In the Ruins (12 page)

Smoke stung his face as the wind shifted. He fanned a
hand to drive it away although in truth it made no difference.

“The Horse people are our allies, Burchard,” he said.

“
Your
allies,” said Liutgard.

“Mine,” he agreed, “and thus, for the moment, yours, Cousin. I pray you, Liath, go on.”

“I pray you!” cried a voice from the back, that damned servingman again. “You speak of the lives and empires of the heathen, yet you have not said one word about the blessed Daisan! Do you even believe in God?”

“Hush!” said someone else in the crowd.

“Let her speak!” cried another, the words echoed by a chorus of “let her speak” and “yes” and “shut your mouth.”

“Else we’ll be standing out here in the damned cold all night and freeze our hands to what they’re scratching,” finished a wit.

“Well,” said Liath, raising her voice as the others dropped theirs. She slid easily into the silence. “All here have heard told the life of the blessed Daisan and his chief disciple, Thecla the Witnesser. This we know and believe, that the blessed Daisan revealed to all of humankind the truth of the Circle of Unity, of the Mother and Father of Life, and our belief in the Penitire.” Her gaze had a peculiar way of going flat when she quoted from memory, as if she looked inward, not outward. “‘The blessed Daisan prayed in ecstacy for six days and on the seventh was translated up to the Chamber of Light to join God.”’

Her gaze sought the heckler, and perhaps it found him, because she paused for a moment with a fixed stare, then smiled just a little as a bully might, seeing his prey flinch. The man had by this time moved so that his body was hidden to Sanglant’s line of sight.

“What matters to the story I tell you tonight is that the belief in the Circle of Unity and the Word of the blessed Daisan spread outward on the architecture of the old Dariyan Empire.”

“More than that!” interposed Sister Elsebet indignantly.

“Ai, God! Spare us these interruptions! I’m still scratching!” cried the wit.

Sanglant sighed.

Sister Elsebet stepped forward and glared her audience into silence. “None of us can speak as if this war is ended.”

“Which war is that?” asked Liath. “I thought I was speaking of a war.”

Elsebet pounded her staff twice on the ground. “I will listen, but I will not remain silent on this matter. I pray you, Your Majesty!”

He was caught, and he knew it as well as the cleric did. “Go on, Sister. What is it you must say?”

“That the woman has knowledge of sorcery and history I can see, and perhaps respect. But the war that afflicts those of us who live within the Circle of Unity is never ending. It is impossible to speak of the blessed Daisan without speaking as well of those who have sought to corrupt his holy teachings.”

“Have we time for this?” Sanglant asked Liath.

A foolish question. She was interested, and entertained. She could go on in this vein for hours. “You speak of heresy, Sister Elsebet, do you not?”

“As must we all! Alas!”

“Then I pray you, educate us.”

Once offered, quickly taken. Sister Elsebet did not strike Sanglant as a fussy, troublesome woman, nor had he in their brief acquaintance been given any reason to believe she was one of Hugh’s adherents.

“Go on,” he said, giving her permission.

She came forward. Liath did not, in fact, make way or give up her own place standing on a conveniently situated rock that elevated her a bit above the rest, but she did drop her chin and, between one breath and the next, efface herself. The shift was astonishing. Sanglant had never seen her do such a thing before, as if she doused the radiance that made her blaze. Before, she must command the gaze; now, she was only a woman standing on a rock listening as a cleric spoke of the holy truth that sustained them.

“This is the truth! Heed me! Many heresies have troubled the church since the living body of the blessed Daisan was lifted up into the Chamber of Light. But in these dark days there are two we must guard against most assiduously.

“The first is known as the Redemptio. This is the belief that the blessed Daisan was martyred by the Empress Thaissania, She of the Mask. That only after his death by flaying and his supposed resurrection did he ascend to the Chamber of Light. This heresy was eventually squelched and forbidden. As it deserved!

“The second, and greater, heresy concerns the constitution of the blessed Daisan himself. The elders of the church ruled that the blessed Daisan was no different than any other human, claiming only a divine soul made up of pure light trapped in a mortal body admixed with darkness. The adherents of the greater heresy claim otherwise and declared that the blessed Daisan alone among humankind was half divine and half mortal. In the year 499, the Emperor of Arethousa turned his back on the skopos in Darre and abandoned the truth because of his belief in this half divinity. So was the holy word of the blessed Daisan wounded by the Enemy’s sharp arrows.”

She drew the Circle at her chest and turned to bow to Sanglant.

“How does this affect the tale?” he asked.

“Heresy must affect us all,” retorted Sister Elsebet. “Right belief is what sustains us! It would be a greater tempest even than the one we suffered in Aosta should these heretical beliefs take hold and drown the foundation on which all our lives rest! On what we and the church mothers know to be true! Perhaps this tempest is not merely the playing out of an ancient sorcery but a warning sent to us by God!”

He looked at Liath.

She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, made herself visible again, the center of attention. Yet this was not the charisma that allows a commander to lead men to their death in battle. This was, purely, control over the unnatural fire that burned within her.

“It may be, Sister Elsebet,” she agreed without any evidence of insincerity. “Yet I know this. The land of the Ashioi returned to Earth because those who wove the sorcery in ancient days did not understand fully the consequence
of what they did. The land returned because it could not do otherwise. It was bound as if in a great circle, necessarily returning to the place it started.”

“Indeed,” agreed the cleric stoutly. “For this same reason the church mothers have always disapproved of sorcery.”

“Yes, so it was. Sorcery was restricted by the church in two separate rulings. Certain of the magical arts were allowed to be taught under the supervision of the church, but others were condemned, specifically those that related to foreseeing the future and controlling the weather as well as knowledge of the mathematical properties of the stars and planets. In truth, although this was unknown to the church councils that condemned them, these were the very arts used in ancient days to weave the spell that cast the Ashioi into exile.”

Elsebet nodded, as if her point was now proven. She did not step aside. Liath kept talking.

“‘Between the Bwr invasion and the troubled church, the creaking edifice of the old empire at last collapsed.”’

“So wrote Taillefer’s chronicler, Albert the Wise.”

“Indeed he did, which is where I got the phrase. The last of those who believed in the Redemptio, in the east beyond Arethousa, vanished when the Jinna Empire conquered those lands in the name of their god.”

“Fire worshipers!” muttered the wit.

“I hear they worship naked,” said Wichman suddenly. “I’d like to see those Jinna women dancing around the flames!”

“Enough!” snapped Sanglant. “I pray you, go on.”

“I pray you,” Liath said, surveying the assembly, “I am nearly done.”

“Which is what she said before,” added the wit, and there was a smattering of chuckles.

She smiled and waited for quiet before she went on. “These Jinna conquered the southern shore of the Middle Sea as well. The lands around the old imperial capital fell into chaos for many decades, but at length various princedoms and duchies and counties arose. These folk called themselves Aosta. They called their capital Darre, and it
was in Darre—once the capital of the Dariyan Empire—that one regnant or another pretended to rule Aosta.”

This slighting comment was appreciated. A few distant soldiers cheered.

She acknowledge them with a lift of a hand. “Only in the northwestern kingdom of Salia did a ruler consolidate enough power to extend his reach. The Salian king, Taille, renamed himself the Emperor Taillefer and crowned himself with a seven-pointed crown that he called his ‘crown of stars.’ As part of his imperial policy, Taillefer sent missionaries for the Daisanite Church into the lands east of Salia. Heathen tribes embraced the Circle of Unity. Chieftains sent their own sons and daughters out into the more distant wilderness to convert yet more peoples. So came the Wendish into the Circle.”

“This history of empire any good scholar knows,” said Sister Elsebet. “That good woman, Sister Rosvita, was writing her history of the
Deeds of the Great Princes
. Yet she—she, too—” She faltered. She wept.

“A woman firm in her scholarship,” said Liath. “I believe she would understand that it is necessary to see the tapestry as a whole in order to understand the consequence of the spell. If you will, I will go on.

“Taillefer’s empire disintegrated after the emperor’s death. At that time, King Arnulf the Elder of Wendar annexed lands formerly allied to Salia by marrying the heirs of Varre to his own children. When these heirs died without issue, he named himself king of Wendar and Varre. In time, the regnancy passed to Arnulf the Younger, and then to
his
son, Henry, the second of that name. So might we learn from Sister Rosvita, were she here to teach us!

“Henry married an Arethousan princess named Sophia. She bore him three children, Sapientia, Theophanu, and Ekkehard. The king struggled against his own older sister, Sabella, but he triumphed over her at Kassel, in the duchy of Fesse.”

She nodded at Liutgard, who lifted a hand and touched her own brow, as if remembering those lost in that battle: brother against sister.

“Henry’s own cousin Conrad, too, it seemed, chafed at
being a duke, but his ambitions are as yet unknown. Some years after the death of Queen Sophia, Henry married Princess Sapientia to Prince Bayan, the younger brother of the Ungrian king, Geza. He hoped, it seemed, that this alliance would protect his eastern marchlands from marauders. Soon after, Henry married an Aostan princess of noble birth, called Adelheid, and traveled south to Aosta with the intention of having himself crowned Emperor and of driving all Jinna and Arethousan interlopers out of lands that ought to belong to the holy church and its imperial champion. And this he did, as you know, because you rode beside him. You triumphed, because he triumphed.”

Those who had survived the expedition were still proud of seeing their king crowned as emperor. Sanglant saw the memory of victory in their expressions, but he also saw their grief.

“Many disturbances were rising in the lands beyond Wendar. They struck hard. From the east, the Quman barbarians led by their prince Bulkezu plundered the marchlands and Avaria. Some among you will remember his defeat.”

This got cheers as well, and Sanglant heard his name rise out of the crowd. She waited, and went on when she could.

“In the north, the Eika savages raid along the coast, united under a single chieftain. Reports suggest that civil war plagues the kingdom of Salia. In Arethousa, there is always corruption and intrigue, as the poets and historians tell us. But this was not all. Strange creatures out of legend walked abroad. Across the lands people began to whisper that the end of the world was at hand.”

“So it is!” called a voice from the crowd, and many cried out in agreement.

Liutgard rose unexpectedly, looking angry. “Was this, that we suffered, the end of the world? We are still alive, although many dear to us are dead. Henry is dead—may he rest at peace in the Chamber of Light. But the world is not ended.”

Liath raised a hand to show that she had heard and understood
her objection. “Earth still holds beneath us, although I think we may find much in the land has been altered. I pray you, Duchess Liutgard, hear what I have to say. How is it that the woman who called herself Anne and who ruled over you as skopos knew of the Ashioi? How did she know about the ancient spell which would come to fruition on that night, that one night, when the crown of stars crowned the heavens? At midnight on the cusp of the tenth and eleventh days of Octumbre, in the year 735, as we measure the years after the proclamation of the Holy Word. How is it she knew this?”

It was a sorry satisfaction for Sanglant to recall that he had warned Henry’s court and no one had listened to him.

“After the death of Emperor Taillefer, his empire fell into disunion because there was no male heir. He left three daughters and a few bastard sons. One of these claimed the throne and was later killed by his rivals.” She glanced at Sanglant. He nodded, having heard this story before. Its existence did not threaten his hold on the throne.

“Two of Taillefer’s daughters were married to princes of the realm and they vanish from our history. But his daughter Tallia was placed in the church as a biscop. There she studied the ancient arts of the mathematici together with her most intimate and faithful servant, a woman named Clothilde. These two and their adepts discovered that the ancient story of the Ashioi was a true story. They discovered that within a few decades—well, almost a hundred years—there would be a second cataclysm. They thought they could prevent this cataclysm with a second weaving. They believed that the Ashioi, now in exile, were scheming to return to Earth and conquer humankind. But the truth is that it was the spell which was flawed. The land of the Ashioi was flung outward on such a path that it would inevitably come back to where it had begun. We have all ridden such trails, thinking we are going elsewhere only to end up where we started!”

She hoped for a chuckle but did not get one. Her audience listened intently, but they did not, necessarily, believe
what she was saying. Sanglant could see in each posture the extent of their belief: Sister Elsebet with her head bent skeptically; Sergeant Gotfrid scratching his beard as if puzzled; a woman fitted with a steward’s tabard staring raptly with mouth parted as she fingered the knot that tied her scarf beneath her chin.