In the Ruins (50 page)

The stairs took a sharp corner,
here
, which he remembered as clearly as if it had been yesterday. A spiderweb glistened, spun into a gap in the stones. He halted at the bottom of the stairs. A field of tombs faded into darkness. Beyond the halo of lantern light, it was utterly black.

“Liath?” he said softly, but there was no answer.

He waited, listening, but heard nothing. He smelled the aroma of clay and lime but no scent of oats. Instead, the fragrance of drying flowers brushed him. The bones of his Dragons had been thrown down into this holy place. In a way his old life, that of the King’s Dragon, Henry’s obedient son, had died here, too. The old Sanglant could not have taken on the regnant’s mantle despite Henry’s desire to raise him to that exalted state. It was Bloodheart’s captivity that had changed him. How strange were God’s ways!

“‘Be bound as I am by the fate others have determined for you,”’ she said.

“Liath!” He shifted the lantern, but he still could not see her. The pit of darkness had swallowed her.

“Do you remember?” she asked. “That’s what you said to me, that day.”

“I don’t remember saying it. I remember following you down here. God know I remember the day well enough. I died that day, or would have, if my mother hadn’t cursed me. And you lived.”

“I remember something else you said,” she added, and he heard amusement in her tone. She was laughing at him.

“What is that?”

“‘Down that road I dare not walk.”’

He laughed. “Not here among the holy dead, at least. But there is a cold bed waiting to be warmed if you’ll come with me.”

“Not tonight, beloved. It wouldn’t be right.”

“So you say. I’ll not ask again if it displeases you.”

“Nay, don’t scold me, Sanglant. I’m still reflecting on my sins. What do you think happened to Wolfhere?”

“What has that to do with your sins?”

“I’m not sure, but I feel sure there is a connection. Do you think he’s dead?”

“If he is, I will not mourn him overmuch, considering he tried to murder me when I was an infant. He was taken with Blessing, though. So much so that he tried to kidnap her.”

“Blessing said otherwise, so you also said.”

“That he protested against her being taken? She can’t be expected to have understood the whole.”

“Brother Zacharias ended up with Hugh. So I must wonder, where did Wolfhere end up? Will we ever know?”

“A mystery,” he agreed, but he was getting restless again. His legs had a way of getting twitchy when he needed to move. “Do you mean to stay down here all night?”

“The griffins have left.”

“What?”

“So I believe. They made their farewells, and flew east.”

“Why would they desert me now?” he demanded, thinking of Mother Scholastica’s words.

“Spring is come. They’ll want to rebuild their nest and mate.”

“So do all creatures! This one not least among them!”

She laughed but, infuriatingly, did not move forward to where he could see her. He thought he caught the fine scent of her now. He smelled the bouquets and wreaths that had surrounded her before: a tincture of violet, the earthy aroma of bracken, the comfort of woodruff and heal-all. She liked to wash her hair in water scented with lavender, to make it shine, and she had always a clean, dry smell about her that reminded him of the way stones smelled on a hot summer’s afternoon when the sun’s light has glared down on them all day. It was a good scent, an arousing scent.

“Go oh, Sanglant,” she said, as if she could feel his desire through the air, which perhaps she could. “I’m trying to find the tomb of St. Kristine of the Knives. I want to place all the offerings there, in thanks.”

“That was a miracle. She rose in a time of great need. You won’t find it tonight.”

“Maybe not. But I have to look.”

He knew enough of her now to know when she could not be swayed, and he respected her well enough to let it be as she wished. Even if it irritated him a little. Even if it made him think.

“God be with you on your search,” he said, and turned away to climb up the steps.

Outside, his escort waited. He caught them yawning.

“Your Majesty!”

“I have a wish to see the river gate.” He did not offer to let them return to their beds. He knew they would not go back to the palace without him.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” said Fulk, who seemed amused. Hathui hid another yawn behind a hand. The soldiers—tonight it was Sibold, Surly, Lewenhardt, and one of the new men, Maurits—set out with lanterns raised to illuminate their road.

Here in the square he had mounted for that last ride with his Dragons. Now he walked, like a penitent, along the path he and his soldiers had taken that day. Then, hooves had rapped. Tonight, footsteps tapped. The main avenue that led to the gate was still intact, paved entirely with stone. Then, the city had breathed with fear. Tonight,
only the wind stirred. All slept, sated with feasting or exhausted by standing in the streets for hours waiting to see the king and his fine procession and the grand ladies and lords and their entourages, so many visiting Gent that it must seem like a plague of nobles to the humble folk who must open their larders to feed them all.

Would the crops grow this season if there was no sun?

Could Liath learn the art of the tempestari in order to aid the kingdom?

If sorcery had created this disaster, then wasn’t it necessary for sorcery to be wielded to correct it? Surely that would be no sin. Surely it were better for the church to lift the prohibition against weather-working than for people to suffer and die. And yet, once begun, where did it end?

The avenue debouched into an open space before the eastern gate. When they had rebuilt the wall walk, they had put in steep wooden stairs in new locations, so it took them a little while, searching, to find their way up.

A lookout was built out over the gate. Two milites, guardsmen from Gent, turned to challenge him, then recoiled in surprise.

“Your Majesty!”

“Begging your pardon, Your Majesty!”

“Never mind it. It’s well you’re alert.” They moved back to let him look over the river and the eastern shore, although he saw only darkness.

“That is the future,” he said softly. “That which we cannot discern.”

Had he listened to Liath, that day when Bloodheart’s army struck, none of this would have happened. It was difficult to know which decisions were God’s will and which merely human choice, a mistake made in this case because he knew too little of her to trust that she might be able to see what others could not: that is, what is truth, and what the lie. In a way, he saw as little now as he had then on that day the Eika had used magic to deceive their human foes into opening the gates to their own destruction.

He wondered, sometimes, if Li’at’dano had known how vast a cataclysm the great weaving would create. If she had known that it would harm humankind as much as the Ashioi.
Had she encouraged the mages of ancient days to open the gates to their own destruction? To weave the tides that would overwhelm them?

He tasted the moisture of the river purling along below. Its tang tickled his nose.

“There’s more salt,” he said. “I can smell the tides.”

“Have you not taken a tour of the land hereabouts, Your Majesty?” asked the older guard.

“I have not. What would I see?”

“Terrible things,” muttered the lad.

“Here, now, boy, be quiet! Begging your pardon, Your Majesty.”

“Nay, you must tell me what you know and what you yourself witnessed.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“It was terrible!” exclaimed the lad. He shifted restlessly, mail rustling like the wind in dry leaves. “A great wave struck the shoreline. A score of fishing villages were wiped out, just like that, swept into the sea never to be seen again! I hadn’t any kinfolk there, but a fellow I know—he lost his entire family! Never saw them again! For seven days after the tempest, the river ran backward. It flooded fields all around the city.”

“With seawater?”

“With evil things—! Ow!”

The older man clipped the younger one on the head to silence him. “Nay, Your Majesty. He’ll tell you all manner of wild tales. This is what happened. The tempest made the land shake and the shoreline fall away. Or the sea fall. I don’t know which. You’ll see by daylight that there’s no seagoing boats drawn up on the strand below, as there used to be.”

“Indeed. Gent is known for its trade and its many workshops. The river seems to be flowing well enough.”

“So it appears, but the course changed.”

“It’s a league farther to the sea than it was before!” said the lad.

“How can that be?”

“Not a league, Your Majesty, but a good long way. There were two channels before. One wasn’t deep enough before
to take seagoing vessels. Now even the deeper channel dried up. Not even silted, just went dry. Boats couldn’t come through, it was a swamp, no more than an elbow deep. After the winter, the river cut a new path to the sea, many fingers but none of them deep. There’s talk of building a new port out by the shore where ships can put in, mayhap carting goods overland to Gent. Digging a canal. Yet if we lose our trade, I don’t know how the city will thrive.”

“There’s been no ships anyway,” said the lad. “None at all, and winter’s over and sailing season ought to have begun. The fishermen—those who survived—say the tides have changed and the winds are fierce out there. That it isn’t safe to be on the water. That creatures swim there that will tear boats into pieces with their claws and eat the men who fall into the water.”

“Whsst! Stop telling stories, boy!”

“Nay, let him speak, Grandfather. Stories may hold a grain of truth. Yet Gent seems prosperous.”

“As long as the stores hold out, Your Majesty. Biscop Suplicia and Lady Leoba are good stewards. I pray Lady Leoba will not go riding after the princess again, God save her, for she watched over us well enough and with the biscop’s aid set aside grain against famine. That’s what’s held us. Yet if there’s no crop and no trade this year …”

He could not go on.

“It would be God’s will,” muttered the lad. “Punishment for turning away from the truth of the phoenix.”

“Hush!” The old fellow slapped him in the head again.

“I did not know,” murmured Sanglant.

The wind came up suddenly out of the north, spilling over the parapet, rattling along the rooftops.

“Like that,” the old guard said. “A north wind like that, it never used to come this time of year. Weather’s changed. The winds aren’t the same as they was used to be, in the days before.”

“Everything’s changed,” whispered the lad, then hunched his shoulders, waiting for a blow that did not come.

“I did not realize the tides of destruction had washed so
high.” Sanglant leaned out over the wall, breathing in the murmur of the air. The night’s presence poured over him. The whole wide world lay beyond. It stretched to every horizon, covered in darkness, unseen and unknowable without moon or stars to light the land.

A battle might be fought and won in a day, but the ebb and flow of the sea and the heavens never ceased. What had been set in motion might not trough, or peak, for weeks or months or years. The riptide might already be dragging them under while they never knew they were drowning.

Out of the night a deep hoot trembled. Grit slipped under his sandals as he turned, trying to pinpoint the sound.

“Whsst!” said the old guard. “That’s an owl! Did you hear it?”

“Is that a good omen?” asked the lad plaintively. “Or an evil one?”

“I’ve not seen feather or beak of a bird these last months,” the old man said, then shrieked and ducked as a huge owl skimmed out of the darkness right over their heads and with a graceful plummet came to roost on the wall. Its massive claws dug into the wood. By lantern light, its amber eyes gleamed boldly, seeming lit from within. The light set off the streaks of white on its breast and the tufted ears.

“What is this?” asked Sanglant.

It blinked.

“Where is your mistress?” he demanded.

But all he heard was the wind.

PART FOUR

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE WORLD’S BEGINNING