In the Ruins (57 page)

“Here, now,” he said, lifting a hand to get her attention.

But she was already descending along the curve of the stair with the cold stone wall brushing her shoulder and the bucket dangling over air as soon as she cleared the plank flooring. It was quite dark, but she knew the feel of the wall and the angle of each step by now. She could have gone down with her eyes closed, and indeed she paused partway down, in the shadows, and closed her eyes, because she heard voices.

The tower rose in levels, with the deepest chamber dug
out of the earth and markedly colder than the ground floor and the other rooms stacked above. The space below was used to store beans and onions, and here also three small cells had been bricked in. From her place on the stairs, with the dampening of sound and the lack of any footsteps clomping above, she heard them speaking in low voices. One of those voices was familiar to her; the other had a strange, enchanting timbre that seemed to stick her feet right where they were so that she didn’t dare, or want, to move.

“You cannot escape because Antonia controls the galla.”

“I do not fear the galla.”

“You should.”

“Perhaps.”

“Then why do you not escape? If you can, why don’t you?”

“Is that not obvious? I have those to whom I am responsible. If they cannot run, then I cannot run.”

“Thus meaning, you cannot protect them from the galla. Is it Princess Blessing, or Conrad’s daughter, who holds you here?”

“Why can it not be both?”

“I heard the story once that you tried to drown Prince Sanglant, when he was an infant.”

“It’s a story that has been told many times, and on occasion in my hearing.”

“An interesting tale, and if true, a shame you did not succeed. Although it might make a man wonder what allegiance holds you to Princess Blessing. Is it her father you seek to serve? Her mother? Anne’s tangled weaving, still to be obeyed? Or do you merely have a weakness for these caged birds?”

“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.