The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  “What of your brother, Eagle?” the prince demanded harshly, still pacing.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord prince. My own sorrow clouds my mind. Did Zacharias choose to stay with the traitors rather than follow her to freedom? I pray it is not so. Yet if he wanted to follow but could not, then he may now be a prisoner. Or dead.”

  “I should not have let Wolfhere and Brother Zacharias go into town, my lord prince,” said Captain Fulk. “I should have known that Princess Blessing would try to follow them. I should not have let Wolfhere go unattended….”

  “Nay.” The boots stopped a hand’s breadth from Anna’s nose. Her tears had dampened the pale dirt, turning it dark. “I am to blame. I should never have trusted Wolfhere. I knew what he was. My father is not a poor judge of character, but I let my anger blind me. So be it. Get up, Anna.”

  No one disobeyed that tone.

  She scrambled up. Dirt streaked her tunic and leggings, smeared her face. Her nose was runny, but she dared not raise a hand to wipe her face clean. She swallowed another sob.

  “I have unfinished business,” he said to the others. “Lady Eudokia will not be pleased that I left the palace so abruptly. She’ll consider it an insult.”

  “But you left Princess Sapientia and Brother Heribert and most of the rest of the party behind,” said Breschius.

  “Yes. Now I must retrieve them and complete the negotiations. Brother Breschius, remain here with Captain Fulk.” He paused, glancing toward the cell where Blessing was confined. The girl’s screams and protests had not diminished, although her actual words were muffled by the earthen walls. She was a persistent child. Wiser and less stubborn ones would have given up shrieking by now, silenced by fear of what was to come or even by an idea that it was better to placate than to annoy.

  Not Blessing.

  The slaves she had freed knelt beside the door, forbidden to see her although they refused to move away.

  “Faithful servants,” the prince observed sardonically. “Let them remain there until I can deal with them. Very well, Captain. You’re in charge.”

  He left with a few soldiers hurrying after him.

  “Go on, child,” said Brother Breschius kindly. “You’ve sinned, and been punished. Now go and make it right.”

  “How can I make it right? Will the prince turn me out?”

  “Not this time. Ask forgiveness from the one you’ve harmed the most, and swear to never again neglect your duty. Princess Blessing wasn’t lost. Think of it as a warning to not allow yourself to be distracted again.”

  Did he know? She flushed. Surely only she and Matto and Thiemo knew what had transpired last night. She ducked her head respectfully and ran off to the dark cell near to the one where Blessing was confined. The door was so low that she had to crawl inside, but within it was blessedly cool and dark. She smelled blood and sweat and saw the shape of two prone figures in the dim filtering light. Even those unmoving shapes still had the power to awaken in her the desires that had broken free last night: What a fool she was!

  “Anna?” Matto groaned and shifted.

  “Don’t move,” she whispered, touching his ankle. “Has anyone put a salve on your back?”

  “Sergeant Cobbo did,” said Matto, “and swore at me the whole time. Oh, God, Anna. Why did you have to do it?”

  “You’re not the only one who suffered,” exclaimed Thiemo.

  “You sorry excuse for a man. You only took those lashes because you were afraid that Anna would comfort me if I was hurt and you weren’t!”

  “You’ve no right to speak to me in that way!”

  “That’s right! I’m only a poor common boy, your randy lordship. Nor should I covet what you’ve already taken for your own, isn’t that right?”

  “Shut up!” Anna kicked Thiemo in the leg before he could respond. It was hard to feel affectionate toward him; smelling the whipping he and Matto had taken; remembering how close that switch had come to her own back.

  “Serves you right,” hissed Matto, rearing up. “Serves you right, you stinking goat—”

  Unthinkingly she set a hand on his back to press him down, and he howled with pain. She jerked back her hand; it came away wet with blood.

  “Shut up!” She wanted to cry, but her chest was too tight. “Haven’t we done enough harm?”

  2

  THE doors to the governor’s palace were closed and Sanglant and his small retinue were, once again, forced to wait outside while the eunuch who acted as gatekeeper vanished into the interior. At this time of day, however, the shadows slanting away from the palace’s bulk gave them some respite from the heat. He had only a dozen men with him; the rest he had left with his sister within the palace courtyard a few hours before.

  As he waited, he fretted. He had thought himself so clever, leaving Blessing with the main body of troops in the fort while he negotiated with Lady Eudokia. That way Blessing would stay out of trouble and could not be used as a hostage if the worst happened and the governor plotted intrigue.

  But Blessing was getting older every day, far too quickly. Thinking of what had happened made him so angry that he had to twist his fear and fury into a knot and thrust it out of sight. He could not let such feelings cripple him.

  Ai, for the love of God, how had Blessing got so wild? What had he done wrong?

  He heard the tread of many feet a moment before the heavy doors were thrust open from inside and a troop of Arethousan soldiers marched out. In their midst strode a general, or lord, recognizable by his soldier’s posture and his shrewd, arrogant gaze as he looked over Sanglant and offered him a swift grin that marked Sanglant as his accomplice, or his dupe. The man had broad shoulders, powerful arms, and only one eye, the other lost, no doubt, in battle. He was a fighting man.

  Sanglant nodded, recognizing a kindred spirit whether that man were ally or enemy, and they assessed each other a moment more before the general was hailed by one of his officers and turned his attention away. The troop crossed the broad plaza to the stables, where saddled horses were being led out.

  Basil appeared in the entryway, recognizable by his jade-green robes although his round, dark, smooth Arethousan face looked much like that of the other eunuchs: ageless and sexless.

  “My lord prince,” he said. “You are welcome to dine.”

  They entered through the long hall and Sanglant was brought to a broad forecourt where a servant washed his hands and face in warm water poured out of a silver ewer. The soldiers remained behind as the prince was shown into an arbor whose vines were all artifice, gold leaves and stems twining around a wood trellis. Cloth wings slit at intervals offered shade but allowed the breeze to waft through. No breath of wind had stirred the air outside; he heard the wheeze and groan from the fans as the slaves stood out in the sun, hidden from view behind the cloth as they worked the bellows to keep those beneath the arbor comfortable.

  The Most Exalted Lady Eudokia had already seated herself to dine at a long, narrow table with a cloth covering the area just before her while the rest of the long table lay bare. Princess Sapientia reclined in the place of honor to Eudokia’s right, and a boy of some ten years of age, a dark-haired youth with little beauty and a slack expression, fidgeted on a couch placed to the lady’s left, at the end of the table. Two servants attended him, spooning food into his mouth and wiping his chin and lips when he dribbled. A dozen courtiers ate in frightful silence as servants brought around platters all of which reeked of garlic, onion, leeks, oil, and fish sauce. Lady Bertha had been given a place fifteen places down from the head of the table; the rest of the party he had left behind with his sister was absent, all but Heribert, who stood behind the princess with a composed expression and one hand clenched.

  Sapientia looked up and smiled as Sanglant entered. Lady Eudokia gestured to Basil, who indicated that he should take the only seat left vacant: on the couch beside the youth. The child wore princely regalia but in all other ways seemed inconsequential, and Sapientia’s smirk confirmed that Lady E
udokia was, in her petty, Arethousan way, taking revenge on him for their earlier verbal sparring and his precipitous departure.

  “I pray you, Prince Sanglant,” said Lady Eudokia through Basil, who remained beside her as her interpreter, “drink to my health if you will.” He drank a liquor that tasted of fish, bravely managing not to gag, and she went on. “Her Royal Highness my dear cousin Princess Sapientia has entertained me with a recounting of the many barbaric customs of your father’s people. Is it true that a prince must prove himself a man by breeding a bastard upon a woman, any creature no matter how lowborn or unattractive, and only thereafter can he be recognized as heir to the regnant? Are you the whelp produced out of such a union?”

  Sapientia’s cheeks were red with satisfaction.

  “I am,” he said.

  “A half-breed, spawn of the Cursed Ones, is that so as well?”

  “It is!” exclaimed Sapientia.

  “They are all gone, eradicated millennia ago,” objected Eudokia. “It can’t be true.”

  “It is true,” said Sanglant evenly. He would not give Sapientia the satisfaction of seeing that her dart had struck home.

  “You might be Jinna born and bred, or your dam might have been a whore transported westward from beyond the eastern deserts to suit the pleasure of a prince.”

  Sapientia giggled, then covered her lapse with a sip of wine. The servants brought around a platter of some kind of meat swimming in a foul brine that stank of rancid oil. The courtiers gobbled it down. Sanglant could not bring himself to eat more than a bite.

  “A bastard, yet like a eunuch you wear no beard. Is it true you have fathered a bastard of your own who travels with you?”

  “My daughter is no bastard.” He set down his knife for fear he would otherwise fling it at her—or at Sapientia, who glared at him, caught between glee and embarrassment. “I am married, and she is legitimately born to myself and my wife.”

  “Do they let bastards marry among the barbarians? We do not allow such a thing here. It would taint the blood of the noble lineages, but no doubt the Wendish themselves are a bastard race so it is no surprise they should allow their blood to become polluted. Yet, if you wish, I will foster the child with me. Bastards’ get are notorious for the trouble they get wrapped up in. I can raise her as befits a noble servant and make sure she is not led astray by the Dariyan heresy.”

  “I think not,” said Sanglant.

  “What else do you mean to do with her?” demanded Sapientia. She drained her cup of wine, as if for courage. “There’s nothing for her in Wendar, Brother. She’s got no land and no prospects, no matter what you say. And she’s a brat. I say, be rid of her, and we’d all be happier. Don’t think that I don’t suspect that you hope to use her to usurp my position, as I’ve told my dear cousin Eudokia while you’ve been gone chasing after her. Oh. Dear. Did you find her again?”

  All that saved Sanglant from a furious retort was the sight of Heribert, quite pale, brushing a finger along his closed lips as a warning. Instead, he downed a cup of the noxious-tasting liquor and let the burn sear away the edge of his anger. “She is safe. She will remain so. So have I sworn. So, I pray, will you remember.”

  “I will remember,” she muttered, flushed, her cheeks sheeny with sweat.

  Lady Eudokia smiled unctuously, clearly amused by their unseemly sparring. “It is ever the way with brothers and sisters to quarrel.” She reached over to pat the youth’s flaccid cheek with a pudgy hand. “Alas that I quarreled with my own brother in the past, but now he is dead in battle and his sweet child come to bide with me.”

  The boy smiled uncertainly at her, glanced at Sanglant with fear, and spoke, in a whisper, words Sanglant could not understand. At once, servants brought him a tray of sweets and he picked daintily at them as Sapientia brooded and Sanglant fought the urge to jump up and walk anywhere as long as it got him away from that which plagued him, which at this moment was just about everything. He found refuge in a strategic retreat.

  “I had hoped to discuss with you what arrangements we may make for our journey east.”

  “I am sure you do. But before we do so, I pray you, tell me which synods does the holy church of Wendar recognize? Or perhaps it is too young to recognize any, for truly we have heard no word of it here where we live. As you know, Arethousa is the ancient home of the Witnesser, St. Thecla. We were first to accept the Proclamation of the blessed Daisan.”

  “Do you think, Sapientia,” he said hours later as afternoon waned when at last they could break free of the long feast and return on horseback to the fort, “that by belittling me and my daughter in front of our enemy you have made Wendish-folk look like lions or like fools?”

  “Who is to say she is our enemy?”

  “Can she be otherwise? Did she say anything except words meant to sneer and laugh and gloat? You were just as angry as I at her insults, when we first came into her audience chamber this morning!”

  “Maybe I changed my mind while you were gone.” Sapientia’s cheeks were still red. She lifted her chin, but her smile trembled as if it might collapse at any instant. “You have stolen what is mine and you might as well be holding me prisoner just like Bulkezu for all that you listen to me, although you pretend to the others that we command jointly. Don’t think I am too stupid to know what you intend by your daughter! You want her to rule in my place, and if not her, what is to stop you from supporting Queen Adelheid and her infant daughter? You were jealous of Bayan, and now you’re jealous of me. I won’t rest until I have back what is mine by right of birth.”

  “I have taken nothing from you! I have never betrayed you.”

  Her gaze had an uncanny glamour, and for once he was chastened by her anger. “What do you take me for? A lion? Or a fool?”

  3

  “YOU sorry fool.”

  Out of nowhere, cold water drenched Zacharias’ head and shoulders. Sucking and gasping, he inhaled salt water, nasty and stinging. He gagged but had nothing in his stomach and finally fell back, clutching his belly and moaning.

  The dead didn’t suffer like this. Footsteps padded over the planks.

  “God Above, but it stinks down here,” said the cultured voice of Brother Marcus. “So. He’s still alive.”

  “Were you hoping he would die?”

  That voice certainly did belong to Wolfhere, but Zacharias could not recall where he was or why Wolfhere would be talking about him while the floor rocked so nauseatingly up and down.

  “It would make my life easier, would it not? We’ll throw him overboard once we’re far enough away from land that there’s no hope he can swim to shore.”

  “If he can swim.”

  “I’ll take no chances.”

  “Will you throw him over yourself or have your servant do the deed?”

  “I will do what I must. You know the cause we serve.” The words were spoken so coolly that Zacharias shuddered into full consciousness, his mind awake and his nausea dulled by fear. Bulkezu had at least killed for the joy of being cruel. This man would take no pleasure out of killing, but neither would he shrink from it, if he thought it necessary.

  “Monster,” Zacharias croaked, spitting out the dregs of sea-water and bile. He struggled up to sit. His chest hurt. The back of his head throbbed so badly that he might as well have had a cap of iron tightening inexorably around his skull.

  “Brother Zacharias.” A hand settled firmly on his shoulder. “Do not move, I pray you. You’ve taken a bad blow to the head.”

  “I can swim. I escaped Bulkezu by swimming. It’ll do you no good to throw me overboard.”

  “Who is Bulkezu?” asked Marcus.

  “A Quman prince,” answered Wolfhere. “Perhaps you have forgotten—or never knew—the devastation the Quman army wrought upon Wendar. King Henry never returned from Aosta to drive them out. It was left to Prince Sanglant to do so.”

  “Are you the bastard’s champion? I’m surprised at you, Brother Lupus. What matters it to us what transpires on
Earth? A worse cataclysm will come regardless to all of humankind, unless we do our part.”

  Blinking, Zacharias raised his hands to block the light of a lamp, squinting as he studied the other man. “Are you a mathematicus?” he asked, groping at his chest for the scrap of paper he had held close all these long months.

  It was gone.

  Panic brought tears.

  “Is it this you seek?” Marcus displayed the parchment that bore the diagrams and numbers that betrayed the hand of a mathematicus, a sorcerer who studied the workings of the heavens. “Where did you come by it?”

  “In a valley in the Alfar Mountains. After I escaped from the Quman, I traveled for a time with the Aoi woman who calls herself Prince Sanglant’s mother, but she abandoned me after the conflagration.” His physical hurts bothered him far less than the sight of that precious scrap in the hands of another man. He wanted to grab it greedily to himself, but something about the other man’s shadowed expression made him prudent, even hopeful. If he could only say the right thing, he might save himself. “I found that parchment in a little cabin up on the slope of the valley. I knew then that I sought the one who had written these things. You see, when I wandered with Kansi-a-lari, she took me to a place she called the Palace of Coils. There I saw—”

  He faltered because Marcus leaned forward, mouth slightly parted. “The Palace of Coils? What manner of place was it?”

  “It lay out in the sea, on the coast of Salia. We had to walk there at low tide. Yet some manner of ancient magic lay over that island. We ascended by means of a path. I thought only a single night passed as we climbed, but instead many months did. The year lay coiled around the palace, and it was the year we were ascending, not the island. I cannot explain it—”

  “You do well enough. Did you see the Aoi woman work her sorcery?”

  “I did. I saw her defeat Bulkezu. I saw her breathe visions into fire. I saw her save her son with enchanted arrows. Oh, God.” A coughing fit took him and he spat up bile.