In the Ruins (22 page)

“The Wendish bitch! See here! She’s slipped her leash.”

All at once a half dozen of them pressed back from the water to encircle her. She had overreached because her thirst had driven her forward rashly. She turned her wrists in toward her body to grip the chain, ready to use it as a weapon.

Sergeant Bysantius appeared beside her with a quirt. “Back! Back!” he cried as he slashed left and right, driving the soldiers away from her.

Her heart was still racing, and her mouth had gone dry, so she pretended to a calmness she did not feel as she sat back on her heels and wiped her forehead as well as she could with her wrists manacled. “I thank you, Sergeant.”

He raised one eyebrow, then pointed behind her with the quirt. “I didn’t come for you. See, there. General Lord Alexandros waters his horses.”

They marched these days through dry, hilly countryside devoid of habitation. This stream poured out of a ravine. Except at this ford, its banks were too steep for horses to drink. Muttering, the soldiers headed back to camp.

“Up!” Sergeant Bysantius grabbed her elbow and pulled her upright. “Out of the way.”

She shook her arm out of his grasp before he could lead her away. The chain that bound her ankles allowed her to walk but not run, and she was unable to avoid the rush of horses brought to the stream by the general’s grooms. Alexandros himself rode a chestnut mare with a pale gold coat. His entire string had chestnut coats, most pale and a few richly dark in shade. He pulled up, dismounted, and tossed his reins to a groom before walking over to Sergeant Bysantius.

“Sergeant, bring the Eagle to me at my tent.”

“Yes, my lord general.”

He strode away with a dozen men swarming in attendance.

“He has no need to crawl for a taste of water as the rest
of us do,” she said bitterly to the sergeant. “He has wine to drink while his soldiers go thirsty.”

Bysantius scratched his cheek. “He has earned his rank and his privileges. He’s no better born than half these men.”

She laughed. “How can that be? He is a lord.”

“A man who commands an army is likely to be addressed as ‘lord,’ I’m thinking. Even by those who were born under a canopy boasting the imperial star. Especially if they need the men and weapons he can bring to their cause.”

“The exalted Lady Eudokia needs him in order to raise her nephew to become emperor?”

He shrugged. “A strong hand rules where weaker hands sow only chaos. Come.”

She followed up along the dusty ground on the trail of the lord general, now vanished into the glut of wagons, horses, milling troops, and canvas tents that marked the camp. Every night the camp was set up in the exact same order, every tent sited in relation to the emperor’s tent according to its inhabitants’ rank, position, and importance to the royal child. This night, they had halted in the middle of what had once been a village.

Three brick hovels stood in the midst of a dozen ancient olive trees, but the tiny hamlet appeared abandoned, perhaps yesterday, perhaps one hundred years ago. In this dry country it was impossible to tell.

Bysantius paced himself so as not to get ahead of her. Over the last ten or so days she had accustomed herself to the chains so that she could walk without stumbling.

“I thank you,” she repeated.

“For what kindness?” he asked, almost laughing.

“For saving me from whatever unkindness I might have suffered from those soldiers.”

“The general wants you unharmed. You’re no use to him dead.”

She was, apparently, no use to him living, but she forbore to say it, knowing it foolish to remind her captors that they might be better off saving for their own men the bit of food they fed to her each day. “Is it true of all of you, that you serve the lord general and not the exalted lady?”

Now he did laugh. “The priests teach us that we serve God, is that not so? God served humankind by walking among us for a time so He could lead us into the Light.”

“That is a heresy.”

“Nay, you Darrens are the heretics. You say that the blessed Daisan was only a man like you and me.” He spoke without heat. He was not, apparently, a man made passionate by religious matters.

“The deacons of my own land taught me that the blessed Daisan prayed for seven days and nights and was lifted up to the Chamber of Light by the Mother and Father of Life. You don’t believe the tales of his martyrdom, do you?”

“No, not his martyrdom.” Yet he frowned. “The blessed Daisan holds two natures within him, for how else could he have been translated into the Chamber of Light while still living? Still, folk do talk of this martyrdom, how his skin was flayed from his body.”

“I’ve met more than one person in the west who whispers the heresy of the Redemption. I didn’t know folk spoke of it here, too.”

He slapped his quirt against his thigh and glanced first left, then right, as they made their way through camp. Exhausted, men sat on the ground or reclined on blankets or cloaks. “Anyone might hear. The Patriarch has spies among the troops.”

If that were so, it must mean that the Patriarch feared the power of the heresy. Why spy out what you did not fear? Yet surely the heresy Ivar professed had come from somewhere. Why not from the east? It was the most likely story. Despite what Bysantius said, they were heretics here anyway with their talk of “two natures.” Once that door was opened, as Deacon Fortensia used to say in Heart’s Rest, any shameless layabout could creep in and pretend to be a holy saint.

“You ever put thought to what you’ve hope for, if the lord general grants you your freedom?” asked Bysantius as they approached the general’s big tent, just now shuddering into place as soldiers and servants raised the canvas over the frame and staked it down.

“What I’ve hope for? I hope to go home! I serve the emperor, Henry.”

“Scouts say the land is blasted west of here. That ash and dust and fire parch the air. I don’t think the Wendish king has an empire left. You’d do better to stick it out in civilized country.”

Her eyes burned. She wiped away tears as she struggled with dismay. “I hadn’t heard those reports.” In her own country, she would have. Eagles talked to each other and knew everything, as much as anyone could know. They knew almost as much as the regnant, because they were his eyes and ears.

“You’re a prisoner,” he replied, gaze bent on her, “but you might be otherwise.”

“Otherwise?” She sniffed back her tears, hating to show weakness.

“I’d marry you, if you were willing.”

“Marry me?” The incongruity of the comment dried her tears and her anger, then made her laugh. “Marry me?”

“You’re strong, capable, smart. The exalted Lady Eudokia tells me you’re still a virgin. You’d make a good wife. I like you. You haven’t given up.”

Now she burned but for other reasons.
How could the exalted lady know
?

“I haven’t given up. I’m not accustomed to these chains yet.”

His sidelong gaze was measuring, not angry. “It was fairly asked. I might hope for the same courtesy in an answer.”

“I am still a prisoner. Ask me when I am free to leave or stay as I wish.”

“Huh,” he said, half of it a laugh and the rest nothing she could interpret. With his quirt he indicated the entrance to the general’s tent. “Go in.”

“You’re not coming in?” she asked, and had to stop herself from grabbing his arm as at a lifeline. She could not bring herself to speak the thought that leaped into her mind:
Alone, I fear the general’s anger, but if you were there I might hope for someone to protect me against it
.

He brushed a hand through his dark hair as would a man preening for a lover’s visit. “Go in,” he repeated, and lifted his quirt. “I’ve a few guards to speak to. They’ve gotten careless.”

Careless about her.

He nodded, dismissing her, and walked away. General Lord Alexandros’ guards moved their spears away from the entrance and let her pass. Inside, a servant unrolled a rug to cover the red-gray earth, but otherwise the general had dispensed with the opulent furnishings that had surrounded him before the great storm. No green silk draped the bare canvas walls. Chairs and rich couches were banished, replaced by a bench, a pallet, and a pitcher of water set in a copper basin, placed on a three-legged stool. He was sitting on the bench wiping dust off his face with a square of linen while a captain dressed in a red tabard gave his report. This man had an unusual accent and spoke at such a galloping pace that she had trouble understanding him.

“… a day ahead of us … refugees … the city. They fled … the sea. These folk are the ones … the storm in the sky…”

The general glanced up, noted her, and beckoned to a servant. “A fire,” he said softly to the man, who slipped out as the captain kept speaking.

“… They fled to the hills … the sea … the city … they are lying … it is true … do you wish to speak to them?”

“No, not yet. If their story is true, we will meet others who tell the same tale. If it is false, then we will soon know. Put out a double sentry line. Stay on guard against bandits and thieves.”

As the captain left, the servant returned with a brazier heaped with glowing coals. A second man walked behind him carrying a cloth sling filled with sticks. They set up a tripod on the dirt and cradled the brazier in it.

Alexandros gestured toward the brazier, but said nothing. She knelt in the dirt because she had not been given permission to touch the rug. One of the servants fed sticks to the coals. They blazed. She bent her attention to the flames, seeking within for those she knew: King Henry,
Liath, Ivar, Prince Sanglant, Wolfhere, Sorgatani, Sister Rosvita and her retinue, Captain Thiadbold, and even her friends among the Lions, one by one.

She saw nothing in the flames except flickering shadows. Perhaps every soul she knew had died in the storm. Possibly Ingo, Folquin, Leo, and Stephen were well and truly dead, lost in the cataclysm or in a battle she did not yet know they had fought. Probably Rosvita and the other clerics had died of thirst and starvation or been slaughtered by bandits.

The entrance flap shifted. The movement of light across the ground startled her so much that she sat back on her heels, blinking, to see a pair of servants carry in the litter on which Lady Eudokia traveled. A trio of eunuchs placed four stools on the rug and stepped back as the servants placed the litter on this foundation, well off the ground. The eunuchs bathed the lady’s face and hands in water, then retreated.

“What news?” the lady asked Alexandros.

“As you see, no different than last night or the one before or every night before that. Either she lies, or she is telling the truth and has lost her Eagle’s Sight.”

“If so, is it a temporary blindness or a permanent one?”

He scratched his neck, grimacing, then rubbed his eyes as if he were exasperated. “What else do you know of this sorcery, Exalted Lady?”

“Nothing I have not already told you. Its secrets are not known to us. I will attempt the camphor again, but it is the last I possess.”

“See!” He fixed his one-eyed gaze on Hanna. A knife held to her throat could not have frightened her more. How could a common-born man rise to be called a “lord”? Either he was in league with the Enemy, or the Arethousans were stranger than any folk she understood. That he was ruthless she knew; he had done nothing to succor Princess Sapientia; he had abandoned his other hostages without, apparently, a second thought. He drove his men forward at a difficult pace and left the stragglers behind.

“See.”

Lady Eudokia tossed three tiny twigs onto the fire. The
choking scent of camphor filled Hanna’s lungs and made her eyes water and her head pound. She saw flames, burning and burning, and although the smoke and incense made her eyes sting, she kept staring into the dance of fire.

Let them believe she was only a breath away from success.

“Nothing,” said Lady Eudokia, but she sounded curious more than disgusted. “We may as well cavort naked with the fire worshipers as stare at these coals.”

The general had not moved, but Hanna felt his presence as a threat. “Is she lying, Exalted Lady?”

“I think she is not lying. I see only flames.”

“If we do not need her, then …”

“Let us not be hasty, General. You are thinking as a soldier in battle. Think rather that those who brought this storm down upon us may have survived. I do not know what powers they hold to themselves. If they have the ability to cloud Eagle’s Sight, we must consider what is best for us. Hold the Eagle in reserve, in case matters change.”

“What if it takes years?”

She lifted a hand in a lazy gesture of disinterest. “I have an aunt who has for twenty-eight years resided in the convent of St. Mary of Gesythan. It is better for the family that she remain alive than that she be killed. None leave that isolation once they are banished within. This one can be placed in the convent as well.”

“She is a westerner and thus a heretic.”

“True enough. She need not receive every comfort, as do the others.”

He scratched his neck again, leaving a trail of rashy red. “A good enough plan. But I agree only on the condition that she remain in my custody until that time, and that I be granted leave to visit her there whenever I wish.”

“If my nephew becomes emperor, General, then these are no obstacles.”

He nodded. She clapped her hands, and the eunuchs wiped her face again before moving back so the servants could carry her away. As the tent flap closed behind her retinue, the general turned to the soldiers waiting respectfully behind him. He pointed. A captain dressed in a blue
tabard came forward and began delivering his report, but Hanna was too dizzy with fear to catch more than scraps of phrases:

“… may be the same bandits who shadow us … may be another group … scouts can never find them … nay, never a trace …”

She ought to memorize each utterance, to hoard them like the treasures they were. She was an Eagle. What she heard, she remembered. What she remembered, she could report to her regnant just as this man reported to his. But she could not concentrate because she could not banish from her mind a vision of whitewashed walls surrounding her, too high to be climbed and without any gate for escape.