by Kate Elliott
But God had created desire so that humankind could grow and prosper. Hadn’t the Lord and Lady conceived the Holy Word between them, by joining together in lawful congress? Wasn’t the Earth and the entire universe Their creation? Was it wrong of him to delight in the world? To think of Tallia and of their joining in the marriage bed? To think of making Lavastine a grandfather? For Lavastine, a grandchild, heir to his heir, would be the triumph he desired most. Alain meant to give that to him.
Sorrow whined at his knee. He reached out and patted the hound, and Sorrow set his great muzzle on Alain’s knee. It reminded him suddenly and blindingly of little Agnes, Bel’s youngest, when she was just a little girl and would drape herself over Alain’s leg for comfort on a winter’s evening. How did Aunt Bel fare? Did Henri think of him at all? Did he still hate him?
Even now the memory of that last meeting with Henri was so painful that Alain could not bear to think on it for more than a moment. To be accused of lying, and for his own selfish gain! As well to have stabbed him in the heart as to have said that.
Terror grunted in sleep. Rage barked and set his paws on the sill, and like the claws of the Enemy’s minions sorting through a troubled heart for weakness, a shudder ran through Alain, a sudden cold chill.
Something rustled in the bush outside the window.
He leaped up and bolted to the window, leaning out. Sorrow roused and followed him over. None of the hounds barked. Terror and Steadfast slept on. Lavastine stirred, snorted, and turned over.
It was only a bird, a spotted thrush that scolded Alain for disturbing it before it flew away with a berry in its beak. But he cold not stop shaking.
What was the curse of the nestbrother? Fifth Son had spoken of it in his dream, and the priest had sung of turning it onto another— “Let this curse fall on the one whose hand commands the blade that pierced his heart.” Liath’s arrow had killed Bloodheart. But Lavastine had led the army among whose number she rode.
Alain knelt beside the open window, head bent until it rested on his clasped hands. Terror snored peacefully on the flagstones and Lavastine on the bed. Steadfast and Fear had settled down by the door, heads on paws, eyes closed. Rage and Sorrow kept him company as he prayed.
A wind stirred the leaves in the bushes outside. A woman laughed. The hammer of a blacksmith rang distantly and, farther away yet, a horn shrilled. Against his chest, the Lady’s rose throbbed like the echo of the blacksmith’s hammer, the striking of his own heart.
It was only a heathen curse, after all. God were stronger than Eika magic, weren’t they? If he prayed with a pure heart, then surely God would protect his father.
5
ALAIN woke suddenly, startled by the wood thrush, who had come back for another berry. His neck ached, and he realized that he had fallen asleep where he knelt with his hands and head resting against the window ledge.
He stood, stretching. Sorrow watched him. Rage had padded over to the door and looked up expectantly. Lavastine still slept, and he didn’t want to disturb him.
He opened the latch quietly—thankfully the good abbess’ servants kept the mechanism well oiled—and stepped outside with Sorrow and Rage at his heels. When he eased into his own chamber, he saw, for a miracle, that Tallia had come back. She had fallen asleep draped over the bed, her hands curled into fists, head resting on her knuckles. Like him, she had been caught by sleep in the act of prayer.
Tenderly, he lifted her onto the bed and arranged her limbs so she could rest comfortably. She did not wake, only murmured in her sleep, shifted, and sighed. He lay on the bed beside her, head propped on a hand, elbow bent beneath, and studied her. Because he had dozed off, because he had been up half the night searching for Bliss, he was now too tired to remain awake but too wakeful to go to sleep. She was so pale, like finest linen. Her lips had the faintest pink tincture, as delicate as rosebuds. A wooden cup had touched those lips. Was he to be less blessed than the humble cup? Surely he had as much right—the right of mutual obligation, the oath made by a wedded couple to be fruitful.
He leaned over her, felt her breath as a light brush on his cheek. Surely she must feel a stirring of desire. He need only coax it from her. She, like every other human soul on this earth, was not formed out of stone. There had to be answering fire within her.
He brushed his mouth over hers. She stirred slightly, as at the kiss of a butterfly, and that tiny movement brought her hip up against him. That touch alone, the feel of her body through the heavy cloth of her long tunic, the tilt of the bed under their weight that seemed to draw them together, all of this blinded him. He couldn’t see, he could only feel. All the hours and days he had waited, the night’s search for the missing hound, the utter obliteration of every sensation but that of desire, all of this consumed him.
He pressed against her, stroked her chin, bent to kiss her again, just to feel that touch, the pliant curve of her mouth.
Her eyes opened, and she whimpered in fear.
He jerked back.
“All night I prayed for a sign,” she whispered, “so that God through my agency could reveal the truth of the Redemption to the abbess. And God answered me. Do you mean now to defile what has been made holy by God’s touch?”
She opened her hands. The skin of her palms had begun weeping blood again.
He bolted. He no longer knew what he was doing, but he ran with Sorrow and Rage at his heels and confusion buzzing in his head like so many gnats. He reached the wood and still ran, floundering through clumps of undergrowth, running to no place, without reason.
He simply could not bear it any longer. He could not be patient. Was the flaw his, or hers? Did it even matter? He could not think of her, even with her wounded hands, without feeling the full flush of arousal. He would never escape it, and why should he? Didn’t women and men partake of God’s holy act of creation by making children in their turn?
He caught himself on a tree, leaned there, but the fit did not pass. He was sweating, hot, all on fire. He could not endure it any longer. He would go back and make her yield to him. Ai, God, but doing so would destroy any trust she had given him thus far.
He began to weep in frustration, and at the same time his body clutched the tree closer, thrusting his hips against it as if to make love with it. Appalled, he spun away.
On the edge of a meadow he saw a thicket of nettles and briars.
He stripped, flung aside tunic and leggings, and threw himself into the thorns and stinging nettles. Sorrow and Rage began to bark, but they did not follow him in. He rolled back and forth until his skin wept blood and his whole body was a mass of welts. Only then did he crawl to his knees and stagger out.
On the leaves, on the cool forest floor, he bent double, convulsed with weeping and pain. Sorrow and Rage crowded him, licking his skin to ease him, but the fire burned so violently, the scratches stung like so many lashes, that they brought no comfort.
But he could think of Tallia with a calm heart.
Much later, he pulled on his tunic, although he could not bring himself to bind his leggings on over his inflamed legs. Every shift of the tunic on his shoulders as he walked back through the wood brought fresh pain. But he could think of Tallia with a calm heart.
Mercifully, Lavastine said nothing after Alain stammered out an explanation of going out in the woods to search for Bliss and thinking he had seen the hound in the middle of a nettle patch. An ancient nun came from the convent to spread a soothing ointment over his skin, all the while clucking her tongue. But even she did not ask how a man fully dressed could have gotten welts and scratches on every part of his body.
Bliss did not return that evening, and Lavastine, at last, declared that they would have to travel on. In the morning, the count gave an offering of silver plate at the chapel. Alain knelt beside him and was blessed by the abbess, who sang the service in front of a carved wooden altar brimming with faithful dogs. Tallia prayed beside him, and with his skin still stinging and sore, he could smile calmly and speak so
ftly. Temptation had poisoned him, but pain had scoured him clean.
When they set out on the road, five hounds padded alongside, and the shadow of the sixth in his heart.
6
“WHY do you call them fixed stars,” Sanglant asked, “if they always move? They rise like the sun and set like the sun. In winter different stars shine in the heavens than do in the spring or summer or autumn. So they must move or we would see the same ones all the time.”
“We call them fixed stars because they don’t move in relation to each other. The planets we call wandering stars because they move through the fixed stars along the ecliptic, along the path through the stars that we also call the world dragon that binds the heavens. Or the zodiac, because it’s a circle of living creatures set into the heavens.”
Sanglant was the kind of person who liked to touch. Right now he had an arm draped over her shoulders, and she loved its weight and warmth. After he had settled the horses for the night, he had searched her out and found her here where she had retreated to practice certain tricks Anne had taught her to control calling fire. But it was such a beautiful night that the stars had distracted her. The Queen stood at zenith, trailed by her Cup, Staff, and Sword. The Lion set west with the Dragon in pursuit, and the Serpent wound in sinuous splendor along the southern horizon while the Archer rose behind it with her bow nocked and ready. Of the planets only Mok was visible on its slow climb through the Lion toward the Dragon, which it would reach—she tried to calculate—in another month or two.
They had passed a tiny monastic estate a few hours ago but, as usual, had not stayed there for the night. Instead, as usual, they found more isolated accommodation. Behind them at the fringe of wood stood an old traveler’s hut built out of brick in the Dariyan style. It had fallen down in disrepair, but the masonry walls were still strong and half the roof remained. The door stood ajar because it was too warped to close. A single light burned within, the magelight of Sister Anne who was now mediating or at prayer.
Even after twelve days on the road, Liath could not easily call her “Mother.”
“Then if the stars are fixed, how do they move?” Sanglant demanded, laughing.
“It’s like a turning wheel. See.” She held up a hand, cupped it so the knuckles pointed up and the palm made a curve like a dome. He couldn’t see well on a night when there was no moon, but he had his own ways of seeing: he let his free hand explore the shape of hers by touch. Which was very distracting.
After a while he remembered that he had asked her a question. By this time they were lying down. “What’s like a turning wheel?”
“The heavens are.” He had one arm under her neck and she had to shift to get comfortable. “Imagine a wheel with many sparks fixed on it. Now curve that wheel into a dome and join the dome with another dome so that it becomes a sphere. Those sparks are fixed to the inner surface of the sphere, so they don’t move, but when the sphere moves, if it rotates in a uniform circular motion, then if you stand at the center of the sphere, the stars move because the sphere moves.”
“What are you standing on there in the center of your sphere?” He still seemed amused. The truth, as she had come to learn, was that he was curious but also skeptical and quick to get bored by such talk, and that sometimes irritated her.
“You’re standing on the earth, of course! The universe is a set of nested spheres, one inside the next with the earth at the center. Beyond the seventh sphere, which is the sphere of the fixed stars, lies the Chamber of Light—where our souls go after we die.”
“Has any scout walked up through these spheres and returned to report on what she saw?”
“A blasphemous thought.” Anne’s voice, cool and yet perhaps faintly amused, came out of the dark.
Liath sat up at once and moved slightly away from her husband.
Husband! The word still staggered her.
Yet something about Anne’s presence made her feel unclean for the physical feelings she had for Sanglant. It was frustrating to be newly wed while traveling with a woman who thought you ought to remain as pure as the angels, so frustrating that at times Liath toyed with heretical thoughts. God were male and female. Why should angels not be as well, and if they were, then where did infant angels come from? If God had joined in harmony to create the universe, why shouldn’t angels join as well? In which case, there ought to be no shame for humans to join so.
She could have asked Da. But she didn’t have the nerve to try out this argument in front of her mother.
Sanglant got to his feet to show respect. “Your knowledge is vast and impressive,” he said lightly. Anne didn’t daunt him. “But it makes no sense to me.”
“Nor should it. You have your place, Prince Sanglant, as we have ours. You need know only that God have created the universe we stand in. That which they wish to make known to you they will reveal to you, Liathano.” She turned away from him. “Come inside.”
Liath hesitated.
“Go on,” said Sanglant softly. “I must tend the dog.”
The old hut had a mosaic floor, river stones pieced cunningly together to make an image of partridges picking up seeds in a thicket. Magelight illuminated the floor, which was chipped and worn and, at the end where the roof no longer covered it, broken and coming to pieces. Anne sat on a canvas stool. A fire burned in a stone hearth, newly swept out, and their cook pot bubbled with a stew that smelled so good that Liath’s mouth watered. Along one wall, an insubstantial shape wavered, slipped like the antithesis of shadow toward the door, and vanished into the night. Anne frowned.
“They’re afraid of me.” Liath blurted it out, although she hadn’t meant to. Although it was the truth.
Anne regarded her evenly. “It is time to eat our supper.”
There were two bowls. Liath obediently dished out stew for Anne, then took some for herself and sat on a stack of bricks that served well enough as a bench. She blew on the broth to cool it. It had a savory odor, rabbit, leeks, herbs. They ate in silence, as always. It needed only a sister to read aloud from the Holy Verses for the atmosphere to match that of the convent.
When she was done, she went back to the cook pot to ladle out Sanglant’s portion.
“Nay, child,” said Anne softly. “We will talk first. You can bring him his supper later.”
Annoyed, Liath set bowl and spoon on a hearthstone to keep it warm, and sat down on the brick bench. She had learned caution. Anne was nothing like Da. She seemed more a force than a person, like the hand of God reaching below the moon to touch mortal spirits. One did not speak rashly to the hand of God.
“Your education in the basic knowledge necessary to the mathematicus is sound. I am pleased with the answers you have given me these past nights.”
“You said you would answer my questions when you had finished. May I ask them now?”
The fire had such a constant glare that Liath knew its flame rose from an unnatural source. Two logs lay within the stone hearth, but although fire licked them and curved around their sides, they were not consumed. Were those salamander eyes blinking in the depths of fire? Blue sparks winked and dazzled in the flames.
“You may.”
Liath started up, suddenly aware that she had been staring into the fire like a madwoman. “How did you find me?”
“The spell Bernard concealed you with has worn away strand by strand since his death, just as this hut and indeed the great network of roads and towns and way houses built under the rule of the Dariyan empresses have all worn away with the passage of time and with none to care for them each day or month as is necessary. Until then, you were hidden from me.”
“After Da died, I would sometimes hear a voice calling my name, but there was never anyone there. Was that you?”
“At times in remembered sorrow I spoke your name. You may have heard me. The link between us runs deeply, and could never be fully severed.”
“But if Da knew you might be looking for us, why did he hide us? He thought you were dead!”
“But what about the creature that killed Da? What about the daimone I saw, and the demons that chased me on the road?”
The magelight sharpened, as if it reflected Anne’s thoughts. A moth fluttered in through the door and danced along the ceiling, trying to get close to the light. “You must tell me precisely and in detail about each of these incidents.”
She told of the voice of bells, Da’s death, and the white feather. Of her encounter on the Osterwaldweg with the daimone and the glasslike feather it had left behind on the road, and of how she had sat so still that it had walked past her without seeing her. Of the creatures that dusk had spun out of the shadows, who had pursued her down the road beside the Bretwald and how she had hidden in a stone circle.
“How did you escape them?”
Words caught in her throat like stones. Finally she said: “I saw an owl.” She could not lose her habit of caution. She did not mention the gold feather given to her by the Aoi sorcerer.
The stone circle, and the owl. That was all.
Anne watched her without expression. “An owl is a common creature to see in the night. Such creatures as you describe would not be halted by mere stone.”
“T—they didn’t see me,” she stammered. “They passed me by.” The horror of it struck her, and her next words came out harshly enough, because they at least were not half-truths. “The were other travelers on the road. They stripped them down to the bone but left their clothing and gear untouched. I’d never heard of such a thing before. I didn’t know such creatures even existed, or what they’re called.”
“The minions of the Enemy walk on this earth in many guises,” replied Anne with her usual calm. “But there are certain signs, and portents…. Certain disturbances touch the fabric of the universe, of God’s creation, and when that happens, gateways appear like rents in a cloth. Creatures who were on confined in other planes of existence can cross through.” Now her forehead furrowed, and she frowned the kind of unforgiving frown that the Lady might turn on an apostate. “Or be called.”