In the Ruins (58 page)

“Petrus, the knife.”

“Your hands, my lord. Let me do it, if it must be done.”

“I’ll not let others stain their hands so mine may remain clean. This is my decision, not yours.” He took a common kitchen knife, good sharp iron, out of Petrus’ shaking hands, and went to the table. Grasping Elene by the hair, he set the knife to her pulsing throat.

Elene tried to struggle, but she could not.

Anna shrieked, but the only noise that escaped her was a moan. She staggered up, but she was too slow with that lethargy weighing her down. She was too slow, and it was already too late.

He cut.

Elene’s blood spurted over the board, spattering Berthold’s sleeve and hair, although he was too fast asleep to stir. Blood flowed. A Dragon and a Queen toppled sideways in the first gush. The rest of the pieces were soon awash, islands in a red sea.

Hugh braced her body in the chair and dropped the bloody knife onto the carpet. He walked over to Anna and grasped her. She sagged against him; she could not help herself.

“Is this another so afflicted?” He raised her hand, smoothed a finger over the three spots of blood, and teased the needle out of her fingers. She was helpless to resist. Only his strong arm held her up.

“Quickly, Brother Petrus!”

A movement, an arm sweeping past her face, and a sweet smelling fragrance wafted into her nostrils. She came alert to see a smoky mist dimming her sight through which she saw all those sleeping and heard an uncanny hush
drawn over the palace grounds as though every living creature had been muzzled and shod in wool.

His eyes were so very blue that she thought she should drown in them. “I am taking Princess Blessing. You have now a choice. You may come with me, to attend her, or you may stay behind.”

Her mouth worked, but she got no words out.

He smiled sadly.

Oh, that smile. She might die hoping for another taste of that smile. She had never seen a man as beautiful as he was.

“What is your name?”

“Anna, Your Grace,” she whispered.

“Anna,” he said, making music of her name. “Carry the princess. We must make haste.”

“If I won’t, Your Grace? If I refuse to go?”

“Then a more faithful servant will carry her,” he said in the most kindly voice imaginable, and it chilled her to hear it, because he did not raise his voice or look angry. He was no Bulkezu, to howl and rage. He did not look like a man who had just cut the throat of a defenseless young woman. “And you will wake later, hoping she is well cared for but never knowing if she will be.”

Weeping, she gathered up Blessing, although the girl had grown enough to weigh heavily in her arms. It took all her courage to look at him again, and all her courage to speak words he might not want to hear. “There are some things we need, Your Grace—”

“There is nothing you shall need that has not already been prepared. We have taken everything from this town that we want. Brother Petrus, let us go swiftly, as you advise.”

“Yes, Lord Hugh.”

So they went, leaving the chamber and the dead girl and her sleeping companions behind. Below, four soldiers waited; they also wore amulets. Lord Jonas and Odei sprawled on the floor among a scattering of dice. Brother Heribert followed like a dog, hesitant, twitchy, but determined.

“Unchain the Eagle,” said Lord Hugh to two of the soldiers.
“Make sure there is blood on his hands, and the knife in his possession. Then meet us at the appointed place.”

In the barracks below soldiers slept, draped over benches or snoring on pallets. Two sat on either side of the door, slumped against the stone wall. One had his mouth open, and the way drool trickled out scared her.

Their feet crunched on gravel as they crossed along a wing of the palace, moving swiftly. Guards slept on benches and on paving stones. One had an arm slung somewhat around a pillar as though embracing it. In the courtyard facing the great hall a dozen servants had dropped platters of food and flagons of drink. A pair of dogs had fallen down asleep in the act of filching a fine haunch of beef intended for the queen’s table. From the hall itself, glimpsed through open doors, came only silence. One of the soldiers grabbed a pair of plump roasted chickens and tied them up into a handkerchief which he fastened to his belt. The scent of all that good, warm food made Anna’s stomach grumble, and she hated herself for feeling a hunger that Lady Elene would never again know. Blessing stirred, whimpering, but did not wake.

Five more soldiers waited by the barracks, holding the reins of fourteen horses, four of them laden with packs. Every wakeful creature there wore an amulet around its neck like to the one Anna wore. By the horses, Lord Hugh nodded at Brother Petrus.

“All the rest is done as I commanded?”

“It is all arranged, Lord Hugh. All will be done as you have ordered. Yet I am not sure, my lord. Was there some other fate that you intend for Lord Berthold? Villam’s son is tainted with Villam’s treachery in plotting against Emperor Henry, may he rest at peace in the Chamber of Light.”

“Villam’s son means nothing, although there is, I think, some mystery regarding his disappearance and reappearance. Leave him as he is. Find out his secret, if you can. He may trust you if you befriend him after we are gone.”

Petrus hesitated.

“Go on, Brother. You must not fear to speak freely to me.”

“Why the young lady, Your Grace? She was beautiful. Proud, it’s true, but lovely. It’s like trampling a flower in bloom.”

“Some flowers will be trampled when an army marches to lift a siege, Brother. No one rejoices in destruction, yet at times it is the only way. Her grandmother taught her things she must not be allowed to use. We cannot take the chance. I will do penance for the deed.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Still … if you think her a risk, why leave alive the old man?”

“He is too weak and ignorant to threaten us. He’ll serve us by diverting suspicion. No doubt her death was more merciful than his will be.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Do not douse the sleeping fire until the lights on the hill have vanished. Do as you have been instructed. Let no one chance upon you in the tombs. All depends on timing and where you place the decoy.”

“I will not fail you, Lord Hugh.”

“I trust not. Afterward, await my return.”

“Yes, Lord Hugh. God go with you, Lord Hugh.”

The angel’s smile had something of irony in it. “So we may hope.”

He beckoned. A soldier took Blessing out of Anna’s arms and lifted her up to one of his companions, already mounted. Another took Anna up behind him. The rest made ready, and they rode out of the palace by the spies’ gate, a triple-guarded gate set into the palace’s outer wall that led to an escarpment and a steep trail carved into the northeastern face of the hill on which the town of Novomo had been built. Shale littered the hillside. They picked their way down. None spoke; only the rattle of rock broke the silence.

How far did the spell extend? Had he cast his web of sorcery across the entire town?

How could any person be so beautiful and so wicked?

At the base of the hill they stopped beside a vineyard, which lay quiet under the late afternoon sky. Nothing stirred except a single honeybee, searching for nectar.

“Brother Heribert,” said Lord Hugh. “Take such provisions
as you can carry. Walk north, over St. Barnaria’s Pass. Do you know the way?”

“The way we walked when we came south?”

“Rumor has it you came down from the mountains. Return there, and follow the path north into Wendar.”

“Who will guide me?”

“You must guide yourself. You seek Sanglant, who calls himself regnant. When last I saw him, he was at Quedlinhame. Seek him, and do what you must.”

Without answering, the cleric collected a sack of provisions offered to him by one of the soldiers. He paused beside Blessing’s limp body to touch her knee, then went on his way through the vineyards, soon lost to view. The rest circled south to join the main road leading out of town. Twice Anna saw folk in the distance, laborers or farmers about their tasks. Once she saw a wagon at rest behind a tree, but she saw no sign of its occupant, only a mule with its head down, cropping grass. Twice she heard a dog bark. A large party had passed this way before them; she saw their dust ahead on the road, moving south.

As dusk lowered, they paused beside a chalky path that split off from the main road and climbed a nearby hill. Here they paused.

“Two riding up behind,” said the guardsman who rode as rear guard. “That’ll be Liudbold and Theodore. They’re late coming.”

“We’ll wait here,” said Hugh, and soon enough the two soldiers who had been left behind at the tower reached them.

“Theodore. Liudbold.” Hugh looked at them each in turn. “What is your report? I expected you sooner.”

“Begging your pardon, my lord,” said the one addressed as Theodore. “It were trickier than we thought. The old man had life in him. He was wakeful and struggling, and he got a fist in on Liudbold’s jaw here.”

Some of the other soldiers coughed and snickered as Liudbold touched a hand to the bruise forming on his face, but they fell silent when Hugh raised a hand.

“Yes, he fought the spell, with some success. That shouldn’t surprise me, I suppose. What did you do?”

“Well, at first we thought of tying him up, but then we recalled that he was meant to look as if he’d freed himself. So we knocked him cold, hauled him upstairs, then rolled him in the blood and left him with the knife in his hand.”

“It will do,” Lord Hugh said kindly. “You kept your heads about you. Well done.”

Such praise would melt stone! The soldiers murmured, but Lord Hugh turned his horse onto the path and led the others away from the road. Behind, the pair of men riding in the rear guard swept their path to hide their tracks. Ahead, tall figures awaited them, stones arranged in a circle.

She said nothing, but by asking no questions caused Lord Hugh to notice her silence.

“How came you to Novomo, Anna? How did Princess Blessing and her party reach Aosta, and why? Where did you come from? How came you to lose her father and mother?”

She shrugged, pretending ignorance, as he studied her. She was sick at heart. It seemed beneath that mild gaze that he saw everything and knew everything.

“My lord presbyter,” said one of the soldiers, a man with a scar on his chin. “I can make her talk, if that’s what you’re wishing.”

He turned away. “Think nothing of it, John. I already know much of the tale. When I have need of the rest, I’ll get it.”

“I just don’t like to see you treated with such disrespect, my lord presbyter. It gripes me to think of the queen refusing to see you, after all you done for her and the common folk in Darre.”

“The queen is grieved by the loss of her daughter. It is to be expected.”

“Only you would be so forgiving, my lord.”

The other soldiers murmured agreement.

“Like that cleric you released to walk north. I think that one has lost his wits!”

Hugh nodded without smiling. “And so he has, poor soul.”

They came up to a flat space of ground, bare of vegetation, situated in front of the standing stones.

“Dismount quickly, all except the one with the servant and you, Frigo,” said Hugh, gesturing toward the man who carried Blessing. “Move when I give the command. Do not hesitate.”

Blessing slept. Anna could not go to her, sitting as she was in the grasp of a man much bigger and stronger than she was, but she saw that Blessing wore about her neck an amulet as well, only this one was woven with sprigs of lavender and a twisted knot that looked ready to strangle any unsuspecting neck caught in its grasp. It looked different than all the others.

Hugh gave his reins to one of the men. He placed his feet on a circle of pale ground, white with dust, and drew from his sleeve a strange golden implement like a wheel embedded within a wheel. This he raised to sight along the horizon. Then he turned to gaze toward Novomo, hazy in the fading light.

“We must be ready,” he said to his soldiers. “Make sure the supplies I mentioned are at hand. Her devils can follow us no matter how far we travel, so when I speak, you must obey exactly as I say.”

They murmured assent.

Anna laughed. “We can’t go!” she crowed. “You can’t weave a spell from the heavens when it is cloudy! You’re trapped here!”

He looked back at her. She clapped a hand over her mouth. Was that a knife, winking in the hand of one of the soldiers?

“Wise, after all,” said Lord Hugh. “But I possess an instrument that tells me where every star will rise and set. The music of the spheres reaches through the clouds. It is only our weak eyesight that stymies us for, unlike the angels and daimones, we cannot see past that which blinds. With this instrument, I do not have to see what I have already measured in order to know it is there. I can weave even when clouds shroud the heavens. I can weave even in daylight, although I must not let my enemies guess that I can do so.”

As night fell, he wove, drawing light out of the heavens although no stars shone where any human eye could see. He wove an archway of light and, at his command—for who would refuse him?—they walked through it into another place.