The Burning Stone

by Kate Elliott

  She began to whimper. “But God must love me. God will only love me if I suffer as did Her beloved Son. It is through our suffering that we become close to God. Then I can become close to God, too. I wish you would let me build a chapel. Then God would love me more because I was so obedient.”

  “I love you, Tallia,” he said, without passion. He felt astoundingly tired. The nail weighed in his hand as heavily as a grievous sin, and maybe it was. He did not wave it in her face or accuse her. Maybe the first time had been a miracle.

  But she was still going on about God’s love and a shower of golden light and a pure vessel molded as Her Son’s bride, who would be clothed with the odor of sanctity granted to all saints beloved of God when in fact—even in a chamber strewn with dried lavender and honeysuckle to sweeten the closed-in scent of winter and sachets of hyssop and mint to drive off fleas and vermin—he could smell her, an odor like milk gone sour.

  “You haven’t washed,” he said. He rose, fetched cloth and pitcher, and sat beside her on the bed. He was too exhausted to coax her, but he knew what had to be done. “Give me your hands.”

  She complained in a weak voice as he washed her hands, her elbows, her neck and face, and her filthy feet and knees. Because he ignored her and simply did what needed to be done, she finally acquiesced to his attentions.

  The water was brown when he finished. He turned the nail through his fingers, examining it, but it told him nothing except that blood stained its point. The nail could not speak. Then he looked at her to see that she was staring at the nail in her turn, eyes as wide as if she’d seen an adder resting in his hands. He sighed, pulled the pouch out from under his tunic, and drew out the rose. Its petals lay cool and sweet in his palm. A thorn pricked his finger and blood welled.

  She whimpered, staring at him, or the rose, or the nail, or his blood, as if these were signs of the Enemy. Or perhaps she was just afraid he would betray her secret, and her sin.

  “Lie still,” he said firmly, and, amazingly, she lay still as he stroked the delicate petals along the ugly gashes on her palm, the stroke a hypnotic rhythm as he rocked

  as they rock, riding heavily on the waves as they leave the still waters of the fjord behind and come into the sound. He stands in the stem of the ship, holding an empty wooden cup in one hand and a small chest in the other. The waters part before him, stream alongside to form a frothing wake behind. Heads bob in the surf, his ever-present companions.

  With eleven ships he races south toward North Jatharin, because a messenger has come from Hakonin saying that their outlying lands have been attacked and halls burned by Eika gone raiding out of Jatharin. Many slaves have been taken, or killed, and worst of all, a nest of eggs was stolen. This insult must be avenged, and in a way, it is a kind of test. If he cannot protect those who are sworn to ally with him, then one by one his allies will sail away on dawn waters seeking a stronger ally. Seeking the one who has named himself Nokvi, Moerin’s chief, friend to the Alban tree sorcerers.

  He turns, finally, and beckons to the priest, who shuffles forward holding what looks like a spear completely wrapped in saffron-dyed cloth.

  “You have returned from your journey,” he says.

  “Have I? Where do you think I have been?”

  “North and east, south and west,” he replies. “Above and below. These are all mysteries which only the wise can fathom.”

  “Who is wise, and who is foolish?” cackles the priest.

  “We shall see,” he answers. “What have you brought me?”

  The priest chants nonsense in reply, as priests are wont to do. “Falcon flies, nightwing dies. Raven calls, ash tree falls. Yoke of gold, song of old. Serpent’s skin, tooth within. Dragon’s wing, wolf’s heart-string. In flute’s breath, magic’s death. Where he stands, lives the land.” As he chants, he unwraps the cloth to reveal a man-high haft of painted wood adorned with feathers and bones, unnamable leathery scraps, the translucent skin of a snake, yellowing teeth strung on a wire, the hair of SwiftDaughters spun into chains of gold and silver, iron and tin, beads of amethyst and crystal dangling by tough red threads, and several bone flutes so cunningly drilled and hung that the breeze off the water moans through them.

  “Did I not travel over sea and land, under the water and through mountains, above the moon and even to the fjall of the heavens, to find these things?” wheezes the priest. “Did I not bring you what I promised?”

  Stronghand grasps the haft. It hums against his palm as though bees have made their hive inside the wood—and maybe they have, although he can see no opening. He examines it all around, and except for the humming that emanates from the haft it appears to him as any standard that marks out one chieftain’s followers from another’s, little different from that he himself made when he triumphed at Rikin’s fjord. It is only an object; it cannot speak to him to tell him the truth.

  “This will protect me from magic?” he asks. “What of those who follow me?”

  The priest rattles the pouch of bones at his skinny waist. With effort he focuses his cloudy eyes as if he is trying to see only in this world, not in the many worlds, as priests are rumored to do. He speaks in true words instead of riddles and questions. “I have labored many months to devise this working. I am wise in the threads that weave magic. This amulet is your banner. Bear it with you, and it will protect you and yours from magic as far as you can spread your arm of protection.”

  He smiles, holding out the cup in his other hand. “I have a strong hand. In it I can hold many.”

  “What of our bargain?” wheedles the old one. “How will you give me freedom from the OldMothers?” He almost shivers with excitement. His skin is like a leathery old purse slipped loosely over scrawny bones. Stronghand wonders how old he really is. How many winters has he seen? How did he stretch the span of his years beyond that natural for a son of an OldMother’s nest?

  But he is resigned to never discovering the truth. Perhaps some truths are better left unspoken.

  “It is easy enough to give freedom from the OldMothers,” he replies.

  He signals, and his warriors grab the priest’s arms to restrain him as Stronghand flips open the chest. The scent of blood and power are strong, but he does not hesitate. He plunges his knife into the priest’s pumping heart. The old creature thrashes, jerking, trying to call down a curse, but the amulet protects Stronghand and his followers from magic. Blood spurts freely from the priest’s mouth, and Stronghand catches it in the cup.

  Only in death is there freedom from the decrees of the WiseMothers, who, like the rock, live for uncounted generations. Their children are like the rain, touching rock briefly before they flow away into the river, into the fjord, into the sea.

  As the cup fills to the brim and blood spills over the side, he sees the priest’s spirit swirling in the greenish-copper liquid. He hears a disembodied howl: “No, no, no, I have been tricked!”

  As the body ceases its thrashing, as the last blood pumps in sluggish jerks and slows to a trickle as the body sags, the priest’s spirit reaches with threadlike mist fingers, trying to find a house for its dying spirit; but everyone there is protected by the amulet. It expands in widening circles, seeking, groping, and once it leaves the cup, he takes one swallow of the priest’s blood and then passes it around to his soldiers, who each take one swallow. In this way the priest’s essence will be diluted among the many, and his vengeful spirit cannot return.

  Suddenly, the mistlike hands find the thread that links his body to that of his brother in blood, the one he sees in his dreams, and it races down that thread like a spark of fire as Stronghand takes the empty cup to the railing.

  “Throw the body into the sea,” he orders, and it is done. Merfolk surface to circle the sinking corpse. Behind him, the chest and its now desiccated heart are placed in a brazier. The smoke of their burning stings his nostrils. He leans on the railing and turns the wooden cup in his hand. The last drop of blood beads on the lip of the cup and falls. As the drop shat
ters in the waves, a last, faint howl of fury and defeat vibrates that thread that binds him to Alain Henrisson, and then it is empty. The priest’s spirit has dissolved. Waves slap the ship. The oars are pulled in, and the sail is hoisted. Wind batters it; they come round, tacking.

  From far away he hears a seagull’s mournful cry. Surf pounds on unseen rocks.

  Casually, he lets the cup roll off his fingers. It falls, hits water, and vanishes into the sea.

  The nail rolled out of Alain’s fingers and he jolted up, clutching the rose in his other hand.

  “No, no, no, I have been tricked!”

  Who had spoken? But there was no one in the chamber.

  Tallia had fallen asleep.

  He picked up the nail and hid it in the pouch, nestled together with the rose.

  2

  EVER since Rosvita had been given the Vita of St. Radegundis, she had had strange dreams. Voices whispered in her dreams in a language she could not quite understand. So many people were staring at her, and yet they weren’t people at all, they were strangers who had once walked these roads and then vanished; they had been lost a long time ago, but they had left a message if only she could read it. But the words swam close and then skittered away until she could not tell where one left off and another began.

  “Are we safe?” she asked, but she was very hot, sweating until the walls seemed to run, bleeding away bright murals of an exotic landscape into white.

  “Rest, Sister. You are ill.” She thought perhaps it was Theophanu who spoke to her, or it might have been Fortunatus, or else the ancient nun who had spoken of the Great Sundering, the one who rubbed salve into her aching chest when it was an effort simply to breathe. It was easier to sleep, and to dream.

  A golden wheel flashed in sunlight, turning. Young Berthold slept peacefully in a stone cavern, surrounded by six attendants whose youthful faces glowed in a shifting glamour of light. A blizzard tore at mountain peaks, and on the wings of the storm danced moon-pale daimones to a melody of envy and mystery and fear. A lion stalked a cold hillside of rock, and on the plain of yellowing grass below this escarpment black hounds coursed after an eight-pointed stag while a party of riders clothed in garments as brilliant as gems followed on their trail.

  The lost ones surrounded her, crowding her with their jewel eyes and barbaric clothing, whispering secrets in her ears: “I did not protest as long as I saw that our lord father preferred his firstborn, for that is the way of things, and as one of those who came second I did not mind waiting behind the first, because I saw that he was worthy. But what good is my high birth if our lord father marries again and sires younger children whom he loves more and sets above me? Why should I serve them, when I came before them? Is that not why the angels rebelled?”

  She woke up.

  “Sister Rosvita.” Princess Theophanu sat on a stool beside her. She looked as robust as ever, if a little pale. Was that anxiety that swept her face? It was hard to tell, and the expression vanished quickly. “I brought you porridge and wine. And news.”

  “Let me eat first, I beg you, Your Highness.”

  Rosvita lay on a cot in a small monastic cell cut out of the rock. The whitewashed walls seemed so stark compared to the strange and compelling frescoes that had decorated the other chamber, that haunted dreams made rich by a lung fever brought on by exhaustion. For a long while they had despaired of her, but once over the worst of it, she had been moved away from there and into this cell, which lay close to the refectory.

  A servingwoman brought forward a tray with a wine cup and bowl, then retreated to the low archway cut into the stone that led into the corridor beyond, out of earshot. Theophanu waited patiently, hands folded in her lap; a thin beam of light from the smoke hole illuminated her face. By this means alone Rosvita knew it was daytime. At the convent of St. Ekatarina, time held no purchase. One day slipped into the next here confined in the rock walls, shrouded from the world outside, and the only constant was the round of prayer, the canonical hours that slid one into the next, Vigils becoming Lauds becoming Prime becoming Terce becoming Sext becoming Nones becoming Vespers becoming Compline becoming Vigils again. And on and so on, like God in Unity, the circle which never ends.

  As soon as Rosvita finished, Theophanu leaned forward to gather tray, cup, and bowl from Rosvita’s lap and set it on the floor. The movement covered her whisper, as quiet as that of the Aoi in Rosvita’s dreams. “Perhaps I should give myself up to Ironhead in exchange for letting Adelheid go.”

  “Is our situation so desperate?”

  In the dim light it was hard to see Theophanu’s expression clearly. Was that anger or anguish that flashed across her cool Arethousan features? “It is desperate enough. The good abbess has been generous with her stores. But we are seventy-five people and fifty horses in a convent that houses nine. There cannot be more than a week’s worth of food and fodder left. We have taken everything that the nuns have, and won no advantage against our enemy. If I give myself up to Ironhead, then we would not leave the nuns destitute.”

  “A noble gesture, Your Highness. But we know what kind of man he is. He would make a poor husband.”

  “He would make a husband. I have been patient, Sister. I despair of my father ever agreeing to marry me to any man, or even to the church. Ironhead is ambitious and ruthless. Am I any better in my heart? I would rather have a husband like Ironhead than wait for my father to marry again and displace me with younger children who please him more.”

  “It is your words I heard in my dream! I thought it was another voice—”

  Was that color in her cheeks? “I beg your pardon, Sister. I should not have spoken so rashly. The Enemy troubles my thoughts.”

  “Be patient, Your Highness. Surely in this harsh land Ironhead is having trouble maintaining an army of three hundred men.”

  “So we have hoped. But Ironhead is not stupid. I have other news.” Some tone in Theophanu’s cool voice made Rosvita dread what would come next. “You must come with me, Sister. You must see. I am not sure I can trust my own eyes.”

  Such a statement could not help but kindle Rosvita’s curiosity, always a flammable thing. She rose and was pleased to find her legs steadier today than they had been yesterday. Theophanu called her attendant in from the hall to help Rosvita dress. Then they made their way down a tunnel carved out of stone that led to the refectory. Light poured in through seven windows carved into the rock high up in the wall, revealing a single trestle table, enough for the nine women who made their home here, and the tall loom at which Sister Diocletia knelt, having just thrown newly-measured warp threads over the crossbar. She acknowledged them with a nod, then grabbed a handful of loose threads and deftly began tying them to a loom weight.

  Beyond the refectory a terrace opened out. Rosvita heard the sounds of Ironhead’s camp: mallets and hammers pounding in a ragged rhythm, captains calling out orders, men grunting and cursing. Their cries carried easily, echoing off the monumental rock face of the huge outcropping into which the convent was carved. The terrace was a commodious slab of south-facing rock high up on the cliffside. The sun spread such a pleasant light over the terrace that it was hard to believe it was winter, two days after Candlemass. At a shallow basin hollowed out of the rock, Teuda, the stout lay sister, hunched over, grinding grain into meal. Pots of grain soaking in limestone water sat beside her, next to a basket for the freshly-ground barley. A spacious garden filled the rest of the terrace, cut into quarters by walkways raised above the soil and handsome interlaced screens that served as windbreaks. No doubt the dirt had been drawn up basket by basket from below. Sister Sindula was weeding mint; she was quite deaf, and intent on her task, and did not notice them. But the other lay sister, young Paloma, knelt a few strides away, watering herbs. She set down her ceramic beaker, stood, brushed the dirt on her robe back into the plot, and crossed to them. No older than Theophanu, she already had a withering look to her like that of her elderly companions, as if the wind sucked them dry on this isol
ated height.

  “Come.” She led them to the railing from which they could look down.

  Off to the right on a lower terrace, a dozen of Fulk’s soldiers stood guard over the winches. The smaller winch had been damaged in the last attack, one of the support legs smashed by a rock from a catapult. The larger winch held the big basket in which she had been hoisted up on that day six weeks ago, although she recalled it now no more clearly than she would a dream. According to Theophanu, Captain Fulk and his soldiers had devised a broad strap to replace the basket so that they could winch up the horses rather than lose them to Ironhead. She traced with her eye a series of drops and shallower ledges, the ladder path; all the ladders had been drawn up and taken inside. There were also several steep staircases lower down, and an abandoned winch, burned in the first assault. Cliffs loomed above them broken into giant stair-steps that ended in a small tabletop plateau marked by a stone crown: from this angle she couldn’t count the great stone slabs set upright at the flat height, nor could she imagine how anyone could possibly have carried them up this massive outcropping that was almost too steep to climb.

  “For a holy place,” remarked Theophanu, “it is certainly defendable.”

  “No doubt the ancient mothers who hollowed out the convent here were well acquainted with the imperfections of humanity.”

  The scaffolding being built by Ironhead’s soldiers now reached about halfway to the lower terrace, with a broad base, reinforced sides, and plenty of dampened hides to protect the timber. Ironhead had even allowed his troops to cut down the dozen mature olive trees growing at the base of the cliff. No one seemed idle. Ironhead’s banner flew from the central tent, well out of arrow shot of the lower terrace and almost out of sight where the gully cut away to the left. She did not remember riding down that gully on their last gallop to safety, but she could see it was the only path to the convent.