by Carol Berg
I’d wasted the day. Wasted my bent. Of course, the Dané had taken the nivat. She would not have come at all if not for the seeds. So beautiful…so strange and majestic and proud…such magic…
Ah, stars of night, that was what hurt so dreadfully. To look upon such power that dwelt so near us, in tree or pond or meadow, and yet so vastly distant. Never had dirt and ignorance and uselessness weighed on me so. The damp, heavy wool of my drab monk’s garb itched and choked me. Stories said the Danae danced to the music of the stars. Easy to see how people might mistake such a being for a messenger of heaven.
“Brother Valen! What are you doing here?” Stearc’s sudden presence assaulted my spirit like a cadre of Moriangi foot soldiers.
I shook my head. I was doing well to sit up, trying not to feel anything, terrified that my next move would ignite the fire in my belly. My waste of magic likely meant that the next doulon would be no more successful than the last. And then my nivat supply would be gone. Ass! Ignorant, blind, rock-headed ass! I wanted to slam my head on the rocky ground. All the images I kept at bay descended on me at once: the pain-frenzied youth in the Palinur alley, thrashing in his own filth and vomit, the whore in Avenus whose eyes screamed when you touched her hot, rigid limbs, paralyzed with cramps and seizures. Better to slice my own throat than end like that.
“He stayed to watch, sire. He says he’s not injured. We should tell him—” After a sharp gesture from her father, Elene bit off whatever else she wanted to say.
“I’ll vow I believed you a charlatan, monk,” said the thane. “That a nobody, a cowardly hireling bowman with no family of consequence and an arrow wound in his back, could interpret the book when better men could not seemed unrighteous and impossible. But it seems I erred.”
I did not even bristle.
The thane crouched beside me, his oiled leather jaque gleaming in the lantern light, his hawkish bearded face flushed with zeal and thirsty with curiosity. “Sword of the archangel, I cannot comprehend what we just saw. I’ve never believed any of these legends. How did you do it? What key have we missed in this confounded book?”
“I don’t know.” Luck? Fate? How could anyone believe that I—a man of so little skill that I never had and never would accomplish a single thing of worth in my life, so blindly thick skulled that I could not untangle the meanings of the simplest markings on a page, and so weak of will that I had enslaved myself to the doulon—had done anything to summon such a being? “I did only what I’ve done before.” Exactly nothing. I could not explain it.
Gram arrived shortly after the thane, moving slowly. The secretary was stretched tight. His black cloak and the sharp light on his deep-etched features made him look like death itself.
“We should get back to our blankets,” said the thane when he spied Gram. “Foolish to stand here in the cold. Come on.”
Before I could resist, Stearc grabbed my elbow and hauled me up as if I were no larger than Elene. No threads of fire shot through my limbs, demanding the doulon’s solace. Thank the gods for that.
Stearc grunted an order at Elene, and father and daughter hurried off. Gram and I trailed behind as if drawn along in their wake.
“You removed the salt,” I said.
Gram nodded as he muffled a bout of harsh coughing.
“I’m sorry.”
“You were right,” he said, and absently pushed damp hair from his face. It promptly fell down again. “It wouldn’t have made any difference to bind her. She wasn’t going to do what we asked in any case.”
We found no more to say on the short walk down the hill.
A sullen Elene thrust a blanket into my arms when we reached their camp, and then retreated to a spot well away from us. Stearc removed his swordbelt and tossed it on the ground beside her. Her mouth tight, she rummaged in one of the saddle packs, set out stone, rag, and oil flask, and set to cleaning and polishing his long-sword. Her silence bulged and stretched near bursting.
They had pegged a canvas awning to the stone and supported it with three hinged poles and a tangle of rope. The ground underneath was damp but not soggy. Bundled in cloaks and blankets, Gram and I squatted beside the lantern, as if the weak yellow light might warm us.
The thane pulled out a wineskin, took a few swallows, and tossed it at Gram. “Now we know the nivat works, we should try again. Perhaps a different creature would be more accepting.”
Gram took a long pull at the wineskin. “She is a sentinel,” he said, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “One charged to watch the boundaries between human and Danae. She would most likely respond to any advance here. Her own sianou is probably somewhere nearby. But after hearing her, I believe that other Danae would reject us as well. Her dislike was not some private matter.”
“But it was aimed directly at you.” Elene made no attempt to mute her voice or her hostility. “Have you done something without telling the others?”
“Hold your tongue, squire, or be sent home. I warned you.” Stearc jerked his head. “Go see that the horses have not pulled their tethers. Now.”
Though Elene clenched her jaw in the very image of her father, she slammed the sword back into its sheath, jumped to her feet, and snatched up the lantern.
“Hear me, Corin.” Gram rushed into the angry silence as the woman strode into the night. “The only betrayal I know of is Eodward’s failure to abide by their terms and return to them. Perhaps they’ve come to think of that as stealing what ‘belonged’ to them. Their help. Their care. No theft is mentioned in the journal.”
Their family quarrel could not hold my attention this night. The mention of King Eodward’s name sparked in me like flint on steel. Eodward who was said to have lived with “angels” for a hundred and forty-seven years. Eodward who had asked a saucy-tongued pikeman to take a message—
“Aeginea.” The word spilled from my lips.
“What’s that, Brother?” Stearc and Gram said it together, as if they had forgotten I was there.
“When you spoke to the Dané, you mentioned a place called Aeginea. What is it?”
Though I addressed Gram, another bout of coughing rattled the secretary’s chest. The answer came from Stearc instead. “Aeginea is the Danae’s own name for the lands where their archon holds sway, where they celebrate the turning of the seasons and dance the pattern of the world they call the Canon. Though we don’t see the name on any of Cartamandua’s maps, we believe it exists both within and apart from our own land.”
“It is Navronne,” said Gram, hoarse from his cough. “The Heart of the World.”
“And King Eodward…what does he have to do with all this?” I was half afraid to ask, sensing a tether of obligation reaching out from the past to bind my choices. Somehow doubly bitter after having seen a Dané.
“That is a very long story,” said Stearc. He stretched out on the bare ground, wadded a blanket under his head, and pulled his cloak around him. His hand moved out and touched the swordbelt, loosening his knife in its sheath. “Too long for tonight. We should sleep now.”
I was as wakeful as if my wastrel drowsing up the hill had been a night’s unbroken sleep. Even after the thane began snoring, my thoughts would not keep still.
Though Elene’s departure with her lantern left us in the dark, I heard Gram rustling about in the packs, unstoppering a flask, drinking something that seemed to soothe his cough better than the wine had done. He must have sensed my wakefulness, as well, for he began to speak softly, as if not to wake his master.
“Almost seventy years ago, a young Janus de Cartamandua-Magistoria first found his way into Aeginea. I don’t know how he accomplished it. Who truly understands pureblood sorcery? But while traveling there, he encountered a human man of some eighteen years. The Danae called the youth Caedmon-son, and said his father was a man they honored as a friend of the Danae and the one human who was ever true to his word. History tells us that Caedmon’s four elder children were slain as the Aurellians drove through Morian and into Ardra. The Danae told C
artamandua that Caedmon had begged them to foster one remaining child—an infant son. The Danae archon, one named Stian, agreed to take in the child and a tutor sent by Caedmon to see to the boy’s education.
“Writings and papers in the tutor’s possession, as well as the tutor’s testimony, corroborated the story. Though fascinated by Cartamandua and his tales of Navronne’s struggles with the Aurellians and the Hansker, the young man had no interest in returning here. Life…time…runs differently in Aeginea. Though their seasons follow one upon the other at the same pace as ours, their days can seem like a year or an hour—much as a river spans only the distance from Elanus to Palinur, yet meanders faster and slower through straights and eddies on its way. And a human’s life spends more slowly there—we calculate seven of our years to every one of theirs.”
“Eodward,” I said. Of a sudden, dry history took on new life and meaning. Like Stearc, I had never truly believed in the legend, only in the man. One hundred and forty-seven years would translate to one-and-twenty—the age of Eodward when he appeared from nowhere to reclaim Caedmon’s throne. “How do you know all this?”
“Lord Stearc has come into possession of a journal relating to those days. Its accuracy is unimpeachable.” Clothing rustled in the dark. Gram’s hunched silhouette blocked out the stars in the clearing sky. “The Danae insisted Cartamandua swear to keep the secret of Eodward’s existence.”
“But he didn’t.” No one in my family would have kept such a secret. Not if the telling could enhance their prestige among the other purebloods.
“For a while, he did. But twenty-one years later, when all realized that Aurellia had become a fragile, decadent shell, Cartamandua told a friend about the young man—Caedmon’s living heir. This friend, Sinduré Tobrecan, was the high priest of Kemen, and it happened that Tobrecan’s closest boyhood friend Angnecy had just been anointed Hierarch of Ardra, the followers of the elder gods and those of Iero and divine Karus linked by this strange mechanism of fate. Seeing hope for the future in their own friendship and in the miracle of Eodward’s life, they convinced Cartamandua to lead them to Aeginea, using his book of maps. There they beseeched Eodward, who had aged little in all that time, to return to Navronne and take up his rightful throne, lest chaos descend upon the kingdom with the fall of Aurellia. The Hansker longships were poised to attack and drive us into barbarism and savagery.”
“And this time, he came,” I said, wondering. “He was one-and-twenty.”
“It was not an easy choice. Eodward loved and honored his Danae family, and considered himself one of them. His Danae mother guided his training, as is their custom, and he rode, danced, and hunted with his Danae father, brother, and sister. But from Cartamandua’s first visit, Eodward had dreamed increasingly of Navronne—a land he lived in, but had never really experienced, for as you have noted, the Danae realms are our own realms. We but tread different paths. When Eodward decided to come here, he vowed to return to Aeginea before they danced the Winter Canon thrice more.”
“But he didn’t,” I said, remembering the words he’d spoken to me on that long-ago battle’s eve. Tell them I don’t think I’ll get back…
“He could not. He had a thriving, glorious kingdom that needed him desperately. The Danae, still bitter at Cartamandua for breaking his vow, and unhappy with Eodward for his leaving, named Eodward’s failure to return as betrayal, compounding their own long grievances with humans. After a time, the king began to age as humans do, yet he fully intended to return to Aeginea as soon as his children were strong enough to carry on his work. He died still believing the Danae would forgive him and that he could live out his days among them.”
I shook my head. “He knew he would never go back,” I said. “His children were never worthy to succeed him.”
“Clearly not.” Gram sighed and hunched his blanket around his shoulders. “And other things have happened in the years since that caused the Danae additional grievance—perhaps this violation and the thievery she spoke of—and they’ve forsaken all human contact. Now we need their help again, and I don’t know how we’re to get it.”
“But you won’t tell me why. It’s this business of the lighthouse and the end times.”
“I am but one player in a very large game. You should sleep now, Brother. Tomorrow we’ll decide what to do next.”
While Gram was speaking, quiet movements in the dark on the far side of the snoring Thane of Erasku told me Elene had returned. “Tell me about Corin,” I said on a whim. “I sense a restless spirit there. Is he reliable? Trustworthy?”
“Reliable?” Gram laughed bitterly. “If the world could take shape from one will alone, then it would surely match young Corin’s vision of how things ought to be. And it would be a world so just and fair…so glorious and compassionate…your Karish angels would choose to live here in Navronne instead of heaven. Do not doubt. Should every man of this cabal fail, Corin will carry it ahead alone come heaven or hell, victory or ruin.”
I smiled as I pulled up my blankets, a moment’s respite from a pervasive despondency. All through that long night, I heard restless movements from two pallets besides my own. Only the Thane of Erasku slept much that night.
“Unable to read while you are walking?” said a disbelieving Brother Sebastian.
I stood before him in the monks’ parlor outside the dorter, damp, dirty, and exhausted, more from the night without sleep than the few quellae of the journey. After a predawn breakfast of cold cheese, Stearc had ordered Elene up to Fortress Groult to inform the edane that Brother Valen had wandered into their camp after getting lost in the rain and fog. Brother Adolfus returned with her, as it transpired that the poetry book was one that the abbey had already copied. That fact hardly surprised me. We had arrived at the abbey shortly before midday, and I prayed my mentor’s annoyance would not forbid me dinner.
“After vowing to improve your attentiveness, you get yourself lost. And atop this foolery and despite all your promises of obedience, you refuse to honor your elder’s wish to join him in your avowed duty of prayer along the route.”
“I am sorry, Brother. The jarring of walking, especially with my limp, makes the words on the page run together. I’ll strive to improve this weakness in the future as the Blessed Gillare heals this lingering mortification of my flesh.” Even lies came hard today.
“Clean yourself and fetch your new spare gown and cowl from Brother Tailor,” said Brother Sebastian. “Report to Brother Jerome for the rest of the afternoon. After Vespers we shall sit down and work out your reading syllabus and examination schedule for the next month. We must pay more rigorous attention to your studies and deportment.”
I bowed and thanked him, dreading the unhappy exposure sure to come very soon now. I would suffer yelling, admonitions, and penances until my hair turned white. But at least I had achieved one of my aims. Luviar would surely not dismiss me after my unlikely successes with the book of maps, whether I could read or not. Somehow, even that small accomplishment could not cheer me. The world felt old. Broken.
Of course, Brother Jerome would be out of sorts that afternoon. He complained of having only barley vinegar to use for his pickling, as the grape harvest had failed, and that salt had grown so dear he had to be a pinchfist with it just when he needed it most. Brother Sebastian must have sent word of my transgressions. Instead of allowing me to sit in the warm kitchen and chop turnips or carrots to go into his crocks of vinegar and salt, Brother Refectorian had sent me to the cold, stinking butcher house to bleed and strip a pig.
As I wrestled the massive carcass in a vat of steaming water to scrub off its hair and buried my hands in its stomach cavity to sever and draw out its entrails, I imagined the scene in the guesthouse. Stearc, Gram, and Elene were likely head to nose with the abbot, the chancellor, and Brother Gildas—probably Jullian, as well—all of them bathed, dry, and drinking hot cider, talking of magical libraries, beings of legend, and the end of the world, while I was rendering a sow.
Sullen
and resentful, I sorted all the nasty bits. White, lacy caul fat into the bowl for present use. Bung and rectum onto the waste heap. Emptied guts, destined to hold Brother Jerome’s fine sausage, into the brine crock along with the emptied bladder and stomach. My new spare gown was clean no longer, and my sandals and feet were splashed with blood and filth. Brother Sebastian would have no mercy.
The heart and liver had just gone into a bowl for the kitchen, and my sore hands had just plunged another length of gut into the cold running water of the butcher house conduit to scrape it clean, when I glimpsed a brickred cloak in the vicinity of Brother Butcher. The two of them stood outside the doorway of the wooden building. Though my hands were freezing, my face grew hot enough to cook the damnable pig. Was I to be forever splattered, filthy, or slug-witted in front of Elene? Bad enough that half my skull was bald and I stank worse than Jullian.
“Brother Valen!” Brother Butcher, a lay brother with a neck as wide as his head, also possessed a bellow worthy of his victims. “The squire says you’re summoned to the abbot.”
Blessed release! “Of course, Brother. I’ll stop off at the lavatorium to wash, and then—”
“Not so, Brother Novice. Brother Sebastian has sent out word to all that you’re to hop to your duties with no dawdling or digression. They wouldn’t have sent for you now did they want you to come later. So be off with you. I’ll take on your pig.”
Sighing, I dropped the gut back into the crock, plunged my arms into the conduit flow, and scrubbed at them with my numb fingers. After a handful of icy water to my face and a swipe with the only clean spot on my gown, I hurried through the butcher house, and bowed to the thick-necked lay brother. Though wet and freezing from fingertip to armpit, blood and offal still grimed nails and pores and the cracks in my skin. I grabbed my cowl from the hook by the door and threw it on.