In the Ruins (18 page)

Rosvita gestured for the others to halt. She ventured forward cautiously with Diocletia beside her. The nun paused to pick up a spear, and Hilaria and Aurea hurried up beside her to gather up the rest. They walked softly, but even so, the person seemed utterly lost not to have heard their approach. They halted a body’s length from her—it was now obvious it was a woman—and Diocletia moved sideways so that if the woman was armed and dangerous she might not strike them both dead with one blow. How had it come to this, that a holy nun should think like a soldier, weighing tactics? Was this to be the fate of all humankind in the weeks and months to come?

“Friend,” said Rosvita in Arethousan, as gently as she knew how. “We will not harm you.”

At first, she gained no response. But at last that dark head stirred and a woman raised a tearstained face to stare at her with an expression of such hopelessness that Rosvita felt tears in her own eyes drawn out by that naked anguish.

She was stunned as she recognized the other woman. “Your Highness,” she said in Wendish. “I am Sister Rosvita. Do you remember me? Where is King Geza?”

“I divorce you,” said the princess, each word formed so precisely that it seemed she was repeating a phrase spoken by someone else. Her gaze was bleak, and her hands were dirty, as if she had been digging.

“Are you alone, Your Highness?”

Sapientia’s laugh was that of a madwoman, quickly cut off. “A prince without a retinue is no prince!”

“We are your retinue, Your Highness.”

Sapientia stared at her for a long time without answering. Rosvita began to doubt the princess had heard her.

Fortunatus crept up beside Rosvita and leaned to whisper in her ear. “There is no one left, Sister. She’s been abandoned, just as we were.” He sounded as shocked as she felt. “She is King Henry’s daughter! What will we do?”

“We must take her with us.”

A robed person swept past them and heedlessly knelt down within range of the princess. “Come, little lamb,” she said in Dariyan. “You’ve strayed far, but we’ll take care of you now.”

It was Sister Petra. Her expression was calm, almost blank, but her voice had a soothing gentleness. If Princess Sapientia understood her coaxing, spoken as it was in Dariyan, she made no sign, but she allowed herself to be helped to stand, she allowed herself to be herded along without protest. She said not one word more as they made their way through the wreckage of the camp, always moving upslope and away from the distant ocean, until they came at long last to a pine wood whose sparse canopy gave them a measure of shelter as the light changed and became rather more dense. Night was coming on, although a glow remained in the sky, painting the heavens a deathly orange-red. They rigged up a serviceable shelter and dined sparingly on a stew of leeks and turnips flavored with a bay leaf and cooked over an open fire in the kettle they had found in the deserted camp.

“We are well set for a hike in the woods,” said Fortunatus, attempting levity although there wasn’t much to be had.

Rosvita smiled gratefully at him. They had a single spoon, which they passed around between them to eat out of the kettle. “We have provisions, and freedom. It is more than we had before.”

“Best be grateful for each least blessing God grant us,” agreed Mother Obligatia. She was so tiny and so frail that the power of her voice always amazed Rosvita. She was actually sitting up for the first time in many days, as if the terrible night had strengthened her.

Her words awoke someone else. Sapientia had let the spoon pass by without acknowledging that it, or anything, existed. She had walked in a trance, pressed along by the constant attentions of Sister Petra, whose entire being was
focused on her helpless charge. The glow of the fire painted shadows on the princess’ face, making of her a mask whose expression could not be fathomed because it was so empty. But the mask spoke.

“A prince without a retinue is no prince,” she repeated.

Rosvita knelt beside her. “We are your retinue, Your Highness.”

After a long silence, Sapientia turned her head and looked straight at the cleric, although Rosvita at first wasn’t sure the princess knew who she was. Behind her, Jerome slurped at the spoon.

“You love my father, Sister Rosvita,” Sapientia said.

“I love him and serve him, Your Highness.”

“Do you love me, Sister?”

“Nay, child, not in the same way. I have known your father for a very long time. He has my heart, but you have my loyalty. I will not abandon you.”

Sapientia slammed fists into the ground and again, and again. “Not like all the others! My father! Bayan! Sanglant! The Pechanek mothers! Geza! Every one of them deserted me!” The storm broke over her. She sobbed in great heaves, trembling all over. Petra stroked her shoulders, murmuring words that made no sense, and after a while the princess calmed.

Wind crackled through limbs. Among the trees a branch snapped and crashed down to the ground. Otherwise it was so quiet. Too quiet. They had seen no birds all day. No telltale rustling marked the comings and goings of the little nocturnal creatures who ought to be scuttling about their nightly rounds.

Sapientia’s reaction was such a brief window, opened to show a light within and perhaps soon to be shut. Rosvita had to ask, although she feared the answer.

“Your Highness. Did you see Hanna? The Eagle who was with us?”

Sapientia did not raise her head. Her voice was hoarse and ugly. “She’s dead.”

“Ai, God,” Rosvita whispered. “You saw her dead? You saw her body?”

Sapientia refused to answer, only stared at the ground.

“What will we do?” they asked, one by one, all but Mother Obligatia.

“I should never have let her go off alone!”

“Nay, Sister,” said Mother Obligatia, scolding her. “The Eagle did what she had to do. That was her duty. She knew it was dangerous.”

Guilt burned. Rosvita thought of Hanna as one of her charges, now that they had traveled so far together. She could not find any ease in her heart by prating about duty. She rose and paced around the fire, examining each one who had followed her so far: Mother Obligatia with her ancient sorrows and dangerous past; the abbess’ three stout attendants in the persons of Diocletia, Hilaria, and the lay sister Teuda; poor Petra, now cooing and stroking the unresponsive Princess Sapientia; Rosvita’s faithful servant Aurea, with her strong arm and steady head; that gaggle of young clerics who admired her far too well, timid Gerwita, stubborn Heriburg, clever Ruoda, and the two young men, Jerome and Jehan, still youths in so many ways. Last of all, she met the gaze of the one who was her secret strength: Brother Fortunatus. He nodded at her. He would never waver.

“We rest as well as we can, for we will need our strength. It seemed to me that the light was better in the east, but that way lies Arethousa. Unless tomorrow brings an unexpected change, we must try our luck to the northwest. We must try to reach Wendar. God help us.”

God help me
, she thought, as they made ready to rest on the cold ground, arranging cloaks and canvas and blankets over themselves, a jumble of treasures they had salvaged out of the camp. They had provisions to last for perhaps five days.
God help me, I pray you. I do not want to lose another one
.

Out in the forest, a twig snapped. All of them looked up, startled and anxious. They waited, but no further noise beyond that of the wind rattling in the boughs disturbed the evening silence.

“What if there are bandits, Sister Rosvita?” asked Gerwita. Her voice was so soft it almost vanished under the
sound of the wind. “We have no weapons to defend ourselves. We can’t use those spears.”

The girl looked scared. The others stared at Rosvita, waiting for her answer.

She caught Fortunatus’ gaze. He smiled bravely.

“We have our wits, child. Let us pray they are weapon enough.”

“LOOK, Your Excellency. Can that be Darre?”

The soldier shifted impatiently as his comrade led Antonia’s mule the last few paces to the top of the ridge. From this vantage point the plain of Dar could usually be seen in all its glorious expanse: the river, the towers rising on the palace rock, the domes of the two great cathedrals, the manifold streets as twisty as the Enemy’s minions, the western hills that blocked the path to the sea, the thousand fields on which the ancient city had first taken root and grown into an empire.

Antonia’s eyes hadn’t stopped stinging since that awful night when the wind had torn the thatch off the cottage in which she sheltered, and ash had started to fall. She rubbed them now as they halted.

“God help us,” added the soldier, voice choked. “The western hills are all on fire. And the plain of Dar—look!”

“I see nothing,” said his companion.

It was a foul soup of air, like the congealed breath of the Enemy: smoke and brimstone, the stench of the Pit. For the space of one breath, a shift in the wind stripped the worst
layer of haze off the land and she glimpsed the distant towers and walls of Darre before they were swallowed up again in the fog.

“We must descend,” she said, and she heard the two guards whistle hard between teeth. They were frightened because they were weak, although they had guarded her faithfully enough on their journey. She had lost count of the days.

“Who knows what kind of creatures might be lurking down there in that smoke,” said the taller one, called Focas. “They could have claws as long as my arm. They might rip us to pieces.”

“God will protect us,” said Antonia. “Have we not met dangers? Have we not survived?”

Pietro spoke less but said more that was to the point. “What if we can’t breathe that fouled air?”

“We must go down,” repeated Antonia. “We must reach Tivura, to see if the princesses have survived. As for the rest, I fear God have punished the wicked most decisively.”

The soldiers looked at each other, a glance that excluded her, as they had always excluded her. They served her faithfully, it was true, but out of loyalty to Empress Adelheid. Still, no matter how irritating it was that they could not recognize her worth and God’s favor, she endured it because she had to, because it was another test thrown in her path. God honored the righteous, but They did not always spare them trouble and ingratitude.

“The princesses,” said Pietro. “That’s what the empress would want.”

Focas nodded. “The princesses,” he agreed. “We must see if they can be rescued, if they are indeed trapped down there, although we must hope they are not. If their stewards have any wits about them at all, which I doubt, they would have fled to a safe place.”

“No one can flee God’s wrath,” said Antonia sternly. “There are those who have done what they ought not.” She gestured toward the hazy landscape below. “Thus are they rewarded with chastisement and death.”

Focas rubbed his forehead, looking anxious.

Pietro hefted his spear. “No use waiting.”

They started down the road, which was utterly deserted although the day wasn’t far gone. It was difficult to measure the hours because the cloud cover never lifted and the light had a sameness to it that made noon seem like twilight and morning no different than afternoon. Ash squeaked under their feet. Pebbles rolled and crackled, and more than once Focas or Pietro slipped and, swearing, caught themselves before they fell. Fortunately, the mule was a sure-footed creature, stolid and companionable and not particularly stubborn.

As they descended, the light changed and deepened to a queer yellow fog that painted their skin the color of parchment. The hollows of their eyes darkened until the two soldiers looked like walking corpses as they strode along. Down and down they walked, as into the Pit. The world had emptied. They saw no one and no thing. Even the grass had withered into dry stalks. Now and again they crossed a stream running down from the circling heights, but a sour taste choked the water although they forced it down anyway. It sat heavily in parched stomachs. Antonia felt sick. Her head pounded and her throat burned. Each breath scraped as she wheezed along.

In time twilight faded to night. They set up camp off the road but not so far that they would lose sight of it and thus find themselves lost in the morning. The mule ate its lean dinner; they had only two days of grain left and certainly there was little enough to graze. They had bread and cheese and wine for themselves. The soldiers took turns on guard duty. She slept on her cloak under a canvas lean-to. She did not mind the hardship, although her old bones ached and her head never stopped hurting.

At dawn Pietro hissed. “Focas! Rouse you! Do you hear that?”

She rose and came to stand beside them, fingering the amulet at her chest.

She heard the jingle, too, and touched each man on the elbow. “Stand you as still as mice when the owl swoops. Say nothing.”

They, too, wore amulets, as did the mule. She had woven
them with her own hands out of wolfsbane and turnsole, and still nursed blisters on her palms and fingers.

The procession emerged out of the haze: a line of sobbing, hacking, coughing men and women coffled in a line and guarded by a crew of men who in another life might have been soldiers as honorable as the ones who stood on either side of her. The soldiers wore cloth tied over mouths and noses to protect themselves from the air. The prisoners had nothing but the rags on their backs. A few were naked. As they shuffled past, she counted them: eight, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four. Over one hundred in all, a remnant.