by Kate Elliott
Prince Bayan shook the beaded curtain aside and clumped down the stairs, laughing. “Now! To the bed!” he cried, and everyone cheered, and when next Hanna could look past the people who suddenly swirled around her, the young Kerayit woman had vanished. The steps into the wagon had been drawn up.
“Eagle! Hanna!”
She had to go. She attended Sapientia to her bed, waited with the others until the covers were drawn back. As Eagle, she had to witness that husband and wife were put properly to bed together. Then, with the others, she discreetly withdrew.
She had a blanket, and it seemed more prudent to her not to step away from the awning that night. It was hard to sleep because it was so noisy, laughter and grunting and pleased exclamations from the tent within, singing, drumming, shouting, and, once, a scream of terror from the camp without. Breschius also had a blanket, and he snored amiably beside her, all rolled up and comfortable on the old carpet laid out beneath the awning. A few other servants slept peaceably as well over to one side.
She was cold and restless. She was waiting, but she didn’t know for what. At last, she dozed off.
And she had the strangest dream.
All the clouds have blown eastward to harass the Quman, to bleed away the trail left by their young brothers who rode out to find the enemy but never returned. The stars stand so brilliantly in the heavens that they shine each one like a blazing spark of light, the souls of fiery daimones who exist far beyond the homely world of humankind. Stars have never shone as brightly as these, as if they have somehow bowed the great dome of the heavens inward by the force of their will, because they are seeking something lost to them, fallen far far below onto the hard cold earth.
At night, the wagon of the Kerayit shaman blazes with reflected light from the stars, and only now does the magic shimmer in its walls: marks and sigils, spirals and cones, an elaborate tree whose roots reach far below the earth and whose branches seem to grow out of the roof itself and reach toward the sky. A glimmering pole more light than substance thrusts heavenward from the smoke hole at the center of the wagon: seven notches have been carved into its branchless trunk, and the top of the pole seems to meld with the North Star around which the heavens revolve.
Beads clack and rustle as the steps unroll from the wagon’s bed. The young princess steps out, and she beckons to Hanna. Come to me.
Hanna sheds her blanket and goes. The lintel of the tiny door brushes her head as she ducks inside. But inside is not as outside. The wagon is tiny, and yet inside she seems to be in a pavilion fully as large as that in which Bayan and Sapientia now sleep. The walls ripple as if stroked by wind; there are two elaborate box beds, a low table, and beautifully embroidered pillows on which to sit. A green-and-gold bird stirs in its cage, eyeing her. She sits on a pillow, and one of the ancient handmaidens brings her a cup of hot liquid whose spicy scent stings her nostrils.
“Drink,” speaks a cricket voice, and then Hanna sees Bayan’s mother sitting veiled in the shadows, the suggestion of a face visible behind translucent silk. A tapestry hangs on the tent wall at her back: the image of a woman standing on earth and reaching toward the heavens where hangs a palace that magically glides in the aether: from the woman’s navel stretches a cord which attaches to a tree in the courtyard of the floating palace: an eagle flies between, and two coiled dragons observe through slitted eyes. “What comes from earth, returns to earth,” says the old woman as Hanna obediently drinks. “What have you brought me, sister’s daughter? She is not my kin.”
Gold flashes, and the young princess steps forward. “I have found it at last,” she says. “My luck was born into this woman.”
“Ah,” says the old woman, the exclamation like the rasping of crickets. There is another noise from outside, a keening moan that sends shudders down Hanna’s back, and Hanna thinks that probably they aren’t in camp anymore, they have gone somewhere far away where dangerous creatures stalk the night grass because it is in the nature of dreams that one may travel quickly a long distance without moving.
“Ah,” repeats the old woman. “She will come with us, then.”
“No. She will not come with me yet. She must find the man who will become my pura, and then she will return to me, with him.”
The young princess turns to look at Hanna, and Hanna thinks maybe she can see through the dark irises of those beautiful almond eyes all the way back to the land where the Kerayits live and roam, among grass so tall that a man on horseback can’t see over it, where griffins stalk the unwary and dragons guard the borders of a vast and terrible desert strewn with grains of gold and silver. There waits a woman in that place, not a true woman but a creature who is woman from the waist up and from the waist below has the body and elegant strength of a mare. She is a shaman of great power and immense age, with her face painted in stripes of green and gold and an owl perched on her wrist. She draws her bow and looses an arrow spun of starlight. Its path arcs impossibly through the North Star, and with a high chime it pierces the heart of the young princess, who gasps and falls to her knees, a hand clasped to her breast.
Hanna leaps up at once to aid her, but as soon as she touches the young woman, she feels the sting of the arrow in her own breast, as though a wasp has been trapped inside her. It hurts.
She woke up suddenly as a hand touched her, brushing her breast. She sat up fast, and hit heads with the man who bent over her. Then her eyes adjusted to the graying light that presages dawn.
“Your Highness!” she exclaimed, scooting backward as quickly as she could.
Prince Bayan smiled charmingly as he rubbed his forehead. He wore his rumpled trousers, but nothing else, revealing much of his strong, attractive body. She smelled wine on his breath. “Pretty snow maiden,” he said winningly, without threat.
“Bayan!” Sapientia appeared at the entrance to the pavilion, clad only in a shift.
“She is awake!” cried Bayan enthusiastically. He staggered back inside and, after an annoyed glance at Hanna, Sapientia followed him.
Several of the servingwomen had woken and now hastened in to assist their mistress. They came out moments later, giggling, carrying the chamber pot, and Hanna felt it prudent to go with them down to the river. They washed among the rocks, finding safety in numbers, but in any case with the morning the carousing had died down, and about half of the soldiers seemed to be sleeping it off in a stupor while the other half had returned to the battlefield. When they returned to the tent, Brother Breschius asked Hanna to accompany him, and she did so reluctantly, only because she liked the old priest. In the hard glare of morning, the battleground was an ugly sight: vultures and scavengers had to be driven away, and the bodies were beginning to smell. More and more soldiers arrived to loot the enemy, but Hanna couldn’t bear to touch them even when she saw a good iron knife stuck in the belt of one dead man. He, like the others, wore slung at his belt one of those ghastly tiny human heads.
A burial detail was organized. Wendish soldiers dug mass graves, stripped the bodies, and rolled them in as Brother Breschius blessed each dead soul. But what the Ungrians did to their own honored dead was hardly less awful than the disregard with which they looted the enemy. Every corpse of their own kin was mutilated before being buried: a finger cut off, a tooth pried out of the jaw, and a hank of hair hacked off. These treasures were carefully wrapped up and given to certain soldiers, who carried them away together with the salvaged armor and weapons.
“Why do they do that?” Hanna asked finally as she and Breschius returned to camp. “Aren’t they given a proper burial and laid to rest as is fitting?”
“Oh, yes, as you saw. But they also believe that some portion of the spirit resides after death in the body, and each year at midwinter they burn the remains of their relatives in a bonfire. They believe that in this way the spirits of all those who died in the previous year are sealed away into the otherworld so that they can’t come back and cause mischief in this world.”
“But don’t they believe that their so
uls ascend to the Chamber of Light? How can they worship God if they don’t believe that?”
Breschius laughed kindly. “God are tolerant, my child. So should we be. This is all Their creation. We are sent to this earth to learn about our own hearts, not to judge those of others.”
“You aren’t like most of the fraters I’ve ever met.” Then she flushed, thinking of Hugh. Beautiful Hugh.
Breschius chuckled, and she had a sudden feeling that he could read her heart well enough but was too humble a soul to judge her for what she knew was a foolish and sinful yearning. “Because we are none of us the same, we must each learn something different in our time on this world.”
“I had such a strange dream,” she said, to change the subject. “I dreamed I went inside the wagon of Prince Bayan’s mother, and that the young princess said that her luck had been born into my body.”
He stopped dead and his face blanched.
She felt suddenly as if a butterfly fluttered in her throat, captive, never to be free again.
“But it was only a dream. It had to be a dream. I could understand what they were saying.”
“Do not discount their power,” he said hoarsely. “Do not speak of it again, ever. They will know.”
“How can they know? What if I’m a thousand leagues away from them?” He shook his head stubbornly. Such a change had come over him, he had become so tense and troubled, that she, too, felt frightened. “Will you answer one question, then? What is a pura?”
He flushed. Sweat broke on his neck and forehead although it wasn’t warm. The camp swarmed with movement in front of them; behind, the river murmured over smooth rocks in the shallows and on the far bank a line of soldiers reached the ford and set out across.
“A pura,” he said in a hoarse voice, “is a word in the Kerayit tongue for a horse.”
“Then why would the Kerayit princess say in my dream that I would find the man who would become her pura?”
He shut his eyes as though to shut out—or to see more clearly—some dim and ancient memory. “A horse can be ridden. It can carry burdens. If it is male, it can be bred to mares. Its blood, drunk hot from a vein, can strengthen you. A fine, strong, elegant horse can be a source of pride and amusement to his owner. A pura means also a young and handsome man who serves any young Kerayit princess who has been called to become a shaman. The shaman women of the Kerayit tribe live in utter seclusion. Once they have touched their luck, they may never be seen in front of any person who is not their own kin, or who is not a slave, whom they do not count as people. Shamans do not marry, as do their sisters. Prince Bayan’s mother did so only because—well, I have spoken of that before. You do not take your luck as your pura. A pura is not a real person, but only a slave.”
“Then why do these women take a pura at all?”
He had recovered enough to look at her with amusement lighting his eyes. “You have sworn oaths as an Eagle, my child. But do you never look at young men with desire stirring in your heart? Even Prince Bayan’s mother was young once. A Kerayit woman chosen by their gods to become shaman is young, and her path is a difficult one. Not all survive it. Who would not want a horse on such a long road?”
His flush had subsided, and for the first time she really looked at him as a woman looks at a man. The ghost of his younger self still lived in his lineaments. Once he had been a young and handsome man, a bold frater walking east to convert the heathens. It was easy to imagine a Kerayit princess taking a fancy to such an exotic young man.
“And are puras set free,” she asked, “once their mistress no longer needs them?”
“Nay,” he said softly. “No shaman willingly gives up her pura.”
Had she misunderstood? “I beg your pardon, Brother. I thought by your words and expression that perhaps you had once been—” Now she was too embarrassed to go on. “I did not mean to wrong you. I can see you serve God faithfully.”
“You have not wronged me, Daughter.” He touched her fleetingly on the elbow. “She did not willingly give me up. She died. I was blamed for it because I was teaching her the magic of writing. It was her aunt, a queen of her people, who cut off my hand. Later, Prince Bayan came to hear of my captivity because that queen was his wife’s aunt’s cousin, and he asked for me as a present. That is how I came into his service. God forgave me for my disobedience, for the truth is I loved Sorgatani freely and would have remained in her service for the rest of my life. But it was not to be.” He smiled wryly, without anger. “So now I serve God’s agent, who is Prince Bayan, whatever his other faults. Do not think ill of him, child. He has a good heart.”
Hanna laughed, at first, because she hadn’t been scared or felt at all in danger in the predawn chill when Bayan had accosted her. But then she sobered. Liath had suffered terribly, pursued by Hugh. Hanna did not relish spending her nights fending off the attentions of a prince far more powerful than she would ever be, and especially not when she remained so very far from the king who was her only protection. Prince Bayan wouldn’t be blamed for the seduction of an Eagle; she would be, and lose her position in the bargain. And she wanted to remain an Eagle. Maybe that, more than anything, made it hard for her to understand Liath’s choice. How could Liath walk away from the life offered those who swore the Eagle’s oath to their regnant? Hanna could no longer imagine being anything other than an Eagle. It was as if she had been one person before Wolfhere arrived in Heart’s Rest that fateful date and another person after, as if she had simply been waiting her whole life up until then for him to offer her an Eagle’s badge and cloak.
“I’m an Eagle,” she said out loud. “And I want to remain one. Advise me, Brother. Will it happen again?”
He could only frown. “I don’t know.”
Bayan and Sapientia emerged just before midday looking well satisfied. Brother Breschius led a prayer service for the living and a mass for the dead. A war council was called, and the disposition of forces discussed, what signs seen where of activity beyond the border, where the Quman had last attacked, and how big a force might be lurking, waiting for opportunity. The sentries reported that they had killed half a dozen lurking Quman warriors in the night. Lady Udalfreda confided that at least ten hamlets out beyond her town of Festberg had been burned and refugees fled to the safety of her walls. Other Wendish lords and captains gave similar reports, and the Ungrians had other news as well, tribes driven southwest by drought or fighting, raids along the border with the Arethousan Empire, certain portents seen in the midwinter sacrifice that presaged disaster.
Sapientia called Hanna forward. “There has been much rumor of a large force of Quman moving in these marchlands, and now we have confirmation that it is so. But we do not have the forces to withstand an invasion, should it come. You, my faithful Eagle, must return to my father, King Henry, and report our situation. I beg him to send troops to strengthen the frontier, or else it is likely we will be overwhelmed.”
Prince Bayan watched Sapientia proudly, as any praeceptor regards with pride his pupil as she makes her first steps by herself. But he also glanced now and again at Hanna, and once he winked.
“Eagle, I would speak in your ears a private message.” Hanna had to lean forward to hear the princess, who dropped her voice to a murmur. “I like you, Hanna. You have served me faithfully and well. But I remember what happened with that witch who seduced Father Hugh. You knew her, and maybe she made some of her glamour rub off on you, even though I’m sure you would never try such witcheries yourself. You must go. When you return, my husband will have forgotten all about this morning.”
Yet Hanna wasn’t so sure.
The truth was, she wasn’t sorry to be going. Yes, he was an attractive man, charming and good-hearted. No doubt he was a pleasant companion in bed. But she would never forget the cold, casual way in which he had tortured that Quman prisoner and then, afterward, casually mentioned that he’d known all along that the man wouldn’t tell them anything. What was the point, then, except that he hated the Quman? H
e was getting his revenge for the death of his son, one man at a time.
At dawn the next day she took her leave of the princess and said farewell to Brother Breschius, who blessed her and said a prayer for a good journey on her behalf. She hesitated beside the Kerayit wagon, but she had seen no sign of the shaman and her young apprentice since the night of the battle. Even now, the door remained closed. Did the bead curtains sway, parting slightly so someone inside could look out? Maybe they did. She raised a hand in greeting, and farewell, just in case.
Then she rode west, with the rising sun at her back. It was a good day to be riding, crisp, clear, and pleasantly chill. As she left the camp behind, she began to sing, and her escort joined in with her in good harmony.
“I will lift up my eyes to see the hills,
for Their help shall come to me from that place.
Help comes from the Lord and the Lady
They who made Heaven and Earth.
The Lord shall preserve us from all evil.
The Lady shall preserve our souls.”
But she couldn’t help thinking of the Kerayit princess. Had it been a dream?
The wasp sting burned in her heart.
5
IN the evening, Alain left the chapel in the pause between Vespers and Compline to walk through the silence until he reached the great hall. Sorrow and Rage padded after him. At the other end of the hall, two servants swept rushes out the door. They jabbed their brooms at the ground outside, shaking off straw, and because they had their backs to the hall they did not see him but spoke together in low voices as they shut the doors behind them on the bitter gloom of an autumn twilight.
Some light was left him, as little as the hope left him. The hall had been set in order, tables and benches lined up neatly, but nevertheless he banged his shins on a bench and bruised his hip on the corner of a table before he stumbled on the first step of the small dais behind the high table. He hit his knee on the second step and cursed under his breath. Sorrow whined. He groped, found one leg of the count’s chair, and hauled himself up, then just stood there feeling the solid square corners under his hands, the scrollwork along the back, the arms carved like the massive smooth backs of hounds, each ending in a snarling face.