PROLOGUE (20 page)

Rain lashed the windows. The side doors were opened to allow the poor to process through in an orderly line. None complained that, waiting outside, they had gotten soaked through. They waited gratefully for this chance to be blessed and touched by King Henry himself, for was it not true that the anointed king's touch might bring healing?

Rosvita yawned again. She ought to be watching the holy blessings, but she had seen this same scene, albeit rarely with the dramatic background of thunder and lightning, so many times before on the endless itinerant progress of the king. Could the heathens foretell the future from the sounds and directions of thunder? Surely not. Only angels and the daimones of the upper air could see into the future, and back into the past, for they did not live in Time in the same way humans did. But, alas, she could never help thinking of such things, sacrilegious though they might be. She would be damned by her curiosity; Mother Otta of Korvei Convent had told her that so many times, although not without a smile.

Thunder rumbled off into the northwest, and the rain slackened as the last of the poor and sick shuffled past King Henry for the ritual blessing. The nobles shifted restlessly
—as restless as the weather or as their fears that Henry would demand large levies from them in the coming season of war.

At last the final hymn was sung. A happy babble of voices filled the church as the king led the procession out of the church. In the royal hall, the Feast of All Saints would be celebrated. Rosvita followed the king together with the rest of his retinue, nobles and townsfolk crowded behind, all eager to partake in some way of the meal, even if it was simply bread handed out from the doors. Her stomach, like a distant failing echo of the thunder, rumbled softly, and she chuckled.

In the morning, still driven by nagging thoughts of thunder and portents, she availed herself of Quedlinhame's excellent library. She ought to be working on her
History of the Wendish People,
but she knew from long experience that until this nibbling curiosity was satisfied, she would be able to think of nothing else.

Rosvita turned first to Isidora of Seviya's great encyclopedia, the
Etymologies,
which contained descriptions of various forms of sorcery and magic. But Isidora's book had only a passing reference to the fulgutari.

Dissatisfied, Rosvita replaced the volume in its cabinet and latched the door. The library had long since outgrown its original chamber and now several smaller rooms contained the overflow books. She stood in one of these chambers now; the
Etymologies
had been consigned here not because the work was unimportant
—far from it—but because, Rosvita thought uncharitably, Quedlinhame's librarian was incompetent and disorganized. There was no logical order to the placement of the books, and in order to find which cabinet any book might reside in, one had to consult the catalog—which sat on a lectern in the central library hall. Rosvita sighed.
In wrath, remember mercy.
No doubt her own faults were greater than those of the librarian.

As she crossed back through the warren of dark rooms, she saw a cloaked figure standing in the pale light afforded by a slit of a window high in one stone wall: one of the King's Eagles.

She paused in shadow and stared
—not at the young woman, for this Eagle was instantly recognizable for her height and coloring, but at what she was doing. Clerics took little notice of Eagles, who were recruited from the children of stewards, freeholders, artisans, or merchants. Clerics wrote the letters and capitularies and cartularies which were handed over, sealed, to the king's messengers. Eagles carried those messages; they did not read them.

Doos A very few, like the infamous Wolfhere, had been educated
—as had, evidently, this strange young person as well.

The young Eagle stood and, in light surely too dim for any human eyes to see finely written calligraphy,
read
a book. Her finger traced the lines of text and her lips moved, her profile framed by dust motes floating downward on the thin gleam of light. So intent was she on her reading that she remained oblivious to Rosvita's presence.

In the silence of Korvei Convent, where nuns communicated by hand signs, Rosvita had learned the trick of reading lips. She had even used this skill to learn things forbidden to novices. Now, curiosity piqued, she tried to puzzle out syllables and sound from the movements of the young woman's lips
—

—and was baffled. The Eagle read not in Wendish or in Dariyan, but in another language, one Rosvita could not "hear" through seeing. Where had such a young person learned to read? What on earth was she reading?

Rosvita glided softly out of the room, passed through an arch, and emerged into the library hall, blinking at the sudden shift in light. Here, at individual carrels, several nuns read. Cabinets stood along the walls, shut and latched. The catalog rested on a lecturn carved with owls peeking out from oak trees. It lay open. Rosvita skimmed the titles listed on the page: St. Peter of Aron's
The Eternal Geometry,
Origen's
De Principiis,
Ptolomaia's
Tetrabiblos,
Abu Ma'shar's
Zlj al-hazarat.

Rosvita blinked back amazement. Could it be this book that the girl read? She recognized the language, here transposed into Dariyan script, though she could not read Jinna herself. Did the girl claim Jinna ancestry, revealed in her complexion? Had she been trained to read the Jinna language? This was a mystery indeed. The young Eagle would bear watching.

Given the company it kept, the book appeared to be about matters astronomical. Surely even the librarian here, for all her faults, would catalog books about the weather
— which took place in the sky—near to those about the heavens. Rosvita flipped idly through the pages, searching for
what
she was not sure, but could find nothing that seemed to be what she wanted.

Distracted, she shrugged and stretched and examined the room. From here she could see into the scriptorium, where nuns and monks worked in silence writing correspondence and making copies of missals and old texts. The monastery had recently received from a sister institution six ancient papyrus scrolls written in Dariyan and Arethousan. These were being recopied onto parchment and bound into books.

Drawn by the light pouring in through the windows and the quiet murmur emanating from the scriptorium, Rosvita wandered past the cabinets and out under a wall set with arches into the scriptorium. Here some of the novices had assembled to observe the scribes at work
—work they would themselves be engaged in once they became monks. One restless boy, his hood slipped back to reveal curly red-gold hair and a pale freckled face, sidled up to the schoolmaster and made a hand sign:
Necessarium.
With obvious disgust, the schoolmaster signed assent. No doubt the poor boy had been consigned to the monastery against his will and now chafed at the discipline: Rosvita had seen such novices in her time at Korvei.

With a sudden and violent start she recognized the boy. Ivar had not yet been born when she entered Korvei Convent, and she had actually only met him on two occasions. Perhaps she was mistaken; perhaps this was not Ivar at all but merely a northcountry boy who resembled him in coloring. But their father, Count Harl, had written to her not six months ago telling her that Ivar was to be pledged as a novice at Quedlinhame. It had to be him.

Ivar hurried out of the scriptorium, not noticing Rosvita. But he went on into the library rather than going outside. And meanwhile, three other novices distracted the schoolmaster, asking him about a parchment laid on one of the desks. Clearly they meant him not to notice where Ivar had gone.

So Rosvita followed him.

He hurried through the library hall and vanished into the warren of dim rooms beyond. She entered cautiously and was quickly rewarded by the sound of voices, so soft that had she not been listening for them she might have thought it the sough of the wind heard through the windows. By listening for direction and sound, as the fulgutari were said to observe the movement of storms, she managed to creep close enough to overhear without being seen.

"But your vows
—

"I care nothing for my pledge! You know that. My father forced me to become a novice here, just because of
— Here he bit off a word. "I'm not like Sigfrid, I have no vocation. And I won't be like Ermanrich who resigned himself long ago—"

"But is it so easy to be released from that pledge? Ai, Lady. Ivar, I'm flattered
—"

"You don't want to marry me!"

Rosvita almost stumbled and gave herself away, but she had just enough presence of mind to lay a palm against the carven door of one of the cabinets: the same one, she noted with a dry smile, in which resided Isidora's
Etymologies.
She recognized the image carved into the oak door. It was St. Donna of Pens, the famed librarian of the first convent founded by St. Benedicta, holding scroll and quill pen. If only Quedlinhame's librarian had followed the good saint's example, this fine collection of books would not be arranged in such disorder.

Lady and Lord! Her little brother, now a novice, wanted to marry some unknown and unnamed woman! Their father would be furious.

"Ivar," said the unknown and unnamed woman in a calm voice. Her accent was slight but peculiar. "Ivar, listen to me. You know I have nothing, no kin
—

This was all it took, that he would become infatuated with a kinless woman! No wonder Count Harl had sent him to the monastery: to get him out of trouble.

"
—or none who know me. I have safety in the Eagles."-The Eagles!—"Surely you understand that I can't marry you unless you offer me that kind of safety."

The Eagle Rosvita had seen loitering in this chamber earlier had waited here for this very assignation! At that moment, groping as for a stone, Rosvita could not recall the young woman's name. Instead, the cleric leaned against the carved cabinet doors and settled herself for a long wait while she listened to her brother launch into an impassioned, if whispered, plea for love, marriage, indeed every part of the world which six months ago on entering Quedlinhame he had sworn to renounce forever.

I'LL leave the monastery," Ivar concluded. "We'll travel east and find service in the marchlands. There's always need for soldiers in the east
—"

"But don't you understand?" she said with fine disregard for his sincerity. Did she not think he could do what he pledged? Did she not understand that he would do
anything
for her? "Until you had such a place, until I was assured of such a place, I can't leave the Eagles. How can you ask me to?"

"Because I love you!"

She sighed, brushing a hand across her lips, breathing through her fingers. He wanted to kiss those fingers but dared not. After their first embrace
—in the privies—she had become, not cooler but more distant.

"I love you as well, but as a brother. I can't love you
—" Here the hesitation. "—in
that
way." Her second hesitation was longer and more profound. "I love another man."

"You love another!" Angry, he said the first name that came to his lips. "Hugh!"

She went still and cold and deathly rigid.

"Ai, Lord, forgive me, Liath. I didn't mean to say it. I know
—"

"It doesn't matter." She shook herself free. Dim light sifted in through the stout cabinets of books, books upon books upon books, so many that their weight alone felt like a pile of stones crushing him. Just as Liath's words crushed him. "This man's dead. I trust you, Ivar, but if it ever came to pass that all obstacles were put aside and we married, you must understand I could never love you in the way I loved him."

//. "If" sounded to Ivar like a very good word.

"Lady!" She rested a hand
—too briefly—on his shoulder. The warmth of her flesh burned him through his coarse robes. "I sound so selfish. But I'm alone in the world. I have to protect myself."

"No, / am here." He gripped her hand in his, the clasp of kinship. "I am always here. And Hanna is with you, surely." In the privies, he had not had time to ask about Hanna, only time to arrange this meeting
—only time to kiss her. He had dreamed of Liath last night and embarrassed himself in his sleep, but the others, Baldwin, Ermanrich, and Sigfrid, had helped him hide the traces.

"Hanna was sent south with Wolfhere, to escort Biscop Antonia
—" She shook her head, impatient with herself. "You wouldn't know about that. I beg you, Ivar, understand that—it's not just Hugh I need to be safe against. It's . . . it's other things, things that chased Da and me for years until they finally caught up and killed him, and I don't know
what
they are. Ai, Lady." She leaned forward, against him—but not to embrace him as he wished, only to whisper as if she feared the walls themselves, the books in their silent waiting, might hear. "Do you understand?"