The Gathering Storm

by Kate Elliott

  “Her powerful companions howled and cried out in vain! The lion roared and the bull bellowed and the great eagle screamed, but they could not find the child beneath the vast expanse of rubble.

  “The humble wren, least of birds, flew to the top of the pile of rocks and sang, ‘Hush!’ When all at last quieted, they heard the small voice of the child, crying. She was still alive underneath the rock.

  “How the lion roared and the bull bellowed and the great eagle screamed! But despite their powerful voices, and their biting claws, and all the strength of their limbs, they could not shift the rock.

  “The blind mole peeked out from the earth and said, ‘I can dig a hole to the trapped child, and through this hole she can crawl to safety.’

  “‘But how long will it take?’ objected the wise owl. ‘Surely the child will die before a creature as small and weak as you can dig a tunnel large enough for her to creep through!’

  “The lion roared, and the bull bellowed, and the great eagle screamed, but all their powerful voices joined together could not feed the child trapped beneath the rock.

  “The small brown field mouse called her sisters and brothers, her cousins, and all her kin. They slipped between cracks in the rock and carried in bits of bread and acorn cups of water to the trapped child, and in this way kept her alive for seven days while the patient mole dug a hole deep through the earth broad enough for the child to escape.

  “And the lion and the bull and the great eagle remained silent, when they saw that it was the work of their humble brethren that saved the child.”

  Hanna rested her head on clasped hands. Strange that he should seem to be speaking intimately a message meant for her ears. Looking up, she noticed the three young clerics seated on the foremost bench. As though her gaze were a greeting, the tall one glanced back. Hadn’t this young woman called one of her companions “Sister Heriburg,” the same name mentioned in passing by the servant woman, Aurea?

  “They know her,” she murmured.

  “I beg pardon?” whispered Rufus.

  “Nay, nothing,” she demurred, but in her gut she knew. They wanted her to see them and to hear this lesson about the work of the humble and the small. The knowledge coursed up through the soles of her feet, making her unsteady. It almost seemed the lamp beside her was swaying.

  Ivar’s sister Rosvita was alive, buried in the dungeon because she had witnessed what the powerful wanted kept secret. Hathui had told the truth.

  A rumble hummed up from the ground, a grinding roar like a distant avalanche. The lamp swung on its chains as the feet of the tripod skipped along stone. A woman sobbed out loud. Under Hanna’s rump, the bench rocked as though shoved.

  Rufus swore. “Damn! Not another one!”

  Voices rose in agitation and fear. People bolted for the door, and by the time Hanna realized that the rumbling and rocking had stopped, the church had half cleared out. Yet from outside, through the open doors, she still heard a hue and cry. By the Hearth, the cleric who had been preaching stepped aside to talk to the three young clerics; they looked drawn and anxious as they listened to the growing clamor: A distant horn sounded the call to arms.

  A woman hurried back in through the doors, followed by a dozen companions.

  “Shut the doors!” she cried in Wendish. “There’s a riot! They say they’re going to kill every Wendishman they can find!” Folk rushed to the doors, shutting them and stacking benches as a barrier. “Ai, Lady! It was the breadline! All those folk went wild.”

  The door shuddered as a weight hit it from the outside, causing the left door to creak, shift, and crack open.

  “Help us!” shrieked one of the men up front. With several companions he slammed the opening door shut.

  Hanna ran forward with Rufus and set her shoulder to the doors. Blows vibrated through her body as she leaned hard against the wood. Through the wood she heard the screaming of men and women, their words incomprehensible because of rage and the heady wildness of a mob inflamed by hunger and fear. Incomprehensible because it was a foreign tongue, not her own. An ax blow shook the door, followed by a second.

  “We’ll never hold out! They’ll kill us all!”

  A babble of voices rose within the heart of the church as the assembled worshipers wept, moaned, and wailed.

  “I pray you!” cried the cleric who had spoken the lesson. “Do not despair. Do not panic. God will protect us.”

  “They only have one ax,” shouted Hanna between blows, “or else they’d be chopping more quickly. Is there another way out of the church? Or another way in that we should be guarding?”

  “Oh, God,” wailed an unseen soul in the sobbing crowd. “The deacon’s sanctuary has a door to the alley!”

  Too late. An unholy shriek cut through the wailing. The deacon who had led the service staggered out from the low archway that led back to the sanctuary. When she fell forward onto her knees, they all saw the knife stuck in her back.

  “Use the benches!” shouted Hanna as the door shook. The mob had evidently given up pushing from outside and was now waiting for the ax wielder to destroy the door. “Pick them up and use them as shields. Throw them. Two can lift one.”

  Her muscles throbbed already, bruised under the assault. The door shuddered again. Splinters, like dust, spit from the wood. How soon would the ax cut through? It was only a matter of time. Yet if they left the door to face the new assault, they would be hit from two sides.

  No one moved. Two ragged men burst from the archway. The leader stumbled over the deacon and went down hard, cursing as his companion tripped over him.

  “Rufus!” Hanna leaped away from the door with Rufus right behind her and ran toward the altar. “Grab a bench!” she shouted to the paralyzed clerics, who stared as the two toughs got up and hoisted broken chair legs like clubs. She grabbed an end of a bench as Rufus hoisted the other end.

  “Out of the way.” The male cleric shoved the three young women aside.

  “Heave!”

  Hanna and Rufus launched the bench as the two toughs ran forward. It slammed into them, knocking them backward to the floor. She heard a bone snap. One screamed. The other, falling hard, cracked the back of his head on the stone and went limp.

  She grabbed the chair leg out of his hand. Rufus tugged the bloody knife out of the deacon’s back. The tall cleric had gone over to the deacon’s side and with commendable composure had got hold of her ankles to drag her aside, leaving a trail of blood.

  “More will come in that way,” said Hanna. “I’m surprised they haven’t already.” She turned to the cleric who had given the lesson. “Can the sanctuary door be fixed closed?”

  “Yes. I’ll show you.”

  “Is there nothing you can use for a weapon?”

  “I cannot fight in such a manner,” he said quietly, but he picked up the holy lamp that lit the Hearth and jerked the altar cloth off the Hearth with such a tug that the precious silver vessels fell clattering to the floor, holy wine and pure water splashing onto the stone and running along cracks to mingle with the deacon’s blood. “This will shield me somewhat. Sister Heriburg,” he added, handing the lamp to the stoutest of the young clerics, “you must see that these criminals do not escape or harm anyone else.”

  “How can I?”

  “You must.” To Hanna and Rufus: “This way.”

  Hanna had never stood in any choir, never ventured beyond the Hearth into any sanctuary where deacons and clerics meditated in silence and communed with God. In such places deacons slept, and the church housed its store of precious vestments and vessels for the service. She caught a closer glimpse of the two faded tapestries hanging on the choir walls, then ducked under the arch with the cleric and Rufus behind her, the club upraised to ward off blows. Two steps took them down into a low, square room, drably furnished with a simple cot, a chair, a table, and a chest. Two burning lamps hung peaceably from iron tripods. The table lay upended, torn pages of a prayer book strewn along the floor in among broken fragments
of a smashed chair. The chest lay open, and a young man with dirty hair and dirtier clothing pawed through it so eagerly that he did not see Hanna and the others come up behind him. It was impossible to tell from this angle if he had a knife. Alarmingly, there was no one else in sight, although the door that led outside, cut under an even lower arch, stood ajar.

  All this she took in before the youth looked up. With a startled grimace, lips pulled back like a dog baring its teeth, he groped at his belt.

  “The door,” cried Hanna, jumping forward. She brought the chair leg down on his head as a knife flashed in his hand. He dropped like a stone. The knife fell between a pair of holy books he’d discarded on the floor in his haste to find treasure.

  Distantly, through the open door, she heard a second horn call followed by shouts of triumph and fear.

  With a thud, the side door slammed into place, muffling the sounds from outside. Grunting with effort, Rufus dropped a bar into place. Through the archway that led back into the church, Hanna heard an odd scuffling sound. The steady drone of weeping and wailing drowned out the noise of the crowd pounding at the front doors.

  “Why isn’t there such a bar for the church doors?” she asked as the three of them stared first at each other and then at the youth lying unconscious on the floor.

  “The door leading to God’s Hearth must always remain open,” said the cleric, “and there is always a cleric or deacon awake to tend the lamps by the Hearth. But thieves may sneak in through the side door; seeking silver and silk while God’s servant rests here in solitude. What do we do with this one?”

  This one had warts on his nose and hands and pustulant sores along his lower lip. His stink made her cough. His wrists were as thin as sticks. Hunger had worn shadows under his eyes. Drool snaked down from his slack mouth into his fledgling beard.

  “Is there rope?” Rufus was grinning a little, sweating and excited. “We’ve got to tie him up.”

  The youth moaned. They heard a shout and the slap of footsteps, and one of the young novices burst into the room.

  “The king has returned! He’s at the gates. The mob is running away. We’re saved, Brother Fortunatus!”

  They were all too tense to relax even at such hopeful news, and Brother Fortunatus gave Hanna such a look as an escaped slave might give to his companion just before the chains are clapped back on them.

  “For now, Sister Gerwita.” He nodded at the moaning youth. “Drag him outside and let him go. I would not hand any poor soul over to the justice of the city guard.”

  “But—” Rufus began.

  “Nay,” said Fortunatus. “He still had his knife on him, so he’s not likely the one who assaulted Deacon Anselva. His only crime is poverty, and he stole nothing, after all. The other two must face justice for what they did to the deacon.”

  Cheers broke out from the church, echoing through the archway. Hanna grabbed the youth’s ankles and dragged him out the door after Fortunatus unbarred and opened it.

  Although twilight hadn’t yet faded into full darkness, the walls leaned so closely together in the alley that she had to pick her way by feel, stepping more than once into piles of noxious refuse. The stink was overwhelming. She shoved the boy up against the wall of the church. He stirred, retching. She stumbled back to the open door. Looking up the alley, she saw the thoroughfare beyond—torches and lamps lighting a magnificent procession. A roar of noise echoed among the buildings, the ring of hooves on paved streets, shouting and cheering and an undercurrent of jeering in soft counterpoint amid the clamor. Smoke stung her nostrils. The peal of the fire bell summoned the city guard.

  When she slipped back inside, bending to get under the lintel without banging her head, Rufus barred the door behind her as she checked the soles of her sandals in the lamplight to make sure she wasn’t tracking in anything awful.

  They took both of the lamps as they returned to the choir. The front doors had been thrown open. Most of the worshipers had flocked outside, but a dozen waited by the doors, too cautious to venture out. The walls looked different; holding high her lamp, Hanna realized they were bare. The two tapestries lay on the floor, rolled up tight around the two criminals’ bodies; it was odd to see them squirming so. The tall cleric and the one called Gerwita huddled by the Hearth, whispering to Brother Fortunatus, who still held the altar cloth. The third knelt beside the wounded deacon, holding a lion-shaped lamp in one hand. With a pad of cloth torn from her own robe she applied pressure to the wound on the deacon’s back. Blood stained the prone woman’s white garment.

  Hanna bent down beside her. “Sister Heriburg, will the deacon live?”

  She had a bland, amiable face but a glance that hit like the sight of black storm clouds in winter. “I pray she will. It is in God’s hands now.”

  Rufus had gone to the doors to examine the damage done by the ax. Here in the silence of the choir they were alone except for the muffled groans and panicked curses coming from the men bundled up in the tapestries. They had only two lights. Another five or six burned along the nave, but most of the remaining lamps had been taken forward to the doors by worshipers, making a veil of light that shrouded the night scene beyond.

  “Are you loyal to Henry, Eagle?” asked Brother Fortunatus, coming up behind her.

  “Yes. That is why I came.”

  “From Princess Theophanu.”

  Although she had not met this man in the months she had loitered in the regnal palace, she knew that her arrival had surely been gossiped about from the lowest halls to the highest. “I rode here at the behest of Princess Theophanu to bring a message to her father, the king.”

  “Was there no Eagle who came to Theophanu in the time you were with her?”

  She rose stiffly. Her legs ached from the effort she’d spent bracing; her bruised shoulder throbbed. Even her fingers hurt from gripping the chair leg so tightly before she’d hit the thief. The two women now flanked Brother Fortunatus: the tall one, still nameless, and timid Gerwita. They hardly looked like a foul cabal of conspirators. Wasn’t it possible that Henry had enemies who might seek to entrap the ones most loyal to him? If Hathui had told the truth, those who now controlled Henry would seek to eliminate anyone, even a common, powerless Eagle, who might act against them.

  Anything might be possible.

  From outside, the roar of acclamation rose to a high pitch as some notable—perhaps Henry and Adelheid themselves—approached down the thoroughfare.

  “No Eagle came to Theophanu while I was with Her Highness, but I met one of my comrades north of the mountains who had come from Aosta. She rode one way, and I another. Where she is now I do not know.” The memory of Hathui’s expression, at the end of their conversation so many months ago, made her throat tighten. Yet for all the bitterness that curdled in her when she thought of Sanglant and Bulkezu, she could not wish Hathui ill. “I pray she is well.”

  The cheering swelled at the porch of the church.

  “Beware—” Fortunatus broke off as Rufus called to her and the people gathered at the doors cried out in thanksgiving as they knelt with heads bowed. A tall, elegant figure moved forward through the glow of lamplight like an angel advancing out of the darkness to lead the benighted to salvation.

  Only this was not an angel.

  She knew him even before she saw him clearly. No person who had seen him could ever forget him and especially not when he was burnished, as now, by the light of a dozen lamps and the heartfelt acclaim of people who had been rescued from certain death by his timely arrival. A fire burned in her heart, and she took a few steps forward before she remembered what he had done to Liath. She scarcely heard the whispers and footfalls behind her as Hugh entered the church.

  Presbyter Hugh, they called him here. Everyone talked about him, but it was easy to ignore talk. Talk did not have golden hair, a handsome face, and a graceful form.

  “Is this where it happened?” he asked with outraged concern. He caught sight of Rufus. “An Eagle! I thank God you survived. Lady
have mercy! Look how they tried to chop their way in through the door.”

  It was impossible not to be moved by that beautiful voice, both resonant and soothing. Impossible not to be lulled, until the moment when he looked up, directly at her.

  She stood frozen halfway down the nave, forgetting how she had walked so far, drawn as though by a tether line being reeled in.

  He saw her.

  He knew her.

  “He always knows.” Liath had cried, long ago in Heart’s Rest. And he had known that day. He had returned to stop Hanna from speaking with her friend. He wanted no comfort given to the one he had made his slave.

  Just like Bulkezu.

  Such a shudder of misgiving passed through Hanna’s body that the lamp trembled in her hand. He smiled gently, and she remembered the way he had looked at her that day in Heart’s Rest in the gloom of the chapel: as if he were measuring her to decide if she posed a threat to him.

  He had dismissed her then. She was only a common girl. He might recognize her face, because of her link to Liath, but she doubted he remembered anything else about her.

  It was better when they didn’t know your name.

  “We heard news of an Eagle come from Princess Theophanu,” he said, walking forward. She remembered to kneel; she found another bruise that way, on her right knee, that she’d gotten without knowing. He paused beside her without looking at her, because he was examining the choir with a mild expression of surprise. “Are you the last one here?”

  Rufus stood behind him, looking puzzled as he, too, stared at the choir and the writhing tapestries. She turned her head. The four clerics were gone.

  “The other clerics—” Rufus began.

  “—fled with the rest, in fear of their lives,” she interrupted. “We are all that is left. Your Excellency, if I may rise, there is an injured deacon and the two criminals who assaulted her. She is gravely injured.”

  Hugh knelt beside the deacon, lifting the bloodstained pad of cloth from the wound. He frowned and set fingers carefully along the curve of her throat, and shook his head. “She is dead. May God have mercy on her soul.” After murmuring a blessing, he looked up. “Do you know her name?”