The Gathering Storm (22 page)

The boy smiled uncertainly at her, glanced at Sanglant with fear, and spoke, in a whisper, words Sanglant could not understand. At once, servants brought him a tray of sweets and he picked daintily at them as Sapientia brooded and Sanglant fought the urge to jump up and walk anywhere as long as it got him away from that which plagued him, which at this moment was just about everything. He found refuge in a strategic retreat.

“I had hoped to discuss with you what arrangements we may make for our journey east.”

“I am sure you do. But before we do so, I pray you, tell me which synods does the holy church of Wendar recognize? Or perhaps it is too young to recognize any, for truly we have heard no word of it here where we live. As you know, Arethousa is the ancient home of the Witnesser, St. Thecla. We were first to accept the Proclamation of the blessed Daisan.”

“Do you think, Sapientia,” he said hours later as afternoon waned when at last they could break free of the long feast and return on horseback to the fort, “that by belittling me and my daughter in front of our enemy you have made Wendish-folk look like lions or like fools?”

“Who is to say she is our enemy?”

“Can she be otherwise? Did she say anything except words meant to sneer and laugh and gloat? You were just as angry as I at her insults, when we first came into her audience chamber this morning!”

“Maybe I changed my mind while you were gone.” Sapientia’s cheeks were still red. She lifted her chin, but her smile trembled as if it might collapse at any instant. “You have stolen what is mine and you might as well be holding me prisoner just like Bulkezu for all that you listen to me, although you pretend to the others that we command jointly. Don’t think I am too stupid to know what you intend by your daughter! You want her to rule in my place, and if not her, what is to stop you from supporting Queen Adelheid and her infant daughter? You were jealous of Bayan, and now you’re
jealous of me. I won’t rest until I have back what is mine by right of birth.”

“I have taken nothing from you! I have never betrayed you.”

Her gaze had an uncanny glamour, and for once he was chastened by her anger. “What do you take me for? A lion? Or a fool?”

“YOU sorry fool.”

Out of nowhere, cold water drenched Zacharias’ head and shoulders. Sucking and gasping, he inhaled salt water, nasty and stinging. He gagged but had nothing in his stomach and finally fell back, clutching his belly and moaning.

The dead didn’t suffer like this. Footsteps padded over the planks.

“God Above, but it stinks down here,” said the cultured voice of Brother Marcus. “So. He’s still alive.”

“Were you hoping he would die?”

That voice certainly did belong to Wolfhere, but Zacharias could not recall where he was or why Wolfhere would be talking about him while the floor rocked so nauseatingly up and down.

“It would make my life easier, would it not? We’ll throw him overboard once we’re far enough away from land that there’s no hope he can swim to shore.”

“If he can swim.”

“I’ll take no chances.”

“Will you throw him over yourself or have your servant do the deed?”

“I will do what I must. You know the cause we serve.” The words were spoken so coolly that Zacharias shuddered into full consciousness, his mind awake and his nausea dulled by fear. Bulkezu had at least killed for the joy of being
cruel. This man would take no pleasure out of killing, but neither would he shrink from it, if he thought it necessary.

“Monster,” Zacharias croaked, spitting out the dregs of sea-water and bile. He struggled up to sit. His chest hurt. The back of his head throbbed so badly that he might as well have had a cap of iron tightening inexorably around his skull.

“Brother Zacharias.” A hand settled firmly on his shoulder. “Do not move, I pray you. You’ve taken a bad blow to the head.”

“I can swim. I escaped Bulkezu by swimming. It’ll do you no good to throw me overboard.”

“Who is Bulkezu?” asked Marcus.

“A Quman prince,” answered Wolfhere. “Perhaps you have forgotten—or never knew—the devastation the Quman army wrought upon Wendar. King Henry never returned from Aosta to drive them out. It was left to Prince Sanglant to do so.”

“Are you the bastard’s champion? I’m surprised at you, Brother Lupus. What matters it to us what transpires on Earth? A worse cataclysm will come regardless to all of humankind, unless we do our part.”

Blinking, Zacharias raised his hands to block the light of a lamp, squinting as he studied the other man. “Are you a mathematicus?” he asked, groping at his chest for the scrap of paper he had held close all these long months.

It was gone.

Panic brought tears.

“Is it this you seek?” Marcus displayed the parchment that bore the diagrams and numbers that betrayed the hand of a mathematicus, a sorcerer who studied the workings of the heavens. “Where did you come by it?”

“In a valley in the Alfar Mountains. After I escaped from the Quman, I traveled for a time with the Aoi woman who calls herself Prince Sanglant’s mother, but she abandoned me after the conflagration.” His physical hurts bothered him far less than the sight of that precious scrap in the hands of another man. He wanted to grab it greedily to himself, but something about the other man’s shadowed expression made him prudent, even hopeful. If he could only say the right thing, he might save himself. “I found that parchment in a little
cabin up on the slope of the valley. I knew then that I sought the one who had written these things. You see, when I wandered with Kansi-a-lari, she took me to a place she called the Palace of Coils. There I saw—”

He faltered because Marcus leaned forward, mouth slightly parted. “The Palace of Coils? What manner of place was it?”

“It lay out in the sea, on the coast of Salia. We had to walk there at low tide. Yet some manner of ancient magic lay over that island. We ascended by means of a path. I thought only a single night passed as we climbed, but instead many months did. The year lay coiled around the palace, and it was the year we were ascending, not the island. I cannot explain it—”

“You do well enough. Did you see the Aoi woman work her sorcery?”

“I did. I saw her defeat Bulkezu. I saw her breathe visions into fire. I saw her save her son with enchanted arrows. Oh, God.” A coughing fit took him and he spat up bile.

“Get him wine,” said Marcus. “I will hear what he has to say. Why did you not tell me that he traveled with Prince Sanglant’s mother? He can’t know what he saw, but careful examination may reveal much to an educated ear.”

“Better just to kill him and have done with it!” insisted Wolfhere.

“Nay!” Zacharias choked out the word. “She led me through the spirit world. I saw—” His throat burned. “I saw a vision of the cosmos!”

Spasms shook his entire body and made the bruise at the base of his neck come alive with a grinding, horrible pain. He folded forward, almost passing out.

After an unknown while, he struggled out of the haze to find himself bent double over his arms. Wolfhere had returned with a wine sack. Gratefully he guzzled it, spat up half of it all over his fetid robe before he remembered to nurse along his roiling stomach. He must go slowly. He had to use his wits.

“What is this vision of the cosmos that you saw?” asked Marcus when Zacharias set down the wineskin.

“If I tell you everything I know, then you’ll have no reason
to keep me alive. It’s true I followed Prince Sanglant, my lord, but I only followed him because I hoped he would lead me to his wife, the one called Liathano. It’s her I seek.”

Marcus had an exceedingly clever face and expressive eyebrows, lifted now with surprise. “Why do you seek her?”

“I seek any person who can teach me. I wish to understand the mysteries of the heavens.”

“As do we all.”

“I will do anything for the person who will teach me, my lord.”

“Anything? Will you murder my dear friend Brother Lupus, if I tell you to?” He gestured toward Wolfhere, crouched within the pale aura given off by the lamp, his seamed and aged face quiet as he watched the two men negotiate.

A breath of air teased Zacharias’ matted hair, curling around his ear. Was this the whisper of a daimone? Was Marcus a maleficus, who controlled forbidden magic and unholy creatures? He shuddered, his resolve curdled by a flood of misgivings. Yet he couldn’t stop now. He was a prisoner. He was as good as dead. “I am no murderer, my lord. I haven’t the stomach for it. But I am clever, and I have an excellent memory.”

“Do you?”

“I do, my lord. That is why I was allowed to take the oath of a frater although I cannot read or write. I know the Holy Verses, all of them, and many other things besides—”

“That’s true enough,” commented Wolfhere. “He has a prodigious memory.”

“Is he clever?”

The old man sighed sharply. Why did he look so distressed? “Clever enough. He survived seven years as a slave among the Quman, so he says. Escaped on his own, so he says. Sought and found Prince Sanglant with no help from any other, so he says. He talks often enough of this vision of the cosmos that he was vouchsafed in the Palace of Coils. He entertains the soldiers with the tale. He says he saw a dragon.”

“I only tell them the truth!”

“Well,” said Marcus speculatively. “A dragon. Perhaps
you’re too valuable to throw overboard to drown, Zacharias. Perhaps you can serve the Holy Mother in another fashion. Perhaps I will teach you what I know after all. That will serve as well as killing you will, in the end.”

Zacharias dared not weep. “You will find me a good student, my lord. I will not fail you.”

“We shall see.” Marcus fanned his hand before his face. “You must clean up. I cannot bear your stench. Brother Lupus?”

Wolfhere’s lips were pressed as tight as those of a man determined not to swallow the bitter brew now on his tongue. “Do you intend to go ahead with this?”

“We are few, and our enemies are many.” Marcus had a cherub’s grin that made Zacharias nervous. The cleric’s riotous black curls gave his round, rather bland face an angelic appearance, almost innocent.

Almost.

“If this man can and will serve us, then why should I cast him away? We can all serve God in one manner or another. This is the lesson I learned from the one who leads us.”

“So you did,” said Wolfhere sardonically. “Very well. Are you satisfied, Zacharias? Will you do as Brother Marcus says?”

Such a thrill of hope coursed through Zacharias that he forgot his nausea, and his pain. “You will teach me?”

“I will teach you everything that I can,” agreed Marcus with an ironic smile, “as long as you will serve me as a student must serve his master. Do as I say. Be obedient. Do not question.”

“I can do that!”

Did Wolfhere whisper, again, “You sorry fool!”? It was only the creak of the ship rolling in the waves. It was only memory, mocking him.

“Let it be done,” said Marcus, who had heard nothing untoward. “I will teach you the secrets of the heavens, Brother Zacharias. I admit you into our holy fellowship.”

“Then I am yours,” cried Zacharias, beginning to weep. After so long, he had found what he sought. “I am yours.”

“BRING the slaves.”

Sanglant indicated the thirteen men who knelt in front of the cell where Blessing was confined. Sergeant Cobbo herded them over. These were not foolish men, although they were barbarians and infidels. They recognized him for what he was, even if they seemed to have offered their allegiance to his young daughter. They knelt before him, a ragged but defiant looking crew, half naked, sweating profusely in the heat, but unbowed by his appraisal.

Six were Quman, stripped down to loincloths. Despite the dirt streaking their bodies, they had made an effort to keep their hair neat, tying it back into loose braids with strips of cloth. They had pleasant, almost docile expressions. They looked like the kind of young soldiers who are happiest singing a song around the fire, good-natured, easy to please, and unlikely to fight among themselves. The seventh of their number bore tattoos all over his torso, twisted animals amid scenes of battle and carnage, griffins eating deer, lions rending hapless men, and a belled rider mounted on an eight-legged horse riding over corpses.

Of the other six, four might have been any manner of heathen —Salavii, Polenie, Starviki, or otherwise—with matted dark hair, wiry arms, and thick shoulders, and stolid expressions that did not conceal a rebellious spark in their gaze although their ankles and wrists bore the oozing scars of shackles.

“Are any of these men Daisanites?” asked Sanglant.

Breschius knew an amazing store of languages, and he spoke several now, getting responses from all four of the men.

“They are all heathens, my lord prince. Sold into slavery by raiders. This Salavii man says it was Wendish bandits who took him prisoner and sold him to an Arethousan merchant. He wishes to return to his home. The other three say they will gladly enter the service of your daughter if they will be allowed a servant’s portion, a meal every day, and her promise as their lord never to abandon them.”

“Let the Salavii go, then. I want no slaves in my army.”

Breschius spoke in a guttural tongue. The Salavii man rose nervously looking as though he expected a whip to descend.

“It is a long road to Salavii lands,” remarked Captain Fulk. “If he can make it home safely, then he’s both strong and clever.”

“Give him bread, ale, and a tunic,” said Sanglant. “I’ll not have it said I turned him out naked.”

Even as Breschius began to speak, the man bolted for the gate, ready for a spear thrust to take him in the back. Fulk whistled, a piercing signal, and the guards leaped back so the man could sprint out of the fort unobstructed. The remaining three heathens shifted fearfully, but Breschius calmed them with a few words.

“He had no reason to trust us,” said Sanglant, “but I doubt me he’ll get far.” He turned his attention to the last two slaves. They were much darker and wore torn robes and ragged pointy felt caps over cropped hair. Sanglant frowned as he studied them. These two kept their heads bowed, their gazes lowered, although they also looked to be young, strong men.