by Kate Elliott
A rumble swelled, then faded, a shiver through the earth like a great beast turning over in its sleep.
The crowd in the anteroom fell silent. Outside, a woman laughed, her high voice ringing over the sudden hush.
“Just a little one,” whispered Gerwita, her voice more like the squeak of a mouse. She let go of Ruoda’s hand.
Blood-red curtains shielded an inner chamber from the anteroom. A eunuch, resplendent in jade-green robes, appeared and held a curtain aside for them to pass. It was dim and stuffy within the inner chamber, which was lit by four slits cut into the tent’s roof and by two lamps formed in the shape of lamias—sinuous creatures with the heads and torsos of beautiful women and the hindquarters of snakes. A couch sat in the place of honor, raised on a low circular dais constructed out of wooden planks painted the same blood-red shade as the heavy curtains. Two young men, stripped down to loincloths, worked fans on either side of the woman reclining there at her leisure. She eyed the new arrivals as though they were toads got in where they did not belong. She had a dark cast of skin and black hair liberally streaked with gray, and she was fat, with a face that would have been beautiful except for the smallness of her eyes and the single hair growing from her chin. A blanket covered her body from her midsection down, and Hanna began to labor under an obsessive fancy that the noblewoman might actually herself be a lamia, more snake than woman.
A dark-haired, homely boy of about ten years of age sat at the base of her couch, holding a gold circlet in his hands and trying not to fidget. A general outfitted in gleaming armor stood behind her, striking because he had one eye scarred shut from an old wound while the other was a vivid cornflower blue, startling in contrast to his coarse black hair and dark complexion. He stood between the two slaves, so straight at attention, hands so still, that he might have been a statue. But he blinked, once, as he caught sight of Hanna’s white-blonde hair, and then a man laughed, such a loud, pleasant, hearty sound that Hanna’s attention leaped sideways to the king and queen seated on splendidly carved chairs to the right of the Arethousan lady on her dais.
Nothing could have shocked her more—except the appearance of a lamia slithering in across the soft rugs.
The king and queen sat on a dais of their own, rectangular and exactly as high as that on which the Arethousan noblewoman presided. Two banners were unfurled behind their chairs—the doubleheaded eagle of Ungria, and the red banner adorned with eagle, dragon, and lion stitched in gold belonging to the regnant, or heir, of Wendar. Behind the queen stood three grim-faced Quman women, one young, one mature, and one very old: They wore towerlike headdresses covered in gold, and when Hanna looked at them they made signs as one might against the evil eye.
The king laughed again. He was a big, powerful man not quite old but not at all young. “It’s as if a breath of snow has come in. I’ve never seen hair so white!” He turned to his queen, taking her hand, but her expression was as sour as milk left too long in the sun.
“That’s just what your brother used to say,” Princess Sapientia said. “She is my father’s Eagle, but I don’t trust her. Nor should you.”
Hanna gaped, but she knew better than to defend herself.
“These folk are known to you, King Geza?” asked the Arethousan lady. Behind her, the one-eyed general was smiling at a jest known only to himself.
“They are known to me!” said Sapientia. “That woman is Sister Rosvita, one of Henry’s intimate counselors. I have never heard an ill word spoken of her, although it’s true some are jealous that the king honors her so highly when her lineage is not in truth so high at all.”
“Will she know the usurper’s mind?” asked the lady.
“She might.”
They spoke Arethousan slowly enough that Hanna could follow its cadences; Geza and Sapientia were not fluent, and the noblewoman evidently disdained to use a translator.
“Sister Rosvita, step forward,” said the lady.
Sister Rosvita took one step, halted, and inclined her head respectfully. “I am Sister Rosvita. Although I could once claim to be one of Henry’s intimate counselors, that is true no longer.”
“So she says!” snorted Sapientia.
“Yet we have seen rebellion in plenty,” said Geza, “not least in the person of your charming brother, my dearest Sapientia. Henry loses support and his authority falls to pieces. Is that not the sad fate of those who do not rule well, Lady Eudokia?”
The lady’s smile thinned her lips. Hanna almost expected her to flick a snake’s forked tongue out of her mouth. “We need but one great victory to gain the support of the people here in Arethousa, it’s true. We must drive the usurper’s army out of Dalmiaka. After that, we will turn to the golden city in triumph. My aged cousin will retire to a monastery and allow my nephew to take what ought to be his.”
“Is that when I will become emperor, Aunt?” The homely child sitting at the foot of the couch spoke in a piping voice, peculiarly loud. He looked as if surprise were his normal state as he spun the circlet between his fingers. Obviously he would rather be playing than sitting in on this grave council.
“Yes, Nikolas,” she said dismissively. The general did not move, not by one finger’s breadth, although he had developed a disconcerting habit of flicking his gaze now and again back to Hanna. “Tell us again, Sergeant Bysantius, in what condition you found this sad party?”
“In my opinion, Exalted Lady, they were fleeing from the usurper’s soldiers. If not, then they should become actors and go on the stage, for they have fooled me.”
“I pray you,” said Rosvita in a strong voice, “we are a small group of clerics, harmful to no one. We have both crippled and ill among us.”
“I did not give you permission to speak!” snapped Lady Eudokia. Rosvita pinched her lips together over a retort, yet otherwise her placid face did not change expression. Rosvita was a mild woman, but she was probably smarter than the rest of them put together.
Hanna was surprised to find herself shaking a little, indignant on Rosvita’s behalf. Where had this loyalty sprung from? When had she lost her heart to the cleric, who did not command the loyalty of those around her but claimed it nevertheless?
Rosvita would never desert them. She would never stain her own honor.
That was what her companions all knew. That was why they followed her. In her own way, she was a prince among men, too, but the army she led bore different weapons: the quill, the steady mind, the slow accumulation of knowledge put to good use.
“Do you know why the usurper came to Dalmiaka?” demanded Lady Eudokia.
“I do,” said Rosvita evenly. “I must have some assurances regarding the safety of my people before I will speak honestly with you.”
“Will you betray my father just as my brother has?” cried Sapientia, face flushed. She began to stand, but Geza’s hand tightened on her wrist and she subsided at once, trembling so hard that it was noticeable, as though that mild earthquake still gripped her.
“I have never betrayed Henry, Your Highness. Others betrayed him, but never me. The task which lies before us all is much graver, and will afflict high and low, Arethousan and Wendish and Ungrian and Dariyan regardless. What date is it, I pray you?”
“This night begins the feast day of St. Nikephoras,” said the attendant in the jade-green robes. “In the two hundred and thirty-sixth year as acknowledged by the Patriarch’s authority, and recalling the foundation of the Dariyan Empire, of which we are the only true heirs, one thousand six hundred and eight years ago.”
“I pray you, what date according to the calendar recognized by the Dariyan church?”
The beardless man sneered. Lady Eudokia looked offended and had actually to drink wine before she could bring herself to express her disgust. “You have forgotten the proper rites and observances! Can it be that an educated churchwoman of the apostate church no longer recalls St. Nikephoras, who was patriarch and defender of the True Church?”
Geza called forward a steward from hi
s entourage who, with great reluctance, admitted to knowing and keeping track of the calendar of the apostate Dariyans. “Begging your pardon, Exalted Lady,” the man said to Eudokia. “This is the day celebrated by the false shepherd in Darre as a feast day of one of her ancestors, called Mary Jehanna, who also donned the skopal robes in defiance of the rightful patriarch. Rebels and heretics, all!”
“That means it is already the equinox,” exclaimed Rosvita. “We were six months or more within the crown!” Her color changed. She swayed, and Ruoda and Gerwita steadied her. “Nay, not six months at all!”
She was so stunned that she was talking to herself out loud, the workings of her mind laid bare for all to see. The secret method of their arrival in Dalmiaka, too, was betrayed, but she was profoundly shocked. “The Council of Addai took place in the year 499, and if the Arethousan church has counted two hundred and thirty-six years … then it is not the year 734 but rather 735. We wandered within the crown for fully eighteen months! How it can be so much time slipped away from us?”
“What does she mean?” murmured Geza, face tightening with suspicion.
Lady Eudokia leaned forward, her hand greedily gripping the blanket that covered her legs. “The crowns! How comes it that you have gained this ancient knowledge long forbidden to those in the True Church?”
Rosvita glanced at the girls. The flush that had reddened her face began to fade. “I pray you, Sisters. I can stand. It was a trifling blow.”
Hanna hardly knew whether to breathe. They all stared at each other, trying to comprehend what Rosvita had just said. Was it true they had lost eighteen months in one night? Was this the cost inflicted by the crowns for those who thought to spare themselves the effort of travel? Fortunatus’ lean face had gone gray with fear, and the others muttered prayers under their breath or gazed in astonishment at Rosvita. Mother Obligatia had closed her eyes, although her lips moved. Only Petra appeared unmoved; she swayed back and forth, eyes still half shut, singing to herself under her breath.
Rosvita drew in a shaky breath and clasped her hands before her in an attitude something like prayer. “Exalted Lady, I have learned many things in my time. What is it you want of me? If you wish to learn what I know, then I must get something in return.”
“Your life?” Rosvita shrugged.
“The lives of your companions?”
“That I will bargain for, it’s true, yet they are free to choose their own course of action. If the intelligence I know is true, then it matters little what coercion you choose to inflict on me, or on them. ‘The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood.’ A storm is coming—”
“So Sanglant claimed!” retorted Sapientia.
“So he did,” said Geza. “He may have been obsessed, but he is no fool. We would be fools to discount what he said.”
“It was a ruse! A lie to catch us off guard! He meant to abandon me in the wilderness all along. I would have died if it weren’t for the Pechanek mothers! I never believed his story of a cataclysm!”
“I do,” said Lady Eudokia in a voice that commanded silence. “Our scholars have studied the ancient histories. We in Arethousa escaped the full fury of the Bwr invasion that destroyed much of Dariya five hundred years ago, but we remember it. We recall bitterly the anger of the Horse people; who swore to avenge themselves on the descendants of the Lost Ones because in ancient days the Lost Ones ripped the Earth itself asunder in their war against humankind.”
Eudokia spoke with as much passion as if the event had occurred last month, but Hanna could not fix her mind around such gulfs of time, years beyond counting. In Heart’s Rest a woman was considered rich in kinship who remembered the name of her grandmother’s grandmother.
“Now this Prince Sanglant seeks an alliance with the Horse people. How can we know whether he seeks to aid humankind, or his mother’s kinfolk, the Lost Ones? How can we trust any creature who is not fully human, as we are? Who does not worship God as we do?”
The crowd remained silent, not even a whisper, but Rosvita was not cowed by the lady’s zeal. “What do you want of me, Exalted Lady? Your Highness? Your Majesty? We are nothing, we fourteen wanderers. We matter not.”
“You fled my father,” said Sapientia. “That means you are guilty of some crime. You are guilty of sorcery! You admit it yourself!”
“No need, Cousin,” said Lady Eudokia to Sapientia. “It matters not what crime she was accused of back in Dariya. We march to Dalmiaka with or without her and her companions.”
“I think it wisest to keep them close by,” said Geza thoughtfully, with a respectful nod toward Rosvita.
“If it is possible her knowledge can aid us, then I think we must march with her and hold her in reserve,” agreed Eudokia.
“When our victory is achieved?” Sapientia asked. “What, then?”
“Do not disturb yourself on that account, my dearest,” said Geza, whose gaze never flicked by the least amount toward Eudokia, although any idiot could see that he and the Arethousan lady had cozened Sapientia between them. “You will be restored to your rightful place. His Exalted Lordship will be placed on the throne that belongs to him.”
“That’s me!” cried the boy with a big grin.
“All will be well,” finished the Ungrian.
“And you, King Geza?” asked Rosvita boldly. “What do you gain from these ventures?”
He did not smile, but he wasn’t angry either. He had Bayan’s ability to be amused, but his was a character much deeper and murkier than Bayan’s had ever been. “Certain territories along the Anubar River, which has for many years marked the disputed border between Arethousa and Ungria. And justice for my wife, who sought my aid after being abandoned by her brother in the wilderness.”
Sapientia smiled brilliantly at him; her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. He patted her hand, but no wise differently, Hanna thought, than he would have patted the head of one of his favorite dogs. Bayan had treated Sapientia with more respect.
Yet how could she know where the fault lay? Had Sapientia thrown herself into Geza’s arms, or had he taken her by force? The princess had marched east with her brother, and without asking questions that an Eagle hadn’t the right to ask as a prisoner, Hanna couldn’t know what had transpired to set Sapientia so fiercely against Prince Sanglant except perhaps the prince’s refusal to execute Bulkezu.
This thought of Bulkezu surprised her. The old familiar revulsion and hatred still clung, like a stench, but after her time in Darre she could see now that necessity might force a man’s hand, might bring him to spare the life of a man he detested for the sake of the greater good.
Have I forgiven Sanglant? The revelation startled her. His name evoked no fury in her heart, only resignation. Only a wry smile.
She had changed. She had come through the fire, and she had an inkling of the fearful vista opening before them that could make their former trials seem light in comparison.
“Let them be taken away, Basil. Let them be fed, and given decent accommodation and a wagon to ride on as we travel, but do not allow them to escape or I will have your head.”
The general chuckled, and perhaps he blinked just as Hanna looked at him, or perhaps he winked at her. She averted her gaze quickly.
“Yes, Exalted One.” The man in the jade-green robes turned with a flourish and beckoned to a trio of men as beardless as he was, if not quite as elegantly dressed.
They were led to a tent whose dimensions and accoutrements seemed royal after the spare monastic cells in which they had remained confined all summer. The exhaustion brought about by unremitting anxiety and the stunned recognition of their changed circumstances, as well as their discovery of that unexpected passage of time within the crowns, made them a quiet group as they each found a place to sit on the chairs, benches, and pillows carried in for their comfort. Tea and honey cakes were brought, and bread, and a porridge of mashed peas spiced with rosemary, which was, in truth, overdry and had a bitter aftertaste. They ate in silence. Even Ro
svita said nothing as she drank wine and, at intervals, rubbed her head as if it hurt her.
When all were sated and sitting slumped and slack-faced, Hanna dared speak. “What now, Sister Rosvita?”
Rosvita’s smile was more ghost than real. “It is an irony, I think, that we find what proves to be a kind of refuge with one who is enemy to our regnant.”
“Sapientia is his rightful heir!” protested Fortunatus.
“So she is, yet he has claimed Mathilda in her place, under the influence of Adelheid. Princess Sapientia has not necessarily made a foolish bargain with King Geza and the Arethousans, although she may come to regret it. It may be that she believes this to be the only way she can hope to restore herself to the position she has long assumed she would one day possess. Yet we know as well that the Henry who speaks and rules in Darre now is not our regnant but a puppet controlled by outside hands. Who, then, is the enemy, and who the ally?”
“Will you tell them so?” asked Hanna. “How much do we dare say to the regnant’s enemies?” Inside the walls of this pleasant tent, a finer bower than any place they had rested for the last many months, Hanna felt at ease, although she knew Rosvita was right. “It seems to me that we face enemies on every side. How are we to know what to do and whom to trust?”
“Sanglant claimed that the crown of stars would crown the heavens on the tenth day of Octumbre, in the year seven thirty-five. I do not know the means by which the mathematici arrived at that date, or if they are correct, but that date falls next month. We now camp in southwestern Arethousa, I believe, just north of Dalmiaka. This army plans to march into Dalmiaka, apparently to face the Holy Mother and Henry themselves. Yet I know not whether we must turn the Holy Mother Anne aside from her task at the crown in Dalmiaka, or aid her in succeeding to weave her mathematicus’ spell.”