PROLOGUE (17 page)

"What?" asked Hathui. Liath shook her head, not answering. "Hanna said Ivar loved you," Hathui added in an altered tone of voice. "Do you feel guilt for it still, that Prater Hugh condemned him to a life as a monk though it was no wish of the boy's? Only because he interfered with what Hugh wanted?"

"Hanna told you a great deal," said Liath, voice choked. "We are friends. As you and I might be, but you are such a strange, distant creature, more like a fey spirit than a woman
—" Hathui broke off, not because she wished to avoid offending Liath—Hathui said what she meant and intended no offense by it—but because they had reached the king. King Henry caught sight of Hathui and indicated with a gesture that she should walk behind him as they
proceeded into the church. Liath stumbled over her own feet and hurried to catch up, not knowing where else to walk except behind Hathui. In the midst of so many fine nobles she could nurse her pain in private because, to the noble lords and ladies, she was merely an appendage of the king, like his crown or scepter or throne, not a real living person they had to take any notice of. She was simply an Eagle, a messenger to be dispatched at the king's whim.

Hanna had every right to tell Hathui whatever she wished, had every right to count Hathui as a friend. Wolfhere and Hathui and poor dead Manfred
—the three Eagles who had rescued her from Hugh—surely knew or guessed the truth of her relationship to Hugh, knew that he had kept her warm in his bed though he was a holy frater and dedicated to the church, that he had gotten her with child and then beaten her nearly to death for defying him, after which beating she had miscarried. In the end, worn down by exhaustion and fear, she had given him
The Book of Secrets
and all it represented: her submission to him.

Only the arrival of Wolfhere and his two companion Eagles had saved her.
They
had rescued her from Hugh; she had not truly escaped him. Liath glanced up at Hathui's sturdy back, she who walked directly behind the king. Hathui had not once treated Liath with disrespect or scorned her, even knowing she had been a churchman's slave and concubine. Hathui might be only a freeholder's daughter, but the freeholders of the marchlands were notoriously proud. The king himself had seen fit to bestow on Hathui his favor. In the four months Liath had ridden with the king's progress, she had seen how Hathui was called frequently to the king's side, how he now and again asked her advice on some matter. This was indeed a signal honor for a woman born of common farmers.

Yes, Hanna had every right to count Hathui as a friend. But that endless niggling fear pricked at Liath: What if Hanna came to prefer Hathui? What if she loved Liath the less for liking Hathui more? It was a weak, unkind thought, both toward Hanna and toward Hathui. Liath could even now hear what Da would say were he alive to hear her confess such a thing:
"A rosebush can give more than one bloom each season."

But Da was dead. Murdered. And Hanna was all she had left. She wanted so desperately not to lose her. 'Wo
use fretting about the donkey,"
Da would say,
"when he's safe inside the shed and you've loose chickens to save from the fox."

At that moment Hathui glanced back at her and gave her a reassuring smile. They entered the church. It was surprisingly light inside the nave, a long lofty space with a wooden ceiling made of a checkerboard of crossbeams. A double row of arched windows set high in the wall, well above the decorative columns that lined the nave, admitted this light. The party walked forward solemnly so that Henry and his sister could kneel before the Hearth. Liath admired the parallel rows of columns, two round columns alternating with every square one to form the central nave. Eagles and dragons and lions adorned the capitals, carved cunningly into stone; these symbols of power served to remind visitors and postulants alike whose authority reigned here, second only to God in Unity. The floor was paved in pale yellow-and-dun granite. She tried, superstitiously, not to step on any of the cracks seaming the blocks into a larger whole.

The king mounted the steps at the far end of the nave and knelt before the Hearth. Liath knelt with the others, many of whom perforce had to get down on their knees on the stairs in all manner of awkward positions. Her knee captured the trailing end of Hathui's cloak so that the poor woman could not kneel forward comfortably, but it had become so very quiet in the church that Liath dared not shift even enough to loosen the cloak from her weight.

Mother Scholastica said a prayer over the Hearth to which the assembled nobles murmured rote responses. Liath could not keep her eyes from the Hearth, where a sparkling reliquary cut entirely from rock crystal and formed into the shape of a falcon rested next to Mother Seholastica's hand. Beside the reliquary stood a book so studded in gems and coated with gold leaf that it seemed of itself to emanate light.

Blessed and sanctified, King Henry rose, shook off his cloak into the hands of a waiting servant, and beckoned to Hathui and his two most trusted advisers: the crippled margrave, Helmut Villam, and the cleric, Rosvita of Korvei. Hathui beckoned to Liath, and the two Eagles hastened to follow these notables as they descended the stairs and exited the church by a smaller door that led into quarters reserved for the mother abbess and her servants.

In an insignificant room just off the abbess' private cloister, King Henry knelt beside the low bed on which his mother lay. He kissed her hands in greeting, as any son gives his mother the honor due her. "Mother."

She touched his eyes gently. "You have been weeping, my child. What is this grief for? Do you still mourn the boy?"

He hid his face even from her, but not for long. A mother's demands must be acknowledged. At last he set his face against the coarse wool blanket
—fit for a common nun but surely not for a queen—and wept his sorrow freely while the others turned their gazes away.

They had all knelt in emulation of the king. Liath, at the back, studied their faces. Hathui stared steadily at the rough flagstone floor of the cell, her expression one of mingled pity and respect. The old margrave, Helmut Villam, wiped a tear from his own cheek with his remaining hand. Mother Scholastica frowned at the display
—not at the sight of a grown man crying, for of course the ability to express grief easily and compassionately was a kingly virtue, but at the excessive grief Henry still carried with him at the death of a son who was, after all, only a bastard. The cleric had no expression Liath could read on her intelligent face, but she glanced Liath's way, as if she had felt her gaze upon her, and Liath looked down at once.
"Don't let them notice you,"
Da had always said.
"Safety lies in staying hidden."
"Now, child," the old queen was saying to Henry. Though her body was weak and her voice tremulous, her spirit clearly had not quailed under the burden of her illness. "You will dry these tears. It has been half a year since the boy died—and an honorable death he had, did he not? It is time to let him go. Is this not the eve of hallowing? Let him go so that his spirit may ascend, as it must, through the seven spheres to come to rest at last in the blessed Chamber of Light. You bind his soul to this world with your grief."

"These are heathen words," said Mother Scholastica abruptly. "It is a heathen holy day, is it not, though we have given it a Daisanite name?" retorted the queen. Married young, she had borne at least two of her ten children before she was Liath's age, or so Liath calculated. She was at most fourteen years older than Henry, who was her eldest child. Her hair, uncoifed in the privacy of her cell, had a few brown strands still woven in among the white. Whatever sickness ravaged her came not only from the assault of time but also from a more physical malady. "We speak of Hallowing Eve still and pray to all the saints on these days when the great tides of the heavens bring the living and the dead close together
—bring them so close that we might even touch, if our eyes were open."

Liath caught in a sob. As she listened to the old queen speak, she recalled Da so vividly that it was almost as if she could
see
him standing beside her, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye.

"It is a form of respect," continued the old woman, "that I think God will not begrudge us."

Mother Scholastica bowed her head obediently, for although she was mistress of Quedlinhame and Mother over all the nuns, including Mathilda, she was at the same time this woman's daughter. Mathilda had been queen once and was a powerful woman still, queen by title though she no longer sat upon a throne.

"Henry, you must let him go, or he will wander here forever, trapped by your grief."

"What if he can't die as we do?" asked Henry in a rasping voice. "What if his mother's blood forbids him entrance to the Chamber of Light? Is he then doomed to wander as a shade on this earth forever? Are we never to be reunited in the blessed peace of the Light?"

"That is for Our Lord and Lady to judge," said Mother Scholastica sternly, "not for us to trouble ourselves over. Many books were written by the ancients on this question
— whether the Lost Ones had souls—but this is not the time or place to debate that issue. Come, Henry. You are tiring
our mother."

"No," said the old queen. "I am not tired. If you speak to me of your grief, Henry, perhaps that will ease it." She looked up, her gaze sharper than Liath had expected from a bedridden woman. "Villam is here."

It struck Liath suddenly that Helmut Villam was as old as Queen Mathilda. Despite his crippling injury, he had far more vigor, the energy of a much younger person. The margrave came forward, kissed her hand, then retired to the door. The queen acknowledged Rosvita next, clasped the cleric's hands in her own in the sign of fealty. "My
History?"
she asked with a gentle smile. "How does it progress?"

The cleric's smile in answer was brief but sweet. "I hope to complete the First Book this year, Your Majesty, so that you may have it read to you 'and learn of the illustrious deeds of the first Henry and his son, the elder Arnulf."

"Do not tarry too long, my sister, for your words interest me greatly, and I fear I have not too many more days upon this earth."

Rosvita bowed her head, touching her forehead to the old queen's wrinkled hands. Then she stood and retreated.

"Who are these?" the old woman asked, looking at the two Eagles.

Henry glanced back. At first he appeared surprised. Then he registered Hathui. "My faithful Eagle," he said wryly. He looked beyond Hathui
—Liath flinched when his powerful gaze focused on
her.
For an instant it was like Hugh's gaze, penetrating, absolute; like the strike of lightning, it could obliterate her. But Henry only marked her and looked away without further interest. "This other Eagle was at Gent. Together with Wolfhere she witnessed the destruction of the Dragons and the death of—" His voice broke, unable to speak the name of his dead son.

"Together with Wolfhere," said the queen thoughtfully, as if the name meant something to her. Liath stared at the gray stone, at its uneven surface and rough grade. No polished marble or fine granite blocks graced this common nun's cell. "Come forward, child."

One did not disobey a queen, even one who now professed to be a nun, not when she used
that
tone of voice. Liath hooked a foot under her body, stood, took seven small steps forward, and knelt again. Only then did she look up.

Gray eyes as cool as winter storm clouds and yet with a deep calm beneath them met Liath's gaze. "You are some relation to Conrad the Black, perhaps?" Queen Mathilda asked. "I have seen such coloring nowhere else, except per
‍
haps in
—" She made a tiny gesture with one hand, a scissoring of fingers quickly made and quickly vanished. Mother Scholastica rose and left the cell. Henry still gripped his mother's other hand, the one that lay so still upon the rough wool blanket. Mathilda had the most delicate wrists Liath had ever seen on an adult. Her small hands were weathered with work, for Queen Mathilda was famous for serving in common with the other nuns, such was her humility. "You are no relation?"

Liath shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

"You were in Gent?"

Liath nodded. Lady Above, please let her be satisfied with this knowledge; please let her not demand that Liath tell the entire awful heart-wrenching tale again, so that she had to live through it again: that last vision seen through fire, Sanglant struck down by an Eika ax and Bloodheart gloating above his fallen body, holding aloft in his bare bloody hand the golden neck torque that signified the prince's royal kinship.

At that moment Liath realized Queen Mathilda did not wear the golden torque, though her son and daughter did. But she was not born of the royal lineages of Wendar and Varre. She had only married into the family. At this moment, under that calm gray but utterly penetrating gaze, Liath could not remember where Mathilda came from, of what kin, of what country
—only that she had ruled as queen beside Arnulf the Younger, his second wife, and that she now examined Liath with keen interest and not a little understanding.