The Gathering Storm (106 page)

One nun knelt among the herbs, weeding. The other attended the biscop, who sat in the shade at her writing desk, which had been moved out onto the portico because of the extreme heat.

Constance looked up, hearing Ivar’s footsteps, and extended a hand to greet him warmly. “What brings you here to me, Brother Ivar? You have deserted the company at the very hour when your discussions may yield the ripest fruit.”

He kissed her hand, then dropped to his knees before her. “Someone is coming, Your Grace. I saw a cloud of dust as I stood outside the amphitheater.”

“Ah.” She smiled softly.

“I am anxious, Your Grace. I fear this cloud brings ill news.”

“It may be, but we can do nothing to prevent its arrival. Go to the gate, if you will, and see what comes our way. I will wait in the audience chamber.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Sister Eligia, I pray you, assist me.” The young woman hastened to Constance’s side, offering her the walking stick, supporting her arm, and helping her negotiate out from behind the desk.

“Do not hesitate to go before me, Brother,” said Constance. “The community has more need of legs than my royal honor, which has not served us well these past two years.”

He sketched a bow and hurried out through the chamber, hearing the scrape of her ruined leg against pavement and the tap of her stick as she moved one laborious step at a time off the portico. He rapped on the door. The guards opened it, looked him up and down, then let him through. The door thudded shut behind him.

He was free—they all were except the biscop—to walk where he willed within the confines of the palisade. He strode down the track that led past the sheep pasture and the bramble fields where the goats made their home, arriving at the closed gates at the same time as the new arrivals. Harness jingled and a man cursed a recalcitrant mule. A pair of dogs barked. A woman laughed as the captain called down jovial curses from the parapet as a greeting for the soldiers come to relieve the last crop of guards.

“… bastard whoresons. It’s quiet enough, I grant you, but all we have to amuse ourselves is dicing. There aren’t even any fine ladies in want of swiving in the village, for they’ve sworn to have nothing to do with us on account of they’ve been corrupted by the prisoner and her lying words. You’ll be wishing yourself off at the wars after a few days stuck here!”

“You must not have seen any fighting if you think battle is preferable to a quiet backwater like this.”

“I’ve seen fighting enough!”

“You must be Captain Tammus. We’ve heard of your loyal service to Lady Sabella.”

“It’s true enough she can’t trust every man who offers her
service just because she has gold and swords, but I’ve long pledged my loyalty to her. She knows the worth of my oath. I’ve these scars and this stump to prove it. Who are you?”

“Captain Ulric, of Autun.”

“Ah. Yes, Captain, I recall you now.”

“I’ve brought relief for the men on guard here. I also have a message for the biscop.”

“Very well. Your men can leave the wagons here and choose accommodations in our camp—which you see is decent enough, warm in the winter and lots of wood and water, although the river is running low this year. I’ll have my guards cart the goods into the cloister. Your men will need to know the lay of the land before they begin their guard duties. As for now, I’ll escort you to the biscop myself.”

“Very good.”

When the gates swung in, Ivar concealed himself behind a stack of empty barrels and crates as a dozen soldiers escorting two wagons trundled past bearing the usual offerings of salt, oil, and candles. He recognized the name “Ulric” from that unlucky day he and the others had entered Autun expecting to be tried for heresy and instead were sent off to smother in this cloister, their lives spared because of Baldwin’s sacrifice.

Perhaps Captain Ulric had news of Baldwin.

He followed the wagon to the compound, then tagged along as Captain Ulric, Tammus, and two attendants walked to the biscop’s audience chamber. Captain Tammus cherished the same surly frown he always wore, which went well with his belligerent stride and coarse language. He had indeed suffered horrific injuries in his lady’s service, although Ivar didn’t know what battles he had fought in: he was missing one hand and one eye, and nasty scars twisted across the right side of his face. In contrast, Ulric was a middle-aged man with a pleasant face, easy to look at, tall and well built with the bowlegged walk common to cavalrymen. His cheeks and nose were burned red and peeling, but the faces of his attendants were shrouded by the hoods they’d pulled up to shade themselves from the hot sun.

Ivar slipped into the audience chamber and stood along the back wall, unnoticed except by the biscop, of course, and by Captain Ulric, who glanced back as the door was shut on them
and marked Ivar with a widening of the eyes and a stiffness in his expression.

He doesn’t trust me.

Why should he?

Ivar had been named as Sabella’s enemy, and Captain Ulric served her, or Duke Conrad, who was her ally. Even Gerulf and Dedi had vanished into Conrad’s army; he had heard no word of them in eighteen months, just as he had no knowledge of Baldwin’s whereabouts and whether he suffered or flourished under Sabella’s care.

“You may come forward, Captain,” said Constance kindly, “and kiss my ring.”

Tammus bent the merest angle, just enough not to insult her outright, and kissed her ring, although he sneered as he glanced back to invite Ulric to come forward. The cavalryman knelt before her chair and bent his head respectfully. Were those tears in his eyes? From this distance it was impossible for Ivar to tell, and Captain Ulric blinked, rose, and retreated, coughing behind his hand either because of dust in the room or to cover a strong emotion.

Ivar felt a swirl of dangerous currents at work in the chamber, but he couldn’t identify their locus or the shifting eddy of these tides. He leaned against the wall, pretending to an ease he did not possess.

“What news, Captain?” Constance asked.

“I bring word from Lady Sabella. She means to visit you within the next fortnight.”

“Ah.” By no means could any person read Constance’s reaction. She nodded, hands curled lightly over the arms of her chair, seeming relaxed. Or resigned.

“There’ll be a great deal to be made ready,” said Captain Tammus. “We’ll have to deplete our stores to feed her retinue. The village near here hasn’t any grain stores left to them, and it’s not harvest yet.”

“Harvest this year will not yield much,” replied the biscop. “You’ve seen the fields.”

“I’ll have to send men out hunting again. We’ll take half a dozen sheep from your flock.”

Constance nodded, although she knew as well as Ivar did that their flock was sorely depleted. None of the ewes had
birthed twins this spring, a sign, Sister Nanthild said, of drought to come, and indeed drought and unusually hot weather had afflicted them. What rains had come had arrived untimely, and in one drenching flood that had washed sprouts out of dusty fields, churned them into muddy lakes, and then hardened the land into cracked earth when the sun returned to beat on them as a hammer flattened red-hot iron on the anvil.

“It will be good for Lady Sabella to see the conditions of the lands hereabout, which have suffered greatly over the last winter and into this summer,” she said. “Is there any other message, Captain?”

“That is all, Your Grace. Otherwise, as you know, I am under orders to make no communication with you or any of those residing under your care.”

“I understand the terms of my confinement well enough. It seems a long journey to come here all this way merely to bring me a single message.”

He looked at Tammus before risking further comment. “I have escorted a new complement of guardsmen to replace the levy that has been here for three months.”

“Will you replace Captain Tammus?”

Tammus snorted.

Ulric shrugged. “Nay, Your Grace. Lady Sabella has named him as your keeper. So he will remain as he has served well and faithfully these past two years.”

“So he has,” agreed Constance without a glimmer of sarcasm. “I hope you will accept some wine, Captain, after such a long journey in these hot days.”

“That I will, gladly and with thanks.”

“Captain Tammus will show you the way.”

Ivar remained where he was as the two captains retreated to the doors and filed out with Ulric’s escort behind them.

All but one.

As they passed through the doors, Ulric asked Tammus a flood of questions, while behind him the second of his hooded attendants sidestepped without missing a beat and by Ulric’s misdirection managed to remain inside the chamber when the doors were shut behind the other men.

The stranger cast back his hood and strode forward to
kneel before her chair, the movement accomplished so decisively that Ivar had no time to respond before it was done.

He could have knifed her, but instead he grasped her hand as a supplicant.

“Your Grace, I have only a few moments to speak with you. I pray you, heed me.”

She studied him, gaze shifting over his face and figure, and nodded to indicate that she recognized him. “Lord Geoffrey of Lavas. How does your daughter, the young countess, fare?”

“Ill, Your Grace. Lavas county and all the western lands fare ill, and have done so ever since you were deposed. God are angry. This is our punishment: we suffer drought and untimely rains. Refugees fleeing north from the Salian wars confound us. Bandits have made the roads unsafe. There will be famine this winter. We hear tales of plague and murrain, although thank the Lord and Lady we’ve seen none of that in our lands, pray God that we be spared. There’s even talk that my sweet Lavrentia is not in truth the rightful heir!”

“How can that be?”

“Nay, nay, I make no mind of it. It’s only the idle talk of desperate folk.” With a shaking hand he drew the Circle of Unity at his breast. “Another scourge strikes at us from the sea. The Eika have returned! They harry in Salia along the coast. We hear rumors that they are moving inland and north. I pray you, Your Grace. Lady Sabella usurped your rightful place, granted to you by King Henry, the true king. We will support you.”

“Do I understand that Captain Ulric is your ally in this?”

“As well as he is able. He was always your true and loyal servant, but he must protect his men.”

“Yes, he cannot fight Sabella and Conrad with only a single troop of skirmishers. Yet my position is weak, Lord Geoffrey, as you must observe. I am crippled. I rest here as Sabella’s prisoner. It will prove difficult to throw off this yoke. Conrad is a powerful ally, and his ambitions do not accord with mine.”

Geoffrey had not yet let go of Constance’s hand. “So you see us, Your Grace. My wife’s kinfolk have remained loyal to Henry through many difficulties, but now Lady Sabella has taken my wife’s two children as hostage in Autun.”

“Even Count Lavrentia?”

“She remains in Lavas because of the rumors—”

“Which rumors?”

He clenched his hands, jaw tight; voice cold. “That the rightful heir lives and waits, wandering in the wilderness until all Lavas cries out for his return. It is said there were miracles—but it’s all lies! Even Lady Sabella sees how precarious the situation is, so Lavrentia remains with me in Lavas while Aldegund and our sons serve Sabella in Autun. Yet Varre suffers under Sabella’s rule. Lavas suffers. And I dare not act against Sabella or Conrad unless we are certain we have sufficient backing to win.”

She considered him somberly. “I have no means to communicate with those who might support me, and I have no army—only bands of faithful soldiers who need a commander in order to act in concert. What news of Princess Theophanu?”

“I hear rumor she bides in Gent. I have also heard a rumor that Prince Sanglant rode into the wilderness to raise a great army of savages in order to wrest Wendar from her, or to restore it to his father. But rumor is a fickle lover, as I know well. I do not know what to believe. They say Henry was crowned emperor in Aosta.”

“Emperor!” For the space of three breaths Constance was too shocked, or angered, to speak. “Surely he commands a great enough army that he might come to our rescue rather than chase dreams in the south!”

“If only he knew our plight.”

“If only. I sent an Eagle, but none returned. I have no messengers to send, Lord Geoffrey. You must send one of your people to Gent.”

“Captain Ulric has offered me one of his men-at-arms as a messenger, Your Grace, but I have come to beg you to write a missive yourself and send one of your people with the soldier, with a message penned in your own hand and sealed with your own ring. Otherwise how can the princess believe us? She must know what Sabella and Conrad hatch between them. She will believe any messages of peace or war to be a trap laid to ambush her.”

“Emperor,” whispered Constance. “Whether this bodes
well or ill I cannot say.” Her gaze had strayed. Now she squeezed Geoffrey’s hand and let it drop, indicating that he should rise. “They will look for you, and if you are discovered here, all is lost. I can write a message, and perhaps, if we are fortunate and God favor our suit, I can smuggle it out to you before you depart in the morning. Captain Tammus has strict directions from Sabella to count our number each evening, as you will see, because Sabella fears precisely what you suggest—that one of these who swear loyalty to me will escape to take news of my plight to my kinfolk. I dare not risk it. The punishment is severe, as we have seen to our sorrow.”

“Punishment?”

“I sent a novice to carry word of my whereabouts to Princess Theophanu. She was brought back ten days later and dumped in my courtyard, mutilated and quite dead. Captain Tammus promised the same fate to any other member of my entourage who attempts escape.”

“I’ll go,” said Ivar.

Lord Geoffrey started around, as startled as if he had forgotten Ivar was there.

Constance smiled grimly. “So you have said many times, Brother Ivar. Yet by what means might you succeed when poor Sister Bona died so horribly?”

“They will not hunt down a dead man, Your Grace.”