Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 23

Lifting her mirror, she began the prayer to waken the stones: "Heed me, that which opens in the east. Heed me, that which opens in the west."

Alain did not tremble or run, as many would have, faced with sorcery such as she wove now out of starlight and stone. The hill woke beneath her. The awareness of the ancient queens gripped her heart, as though their hands reached through stone and earth and death itself to take hold of their living heir, to seize her for their own purposes.

Starlight caught in the stones and she wove them into a gateway of light. She scarcely heard Dorren's murmured "fare you well" before he swiftly left her side, stepped into the gate-and vanished from her sight.

Alain took two steps forward to follow him. Adica pulled him back." No. Do not follow him." He moved no farther, yet his expression as he stared into the gateway of light had a blankness in it, as though his thoughts, his soul, his heart had left to cross into unknown country, where she could never follow. Unbidden, unexpectedly, her voice broke." I would not have you leave me, Alain."

The light faded, the gateway splintered and fell apart, and all at once she began to weep.

One of the dogs whined. Its jaws closed, gently but firmly, on her hand, drawing no blood but tugging firmly. Alain took her mirror out of her hands and looped it at her belt. He scolded the dog softly, and it released her, but Alain clasped her hand instead.

"Come," he said, gently but firmly." I give to the not-breathing ones. To the-the queens." He struggled to recall the words Dorren had taught him." To the queens I give an offering."

To the queens. They still resided in her. The echo of their presence throbbed in tune to the beating of her heart. The queens demanded an offering only from those who begged for their help. Yet once that bargain was struck, no matter how bitterly the price weighed on the one who had braved holy ground to pet.i.tion them, it had to be fulfilled. Even she, especially she, could not escape promises made to the holy dead.

Like a stick thrown in a river, she went where the current pulled her. Alain led her down the eastern slope of the tumulus to the stone lintel that marked the sacred entrance to the queens' grave, the holy place for which the village was named. There lay the threshold of the pa.s.sageway that led into the secret womb where the ancient queens rested. Clouds crept up over the heavens, veiling stars one by one.

Alain groped for and found a torch. She struck flint and lit it. The torch bled smoke onto the corbeled ceiling, revealing the symbols of power carved into the stones: ships drawing the sun down to the underworld, the spiral path leading the dead to the Other Side, the hands of the Holy Ones who had gone before, reaching for the four staffs of knowledge. Crouching at first, they were able to straighten up as the ceiling sloped upward, so that they walked upright into the low chamber where the queens rested in three stone tombs, each in her own niche.

The tombs bore carvings representative of each of the queens. The tomb of Arrow Bright, lying to the west, was carved with two sphinxes: the lion women of the desert from whom she had learned the secret ways of the Huntress. In the southern niche, Golden .

Sow's tomb gleamed with gold melted from phoenix feathers and beaten into the shape of a sacred sow, the spirit guide of the queen whose magic had made all the women of her tribe fertile and their children healthy. Last, in the niche that faced north, lay Toothless' cairn, more primitive than the others, for she had reigned in the days when the magic of metalworking was not known among humankind.

Here, deep in the womb of stone and earth, not even the wind could be heard.

She stepped forward to offer a prayer, but Alain pressed her back and stepped forward in her place. He stood straight and proud, bright and fearless, as he spoke words in his own language, which she could not understand.

What was he telling them? She knew they were listening, because the dead are always listening.

The torch blew out, leaving her caught in their vast silence. She couldn't even feel Alain's comforting presence nor hear the panting of the dogs.

The vision hit like a blast of light, searing her eyes.

Alain, dressed in clothing unlike any garb she has seen before, stands beside a stone tomb so remarkably carved into the shape of a supine man that she believes that in a moment the stone will come to life and the man will sit up. Stone dogs lie with him, one at his head and one at his feet. Alain weeps silently, tears streaming down his face. A company of women enters the house behind him, only it is no house but a high hall of cunning and astounding design, lofting impossibly toward the sky. Alain turns to the one who walks foremost among them, a queen so thin and wasted that she is ugly; truly, the Fat One gave none of her blessing here. In the heart of this queen lies thwarted spring, knotted coils twisted and bent around a withered spirit stained with fear. But Alain loves her. The young queen offers him nothing, and yet he loves her anyway.

Adica weeps, bitterly, and her tears wash the vision away until she floats on the vast waters. Foam licks around her as she is caught in the wake of an animal as sleek as a dragon and as swift as a serpent, driving through the sea. At first she thinks it is a living creature, lean and long, but then she sees it is a ship. It is utterly unlike the low-bellied, hide-built curraghs in which the coastal tribes scour the sh.o.r.eline for fish and fowl. A dragon's head carved out of wood adorns its stem. A creature like a man yet not one of humankind stands at the stem, searching as mist closes in around him. What manner of creature is he? What is he looking for?

But she knows as soon as she wonders, for within the vision she can see into the pumping ma.s.s of flesh veined with stone that serves him as a heart. He, too, is looking for Alain.

Mist sweeps in like a wave, blinding her. The tendrils that coil around her b.u.m as brightly as if they are formed out of particles of fire. She sees into them and beyond them.

There are spirits burning in the air with wings of flame and eyes as brilliant as knives. Yet one among them sinks, weighted with mortality. This one falls, blazing, into a threshold composed of tvisting blue fire, the pa.s.sageway between worlds. Through the gate this falling woman sees onto the middle world, the world known to humankind: there in the middle world, a huge tumulus ringed by half-ruined ramparts rests in silence. Dead warriors lie scattered along the rampart walls and curves. A killing wind has blown them every which way. Like leaves the dead lie tumbled up against a ring of fallen stones, some shattered, some cracked in half, that stands in ruins at the height of the hill.

Adica prays for the protection of the Fat One and the courage of the Queen of the Wild, though no words pa.s.s her lips-or if they do, she cannot hear them. She knows this hill and these ramparts, now worn away, crumbling under the hand of an immeasurable force she cannot name. She recognizes the ring of fallen stones, covered by lichen and drowned by age. It is Queens' Grave, but it is not the Queens' Grave she knows, with freshly dug ramparts ringing the queens' hill and a stone loom newly set in place on the summit in the time of her own parents.

It is Queens'Grave garbed as the Toothless One, the hag of old age. Its youth and maturity have long since been worn away by the bite of the seasons and the winds and the cold rain. It is like glimpsing herself as an aged woman, old and ruined and forgotten.

Yet one stone still stands within the stone loom. Clothed in blue-white fire, it shelters a dying warrior. Clothed in metal rings, slumped against the burning stone, he waits for death attended by tvo spirits clothed in the forms of dogs. The falling woman cloaked with blazing wings of aetherial fire whirls past Adica's sight. She reaches for the dying warrior, and as she grasps him and pulls him after her, Adica recognizes Alain. But the blazing woman's grip tears -away, off his shoulders, and he is lost, torn off the path that leads to the land of the dead so that he walks neither in the world where he lived or on the path that should take him to the Other Side. He is lost, with his spirit guides crowded at his feet, for the s.p.a.ce of a breath and a heartbeat, until the Holy One's magic, the binding power known to the Horse people, nets him and drags him in. He lands, bleeding, dying, and lost, on the great womb of the queens.

She gasped into awareness at the same moment his hand found her shoulder and closed there. He said her name and dropped down onto his knees behind her, his face wet against her neck.

"Alain," she whispered. She turned to face him, together on their knees, and he clung to her, or she to him; it was hard to tell and perhaps they clung to each other, flotsam washed in a vast wave off the sea.

It seemed to her then that they knelt not on stone but on a bed of gra.s.s, under the stars on a night made for mysteries. Trees surrounded them. Nearby a waterfall spilled softly onto moss-covered rocks. How they had come to this place she did not know, only that the wind breathed into her ears with certain subtle and alluring whispers. He held her tightly, and as she shifted, moving her arms on his back, his hands found other places to wander as well. He murmured under his breath, but though his words remained a mystery to her, the language of the body needed no words to convey its message.

He spoke in other, wordless ways: I ought not, but I want to. I am unsure, disquieted, yet my desire is strong.

This was the offering. Yet still he hesitated.

She had not become Hallowed One because she thought sluggishly. She groped for and found the rope that bound his linen tunic tight at his waist, and when he kissed her, she unbound this crude belt so that the linen fell askew. She slipped her fingers down through his, twining their hands together, and with her free hand bound the rope around their clasped hands, once, twice, and a third time. She knew the words well enough: With this binding, we will holdfast together.

May the Fat One bless our union.

May the Green Man bring us happiness and all good things.

May the Queen of the Wild reveal what it means to walk together.

Like coals stored within a hollow log, he burned hot and shy. But in the end, the queens had their way. No doubt in their silent graves they still dreamed of that congress which is as sweet as the meadow flowers. She felt them inhabiting her body just as she knew their power blazed in her for this while, caught in an unnatural enchantment of their devising. Truly, in this place, what man could resist her?

Not he.

PART THREE.

THE VALE OF ICE.

WINTER laid in its usual store of bitter weather. For three days a viciously cold wind blew down from the north to turn the sh.o.r.es and shallows of the Veser River to ice. Every puddle that graced the streets of Gent had frozen through, and in some ways, Anna reflected, that was a good thing. It meant the stink froze, rainwater, sludge, and sewage in crackling sheets that little Helen liked to stomp on so she could hear them snap and splinter. At times like this Anna remembered the months she had hidden in the tanneries with her brother Matthias: the city had been cleaner when the Eika inhabited it, but perhaps that was only because it had been mostly deserted then.

Not anymore. Even in the dead of winter folk walked the frozen avenue alongside the freshly whitewashed wall marking the mayor's palace. Walled compounds faced the avenue on the other side. Well-to-do artisans and merchant families lived and worked in these compounds. A peddler trundled his cart up to one of the gates and called out, hoping for admittance. A servant boy emerged and, after looking the peddler over and examining the condition of his heavy winter tunic and cloth boots stuffed with straw, let him inside. At times, these signs of prosperity still amazed her. It had been less than two years since refugees and newcomers had flooded back to Gent after the Eika defeat.

Anna had learned to amuse herself with such thoughts when she took Helen along on errands because inevitably she did a great deal of waiting. With her arms full of wool cloth, she couldn't just grab hold of Helen's arm and drag her along. The little girl didn't understand any need for haste, nor did she seem to feel the cold even as Anna's fingers grew numb, through her wool gloves. Helen warbled like a bird, phrases that leaped up and slid down with lovely precision, as she stamped on a particularly fine landscape of thin puddles, creamy with frozen sh.e.l.ls that made a satis-fyingly sharp crack when they shattered.

"Here, now, little one, this is no weather for a child to be playing outside." The voice came from behind them. Helen continued her singing and stomping without pause.

Anna turned to see Prior Humilicus walking down the street with several attendants. The cathedral tower loomed behind him, marking the town square that lay just past the northwest corner of the mayor's palace. The prior of the new monastery dedicated to St. Perpetua was a familiar sight in town these days, especially in the months since the abbot, Prince Ekkehard, had ridden off with Lord Wichman to fight in the east. Humilicus visited the biscop every day no matter the weather.

"Ah," he said, seeing Anna's face and her burden." You're the weaver's niece." Like all n.o.ble folk, he had the habit of touching without asking. He stripped off his sheepskin mittens and fingered a bolt of cloth admiringly." Very fine, indeed. A rich scarlet. Did Mistress Suzanne dye this wool herself?"

Anna nodded. Helen had come to the last of the string of frozen puddles and was crushing the grainy ice that made a lacework of its miniature sh.o.r.eline.

The prior's lean face tightened and his lips pressed together." You're the mute one, are you not? G.o.d have surely afflicted your family twice over." Anna didn't like the way he examined Helen. From a filthy, abandoned, half-starved toddler, she had grown into an angelically pretty little girl, some four or six years of age." She has a remarkably true voice," he mused." I wonder if she can be trained to sing hymns."

His gaze shifted past Helen. The long wall of the mayor's palace had once been painted with vivid scenes of the death and life of the blessed Daisan but had been painted over for the third time three days ago. Humilicus picked up a rose encrusted in h.o.a.rfrost, examining the wilted flower with the kind of scrutiny most folk reserved for maggots crawling on rotten meat." I thought all these leavings were picked up last week."

"They were, Prior," said the eldest of the monks, whose thin nose was blue with cold. A gust of wind shook the banners set atop the palace wall and set Anna's teeth chattering." The biscop's clerics go around every week collecting such offerings. They brought in two wreaths, one carving, and four candles yesterday."

Helen darted forward to pluck the rose out of Prior Humilicus' fingers, then scurried away to hide behind Anna.

"Here, now!" scolded the thin-nosed man.

"Nay, let her go," said Prior Humilicus." A whitewash won't erase memory. If the common folk still lay offerings here after all this time, then chastising one witless girl won't have any effect on the stain that's crept into them. It was that stout lad who let the pollution in, he and his tongueless accomplice." Despite his grim looks, he had a mild if somewhat sardonic disposition. He paused to examine the wall with an ironic smile." A clever and well-spoken lad was Brother Ermanrich. It pa.s.ses my understanding that G.o.d should have allowed the Enemy's work to enter such a fitting vessel."

"G.o.d's ways are a mystery. Prior," agreed his companion." It is a good thing those young monks rode away with Prince Ekkehard."

Humilicus bowed his head as if in submission to the unfathomable mind of G.o.d. The procession of monks moved away down the street.

Anna stamped twice, sharply, to get Helen's attention. The little girl followed happily, skipping and singing, as they walked down to the waterfront gate, to the fullers' yard. The mistress allowed them to sit on their cloaks by the hearth while she inspected each finger of cloth with an eye to flaws, but Anna didn't mind waiting, since it was warm. She carried distaff and spindle with her, and began spinning fiber to yarn. Helen pried all the thorns from the rose and tucked it behind her ear, like an ornament. Sleepy, she yawned so widely that her mouth looked ready to split. A few girls their ages sat or stood in the hall, spinning, although most of the activity at this time of day took place out in the yard or in the tenters' field situated below the city walls.

"That'll do," said the fuller, who usually hadn't a kind word to say about anyone. That she couldn't find any flaws in the weaver's work was high praise." I don't want anyone saying we'd damaged the goods in the fulling or tenting." An a.s.sistant hurriedly took the cloth away to the yard." I've twelve lengths done for you to be taking back to your aunt, although I see you've an errand to run before you go home." She indicated the scarlet cloak, already fulled and finished, that Anna had set on the bench behind her. The fuller fingered the cloth in the same avaricious way Prior Humilicus had." Not many can get such a good scarlet color. Did Mistress Suzanne get the wool already dyed?"

Anna allowed herself a vapid smile. She hated being mute. The lack of a voice was like lacking hands, most noticeable when you weren't thinking about it and reached instinctively to tighten your belt or take a slice of apple, but occasionally it had advantages.

"Well, you've nothing to say! And no wonder. Your aunt has made much of herself in Gent since the Eika were driven out. If I didn't know you were mute, I'd suppose you were simply too proud to talk to such as me!" The fuller had the kind of face easily creased by smiles, round and full, but she hadn't any smiles in her gaze, only envy." Still, you're old enough to be betrothed, and you look as though you're likely to be moving to the women's benches come St. Oya's Day. Has Mistress Suzanne found a husband for you yet?"

Anna shook her head. She didn't mind that her body was changing; that was part of the natural order. But she didn't like the way people tried to tempt her with marriage offers. After all, no one actually cared about her.

"You've a funny color of skin, it's true, but you're healthy enough and it would be a good alliance with a prosperous family, and advantageous for both our households to be allied one with the other. I've a likely nephew. He's a good lad, almost nineteen- The fuller seemed ready to go on at length, but shrieks erupted from the yard, followed by angry voices. She rose with a grunt of anger." Gutta, give the weaver's niece the cloth that's done." To Anna's relief, she strode out to the yard, where Anna heard her voice raised in a blistering scolding.

A girl no older than Anna transferred the fulled and dried cloth into Anna's keeping as soon as Anna tucked distaff and spindle into her belt. She layered the good scarlet cloak in between the other cloth, for protection, and stamped twice to attract Helen's attention. She held a dozen folded lengths of cloth that Mistress Suzanne would either trade to tailors' row or finish herself into cloaks and winter clothing. With a sigh of satisfaction, she left the fullers' yard behind.

As usual, she had saved the best delivery for last.

She loved visiting the mayor's palace. The guards at the gate recognized her and let her and Helen inside without any trouble, although one of them, a lad not more than twenty years of age, bent down to speak to her.

"I beg you, sister, say a good word for me to the lovely Frederun. I know she favors you for the handsome cloth you bring."

The other guard snorted." This girl's mute, Ernust. She can't say anything to the lovely Frederun, not that it would mean much to you if she did! She hasn't taken a man to her bed since Lord Wich-man went away. Get on with you, then, child, and leave us out here in the cold. Maybe poor Ernust's nether parts will cool off a little!"

The palace compound had a neat layout, easy to get around. The stables and storerooms lay to one side, the palace on the other, and the kitchens at the far end of the central courtyard so that any fire that might break out wouldn't spread to the other buildings. Despite the Eika occupation, the palace had survived more-or-less intact. One wing of the stables still lay in ruins, and three of the storerooms had burned to the ground and lay in various stages of repair. The eastern gate had fallen in completely to make a great heap of stone, but it had taken all this time to make the palace interior habitable and only this winter had his lordship sent to Kas-sel and Autun to find engineers who could direct the rebuilding of the gate.

The palace itself had a great hall and several wings, one of them fully three stories tall, added on over many years. Anna mads her way around to the carters' entrance and was admitted to the servants' hall, a goodly chamber busy with women sewing up rents in linens, mixing cordials, binding up sachets of aromatic herbs to relieve the smell in the closed-up winter rooms, and polishing the mayor's silver plate, salvaged in the headlong retreat from Gent.

Frederun had become chief of the servingwomen of the palace mostly because Lord Wichman had quickly singled her out when he'd taken over the lordship of Gent after the great victory over Bloodheart and the Eika. She had a chair set at the largest table, the seat of her authority, and when she saw Anna, she beckoned her forward and took the cloak from her. Standing, she shook it out. Work in the hall came to a halt.

"Truly," said Frederun, "Mistress Suzanne has outdone herself this time!" The cloak had a rich scarlet hue, fur lining, and a beautifully sewn trim in a fanciful design of elegant dragons outlined in gold-dyed thread.

"Surely that's not for you, Frederun?" demanded an older woman whose face bore an unsightly scar, the mark of an Eika ax.

"Nay, it's for Lord Hrodik. Now that Lord Wichman is gone, he fancies himself the proud defender of the city. It's to go over his armor."

The women laughed.

"His sister's armor, you mean," continued the scarred woman." He'll never be half the fighter Lady Amalia was, may G.o.d bless her name."

All the women there drew the Circle of Unity at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s and murmured a prayer for peace. Many of them remembered the n.o.ble lady who had died of her wounds after the battle for Gent that Count Lavastine and King Henry had won.

"No sense in calling the poor young man names, for all his faults," scolded Frederun." The rats have fled the nest, and the mouse that's left us is a kinder master than they ever were."

"True-spoken words," agreed the scarred woman, resting a hand on Frederun's shoulder." You took the brunt of it, friend. We've none of us forgotten that."

Frederun traced the outlines of dragons embroidered along the edge of the rich fabric. She had dreamy eyes of a limpid brown, the kind one imagined gazing into a lover's ardent gaze, set off by light hair caught back and covered by a shawl tied so loosely that curling strands of hair had escaped to frame her pretty face. She was, everyone agreed, the second handsomest woman in Gent.

"Come, now," she said, shaking off her reverie impatiently without responding to her companion's comment, "here's these two la.s.ses who must be cold from walking outside in that wind just so Lord Hrodik can have his cloak the instant he desires it! Here, child, let you and your sister come in and have a bit of hot cider to drink for it's that cold Out, isn't it now? Sit by the hearth." She addressed one of the younger servants." Give them a slice of apple, and be sure they have a bit of cake from the lord's table as well." She clapped her hands sharply twice." Back to work! Let's have no sleeping in the hall. We've little enough light these months as it is. Fastrada!" The scarred woman had taken the cloak from her to fold it up." I pray you, will you see that the cloak is delivered to Lord Hrodik?"

"Truly, Frederun, you know how he will complain if you're not the one to deliver it to him."

Frederun exclaimed sharply on a gusty sigh, but she reached for the cloak and finished folding it with practiced ease. She had strong hands from years of hard work, although certainly she couldn't have been more than twenty years of age." Why must he believe he is owed what Wichman took?"

No one else appeared to be listening, perhaps only because of the boring familiarity of the situation." Can you not speak to Bis-cop Suplicia?" asked Fastrada.

"She is kin by way of certain cousins to Lord Hrodik's family. Why should she feel any compa.s.sion for a bond servant like me? Do I not owe service to their n.o.ble house?"

"I thought you served at the mayor's palace, not in the lord's bed."

"You know as well as I that Mayor Werner was the last of his family. Nay, the n.o.ble lords have hold of Gent now, and they won't give it up."

The older woman frowned sourly." Very well. I'll take the cloak up to him, and let him bleat as he may."

Frederun cast down her gaze, as though in exhaustion." I thank you." She straightened one of her sleeves and wiped a fleck of ash, floating out from the hearth, out of an eye." He has grown worse- "Since the weather keeps him locked inside instead of out hunting. Truly, he has more c.o.c.k than sense!"

"Isn't that true of most men!" interposed one of the younger women. She had a pretty mouth, bright eyes, and pox marks on her cheeks." Here, Fastrada, I'll take the cloak up to his lordship. He fancies me, and I want some of that honey he h.o.a.rds, for my family to trade for cloth for my sister's dowry."

"Take care, Uota, that you don't walk into a fire so hot that it burns you," replied Frederun quietly.

"I hadn't heard you were so shy," retorted Uota with a flash of anger, "in the days before Lord Wichman took to beating you for his pleasure. It's said you gave yourself freely enough if the lord was of princely disposition."

"Hush, Uota!" cried Fastrada, although Frederun made no reply except to sink down on the bench beside Anna." You're a latecomer here. You can't know what any of us suffered- Uota took the cloak and flounced out.

"Here, now," began Fastrada as the other servants turned away to give the illusion of privacy, although truly there were no secrets in the servants' hall." Frederun- The younger woman raised a hand to forestall further comment, and after a moment Fastrada moved away to supervise three women polishing the silver plate.

Anna examined Frederun with interest and pity. It seemed to her that they shared something in common, she and the serving-woman: they had survived the worst kind of hardship and found themselves in a decent and even prosperous life, with a warm bed and two ample meals every day, yet she recognized in Frederun's expression a discontent like her own, bothersome and mysterious. Why couldn't she just be satisfied, as Matthias was?

Little Helen looked up suddenly, slid the rose from behind her ear, and presented it to Frederun.

"Ai, thank you, child!" Tears welled up in Frederun's eyes. She brought the rose to her face and sniffed at it, smiling ruefully." All the scent's gone. Where did you find such a lovely treasure?"

Anna signed as well as she could, and unlike many people, Frederun watched her hands carefully, intent on what she was trying to communicate." By the city wall? Nay, here, the palace wall. Ah, of course! It's one of the offerings folk leave." Her face shuttered, growing still and thoughtful, as she touched the wooden Circle that hung from her neck." Some things are hard to forget," she CHILD or FLAME muttered, stroking the rose's withered petals before collecting herself with a shake of the head." Will your aunt make a wedding cloak as fine for her betrothed, the tanner she's to marry in the spring?"

Anna smiled and nodded, but what flashed across Frederun's expression was difficult to understand: Pain? Longing? Envy?

"She's done well, has your aunt. None knows better than I what she suffered in Steleshame at the hands of Lord Wichman. I remember pitying her there. How could I have known it was to come to me in my time?" She straightened up sharply with a frown." No sense in sorrowing over what's past, is there, little sister? You've suffered more than I, poor child, not able to speak a word." She wiped a smear of soot off Helen's delicate face." And this poor creature, what will become of her with such a pretty face to plague her all her years?"

Helen smiled beatifically up at Frederun, for she was always the happiest of creatures as long as she was fed and clean. A pang gripped Anna's heart, hearing truth in Frederun's words. Probably Helen would never be quite right in the head, and her child's beauty, if it held as she grew, would only bring her grief.

"Come now," added Frederun briskly, "you finish that up and get you home or Mistress Suzanne will be fearing for you and the little one with dusk coming on."

Standing, she had just turned to call to one of her women when the door slammed open, helped by a gust of wind, and two of the mayor's guardsmen came in, beards tipped with ice, slapping their hands together to warm them.