In the Ruins (70 page)

First, the circuit of the platform, paced west to north to east to south. She wept to see the city laid whole around her, so long desired and now fulfilled. On the western face of the pyramid the lower stairs had crumbled away into a dangerous slope of loose shards and the weathered, broken remains of what once were stairs. It was possible to actually see the ragged joining where new met old, but it was disorienting. She felt she might fall and fall, tumbling down the slope into the forgotten past now yanked unexpectedly into line with the present.

Farther down, at the northwestern corner along the base, lay a field of impressive rubble jamming what had once been the sacred entrance to the Heart-of-the-Universe, the cavern beneath the temple.

She licked away a tear from the corner of her mouth as she returned from her circuit and walked to the center. She halted beside the blood stone and removed from the hem of the feather cloak a pair of sap cactus spines. One she handed to Kansi-a-lari.

“Will you cease work on the rockfall?” she asked the
other woman. “If we could unearth the entrance to the Heart-of-the-Universe …”

The Impatient One wiped sweat from the back of her neck. “Then what? Will the gods blast our enemies? Will the earth open up and swallow them? Will we gain the ability to see what they are doing without them knowing, or to move faster than they can move themselves between their weaving crowns?”

“Respect the gods,” said Feather Cloak, shocked at such talk even from The Impatient One. “We have survived, and suffered. Let us seek peace, not confrontation.”

“As you did, with the blood knives?” mocked the Impatient One.

“Do you think they are your allies? Do you think you can control them?”

The Impatient One smiled cruelly. “Blood will sate them.”

She stuck out her tongue and held its tip with thumb and two fingers. Raising the spine, she touched its pointed end to the pink flesh.

Feather Cloak sighed. “With this blood,” she said, “I let authority pass from my hand into the hand of the one who is chosen.”

She settled down cross-legged on the blood stone, leaning over the shallow basin that marked its center. She held her own tongue and pierced it smoothly. The pain flashed like fire, and it throbbed, but sharp red blood dropped into the basin made by the blood stone.

Kansi-a-lari did the same. Where blood melded and mixed, it smoked, bubbling for the space of one breath before it dissipated into the air with a scent so acrid that both sneezed.

“With this blood, I accept authority into my hands from the one who came before.”

Kansi held out her hands, palms up, and waited. At least she did not gloat, but she was, obviously, restraining her impatience with the leisurely pace of the ritual. She wanted to get on with it, get moving, make decisions, push forward.

The time for careful steps is done
. The world she knew and understood was passing out of her hands. Fled, like a kiss stolen from a man who doesn’t really want you.

The headdress. The rustling cloak. The spines. All these were transferred. These sigils of the authority released her, and she was only what she had been before, called Secha by her family and named The-One-Who-Looks-Hard-at-the-Heart as a child for her habit of staring at her playmates with a level gaze when she found their antics distasteful or mean-spirited.

She-Who-Sits-in-the-Eagle-Seat rose, hands raised heavenward to show her palms to the sight of the gods, who through the hands can see into the heart. She might stand at the height of the temple dedicated to She-Who-Creates for a day or a year, waiting for the gods to speak to her, although Secha doubted that The Impatient One could stand still for more than twenty breaths.

And indeed, not twenty breaths later, Feather Cloak grunted, wiped away the sweat beading her forehead, and set off to descend the steps.

In that moment of solitude granted her, Secha touched chin and forehead to acknowledge the gods. The sky had lightened. The clouds shone like the underside of a pearl, and she glimpsed the shimmering disk of the sun high above and tasted its heat on her bloody tongue and in the sticky hot dust kicked up by the feet of the multitude below.

At length she stood and followed Feather Cloak down the steep stairs.

Feather Cloak was met on the lower terrace by a swarm of people who wore emblems of rank not seen in Secha’s lifetime: the marks of high lineage, of privilege, of priestly sanction and a warrior’s prestige. Sashes; a blood knife banner; a beaded neckpiece; bright feather headdresses; long, clay-red mantles; gauntlets of precious shells strung together on a net.

Secha passed around them like a shadow, forgotten and unseen. She was free, although the wound in her tongue burned and the taste of blood reminded her of the sharpness
of defeat. No weight bowed her shoulders. She was only herself now, a woman with certain skills who must find her way in the new world whose landscape was still unexplored. The exiles and the ones who had walked in the shadows must build together.

It would not be easy.

“ARE you sure he is dead?” asked Adelheid.

“There is no escape from the galla.”

“Are you sure?”

When Antonia thought about Hugh of Austra, her gut burned and her heart hammered, and she had to murmur psalms until she calmed herself. “They are not mortal creatures, as we are. They desire only a return to the pit out of which they sprang. They will pursue those whose names they carry because when that soul is extinguished, the bond that binds them to Earth is broken.”

“The world is a large place!”

“They do not seek as would a human scout. If he walks on Earth, they will find him by other means than the five senses. Had he vanished out of this plane of existence, they would return to me seeking release. Only I, or the death of that soul, can release them. They did not. Thus, he must be dead.”

She and Adelheid walked through the enclosed garden beside the clematis. A few brave flowers budded among the leaves, but none had opened. Like her anger, they remained closed tight, waiting for more auspicious weather.

“What if he has a defense against them?” Adelheid worried at it, as a dog keeps chewing a bone long since shed of
all its flecks of tasty fat and flesh. “Prince Sanglant did, with griffin feathers.”

“Prince Sanglant is in the north. He is Hugh’s sworn enemy. Think you Sanglant gave the man he most despises a dozen griffin feathers as a precaution?”

“Hugh might have stolen such feathers. He said he was at the Wendish court before he was exiled.”

“It might be true he was at the Wendish court. Or he might have lied to us. Perhaps you believe Hugh stole Princess Blessing to return her to her father in exchange for peace between them? Or that the old Eagle is the one who murdered Lady Elene?”

“He was covered in her blood. And caught in the stables, trying to saddle a horse and make his escape.”

“A crude ploy on Lord Hugh’s part, I imagine, to distract us. The old man has no reason to murder the girl.”

“Why would Lord Hugh want her dead?”

“She is his rival. She was educated by a formidable mathematicus.”

“Then why not kill the old man at the same time?”

“He knows nothing important. Anne said so. His skills are trifles compared to what the rest knew. He is no threat.”

“Yet you had him returned to the dungeon, in chains. If we do not mean to kill him, and if he is no threat, then why not let him bide in the tower with Lord Berthold?”

“As Berthold has requested? No, I think not. The soldiers hate him, believing he murdered the young lady. They would believe themselves ill used if he did not suffer. In any case, it serves me to keep him in chains. I still have a use for him.”

Adelheid shook her head, her face pale as she pinched tiny buds off a branch with nervous anger. “These are wheels within wheels, like a toy from Arethousa. Easily broken. Difficult to fix. How can you be sure that Hugh is dead?”

Adelheid feared Hugh! That was the root of her displeasure.

“Do not despair, Your Majesty,” said Antonia in a soothing
tone. “Once the galla swarm, a man possessing griffin feathers must move quickly to save himself. To save all of his troop would be beyond his capacity. There is no way to shield oneself from their power, there is no ancient spell of warding. It is impossible—unlikely—nay, it is impossible.”

“You cannot be sure! And the child, too! If she is dead, then Mathilda has no rivals in the second generation. I should have slit her throat myself. Now I will never know if she perished.”

Almost, Antonia lost her temper, but fortunately soldiers appeared under the archway that led into the palace.

“Your Majesty! Holy Mother!”

Captain Falco hurried forward, and Adelheid paused beside the mosaic floor. He knelt before her.

The queen touched a finger to her own lips, hissed a breath, and spoke. “What news, Captain?”

“Your Majesty,” he said, for he always put Adelheid first, although it was wrong of him to do so. Afterward, he inclined his head toward Antonia. “Holy Mother. When we searched more carefully, we found where they had left the road.”

“Did they go to the crown?” Antonia asked.

“It’s true there was some disturbance by that path, but it appears they decided not to go that way.”

“Because of the clouds, they could not weave,” said Antonia. “God stymied them.”

“Go on,” said Adelheid impatiently. “What did you find?”

“Two days’ ride down the road we found where they scattered into the woodland. They must have been fleeing from—” He broke off, and glanced nervously at Antonia; it was good that he feared her. “We brought the remains back in wagons, Your Majesty, although I admit we found no stray horses living or dead.”

“What manner of remains?” Antonia asked.

“A tumble of bone, hard to sort out because cast here and there along the ground and amid bushes. We found twelve skulls. Two of them were somewhat smaller than the rest. Belt buckles, metal bits, such things. This as well,
among the bones.” He offered her a silver brooch molded in the shape of a panther grappling with a hapless antelope.

“Austra’s sigil,” said Antonia.

“He was wearing that when he arrived,” said Adelheid breathlessly. Her cheeks became red as she took the brooch from the captain and weighed it in her palm. “Still, why ride south? Why not ride north?”

“He claimed to have been exiled from Wendar,” said Antonia. “So he could not hope to find refuge there. Yet I, too, wonder what they hoped to find in the south.”

“Twelve skulls,” mused Adelheid, “but thirteen went missing.”

She gave Antonia such a look, but Antonia refused to be drawn. There had been no reason to raise a galla to pursue Heribert.

“I left men behind to continue searching, Your Majesty,” said the captain, “knowing you would wish to account for everyone.”

“What if it was Hugh who survived?” Adelheid asked, still studying the brooch. “How can we know? Bones do not speak.”

“Do you wish Lord Hugh dead? Or alive? Your Majesty.” It was said sharply, but Antonia had tired of this conversation which they had repeated a dozen times since the morning four days ago when they had woken to find Lady Elene murdered, and Hugh, Princess Blessing, and Brother Heribert vanished together with nine soldiers including one of Adelheid’s loyal captains.

“I wish Henry still lived,” said Adelheid. She wiped an eye as though it stung. “He was a good man. None better.”

She sank down on the stone bench and rested her elbow on her knee and her forehead on her palm, the very image of a woman mourning a lost lover. Her gaze strayed over the ancient mosaic, and her eyes glittered, washed with tears.

“So it went in the old story,” she said, indicating the mosaic on which Antonia stood. The man was draped only in a length of cloth that did a poor job of covering his shapely body. The huntress’ hair was as dark as Adelheid’s, braided
and looped atop her head in the antique style, common to Dariyans and depicted in mosaics, painted walls and vases, and sculpture. She had a bold nose and black mica eyes and the faintest memory of Prince Sanglant in tawny features.

“I do not know the story,” said Antonia impatiently, “nor am I sure I wish to know it.”

Adelheid raised a startled face to look at her. “Surely you must know it! It is the first tale I was told as a child.”

“The story of the blessed Daisan?”

The Aostans were tainted by their past, as everyone knew. Despite the loving and firm hand of God directing them to all that is right and proper, they persisted in remembering and exalting the indecent tales of ancient days.

“The story of Helen. When she was shipwrecked on the shores of Kartiako, she went hunting but found instead this man, here.” She indicated the male figure who held a staff, and was standing beside an innocent lamb. The image of the lamb had sustained damage about the head, stones chipped away. “She thought he was only a common herdsman, but he was the prince of Kartiako, the son of the regnant. She did not discover his worth until it was too late. Thus we are reminded each time we walk in this garden not to let appearances deceive us. Not to reject too swiftly, lest we regret later.”