreated. Alain circled him carefully, crouched, and snaked out a hand to grab the feet from behind, sweeping the bird up while he took a firm grip on its neck with his other hand. He deposited the squawking, furious bird in the pen, jumped back, and let the goosegirl slam the gate shut. The geese subsided with a hissing and flapping of wings.


    He looked back in time to see Aunt Bel trying not to laugh, the soldiers and laborers staring in outright astonishment, and his father watching with his thinnest smile¡ªthe one always linked with his disapproval.


    ¡°I see you haven¡¯t forgotten everything you learned here,¡± said a voice at his side. Alain turned to confront his father¡ªnot his father, but his foster father. Henri.


    Aunt Bel raised her voice. ¡°My lord count, I hope you and yours will take a meal with us. My own daughters will prepare it.¡±


    Lavastine nodded curtly. He could scarcely refuse. It was practically a sin to scorn hospitality. But after he dismounted, he gestured to Alain to attend him.


    ¡°If you will allow me, my lord,¡± Aunt Bel continued while Stancy and Agnes and the other women hurried inside and the laborers retreated to stand at a respectful distance. Julien followed Henri back to their work on the mast. ¡°Rather than wait inside, perhaps I may show you around the manor. It was your largesse that made it possible for us to improve upon our circumstances and settle here.¡±


    ¡°Indeed.¡±


    Aunt Bel kept a careful distance from the hounds, who growled at her while a padded handler staked them out away from the house. While the soldiers took the horses to graze and water, she conducted Lavastine and Alain on a tour; the cleric attended Aunt Bel much as if Bel were herself a noble lady. It was a fine grand house, although not of course nearly as grand as Lavastine¡¯s fortress, and included a good stretch of ground with fields, two workshops, pastureland and woodland, and a broad path leading down to a sheltered beach where the family¡¯s ship had been drawn up onto logs and covered with a thatch roof for the winter.


    ¡°My brother Henri is a merchant, my lord, and we have for some years shipped both cloth and quernstones south to Medemelacha. There is a quarry near here in the hills where we get our stone. With the generous payment we received from you, my lord, we have been able to expand our business in addition to moving to this manor. I have hired laborers to carve soapstone into vessels for cooking and storage. We will ship them to Medemelacha also. In time Henri hopes to sail north as far as Gent, although there is more risk of Eika attacks in that direction, and next year he intends to attempt his first trip northwest to Alba, to the port of Hefenfelthe on the Temes River.¡±


    Lavastine began to look interested. A good husbandman, he was wealthy in large part because of his careful stewardship of his lands and possessions. ¡°One ship cannot sail to three places.¡±


    Aunt Bel smiled. ¡°We are building a second ship this winter. My third son Bruno we have apprenticed to Gilles Fisher, a local man who builds most of the ships hereabouts. In return the shipbuilder will aid my brother with those parts of the ship Henri does not know the secrets of.¡±


    Lavastine surveyed the work that continued on the mast. Henri, sweating even in the chill, seemed oblivious to the visit of the great lord. ¡°But is it not also true, as my clerics have read to me from the commentaries on the Holy Verses, that ¡®the farmer must save some of the grain when he makes bread, else there will be nothing for sowing¡¯?¡±