Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 24

"Ho, Mistress Frederun!" cried one in a voice too loud for the hall, pitched to carry over the wind." There's a great party of soldiers and their n.o.ble lord ridden in, come to beg hospitality of Lord Hrodik."

"And to grant themselves first pickings at the armory," added his comrade irritably.

Frederun froze, as might a rabbit when the shadow of an owl skimmed across it." Who might it be? Is it Wichman, returned?"

"Nay. They come from the west. They're riding east to fight the Quman. I saw no banner, nor did I speak to the outriders. You'll have to go into the hall to see who it might be."

Frederun hadn't time to answer before a trio of fl.u.s.tered servingmen hurried into the hall through another door, calling out Lord Hrodik's orders.

Anna grabbed a last bit of cake and wolfed it down before getting her arms around her load of cloth and hustling Helen out of the way. The winter wind hit hard as they came out into the courtyard. Men called to each other in the stables, and the yard had the look of a hive of bees stirred into action. Two outriders stood chatting with the stable master, but they wore no device to indicate to which n.o.ble kin they owed allegiance. No one paid any mind as she and Helen left by the western gate, nor did she see any war party on the streets as they cut through the town square, past the cathedral, and came back around to the other side of the mayor's palace. The eastern gate here was a tumble of stone. More than one child had broken a leg or an arm climbing these ruins. Beyond the marketplace, quiet in winter except for a flurry of activity around the butchers' stalls, lay a number of workshops: smaller compounds made up of a house, workshops, and outbuildings surrounded by a wall.

With Helen tagging at her heels, Anna crossed the marketplace to the open gate that let her into the place she now called home, the workshop taken over by the woman everyone called her aunt, Suzanne. Once known to all of Steleshame as Mistress Gisela's niece, Suzanne was now known in the city of Gent simply as the weaver, although of course in a city as large as Gent, crammed with fully five thousand people so the biscop claimed, there were other weavers. None of them were asked to supply fine cloaks and tunics to the lord who resided in the mayor's palace.

Out in the courtyard, by the trough, a donkey stood patiently, one leg c.o.c.ked slightly as its ear twitched at each shudder of wind. Raimar was sawing a log into planks, his pale hair caught back with a leather thong. He had stripped down to his summer tunic. The light fabric showed off the breadth of his shoulders. Flecks of sawdust flew from the wood, scattering like pale gold dust around his feet on the hard packed earth.

Young Autgar held the other end of the saw. He was singing in an off-key voice about the pain roasting his heart because it had been three days since he'd caught sight of the beautiful shepherd girl, which was after all a strange song for Autgar to be singing since he'd been married two years before in Steleshame to one of Suzanne's weavers and had two children already.

Raimar whistled sharply, and they laid up the saw. He turned to grin at the two girls." Take those into the wool room, Anna. Suzanne was just asking after you. I see you still have some crumbs on your face. I told her you'd be dining at your ease at "the mayor's palace!"

Anna smiled back at him, and Helen ran over to watch the bubbling dye pot, this day stewing yarn to a strong tansy yellow.

Anna left Helen outside and went into the workshop, a long, low room hazy with smoke. Four looms stood in the workshop, and Suzanne's three a.s.sistants worked, each with a girl at her side learning the trade. A toddler raced around the room, shrieking with delight, while an infant slept in a cradle set rocking by one of the girls.

Anna crossed through the side door that led into the darker chamber, shuttered in, where fleeces, raw and scoured wool, and spun wool stored in skeins as well as unsold cloth were stored. The weighty scent of all that wool comforted her, dense and pungent. Suzanne was standing at the table, haggling with a farmer out of West Farms over the skeins of yarn he'd brought her.

"This just isn't as good quality as the last lot. I can't give you as much for it."

Anna set down her cloth on the table and got out her spindle so that she could spin while she waited for the negotiations to end. In time the farmer took away cloth as payment for his yarn.

"You've crumbs on your face, Anna," said Suzanne as she sorted through the yarn, setting some on one shelf and some on another, according to its quality and fineness." I hope they fed you well at the palace, for we're fasting tonight. Raimar brings news from the tannery." She examined Anna with a smile. That smile, no doubt, had gotten her into trouble before, just because of the way it made her face turn rosy and sweet." Nay, I'll let Matthias tell you himself! Come, give me a hand with this yarn. Move what's at the back of the shelf forward. That lot. Prior Humilicus came by. They're bringing in a dozen novices on St. Eusebe's Day and he wants enough cloth for a dozen robes by summer. Did you know that Hano the saddler's daughter is to marry next autumn? To a young man all the way from Osterburg, if you can believe that!"

She chatted on in this companionable way as they tidied up the wool room. It was her way of making Anna comfortable. After they got everything in order, Suzanne returned to her loom while Anna picked up the baby, who had woken and begun to fuss, so that her mother could finish off a line before nursing.

In the afternoon, with winter twilight sighing down outside, Matthias came in with Raimar and Autgar. He was taller than Suzanne now, filled out enormously from a combination of steady meals and hard work. He stank of the tannery, and as he washed the worst of the stink off his hands, he broke his news." Anna! I'm to be taken in as a journeyman at the tanning works!"

His words left her cold, although she managed to hug him. They all expected her to be happy for him. He continued to speak as he stepped back from Anna, exchanging a look with his betrothed, the youngest of the weavers who had fled Steleshame with Suzanne. She was a girl about his age who had round cheeks and clever hands." I'll live at the tannery now, and I'll have every other Hefensday off."

They all fell to talking as they made ready to attend the Hefensday Eve service, washing their hands, tidying their clothing, the women relying their hair scarves. Because Anna couldn't join in the talk, she waited by the door like a lost child peeking in at a feast of camaraderie she could never share in. Matthias would move on with his life. After everything they'd survived together, he was leaving her behind. She could never be more than an afterthought in his new life. She wasn't more than an afterthought in any of their lives, not really, no matter how kindly they treated her.

Reflexively, she drew her finger in a circle around her wooden Circle of Unity, the remembered gesture that her mother had habitually repeated in moments of fear or sadness or worry. What had become of the Eika prince who, when they had crept to the door of the crypt in the cathedral, had watched them silently and let them go? He had drawn his finger, just so, around the Circle of Unity he wore at his chest, although she still could not fathom why a savage Eika would wear a Circle, symbol of the faith of the Unities.

Tears filled her eyes suddenly, bringing with them the bitter memory of the young lord who had knelt before her at Steleshame and spoken gently to her. She hadn't answered him, and ever after that moment, she had lost her voice, as though G.o.d were punishing her for her silence.

"Here, now, Anna," said Suzanne, "it's a fine day for Matthias, is it not?" With a smile, she tugged Anna along with her, gesturing <> to the others to follow." You look well enough, la.s.s. You won't disgrace us when we process like a fine and wealthy family into church, will you?"

Helen was wiggling in Raimar's arms, and he was laughing good-naturedly as he tried to wipe a sooty stain gotten G.o.d knew where off her cheek. The rest of the household trailed behind Suzanne like so many sheep, and in this cheerful fashion they made their way down the dusky streets to the cathedral.

On Lordsday many folk crowded into the cathedral for the evening services, for tomorrow would be Hefensday, seventh and therefore highest of the days of the week. The service had already started as they entered, making their way down the nave to the spot under a window painted with a scene of the blessed Daisan teaching his disciples. An ugly scar still marred the painted robe of the blessed Daisan, where an Eika weapon had mauled the paint. Most of the pillars had sustained damage during the Eika occupation. Stone angels, gargoyles, and eagles carved into the pilasters bore rake marks, as though they had been repeatedly clawed by a creature powerful enough to gouge stone. The paved floor had been scrubbed often enough that only a few traces of the fires that had burned here remained. The shattered windows had been restored first, although one was still boarded over.

At the altar, a cleric led the congregation in the seventh-day hymn. '"Happy that person who finds refuge in G.o.d!'"

The altar had been cleaned and polished to a gleam, a holy cup of gold placed upon it, together with the ivory-bound book containing the Holy Verses out of the which the clerics and the biscop dictated the service. Only one object lent a discordant note to the apse: a heavy chain fastened to the base of the altar, hammered in with an iron spike.

Anna remembered the daimone whom Bloodheart had chained to the altar in misery. Suzanne noticed her shuddering, and put an arm around her to comfort her. But nothing could ever drive out that recollection, flashes of recognition that always a.s.saulted her when they came to services.

"In the crypt lies the path you seek," the daimone had said in its unformed, hoa.r.s.e voice. By that path she and Matthias had escaped Gent.

Yet it was the Eika who had stood by silently to let them escape. Matthias had forgotten that, but she never would.

The toddler had fallen asleep, but the baby was wakeful, now and again smacking its lips and taking a quick nurse at its mother's breast as the clerics sang the opening hymns.

"Where do you think Lord Hrodik is?" Raimar said to Suzanne. He caught Anna looking at him, and smiled at her. He always treated her and Matthias well. He had lost his family to the Eika, a young bride, his parents, and three brothers, and like Suzanne he was determined to make a good life for himself out of the wreckage. For that reason, as well as mutual respect, they had come to an agreement a few months ago and announced their betrothal, to be consummated in the spring.

Suzanne craned her neck to see the front of the congregation. The Lord's place near the altar stood empty." He hasn't missed a Hefensday Eve service once since Lord Wichman quit the city. That must be fully eight months ago."

"Nay, love, he missed services that one time when he was caught out in a storm and broke his nose."

Suzanne stifled a giggle. In Steleshame she hadn't laughed much. No one had smiled much in Steleshame, but after being thrown to the dogs by her Aunt Gisela, Suzanne had had less reason to smile than most. Yet, in time, prosperity had cured her ills. She seemed content enough.

Anna only wished she felt content as well, but every night she dreamed of the young lord, Count Lavastine's heir. She couldn't remember his name. It seemed to her that he was weeping and lost, torn between sorrow and rage at the indignities and pain suffered by those he had loved.

Surely she could have helped him, if she had only spoken up. That must be the reason G.o.d were punishing her.

The clerics led the congregation in a hymn as the biscop entered from the side porch and took her place in her high seat behind the altar.

"Like a dry and thirsty land that has no water, so do I seek G.o.d.

With my body wasted with longing, I come before G.o.d in the sanctuary.

As I lift my hands in prayer I am satisfied as with a feast, and in the watches of the night I trust in the love which shelters me."

The cleric leading the singing faltered, face washing pale, and a hush poured forward like a wave from the great doors at the entrance to the cathedral. Everyone turned to look.

A n.o.bleman stood in the entry way. He seemed frozen, hesitant, as if he could not make his feet move him forward into the nave. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a sharply foreign look about him: a bronze-complexioned face, high cheekbones, and night-black hair cut to hang loose at his shoulders. His features struck Anna with a disquiet that made her mouth go dry. He seemed familiar, but she couldn't place him. Lord Hrodik waited awkwardly behind him, staring at the big man in awe.

Suzanne staggered, and Raimar steadied her on his arm." Prince Sanglant," she whispered.

The n.o.bleman's gaze swept the congregation. For an uncanny instant, Anna actually thought he found and fastened on Suzanne, alone of the throng. Suzanne made a noise in her throat-whether a protest or 'a prayer was hard to tell-and hid her face against Raimar's shoulder.

As if that m.u.f.fled sound goaded him forward, he strode up the aisle without looking to his left or to his right. The altar brought him up short. He stared at the chain lying at rest in a heap at the stone base, nostrils flaring like those of a spooked horse. The biscop hurried forward from her seat, but he dropped down to a crouch without greeting her and reached to touch the chain as though it were a poisonous snake.

"G.o.d save us." Matthias grasped Anna's arm so tightly that his grip pinched her skin." It's the daimone!"

Anna shook her head numbly. The daimone trapped here by Bloodheart had not been human; it had only taken on human form when it had been forced down out of the heavens and into its painful imprisonment within the bounds of earth.

"It wasn't a daimone at all," Matthias went on breathlessly, "but a n.o.ble man, that same prince they spoke of. By what miracle did he survive?"

Sweating now and shaking, the prince settled to his knees before the altar and looked unlikely to budge. Lord Hrodik hurried forward as if to remonstrate with him, but a slender cleric placed himself between the two men and with an outstretched hand waved to the young lord to move away.

Biscop Suplicia was not easily startled, although for an instant her lips parted in astonishment. She gestured to her clerics to step back, resumed chanting the service alone in a resonant soprano. Slowly, in stuttering gasps, her clerics joined in, although many of them could not stop staring at the man in his rich tunic and finely-embossed belt who had fallen to his knees right there before the altar. It was hard to tell if he were remarkably pious, stricken by G.o.d's mercy, or simply striving not to fall apart altogether, for his hands clutched at that chain until his knuckles whitened and a trickle of blood ran from one sc.r.a.ped finger.

In this way, the congregation, led by an anxious Lord Hrodik, dutifully followed the service to completion. The prince spoke not one word throughout, and when the biscop lifted her hands to heaven at the close of the final prayer, he bolted up as though he'd been nipped. That fast, like a wind from heaven, he fled down the aisle toward the entryway, then suddenly cut through the crowd, who parted fearfully before him.

Anna darted away, using her elbows to make a path for herself through the crowd, which was by now in a furious state of excitement, everyone talking at once. The prince ducked under the doorway that led down to the crypt, and the folk following in his wake hesitated. The crypt below Gent had become a charnel house during the Eika occupation, and few dared walk there.

But Anna had to find him, to see if it were truly the same creature. Perhaps he was only masquerading as a man, or perhaps he had been a man all along, cast out of a mold different than that from which most folk were formed.

She hurried down the steep curve of the steps, remembering the way the darkness. .h.i.t abruptly. The noise of the congregation washed away with unexpected suddenness, and she barely recalled the jarring end to the steps as she stumbled down the last one.

She was blind.

He said, out of the darkness, "Liath?" The voice drifted to her, scarcely more than a whisper, but memory flooded back as she <> swayed, made dizzy by fear and the pounding of her heart. She would never forget that voice, the hoa.r.s.e sc.r.a.pe to it, as though it hadn't formed quite right. Of course, she did not reply.

His boots scuffed the floor. An unvoiced curse came off his lips in a hiss. A hand brushed her shoulder. Then he grabbed her arm." Who are you?"

She could not answer.

He touched her face, exploring it with his free hand, grunted, gave up in disgust, and released her.

A soft glow penetrated the gloom, advancing steadily. Torchlight made her blink. The slender cleric who had stood beside the prince at the altar moved hesitantly off the last step and ventured into the vaults.

"Sanglant?" He extended the torch first this way and then that, pausing in surprise when he caught Anna in its smoky light. Beyond, the prince stood mostly in shadow, at the edge of the light, staring fixedly into the depths of the crypt, an impenetrable gloom beyond the torch's smoky flare.

"Do you know this girl?" demanded the prince." She seems familiar to me, but I can't recall her."

She wanted to tell him, but she could not speak." Who are you, girl?" asked the cleric in a kind voice, examining her. She could only shake her head, and abruptly he moved past her, following the prince on into the vault, past the gravestones of the holy dead, those who were once biscops and deacons. Anna trailed after them, torn by curiosity and longing. Anyway, she didn't want to be left alone in the dark.

"She brought them here," said the prince to his companion." Liath led the refugees into this crypt. There was a pa.s.sage, so they say. That's how the children were saved from the ruin of Gent."

They wandered farther in, vaults lost in the darkness that spread everywhere outside the torch's light. Anna was too terrified to leave them. At every step she expected her feet to crunch on the bones of the dead soldiers who had lain here, decaying, when she and Matthias had pa.s.sed through, but she saw no trace of them now, not even a finger bone, not even a forgotten knife. The miraculous light carried by St. Kristine had led the two children through the vault to the secret pa.s.sage, but she could not now recall what path they had taken nor recognize any landmarks.

The prince halted beside one newly carved stone, an effigy of a lady fitted in armor. Her carved face lay in repose, peaceful and, perhaps, a little stubborn even in death." This must be the grave of Lord Hrodik's sister, Lady Amalia. She died when they took back the city."

"Come, my friend," said the cleric sadly, "let us climb out of this place." He glanced at Anna, aware that she followed them." Can you speak, child? Know you the pa.s.sage of which Prince Sanglant speaks?"

She dared only to shake her head. She knew she would never find it again.

"It's closed to such as me," said the prince bitterly." Ai, G.o.d, Heribert, my heart is torn out of me. Five months have pa.s.sed. Was it only a vision I saw at Angenheim? Liath must be dead."

"Nay, do not say so. How can we know? There are so many mysteries we do not comprehend."

The prince threw back his head and howled like a dog. The horrible sound reverberated through the crypt, echoing and whispering down the vaults and through the many chambers. The cleric stumbled back in surprise, b.u.mping into Anna, and almost dropped the torch.

The prince shuddered all over, pressing a palm to his head. Light shivered over him, steadying as Heribert got a good grip on the torch.

"Your Highness?" the cleric asked softly.

Prince Sanglant dropped his hand. His expression was grim and angry, but his gaze was quite sane." Nay, I beg your pardon, my friend. Liath stood here with me once, that day Bloodheart breached the walls." He caught in a breath, then went on." Lord help me. I never thought I'd have the courage to touch those chains."

"Come," said Heribert, "you've had courage enough for one day. Lord Hrodik promises to entertain us with the best wine in Saony."

"That's not the worst thirst I'm suffering." He walked to the edge of the flickering light thrown off by the torch and surveyed the gloom. With his back to her, Anna could not see his expression." I heard it told that my Dragons were thrown down here to rot, but I see no sign of them." He stood there for a while in silence. The torch snapped and popped. Smoke tickled her nose. She sniffed hard and sneezed.

"Come," said the prince, as if the sound spurred him out of his reverie. He took the torch from the cleric and led them back up into the light.

"Why did you go down into the crypt?" Suzanne demanded later, when they had escaped the crowd and gotten home to a still-burning hearth, just enough warmth that they could take off their cloaks and sit sipping cider to warm their stomachs. A servant girl, left behind to tend to the house, served them, bringing mugs to pa.s.s around before taking a drink herself from the ladle." It's dark down there. You might have gotten hurt."

Anna said nothing.

Suzanne sipped at her cider but could not leave the question alone.

"What did he say to you?" Her fingers asked another question, playing self-consciously with her hair. She glanced at Raimar, who regarded her with thoughtful concern and a flicker of distress in his expression." Why did you follow the prince down into the crypt?"

Anna couldn't answer, not even with such signs as she had learned to communicate with. She couldn't answer because she didn't know.

There were so many mysteries that humankind simply could not comprehend.

TO his surprise, Zacharias had come to admire the prince in the months they had journeyed eastward from one n.o.ble estate to the next. Prince Sanglant was frank, fair, honest, and a resolute leader, and he never asked anyone to do anything he wasn't willing to do himself.

"Nay, I never expected willingly to follow along in a n.o.ble lord's retinue," Zacharias said to Heribert as they shared a platter in the great hall of the mayor's palace in Gent, where wine flowed freely and a young apprentice poet mangled a hymn celebrating the encounter between the aged Herodia of Jeshuvi and the blessed Daisan in which the future saint had prophesied that the young Daisan would bring light to a benighted world.

"In truth, I never thought I would sit down to eat with a common man," replied Heribert thoughtfully. Sanglant sat at the high table, drinking heavily and speaking little as young Lord Hrodik boasted about a recent boar hunt in which he'd broken his nose.

"It was to escape men such as you that I became a frater rather than a monastic, for in a monastery I'd have had to bow down to a master born of n.o.ble kinfolk. My grandmother despised n.o.bles as thieves and louts. She said they lived off the labor of honest farmers, and forced their foreign G.o.d of Unities onto those who preferred to worship in the old ways."

"She was a heathen?"

"Truly, she was. She worshiped the old G.o.ds. They repaid her faithfulness with a long life and prosperity and many grandchildren."

Heribert sighed. The young cleric had a lean, clever face, almost delicate, and the most aristocratic manners of any n.o.bly born person Zacharias had ever come into contact with, although in all honesty he had not rubbed shoulders with n.o.ble folk much in his life. He had spent more of his adult life among the barbaric Quman tribes, to his sorrow.

"What fate befell your grandmother is long since settled. It is your soul I fear for, Zacharias. You do not pray with us."

"Yet I pray in my own way, and not to my grandmother's G.o.ds. Let us not have this conversation again, I beg you, for nothing you say will change my mind. I saw a vision-"

"Who is to say that it was not the Enemy who cast dust into your eyes?"

"Peace, friend. I know what I saw."

Heribert lifted a hand in capitulation.

Zacharias chuckled." I will not pollute your ears with another description of the vision granted me. You are safe from that, at least."

"Safer from that than from this poet's wailing."

Zacharias snorted, for indeed the poet was not as skilled as he ought to have been-or else he was drunk." Better the poet's song than Lord Hrodik's boasting. Is there a male servant among those serving at the high table? All of them women, as if to boast that he's bedding one or all of them each night." He had never shaken his grandmother's distaste for thralldom, and could not keep the disgust from his voice." I suppose they're bonded servants, and cannot leave his service even if they wished to."

Heribert looked at him in surprise." We are all of us dependents in one manner or another. Regnant and skopos, too, are va.s.sals of G.o.d. How is this different?"