PROLOGUE (57 page)

Mistress Godesti drew the Circle at her breast. "So they do, Eagle. Will you have more cider to sooth your throat? This food is scarcely fit payment for such tales as you have told us this night."

Liath accepted the cider and drank it down, its bite a fire in her chest. After eating a second helping of stew, she rolled herself up in her cloak near the fire on a heap of straw filthy with fleas. The house cat, as dainty a creature as ever prowled a longhouse for mice, curled up against her stomach, liking the warmth of her body. Waking on and off, restless, she saw one or another person kneeling beside the hearth, a chargirl, an old man, a woman dressed even more poorly than the others, each taking a turn tending the fire through the long winter's night.

In the morning, in a light fall of snow so insubstantial that little seemed to touch ground, she rode on. Mistress Godesti's brother walked with her a good hour or more beyond the hamlet into the forest, though she tried to dissuade him because he had no boots, only sandals with cloth tucked in to warm his feet. But when they reached the spot where the autumn rains had washed out the path as it twisted down a thickly wooded slope, she was grateful for his guidance. He showed her where the new cut lay, a detour that switchbacked down a ridge and back to the old road. This far out, there was deadwood aplenty and no felled trees marking where folk from the village came out to get firewood. He made polite farewells.

"Not all in Varre have been so friendly," she said, thanking him.

"Aid the traveler as you would wish to be aided were you in their place, that's what our grandmother taught us." He hesitated, looking troubled. "I hope you know my sister meant nothing by her mention of the dark shades walking abroad."

"I carry messages for the king, friend. I do not report to the biscops."

He flushed. "You know how women are. If the old ways were good enough for our grandmother, then
—" He restlessly hoisted his threadbare tunic up higher through his rope belt.

"You live close by the forest. Why shouldn't you see the old gods of your people still at work here?"

This startled him. "Believe you in the Tree and the Hanged God?"

"No," she admitted. "But I traveled to many strange places with my da and
—" She broke off.

"And?" Did he look curious or merely tired and worn out? By the age of his children she guessed he was only about ten years older than herself, yet he looked as old as Da had at the end, aged by constant work and worry and by grief at the death of his wife. "Godesti says that if my dear Adela had given gifts to the Green Lady at the old stone altar, then she wouldn't have died, for the Green Lady helps women through their labor. Is it because she did as the deacon from Sorres village commanded and turned her heart away from the old ways? She prayed to St. Helena when her birth pains came on her, but maybe the Green Lady was angry for not receiving any gifts. Is that why she died?"

"I don't know your Green Lady. But I lived in Andalla once, with my da. The Jinna women there didn't pray to Our Lord and Lady, they prayed to the Fire God Astereos, yet they survived and bore healthy children
—many of them, at any rate. I'm sorry about your wife. I'll pray for her soul. Maybe it had nothing to do with God—except that God watch over us all," she added quickly. "Maybe the child didn't move right within her. Maybe it was breech and couldn't come out. Maybe some sickness got into her blood and made her weak. It might be any of those things, or something else, and nothing to do with God at all, just
as"
—she gestured at the path behind them—"this track was washed away by a combination of rain and rockslides, not because the creatures of the Enemy made mischief here to bedevil you—"

"I pray you!" He drew the Circle at his breast hastily, and then another sign, something she didn't recognize but which was clearly pagan. "The shades might be listening."

"The shades?"

"The souls of dead people too restless to board the ship of night and sail to the underworld. Or worse . . ." He hefted his walking staff, twirled it once, dropping his voice to a whisper. ". . . the shadows of dead elves. Their souls are confined in a dark fog. They have no body, but they weren't released from the earth either. They aren't allowed into the Chamber of Light, but they have nowhere else to go if they were killed on this earth. They haunt the deep forest. Surely you know that, you who have traveled so much."

"The shades of dead elves . . ." She stared at the forest around her: leafless winter trees stood dark against the gray-white sky with undergrowth of all shades of brown and dull green and the pale yellow of decay interwoven beneath; evergreens skirted the edge of open areas. All of it was dense with growth and fallen limbs and the tangle j of a wild land untouched by human hands. Had that been Sanglant's fate? To wander the earth as a shade, because he could not ascend through the seven spheres to the River of Heaven and thence stream with the other souls into the Chamber of Light? Was he near her now?

Then she shook herself roughly, and her horse stamped j and shook its head as if in sympathy. "Nay, friend," she continued. "The blessed Daisan taught that the Aoi were made of the same substance as humankind. Some of the ancient Dariyan lords converted to the faith of the Unities. So why should the blessed Daisan turn elvish kin away from heaven if they served God faithfully? And even if they do live here, why should they concern themselves with us?" Suddenly, Liath realized she didn't believe the souls of dead people lurked in the forest. And she wasn't afraid of the shades of dead elves. Of course, many other things might lurk in the forest, wolves and bears least among them. "To
be fearless is to be foolhardy and likely dead,"

Da always said. But away from Hugh, fear did not ride constantly on her shoulder.

"Who knows what lingers in this forest." The man looked around nervously, afraid even in a morning light that painted the gray-limbed trees and stubborn clouds of morning with the burnished light of pearls. "Near the ford there may be bandits. But by dusk tomorrow you'll come to a big town called Laar."

They parted. He seemed relieved, but whether to be returning to the safety of his village or to be rid of her and her uncomfortable views Liath could not be sure. She did not mean disrespect to the old gods or the saints. But it was not God or the shades of dead elves or the half-formed creatures who served the Enemy who had caused her to miscarry last winter. No, indeed. It was the very abbot whom these villagers praised.

Snow drifted down between the bare branches of trees. She walked most of the day to keep warm and to spare her horse. The road was good, considering what little use it must get. Two wagon ruts wide, it remained clear of undergrowth, and puddles hidden beneath a film of ice were the worst of its treacheries.

Was there really any point to being in a hurry? It had taken Hanna months to reach the king. No one would know why she had herself been delayed, and in any case, Count Lavastine would be unlikely to muster an army before summer. Spring, with sowing and swollen rivers and muddy roads, was not the time for an army to march. The Eika surely could make no attack down the Veser River in the full flood of springtide.

Yet she owed it to the people of Gent to make sure the message arrived as soon as it could. She owed it to San-giant's memory, so that his death could be avenged.

Late in the day, snow turned to sleeting rain and she escaped the downpour by sheltering under a huge fir tree; its limbs made a kind of cave where they arched to the ground. She tied up her gelding and piled twigs and sticks on the cold ground, surrounding them with a firewall of stones. Then, biting her lip, she reached through the window of fire that she could see in her mind's eye and called flame.

Flames shot up from the little heap of twigs, stinging the branches above. She jumped back. The horse snorted, kicked, snapped a rein, and bolted out of their shelter.

"Damn!" she swore. She ran after the horse. Luckily, it calmed quickly and waited for her. Wet and shivering, she led it back to the overhang. The fire had settled down, and now, half ashamed, she fed it in the normal manner. The horse ate such leavings as she could glean from the nearby undergrowth and she chewed on a hard end of bread and a sour handful of cheese.

It was cold, that night, but the fire burned steadily. Fir needles rained down on her at erratic intervals. Though she slept fitfully, this rough shelter with fir needles sticking through her cloak and the breath of winter wind chafing her neck and chilling her fingers was far better than any fine, warm, elegant chamber shared with Hugh. If winter harmed her, it would not be because it wished to but because of its indifference to her fate. Somehow, that vast and incomprehensible indifference comforted her. The stars wheeled on their round whether she died or lived, suffered or laughed. Against the eternity of the celestial sphere and the great harmony sung in the heavens, she was the merest flash, so brief in its passing that perhaps the daimones coursing in the aether above could no more comprehend her existence than she could comprehend theirs. After all those years running with Da, after what she had endured with Hugh, it was a great relief to be unworthy of notice.

Yet she was still not free. She so desperately needed a preceptor
—a teacher.

Could Wolfhere see her through the fire? Was Hanna well? Coals glowed, and it was the work of a moment to feed sticks to the fire. Flames leaped up, bright yellow, and she pulled out the gold feather.

"Hanna," she whispered as she spun the feather's tip between thumb and forefinger, spinning the faint breath of air stirred by that turning into the licking flames of fire and twisting out of those flames a gateway through which she could see...

Sapientia sits restless in a chair, obviously unwell. Of all her attendants the only one whom she tolerates for more than a moment is Hanna, who speaks soothingly to her and gets her to drink from a silver cup. Of Hugh there is no sign.

The feather brushes Liath's palm, and fire snaps and wa
‍
vers. Now she sees a dim loft carpeted with straw. A man stirs, and in his unquiet sleep she recognizes him. It is Wolfhere. He murmurs a name in his dream and, that suddenly, as if a voice called to him, he wakes, opening his eyes.

"Your Highness."

Liath's sight blurs and sharpens, and she sees a pallet on which a woman lies in a desperate fever, clothes soaked in sweat. She is no longer in the loft. Here a trio of women stand over the patient, tending her. By their clothing Liath recognizes them as a servingwoman, an elderly nun, and the Mother Abbess of a convent.

"Your Highness? It is I, Mother Rothgard. Can you hear me?"

Mother Rothgard wrings out a cloth and turns the sufferer over to press the damp cloth to her forehead. As the lax face rolls into view, Liath recognizes Princess Theophanu, but so changed, all vitality burned out of her, leached away by fever. Mother Rothgard frowns and speaks to the servingwoman, who hurries out. She unfastens the princess' tunic and eases it open to examine the young woman's chest: Beads of sweat pearl on her nipples; moisture runs down the slope of her shoulder to vanish into her armpits. The thunder of Theophanu's heartbeat, frantic, irregular, seems to resound in the small chamber. She wears two necklaces; one is a gold Circle of Unity, and the other
—
a panther brooch hung from a silver chain.

This brooch Mother Rothgard lays in her palm and examines. Turning it over with a finger, she traces writing too faint for Liath to see. The abbess has a clever face made stern by perpetual frowning.

"Sorcery," she says to her attendant. "Sister Anne, fetch me the altar copy of the Holy Verses, and the basket of herbs sanctified under the Hearth. Speak of this to no one. If this
ligatura
comes from the court
—
even if Princess Theophanu survives
—
we cannot know who are our allies and who our enemies. This bespeaks an educated hand."

Mother Rothgard speaks a blessing and Theophanu grunts, and the vision smears into the dull glow of fading coals.

The rain had slowed to a shushing patter, and as Liath replaced the gold feather against her chest and clasped her knees for warmth, the twilight faded into the chill expectation of dawn.

Sorcery.
How powerful had Hugh become? Was she herself no longer immune to his magic? Had she ever been?

With this disquieting thought like a burden weighing on her, she saddled her horse and made ready to leave. As she took its reins to lead it out from under the shelter of the overhang, a stabbing pain burned at her breast. She pressed a hand to the pain . . . where the gold Aoi feather lay between tunic and skin.

In that pause, standing motionless and still half-hidden by the hanging evergreen branches, she heard a twig snap. Mounting, she drew her bow and an arrow out of its quiver. She laid the bow across her thighs and started west on the forest road, one hand on the bow, one on the reins.