PROLOGUE (54 page)

"Never mind it," said Rosvita. "Answer my question."

"Ivar is my milk brother. He and I nursed from the same breast
—my mother's. My lady, I beg you." Coming from Hanna's lips, the pleading sounded freakish. Hanna never begged. Hanna could always handle any emergency that came her way. Hanna was so calm. "It is presumptuous of me to claim kinship with you, my lady, but I beg you by that bond of kinship I hold with your brother, that if you can help her, please do."

Liath gulped down a sob, she was so desperate, so hopeful, so stripped of hope.

"But why are you so eager to leave the king?" Clearly Rosvita was groping for answers and having trouble finding any. "You were with Wolfhere in Gent. Has he poisoned your mind somehow against Henry? Any dispute Wolfhere had with Henry was not of Henry's making."

"No," gasped Liath, "it was nothing Wolfhere said. He never said anything against King Henry."

"True-spoken words," muttered Hathui.

"It isn't the king at all." Ai, Lady, how much could she say? How much dared she say?

"Come, now, daughter, take hold of yourself." Rosvita set a hand, like a benediction, on Liath's forehead. "If it is the service of Princess Sapientia you chafe under
—

"Yes!" Liath leaped at this. "Yes. I don't
—I can't—We don't suit, I—"

"An Eagle serves where the king commands," said Rosvita sternly.

Having freed himself from the king, Hugh came out of the tent. Liath began to sob. She had lost.

But Rosvita took her by the hand and lifted her up. "Come, daughter, dry your eyes and sit yourself down here, where there is shelter. It has begun to rain."

Indeed, it had begun to rain. Liath only noticed it be
‍
cause the sleeting rain slid under the neck of her cloak and straight down her spine.

"I will take her back to Princess Sapientia's tent," said Hugh softly. "I fear the fall she took earlier has disordered her mind."

"Let her rest here a moment," said Rosvita. For a miracle, Hugh did not press the issue while Rosvita left Liath's side and went into the king's tent. Hathui followed the cleric in, leaving Hanna and a confounded Rufus to stand beside her. She swallowed tears and, through the fabric of the tent, heard Rosvita speaking to the king.

"Would it not be wisest, Your Majesty," she asked, "to send the Eagle who has come from Gent to Count Lavastine, so that he may question her directly?"

"There is wisdom in your words, Sister," said the king. "But my daughter is fond of the Eagle, and I wish to keep her spirits up."

"I trust Father Hugh and her other companions can keep her spirits up, Your Majesty. But Count Lavastine will need the best intelligence if he is to have any hope of retaking Gent, surely, and you cannot afford to leave Gent in the hands of the Eika. Not when it comes time for them to raid again, and they have control of the river."

"It is true," spoke up Hathui, "that Liath led the refugees through the hidden tunnel so many have spoken of. If any can find it again, she can."

Liath heard no reply from the king. Beside her, Hugh cursed softly under his breath. "Eagles," he said curtly. "Withdraw." Rufus did at once, but Hanna hesitated. "Go!" She backed away. "Look at me." She kept her head down. "Liath!" he hissed, but she would not look. Let him strike her where everyone could see, even his noble peers. Let her at least have that satisfaction, even if it would make no difference in the end.

From inside the tent the king spoke. "It is good advice, Sister. Hathui, see that the young Eagle who came from Gent rides with the message to Lavastine. You may dispose of the others as you see fit."

"Do not think you have escaped me," said Hugh in a reasonable tone. "I will go in now and tell the king which Eagle Sapientia wishes to replace you. You know which Eagle I will choose..."

She could not look up. He had won again.

He smiled. "Your friend will be my hostage until you return. She, and the book. Remember that, Liath. You are still mine." He turned and walked into the tent. So, with his honey-sweet words, did he convince the king.

"Liath." Hanna laid a hand on her arm. "Stand up."

"I've betrayed you."

"You've betrayed no one. I am an
Eagle.
That means something. He can't harm me
—"

"But Theophanu in the forest
—

"What
are you talking about? Liath, stop it! He doesn't care about me, he only cares about you. As long as I behave myself, he won't notice me. Lady and Lord, Liath, I have survived Antonia, an avalanche, creatures made of no flesh or blood, two mountain crossings, a Quman attack, flooded rivers, and your bawling. I think I can survive this!"

"Promise me you will!"

Hanna rolled her eyes. "Spare us this!" she said with disgust. "Now go collect your things."

Liath winced, remembering. "Burned," she whispered. "Everything burned in the attic."

"Then tell Hathui and she'll see new gear is issued to you. Oh, Liath
—did you—did you lose the book, after everything?"

"No." She shut her eyes, heard the soft flow of words from inside the tent, heard Hugh laugh at a jest made by the king, heard Rosvita answer with a witty reply. "Hugh got the book."

"Well, then," said Hanna sharply, "it's just as well I stay behind to keep an eye on it, isn't it? Wasn't it I who got it away from him at Heart's Rest?"

Liath wiped her nose with the back of a hand and sniffed, hard. "Oh, Hanna, you must be sick of me. I'm sick of myself."

"You'll have no time to get sick of yourself when you're traveling all day and just trying to keep alive! That's what you need! Now go on. The king wants his Eagles sent out as soon as they can get horses saddled."

Liath hugged her and went to find Hathui.

But in the end, when she left the king's encampment, the road swung back by the market village and, curious, she took a quick detour up to the rise to see the burned palace. Hathui had found no bow to replace the one lost, and there were no swords to spare with so many having been lost in the burned barracks. She had a spear, a spare woolen tunic, a water pouch and hardtack for the road, and a flint to make fire. She had not told Hathui she needed no tools to make fire.

She could not help herself. She dismounted at the charred gates and led her horse into the ruined complex. Already human scavengers tested the blackened timbers nearest the edge of the fire, those that had cooled; they searched for anything that could be salvaged. Liath threw the reins over the horse's head and left it to stand. She trudged through wreckage, boots collecting soot, her nose stinging from the stink. A sticky trail of blood from her nose tickled her lip, and she licked it away and sniffed hard, hoping the bleeding would finally stop.

She knew where the barracks stood. Though confused about the palace's layout in her first days at Augensburg, she now knew the route well because of the fire, when she had plunged in more times than she could count in her vain attempt to drag all the sleeping Lions to safety.

There, at that spot, in that courtyard, she and Hugh had jumped to safety. He had had the presence of mind to grab her saddlebags before he jumped. That he still limped from a twisted ankle gave her some pleasure, but not enough.

She had been too horrified to think. The flames had come so fast, so fierce, and she had not meant them to come into being at all. They had come to her as fire leaps to any dry thing within its reach. She had scrambled to safety after him, and only then had she remembered all the people lying asleep in the palace.

/
will not blame myself. He sent them to sleep. He drove me to the act, whose consequences I could not imagine.

But that was no excuse.

Da had been right to protect her. But he should have taught her, too. She had to find some way to teach herself. She had to find a way to keep Hugh away from her.

Light winked, a jewel flash among ash and fallen timbers. She stepped forward over the crumbled threshold into the main portion of what had once been the barracks. Everything had caved in and she could not tell which planks came from the walls, which from the attic floor, and which from the roof. Her boot broke through a plank and she fell, foot hitting the ground a hand's breadth beneath. She tugged her boot out of the hole and gingerly stepped over two fallen beams, skirted a litter of swords and spear points and shield bosses, all chary and still glowing, and stopped where three planks composed more of charcoal than of wood lay in perfect alignment, one, two, three in a row like the lid to a chest. She nudged one aside with her boot.

There, lying amidst cinders and ash and blackened wood, rested her bow in its case, untouched, unharmed except for a thin layer of soot streaking it. Amazed, she lifted it off the ground to find her good friend, Lucian's sword, beneath it, still sound, as if together they had weathered the firestorm.

"Liath."

She started back, grabbing bowcase and sword to her, and spun, stumbling over a fallen beam and the detritus of the blaze.

But there was no one there.

XI
the soul:

THE AJN OJN JLA, had become heartily sick of staring into fire. The smoke stung her eyes and chapped her cheeks. But she knew better than to complain. At this moment, as the heat chafed her skin, she watched with her five companions. She had not yet mastered the art of opening such a window, a vision drawn through fire, but she could
see
with the others. In her first days in the valley she could not even do that, and Heribert, who had tried many times, still could not see through fire or stone.

She saw shapes as insubstantial as flames, but the others had assured her that these shapes were the shadows of real forms, real people, real buildings; they had assured her that every incident they saw through the window made by fire occurred somewhere in the world beyond their little valley. By this means, through their power, they could see what transpired in the world beyond
—although there were limits to their ability to see.

Right now, in a distant place whose outlines were limned by the hearth fire, a young noblewoman and her retinue arrived at the gates of a convent and requested admittance to pray and offer gifts.

"That is Princess Theophanu," said Antonia, amazed.

"Hush, Sister Venia," said she who sat first among them, caput draconis. "Let us listen to their words as she speaks to the gatekeeper."

Antonia did not want to admit she heard nothing. She never heard anything through the flames, only saw shapes and people as they moved and spoke in a kind of dumb show. The conversation within the fire went on and on as the elderly gatekeeper questioned the princess at length.

Antonia examined her companions.

She disliked their habit of addressing each other in the clerical way: Sister and Brother. It suggested they were equals. And yet, in truth, she had to admit that Brother Severus was an educated man of obvious noble blood and proud bearing; his name reflected his severe manner and ascetic ways. Sister Zoe spoke with the accent of the educated clergy of the kingdom of Salia, precise and clean. A lush beauty with evident charms that had, alas, attracted Heribert's notice, she looked more like a courtesan than a cleric. Brother Marcus was older than Zoe but younger than Severus; small, tidy, and arrogant, he had unfortunately encouraged Heribert in his obsession with building and had soon involved Heribert in a complicated scheme to rebuild the admittedly dilapidated cluster of buildings that housed their little community. Sister Meriam looked more like a Jinna heathen than a good Daisanite woman; old and tiny, with slender bones that looked as fragile as dry sticks, she nevertheless carried herself with a fierce dignity that even Antonia respected.

None of these names were true names, of course. Like Antonia, they had all taken other names when they came to the valley. She did not know what they had once been called or who their kin were, although any fool could see that Sister Meriam came from the infidel east. They did not volunteer such information, nor did they ask her about herself. That was not their purpose here.

The vision in fire faded to the orange-blue blur of flames crackling and the snap of wood. Antonia blinked smoke out of her eyes, and sneezed.

"Bless you, Sister," said Brother Marcus. He turned to the others. "Can this be true, that Princess Theophanu was mistaken for a deer? Does the princess suspect a sorcerer walks unseen in the king's court? Could it be she suspects our brother who walks in the world?"