Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  “It’s my army, too!” said Sapientia. “I do not tolerate insolence or troublemakers.”

  “Of course not, niece,” replied Alberada with such a soothingly calm expression that Hanna knew she would continue to talk around Sapientia because she, like everyone else, knew who really commanded this army. “I expect you to see that your Wendish forces behave themselves, just as I expect Prince Bayan to keep proper order among his Ungrian countrymen.”

  Bayan laughed. “My Ungrian brothers do not cause trouble, for otherwise they are to have their swords cut off, at my order.”

  “I do not approve of such barbarity,” said Alberada primly, “but I hope your soldiers keep the peace rather than breaking it.”

  The stewards brought round a savory condiment of boiled pears mixed with hog’s fennel, galingale, and licorice, as an aid to digestion for the noble folk who were by now surely stuffed and surfeited. Yet the feast dragged on well into the autumn night. A Polenie bard from Duke Boleslas’ retinue sang, and he had such an expressive voice and so much drama in his gestures that the hall sat rapt, listening, although he sang in an unintelligible language. Hanna’s eyes stung from the smoke in the hall. She had been so long marching out-of-doors that she’d forgotten how close air got within walls, even in a great hall as capacious as the one in the biscop’s palace.

  Despite the biscop’s rank and wealth, her palace hadn’t the ornamentation common to the older palaces in Wendar proper. This hall had only been finished ten years ago and had about it still an unfinished look, as if its wood hadn’t yet been worn down by the use of many hands and feet, the polish of age. The pillars in the hall stared glumly at her, carved in the likeness of dour saints who no doubt disapproved of the gluttony and singing, men stamping their feet as they shouted out a chorus, dogs scrabbling under the tables for scraps, servingwomen deftly pouring out wine while at the same time dodging teasing fingers. In truth, Bayan’s Ungrian lords did behave better than their Wendish counterparts; maybe Bayan’s jesting threat had not been a jest.

  Late, the nobly born went to their resting places while servants like Hanna scrambled for what comfortable pallets they could find. In a hall this large there were plenty of sleeping platforms built in under the eaves, and when Sapientia made no move to call Hanna to attend her to the chamber in which she slept more privately, Hanna found herself a snug place among a crowd of servingwomen. They lay close together, a warm nest of half-naked women covered by furs, and gossiped in the darkness.

  “The Ungrians do smell. I told you.”

  “Not any more than do the Wendish soldiers. Ai, God, did you see how poor Doda had to dodge that Lord Wichman’s hands all evening? He’s a beast.”

  “He’s son of a duchess, so I’m sure he’ll have what he wants.” Nervous giggles followed this pronouncement. A woman shifted. Another sighed.

  “Not in the biscop’s palace, friend,” replied a new voice. “Biscop Alberada’s stern but fair, and you’ll find no such wild behavior in this hall. Now I’ll thank you to hush so that I can sleep!”

  But they didn’t all hush. Hanna drifted asleep, lulled by their whispering and the strange way they hissed their “p”s and “t”s, just as the folk had in that lonely village east of Machteburg where a Quman scouting party had attacked them. Where she’d seen Ivar again, seen how he’d changed so much from the impulsive, good-natured youth she’d grown up with. He had seen the miracle of the phoenix. Was it actually possible the story was true? Had God worked a miracle of healing and given Ivar and his companions, and Prince Ekkehard, a vision of truth?

  She twisted the heavy emerald ring that King Henry had given her. Here, curled up beside the other women, she felt warm and safe in body at least, but her heart remained restless. She knew her duty. First and foremost she was Henry’s servant, his messenger, his Eagle, sworn to his service and to uphold whichever church doctrine he recognized, not to question the authority of those he acknowledged as the rightful leaders of the church. Yet what of her grandmother’s gods? Hadn’t they treated their followers fairly and granted them good harvests, or sometimes turned their faces away to bring bad times? What of the many other people who lived outside the Circle of Light? Were they all damned to fall endlessly in the Abyss because they held to a different faith? How would Brother Breschius, who had survived the wrath of a Kerayit queen, reply to such questions?

  She fell away into sleep, and she dreamed.

  There comes into the hall as silent as the plague one of the slave men kept by Bayan’s mother. His skin is so black that she can hardly see him in the smothering darkness of the hall, now illuminated only by the glowing coals of two banked hearth fires which are watched over by dozing servant girls. Yet he can see her where she lies half hidden among the other women. He beckons. She dares not refuse such a summons, just as she would never defy the will of the king. She recognizes power when she sees it.

  She rises, slips her wool tunic over her shift, and pads barefooted after the slave man. He walks the paneled corridors of the biscop’s palace without a torch, yet manages not to lose his way. The rough plank floors scrape her soles, and once she picks up a splinter and has to pause, wincing, catching a gasp in her throat so that she won’t wake the soldiers who sleep in ranks on either side of the broad corridor.

  The slave bends to take her foot in his warm hands while she balances herself on his shoulder, all the while aware of the taut strength of his body and the steady breathing of the sleeping soldiers around them. He probes, grips, and slips the splinter out. She would thank him, but she dares not speak out loud, and probably he does not understand her language anyway. They walk on in a silence that hangs as heavily as fog.

  At last he opens a door and leads her into a chamber swathed in silk hangings, so many that she has to push her way through them until she comes free of their soft luxury and finds herself in the center of the room. It is cold here. No fire burns on the empty hearth.

  The wasp sting burns in her heart as she faces the veiled figure that is Prince Bayan’s ancient mother. The old woman’s voice rasps with age and, perhaps, exhaustion brought on by weeks of weaving weather magic. “Where are you going?”

  Hanna thinks probably she doesn’t mean anything so simple, that no common answer will do: “to the privies,” “west to the king,” “back to my home.”

  “I don’t know,” she answers truthfully. Cold bites at her hands, making them ache, and her foot hurts where the splinter pierced her skin.

  “No woman can serve two queens, just as no man can serve two masters,” remarks the ancient woman. One of her raddled old handmaidens hurries forward out of the shadows, bearing a tray.

  A single ceramic cup, so finely crafted that its lip looks as thin as a leaf, rests on the enameled tray. Steam rises delicately from its mouth. “Drink,” speaks the cricket voice.

  The spicy scent stings Hanna’s lips and burns her throat. As she drains the liquid, tilting her head back, she sees a scene engraved onto the bottom of the cup’s bowl: a centaur woman suckling a human baby at her breast.

  “In the end,” continues Bayan’s mother, “you will have to choose.”

  Cautiously, Hanna lowers the cup. Bayan’s mother sits sedately in a chair, her gnarled and wrinkled hands, age-spotted yet somehow still supple, resting in her lap. The veil conceals her face. The handmaiden waits patiently, like a statue, holding out the tray. Hanna sees no sign of the slave man who escorted her here. They are alone, the three of them, except for a green-and-gold bird perched in a cage that eyes Hanna warily as she sets the empty cup down on the tray. It lifts one foot, replaces it, then lifts the other in a stately if slightly anxious dance, waiting for her answer.

  The handmaiden retreats behind the silk curtains, which rustle, sway, and fall silent. The only light in the chamber comes from a lamp. Shadows ride the walls, shifting as though they have caught the movements of unseen spirits.

  “I have nothing to choose between,” says Hanna, feeling a little dazed. “I am
King Henry’s Eagle.”

  “And Sorgatani’s luck.”

  The words seem ill-omened. Hanna shudders. “Sorgatani lived years ago. She’s dead.” She chafes her hands nervously, remembering that Brother Breschius lost a hand when the Kerayit princess he loved and served as her slave died all those years ago.

  “Souls never die,” chides the old woman. “I had a cousin twice removed who is dead now, it is true. That may be the woman you think you speak of, the one who took the Wendish priest as her pura. But a name is like a veil, to be cast off or put on. It can be used again. You are Sorgatani’s luck, for so is my niece called. In the end, you will have to choose.”

  The curtains stir as though in a wind. In those shimmering depths she thinks maybe she can see all the way to the land where the Kerayits roam and live among grass so tall that a man on horseback can’t see over it. Here, in her dreams, she has seen griffins. Here, in a distance made hazy by a morning fog rising up from damp ground, she sees the encampment of the Bwrmen, the dreaded centaur folk. Pale tents shift in the wind, felt walls belling out, and sagging in, as though they are themselves living creatures. She smells the tang of molten metal on the wind. An eagle drifts lazily above the camp, then plummets down, out of sight. A young woman wanders at the edge of that camp, dressed in a gown so golden that it might have been torn and shaped out of sunlight.

  Across the distance, Sorgatani speaks, “Come to me, luck. You are in danger.”

  Maybe Hanna could step through the silk curtains and find herself in a far land, in the wilderness, in the hazy morning. But she does not move. She speaks.

  “I haven’t found your pura yet. I have no handsome man to bring you.”

  The sun glints over the mist, riding higher, and its bright light flashes in Hanna’s eyes.

  “Liath,” she cries, thinking impossibly that she sees Liath above in the iridescent air, a lustrous play of colors glistening like silk as she pushes through the curtains, trying to reach Liath, only to find the slave man standing silently beside an open door. He gestures toward the door and the corridor filled with sleeping soldiers. With a foreboding in her heart, as though she had turned a deaf ear to a summons she ought to have heeded, she follows him back to the hall—

  Hanna woke abruptly as a hand groped over her, fondling her roughly. She smelled the stink of sour breath on her cheek and felt a man’s weight lowering over her. She kicked, hard and accurately. With an angry oath the shadowed form that had been molesting her staggered back and slammed into another figure who had also come calling to the sleeping platform. Women shrieked and cursed. The furs writhed as all at once every woman came awake. One woman, at the edge of the platform, choked out gasping cries as she struggled with a brawny man who had gotten on top of her.

  Stewards and servants appeared, some carrying torches, and a scuffle started. Half a dozen men went down before Prince Bayan came roaring in, furious at being rousted from his bed. Half a dozen Ungrian soldiers, the men who guarded him night and day, waded into the fray with gleeful curses. By the time the biscop arrived, flanked by stewards carrying handsome ceramic lamps, the battle lines had been drawn: the servingwomen huddled in the pallet, all chattering accusations so loudly that Hanna thought she would go deaf, the steward and servants off to one side, licking their wounds, and Lord Wichman and his pack of wormy dogs—a dozen scarred, cocky, brash young noblemen—standing defiantly by the smoldering hearth.

  “Why am I disturbed?” Alberada held a lamp formed into the shape of a griffin. Flame licked from its tongue. At this moment, dignified and enraged, she did not look like a woman Hanna would care to fool with. “Have you the gall, Wichman, to rape my servingwomen in my own hall? Is this how you repay me for my hospitality?”

  “I haven’t had a woman for days! These women were willing enough.” Wichman gestured toward the sleeping platform casually, and for an instant one of his companions looked ready to leap back in. “We can’t all be satisfied with sheep, like Eddo is.” His comrades snickered. “Anyway, they’re only common born. I wouldn’t touch your clerics.” This set off another round of snickering.

  “You are still drunk, and as sensible as beasts.” Alberada’s stinging rebuke fell on insensible ears. One of Wichman’s companions was actually fondling his own crotch, quite overtaken by lust. The sight of his pumping hands made Hanna want to throw up. Meanwhile, various armed servants had hurried up behind the biscop. “Take them to the tower. They’ll bide there this night, for I won’t allow them to disturb the peace in my hall. In the morning, they will leave to return to Duchess Rotrudis. No doubt your mother will be more merciful than I, Wichman.”

  At that moment, Hanna realized that Bayan had spotted her among the other women. He looked in that instant ready to leap in himself. He laughed, as at a joke only he understood, and began twisting the ends of his long mustache thoughtfully. He beckoned to Brother Breschius and spoke to him in a low voice.

  “I pray you, Your Grace,” said Breschius. “Prince Bayan suggests that you punish Lord Wichman as you wish, after the war is over.”

  Alberada’s glare was frosty. “In the meantime, how does Prince Bayan suggest I protect my servants from rape and molestation?”

  Bayan regarded her quizzically. “Whores live in all city. These I will pay for of my own wealth.”

  “Repay sin by breeding more sin?”

  He shrugged. “To fight Quman, I need soldiers.”

  “To fight Quman,” began Wichman, enjoying himself in the drunken way of young men who think only of themselves, “I need—”

  “You are young and stupid,” snapped Bayan, abruptly shoved to the end of his patience. “But you fight good. So in this season I need you. Otherwise I throw you out to the wolves.”

  Wichman had a high-pitched, grating laugh. “If you need me so much, my lord prince,” he drawled, “then I’ll set my own price and expect it to be paid tenfold.” He gestured obscenely toward the watching servingwomen.

  Bayan moved swiftly for a man just risen from his bed. He grabbed Wichman by his shift and held him hard. Wichman was a little taller, and certainly half Bayan’s age, but the Ungrian prince had righteous anger and true authority on his side; he’d commanded entire armies in the field and survived countless battles. It took a tough soldier to live as long as he had, and he knew it. So did Wichman.

  “Never challenge me, boy,” Bayan said softly. “I rid myself of dogs when they piss on my feet. I know where to find the slave market, who always wants young men. I do not fear the anger of your mother.”

  Wichman turned a rather interesting shade, something like spoiled bread dough. Any man might have said those words in a boasting way, but when Bayan said them, they burned.

  “To the barracks.” Bayan released his grip on Wichman. Ungrian guards surrounded Wichman and his cronies.

  “I cannot approve,” said Alberada. “These men should be punished, and banished.”

  “I need them,” said Bayan. “And so do you and this your city.”

  “It is in this way that war breeds evil, Prince Bayan, because both good and bad alike profit in evil ways and sow evil seeds and lapse into evil deeds, driven by desperation or what they call necessity.”

  “To your words I have no answer, Your Holiness. I am only a man, not one of the saints.”

  “It is quite obvious that none of us are saints,” answered Alberada reprovingly. “Were we all saints, there would be no war except against the heathens and the heretics.”

  “Yet surely war is not the cause of our sins, Your Grace,” interposed Breschius. “I would argue that Wichman’s evil was brought about not by war but by his own reckless and unrestrained nature. Not every man would behave so. Most of the soldiers come here today did not.”

  “I’m not the only one sinning,” protested Wichman suddenly, He sounded as indignant as if he’d been accused of a crime he hadn’t committed. “Why don’t you see what my little cousin Ekkehard does at night now that he’s lost his favorite catamite?”


  Bayan gave a sharp whistle of anger.

  Ai, God, Bayan had known all along. Why had Hanna thought that a commander as observant as Bayan hadn’t known the whole time what was going on in the ranks of his army? He’d just chosen to overlook it, in the same way he choose to overlook Wichman’s assault. All he cared about was defeating the Quman.

  Given their current situation, Hanna had to admire his pragmatism.

  “What do you mean, Wichman?” Biscop Alberada had a way of tilting her head to one side that made her resemble, however briefly, a vulture considering whether to begin with the soft abdomen, or the gaping throat, of the delectable corpse laid out before it. “What sin has young Ekkehard polluted himself with?”

  “Heresy,” said Wichman.

  3

  LIATH walked as if into the interior of a pearl. The glow of the Moon’s essence drowned her vision, a milky substance as light as air but so opaque that when she stretched out her hand she could barely see the blue lapis lazuli ring—her guiding light—that Alain had given her so long ago. Her ears served her better. She heard a susurration of movement half glimpsed in the pearlescent aether that engulfed her. The ground, although surely she did not walk on anything resembling earth, seemed firm enough, a sloping path like to a silver ribbon that led her spiraling ever upward.

  She had not known what to expect, but truly this nacreous light, this sea of emptiness, seemed—well—disappointing. Shimmers undulated across the distance like insubstantial veils fluttering in an unfelt breeze. Had she crossed the gate only to step right inside the Moon itself?

  A shape flitted in front of her, close enough that its passage stirred her hair about her face, strands tickling her mouth. It vanished into the aether. An instant or an eternity later, a second shape, and then a third, flashed past. Suddenly hosts of them, their hazy forms as fluid as water, darted and glided before her like minnows.