The Burning Stone

by Kate Elliott

  Duchess Yolande left the next day, and Tallia went with her, concealed in a wagon tented over by a strong canvas roof embroidered with the stallions that were the sigil of Varingia’s power. Geoffrey rode east to his wife’s holdings, but he left his banner behind to mark his claim.

  “King Henry will come.” It was more threat than statement.

  The count of Lavas held court in his hall and rode progress through his lands, avoiding Osna. News travels fast. When he rode out in the fields and forest, he saw them whispering and pointing. A few were too quick to bend a knee while others were guardedly insolent. And while most of them remained genuinely respectful, he hadn’t been heir and count long enough that he couldn’t tell what they were thinking, what he would have been thinking in their place: Whom will the king favor? How will the king judge? How can we prepare for what will come?

  They were waiting and watching. Chasms had opened. Doubt had been seeded. That was enough; it was what Lavastine had feared all along.

  Fear never returned.

  3

  “MOTION is the primary cause of change,” said Severus in his dry, arrogant voice, “and the lower spheres are governed by the laws of celestial motion. Power emanates from the aether, that element which is closest to God and thus unstained by the touch of the Enemy.” Liath could not see his expression, but she could deduce it from his tone of voice. He insisted on hanging a blanket between them when he tutored her so that he would not be forced to look upon her. “This effluence from the aether affects all things. In movement lies harmony, but in movement also lies power. As the celestial bodies move, they weave threads of power out of the aether depending on the angle and confluence of their relationship each to the other.”

  At this moment, the only effluence Liath could concentrate on was that the fetus in her womb was pressing on her bladder, but she dared not interrupt Severus. He had once scolded her for asking to pee in the middle of a lesson and had refused to teach her for two weeks until Anne had finally soothed him.

  “Ptolomaia discusses the positions of the planets and stars in the heavens according to their motion.” At this point, Anne or Meriam would have insisted that Liath recite passages she had herself read in the Syntaxis or in al-Haytham’s Configuration of the World, but Severus never sought to discover what she already understood. Like the aether, he simply emanated. “She states, ‘The celestial bodies are at their most powerful at the zenith,’ and we have also discovered that their power waxes along these angles and threads when they lie at midnight, at the nethermost depths, opposite zenith. But she continues in this fashion, ‘Further, they are in their second most powerful position when they lie on the horizon, or just below it, about to rise.’ Descending stars and planets create a different flux in the pattern, one which can be used, or countered, depending on your purpose, but never disregarded. All movements must be taken into account. The whole must be seen, not the parts. In this way the mathematicus can understand and harness the power immanent in the heavens. Therefore, position and motion. Let these act as your guide.”

  The fetus stirred, pressing upward against her stomach. Liath stifled a burp. The hall smelled of the fresh wood shavings that had been littered over the floor that morning. Severus never allowed them to sit outside when he lectured because, he said, the natural world distracted her—yet another instance of her degeneration, no doubt. A breeze brushed her cheek, curling in through the front doors, which were thrown open. It was another fine day. In the distance, she heard steady ax chops fading into silence at intervals. Sanglant would be out on the valley slopes, out in the sun and wind and fresh air. Able to pee when he pleased. At moments like this, she envied him.

  Severus went on. “Now. Let us pass over the question of variation of force with distance and consider instead the celestial bodies. Most of the ancient scholars agree that the stars are fallen angels cast out from the Chamber of Light. But in what relation do they stand to the daimones who dwell in the upper spheres? Are the daimones slaves to their motion and their will, or are daimones creatures with free will, as we are?”

  Liath shifted in her chair, hoping he was almost done. He tended to mix theology liberally with astronomy, and theology bored her; she would rather calculate the motion of the planets or observe the natural world than ponder God’s will or dissect some obscure point glossed over in the Holy Verses.

  “So we are fallen,” he continued with a sigh more of disgust than longing. “This is the tragedy of humanity, that our pure souls have fallen through the spheres and lodged in a corrupt body, here into the cruel and transitory world of generation. Could we only lift ourselves closer to God—”

  He broke off. She heard, as clearly as if it were a bell ringing, the barking of a dog. But it was not Sanglant’s dog. Then she heard a shriek.

  Severus moved beyond the blanket. She grunted, heaving herself up, and waddled after him, thrusting the blanket aside and stepping carefully over the threshold, blinking as she came out into the sun.

  At first it was hard to make sense of the scene before her. She cut around the corner of the hall and there, out of sight, squatted to pee while shrieks, growls, and shouts serenaded her. She got herself up again and lumbered back around the corner just as a huge black hound lunged toward Sister Zoë. Liath grabbed a stick, but by the time she reached the scene Heribert had come running, brandishing his saw ineffectually, and Zoë had retreated to the tower where she sobbed from the safety of the doorway while Sister Meriam comforted her. Sister Venia had retreated with Severus, but now she cried out a warning. The hound lunged for Heribert and bowled him over just as Liath whacked it on the hindquarters. It slewed round, growling, but the sight and smell of her caused it to whine and slink away.

  She heard a howl. A moment later Sanglant came at a run, his Eika dog loping ahead of him. The black hound leaped forward, and the air became charged with the expectation of blood and death as the two dogs closed and Sanglant sprinted to reach them before they ripped out each other’s throats.

  “What is this noise?” demanded Anne, pushing past Zoë and Meriam and striding out to place herself beside Heribert, who scuttled backward, crablike, to get out of the way. “From whence comes this creature?”

  As if pulled by an irresistible thread, the black hound broke away, circled back, and padded over to sit at Anne’s feet. There it rested, tongue lolling. Sanglant whistled his own dog back, and it slunk along at his heels, still growling, as he came up beside Liath. He brushed her shoulder to make sure she was all right. She was breathing hard, from the rapid movement or from fear, she wasn’t sure which, but she only shook her head to show she’d taken no harm. He went over to help Heribert up off the ground, and Sister Venia hastened up to brush off the young cleric as solicitously as if he were a three-year-old. They all stared at the black hound who sat submissively at Anne’s feet.

  “What means this?” demanded Anne. She lifted up the hound’s ears to look for ticks, opened its mouth to examine its teeth, and checked its paws for thorns and sores. “Where did it come from?”

  Zoë still would not come out of the tower, but she answered in a breathless voice. “It came out of the circle of stones. Then it went after the goats, and then it chased me. You saw the rest.”

  “I see no reason for this intrusion to interrupt your work any longer.” Anne snapped her fingers at the hound. “Come.’ It followed her meekly to one of the sheds, where she bade it lie down. There she tied it up and left it, after bidding the servants to bring it water. “It will have to be fed,” she muttered

  Severus came over to her, keeping well out of reach of the hound, and began speaking in muted tones that excluded the others. Sanglant had come back to Liath and now he frowned at her.

  “It could have hurt you,” he said.

  “But it didn’t, and it looked as if it were about to rip Heribert’s face off. No harm came of it.” She caught hold of his elbow and with a light pressure drew him closer. “But doesn’t it look to you very like one
of Count Lavastine’s hounds?”

  “So it does.” He took in a breath. “And smells like one of Lavastine’s hounds.”

  He was silent for a long time, listening, and she said nothing, only watched him. He had filled out, had lost the haunted expression that had chased him after Gent; his tunic now fit him without the swathes and folds of extra fabric draped over an overly-thin body. He was handsome not because his face was pretty but because he was bold and full of life, the way she had first seen him before the disaster at Gent. She sighed happily and leaned against him. Without taking his gaze off Anne and Severus, he pressed his palm onto her belly and, as if in answer, the fetus rolled, some uncanny communication of movement and pressure between father and child.

  “They’re speaking in Dariyan,” he said finally, in disgust, “and I can’t follow more than one word in ten. It’s something about that hound, I swear it, as if they recognize it, or know why it’s come. But why would they be talking about Emperor Taillefer?”

  “Hush,” she said, glancing toward the others. Meriam and Zoë had gone back into the tower, and Sister Venia was still fussing over Heribert, who appeared eager to free himself from her attention. Anne and Severus remained oblivious, deep in their profound debate. Servants clustered near Anne, pale shapes curling in the wind. Liath’s constant attendant, the watery nymph, had sidled closer to brush up alongside Sanglant. Liath hissed at it, and the creature slid away quickly. “Come,” repeated Liath. “Let’s see what we can see.”

  No one seemed to mark them as they walked away from the cluster of buildings: the new wooden hall, the old stone tower, and the half dozen sheds and shelters. They passed the aromatic pits, crossed the orchard, and skirted the meadow and the pond. Beyond the pond an animal trail cut upward through forest to a clearing bounded on one side by a sheer cliff. Here the valley ended, blockaded by a fall of boulders.

  An old hovel lay abandoned in the clearing. It looked rather like an old way station, long since fallen into disuse. But the floor was sturdy enough; she and Sanglant had tested it several times before she got too pregnant to be energetic. It was one of the only places they had any privacy, although in truth, with the constant presence of the servants, they never truly had privacy. But they still liked to come here, since none of the magi ever did.

  A ring of stones under a sagging thatch roof constituted the cookhouse, and she crouched here, knees wide to accommodate her belly. He sat cross-legged beside her, the dog at his back. The water nymph slithered through the rafters and curled around one beam, peering nervously out at them. None of the other servants had followed them, still drawn to the confusion below.

  Sanglant had laid in a store of firewood, and with kindling and small logs she built a simple edifice in this primitive hearth. Then she called fire. She was aware at first of the servant fleeing to a safe distance. Sanglant glanced up, marking its swift, fluid motion with his gaze.

  Liath touched his hand. “Look.” She said it every time, even though it did no good. She fashioned an archway in the flames and looked through it, seeking— “Count Lavastine’s not there,” she murmured. “I can’t find him.”

  The fire flickered, then leaped higher, casting shadows through a narrow cavern that resolved itself

  into the nave of a church where a young man kneels, praying beside a stone bier. His head is bent and his hair hangs forward to conceal his face, but she knows him at once. She would know him anywhere even without the two black hounds sitting beside him, his faithful attendants.

  “Alain,” she whispers as heat sears her face and he falters as he prays as if he has heard the echo of her voice in his heart. He looks up, but it is only to mark a servant entering with a lit candle. The inconstant light falls on the bier, and there she sees Count Lavastine at last, silent as he rests, until she realizes it is not him at all although it could as well be him, the image is so astounding lifelike. For an instant she feels a profound amazement, respect for the unknown craftsman who has carved this monument in stone; then, curiously, she feels sorrow, as she might for a kinsman.

  “He’s dead,” she says.

  But the words spin her away and she slips through a second archway, the familiar one that draws her always into its grip like desire. Through the burning stone she stares at the empty glade and dying trees. An azure feather lies discarded in the dirt. The Aoi sorcerer is gone.

  “Liath!” he said sharply, hand on her wrist as he tugged her back.

  Her face burned, and for an instant she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t remember where she was.

  “Hush,” he said. “You’re crying!”

  She remembered him and who he was and what he was to her, and for a while she only rested her face against his chest while she sniffled. But it was so uncomfortable, with her huge belly always getting in the way.

  “Ai, God,” she muttered, half laughing. “I’ll be glad to get this child out of me!”

  He kissed her on the forehead and released her. “What did you see?”

  “You didn’t see it?” she demanded, as she always demanded, no matter how many times they tried. “I thought your mother’s blood tuned you to magic.”

  “So it might have,” he said with a half grin, “but it still doesn’t make me able to see through fire, nothing more than shadows. Did you see Lavastine?”

  “He’s dead,” she said, and Sanglant replied with a gusting sigh, an “ai!” of despair. “Lord Alain has become count in his place. But he only had two hounds beside him. Maybe the others were in the kennel.”

  “Ai, God. We should have followed him. I’m sure it was Bloodheart’s curse that killed him.”

  “The curse that was meant for me,” she murmured.

  “Peace, my love. What’s done is done. It was God’s will, or it was an accident, but there’s no undoing it now.”

  “Nay,” she agreed, wiping tears from her cheeks. “It can’t be undone. He’s dead. I saw Alain praying by his bier. Ah!” She grunted, legs smarting, all pins and needles, and got to her feet. Sanglant went with her to the cliff and she ran a hand lightly along the stubbly grain of rock as they walked alongside. The grass grew to the very foot of the sheer rock wall that then abruptly disintegrated into boulders, hulking things like monsters crowding the clearing. It was odd how they sat poised there, all jumbled up and yet with no sign that any had fallen farther to roll down onto the grass. It was as if an invisible hand had halted them and held them steady, there at the verge of the clearing. Snowflakes spun out of the air and lit on her cheeks. She smelled winter, but it didn’t touch her.

  “I’m sure it’s one of Lavastine’s hounds,” said Sanglant finally. He licked a snowflake off a finger. “I know their smell.”

  Snow swirled around them, dissolving in the brook that gurgled down from the stones past their feet, powdering daisies and snowdrop and vetch and then melting away into the green grass like the tears of a child who’s just been given a new toy. Beyond cliff and rock wall, winter engulfed the mountains while they stood here in eternal spring.

  “But if that’s true, how did it get here?” she asked. “Why did it come?”

  Sanglant said nothing, only brushed his fingers over his neck, where he had once worn the gold torque of royal kinship.

  4

  SHE dreamed.

  A golden wheel flashed in sunlight, turning. A withered hand scraped at the latch of a door made of sticks bound together, and slowly the door opened; she would see Fidelis’ face at last. Would it resemble that of Emperor Taillefer, which she had seen carved in stone? It was so dark inside the hovel that she could only make out the shadow of a man, frail and ancient, and then the dream slipped through her mind like a fish twisting out of her hands, and as she stooped forward to enter the hut, she walked into a cavern whose walls gleamed as if they had been plastered with molten gold. Young Berthold slept at the base of a burning pillar of rock, surrounded by six attendants whose youthful faces bore the peaceful expression known to those angels who have at last
seen God. The flames leaped heavenward, and she could actually see through them into another landscape so vivid that in an instant she was there, standing on a blanket of ice. A blizzard tore at mountain peaks, clouds streaming off the high rock summits, and the scream of the wind almost drowned the voice that spoke in her ear:

  “Sister, I beg you, wake up.”

  Her neck was cold and her shoulders were damp, and as she groped for purchase her hands slipped on dewy grass. A bee buzzed in and out of her line of vision. As a breeze came up, grass swayed into her face, tickling her nose. She sneezed.

  “Sister Rosvita!” With exaggerated care, Fortunatus helped her sit. “You fainted. Are you well?” A rising sun glinted in her eyes, and she had to shadow her face with a hand.

  “I’m very confused,” she said feebly. “Where are we? Is Sister Amabilia here?”

  “Hush, Sister.” He was smiling stupidly and he patted her hand more in the manner of a man soothing a nervous hound. “We are safe. Here. Let me help you up.”

  Even with his help, she trembled as she stood. She had pressed too hard after her illness, and it was all hitting now. The scene was so impossibly strange that she knew she was still dreaming. But she heard the bee clearly enough, humming about its business, and her nose tickled most realistically, stung by pollen, and she sneezed again.

  “God bless you,” said Fortunatus.

  Perhaps she wasn’t hallucinating.

  She stood on a grassy knoll sprinkled with sweet cicely, milk-white snowdrops, and the poisonous blue of wolfsbane, such a lovely flower that anyone might be forgiven for thinking it had some fine virtue when in fact it was deadly. Behind her, where the hill leveled off into a flat summit, a circle of standing stones crowned the height. Before her, the entourage had scattered down the hill like children at play, making for a ribbon of road worn into land below. Their spirits were infectious; they whooped and laughed and called out, and Fortunatus actually clapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the vista before them.