PROLOGUE (22 page)

"I don't know anything about her," he admitted finally. "Not really. No one in Heart's Rest did."

"Is she of noble birth?"

He blinked. Perhaps silence was the better choice. Liath and her father had been close with their secrets. And her father
had
died
—although only Liath had claimed it was murder; Marshal Liudolf had decreed the death came of natural causes.

"Answer me, child."

He did not like the stern look Mother Scholastica fixed on him. "I
—I think so. Her father was educated."

"Her mother?"

He shrugged. "She never had a mother. I mean
—we never knew of her mother."

"Her father was educated
—? Was he a fallen monastic, perhaps? Ah, yes, I see it in your face."

"I don't
know
that he was. But we all thought he must have been a monk once, or perhaps a frater
—"

"If he left the church, he would scarcely speak of such an act out loud. Educated in and then fled from the church. You are sure she was
his
child?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed, indignant on Liath's behalf.

"Not his concubine or servant?"

"No! Of course they were father and child."

"It might explain all," said Mother Scholastica, musing now; she appeared to have forgotten Ivar's existence, and certainly cared nothing for his indignation. "Why she could read Jinna."

Read Jinna? What else was hidden in Liath that she had L never shared with him? He had a sudden sick intuition that Prater Hugh might not have been interested in Liath only for her beauty and youth.

"Dark of feature. A fallen churchman. Perhaps my mother was right. A frater may travel as a missionary to the four quarters of the world, even unto the Jinna heathens who worship the fire god Astereos. Such a man might have been seduced by the potions and perfumes of the east, such a man might have forsworn his oath to the church and gotten a child on an eastern woman and then, as an honorable Daisanite, refused to leave the child behind to be raised as a heathen. That would explain her complexion
and
her ability to read. Well, Ivar." The abrupt change of subject startled him, her sudden cooling of interest in him. "It is good you confessed this to me. Return to the novitiary. You will study. You will obey. In time,
if
you do your duty and remain meek and humble, I will call you here again and let you know what answer your father has given." The interview was over. She signed with her hand the gesture for departure, and he knew there was no point in protesting. But he could not leave one question unasked, even if he was punished for asking it.

"What will happen to Liath? Because of what I did, I mean."

She favored him with a sudden smile, and its power
—its
approval
—struck him as if he had been granted a glimpse of the Chamber of Light in all its brilliance through a crack in the gates. "That is the first time in this interview you have spoken of
her
need and not your own. She serves as a King's Eagle, and I have heard no complaint of her service there. It will continue. Now." He bowed his head over clasped hands, was allowed to kiss her opal ring, and backed out of the room, stumbling down backward over the doorstep.

Master Pursed-Lips waited outside, as glowering as any looming storm cloud. Mercifully, he withheld the willow switch.

"You may be certain," said the schoolmaster in his disagreeable voice, "that you and your fellows, whose connivance in this matter has been duly noted, will be confined in the novitiary for the remainder of the king's visit, and closely guarded thereafter. Take no notion in your mind to escape and run after them. We have dealt with these kinds of things before."

Spoken ominously, the schoolmaster's threats proved true. The king's progress left the next day and although the other novices got to leave the barracks and line the road to lend pomp and dignity to the departure of king and court, Ivar, Baldwin, Ermanrich, and Sigfrid were left behind. They waited out the dreary interlude in the courtyard, taking turns with their knives at the fence.

"She's
really in love with you?" demanded Baldwin.

"Why should that surprise you? Am I
that
ugly?" Ivar wanted to slug his friend.

Baldwin looked him over consideringly, then shrugged.

"No."

"But if she's an Eagle," pointed out Ermanrich, "then she can't be of noble birth. Why would your father ever allow you to marry a common-born woman?"

"But her father was in the church, and educated," Ivar protested. "He must have come out of a noble lineage!" Thinking about it only made it worse, but he couldn't help thinking. Mother Scholastica had promised to send a message to his father. He would
have
to be patient
—and Liath had promised to wait.

Sigfrid had been given his turn with Baldwin's knife and he was trying to wiggle the little gap into a wider gap, something they could actually
see
through. Now he glanced over his shoulder toward the empty courtyard, then leaned forward to the others. "While I was waiting for my lesson," he said in a low voice, "I heard that Lady Sabella's daughter is going to be held here until King Henry decides to marry her off or let her become a novice."

"Ah," said Baldwin. "The young Lady Tallia. I met her once."

Ermanrich snorted.

"Oh!" said Sigfrid in the tone of man who has opened the door only to find a snake in his room. "I didn't think it would
work."

"Hush," said Baldwin. "Move this way, Ermanrich. Ivar, get on your knees as if you're praying. Move over here." Sigfrid had accomplished the deed. Pressure had forced one thin plank to slide behind another, and now they had a gap through which they could see a thin strip of the other side of the courtyard.

Baldwin hunkered down and flattened his face against the fence. He gasped and jerked back. "There's someone there!" he hissed. "A novice!" "Does she have warts?" asked Ermanrich. "Be serious!" Baldwin stuck his right eye against the gap again, closing his left and squinching up his face to see better. After a pause, he backed away and spoke in a whisper. "She's kneeling just opposite us. I think it's Lady Tallia!"

Ermanrich whistled under his breath. Even Ivar was impressed. "Let me look," he demanded. Baldwin scooted back and Ivar pressed his face up against the fence. The wood scraped his skin. Ermanrich's breath blew against his neck as if, with enough force of will, the other boy could see through Ivar's eyes.

She had thrown back her hood and he recognized her at once: the wheat-haired girl who had carried the banner of Arconia
—her father's duchy—at the forefront of the procession the day King Henry had arrived at Quedlinhame. Only three days ago! How much had happened since then. She prayed, thin hands clasped before her breast, pale lips touching her knuckles. Then, abruptly, her eyes opened and she looked straight at him. She had the palest blue eyes, like a many-times-washed indigo tunic bled so fine that only the memory of blue remained in the threads. "Who are you?" she whispered. Ivar jerked back from the fence.

"She said something!" exclaimed Ermanrich. He stuck his face up against the fence. "Are you Lady Tallia?" he whispered.

Baldwin pulled Ermanrich back from the wall and wedged himself in as Ermanrich made a grunt of protest. "You must not look upon me," she said in that same quiet voice, as soft as the wind brushing Ivar's hair. His hood had fallen back, and he hastily jerked it up over his head, looking guiltily back toward the barracks. The layservant left to watch over them was not in sight. "It is not seemly for you to stare so," she continued. In the silence of the courtyard they could hear her words clearly. She hesitated, then went on. "But that we have stumbled upon this opportunity to converse
—that, surely, is God's doing, is it not?"

"Oh, certainly," said Baldwin blithely, although, obedient to her wish, he had now drawn back from the gap in the fence. "Are you to be a nun?"

Sigfrid made a choked noise in his throat and immediately assumed a position of prayer. The layservant had walked back into view, a surly, stout man no doubt angered at having to watch over four disobedient novices rather than the colorful departure of king and court. All four boys hunkered down in attitudes of contrite prayer.

From the shelter of the colonnade, the layservant could not hear Tallia's faint voice, but the four boys could. "It is my most devout wish to become a nun. Unless I can be a deacon, but they will not let me out into the world except to marry me to some grasping nobleman."

"Why would you want to be a deacon?" asked Sigfrid. "In the cloister, we can devote all our hours to study and contemplation."

"But a deacon who lives in the world can bring the true Word of God to those who live in darkness. If I were ordained as a deacon, I could preach the Holy Word of the Redeemer as it was taught me by Prater Agius, he who was granted God's favor and a holy martyrdom."

A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, like drums beating for the departure of the king. Ivar smelled rain on the wind. Dark clouds scudded overhead.

"Who is the Redeemer?" asked Ermanrich, his bland, friendly face bearing now a confused expression.

"That's a heresy," whispered Sigfrid, but he did not move.

Baldwin did not move.

Ivar did not move. He wanted to hear her speak again. She had a kind of monotonously fascinating voice, pure and quietly zealous. And she was female, and young.

"For the blessed Daisan was born not of earthly mortals but out of Our Lady, who is God. He alone was born without any taint of darkness. So did he suffer. By the order of the Empress Thaisannia, she of the mask, he was flayed alive because of his preaching, as was their custom with criminals and those who spoke treason against the Dariyan Empire and its ruler. His heart was cut out of him, and where his heart's blood fell and touched the soil, there bloomed roses."

Sigfrid made the sign of the Circle against what is forbidden
—against this most erroneous and dangerous heresy. But he did not move away. None of them moved. They were caught there, spellbound, as the thunder rambled closer and the first drops of rain darkened the dirt around them.

"But by his suffering, by his sacrifice, he redeemed us from our sins. Our salvation comes through that redemption. For though he died, he lived again. So did God in Her wisdom redeem him, for was he not Her only Son?"

She would have gone on, perhaps she did go on, but the wind picked up and lightning flashed bright against lowering clouds and thunder pealed overhead. The stinging bite of rain drove them to the shelter of the colonnade. Whether she ran in as well Ivar could not know, but he imagined her, kneeling still, soaked and pounded by rain as she prayed her heretical prayers. That image disturbed him greatly for many nights to come.

ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM THE king and his entourage rode south from Quedlinhame. Liath rode northeast through scattered woodland amid rolling hills with a message for Duchess Rotrudis, the king's sister. She followed the Osterwaldweg, a grassy track that ran north from Quedlinhame and slanted east-northeast at the confluence of the Ailer and Urness Rivers, themselves tributaries of the Veser. In the morning the track, crisp with frost, glittered in the cold sun as though an angel had blown its sweet breath over the rutted road. By evening, wagon traffic, sun, and the usual passage of a swift autumn storm overhead had turned the path to a sludge that would re-freeze over the long night.

It was always windy and sometimes quite chill, but in the late afternoon the sun would often shine brightly. During those times Liath would find a patch of sunlight while her horse foraged along the verge of the track. Sometimes, if the way lay empty, she would open
The Book of Secrets
and read words she had long since memorized or puzzle over the brief Arethousan glosses in the inner book, the most secret ancient text. Alas, without time to study or preceptor to continue her teaching, she had already forgotten much of what little Arethousan she had learned from Hugh. But perhaps if she forgot everything he had taught her, she would truly be free from him.

Other times, frustrated by her ignorance, she would simply close her eyes and imagine Da beside her on the quiet road. The sun's warmth was like his presence, soothing and secure; oddly, she could never imagine him by her on cloudy days. Perhaps his spirit, looking down on her from the Chamber of Light where he now resided at peace, could only see her when his view down through the seven spheres was unobstructed.

"Do you suppose,"
she imagined him asking now,
"that souls have sight? Or is that sense reserved for those who wear an earthly body?"