In the Ruins (49 page)

Mother Scholastica came forward to meet him and, together with the most noble biscops, escorted him into the cathedral.

In the years since the defeat of Bloodheart, Gent had prospered. The stone cathedral had survived better than many of the wooden buildings. All the broken windows had been repaired and the interior restored, repainted, and refurnished with holy vessels on the Hearth. Only the stone pillars still bore the scars of the Eika occupation. Stone angels lacked a wing; gargoyles leered out of a single eye; beakless eagles flew silently. He paused in front of the altar beside the chain fixed into the stone with an iron spike. Here, in this spot, he had been chained. As the company gathered about him, he stared at those heavy links, but they no longer had power to disturb him. He placed the fragile bouquet on the chain to remind him of Count Lavastine, who had freed him from his prison, and the nameless Eika prince who had let them go without a fight.

When everyone was in place and as much quiet as could be expected in such an assembly was gathered, he knelt. The rush of their kneeling was like the thunder of wings, echoing up into the vault.

Mother Scholastica produced from her sleeve an ivory comb studded with gold and gems. With this, she combed out his newly cut hair. The biscop of Gent brought forward a vial of holy oil. His aunt anointed him with a touch: on the right ear, from forehead to left ear, and on the crown of his head. The oil’s scent swamped him. The humble oil of olives had been liberally mixed with frankincense and myrrh to produce a profound aroma.

“May Our Lord and Lady crown you with the crown of glory,” his aunt intoned, “may They anoint you with the oil of Their favor.”

Theophanu and Ekkehard draped a cloak trimmed with ermine over his shoulders. The dragon of Saony, the eagle of Fesse, and the lion of Avaria graced its expanse, embroidered in gold thread. This cloak had been worn by the first Henry and put aside into storage by Arnulf when he took Varre’s royal family into his own house. It still reeked
of cloves, having been stored with great care for all these years. Henry’s royal cloak had vanished in the south.

“The borders of this cloak trailing on the ground shall remind you that you are to be zealous in the faith and to keep peace. Let it remind you of the royal lineage out of which you spring.”

She gave into his hands Henry’s battered and scarred scepter. “Receive this staff of virtue. May you rule wisely and well. Crown him, God, with justice, glory, honor, and strong deeds.”

As a wind sweeps across a forest as with a voice, a murmur greeted this pronouncement. Out of the assembly, all the way back by the doors, a man’s voice rose.

“May the King live forever!”

A shiver of foreboding made tears rise in Sanglant’s eyes, but the crowd had already raised its voice to acclaim him, and those in the square and streets beyond shouted and sang as well, heard as a distant echo.

Right behind him someone coughed.

Ekkehard muttered, “My feet hurt. I’ve been standing for hours.”

Psalms must be sung. Each biscop and prince and noble must come before him to kiss his ring and make known that they, each one, accepted his authority to rule. So it would go in every important town his progress stopped at as they rode west into Varre. So it would go for the rest of his life. Time, at least, was neither male or female. He did not desire death. He could wait, truly, for a good long time before he must embrace it, as every mortal creature must. But he hoped that Time would not abandon him. Yet if it was the Lord and Lady’s will that each soul spin out a certain length of thread upon Earth, had his mother’s curse then shielded him from Their touch? Surely not. His mother was not as powerful as God’s will, even if she did not believe in Them.

That thought struck him all at once as he spoke words and greeted and nodded and looked each person in the eye to mark the honesty of their gaze. What did his mother believe in? How did the Ashioi explain the existence of the world? What did they worship?

Surely Liath knew.

“Your Majesty.” Waltharia knelt before him, her expression solemn. She nodded to show her approval. The gesture reminded him uncannily of her father, who had a habit of nodding in just such a way, with a slight twist to the chin.

Shouts and frantic cries drifted in from outside. They lifted into screams, a chaos of fear that rolled into the church.

“Your Majesty! Come quickly!”

“Save us, Your Majesty!”

He leaped up. Wearing robe and crown and still carrying the staff, he strode down the nave. The train of the robe swept the floor behind him. The crowd parted to let him through, although there was a bottleneck at the doors where terrified people from outside tried to press into the sanctuary.

“Make way! Make way!” cried his soldiers.

He knew their voices. They did not sound afraid.

He had glimpsed them sporadically on the march east. They spent most of their time hunting. Now they circled low, waiting for the square to clear before they swooped down to land next to the steps. Liath had risen. Folk scattered into the avenues and alleys of Gent, fleeing the monsters. A few foolhardy youths wavered at the edge of the square, measuring the response of his soldiers, who instead of fleeing had merely moved back to leave room for the griffins. Others crowded onto the porch of the church. Many cowered inside.

He strode out onto the steps.

The griffins hit hard and not particularly gracefully. Argent
whuffed
and spread his wings discontentedly. A handful of sharp wing feathers drifted down. Domina raised and lowered her gleaming head, bobbing up and down, stalking back and then forward. Her movements had the quality of a dance. At intervals she shrieked, and when she had done, she crouched and sprang into flight. The backdraft of her flight stirred his robes. Liath’s hair was swept back, then settled, as the two griffins circled once, twice, rising higher, before they caught an updraft and rose dizzyingly.
Soon they were only specks climbing toward the clouds.

“They’ll talk about this ever after,” remarked Waltharia, coming up beside him. Her voice trembled. Like the others, she had never become easy around the griffins, even though usually they kept their distance from all large habitations of humankind.

The others surged out after her, chattering as they stared and pointed. Because of his presence on the steps, the townsfolk crept back into the square to see him standing before them robed and crowned in the vestments of kingship.

“You have powerful allies,” said Mother Scholastica, who let no earthly creature frighten her. “The griffin is a heavenly creature that partakes of the nature of an eagle, a lion, and the serpent, who is sometimes also called a dragon. In this way, it reminds us of Wendar. Yet I wonder what this display portends?” She looked up at the sky, squinting as she attempted to trace the dwindling figures.

“What do you think it portends, Aunt?”

She measured him. “Some will say that this is a sign of God’s favor.”

“And what will others say?”

“That you are ruled by sorcery. Your legitimacy will always be in question, Sanglant. Do not believe otherwise.”

“You crowned and anointed me.”

“So the griffins remind me. Yet they may not always remain with you.” She looked toward Liath. “Choose your alliances wisely.”

Gent’s biscop, Suplicia, came up beside them, shaking her head in wonderment. “Griffins! It is a sign of God’s favor.”

A woman broke free of the gathering crowd and climbed the steps to kneel before Biscop Suplicia.

“I pray you, Your Grace, let me speak. I am an honest and loyal merchant in this town.”

“I know who you are, Mistress Weaver,” said the biscop kindly. “You are bold to throw yourself forward at such a solemn time. Remember, this is the king.”

Robes and crown were a fine thing because they allowed him to remain silent and keep his distance, shielded by the aura of majesty.

She looked at him but only nodded. What had once passed between them had left nothing more than a fleeting memory in her expression. She had moved on. Indeed, she looked indignant as she bent her head humbly and spoke before the church women.

“I pray you, Holy Mother. Your Grace. Your Majesty. Many among us have wondered this day why a woman who has served God so well must kneel outside this holy place as a penitent. I speak of this woman, the Eagle. Know this, there are many here who were themselves saved or who have children or cousins or kinfolk who were saved because St. Kristine of the Knives chose to appear before that one. The blessed saint chose that woman to lead the children of Gent to a place of safekeeping. Why is she dishonored and humbled in this way?”

“You trouble me with your bold speaking, Mistress,” said Mother Scholastica sternly. “What means this?”

“Nay, it is true, although I did not witness the event myself,” said Biscop Suplicia. “It is a story told throughout the city by those who survived the Eika. If this is that same Eagle, then there must be many here who will be willing to speak. If you allow it, Your Majesty.”

“I see the strategy unfold,” said Mother Scholastica, glancing at her nephew and again at Liath, who had not moved since the departure of the griffins. “You knew this would happen.”

“I hoped it would,” he replied.

The handsome Suzanne kept her gaze lowered, but she heard him. “Many will speak if they are allowed, Your Majesty,” she said without looking at him. “Your Holiness, I beg you.” She lifted her right hand. A dozen worthy and prosperous-looking people ventured forward from the crowd and knelt on the steps below her.

“I am called Gerhard, of the tanners, Your Holiness. I know of fourteen young people whose lives were saved by this woman.”

“I am called Gisela, of Steleshame, Your Holiness. I witness that many took refuge in my steading who were saved by the intervention of the saint through this woman.”

“I am called Karl, Your Holiness. I am a blacksmith …”

So they went on, a solemn procession of sober-minded responsible folk who, by the work of their hands, had caused Gent to prosper in the years after the Eika invasion. The most noble abbess and biscops and church folk heard them out. As they spoke, one by one, others, more humble, crept forward from the crowd to place flowers and wreaths at Liath’s feet before scuttling away as though they feared lightning might strike. They spoke softly to her, but he could hear them because his hearing was as keen as a dog’s.

“Do you remember me?” they would whisper.

“This is my brother. He and I—we remember you, Eagle.”

“God praise you, Eagle.”

“I followed you out through the crypt. Lady save you, Eagle.”

It was this crowd, more than that of the prosperous merchants and artisans, that attracted Sanglant’s notice, a tide of common laborers and craftsmen, most of them very young. Fully half of them wore at their necks crudely fashioned necklaces from which hung two charms: the Circle of Unity and a flowering bird. He knew the symbol. He had seen representations of it elsewhere, carved in similar manner.

It was a phoenix.

IT was late. The feast had ground on for hours, pleasantly enough. The beggars had eaten a most noble portion. Bread had been passed out to the multitudes waiting outside the mayor’s palace. Sanglant retired after the singing,
but he could not sleep and so pulled on his tunic, laced up his sandals, and slipped back into the great hall with Hathui and Fulk padding at his heels.

Dogs slept in the rushes. Beggars snored beneath trestle tables. What else stank in the hall he did not care to identify. It would be swept out at dawn in preparation for tomorrow’s second feast.

“Where do you mean to go, Your Majesty?”

He threw his cloak over his shoulders.

Hathui did not ask again after he did not reply, but a look was exchanged between her and the captain. Four soldiers appeared, two bearing lamps, and followed him as he went outside. As always, the sky was dark. No moon or stars shone down on them. The light of the lanterns rippled over the courtyard as he walked to the palace gates, once shattered and now rebuilt. Gent would always haunt him. He had suffered too much here. Like the buildings, he had scars, but he had prospered nevertheless.

Beyond the palace gates he walked the cold streets. It was dark and dank, and his feet slopped in mud. In the handful of years since Bloodheart’s ouster there had been time to rebuild walls and residences but not yet the plank walkways that had once kept men’s feet out of the muck.

Wind moaned through eaves. A smattering of rain kissed his face. All the smells of the city drifted on that night air: offal and sewage, fermenting barley and rancid chicken broth, the rank savor of the tannery and the slumbering iron tang of the blacksmith’s forge. The old marketplace had been reconstructed as a row of artisan compounds. The old mint was still a ruin, a jumble of charred pilings and shards of lumber too badly burned and broken to be scavenged for other buildings. Eyes shone in lamplight, and feral dogs growled as he and his escort passed. He growled back. They slunk away into the shelter of overhangs and collapsed walls.

“Amazing they haven’t been killed,” said Fulk. “I’d think it would be good sport for the lads in the town to hunt them out, vermin like that.”

“No doubt they’ve tried,” replied Hathui. “It’s hard to kill them all.”

The central square of Gent opened before them. The soldiers swept the lantern light in swathes across the stones, but the square was empty. Everyone had gone home or found lodging. They mounted the steps, but these, too, were deserted. A single flower petal lay forgotten on stone. Otherwise, every wreath and bouquet brought here earlier had vanished.

“Where is Liath?” He took a lantern. “Wait here.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Fulk, but he looked at Hathui as with a question, and she nodded back at him, and abruptly Sanglant wondered if there was some deeper intimacy going on between those two.

Never mind it. He was not the right person to judge.

Folk slept restlessly in the nave. Once, years ago, refugees had gathered here. This group were commoners who, having walked in from outlying areas to witness the anointing and crowning of the regnant, had no other place to stay before they set out for the journey back to their homes in the morning. He kept the lantern held low so none would mark him, and made his way to the stairs that led down to the crypt.