by Kate Elliott
“Was here?”
Heriburg studied the newly-ruled parchment, frowning as she measured the space and the amount she could fit into it and where she would break the words. She had left space for an illustration, but that work would go to Brother Jehan.
“Now she is missing, Sister. She was last seen in those desperate days after the death of the Holy Mother Clementia, may her memory be blessed, and before the arrival of Queen Adelheid and King Henry.”
“A strange thing, too,” murmured Ruoda, pausing to trim her quill, “because until we reminded people of the woman, it was as if everyone had forgotten her.”
“I hope you did not draw attention to yourselves.”
Heriburg glanced up, her face as bland as pudding but her gaze as sharp as pins. “Have you ever noticed the similarity in Dariyan of the words ‘forgiveness’ and ‘poison’? ‘Venia’ and ‘veneni.’ Many in the palace still wonder about Ironhead’s death, and about the death of the Holy Mother Clementia, may God have mercy on her. It is only a small slip of the tongue to introduce’ another name, and clerics are in truth the worst of gossips, given encouragement.”
“Have you told Brother Fortunatus this news? He’s still waiting to meet with the lay sister from St. Ekatarina’s.”
“We informed him last night, Sister. He hoped to meet with the lay sister just before Lauds.”
“I thank you, Sisters. You did well.” Ruoda grinned, as if expecting the praise, but Heriburg dropped her gaze humbly. A gem, and a jewel, as Mother Otta often said of her best novices, worthy to serve in the regnant’s crown. “Now back to your work. It will not do for everyone to see you gossiping here with me.”
Farther on stood the stool and sloping writing desk set aside for her personal use. With a sigh of relief and hope, she settled down, trimmed four quills, and studied the words she had written out that morning, copying from her wax tablet: the final days of Arnulf the Younger.
At that time, having taken both Wendar and Varre fully under his control, he was called by his army Lord, King, and Protector of all. His fame spread to all lands, and many nobles from other realms came to visit him, hoping to find favor in his sight, for truly it could be said of him that he denied nothing to his friends and granted no mercy to his enemies. Having at last subjugated the eastern tribes and having thrown the Eika raiders back into the sea, he announced his intention to make a pilgrimage to the holy city of Darre for the sake of prayer.
Yet within a week of this announcement, his infirmities so disabled him that he was forced to retire to his bed.
He called together the leading nobles of the realm and in their presence designated his son Henry as regnant. To his other children he granted honors and lands of great worth as well as a share of the regnant’s treasure, but Henry was made ruler over his sisters and brothers and named king of Wendar and Varre and the marchlands.
After his will had been made legal and all in attendance had acclaimed Henry as king, so passed away that great lord, who had by his efforts united Wendar and Varre and, being first among equals and matchless in all those virtues governing mind and body, stood as the greatest of all regnants reigning in all the lands. He reigned for eighteen years and lived to see the age of four and fifty. He was buried in Quedlinhame before the Lady’s Hearth. That day, many wept and all mourned.
She wiped away a tear. The memory of that bitter day, which she had witnessed as a young woman, still had the power to move her. She rubbed the parchment with pumice before taking up knife and quill to begin writing.
Here ends the First Book of the Deeds of the Great Princes.
She had to scrape away the last letter and write it again, but at last, with a quiet chuckle, she sat back and surveyed the final sentence. Hard to believe that this portion was, at long last, concluded. Yet truly, there would be no rest for the wicked: she still had to write the second part, her chronicle of Henry’s reign so far. Sometimes it seemed the work would never end. There was always more to tell than space to tell it.
She dabbed her quill in the ink pot.
Here begins the Second Book—
“Sister Rosvita.” Fortunatus came up behind her. He bent as if to examine the parchment, keeping his voice low. “Paloma did not meet me this morning. She has been patient, but I swear to you that yesterday when I met her, she was frightened. I convinced her to remain one more day…. but now I fear—” He broke off as a man wearing the red cloak of a presbyter walked into the scriptorium, marked Rosvita, and headed along the aisles toward her.
“We’ll speak later, Brother.”
The vault of ceiling made the scriptorium an airy place, filled with light. Watching Brother Petrus approach, Rosvita had leisure to examine the painted frieze at the far end of the room: martyrs and saints receiving their crowns of glory from the angels.
“Sister Rosvita.” He inclined his head. She hid a smile, regarding him somberly. She had the king’s confidence, the respect of the schola, and the ear of the queen. A presbyter like Petrus, however nobly born, did not wield as much influence as she did, and he knew it. “I have been sent by Lord Hugh to request your presence in the skopos’ chambers.”
Rosvita sighed, setting down her knife and handing the still wet quill to Fortunatus. He could only nod, frustrated and helpless, as she left him in charge of her history.
They crossed out of the regnant’s palace and into the gilded corridors of the skopos’ palace, dense with silence as a mere handful of presbyters, clerics, and servants hurried along the halls on their errands. No wall here was untouched; murals, friezes, paintings, or tapestries covered every wall. Columns were inlaid with tiny tiles or painted bright colors. Sculptures filled the courtyards and lined the colonnaded arcades down which they walked, in blessed shadow, while the sun beat down on empty graveled pathways beyond. This time of year, even as afternoon drifted toward twilight, no one walked under the sun because of the heat.
It was as quiet as if a spell lay over the palace. Pausing once at a break in the wall where she could see out over the city, she marked how the river dazzled as it wound through the streets, crossed in four places by bridges. A stuporous haze hung over Darre. Had even the buildings fallen asleep?
Pray God autumn would come soon, with cooler weather. She was sweating freely, had to dab at her forehead with her sleeve. They crossed into the heart of the palace and came to a door set with the skopos’ seal, a private audience chamber. Brother Petrus stood aside. Rosvita entered alone.
Mercifully, the Tile Chamber was dark and cool, surrounded by thick earthen walls and decorated with pale tiles, set out in geometric patterns said to represent the path of the soul as it ascends through the seven spheres toward the Chamber of Light. The skopos sat in a simple chair notable for its high back carved in a pattern of linked circles. Her ferocious black hound lay at her feet, growling softly as Rosvita approached but not raising its head. The chair, elevated on a low dais, presided over a set of benches, five deep, set in a semicircle facing the dais. A table stood between the foremost benches and the dais step.
Only five people inhabited the chamber: the skopos, Hugh, a servingwoman dressed simply in a pale shift belted with rope, and two elderly people wearing the garb of clerics. One lay on a couch in the shadows, half hidden, silent. Hugh and the other man stood at the table, holding open a scroll. A lit lamp stood at either end of the map, but it seemed to Rosvita that their light did more to illuminate Hugh’s handsome face than the faded markings on the scroll.
“Pray approach, Sister Rosvita,” said the skopos in her cool voice, extending her right hand.
Rosvita came forward cautiously, well aware of that huge hound so close that it could rip off her hand with one bite, but it did not react beyond another soft growl as she knelt on the steps to kiss Anne’s ring, the seal of her office. “Holy Mother, you honor me with your summons.”
Not a flicker of a smile touched the skopos’ face. She might have been carved in stone. It was hard to imagine anyone more regal
sitting in that chair, though. Henry had been wise to grant her the skopos’ throne. That way, she could never challenge him for the earthly throne. “If you will, Sister, examine the scroll.”
Hugh moved aside to make room for her at the table, nodding with what appeared a genuine smile as she took her place beside him. The other man, older, with a severe face lined with old resentments and a more recent illness, examined her disapprovingly.
“It’s papyrus,” she said, “and so likely ancient. These symbols marked at the border of the map are not of Daisanite origin. I would say they are heathen and probably meant to represent heathen gods or perhaps the seven heavenly bodies. It is a map.” She touched it hesitantly, because something about its markings made a bell chime in her mind. “Here are mountains, a river, a forest, and the sea.” She pointed at each as she spoke the word. “It seems the map represents the placement of seven sites, towns perhaps, or temples. Hard to say. Here are six scattered through the land equidistant from the seventh, which lies in the center, ringed by mountains. Each site is represented by seven marks, like arrow points, which echo the larger design: six in a ring around a central seventh.”
“What is it a map of, Sister Rosvita?” asked Anne.
The elder man grunted. Hugh took a step away from the table.
Rosvita had learned in a hard school not to betray surprise, and she did not do so now, as an inkling of what she was looking at lit in her mind. “Perhaps the continent of Novaria, Holy Mother. This sea could be the north sea, and here might be the middle sea, and these the Alfar Mountains. It is a crude representation, if so, but I have seen sailors’ maps that show a similar outline of the coast. I have myself crossed the Alfar Mountains three times and know that they stand in about this place.”
“What do you know about the coming cataclysm, Sister?” asked the Holy Mother. “About the attack of the Lost Ones, who wish to regain their empire and enslave all of humankind?”
“Nothing more than what I have heard, Holy Mother. Prince Sanglant spoke of a cataclysm, as did his mother, when they sojourned briefly at the king’s progress last spring. But they both left when it appeared to them that the king was not willing to heed their words.”
“Did you heed them?”
“I would need more evidence, Holy Mother. I confess it is a difficult story to believe. I have read many chronicles in my time. Many times good souls have cried out to warn the regnant of a coming disaster only to discover that they were mistaken in their reading of the stars, or the omens, or the Holy Verses themselves. God’s will is a difficult book for mortals to read.”
“Are you learned in astronomy, Sister?”
“I confess ignorance in such matters. I learned no more than any apt pupil would in a convent. I can recognize the constellations and I can identify the wandering stars in the sky.” She smiled slightly. “I remember that Aturna takes twenty-eight years to circle the zodiac, while Mok takes twelve, but I confess I cannot recall the periods of the others. Somorhas and Erekes lie between Earth and the sphere of the Sun, so they are often lost in the glare of the Sun. Somorhas appears as both Morning and Evening Star, never at the same time, and sometimes disappears altogether. I pray pardon, Holy Mother. Early in my studies I became enamored of history, and I neglected the other arts in its favor.”
“So it appears,” said the skopos, yet by no means did she speak reprovingly, only to note what she had heard. A bell rang softly. The servingwoman hurried to the door, spoke there with an unseen servant, and returned to the Holy Mother.
“The emissary from Salia, Your Excellence.”
“Let him in.”
A portly man, flushed from the heat, knelt on the steps to kiss the skopos’ ring. “Holy Mother.” He dabbed at his face with a handkerchief, but it might have been fear of the hound and not the heat that made him sweat so freely. “I am at your service.”
“Here is Brother Severus,” said Anne to the emissary, indicating the elderly cleric. “You will take him personally to Salia on your return, and see that his every wish is fulfilled. He is my personal representative.”
“I am at your command, Holy Mother.” He spoke Dariyan with the distinctive Salian accent, the soft “v” hardening, the hard “gn” going soft. “I do not know if we can cross the pass this late in the year. I’ve gotten word that there’ve already been heavy snows in the northern passes, quite untimely.”
“But you have heard no reports from the western passes, Brother. I feel sure that if you leave at once, you will have a successful journey.”
He eyed her with a mixture of awe and apprehension. Perhaps he had heard the rumors that she was a powerful sorcerer, exactly the sort of person whose activities had been condemned as recently as one hundred years ago at the Council of Narvone. It was not something ever spoken of out loud and certainly never to her face.
Or maybe he was only afraid that the black hound was going to lunge to its feet and rip his face off.
“As you command, Holy Mother. We can leave in the morning, if that is your wish.”
“It is.” Anne dismissed him, and the servingwoman escorted him to the door. After a silence, she rose and, with the hound at her heels, came down to the table, smoothing her hand over the ancient papyrus. It had gone yellow with age, flaking at the edges. “What evidence do you need, Sister Rosvita, to be convinced of the danger that awaits us all if we do not act?”
“Perhaps it is impossible to convince me, Holy Mother, without hard evidence, but that does not mean I cannot see the purpose to preparing for such an eventuality, in case it comes about. Yet why would Sanglant’s mother come to Henry and offer an alliance if her people wish only to enslave and dominate us? Can a dialogue not be started?”
“With whom? Where is the Aoi woman now, Sister? Where is Prince Sanglant?”
“I cannot answer either question.”
“The Aoi woman has returned to her people to raise an army, now that she sees that humankind have no will to fight. Prince Sanglant also left to gather an army.”
“For what purpose? How do you know this?”
“Surely you know of that skill commonly called ‘Eagle’s sight’? Eagles are not alone in making use of it.”
The wick of one of the lamps hissed as it came to the end of the oil. The servingwoman hastened to refill the belly of the lamp while Rosvita caught hold of her thoughts, for once so horrified that she could not even voice mindless pleasantries to pass the awkward moment. If Anne could use Eagle’s sight, then she could spy on anyone.
Anyone.
Yet even Anne could not spy on people constantly, and then only one at a time, using such methods. Every skopos was known to have spies, clerics moving through the palace in Darre and the courts of far-flung regnants, reporting back what they observed to the Holy Mother. How was this different?
“Where is Prince Sanglant now, Holy Mother?”
Odd, and troubling, to see annoyance brush its sharp claws across that normally serene face. “Well hidden,” said Anne, reaching to scratch the hound’s ears, and by this means concealing her expression as she went on, “no doubt with the aid of his mother’s magic. Why conceal himself if he has nothing to hide?”
“Why indeed?” Rosvita glanced away to see Severus examining the map while Hugh listened with obvious interest. “Yet I have not forgotten the Eagle sent by Princess Theophanu, who spoke of troubles at work in the land, including Quman raiders.”
When Anne straightened, her features displayed as impassive a mask as ever. “Be assured that I have looked, Sister Rosvita. I have seen no Quman army.”
“You do not think Prince Sanglant might be raising an army to fight the barbarians?”
“I do not know the mind of Prince Sanglant. Wendar is plagued by much unrest in these days, which comes in many guises. A wise mind recognizes these troubles as a sign of the cataclysm to come, for the earth itself shifts and trembles, knowing the dreadful fate that awaits it when the Lost Ones work their terrible magic to force their re
turn.”
“It is difficult to argue against you, Holy Mother, considering the extent and depth of your knowledge.”
“So it is,” agreed Anne. She lifted a hand. At once several servants, previously unseen, hurried out of the shadows. The cleric reclining on the couch was lying, it now transpired, on a litter, which made it easy for the four servants to carry her out of the chamber. Even so, Rosvita could not quite get a glimpse of that person, only that she was small and dark. How strange that she should observe the whole and yet never speak or be spoken to. Yet it was too late to discover who she was now.
Brother Severus retreated, as did Hugh, with a smile and a bow, and at last the servingwoman went out and shut the door behind her. The black hound yawned, displaying fearsome teeth.
“Now you will tell me, Sister,” said Anne, facing Rosvita, “why you persist in not trusting me. I have served as Holy Mother for only one month. Have I given offense? Have you heard aught of me that leads you to believe that I am plotting evil?”
For an instant Rosvita felt the thrill of panic, but she knew how to think fast. “Only this, Holy Mother. Hugh of Austra was sent south to face charges that he had soiled his hands with black sorcery. Now he stands as an intimate in the queen’s counsel and you have allowed him exceptional authority within the college of presbyters.”
“Most of which he had already earned by his own efforts during the last days of my predecessor, Clementia, may her memory be blessed. Is it my trust in Hugh that you do not trust?”