Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  “Well fought, Counselor. I’ll make you a fighting man yet.”

  “Alas, it cannot be, my lord king, for God has chosen me for other work. I must go back to attend the Holy Mother.”

  “And I must go to the barracks to inspect the new troops. You’ll attend me at the feast tonight.”

  “As you wish, my lord king.”

  The king called his captains together and they strode off the field.

  Hugh lingered to speak to a steward, making sure that provision had been made for the injured man’s care.

  The courtyard cleared, leaving Hugh alone with Liath. Two servants loitered under the colonnade, ready to hurry forward at his command. He mopped his face with a cloth and joined her in the shadow of a fig tree.

  “You’ve come to get the book. I’m surprised you came alone. You have no reason to trust me.”

  No, I don’t, she thought fleetingly, but her voice said, “The book.”

  He gestured, inviting her to walk with him. “I’ve found an old scholar here who is familiar with the writing in the central portion.”

  It had been so many months since he had stolen Da’s Book of Secrets from her that it took her a moment to understand what he meant. Da’s book was actually three books, bound together. The first book, written on parchment, contained a florilegia on the topic of sorcery: quotes and comments copied out of other books by Da over the years. The third book, written in the infidel way on paper, was a copy of al-Haithan’s astronomical tract On the Configuration of the World. She had never been able to read the middle book. Written on papyrus in a language unknown to her, it remained a mystery. A different hand than the original had penned in a few words in Arethousan as a gloss to the text, and some of these she had puzzled out, because Hugh had taught her a little Arethousan.

  Hugh had taught her, in those terrible months when she had been his slave in Heart’s Rest.

  She stopped dead under the colonnade, shivered convulsively as the memory of that winter night shuddered through her body. Had she gone utterly mad to walk here beside Hugh as though he were an ordinary man? He took two steps more, noticed that she had halted, and turned back quizzically to regard her. Seeing her face, his expression changed.

  “I beg your pardon. I have been too bold. One of my servants will show you safely out of the palace. Please believe you have nothing further to fear from me.”

  “I don’t fear you, I hate you,” she wanted to say, but her voice said, “What do you mean?”

  He looked away diffidently. “It is impossible to believe what I read in that ancient text. Nothing I ever expected, for I admit I had thought, and hoped, that I would find written there an ancient study of sorcery, mastery of knowledge long since hidden from us.”

  “Did you ?” she demanded, unable not to want to know what secrets the ancient text held.

  “What I read changed my life. God has shown me how wrong I have been, and how I must change.” The shadow gave depth to his expression, his handsome eyes, the curve of his mouth as he frowned. “Nay, but it began before that. First of all it was the woman who took you away from Werlida. She humbled me. She made me think. Change does not come easily.”

  A mellow wind chased itself through the colonnade archways, stirring the wisteria wound down and around the stone pillars. A faint chiming ring serenaded them, but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from, everywhere and nowhere. The two servants waited patiently a stone’s toss away, by the archway that led out toward the courtyard linking the two palaces, one secular and one religious, regnant and skopos.

  I know where I am. I am in Darre, the holy city, home of the Holy Mother who presided over the church.

  She could practically breathe in the ancient stones, the memory of the empire that had risen here centuries ago and then collapsed into ruins, devastated by the raids of the Bwrmen and their savage allies and by its own internal corruption. If she crossed under that archway, she could walk away into the city—except that she could not move.

  “Where is the book?” her voice asked.

  He glanced up, face lit by the simple question. “If you will.” He indicated the passageway. “I have my own suite of chambers in the skopos’ palace. All of the presbyters do, of course, except those who travel as ambassadors.” He did not stumble over his words. He was far too well educated, too composed, too experienced in a courtier’s smooth affability. “There’s also the library. Ai, God, Liath! You can’t believe the library here! So much that one could never hope to learn it all! Sometimes I just go down and sit there among the books, breathing in the weight of them. I wish I could just press them against my skin and let the voice of each writer melt into my body.”

  Had it gotten hot suddenly? Fire burned in her cheeks.

  “Do you know what I found there?” he asked, letting her precede him down a hall lined with thick curtains long enough to conceal oneself in. But before she could ask and he answer, a presbyter hurried up, a lean man with a cadaverous face. “I pray you, Your Honor. A delegation from the townsfolk has come. There’s trouble in the city again. You know how it is with these mercenaries that Ironhead has hired. They will harass the townspeople, but with the Holy Mother so ill there’s no one to mediate between them. Ironhead can’t be spoken to—”

  “I’ll come.” Hugh turned to Liath. “One of my servants will show you to the library. I’ll come there once I’m free.” Again, he hesitated. “But only if—well, I’ll say no more. If it pleases you.”

  Her voice answered. “I’ll wait for you there.”

  Soon enough she stood again at the catalog, running her fingers over the vellum, scanning the titles. Commentary on the Dream of Cornelia by Eustacia. Artemisia’s Dreams. A copy of the Annals of Autun lay abandoned on the table next to her, a chronicle complete through the end of the reign of Arnulf the Younger and bound together with a full account of the moon’s phases and movements through the zodiac over a period of one hundred and sixty-eight years.

  Her hands turned the pages idly as her mind tried to concentrate on the words. Taillefer’s youngest daughter, Gundara, married off to the Duc de Rossalia… but she kept looking toward the doors, wondering if that man walking in was Hugh, wondering if she could find Hugh in whatever hall or official chamber was set aside for such delicate negotiations as he was now conducting, an attempt to keep the peace in a troubled kingdom where conflict would only lead to the death of innocents.

  Finally, she just gave in to that stifling grip that teased her mind and eddied through her body. She sat on a bench and let the weight of so many books caress her, breathing them in. Could all those words, written by so many scribes and scholars, drift through the air and into her pores, melding with her body, becoming one and always a part of her? It is always easier just to let go, to give in.

  She dozed.

  In her dreams, she walks in a daze through a rose mist, trying to find the path, but she is lost, forever lost, and she has to find the way upward but someone has hold of her, she is chained at the throat with a ribbon of silk that has slid down all the way through her entire body, and she can’t get away.

  “Liath.”

  She woke suddenly, heart hammering, flinching away from his hated touch. But as she sat up, feeling the ache in her back from the hard bench and a knot in her hip where the edge of the quiver had jammed into the bone, she saw Hugh, standing an arm’s length from her. The great domed chamber had gotten dim, as if the sun had set. Two servants stood behind Hugh carrying a lamp to light his way.

  He smiled. “I thought I’d find you reading.”

  “I fell asleep.” Irritation flashed, briefly felt, quickly swaddled and stilled.

  “I beg your pardon. The negotiations went longer than I expected. Now I must beg your pardon again, for I’m expected at the feast. The king has a short temper, and it’s best if when he’s drinking there’s someone close by who can, as they say, temper his outbursts. If you’re hungry, you can take a meal in a private chamber.”

&nb
sp; “Nay,” the voice said, “I’ll come with you.”

  Did lust glint in his gaze? Desire, surely; he could not disguise that, although he frowned reticently enough. “If you wish for other clothing, something more suitable, I can see that it is provided.”

  The touch of silk pooled along her skin like the caress of a hand. Memory flashed, sharp and bitter: his fingers in her hair.

  “No,” she blurted out although another word rose like bile in her throat: Yes. “I’ll stay as I am.” The quiver settled comfortably against her back as she stood to face him. These paltry things that were hers—tunic and leggings, quiver and bow, the gold torque and lapis lazuli ring. She had to cling to them, although she didn’t know why. He nodded thoughtfully, intrigued by something—her paltry belongings, or her stumbling words. He wore his presbyter’s robes again, a fall of pale silk, not a stark white but gently shaded with the tone of ivory, like the moon’s gleam.

  “You’re beautiful,” she said, the words just popping out. But it was true, after all. Wasn’t it? Some things were true whether you wanted them to be or not.

  He flushed, turning aside so that she could see only his profile. “Liath,” he said, faltering, a man in the grip of strong emotion. What he wanted to say next would not come out. He was ashamed or bashful, startled or modest; impossible to tell. Finally he shook his head as if to shake it off. “The king waits. I must go.” He extended a hand to her, thought better of it, and pulled it back as a fist to his body.

  They went, walking side by side but an arm’s length apart.

  The king’s feasting hall was twice the size of any she’d seen before. It was built all of stone, and in the ancient Dariyan style, or perhaps it was an ancient hall still in good enough condition to be used for state occasions. Tapestries and curtains covered the walls, making it gold and red, all ablaze, the colors of fire.

  She remembered fire. None burned here. Except for the lamps, she had not seen flame at all, not a single fire or hearth. But of course it was warmer in Aosta, all year round. Perhaps they didn’t need so many fires. It still seemed strange.

  The king sat at the high table, up on a dais, with his best companions surrounding him and Hugh at his right hand. John Ironhead, king of Aosta, had the loudest laugh, and the bluntest voice, and the coarsest eyes, of any man there. He wore an iron crown, perhaps in mockery of his position, knowing as everyone did how he’d come by it—with the sword, not through blood right. Perhaps he wore it to remind people of his power. He had captured Queen Adelheid’s treasure, and the one who held the royal treasure had enough gold to do as he wished.

  “He’d have preferred to capture Queen Adelheid’s other treasure,” said the man Liath sat beside at table. He snickered. “But he couldn’t lay his hands on her. That’s why he wears the iron crown. He doesn’t possess the royal crowns or seals. She got away with them.”

  “How can he rule here, if he possesses none of the seals of regnancy?” asked Liath. Hugh sat at her left, and this Aostan duke to her right.

  The Aostan duke snorted. “He has two thousand Arethousan and Nakrian mercenaries in the city, and fifty noble children as hostages.” He gestured toward a lower table where children of varying ages sat in anxious silence as they ate the food brought to them. One among them, a light-haired girl no more than thirteen, was brought forward to sit at Ironhead’s left hand. The king plied her with wine, fondling her shoulder, and she had a glazed look on her face as she slid helplessly toward hysteria. She was in his power, and she knew it, and he, knowing it as well, savored it.

  Liath looked away quickly, only to find Hugh watching her. He offered her wine from his cup. She shook her head numbly and turned back to her other companion.

  “The Holy Mother crowned Ironhead, confirmed him as king,” added the Aostan duke. “How can we go against her word?”

  “Isn’t the Holy Mother dying?”

  “So she is, may God have mercy upon her. The illness came on suddenly. Some have whispered she’s being poisoned.”

  “What do you think?”

  He shrugged uneasily. “Why would Ironhead poison the very one who made his reign possible?”

  “What about Hugh of Austra?”

  He blinked. For an instant, she thought he hadn’t understood her, as if she’d suddenly begun speaking Jinna. “Presbyter Hugh? That she’s survived so long is only due to the care he gives her. She rallied for a time after he became one of her intimate attendants, but in this last week she’s gotten very bad.”

  “She’s not young.”

  “Truly, she is not. God act as They see fit. If They choose to take the Holy Mother back into Their bosom, so be it.” A haunch of beef was brought round, but she couldn’t bring herself to eat. She wasn’t hungry. Ironhead was getting drunker and more aggressive. He interrupted the poets singing his praises, called belligerently for more wine, and practically forced it down the throat of the poor girl beside him, who was beginning to cry. Abruptly the king leaped to his feet.

  “I have a thirst no wine can slake!” he bellowed.

  A hollow silence fell over the hall. Ironhead yanked the girl to her feet and dragged her out of the hall. Before anyone could react, Hugh was out of his chair and hurrying after them.

  “If any person can save that poor girl, it’ll be Presbyter Hugh,” said the Aostan duke. “Would you care for some wine?”

  “Nay, I thank you.” She caught the edge of her quiver on the chair’s back as she rose too quickly, but by the time she got into the broad passageway that led from the hall down toward the royal suite she saw no sign of the king at all, only Hugh, with the girl sobbing at his feet.

  “Bless you, Your Honor. He meant to rape me, and I didn’t—I didn’t know how—it’s that rumor he’s heard from the north that my mother the Lady of Novomo was harboring the queen last year. I knew he would punish me to get at her. But you saved me! You’re the only one brave enough to stand up to him—”

  “Hush, now, child.” He helped her up before calling over a servant. “See that she is taken to her chambers and left alone. Keep her out of the king’s way, if you please.”

  “Of course, Your Honor.”

  “That was nobly done,” said Liath as the girl was led away. Strange to hear words meant sardonically but spoken as if in praise.

  “It isn’t right.” There was a lamp here, too, set on a tripod along the wall, a plump ceramic rooster with a flame burning from its crest. Its light gilded his hair and made his robes shimmer. “She was so young, and unwilling.”

  Anger burned away the chains that fettered her tongue. “And wasn’t I, Hugh? Wasn’t I?”

  He changed color. “To my shame,” he murmured hoarsely. That fast, he walked away—from her, from the hall where singing and merriment carried on, oblivious to the absence of the hated king. She hurried after him but somehow could not quite catch up, down carpeted corridors, up stairs whose banisters were carved with sinuous dragons, crossing a high bridge, out into the night air, still rosy from the sunset, that led them over into the holy precincts of the skopos’ palace. At last he paused, high on a parapet overlooking the river below and the distant lights of the harbor to the west. They were alone except for a lamp swaying in a soft breeze, flame twisting and flaring as the wind teased it.

  He turned on her. “Why do you follow me? Can you forgive me for what I did to you?”

  It was like lashing a stubborn mule to drive the words out. “How can you think I would?”

  “Then why come here? Why torment me? Although truly if that’s how you wish to punish me for the harm I did to you, then you are amply justified.”

  “How am I tormenting you?”

  “To hear your voice and see your face after so long? To stand so close and not touch you? Isn’t that torment enough? Nay.” He turned away suddenly to open doors she hadn’t seen before. “Let me not speak of torment, who sinned so grievously and caused you so much pain.”

  Her voice was her own again, but her limbs still wo
rked as though to another’s will. She followed him into a simply furnished chamber, a single bed, a table covered with books, a bench, a chest, and a lamp hanging from the ceiling. The curtains softening the walls had no pattern, only a plain gold weave as richly brilliant as his hair, like an echo of the sun. He stood beside the table, not looking at her, profile limned by lamplight. Like the sun in shadow.

  It was just too sudden. Words spilled out of her unbidden as her fingers brushed her own neck. “It was just that you had to have your hand on the throat of everything you wanted to possess. And I was one of those things.”

  Fretfully, he fingered a parchment sheet that lay at the corner of the table, running a hand up the neat lines of its text and then down again, up and then down. “You were all that mattered. From the first day I met you it was as if I had been blinded, a veil cast over my sight. I could see nothing but you.” He fell silent, and at last went on. “I know your secret, I know what you are, but I will never betray you.”

  “What am I?”

  He looked up at last, meeting her gaze, and his stare was so intense and so scalding that she wished he hadn’t. Better not to see him, scarred and flawed as he was but still as beautiful as the dawn; standing this nakedly before her, his desire for her was plain to see.

  “Fire,” he said hoarsely. “Ai, God, Liath, go. Go. I desire you too much. I can’t trust myself with you so close. I’ve tried to make a decent life here as a presbyter, doing what I can to serve God, and it will be enough.”

  “I’ll go,” she said, stumbling over the words as the chains wrapped their silken cord around her again, wanting to say, “I’ll stay.” “But you said that you have Da’s book.”

  “The book.” He lifted a hand to conceal his face. He stood so still for a moment, his emotions hidden from her, that she actually had an instant of disorientation, as though the world was spinning wildly beneath her feet and she was about to fall, or was already falling endlessly and forever down through the spheres until she would be lost in the pit and never free.