by Tad Williams
“People believe what they see,” Cadrach replied sadly, then dropped back into silent thought as they plodded slowly down toward the valleyfloor.
At midday they reached the crowded Anitullean Road
. Streams of people moved in each direction, eddying around wagons going to and from market. Miriamele and her companions attracted little attention. By sundown they had covered a great distance up the valley.
They stopped for the evening in Bellidan, one of the score of towns that had grown together along the road until it was nearly impossible to tell where one left off and the next began. They slept at the local priory, where Dinivan’s lectoral signet ring and exalted status made them the center of a great deal of interest. Miriamele slipped off early to the small cell provided for her, not wanting to take the chance of her disguise being compromised. Dinivan explained to the monks that his companion was ill, then brought her a satisfying meal of barley soup and bread. When she blew out the candle to sleep, the image of the Fire Dancer was again before her eyes, the white-robed woman bursting into flame, but here behind the priory’s thick walls it did not seem quite so frightening. It had been just another unsettling occurrence in an unsettling world.
By late afternoon of the following day they had reached the spot where the Anitullean Road
began to climb upward through the hill passes that led to Nabban proper. They passed dozens of pilgrims and merchants who sat exhausted by the roadside, fanning themselves with wide-brimmed hats. Some had merely stopped to rest and drink water, but several others were frustrated peddlers whose donkeys had proved reluctant to pull overloaded wagons up the steep road.
“If we stop before dark,” Dinivan said, “we can stay the night in one of the hill towns. Then it would be a short ride into the city in the morning. For some reason, though, I am reluctant to take any longer than necessary. If we ride past nightfall, we can reach the Sancellan Aedonitis before midnight.”
Miriamele looked back down the road. then ahead, where it wound out of sight among the dry golden hills. “I wouldn’t mind stopping,” she said. “I’m more than a little sore.”
Dinivan looked worried. “I understand. I am less used to riding than you are. Princess, and my rump is smarting, too.” He blushed and laughed. “Your pardon. Lady. But I feel that the sooner we reach the lector, the better.”
Miriamele looked to Cadrach to see if he had something to add, but the monk was deep in his own private thoughts, swaying from side to side as his horse plodded uphill. “If you think there is any advantage in it at all,” she said at last, “then let us ride the night through if necessary. Truthfully, though, I can’t think what I might tell the lector—or that he might tell me—that would be spoiled if it waits another day.”
“There are many things changing, Miriamele,” Dinivan replied, lowering his voice, though the road in this spot was empty but for a farm-wagon creaking along half a furlong up the road. “In times like these, when all is uncertain and many dangers are still not completely known, a chance for speed not taken is often regretted later. This much wisdom I have. With your permission, I will trust in it.”
They rode all through the darkening evening and did not stop when the stars began to appear above the hills. The road wound through the passes and then down, past more towns and settlements, until at last they reached the outskirts of the great city, lit with so many lamps that it outshone the sky.
The streets of Nabban were crowded, even as midnight approached. Torches burned on every corner. Jugglers and dancers performed in pools of flickering light, hoping for a coin or two from drunken passersby. The taverns, their window shutters up on a cool summer night, spilled lantern-light and noise out into the cobbled streets.
Miriamele was nodding with weariness as they left the Anitullean Road
and followed the track of the Way of the Fountains up the Sancelline Hill. The Sancellan Aedonitis loomed before them. Its famous spire was only a slender thread of gold in the lamplight, but a hundred windows glowed with warm light.
“Someone is always awake in God’s house,” Dinivan said quietly.
As they climbed through the narrow streets, heading for the great square, Miriamele could see the pale, curving shapes of the Sancellan Mahistrevis’ towers just beyond the Sancellan Aedonitis to the west. The ducal castle sat on the rocky promontory at Nabban’s outermost point, commanding the sea view as Nabban itself had once commanded the lands of men-The two Sancellans, Miriamele thought, one built to rule the body, the other to rule the soul. Well, the Sancellan Mahistrevis has fallen already to that father-murderer Benigaris, but the lector is a godly man—a good one, too, Dinivan says, and Dinivan is no fool. At least there is hope there.
A seagull keened somewhere in the darkness above. She felt a pang of regret. If her mother had never married Elias, then Miriamele could have grown up and lived here, above the ocean. This would have been her home. She would be coming back to a place she belonged.
But if my mother had never married my father, she thought sleepily, I wouldn’t be me anyway. Stupid girl.
Their arrival at the doors of the lectoral palace was a confusing blur for Miriamele, who was finding it difficult to stay awake. Several people greeted Dinivan warmly—he seemed to have many friends—and the next thing she knew, she was being shown to a room with a warm, soft bed. She did not bother to take off anything but her boots, crawling beneath the blanket while still wrapped in her hooded cloak. Hushed voices spoke in the corridor outside her room, then a little later she heard the Clavean bell tolling far above her, striking more times than she could count.
She fell asleep to the sound of distant singing.
Father Dinivan woke her in the morning with berries and milk and bread. She ate sitting up in bed while the priest lit the candles and paced back and forth across the windowless room.
“His Sacredness was up early this morning. He was gone before I got to his chambers, out walking somewhere. He often does that when he has something to think about, just takes to the corridors in his night robe. He doesn’t take anyone with him—except me, if I’m around.” Dinivan flashed a boyish smile. “This place is nearly as big as the Hayholt. He could be anywhere.”
Miriamele dabbed milk from her chin with a flapping sleeve. “Will he see us?”
“Of course. As soon as he comes back, I’m sure. I wonder what he thinks about. Ranessin is a deep man, deep as the sea, and like the sea, it is often difficult to tell what hides beneath a placid surface.”
Miriamele shuddered, thinking of the kilpa in the Bay of Emettin. She put her bowl down. “Shall I wear men’s clothes?” she asked.
“What?” Dinivan stopped, surprised by her question. “Oh. To meet the lector, you mean. I don’t think anyone should know yet that you are here. I would like to say that I trust my fellow priests with my life, and I suppose I do, but I have lived and worked here too long to trust tongues not to wag. I did bring you some cleaner robes.” He gestured to a bundle of garments lying on a stool, beside a basin of water that steamed faintly.
“So if you are ready and have finished breaking your fast, let us be off.” He stood, waiting expectantly.
Miriamele stared at the clothes for a moment, then back at Father Dinivan, whose face wore a distracted half-frown. “Could you turnaround,” she asked at last, “so I can change?”
Father Dinivan gaped for a moment, then blushed furiously, much to Miriamele’s secret amusement. “Princess, forgive me! How could I be so discourteous? Forgive me, I will leave at once. I will be back for you soon. My apologies. I am thinking of so many other things this morning.” He backed out of the room, closing the door carefully behind him.
When he was gone, Miriamele laughed and rose from bed. She shucked the old robes over her head and washed herself, shivering, noting with more interest than dismay how sun-browned her hands and wrists had become. They were like a barge-man’s hands, she thought with some satisfaction. How her ladies-in-waiting would wince if they could
see her!
The water was warm, but the chamber itself was cold, so when she finished she hurriedly pulled on the clean clothes. Running her hands through her short-cropped hair, she considered washing it, too, but decided against it, thinking of the drafty corridors. The cold reminded her of young Simon, walking somewhere in the chilly north. In an impulsive moment she had given him her favorite blue scarf, a favor that now seemed pitifully inadequate. Still, she had meant it well. It was too thin to keep him warm, but perhaps it would help him remember the frightening journey they had survived together. Perhaps he would take heart.
She found Dinivan in the hall outside, trying his best to look patient. Back in his familiar home, the priest seemed like a war-horse awaiting battle, full of trembling need to go, to do. He took her elbow and led her gently down the corridor.
“Where is Cadrach?” she asked. “Is he going with us to see the lector?”
Dinivan shook his head. “I am not sure of him anymore. I said that I think there is no great harm in him, but I also think he is a man who has given in to many weaknesses. That is sad, because the man he once was would have been valuable counsel indeed. Still, I thought it best to expose him to no temptations. He is having a pleasant meal with some of my brother priests. He will be quietly and discreetly watched.”
“What was Cadrach?” she asked, craning her head to stare at the ceiling-high tapestries that lined the corridor, scenes of Aedon’s Elevation, the Renunciation of Saint Vilderivis, the chastising of Imperator Crexis. She thought of these frozen figures, eyes wide and white-rimmed, and of all the centuries they had hung here while the world spun on. Would her uncle and father someday be the subjects of murals and tapestries, long after she and all she knew were dust?
“Cadrach? He was a holy man, once, and not just in dress.” Dinivan appeared to consider for a moment before speaking again. “We will speak of your companion another time, Princess, if you will pardon my rudeness. Now you might be thinking of what things you would tell the lector.”
“What does he want to know?”
“Everything.” Dinivan smiled, the harried edge to his voice softening. “The lector wishes to know everything about everything. He says it is because the weight and responsibility of Mother Church are upon his shoulders and his decisions must be informed ones—but I think that he is also a very curious fellow.” He laughed. “He knows more about book-keeping than most of the Writing-Priests in the Sancellan chancelry, and I have heard him talk for hours about milking with a Lakelands farmer. “Dinivan’s expression became more serious. “But these are truly grave times. As I said before, some of my sources of knowledge cannot be revealed even to the lector, so your words and the witness of your own eyes will be of great help in telling him things he must know. You need fear to tell him nothing. Ranessin is a wise man. He knows more of what spins the world than anyone else I know.”
To Miriamele, the walk though the dark corridors of the Sancellan Aedonitis seemed to take an hour. But for the tapestries and the occasional flock of priests hurrying by, each corridor seemed identical to the last, so that before long she was hopelessly lost. The great stone hallways were also damp and poorly-lit. When they at last reached a large wooden door, delicately carved with a spreading Tree, she was grateful that their journey had ended.
Dinivan, about to push the door open, stopped. “We should continue to exercise caution,” he said. leading her to a smaller door a few ells down the corridor. He pushed this open and they went through into a small chamber hung with velvet cloth. A fire burned in a brazier against the wall. The wide table that filled much of the room was scattered with parchments and heavy books. The priest left Miriamele to warm her hands before the flames.
“I will return in a moment,” he said, pushing aside a curtain in the wall beside the table. When the curtain fell back, he was gone.
When her fingers were tingling satisfactorily, she left the brazier to examine some of the parchments lying unrolled on the table. They seemed quite uninteresting, full of numbers and descriptions of property boundaries. The books were uniformly religious, except for one strange volume full of woodcuts of strange creatures and unfathomable ceremonies that lay open atop the rest. As she flipped carefully through the pages, she found one that had been marked with a ribbon of cloth. It was a crude illustration of an antlered man with staring eyes and black hands. Terrified people huddled at the horned one’s feet, above his head, a single dazzling star hung in a black sky. The eyes seemed to stare out of the page and directly into her own.
Sa Asdridan Condiquilles, she read from the caption below the picture. The Conqueror Star.
A fit of shivering came over her The picture chilled her in a way that the Sancellan’s dank corridors never could. It seemed something she had seen in a nightmare, or a story told her in childhood whose evil she only now recognized. Miriamele hastily restored the book to its original position and moved away, rubbing her fingers up and down her cloak as though she had touched something unclean.
Soft voices were coming from behind the arras through which Dinivan had disappeared. She moved closer, straining to make out the words, but they were too faint. She cautiously pulled the hanging aside to expose a silver of light from the room beyond.
It seemed to be the lector’s audience room, for it was ornate beyond anything she had seen since the entry chamber which she had sleepily traversed the night before. The ceilings were high, painted with hundreds of scenes from the Book of the Aedon. The windows were slices from the gray morning sky. Behind a chair at the room’s center hung a great azure banner embroidered with the Pillar and Tree of Mother Church.
Lector Ranessin, a slender man in a tall hat, was sitting on the chair listening to a fat man who wore the tent-like golden robes of an escritor. Dinivan stood to one side, scuffing his foot back and forth impatiently in the deep carpet
“…But that is the point, Your Sacredness,” the fat one said, his face shiny, his tone beautifully measured. “Of all times to avoid offending the High King…well, he is not in the most receptive mood just now. We must think carefully of our lofty position, as well as the welfare of all who look to Mother Church for moderation and good influence.” He pulled a small box from his sleeve and popped something into his mouth. His round cheeks flattened briefly as he sucked at it.
“I understand, Velligis,” the lector responded, raising his hand with a gentle smile. “Your counsel is always good. I am eternally grateful that God brought us together.”
Velligis tilted his round head in a bow of acknowledgment.
“Now, if you will be so good,” Ranessin continued, “I really should give some time to poor Dinivan here. He has been riding for days and I am anxious for his news.”
The escritor dropped to his knees—not an easy feat for a man his size—and kissed the hem of the lector’s blue robe. “If you need me for anything, Your Sacredness, I will be in the chancelry until afternoon.” He rose and left the room in a graceful waddle, prying another sugar-sweet from his box.
“Are you truly grateful God brought you together?” Dinivan asked with a smile.
The lector nodded. “Indeed. Velligis is a living reminder to me of why men should not take themselves seriously. He means well, but he is so blessedly pompous.”
Dinivan shook his head. “I am willing to believe he means well, but his advice is criminal. If there is ever a time when Mother Church must show herself a living force for good, this is the time.”
“I know your feelings, Dinivan,” the lector said gently. “But this is not a time in which decisions may be hastily made, lest they be repented later at tragic length. Did you bring the princess?”
Ranessin’s secretary nodded. “I’ll fetch her. I left her in my work-room.” He turned and headed across the Audience Chamber. Miriamele hurriedly dropped the hanging back into place; when Dinivan came through, she was standing before the brazier once more.
“Come with me,” he said. “The lector is free now.”
/> When she reached the chair, Miriamele curtseyed, then kissed Ranessin’s hem. The old man reached down a surprisingly strong hand and helped her to her feet.
“Please, sit beside me.” he said as he gestured for Dinivan to bring her a chair. “On second thought,” he told his secretary, “fetch one for yourself as well.”
While Dinivan was getting the chairs, Miriamele had her first chance to look at the lector. She had not seen him for over a year, but he seemed little different. His thin gray hair hung down beside his pale, handsome face. His eyes were as alert as a child’s, with an air almost of hidden mischief. Miriamele could not help comparing him to Count Streáwe, the lord of Perdruin. Streáwe’s lined face had been suffused with cunning. Ranessin looked much more innocent, but Miriamele did not need Dinivan’s assurances to believe that a great deal went on behind the lector’s gentle exterior.
“Well, my dear princess,” Ranessin said when they had seated themselves, “I have not seen you since your grandfather’s funeral. My, you have grown—but what odd clothes you wear, my lady.” He smiled. “Welcome to God’s house. Do you lack for anything?”
“Not in the way of food or drink, Your Sacredness.”
Ranessin frowned. “I am not a lover of titles, and mine is particularly awkward upon the tongue. When I was a young man in Stanshire, I never dreamed I would end out my life in far Nabban, being called ‘Sacred’ and ‘Exalted’ and never hearing my birth name again.”
“Isn’t Ranessin your real name?” Miriamele asked.
The lector laughed. “Oh, no. I was born an Erkynlander, hight Oswine. But since Erkynlanders are seldom elevated to such heights, it seemed politic to take a Nabbanai name.” He reached out to pat softly at her hand. “Now, speaking of assumed names, Dinivan tells me you have traveled far and seen much since you left your father’s house. Will you tell me something of your Journeys?”
Dinivan nodded encouragingly, so Miriamele took a deep breath and began to talk.