Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  Three wolves emerged from the undergrowth in that silence known only to wild things. The sentry hissed, but Sanglant laid a stilling hand on the soldier’s arm. A fourth wolf ghosted out of the trees a stone’s throw to the left. They came no closer, only watched. Their amber eyes gleamed in moonlight.

  Wracwulf raised his spear. A bowstring creaked from farther down the wall, where Sibold stood watch.

  “Don’t shoot!” cried Sanglant.

  Shouts and the alarm broke out in camp. The wolves vanished into the trees. Sanglant spun and, drawing his sword, sprinted back to camp to find the soldiers risen in agitation, whispering like troubled bees. They had gathered near Blessing’s sling, but the commotion had not troubled her; she slept soundly.

  “Your Highness!” Captain Fulk leveled his spear at a dark figure which stood next to the sleeping baby.

  “Who’s this?” demanded Sanglant, really angry now, because fear always fueled anger.

  The man stepped out of the shadows. His hair had the same silvery tone as the moonlight that bathed him in its soft light. “When I realized it was you, Prince Sanglant, I had to see the child.”

  “Wolfhere!”

  The old Eagle looked tired, and he walked with a pronounced limp. His cloak and clothing were neat enough, but his boots were scuffed and dirty. An overstuffed pack lay on its side on the ground behind him.

  “Your Highness.” He examined the soldiers surrounding him with a smile so thin that Sanglant could not tell whether he were amused or on the point of collapse. “I feel as welcome as if I’d jumped into a bed of thistles.”

  Fulk did not lower his spear. The point hovered restlessly near the Eagle’s unprotected belly. “This man is under the regnant’s ban.”

  “Is that so?” asked Sanglant amiably.

  “Alas, so it is,” Wolfhere admitted cheerfully enough. “I left court without the king’s permission. When my horse went lame, I was unable to commandeer another.”

  “Sit down.” Now that any immediate danger to Blessing was past, Sanglant could enjoy the irony of the situation. “I would be pleased to hear your tale. In any case it seems you are now in my custody. It is well for you, I suppose, that I do not currently rest in the king’s favor either.”

  “Nay, so you do not. That much gossip, at least, I heard on the road here.” Wolfhere’s mask of sage detachment vanished as he spoke again, a remarkable blend of anxiety and agitation flowering on that usually closed face. “Where is Liath?”

  “Captain Fulk,” said Sanglant, “have a fire built over by the well. I would speak with the Eagle alone. Set a double guard over my daughter.”

  Most of the soldiers went back to their rest. The prince led Wolfhere over to a freshly built fire, snapping brightly in a niche laid into the stone wall that had once, perhaps, held an idol, or weapons set ready for battle.

  Wolfhere sighed sharply as he sat down, grateful for a cup of ale and a hunk of bread. “I’m not accustomed to walking,” he said, to no one in particular. “My feet hurt.”

  As Sanglant settled down on a fallen stone, opposite Wolfhere, Heribert hurried up, rubbing his eyes. Wolfhere glanced at him, seeing only the robe, and then looked again, a broad double take that would have been comical had he not leaped up with an oath and tipped over the precious ale.

  “How came he here?” he demanded.

  “He’s my counselor, and my friend.” Sanglant gestured to Heribert to sit beside him. Because Wolfhere did not sit, Heribert did not either, hovering beside Sanglant rather like a nervous bird about to flap away.

  “You’re aware of what manner of man this is?” Wolfhere asked.

  “Very much so. I would trust him with my life. And with my daughter’s life, for that matter.”

  “Condemned by a church council for complicity in acts of black sorcery! The bastard son of Biscop Antonia!”

  “Then, truly, I would be first to condemn him, being a bastard myself.” Sanglant grinned sharply but, glancing at Heribert, he saw that the cleric had gone as stiff as a man who expects in the next instant to receive a mortal blow. “That argument holds no water for me, Wolfhere. Heribert has long since honored me with the truth about his birth and upbringing, although I admit that he’s never known who his father was.” Wolfhere began to speak, but Sanglant lifted a hand. “Don’t try to turn me against him. I know far more of Heribert’s inner heart and loyalties than I do of yours!”

  Wolfhere’s usually calm facade cracked even further to reveal indignation and a glimpse of wrenching pain. “Is it true that Biscop Antonia has gone to Anne and been taken into the Seven Sleepers?”

  “So I swear by Our Lady and Lord,” murmured Heribert, “for I was with Biscop Antonia when we escaped your custody, Eagle, as you well remember. When we came to Verna by various complicated paths, Anne took my mother’s pledge to serve as—” He broke off to stifle a giggle as a child might when it came to laughing over a much-hated adult’s discomfiture. “—as seventh and least of her order.”

  Distantly, a wolf howled. Jerna whispered above the prince, sluicing down on the breeze to curl protectively around his shoulders. Her touch was soft and cool. Two sentries bantered over by the outer wall as they changed watch.

  At that moment, Sanglant understood the whole. As if sensing his growing anger, Jerna slipped away into the air. He rose slowly, using his height to intimidate. “You know them, then, Anne and the others.” He didn’t need to make it a question. “You’ve been one of them all along, and never loyal to my father, or to his father before him. Never loyal to your Eagle’s oath.”

  This was too much for Wolfhere. “Don’t mock what you don’t understand, my lord prince! King Arnulf trusted me, and I served him until the day he died. I never betrayed Wendar.” Agitated, he continued in a choked voice as he sank down onto the stone block with the weariness of a man who has walked many leagues only to find his beloved home burned to the ground. “Ai, Lady! That it should come to this! That Anne should be willing to use evil tools in a good cause. Have I misjudged her all this time?”

  “Does this surprise you?” demanded Sanglant. “Liath and I were her prisoners for many months. It does not surprise me.”

  “You were not her prisoners! Liath was—” Here Wolfhere halted, breaking off with an anguished grimace.

  Sanglant finished for him. “Her tool. Even her daughter was only a tool to her. Did Anne ever love her?”

  Wolfhere covered his eyes with a hand. The pain in his voice was easy to hear. “Nay, Anne never loved her. Bernard was the one who loved her.”

  “Anne killed him in order to get Liath back.”

  “Bernard took what wasn’t his to have! It may even be possible he meant well, but he was horribly and dangerously misguided and full of himself, never listening to any voice but his own. He damaged Liath by hiding her from those who understood what she is and the power that is her birthright. We had no choice but to do what we did to get her back!”

  Hands in fists, he rose and paced to the fire, staring into it as though he could see memories within the flames. At last he looked up. “Liath isn’t here, is she?” The old Eagle seemed ready to strangle on the words. “Verna lay abandoned when I reached it, everything in ruins, and Anne had left already with the survivors.”

  “You did not follow her?”

  “Crossing the mountains on foot at this time of year? I haven’t the skills to travel as Anne may, walking the stones. God’s mercy, Prince Sanglant, where is Liath?”

  Sanglant had to close his eyes to shut away the memory. He could not speak of it; the pain still burned too deep and if he spoke he knew he would break down into sobs.

  Heribert touched him, briefly, on the arm before stepping forward. “I had already left,” he said softly, “so I did not witness the conflagration myself, but my lord prince has told me that unearthly creatures with wings of flame walked into the valley through the stone circle and took Liath away with them.”

  “Even the stone burned,” whispered S
anglant hoarsely. The sight of the mountains washed in flame had stamped itself into his mind, so that even with his eyes shut he gained no respite. Splendid and terrible, the creatures had destroyed Verna without seeming even to notice that it was there.

  “Ai, God.” Wolfhere’s sigh cut the silence. He simply collapsed like a puppet whose strings have gone lax, folding down to sit cross-legged on the dirt with the fire casting shadow and light over his lined face and pale hair.

  Sanglant waited a long time, but Wolfhere still did not speak. After a bit, the prince called to Matto and had the boy fill the empty cup with ale. Wolfhere took the cup gratefully and drained it before devouring a second wedge of bread and a corner of cheese. After Matto retreated, Heribert finally sat down. His movement released the words that Wolfhere had clearly been holding back.

  “All those years, Anne and I, raised together in the service of a common goal. I was taken from my parents as a child of six to serve her. I thought I knew her better than any other could, even Sister Clothilde, who was never privy to all of Anne’s youthful dreams and wishes, not like I was. Anne was always more pure and exalted than the rest of us. I never thought she would league herself with a maleficus like Antonia, who raised galla out of the stones with the blood of innocents, fed living men to a guivre, and did not scruple to sacrifice her own loyal clerics to further her selfish aims.” Heribert winced at these words but said nothing, and Wolfhere—who wasn’t looking at him—went on. “We were not raised to use such means and to league ourselves with the minions of the Enemy! How can Anne have taken such a person into her confidence, and given her even greater powers?”

  “Such are the chains binding those who rule,” retorted Sanglant. “The great princes use whatever sword comes to hand. Isn’t this merely quibbling? If your plan succeeds, then all of the Aoi will die anyway. What matters it what tools you use, when killing is your goal?”

  “It matters that the cause be just. It matters that our enemies are wicked. It matters that our efforts be honorable and that our hearts do not turn away from holiness.”

  “Drowning an infant is honorable and holy? You’ve never denied that you tried to murder me when I was just a suckling baby.”

  “I did what I thought was right at the time.”

  Sanglant laughed angrily. “It gladdens my heart to hear you say so! Why, then, do you suppose that I will let you dwell even one night near my daughter, whom you might feel called upon to attempt to murder in her turn! Anne would have let her starve to death. How are you any better than that? You are welcome to leave, and return to Anne who, I am sure, will be glad enough to see you.”

  The moonlight washed Wolfhere’s face to a striking pallor. “It was easy enough to drown an infant before I knew what it was to love one. You must believe me, my lord prince. I cared for Liath as much as I was allowed to, when she was a child. But Anne did not think it right that we love her, that we weaken ourselves or her in such a manner. Only Bernard did not heed her. Bernard never heeded her.” He turned his head sharply to one side as though he had just been slapped. “I gave Anne everything, my life, my loyalty. I never married or sired children. I never saw my family again. What did faithless Bernard care for all that? He stole everything I loved.”

  Examining Wolfhere’s face, Sanglant simply could not tell whether he was acting, like a poet declaiming a role, or sincere. Did the outer seeming match the inner heart?

  “This is a touching confession, but I am neither cleric nor frater to grant you absolution.” Sanglant let the irony linger in his voice as Wolfhere regarded him, calmer now that the flood of words had abated but still agitated. “Many things have been said of you, but I have never heard it said that you are gullible, or naive.”

  “Nay, I was most gullible of all. It troubled me that Anne made no effort to love the child, but I refused to let myself think on what it might mean about her heart. But now I fear my doubts were justified. Anne is not the person I thought she was.”

  The prince lifted both hands in disgust, crying surrender as he began to laugh. “I am defenseless against these thrusts. Either you are the most shameless liar I’ve ever encountered or you have come to your senses at last and can see that Anne cannot be trusted. What she plans is wrong. She is the wicked one. How can you or I know what the Lost Ones intend? Do they want peace, or war? Have they plotted long years to get their revenge, or were they the victims of human sorcery long ago, as my mother claimed? Anne intends some spell to defeat them. Tell me what she means to do.”

  For a long time Wolfhere regarded the moon. Its light bathed the wall behind them until the stone shone like marble, revealing flecks of paint, red, blue, and gold, and the malformed figures common to old Dariyan forts: creatures with the bodies of women and the heads of hawks or snakes or lions. A wolf howled in the distance, as a companion might call out advice to one in need. “I cannot. My gifts are few. Nor have I ever been privy to the deepest councils, or understood the full measure of the mathematici’s art. I am not nobly born as you are, my lord prince.” Was that sarcasm, or only the cutting blade of truth? “I was raised to serve, not to rule.”

  “Then why follow me instead of Anne, after you saw what transpired at Verna? What do you want from me?”

  Wolfhere considered the question in silence. It was a mark of his sagacity that he could not be hurried, although by now Sanglant felt the urge to pace itch up and down his legs. Finally he gave in to it, taking two strides to the wall and tracing the attractive curve of a woman’s carven body with a finger. He had reached such a pitch of excitement that each grain of stone seemed alive under his touch. He noticed what he was doing, that his fingers rested on the bulge of a breast, and quickly pulled back his hand and trapped it under his other arm.

  At last, Wolfhere shook himself as a wolf might, emerging from water. “I don’t know. I want to find Liath, my lord prince.”

  “As do I. But what do you mean to do with her, should you find her? Take her back to Anne? Is that what Anne commanded you to do?”

  “Nay. I was meant to follow Anne and the others from Verna, but I could not bring myself to, not after what I had seen there. So much destruction! The monks at the hostel had seen a man fitting your description walking north. It was easy enough to follow you and your mother, although not so easy to avoid the notice of the king’s soldiers as King Henry and his army marched south.”

  “Where did Anne go?”

  Wolfhere hesitated.

  The prince took a half step forward. An arm’s length was all that separated the two men now: the old Eagle, and the young prince who had once been a Dragon. “Tell me the truth, Wolfhere, and I’ll let you travel with me if that’s your wish. I’ll let you help me look for Liath, for you must know that there is nothing I want more than to find her.”

  Wolfhere examined him. The firelight played over his expression, brushing light and dark across his features as if one never quite overpowered the other. “How do you mean to look for Liath, my lord prince, when it took eight years for Anne and me to find her before? With what magic do you intend to seek out a woman stolen away by unearthly creatures who fly on wings of flame?”

  “If she loves me and the child,” said Sanglant grimly, “she’ll find a way back to us. Won’t she? Isn’t that the test of love and loyalty?”

  “Perhaps. But what do you intend to do meanwhile? You didn’t ride south with your father’s army. Had you done so, you would discover soon enough that Anne and the others traveled south to Darre.”

  “Ah! Is that why Anne sent you? To spy on me? Very well. I’ll take up her challenge, because I mean to defeat her now that I understand what she is and what she means to do to my mother’s kin.” As usual, now that Sanglant knew what his objective was, a plan unfolded before him. “I’ll need griffin feathers and sorcerers to combat her magic. And an army.”

  “All of which will be useless, my lord prince.” Wolfhere was far too old and wily to be won over by the excitement of such a bold plan; no doubt he
expected a full-grown eagle, not just a fledgling. “You do not understand her power. She is Taillefer’s granddaughter, and a mathematicus of unequaled strength and mastery.”

  “I respect her power. But you forget that I am married to her daughter, and that her granddaughter bides in my care. Blessing is half of my making. I am not without rank and power in my own right.”

  “You no longer wear the gold torque that marks your royal lineage.”

  “Liath wears the torque that once was mine, as is her right. My daughter wears one.”

  “But will you wear one again? Or have you turned your back on what Henry gave you, as was his right as your father?”

  The cool words irritated him. “I will take what I need and deserve when I am ready, not before! My father does not own me.” But irritation could be turned into something useful, just as anger makes splitting wood go faster. “Help me restore Taillefer’s line to its rightful place, Wolfhere, in preparation for the return of the Aoi, so that we can face them from a position of strength. Help me find Liath. Help me defeat Anne. In truth, your experience would prove valuable to me.”

  “You would risk your precious daughter so near to me, my lord prince?” Yet was there a glimmer of vulnerability in the old Eagle’s expression as he leaned forward to stir the fire with a stick? Sparks drifted lazily up into the night, flicking out abruptly where they brushed against the stone.

  “I can’t trust you, it’s true. This might all be a ruse on your part. But my daughter is well guarded by a creature that never sleeps, and who will soon know what manner of threat you pose. And it seems to me, my friend, that when we first met this night you had snuck into my camp without being seen. You were close enough to my daughter to kill her, had that been your intent. A knife in the dark offers a quick death. Yet she lives, despite my carelessness.”