by Kate Elliott
They are all dead.
Is this the means by which the sorcerers hoped to bring peace? Did they really know what they were doing? Can it be possible they understood what would happen?
“Adica can’t have known. She’d never have agreed to lend herself to so much destruction if she’d known.”
He has to believe it is true.
But he will always wonder if she knew and, knowing, acted with the others anyway, knowing the cost. Did they really hate the Cursed Ones so much?
“It was all for nothing. They’re still here. I’ve seen them.”
Ghost shapes, more shadow than substance, walk the interstices between Earth and the Other Side, caught forever betwixt and between. Those Cursed Ones who did not stand in their homeland when it was torn out of the earth were pulled outward with it; they exist not entirely on Earth and yet not severed from it, as all that comes of earth is bound to earth.
Yet isn’t it true that no full-blooded Cursed One walks the same soil as humankind now? Didn’t the human sorcerers get what they wanted? Isn’t Earth free of the Cursed Ones?
“We can never know peace,” he cries, turning to the men who have flocked around him. He has to make them understand. “What is bound to earth will return to earth. The suffering isn’t over. The cataclysm will happen again when that which was torn asunder returns to its original place.”
“Thank the Lady, Father,” says the infirmarian as the gathered brothers let a new figure through. “You’ve come.”
The abbot is a young man, vigorous and handsome, son of a noble house. He has a sarcastic eye and a gleam of humor in his expression, but he sobers quickly as he examines Alain and the placid but menacing hounds. The portly infirmarian keeps a light touch on Alain’s wrist, nothing harsh, ready to grab him if he bolts.
“It’s a wanderer, Father Ortulfus,” says the infirmarian. His fingers flutter along Alain’s skin. Like the bee, he seems to be probing, but he hasn’t stung yet.
“Another one?” The abbot has wildly blue eyes and pale hair, northern coloring. Adica’s people were darker, stockier, black-haired. “I’ve never seen so many wanderers on the roads as this summer. Is he a heretic?”
“Not so we’ve noticed, Father,” says one of the monks nervously “He’s babbling about the end times. He’s right out of his mind.”
“Hush, Adso,” scolds the infirmarian before he addresses the abbot. The calm words slip from his mouth smoothly. “He’s not violent, just troubled.” He turns to regard Alain with compassion. “Here, now, son. You’ll not be running away, will you? Don’t think you’ll come to any harm among us. We’ve a bed you can sleep in, and porridge, and work to keep your hands busy. That will ease your mind out of these fancies. You’ll find healing here.”
The hot poison strikes deep. These words hurt far worse than any bee’s sting.
No one will believe him.
And Adica is dead. No one will mourn her with him, because they cannot. They do not even know, nor can they believe, that she exists. He has come home as a stranger, having lost everything that mattered. Having, in the end, not even kept his promise to die with her.
What point is there in living?
Stronghand’s foot hit, jolting him into awareness. One step he had taken, only one. The sky lightened, and the river’s silver band glinted as sunlight drove the mist off the waters, dazzling his eyes. A torrent of images washed over him. All of the colors of Alain’s being had overflowed in that vision to drown him.
Joy ran like a deluge. Yet joy had spoken in a terrible voice.
So many dead. No more death, please God. No more killing.
“No more killing.” Hearing his own voice, he shook himself free of the trance. The girl turned to throw the youngest child over the battlements.
He leaped forward and wrenched the child out of her grasp, knocking the kneeling sorcerer aside. The girl scrambled onto the battlements herself, making ready to jump.
“Stop her!”
Quickly all seven of the Albans were taken into custody. The child he held squirmed and began to sob outright in fear.
“Hush!”
It ceased its weeping.
“No more killing.” His voice seemed unrecognizable to him, yet it sounded no different than it ever had. Was it wisdom that made him speak? For better or worse, he was scarred by the strength of the contact between him and Alain, bound by a weaving that even the WiseMothers did not comprehend.
Where had Alain gone? He had vanished from Stronghand’s dreams and apparently from Earth itself for over three years. What was the meaning of this vision of destruction on such a scale that it dwarfed even the slow deliberations of the WiseMothers?
In those years when Alain had been gone, the span of months between the battle at Kjalmarsfjord and this day’s rejoining, he had thought and planned and acted the same as ever, but something had been missing. It was as if the world had gone gray and only now did he see its colors. For truly the world was a beautiful place, worn down by suffering, painted by light, never at rest.
He could never be free of that connection. He did not want to be. Before Alain had freed him from the cage at Lavas Holding, he had been, like his brothers, a slave to the single-minded lust for killing, war, and plunder that imprisoned his kind. He had been no better than the rest of them and, because of his smaller stature, at a disadvantage.
Was it Alain’s dreaming influence that had altered some essential thread that wound through his being?
Around him, his troops murmured restlessly, still filled with battle lust. They had taken Hefenfelthe, but they had no clear victory.
“Why kill these hostages?” he asked, turning to look at them, one by one. These would carry the message to his army, each brother to another, spreading the word of Stronghand’s wisdom. “The queen of Alba and her sorcerers gain power by sacrificing the blood of their subjects. They left these ones behind as sacrifices, knowing we would kill them in anger once we had seen we were thwarted of our prey. So if we kill them, we do their will and strengthen their magic. Therefore we will not kill them. They will become our prisoners. The power of the queen and her sorcerers will become a slave to our power.”
The girl wept when she understood that she would not serve her queen as she had been commanded.
One of his Rikin brothers emerged from the tower, carrying his standard. Stronghand sheathed his sword and, with the child still held in his left arm, walked to the battlements and hoisted his standard high, so his army, below, could see him. A roar lifted from their ranks, echoing through the conquered city. The magic that lived in the staff hummed against his palm. The breeze made the charms that hung from the standard sing, bone flutes whistling, beads and chains chiming softly, melding with the clack and scrape of wood, leather, and bones. Once again, the magic woven by the priests of his people had protected him against the magic wielded by his enemies.
Out in the fields beyond the walls the last refugees, those who had crept out of their homes while the battle raged around the citadel, fled into the shelter of distant trees. The fields and forest of Alba stretched away in all directions, cut by the broad river and a nearby tributary. It was a rich land.
But it was not his land yet.
“We seek the queen and her sorcerers.”
“Where can we find them?” asked Tenth Son.
Stronghand glanced at the weeping girl with her silver circlet and its seven tines. Six sacrifices waited with her, seven souls in all. It could be no accident that Alain appeared to him after so long in the embrace of a stone circle so like the circle made by the WiseMothers. on the fjall above Rikin Fjord.
“They will retreat to a place of power. Alert the forward parties and the scouts. All prisoners will be questioned about forts or marshes where a small force can defend itself. But we should also seek a standing circle of stones, perhaps one with seven stones. I believe that is where we will find the queen.”
VIII
RATS AND LIONS
1
SUNLIGHT washed the plank floor of the attic room, illuminating three months’ worth of dust that layered the floor and empty pallets as well as the trail of Hanna’s footsteps cutting a straight line from the trapdoor to the window. It was so hot up here that she could scarcely breathe. She stumbled against one of the shutters, unhooked and laid it on the floor, and kicked it aside before leaning out to gulp in fresh air.
In late spring the king had ridden south with Queen Adelheid to fight the Jinna pirates infesting the southeastern provinces. Hanna had arrived in midsummer after a grueling trip over the mountains, but the palace stewards had not allowed her to ride after Henry’s army. She could not expect, they told her, that her cloak and Eagle’s badge would grant her safe passage in those parts of the country not yet loyal to the king.
She had to wait.
She wiped sweat from her forehead and ducked back into shadow, but decided that the blast of the sun in the open air was preferable to the smothering heat of the attic sleeping quarters. Adjusting her brimmed hat to ward off the worst of the direct glare, she leaned out again. A stew of smells rose from the surrounding buildings: manure, piss, slops, roasting pig, and a hint of incense almost lost beneath the perfume of human living. From this angle and height, she looked out over rooftops toward the delicate spire marking the royal chapel and beyond that the outer walls and the gulf of air shimmering above the lower city with its massive stone edifices. The river cut a thread of molten iron through streets hazy with heat, dust, and cook fires.
Unbelievably vast, Darre seemed a warren of alleys and avenues, with so many houses that no person could possibly count them. Beyond the outermost walls lay fields and vineyards and, farther out, distant hills and a dark ribbon marking the route to the sea. Wisps of cloud pushed over those sere heights, promising relief against the heat later in the day. Was that smoke drifting up from the tallest peak? Had someone lit a fire at its height? She couldn’t tell, and it seemed a strange thing to do in any case.
Hanna had explored as many corners, sinks, and privies, as many balconies, shady arbors, and storage pits as she was allowed into in the regnant’s palace. She had even toured the prison down in the city, and the tower where other Aostan regnants had confined their enemies, although Adelheid kept no hostages now. All the tower rooms lay empty, stripped of furniture, heavy with dust.
She had asked about Margrave Villam.
Dead of a tragic fall when he was drunk.
She had asked about Duchess Liutgard of Fesse and Duke Burchard of Avaria.
Ridden south with the king.
She had asked about Sister Rosvita, the king’s counselor.
Neither dead nor gone.
How could a person be neither dead nor gone? How could the stewards of the palace and the legions of servants not hoard rumors of her fate? Rosvita had been here when King Henry arrived; now she was not. Hanna had discovered no transition between arrival and departure. She found again and again that her thoughts turned to Hathui’s accusations. Either Hathui was lying, or the Aostan stewards were.
She leaned out farther, dizzy from the height, but even from this angle she could only see one corner of the skopos’ palace. She had hoped to find answers there, but the guards would not let her inside.
With a sigh, she ducked back into the shadow, fighting to get in a lungful of the overheated air.
A footfall sounded on the ladder. She spun, drawing her knife. A broom’s handle poked through the open trap, followed by the rest of the broom, thrust up and falling sideways to clatter onto the floor. A woman emerged awkwardly, grasped the broom, and rose, then gasped, seeing Hanna.
“Oh, Lord in Heaven!” she exclaimed. “You surprised me!” She wore a serviceable tunic covered with a dusty tabard and a plain linen scarf concealing her hair. Not as young as Hanna, she wasn’t yet old. “Begging your pardon. I didn’t expect to find anyone else up here.”
“Neither did I.”
The servant gave a companionable chuckle, a little forced. “Well, now, I suppose that means that neither of us have eyes in the backs of our heads, to see around corners and through walls.”
Hanna stayed by the window but sheathed the knife as the woman walked away from her to the other end of the long attic room. There, she stooped to allow for the pitched roof and began sweeping. Dust rose in clouds around her, and she paused to tie up her tabard over her mouth and nose.
“Always the worst when it’s the first cleaning,” she said cheerfully as Hanna watched with surprise.
“It seems awfully hot to be thinking of cleaning out these sleeping rooms.” The heat all summer had been like a battering ram. She had never got used to it.
“True enough. But the weather can turn cold suddenly now that the season is turning from summer to autumn, if you call this autumn. We have to start thinking of inhabiting these rooms again. Last year you can’t believe how hot it was, hotter than this, and with unseasonable rains, too, and a terrible hailstorm.”
“I hear the king was taken sorely ill, last year.”
The servant looked up at her, expression hidden except for her eyes. Her gaze had a queer, searching intensity. But as the silence stretched out uncomfortably, she returned to sweeping.
“Last summer, yes, he was taken ill with the shivering fever. He was laid in bed for two months, and the armies fought all summer and autumn without him. They had no victories, nor any defeats. So they say.” Again that searching glance scrutinized Hanna. “That’s if they say what’s true, but how are we simple servants to know what’s truth and what’s not?”
“Eagles know.”
“Where are all the Eagles? Gone with the king, all but that poor redheaded fellow who got so sick.”
“Rufus?”
“That’s right,” she continued amiably, her voice muffled by the cloth. “He came south last year at the command of Biscop Constance in Autun, didn’t he?”
“So he told me.” Carrying a message very like the ones sent by Theophanu, but the king had not heeded him.
“Yes, poor lad. He was so sick even the palace healers thought he would die from the shivering. That’s why he had to be left behind this past spring when the king rode south.”
“Yet all the other Eagles rode south with the king, didn’t they? Why haven’t any of them brought reports back to Darre? Why is it always the queen’s Aostan messengers we see?”
“How can I know the king’s mind? I can only thank the Lord and Lady that his army has won victories over both the infidels and the heretics. And over a few Aostan nobles who would prefer no regnant placed above their heads. So we’re told.”
Her account tallied with the news Rufus had given Hanna. “I’ve heard talk that the king and queen will be crowned with imperial crowns before the end of the year.”
“That talk has been going on as long as I’ve been here, these two and a half years. Maybe it will finally happen.”
With the steady scritch of the broom against wood like an accompaniment to her thoughts, Hanna finally realized what was strangest about this industrious woman. “You’re Wendish.”
“So I am. I’m called Aurea, from the estate of Landelbach in Fesse. You’re that new Eagle what rode in a few months back.”
“Yes. My name is Hanna Birta’s-daughter, from the North Mark. I come from a place called Heart’s Rest.” A low rumble shook through the floor and the entire building swayed.
Hanna shrieked. “What is that?”
The rumbling faded, the building stilled, and Aurea kept sweeping. “Haven’t you felt one yet? An earthquake? We feel them every few months.”
“Nay, no earthquakes. Nor weather anywhere near as hot as what I’ve suffered through here.” She was still trembling.
“True enough. It’s hot here for weeks on end, too, not just for a short spell as it would be up north where I come from. It isn’t natural.”
Hanna exhaled, still trying to steady her nerves. “An old friend of mine would say that Aosta lies near
er to the sun. That’s why it’s hotter here.”
“Is it? That seems a strange story to me. Nearer to the sun!” Aurea hummed under her breath. “But no stranger than many a tale I’ve heard here in Darre. Sister Heriburg says that in the east there’s snakes who suckle milk right from the cow. In the south no plants can grow because the sun shines so hot, and the folk who live there have great, huge ears that they use like tents during the day to protect them from the sun. Even here, there’s stories about godly clerics who abide in the skopos’ dungeons like rats, hidden from the sight of most people, but I don’t suppose those are any more true than that tale my old grandmam told me about a dragon turned into stone in the north country. It lies there still, they say, by the sea, but nothing can bring it back to life.”
She kept her gaze on the warped floorboards where dust collected in cracks. Hanna thought she would choke in air now polluted with a swirling cloud of dust, but she dared not move. She had to think. How strange to speak of clerics hidden away in dungeons.
Maybe it was only a figure of speech, an old tale spun by the palace servants to pass the time.
But maybe it wasn’t.
“I’ve heard stories of men who can turn themselves into wolves,” she said at last, cautiously, “but never any of clerics who can turn themselves into rats. I’ve heard that story about the dragon, too, though, the one turned into stone. When there’s a great storm come in off the Northern Sea, you can hear the dragons keening. That’s what my old grandmother always said.”
“Lots of stories of dragons,” agreed the servant woman without looking up from her sweeping, “but I’ve never heard tell of a single person who’d ever seen such a beast. Rats, now. Rats I’ve seen aplenty.”
“There must be an army of rats in a great palace like this one.”
“And the biggest ones of all down in the dungeons. I don’t doubt they’re caught down there somehow, between stone walls. There’s only the one staircase, guarded by the Holy Mother’s faithful guards, and they’re sharp-eyed, those fellows. Everyone says so. As likely to skewer a rat on the point of their knife if it comes scurrying up the stairs. A woman here I know said it happens every year, and then they roast those rats they’ve caught and throw their burned carcasses to the dogs.”
