PROLOGUE (3 page)

The next night he brought a woman, stooped, scarred, and weary. She stared for a long time at the children and said at last, "It is a miracle they could have survived the slaughter. It is a sign from St. Kristine." She went away again, and he gave them their nightly ration of food.

The next night he brought a young man who had broad shoulders but such a weight on them that he looked as bent with age as a man twice his years. But seeing the children, he lifted up and became a man proud of his youth and strength again. "We'll show those damned savages," he said in a low voice. "We'll never let them have these. We'll beat them in this. That will lend us strength in the days ahead." The next night Otto brought a robust woman who still wore her deacon's robes though they were now stained, torn, and dirty. But she nodded, seeing the children
—not surprised, for surely she had by now heard tell of them. She bent her head over clasped hands. "Let us pray," she murmured.

It had been a long time since Anna had prayed. She had forgotten the responses, but she traced around the smooth wood of her Circle of Unity carefully with a finger as the deacon murmured the holy words of God, for that was the prayer she knew best. Otto watched her, as he always watched her: with tears in his eyes.

"This is a sign from God," the deacon said after her prayer. "So will They judge our worthiness to escape this blight, if we can save these children who are no kin of ours and yet are indeed our children, given into our hands, just as all who live within the Circle of Unity are the children of Our Lady and Lord." Otto nodded solemnly.

The deacon rested a hand on Matthias' shoulder, as if giving a blessing. "Those who get water from the river and bring it here have spoken now with those who get water for the smithies, and of those in the smithies some carry weapons to the cathedral, where the chieftain sits in his chair and oversees all. Other slaves who sweep and clean the cathedral meet at times with those who carry weapons from the smithies, and this information they have given us." She paused at a noise, but it was only the wind banging a loose shutter. "The chieftain leaves the cathedral four times each day to take his dogs to the necessarium
—" "The necessarium?" asked Anna.

This question stirred the first faint smile Anna had seen on any of the slaves' faces, even on Otto's. "Pits. Holes dug in the ground where such creatures relieve themselves, for even such as they are slaves to their bodies. As are all of us bound to mortal matter. Now hush, child. Though it was a fair question, you must listen carefully to my words. Once each day all Eika leave the cathedral, with their dogs and the few slaves who attend them there. They go to the river to perform their nightly ablutions
—" She raised a hand to forestall Anna's question. "Their bath. At this time, which is the time Vespers would be sung each evening, the cathedral is empty." "Except for the daimone," said Otto.

"If such a creature truly exists. So say the slaves who clean there, but it may be that their minds are disordered by their proximity to the savages, for none has been allowed close to this creature, which is said to be chained with iron to the holy altar. By their description it seems to be more of a dog than a man. One man said it has human speech, but another said it can only yip and howl and bark. To this plan, if the saint grants us a miracle, we must trust. Now do you understand?" She asked this of Matthias and studied him carefully in the moon's waning light as he nodded, once, to show he understood. Anna nodded also and took Matthias' hand because she was so frightened.

"Tonight," said the deacon. She looked at Otto and he nodded, though his hands clenched.

"Tonight?" asked Anna in a whisper. "So soon
—?" Impulsively she darted forward and clasped her arms round Otto's body. His clothes hung on him, a once stout man made thin by privation and grief, yet still he felt sturdy to her. He held her tightly against him, and she felt his tears on her cheeks.

"We must move immediately," said the deacon. "You might be discovered any day. It is indeed a miracle you have not been found before this." She frowned, and the moonlight painted her face in stark, suffering lines. "We know not if some fool will betray us all, thinking to gain favor in the eyes of the Eika. But there is no favor to be gained with the savages. They are no kin to us. They have no mercy for their own kind, and less than that for us, and so shall we have no mercy for them. Now. Make your farewells, children. You will not see Otto again."

Anna wept. It was too hard to leave him behind, the only person besides Matthias who had shown her kindness since her parents died.

"Take news," said Otto. He still held Anna, but she knew he spoke to Matthias. "Take news to others that some are yet alive in this city, that we are made slaves. Tell them the Eika are massing and building their strength, that they are using us to forge weapons and craft armor for them."

"We'll come back for you," said Matthias, his own voice choked with tears. Anna could not speak, could only cling. Otto stank of the puering pits, but they all of them stank of the tannery; it was a good scent to her now, a familiar one that promised safety. Out beyond the tanning pits lay the great wide world which she no longer knew or trusted. "Ai, Lady," whispered Otto. He kissed Anna's hair a final time. "Perhaps it is worse this way: that you have given me hope. I will wait for you, as well as I can. If you live, if I survive, if we are reunited, then I will be as your father."

"Come, children," said the deacon, taking their hands after gently prying Anna free from Otto's grasp.

Anna cried as she was led away. She looked back to see Otto staring after them, hands working at his sides, opening and closing, and then his face was lost to her, hidden by night and distance.

The deacon took them to the edge of the fetid trench where the slaves relieved themselves. "Wait here," she said. "A man will come for you."

She left and returned to the building where the slaves slept. Somewhat later, the young man they had met before arrived.

"Come," he said, hoisting Anna onto his back. "We must run all the way to the forge." So they ran, hiding once for the man to catch his breath and a second time when they heard the howling of the dogs nearby, but they saw nothing. Only ghosts walked the city at night. It had been so long since Anna had ventured out into the ruined streets that the open spaces and angular shadows, the simple emptiness, made chills crawl like spiders up and down her skin.

The young man left them, quite unceremoniously, by another trench, this one equally filled with the stink of piss and diarrhea. But it was yet a good, decent,
human
smell, not like the dry metallic odor of the savages.

A woman found them there. She stared at first, then handled them, touching their lips, their hair, their ears.

"You are real," she said. "Real children. They murdered mine. Come. There is no time." She led them at a loping run farther into the labyrinth of the city, on to another trench, another group of slaves. By this way, from trench to trench, they passed through the city.

"That is our only freedom," said the man who took them at last within sight of the cathedral even as they saw the first stain of light in the eastern sky. "They are savages, the Eika, but they cannot stand the least stink of human piss or shit near them. I've seen a man killed for loosing his bowels where he was not meant to, though he could not help himself. So we may come out to relieve ourselves, one by one, and if we say we are having the cramping, then we are allowed a little more time. Now. This is as far as I or any of us can take you. Hide here, under these rags next to the trench, for the Eika never come near these trenches. Do not move, do not stir, even if you hear the dogs. Perhaps they will discover you and kill you. We,all will pray that they do not. Be patient. Wait out the day. You will know by the light and by the horn they blow and by the great size of the procession when they go down to the river. Be careful, though, for they do not all go; some remain behind to guard the slaves who sleep in that building across the way, which they call the mint. For all I know, some may remain behind here in the cathedral as well. What is inside the cathedral I do not know. That you must discover for yourselves. May God go with you."

He clasped their hands in his, first Anna and then Matthias, as the sign of their kinship. Then he directed them to lie flat and covered them with the stinking, filthy rags. Anna heard his footsteps recede. Something crawled over her hand. She choked off a gasp. She dared not move, hardly dared breathe. But for the first time in so many days and weeks she held an odd, light feeling in her heart. It took a long time to decide what it was, and finally she recalled Otto's last words to them:

"You have given me hope."

Amazingly, even almost smothered as she was by the foul-smelling heap of rags, she slept.

HOWLS woke her. She jerked up and at once Matthias shoved her down to keep her still. She made no sound.

Rags slipped, giving her a view of the steps of the cathedral and avenue. Not five paces from her, a man stopped, turning his back to the pile of rags, and pissed into the trench. Then, straightening his clothes, he edged closer and crouched down. Of all the slaves she had seen he looked best kept; his tunic was not encrusted with dirt, though it was not precisely clean either. He toyed with the rope belt hung low on his thin hips and glanced back once over his shoulder, toward the cathedral steps. Through the gap in the rags Anna could see on those steps another slave. This person
—she could not tell if it was a man or a woman— washed the gleaming white stone steps with rags and a bucket of water.

The man cleared his throat and spoke in a rush. "As soon as all have gone down the road, run inside into the nave. Stay in the shadows if you can and go to the end, where you will find the altar. There you will find the daimone. Approach it softly. It can be violent, or so we have seen. None of us speaks to it. That is forbidden."

He stood and walked away, and that was the last they saw of him, for first he vanished from their restricted view and then, coming back into sight on the steps, he was suddenly engulfed by dogs.

A horn blasted, a sharp, painful sound. A swarm of dogs surged down the stairs, growling and barking and yipping and howling like mad things. Anna whimpered and then stuck a hand in her mouth, biting down hard, to stop herself from crying out loud. They were monsters, huge hulking things as tall at the shoulder as she was, with long lean haunches and massive shoulders and yellow eyes that sparked with demon's fire. Their mouths hung open perpetually to display their great teeth and red, lolling tongues.

They bowled over the two slaves, overwhelmed them until all she could see was a frenzy of dogs, roiling and leaping and biting each other and only God knew what else. She shut her eyes and groped for her Circle. Matthias choked down a sob; his grip on her tightened. She dared not look. She did not want to see.

A voice roared, a great bellowing powerful shout. She squinched her eyes shut as hard as she could, but Matthias tugged on her and her eyes opened. Eika strode down the steps now, sickly things with their scaled hides. Yet each one, though a savage with nothing of humankind in it, had a brutish strength and the gleam of animal cunning in its bearing and in its sharp ugly face. They grabbed the frenzied dogs by their back legs and yanked them away, struck them hard blows with their clawed hands or the hafts of their spears. The Eika yipped and howled at the dogs as if they were kin and could understand each other in their beast's language.

Behind them came the oddest looking pair of Eika she had yet seen. The first was a huge brawny creature dressed in gold-and-silver chains studded with bright gems, and its companion was an Eika as scrawny as the human slaves and itself clothed only in a single rag tied about its hips. A leather pouch hung from the belt around its waist; it carried a small wooden chest braced against one scrawny hip. The huge Eika waded into the seething mass of dogs and proceeded to strike about himself, roaring and laughing as he tossed dogs aside and beat them away from their prey.

One dog at last broke away and bounded down the steps. Many of the Eika warriors followed after it. As if this defection signaled their defeat, the rest of the dogs retreated from the Eika chieftain's wrath
—or his humor, for why else would he station slaves on the steps right then, knowing what the dogs would likely do to them?—and loped away down the steps, turning to follow the others down toward the river. As they cleared the steps, their passing revealed two ravaged, red heaps of—

This time she clamped her eyes shut and did not look, willed herself not to look, and heard only Matthias gulping under his breath, trying to keep silent because any noise would doom them.

Finally he whispered, "They've gone. They've carried the two
—them—away. Come now, Anna. Don't lose heart now when we're so close."

He scrabbled at the rags, dug himself free, and jumped to his feet, then yanked her up. He ran and she ran behind, stumbling, gasping for breath because she was so scared and because she had almost forgotten how to run and because her legs were stiff from so many days lying still. They came under the shadow of the cathedral wall and ran up the steps. Blood still stained the stone next to an overturned bucket of water, and runnels of pink water seeped down the steps toward the avenue below. Rags were strewn everywhere, stained with blood.