by Kate Elliott
“It’s true I do not like to see such bright creatures imprisoned by cruel masters.” Wolfhere sounded bored beyond measure, tired of the game. “What do you want, Lord Hugh?”
“Where did you come from? How did you get here?”
Wolfhere sighed.
“You were seen last in the company of Brother Marcus and Sister Meriam. You ran from them. Yet now you appear here, with Meriam’s granddaughter in your care. Where were you? How did you escape the cataclysm?”
“Fortune favored us,” said the old man dryly.
“You were least among the Seven Sleepers. Cauda draconis, the tail of the dragon. They told me that you were too ignorant to weave the crowns. Is that true?”
“Yes, it’s true. I was never taught the art of the mathematici. Mine was the gift of Eagle’s Sight, and of the skills necessary to a messenger who spends his life on the road. Thus, I am peculiarly situated to survive long journeys through hostile lands.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“It matters little to me if you believe me or not, Lord Hugh. Why should it? The battle is lost, and Anne is dead.”
“Thus your purpose for being.”
“Thus my purpose for being,” said Wolfhere in a flat voice. “What is it you want? Or are you merely here to gloat?”
“It’s true I have no liking for you, Eagle. You stole from me the thing that is rightly mine. I mean to have it back.”
“How will you accomplish that? Liath is dead, is she not? Like the others.”
She heard the other man take in a raggedly drawn breath, sharp and sweet. “Not dead. Not dead.”
Abruptly, the old man’s tone became edged. “Where have you seen her? How do you know?”
“Where have I seen her? In Wendar, my friend. Standing beside the bastard who calls himself king.”
“I have heard the tale of Henry’s passing. I wasn’t sure it was true.”
“Oh, true it is, and the prince of dogs crowned and anointed by Mother Scholastica herself, although I think she was not best pleased in the doing.”
“So it is true. And Liath has survived, so you say.” No doubt he was eager to hear these tidings, but he kept his voice low and even.
“Can you not see her yourself, with your vaunted Eagle’s Sight? Have you not spoken with your discipla, Hathui, who has gained the protection of the new king and stands in his very shadow?”
There was a long pause, and a quiet shuffling of feet above her. Anna glanced up to see a shadowed form bent over the trap, looking down toward her, but it was obvious that his eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness below.
“You may as well know that I am blind,” said Wolfhere. “Since the cataclysm.”
“Blinded? Useless and helpless, then. Master of nothing, servant to no one. Yet why tell me so? Why confess as much to me, Eagle?”
“Because I hurt, Lord Hugh. If I tell you that you can gain nothing from torturing me, then perhaps you will not do so.”
“Ah. I suppose it is the Holy Mother—or the queen—who sees you used so ill. What do they want to know?”
“Nothing I would tell you, if I would also not tell them. Leave us be, Lord Hugh. I do not know what is your purpose here. I ask you only for this favor: leave us be.”
“What will you give me in return?”
“In return for what?”
“For leaving you be.”
“So we come around again to my first question: what do you want?”
“Who is Liath’s father?”
“Bernard.”
“And her mother?”
“A daimone of the upper spheres. I am surprised to hear you ask.”
“It was once a closely guarded secret.”
“Yes, once it was. Back when we still held some measure of control over her. Anne took you into the Seven Sleepers. I am not surprised that you lived, when others died, but I am surprised you ask me questions you must already have heard the answers to.”
“Folk may lie.”
“I am shocked to hear it.”
Lord Hugh chuckled. “Is it safe to let you live, Eagle?”
“Oh, indeed it is. I would even call it necessary.”
“Think you so?”
“Of course I must. Leave us be, Lord Hugh. We have nothing you want.”
“No, no,” said the other man musingly. “I’m not sure you do have anything I want.”
She felt warm breath on her neck and heard the merest croak of the step just above the one she stood on, where it had a wobble.
“Hsst!” said the sergeant in her ear. “Up out of here, girl, or we’ll all be in trouble.”
They fled up, and just in time, for the sergeant had just shoved her out the door and over to the pits to pretend she was at some kind of filthy work with her head bent down to hide her face when she heard all the soldiers with bowing and scraping in their voices as some august presence departed the tower and went on his way.
“Idiot,” said the sergeant, coming over to her and yanking the pail out of her hand. “No one was to disturb them! I’ll take care of the prisoner today. You go back up, and keep your mouth shut and your feet where they belong.”
“How was I to know?” she said, and he slapped her.
Later, as the cloistered hours passed without incident, the sergeant relented and came up himself to gossip with Lord Berthold, his favorite. The queen’s younger daughter had died the day before, which explained the tolling of the bell. There was anyway to be a feast that night, if a solemn one, because an envoy had come from a distant land, but he wasn’t sure where, maybe Arethousa, come to parley with the grieving queen. So that was why it was that Berthold and his retinue could not leave the upper chambers for any possible reason this day.
Therefore they expected no visitors late in that afternoon with the courtyard gone quiet and a murmur rising from the great hall whose roof could be seen from the east facing windows. There, most of those who lived in the palace had gathered to feast or to serve. The smells rising from the kitchens made Anna’s stomach hurt and her mouth water.
Berthold and Elene played another game of chess by the window, glancing at each other in a way that Anna recognized as dangerous and that, mercifully, Blessing did not see for what it was. Two attractive young people thrown together for hours and days and weeks on end. How well Anna knew where such intimacy led! She wiped her eyes, but there weren’t any tears left for Thiemo and Matto. They had vanished under the hill with Berthold’s companions, with their old life, with all that had transpired before the storm.
Heribert sat beside Blessing, who for once was frowning at tablet and stylus and with awkward strokes getting some of her letters right. Anna sat down on the carpet near Blessing’s feet, and went back to mending a tear in Blessing’s other shift. Julia sat on the bench, embroidering. Lord Jonas was downstairs playing dice with Odei; those two could go at it for hours, and the spill of dice across the floor was, like a poet’s song at a feast, a steady accompaniment to other labors. Berda sat in a shadowed corner grinding a root into powder. The light came gloomy through the open windows, and it was cool, but no one wanted to shutter themselves in.
Elene sniffed, wiped her nose, and looked up, holding a lion in one hand. “Do you smell that?”
Berthold stifled a yawn. “Smell what? I hate sitting indoors all day.”
Berda glanced up as well. “It is sharp,” she said, touching her nose.
The lady frowned. She did not set down the lion. “Now it’s gone. I thought….” She, too, yawned, and caught herself.
Even Anna yawned and almost pricked herself with her needle. Her grunt of frustration set off an avalanche of yawns among all of them, except Heribert.
“The curve here, Your Highness. It is uneven.”
“I’m just tired! I can do better!”
“Yes,” he agreed. “So it appears from the way you are yawning. There is a sharp glamour in the air. It tingles in the bones.”
Berthold pushed the chess
pieces aside and pillowed his head on his arms. “Just a nap, and we’ll start again.”
Elene’s head lolled back. The lion fell out of her hand, and when it struck the floor she jerked upright. “What is that?” she demanded. “A glamour … a spell …”
Anna was so tired. The languor smothered her. The walls spoke in whispers, reminding her of the peace of the sleep which awaits every soul, the crossing into death….
Soft footsteps mounted the stair-step ladder. A middle-aged man appeared in the opened trap. He was named Brother Petrus, one of the holy clerics who served the Holy Mother.
“Up here, my lord,” he said as he clambered out.
She pricked herself with the needle, and the pain woke her. A drop of blood swelled.
Blessing had fallen asleep against Heribert’s shoulder. Berthold roused dully, lifting his head. Elene struggled, reaching for the lion she had dropped on the floor. Berda snored softly, head lolling back against the wall, her throat exposed.
An angel climbed out of the trap and paused to regard the chess table and the pair of young nobles fighting sleep.
“Well,” he said in a melodious voice so soothing Anna was sure he tamed wild beasts with it. She recognized it immediately as the voice of the man who had been talking to Wolfhere. “Conrad’s doomed daughter and Villam’s lost son. How unexpected this is. How handsome they look together, dark and fair!”
Elene grunted, got hold of the lion, and dug it into her palm. Her eyes flared. “Who are you? What sorcery …?”
The chess piece rolled out of her hand, landed on a corner of carpet, and tumbled off that onto the plank floor. Her eyes fluttered as she fought to keep awake.
“You know tricks, Lady Elene, but you are inexperienced.”
Anna thrust the needle into her hand again, and the pain burst like fire and focused her mind, but it was so hard to fight. It was so much easier to sleep.
He turned and saw Blessing. “Ah,” he said, voice catching. “So old already. Just as I’d hoped….”
From this angle, seated crosswise to Blessing and slightly behind her, Anna saw his expression darken.
“How can it be that you still wake?” he asked.
Before she could answer, Brother Heribert said, quite clearly, “Who are you?”
“Better I should ask, who are you? You are Brother Heribert, a particular intimate counselor of the prince, guardian of his daughter. Before that you were a cleric in the schola of the biscop of Mainni, rumored to be her—” He laughed. Anna ducked her head and, feeling the dizzy drag of exhaustion pulling her down, jabbed the needle in. “God in Heaven! Look at your eyes! How comes this? I thought I was the only one who knew this secret. Why are you here?”
“I am looking for the one I love. They say it is the other one who stole him. The one called Sanglant.”
“Who stole him?” The angel shifted back on his heels as might a man who has been struck, then rolled forward to his toes, and regained his balance. “Who stole who?”
“Lord Hugh?” asked Brother Petrus, who was fingering an amulet looped at his neck. “Ought we not hurry, my lord? It will be dark soon.”
“Yes.” The angel nodded, but he looked only at Heribert, not at Brother Petrus. “Who is lost, and who is blind?” he said to himself. “Can it be? Tell me, friend, if the other one stole him, then do you want to get back this one you seek?”
“I don’t know where he is.”
“Gone utterly, I fear, if what my eyes tell me is true, and I think it must be. But I know who killed him.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that his soul is fled from Earth.”
“How do I find him?”
“Seek you his killer and get your revenge. Kill the one who killed him.”
“Will it bring him back, if I kill the one who killed him?”
The angel’s smile would brighten a hall shrouded in darkness. “Oh, yes. Certainly. Delve deep, and seek him at his heart. Drive out the soul you find there. That will kill the one who killed him. The one called Sanglant.”
“But he loved him! He trusted him!”
“Alas,” the angel said in a gentling voice, as a mother might soothe a weeping child. “So it happens among humankind, that the ones we love most are quickest to betray us.”
“How will I go?”
“Come with me now. I will set you on your way. Brother Petrus, there is an attendant who serves the princess. Find her, and place an amulet around her neck … Ah!”
Elene grunted, struggling against the spell, lips moving as she murmured an incantation.
“Petrus, the knife.”
“Your hands, my lord. Let me do it, if it must be done.”
“I’ll not let others stain their hands so mine may remain clean. This is my decision, not yours.” He took a common kitchen knife, good sharp iron, out of Petrus’ shaking hands, and went to the table. Grasping Elene by the hair, he set the knife to her pulsing throat.
Elene tried to struggle, but she could not.
Anna shrieked, but the only noise that escaped her was a moan. She staggered up, but she was too slow with that lethargy weighing her down. She was too slow, and it was already too late.
He cut.
Elene’s blood spurted over the board, spattering Berthold’s sleeve and hair, although he was too fast asleep to stir. Blood flowed. A Dragon and a Queen toppled sideways in the first gush. The rest of the pieces were soon awash, islands in a red sea.
Hugh braced her body in the chair and dropped the bloody knife onto the carpet. He walked over to Anna and grasped her. She sagged against him; she could not help herself.
“Is this another so afflicted?” He raised her hand, smoothed a finger over the three spots of blood, and teased the needle out of her fingers. She was helpless to resist. Only his strong arm held her up.
“Quickly, Brother Petrus!”
A movement, an arm sweeping past her face, and a sweet smelling fragrance wafted into her nostrils. She came alert to see a smoky mist dimming her sight through which she saw all those sleeping and heard an uncanny hush drawn over the palace grounds as though every living creature had been muzzled and shod in wool.
His eyes were so very blue that she thought she should drown in them. “I am taking Princess Blessing. You have now a choice. You may come with me, to attend her, or you may stay behind.”
Her mouth worked, but she got no words out.
He smiled sadly.
Oh, that smile. She might die hoping for another taste of that smile. She had never seen a man as beautiful as he was.
“What is your name?”
“Anna, Your Grace,” she whispered.
“Anna,” he said, making music of her name. “Carry the princess. We must make haste.”
“If I won’t, Your Grace? If I refuse to go?”
“Then a more faithful servant will carry her,” he said in the most kindly voice imaginable, and it chilled her to hear it, because he did not raise his voice or look angry. He was no Bulkezu, to howl and rage. He did not look like a man who had just cut the throat of a defenseless young woman. “And you will wake later, hoping she is well cared for but never knowing if she will be.”
Weeping, she gathered up Blessing, although the girl had grown enough to weigh heavily in her arms. It took all her courage to look at him again, and all her courage to speak words he might not want to hear. “There are some things we need, Your Grace—”
“There is nothing you shall need that has not already been prepared. We have taken everything from this town that we want. Brother Petrus, let us go swiftly, as you advise.”
“Yes, Lord Hugh.”
So they went, leaving the chamber and the dead girl and her sleeping companions behind. Below, four soldiers waited; they also wore amulets. Lord Jonas and Odei sprawled on the floor among a scattering of dice. Brother Heribert followed like a dog, hesitant, twitchy, but determined.
“Unchain the Eagle,” said Lord Hugh to two of the sol
diers. “Make sure there is blood on his hands, and the knife in his possession. Then meet us at the appointed place.”
In the barracks below soldiers slept, draped over benches or snoring on pallets. Two sat on either side of the door, slumped against the stone wall. One had his mouth open, and the way drool trickled out scared her.
Their feet crunched on gravel as they crossed along a wing of the palace, moving swiftly. Guards slept on benches and on paving stones. One had an arm slung somewhat around a pillar as though embracing it. In the courtyard facing the great hall a dozen servants had dropped platters of food and flagons of drink. A pair of dogs had fallen down asleep in the act of filching a fine haunch of beef intended for the queen’s table. From the hall itself, glimpsed through open doors, came only silence. One of the soldiers grabbed a pair of plump roasted chickens and tied them up into a handkerchief which he fastened to his belt. The scent of all that good, warm food made Anna’s stomach grumble, and she hated herself for feeling a hunger that Lady Elene would never again know. Blessing stirred, whimpering, but did not wake.
Five more soldiers waited by the barracks, holding the reins of fourteen horses, four of them laden with packs. Every wakeful creature there wore an amulet around its neck like to the one Anna wore. By the horses, Lord Hugh nodded at Brother Petrus.
“All the rest is done as I commanded?”
“It is all arranged, Lord Hugh. All will be done as you have ordered. Yet I am not sure, my lord. Was there some other fate that you intend for Lord Berthold? Villam’s son is tainted with Villam’s treachery in plotting against Emperor Henry, may he rest at peace in the Chamber of Light.”
“Villam’s son means nothing, although there is, I think, some mystery regarding his disappearance and reappearance. Leave him as he is. Find out his secret, if you can. He may trust you if you befriend him after we are gone.”
Petrus hesitated.
“Go on, Brother. You must not fear to speak freely to me.”
“Why the young lady, Your Grace? She was beautiful. Proud, it’s true, but lovely. It’s like trampling a flower in bloom.”