The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  “I understand you can see through fire,” continued Lord Alexandros without greeting the lady. He did not look toward Eudokia, as if he had not noticed her entrance. “The Eagle’s Sight, they call it. Show me.”

  Hanna grunted under her breath, both amused and outraged, but she supposed it mattered little. They could not see what she saw unless they had themselves been trained in Eagle’s Sight. As she knelt before the low brazier on its tripod legs, Lady Eudokia cast a handful of crumbled herbs onto the fire and flames blazed up and caught in the sticks. The heat seared Hanna’s face, and she sat back on her heels, but the general had already moved, as quick as a panther, to draw his sword and rest the blade flat across her back.

  “If you see nothing,” he said, “then you are no use to me. I will kill you here and now. If you see, I spare you.”

  All her breath whooshed out. She set her palms on her knees as she steadied her breathing, however difficult it was with the pressure of the blade along her shoulders and the chill of the threat hanging in the air. Fear not. She had survived worse trials than this.

  She focused her thoughts and stared into the flame. Whom should she seek? What could she see through fire that would not betray them?

  Yet what betrayal remained? Rosvita had told the truth, but Sapientia and her companions had not believed her. Her thoughts skittered. The general loomed over her with his sword held close to her vulnerable neck.

  Ai, God, where was Liath?

  In the depths there is only shadow, a darkness so opaque that she imagines she smells the wrack of seawater; she imagines she hears the sigh of wavelets lapping on a stony shore. A sound catches her, the scrape of cloth against pebbles as if a limb moves as a person shifts in sleep. Down, and down, she falls, following that sound, until the flame itself becomes one with a river of fire that rages in a tumult, pouring over her.

  She starts back. Iron confines her movement and shoves her forward again, and she breathes his name, whom she has sought for so long.

  Ivar.

  He kneels before a lady crowned with a circle of gold. A gold torque grips her throat. She is tall and sturdily built, a powerful woman with brown hair and the broad hands of a person who rides and does not fear to wield a weapon.

  “Go, then,” says the Lady.

  Hanna knows that cool voice well: It is Princess Theophanu. She is seated in a hall with banners hanging from the beams and a crowd of courtiers about her, most of them women. There is another young man with Ivar, but Hanna does not know him. “Take this message and return to my aunt. I am shut up here in Osterburg. My influence ranges no farther afield than Gent and the fields of Saony because I was left as regent without enough troops to maintain my authority. I dare not leave the ancient seat of my family’s power. It may be all we have left. Famine and plague have devastated the south. I have sent into Avaria and the marchlands, but now I hear that they have cast their lot with my bastard brother, and that they, too, have marched to Aosta in pursuit of Henry and the imperial crown! I cannot ride against Sabelia and Conrad. They are stronger than I am.”

  “What must Biscop Constance do, Your Highness?” Ivar asked despairingly “She is their prisoner.”

  “She must pray that deliverance comes soon.”

  “So it is true.” Lady Eudokia’s voice jerked Hanna out of the fire, but Lord Alexandros’ sword still pressed against her back. She wasn’t free, and might never be so again. “How much more is true if this is true?”

  “Queen Sapientia believes the cleric’s story is not true,” said the general.

  “She is easily led. Geza has gained a pliant coursing hound to bend to his will.”

  “As long as he keeps to his share of our bargain, we are well served by this alliance.”

  Eudokia smiled, and Hanna pretended to stare into the waning flames so they could not guess she understood them. “General, I do not criticize the alliance with the Ungrian barbarians. I only speak the truth. It is the truth we must discover before we decide whether to attack the usurper and the false skopos or to retreat. The portents speak of an ill tide rising. Does the fire speak the truth? Does it speak only of this day and this hour, or can it see into both past and future? Do we strike now? Or protect ourselves until the worst is over?”

  The sword shifting against Hanna’s back betrayed a gesture on his part, which she could not see. She dared not turn her head. Hairs rose on the back of her neck. How easy it would be for him to kill her here where she knelt, yet surely they wouldn’t want to spoil the carpet with her heretic’s blood. She had betrayed the Eagle’s Sight to foreigners. What more did they want of her?

  Eudokia fished beneath the blanket covering her legs and drew out a bundle of straight twigs, none longer than a finger. She leaned forward and scattered a dozen onto the dying fire. Flames curled and faltered, then caught with renewed vigor, and the smell that burned off those twigs was a punch so strong that Hanna reeled from it and would have fallen if the general had not closed a hand over her shoulder and wrenched her upright.

  “See!” he commanded.

  Smoke twined about the licking tongues of fire and dizzied Hanna until her eyes watered and she could no longer tell if she saw true or saw hallucinations brought on by the taste of the smoke.

  “Camphor will lead her,” said Eudokia, but Hanna was already gone. Her head throbbed and she broke out in a sweat, coughing, while her awareness seemed sharply stimulated. She felt the pile of the carpet through the cloth of her leggings; she heard the rustle of silk as the general changed position behind her; the wasp sting burned in her heart while Lady Eudokia murmured words under her breath, a spell like a snake that drew the smoke into a mirror into whose smooth depths Hanna fell

  Holy Mother Anne stands in a circle of seven stones on the edge of a cliff. Through the stone crown she weaves threads of light into a glimmering net reaching far across the lands. Its apex explodes in

  fire and lightning so bright it stings her eyes, it blinds her the Earth burns

  the Earth splits and cracks open and a yawning abyss swallows the Middle Sea, and she is choking as a wall of water sweeps inland, drowning all before it

  “Enough!” cried Eudokia, voice rising, cracking with fear.

  Hanna was flung backward and hit her shoulders and then her head, although the carpet cushioned the blow somewhat. Yet sparks shot from the brazier and spun like fireflies, raining down as the general leaped forward to shove Lady Eudokia’s chair out of the way, chair legs catching in the carpet and dragging it up into stiff folds. An ember ghosted down to light on Hanna’s cheek. No vision, this. It burned into her skin and, with the heavy incense clouding her lungs, she gulped for air, coughed helplessly, and passed out.

  “Hanna, I pray you, wake up.”

  She fought those hands, knowing that the fingers that closed around her neck would choke the life out of her just as the smoke had.

  “Hanna!”

  A jolt threw her sideways into a hard wall. After this new pain resolved into an ordinary scrape and bruise, she found herself staring into the grain of rough-hewn wood. She recognized the scrape of wheels and the lurching gait of a wagon. She lay in its bed with the heavens splayed above her almost gauzy, they glared so whitely. Because the sight made her eyes hurt, she looked down. Fortunatus strode alongside, peering down anxiously at her.

  “Hanna? Are you awake?”

  The taste of the incense still clogged her throat.

  “Hanna, what happened?”

  Other faces crowded around as they jostled to get a look at her: Ruoda, Heriburg, Gerwita, Jerome and Jehan, the sisters from St. Ekatarina’s, the servant women, all sliding in and out of her vision. Then Rosvita came and the others melted aside so the cleric could walk with one hand upon the wagon. Her gaze on Hanna had such a benign aspect that Hanna gave a sigh of relief, though it hurt to let air whistle from lungs to mouth.

  “Let her be, comrades.”

  “But what happened?” cried the others, voices tumbling one
on top of the next. “Where are we going in such haste? Why are we traveling back the way we came as though we’re fleeing the Enemy?”

  “Can you tell us what happened, Hanna?” Rosvita’s tone was mild but her expression disconcertingly tense. She touched Hanna’s cheek with a finger, flicking at the skin; Hanna winced, feeling the scar where the ember had burned her. “Ah!” murmured Rosvita sadly, as if she had only now realized that Hanna bore a new injury.

  “I saw it.” She did not recognize her own voice. The smoke had ruined it. “Fire. Burning. A flood of water as mighty as the sea unleashed.” Tears made her stammer. “T-the end of the world.”

  3

  THE company of thirty handpicked soldiers and their charge fled down onto the coastal plain in blistering heat to rejoin the queen’s army, and on the evening of the fifth day they rode into a camp situated near the shore in the hope, perhaps, of catching a breeze off the waters. Yet the tide was far out, exposing rocks and slime, and despite the lowering twilight there was no wind at all, only the heat.

  In the center of camp Antonia dismounted from her mule and fixed Adelheid with an exasperated gaze as a servant showed her to a seat under an awning. Adelheid indicated that all but Duke Burchard and her most faithful retainers should depart to give Antonia a few moments to relax in peace.

  “How long will we suffer in this heat?” Duke Burchard asked the empress, as if continuing a conversation halted by Antonia’s arrival.

  “It is part of the skopos’ plan. If clouds cover the sky, then she cannot weave her great spell. Or so I understand.” Servants fanned them, but it was still almost too hot to breathe.

  Burchard grunted, sounding uneasy. “When I was young, the church condemned tempestari. They said such magic interfered with the natural course of God’s will.”

  “One might say the same of swords and spears,” observed Adelheid, “for otherwise enemies would do much less damage each to the other when they went to war, and battles would be a far less bloody business. Sorcery is a tool, Burchard, just like a sword.” She turned to regard Antonia, who had finished drinking her wine while a servant wiped her sweating brow and neck with a damp linen cloth. “You were not successful, then, Sister Venia?”

  She was dusty, sore, hot, tired, and thoroughly angry. “He has griffins!”

  “So the scouts reported,” said Burchard with an uplifted brow. “Didn’t you believe them?”

  “I did not comprehend the nature of their power.”

  “What is the nature of a griffin’s power?” The empress sat with feet tucked up under her in a most unbefitting informality; one blue silk slipper peeped out from beneath the gold drapery of her robe. She leaned forward now, lips parted, eyes wide, as innocent as a child and most likely just as stupid.

  “They have the power to banish the galla. It is said griffin feathers can cut through the bonds of magic.”

  “Did the galla not throw confusion into his army?”

  “A score of men may have died, more or less. I viewed the attack from a safe distance. We have not stopped him.”

  “But we have slowed him down.”

  The queen’s prettiness had never irritated Antonia more than at this moment. How soft those pink lips looked! How pale and inviting were those lovely eyes! Adelheid had not sullied her hands with blood, since the criminals she had handed over to Antonia were marked for execution in any case. But Adelheid had the knack of getting others to do her dirty work for her so that her hands remained lily white. She had scribes to write her missives; loyal guardsmen to wield swords in her defense; stewards to bring her food and drink and a host of fawning courtiers like that old fool Burchard to sing her praises. Beauty was a perilous gift, so often misused. Even as a girl Antonia had scorned those who with their ephemeral beauty got their way even when it was wrong for them to have done so. She had never possessed winsomeness. She had studied righteousness and the game of power to achieve her ends, molding herself into God’s instrument.

  That was a better kind of sword, one whose reach was infinite and whose span was eternal.

  “We cannot stop him,” said Antonia. “Have you not considered what the failure of this attack means? The galla were our most powerful weapon.”

  “Think you so, Sister Venia? I would have thought that surprise was our most powerful weapon.”

  “The galla surprised him, yet he overcame them.”

  Adelheid sighed, shifting her feet. Her hair was uncovered as relief from the heat, and her thick black hair braided in as simple a fashion as any farm girl. “I hope you do not despair. I do not.”

  Antonia knew better than to say what she thought. She had her own plans, and it would not do to anger the empress. “What do you mean to do, Your Majesty?”

  “I mean to send you back to my daughters. You will reside at Tivura until I call for them. I believe you can protect them with your galla, if need be. You have proved your worth. I know you will do what you must to protect them. I hope you do not fear the journey back to Darre. There may be dangers now that Prince Sanglant’s army descends into our land.”

  Burchard was nodding in time to the queen’s recital. Antonia had once had more patience for this kind of nonsense, and it was difficult to endure it now, but even so she knew how to smile to gain another’s confidence and goodwill. Adelheid needed her, and for now she needed Adelheid. “I am well armed, just as Prince Sanglant is, Your Majesty. And your plans?”

  “We will march east through Ivria along the coast.”

  “Away from Darre?”

  “Prince Sanglant will not march on Darre if we challenge him elsewhere. Darre is not the heart of Aosta. I am. He must capture me to have a hope of capturing the empire.”

  “Rumor speaks that it is his father he seeks, not you, Your Majesty.”

  “No man refuses a crown if it is dangled before him.” Antonia frowned. “Do you want Prince Sanglant, Your Majesty? Is this a feint to capture him?”

  Burchard snorted. “The queen is loyal to her husband!”

  Adelheid laughed and reached out to pat Burchard’s trembling hands. That sweet laughter had captivated a court, a king, and an empire, but it did not fool Antonia. “Hush, Burchard. My loyalty to Henry is not in question.” She settled back and turned her bright gaze on Antonia. “Of course it is a feint to trap him, Sister. What else would it be? Eagles fly swiftly. I am not the only one who received news from a messenger ten days ago speaking of Sanglant’s approach over the Brinne Pass.”

  4

  ADELHEID’S army retreated in good order a half day’s ride out in front of them through the worst heat Sanglant had ever suffered and at last took shelter within the walls of the seaport town of Estriana while his army laid in a siege. Few Wendish towns boasted strong stone walls; most had wooden palisades and a stone keep. These were ancient walls erected in the days of the old Dariyan Empire. The town stood on an outcrop that thrust into a shallow bay with waters flat and glassy beyond and the belt of surrounding fields shorn of forage. Her forces had worked efficiently, leaving nothing more than dusty stubble, plucked vines, and a number of gnarled olive trees. To the east the ground rose into rugged hill country and west the wooded coastal plain stretched into a haze of heat and dust. To the north lay hills as well, and where a tongue of a ridgeline thrust out onto the narrow coastal flat a river spilled down onto low land and thence out to the bay, joined halfway by a smaller stream winding in from the eastern hills. Because this bluff lay less than half a league from the town walls, they used it to anchor their siege works to ensure access to water.

  As the camp went up in a huge half circle around the town, he sat down under an awning and held court. No man could stand out in the sun’s glare for long without succumbing to dizziness and fainting and, indeed, the report of his chief healer and head stable master made him feel light-headed with concern.

  “Five men have died since we came out of the mountains,” said the healer. “I swear to you, my lord prince, this heat is worse than the cold
of the eastern plains. I’ve a hundred men or more with blistering burns and a fever, or who have collapsed on the march.”

  “I wonder if the Aostans have as many words for heat as the Quman do for cold. What of the livestock?”

  The stable master had dire news as well. “We’ve lost twenty-two horses over the last ten days, my lord prince. While it’s good that we’re digging in so as to keep the river within our lines, there’s so little water trickling down from the higher ground that I’m wondering if the queen’s forces haven’t diverted it upstream. We just don’t have enough water for the livestock.”

  “There’s a drought on this land.”

  “Truly, there is,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead, “but if this is the same river we rode beside yesterday and the day before, it had a great deal more water in it then. It would be good tactics on the queen’s part to deprive us of water, especially if they’ve access to a spring within their walls.”

  “Lord Wichman.” Sanglant called the duchess’ son forward. “Will you take fifty men and venture to find this dam, if there is one, and destroy it?”

  “With pleasure!”

  “Do you think that wise?” asked Hathui as Wichman strode out of the gathering, eager to get on the move. “He’ll be alone in enemy countryside. The heat is ruinous.”

  “Then I’m rid of him and the trouble he causes, or he solves our water shortage. Captain Fulk?”

  The captain stepped forward. “We’re setting up our perimeters on both sides, my lord prince, and digging two rings of ditches, one facing out and one in. That bluff to the north holds one flank. The spot where the stream meets the river fortifies the second. We can’t do anything about an attack from the sea, if one comes, but we’ve set the wagons in line as a palisade. I’ve got a score of men strung out as sentries well into the countryside. We’ve heard a rumor that King Henry marched east many months ago into Arethousan country—a region called Dalmiaka. If it’s true, his army lies east of us. If not, he could come up from the southwest.”