The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  Elene sat beside him, staring at him with solemn eyes. “I didn’t look at him,” she said to her grandmother. “I thought him beneath my notice. How strange that God should act through such a common, ugly, dirty man.”

  “Even a cringing dog can bite, Elene. Look more closely at humankind. The outer seeming may not mirror the inner heart.”

  “I know! I know!” said the girl impatiently, as though she had heard this lecture a hundred times before. “That isn’t what I meant! He just didn’t seem to matter.”

  “Neither did the mouse spared by the prisoner, who later gnawed through her ropes and thereby freed her.”

  The shade drew a line across the girl’s tunic as she smoothed it down over her knees; she had her head in the sun and her legs in the shadow. “I’m afraid, Grandmother. I don’t want to go into the wilderness. You don’t know what we’ll find on the other side of the gateway. What if there are monsters there, too?”

  “We must be strong, Elene. We have been given a task. I alone can speak the language of those who bide in the desert country, so I must go. So be it.”

  “So be it,” she breathed, bowing her head.

  “Gah,” he whispered, but the sound vanished in the trickling tumble of grains of sand down the sloped cloth lean-to as a wind blew up from the flats.

  His body was ice, his thoughts sluggish. Somehow, the lean-to came down and he was rolled onto a length of cloth and dragged over the bumpy ground to be dropped again, left lying with a rock digging into the small of his back.

  There he lay. A haze descended, and for a while he heard faint sounds, none of them distinct enough to identify. A drop of moisture wet his palm. Through the haze the sun shone as it sank low into the west, but its glare had the force of ice, creeping into his limbs.

  He drifted. It was getting harder and harder to see people; they seemed so tenuous and insubstantial set against the pale hills and the darkening sky, which were older creatures by far, populated by ancient spirits that stalked the shadows. Light winked in the heavens; a star bloomed. Figures moved outside the circle, raising and lowering staffs and murmuring words too softly for him to hear or understand.

  A spider’s thread spun down from the heavens to latch to one of the stones, followed by a second. His heart sped as he realized they were engaged in the art of the mathematici, who could read the movements of the heavens and discern their secrets. Years ago Kansi-a-lari had woven a spell into the stones while he cowered and prayed, but she had woven it with the intent to keep them in one place while time moved forward around them. Marcus wove a gateway into the stones through which Meriam and Elene and their retinue might travel to a distant land.

  The stone circles were gateways, each one a gate that could lead to any one of the others, but he did not know how to weave the spell. He wanted to know how to weave the spell. He tried to lift his head, to look, to learn, but none of his limbs moved and that waxing torpor dragged him down, and down, and down into the pit. A shadow bent over him; hands pinned parchment to his robes; the cloth on which he lay strained and tugged around his body and he moved into the web of light. Blind, he floated while all around blue fire burned with a cold breath that soaked him to the bone.

  It is so cold that it burns. He sees branching corridors and down each one a vision, whether false or true he cannot say.

  A man, grimy, thin, half naked, walks and walks as a rumbling wheel rolls around and around him, never ending.

  Wizened creatures whisper and skulk in the depths of the earth, listening.

  A merman glides through smoky waters, pulled by the wake of a slender ship.

  A small party of robed figures strides hastily through the blue-white fog. Is there a familiar face among them? Isn’t that the Eagle called Hanna, who was freed from slavery to Bulkezu? She turns as if hearing his thoughts and calls aloud.

  “Who are you?”

  Light flared, and died, and he hit hard ground, his back and head and hips jarred by the force of the impact. That flare of the light washed away until no light remained. Was it night? Or was he blind?

  He could no longer move his lips. But he could still hear.

  “Who is this?”

  “See, there is a message pinned to his robes with a fine brooch. Ai, God! He stinks!”

  “Feh! So he does!”

  “This is signed with the name of Brother Marcus. Here is the man who dragged the filthy one. He has the look of a servant.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “I don’t know. He looks as if he’s been knocked cold, but otherwise healthy. We must take these two to the Holy Mother.”

  “That’s a long road.”

  A warm hand touched his lips, then his throat, and last his eyes. “God Above! He’s like ice! I think he’s dying. Hurry! Send for Presbyter Hugh!”

  Their voices faded into a hiss, but that, too, fell away as he sank into the silence of the pit.

  XXIV

  HIS VOICE

  1

  IT was raining again, a downpour that threatened to drown the newly planted seeds and sow the dreaded murrain among their precious sheep, for they’d heard rumors that the disease had blighted lands south of here. Ivar stood on the porch of the infirmary and listened to the gallop of rain on the sloping roof, accompanied by the coughs of the afflicted resting under the care of Sister Nanthild. Ermanrich, Hathumod, and Sigfrid were all sick with a pleurisy that had felled three quarters of their little congregation. One elderly nun had died, but the rest seemed doomed only to be miserable and weak for many weeks.

  “There you are, Brother Ivar.” Sister Nanthild could barely walk with the assistance of two canes, and she never went farther than the porch of her infirmary, but she was nevertheless a fierce and wise ruler of her tiny domain. “Still healthy, I see. Are you chewing licorice root?”

  “More than I ever wished to, Sister.” The taste had ruined his appetite, since every food now stank of aniseed.

  She chuckled. “An obedient boy, even if you are a heretic. Is there aught Her Grace wishes from me? I can’t let you in to speak with your comrades. We rely on your health, Brother Ivar. We must take no chance that you catch the contagion.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t like it.”

  “Am I so easy to understand, Sister?”

  Her smile was a well-worn crease in a wrinkled face. He had never seen her lose her temper, even with her most crotchety patients—and many tested her with their whining and complaints. “I have seen every condition of humankind in the course of my years, Brother. You are no mystery to me!”

  The comment frightened him, although he knew it ought not to. He had worked hard to quiet the demons that pricked him, but she saw into his innermost heart.

  “There, now, child. I do not know all your secrets, nor do I wish to know them. I have secrets of my own.”

  “Surely you have led a blameless life!”

  “When I was a young girl I was allowed to kiss the hand of the sainted Queen Radegundis. It may be that a trifling measure of her holiness blessed me with a long life and few troubles. But I have sown my share of ills in the world, as do we all. Now, then. How goes it with Her Grace?”

  “She says to tell you, It is time.”

  “Ah.” She went to the door and called to her assistant. “Sister Frotharia, fetch me the satchel hanging from the hook behind my chair.”

  Coughs and groans greeted her words as patients sought her attention, and she gestured to Ivar to stay put and hobbled back into the long hall where the sick lay on pallets. After a while, Sister Frotharia came out onto the porch and, without a word, handed Ivar a satchel, then went back inside.

  Ivar glanced up and down the porch, but of course he was alone. No one ventured out in such rain. The ground was slicked to mud, and even on the gravel pathways rivulets and puddles made walking perilous. Their guards rarely ventured within the limits of the palisade that ringed their holy community.

  The satchel weighed heavi
ly on his arm as he hurried out into the rain. The infirmary abutted the main compound. The guards posted at the door to the biscop’s suite stepped aside without speaking; they had served almost three months and glowered at him with the suspicion of men who have heard nothing but poisonous gossip. The guard was rotated through every three months; to this schedule Lady Sabella adhered with iron discipline. The usurper feared, Ivar supposed, that lengthy contact with Biscop Constance might corrupt the guards.

  As it would.

  Biscop Constance had certainly corrupted him. She possessed every quality that set apart those noble in spirit as well as blood: tall and handsome, prudent and humble, diligent and pious, farsighted and discreet, eloquent, patient, amiable, and stern.

  “Ah,” the good biscop said, looking up as he entered. She sat as usual at her writing desk with two assistants beside her in case she needed anything.

  Never in his wildest imaginings had he expected to become the familiar attendant and counselor to a noblewoman of such high station, one who wore the gold torque signifying her royal kinship at her neck.

  “Are you sure this is wise, Your Grace?” he asked.

  “I am sure it is not. If I cannot go myself, then I do not wish to put one of my faithful retainers into such danger.”

  “It must be done,” said the young woman seated at the biscop’s feet. She had riotous black curls that the nun’s scarf over her head could not constrain. Sister Bona had been a foundling, discovered at the gates of the biscop’s palace in Autun some sixteen years before. Now she was one of the prettiest girls Ivar had ever seen, and her houndlike loyalty to the biscop gave her a warrior’s bold resolve. “It must be done now! The rain will cover my tracks. The guards hide in their shelters. I can find refuge with certain farming families and loyal monasteries that are known to me through my travels with you, Your Grace. If I can reach Kassel, Duchess Liutgard’s steward will give me aid and send me with an escort to Princess Theophanu. Even if I can get as far as Hersford Monastery, I will be safe with Father Ortulfus. You know it must be done!”

  “I could go,” said Ivar, but Bona fixed him with such a glower that he laughed nervously and took a step back.

  “You are one of only seven men who abide in this prison,” said Constance. “You would be easily missed.” Pain never left her. She shut her eyes, frowning, but with a deep sigh opened them again. “Go, then, Bona. Make haste. Avoid the roads at all costs. Go with God.”

  They embraced, then parted. Constance did not rise as Ivar gave the satchel to Bona, who slung it over her shoulder and hurried out into the courtyard, Ivar at her heels.

  “I know the countryside better than you do!” she said, not looking back at him.

  “It will be dangerous!”

  “So it will.” She glanced over her shoulder, and her grin challenged and vexed him. No girl brought up in the convent ought to be so provocative, but no placid creature would have dared what Bona meant now to attempt. Sigfrid and Ermanrich had no difficulty adjusting to a celibate life as the only young men confined to this convent—there were also four elderly lay brothers who labored about the grounds—but Ivar felt the sting of itchings and cravings every day. He could never scratch.

  At least it wasn’t Liath he dreamed of every single night, but the procession of women who progressed through his dreams only made it worse, all of them succubi wearing familiar faces: Liath, sometimes, but Hanna, too, and Bona (too often), and that girl from Gent, and a dozen others glimpsed and forgotten until they returned to haunt him. He never dreamed of Baldwin, but that betrayal only plagued him in his waking hours when he wondered how much his friend suffered and whether he smiled or wept in Sabella’s tender care.

  On two sides of the courtyard the windows and doors opening onto the courtyard had been boarded up to keep Constance confined within the biscop’s suite, but Bona had loosened a board and after a final, considering glance at Ivar, she wriggled through the opening, dragging the satchel behind her. He pushed the board back into place to conceal the opening and went out to stand in the cold rain beside the dry fountain, letting himself get drenched.

  Six months ago he and his three companions had been marched as prisoners into this place. How long would they bide here? Would they ever be freed? Or would they die here?

  After a while he walked, dripping, back into the audience chamber.

  Constance did not look up, but her quill paused. “She is gone?”

  “She is gone, Your Grace.”

  She nodded. Her pen resumed its scratching across the parchment, driven with the same stern determination that had kept this tiny community going, although they might all so easily have lost heart.

  He left and went outside, finding shelter in the mouth of the byre where the sheep sheltered during the winter. From here he had a good view of the palisade. This high fence had originally been erected across the mouth of the valley to keep out the enemies of Queen Gertruda, the founder of this tiny community dedicated to St. Asella but commonly referred to as Queen’s Grave. Yet a refuge that kept enemies out might as easily be turned inward. Since Constance’s arrival, the palisade had grown to enclose the community on all sides, zigzagging through woodland and running below the high ridge that closed in the valley at the far end. Guards patrolling the walls day and night kept them locked in. The high ridge walls and the palisade bounded their world, yet it was not precisely an evil existence, only a curtailed one.

  What made it evil dwelled in the world, not in their hearts. Yet he could not believe that they were better off waiting in here than fighting out there.

  2

  FOR a long time Zacharias could hear but not see, could feel a jostling all along his torso and limbs that at long last and for no obvious reason ceased.

  “Is this the one? He reeks.”

  “Yes, Holy Mother.”

  “He and the servant were found in the crown at Novomo?”

  “Yes, Holy Mother. It took six days for them to convey him here in a cart. As you see, he is crippled, mute, and blind.”

  “But not dead?”

  “Not dead. The message speaks of a poison that both paralyzes and preserves.”

  “This is the parchment that was pinned to his robes?”

  “Yes, Holy Mother.”

  “Brother Marcus has appended his name at the end. I recognize the imperfect curve of his ‘r’s.”

  “Yes, Holy Mother.”

  The woman’s voice lowered as she read the words in a murmur, phrases rising and falling out of earshot. “… akreva … Sister Meriam left this receipt for a nostrum that will counteract the poison … she has departed without further incident, but where she has landed I know not. She will send a servant back to me, but I do not know when to expect … I remain here to safeguard this crown and prepare for the conjunction … Brother Lupus’ treachery … our calculations with the locations and angles necessary to locate each crown and link them together according to the ancient spell … but it will be necessary to double-check against these calculations from the tables of Biscop Tallia …”

  The voice lulled him back into that stupor, prey to the touch of hands and the play of water and then cloth over his body as servants washed and dressed him and exclaimed over his mutilation. He knew when the haze lightened and became something more than a gray fog, when vague forms took on shape and he recognized forms as people bending over him to examine his skin and eyes. He knew when his sense of smell returned because of the unexpected scent of hot bread fresh from the ovens that caused him to salivate, and then to swallow.

  The sensation of movement shocked him. Was he so utterly paralyzed? How had they been feeding him all this time?

  Yet he was not dead.

  When he tried his tongue, only that stubborn ‘gah’ sound clawed in his throat. Day after day he struggled against this muteness until he dared not attempt speech at all because it was worse to imagine that he had lost the ability to talk altogether. Day after day folk came to marvel, for what reason
he did not know and could not ask. Mute. Speechless. Nothing could be worse. Even death was preferable.

  But one day as the sober-looking servant called Eigio who always tended him rolled him to one side in order to change the bedding beneath him, he tried again because he could not stop trying to talk.

  “Where have I come to?”

  The man shrieked, dropped the half-cleared bedding, and ran from the room, leaving him propped up on his side like a board.

  Was that truly his own voice, so rough and low? He tried again.

  “Where have I come to? What day is it?”

  Elation spilled tears from his eyes, streaming down his cheeks to spot the rumpled bedding. Emboldened, he tensed and rocked, overbalanced, and tipped forward to land facedown on the lumpy mattress at a tilt, caught between the mattress and the ridges made by the half-stripped blankets. A hollow cradled his face so he could breathe, inhaling the musty smell of straw ticking and coarse canvas cover moist with his sweat and effusions.

  “Yes! He spoke as clear as can be, Your Excellency. God in Heaven! Look there! He’s rolled himself forward.”

  Hands gripped him by shoulder and hip and heaved him back against the wall. He looked up at the worried servant and, beyond him, a golden-haired man clothed in a fine pale linen tunic who gazed at him so pensively that Zacharias thought the man was about to weep.

  “Can you hear me, Brother Zacharias?” asked this magnificent figure in a fine, mellifluous voice. “Can you speak?”

  “Who are you?” he croaked.

  “Ah.” The man called to an unseen fourth party. “Vindicadus, bring me my robes.”

  “Yes, Your Excellency.”

  The patter of footsteps faded as the lord examined Zacharias. “What shall we do with you?” he mused. “What shall we do? Two days yet until the king’s ascension. Can you move?”

  Zacharias tried to wiggle his feet, to move his hands, but nothing happened. He might as well have been stone, and it sickened him to think of lying here in helpless terror as each day spun into the next. “Am I a cripple, Your Excellency?”