Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

“Since the weather keeps him locked inside instead of out hunting. Truly, he has more cock than sense!”

  “Isn’t that true of most men!” interposed one of the younger women. She had a pretty mouth, bright eyes, and pox marks on her cheeks. “Here, Fastrada, I’ll take the cloak up to his lordship. He fancies me, and I want some of that honey he hoards, for my family to trade for cloth for my sister’s dowry.”

  “Take care, Uota, that you don’t walk into a fire so hot that it burns you,” replied Frederun quietly.

  “I hadn’t heard you were so shy,” retorted Uota with a flash of anger, “in the days before Lord Wichman took to beating you for his pleasure. It’s said you gave yourself freely enough if the lord was of princely disposition.”

  “Hush, Uota!” cried Fastrada, although Frederun made no reply except to sink down on the bench beside Anna. “You’re a latecomer here. You can’t know what any of us suffered—”

  Uota took the cloak and flounced out.

  “Here, now,” began Fastrada as the other servants turned away to give the illusion of privacy, although truly there were no secrets in the servants’ hall. “Frederun—”

  The younger woman raised a hand to forestall further comment, and after a moment Fastrada moved away to supervise three women polishing the silver plate.

  Anna examined Frederun with interest and pity. It seemed to her that they shared something in common, she and the servingwoman: they had survived the worst kind of hardship and found themselves in a decent and even prosperous life, with a warm bed and two ample meals every day, yet she recognized in Frederun’s expression a discontent like her own, bothersome and mysterious. Why couldn’t she just be satisfied, as Matthias was?

  Little Helen looked up suddenly, slid the rose from behind her ear, and presented it to Frederun.

  “Ai, thank you, child!” Tears welled up in Frederun’s eyes. She brought the rose to her face and sniffed at it, smiling ruefully. “All the scent’s gone. Where did you find such a lovely treasure?”

  Anna signed as well as she could, and unlike many people, Frederun watched her hands carefully, intent on what she was trying to communicate. “By the city wall? Nay, here, the palace wall. Ah, of course! It’s one of the offerings folk leave.” Her face shuttered, growing still and thoughtful, as she touched the wooden Circle that hung from her neck. “Some things are hard to forget,” she muttered, stroking the rose’s withered petals before collecting herself with a shake of the head. “Will your aunt make a wedding cloak as fine for her betrothed, the tanner she’s to marry in the spring?”

  Anna smiled and nodded, but what flashed across Frederun’s expression was difficult to understand: Pain? Longing? Envy?

  “She’s done well, has your aunt. None knows better than I what she suffered in Steleshame at the hands of Lord Wichman. I remember pitying her there. How could I have known it was to come to me in my time?” She straightened up sharply with a frown. “No sense in sorrowing over what’s past, is there, little sister? You’ve suffered more than I, poor child, not able to speak a word.” She wiped a smear of soot off Helen’s delicate face. “And this poor creature, what will become of her with such a pretty face to plague her all her years?”

  Helen smiled beatifically up at Frederun, for she was always the happiest of creatures as long as she was fed and clean. A pang gripped Anna’s heart, hearing truth in Frederun’s words. Probably Helen would never be quite right in the head, and her child’s beauty, if it held as she grew, would only bring her grief.

  “Come now,” added Frederun briskly, “you finish that up and get you home or Mistress Suzanne will be fearing for you and the little one with dusk coming on.”

  Standing, she had just turned to call to one of her women when the door slammed open, helped by a gust of wind, and two of the mayor’s guardsmen came in, beards tipped with ice, slapping their hands together to warm them.

  “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 noble 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 flustered 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 noble 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 cocked 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 assistants 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.”
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  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. Eusebë’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 retying 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 God 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, lass. 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 God 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 God!’”

  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 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 assaulted her when they came to services.

  “In the crypt lies the path you seek,” the daimone had said in its unformed, hoarse 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 God 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 God.

  With my body wasted with longing,

  I come before God 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 nobleman stood in the entryway. He seemed frozen, hesitant, as i
f 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 nobleman’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 muffled 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.

  “God 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 noble 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 God’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 scraped finger.