PROLOGUE (60 page)

"Baldwin!" Poor Sigfrid looked deeply affronted. "How can you say such a thing, and in God's house, may They forgive you for your disrespect."

"It's no disrespect to speak the truth!"

"Quiet!" said Ivar. "It won't help us if we quarrel like princes." But a sudden fear gnawed at him, and he did not know why.

He did not know why, but he and the others knelt every day at the usual time beside the fence, hoping for news.

And news came in the most startling fashion four days later when Tallia herself, leaning on Hathumod, made her slow way out to her accustomed place. There she knelt on fresh snow as though it were spring flowers, brought her hands together at her chest, and prayed.

She had no color in her lips. Her hands were curled up like claws, nails tucked into her palms. Although she was frail in body, her voice was strong.

"God be praised! By the blessing given by the Holy Mother and Her blessed Son we have all been granted eternal life if only we shall testify to the Holy Word of the sacrifice and redemption. I was overcome by light, and while my body was laid low by God's hand, a vision enveloped me."

Her face had so fine and delicate a pallor that she appeared almost aethereal, as if her body had leached away and all that held her together in this world was the strength of her immortal soul. The very fragility revealed in her flesh, woven with the fierce glamour of her gaze, gave her a beauty she had not possessed before
—or so Ivar thought, staring raptly until Ermanrich poked him hard between the shoulder blades and demanded his chance to look.

Though they shouldn't have been looking.

"My soul was led by a spirit of fire to the resting place of the angels. There I was granted a vision of the rewards God prepares for those who love Her, in which infidels and those who heed the False Word of the Unities put no faith." She lifted her fists. With great effort, face straining against obvious pain, she uncurled her swollen fingers.

Ivar gasped out loud, as did every female novice clustered on the other side of the fence.

Her palms bled, each one marked by a single shallow scarlet line down the center
—just as if a knife had begun the first cuts to flay her skin from her body. Blood dripped from her palms to color the snow crimson.

Ivar staggered back, clapping his hands over his eyes.

Ermanrich pressed his face against the fence. "A miracle!" he breathed.

Sigfrid, after peering through the knothole, was too overcome to speak.

Baldwin only grunted.

But not a month later, when the snow had finally melted and the first violets bloomed, a climbing rose grew from the very spot where Tallia's blood had stained the earth. On the Feast Day of St. Johanna, the Messenger, a single bud unfolded into a crimson flower.

"It's a sign," murmured Sigfrid, and this time Baldwin made no objection.

It had been almost a year since Ivar had knelt outside the gates and pledged himself as a novice. For the first time since that day, he walked into the great church at Quedlinhame with no thought for his own grievances. His heart was too full with mystery and awe.

ALAIN saw her from a distance. He stopped, calling the hounds to heel, and made them sit in a semicircle around him.

"Go," he said while his escort, his usual retinue of padded dog handlers, a half dozen men-at-arms, and a cleric who had been brought into the household to read aloud to Alain various practical treatises on husbandry and agriculture, stared down the long open slope at the unusual sight of an Eagle walking instead of riding. "Ulric and Robert, go down and escort her to me."

It was always safer to escort a new person to him; if he approached them with the hounds, anything might happen.

The thin sheen of snow turned the winter landscape a glittering white, muddied by the dark line of the southern roadway and the skeletal orchard that stretched along it on either side. From this vantage he could see the tower of Lavas keep behind him but nothing of the town except trails of smoke rising into the clear sky. On this, St. Oya's Day and the first day of Fevrua (so the cleric had informed him this morning), the weather remained mild and bright. It was a good omen for those girls who had come to their first bleeding in the past year; they would now sit on the women's benches at church and those whose families were well-to-do enough might think of betrothing them to a suitable man. In thirty days would come the first day of the month of Yanu, the new year and the first day of spring.

In that new year, if God willed,
he
would be betrothed.

"Lady Above!" swore the cleric, and the remaining men in his retinue murmured, likewise, in amazement. Alain, too, stared, as the Eagle met the two guards and walked with them up the slope. He had never seen an Eagle arrive except on horseback
—for of course Eagles must move swiftly and how better to do that than by riding? But that was not the only strange thing about her.

Young, she had the most astonishing complexion, as brown as if she had just stepped through into winter's pale daylight from a land where summer's sun burned night and day in all seasons. She wore quiver and bow on her back, had a sword strapped to her side and leather bag of provisions slung from one shoulder, and strode along as easily as any foot soldier. But there was yet another quality, something he could not name. She had a certain brightness about her, a warmth...it made no sense and yet struck him as one sees the shadow of the mother in her child's face.

"Autun!" he said suddenly, out loud. "She was one of the Eagles who came to Autun after the battle at Kassel. She brought the news of Gent's fall."

The hounds began to whine.

They cowered, heads down, whimpering away from her as she approached. First Good Cheer, then Fear, then the others tried to slink away, as meek as puppies frightened by thunder; only Sorrow and Rage remained, though they, too, stirred restlessly. "Sit!" he commanded and, reluctantly, the other hounds sat. But as the Eagle walked up to him, old Terror flopped down, rolled over, and exposed his throat.

"What a sweet old dog," the Eagle exclaimed. "I love dogs." She reached down to pet him.

Terror snapped at her hand, terrified, rolled and scrambled back to his feet, and at once all the hounds were up and barking wildly at her. She leaped back. His retinue did the same reflexively.

"Sit!" commanded Alain. "Sit, you!" He tugged down Sorrow and Rage. "Terror!" He jerked the old hound down by his collar, calmed the others. But even so, when they had subsided, they whined and growled and kept Alain between her and them.

"My lord!" She stared at the hounds, aghast. Alain had never seen eyes as blue as hers, as bright as fiery Seirios, the flaming point of the Huntress' bow in the night sky. "I beg your pardon
—"

"Nay, think nothing of it." But he was puzzled by the hounds' reaction. "You have a message for my father?"

"For Count Lavastine, yes."

"I am his son."

She was surprised. "I do not mean to interrupt your walk, my lord. If one of your men will show me to the count
—"

"I will do so myself."

"But, my lord
—

He waved aside the cleric's objections. They had as their object this morning the little abbey of Soisins, founded by his great-grandfather after the death of his first wife in childbirth and added onto by his great-grandfather's second wife after his own death in battle. "This is more important." No one argued with him. "Come." He said it more to the hounds than to the others: where he and the hounds went, the rest followed. "Walk beside me," he said to the Eagle.

She glanced toward the hounds. "I'm sorry to have startled them. They don't seem very . . . welcoming."

Alain heard the men-at-arms muttering behind him, and he could just imagine what they were saying. "Sometimes they surprise even me, but they won't harm anyone as long as I'm with them." With only a slight hesitation she moved up beside him. At once, still growling low in their throats, the hounds flowed to his opposite side, a mass of black coats and legs scrunched together. So intent were they on avoiding her that they scarcely noticed the handlers and men-at-arms hurriedly sidestepping to make room for them.

"What happened to your horse?" he asked.

"Ai, Lady!" She glanced behind herself as if wondering if someone followed besides his guards. "Elfshot, my lord."

"Elfshot!"

"Fifteen days south of here. I've almost lost track of the days." She told a jumbled story of bandits and shadowy figures in the deep forest. "One of their arrows struck my horse's flank, just a scratch, but even though the deacon at Laar blessed it, the poor creature sickened and died."

"But you're a King's Eagle! Surely you could have commandeered another horse."

"So I could have, had I been in Wendar. But no one here would give me a fresh mount in exchange for a sick one."

"And this in my father's lands?" He was appalled. "That isn't how we serve the king's messengers! I will see the deacons hereabouts are reminded of our duty."

"Do you support King Henry, my lord?" she asked, clearly surprised.

He could only imagine the reception a Wendish rider
— though she scarcely appeared Wendish, with that complexion—had received in this part of Varre. "I do what is right," he said firmly, "and I hope my aunt—I hope my elders will never be disappointed in me by hearing I have stinted in hospitality to a stranger."

She smiled, a brief flash on her face that he wished, at once, to see again. "You are kind, my lord."

"Didn't the blessed Daisan say, 'If you love only those who love you, what reward can you expect?''

That did make her smile again. "In truth, my lord, many of the folk who offered me shelter and food these last fifteen days had no horse to give in exchange. It was the ones who did who were least hospitable."

"That will change," he promised her. "What is your name, Eagle?"

Startled, she took a stutter step, stumbling to catch up as he paused to look at her. "I beg your pardon, my lord. It's just not
—few noble folk ask—

Of course. Eagles hatched from common stock. No nobly born lord or lady would ever think of asking one's name. He had betrayed his upbringing, and yet, why should he be ashamed of simple courtesy? "I am called Alain," he said, to reassure her. "I meant nothing by it. It's just hard to address you as 'Eagle' all the time."

She ducked her head as she thought over this answer. She had a fine profile, limned now by the morning sun to the east. But for all her obvious physical vitality, she wore under that vigor a mantle of fragility, as if she might break apart at any moment.
She is afraid.
The revelation came to him with such force that he knew it to be true, yet he could hardly say so aloud.
She lives in fear.

"I am called Liath," she whispered, and sounded amazed to hear her own voice.

"Liath!" This name had meaning for him. He remembered it. "Liathano," he said in a low voice as he took a step forward.

The weight of memory drowned him.

He stands in the old ruins, midsummer's stars rising above him as bright as jewels thrown into the heavens. The Serpent's red eye glares above. A shade detaches itself from the far wall, entering the avenue of stone. Fitted in a cuirass, armed with a lance, he carries a white cloak draped over one arm. Behind him, flames roar as the outpost bums under the assault of barbarians. He is looking for someone, but he sees Alain instead.

"Where has Liathano gone?" the shade asks.

Liathano.
Surprised, Alain speaks. "I don't know," he says, but in answer he only hears the pound of horses galloping past, a haze of distant shouting, a faint horn caught on the wind.

His foot came down.

"What did you say?" asked the Eagle.

He shook himself, and Sorrow and Rage, trotting alongside, slewed their great heads round to look at him. Rage yipped once. Sorrow butted him on the thigh with his shoulder, and he staggered and laughed and rubbed Sorrow affectionately on the head with his knuckles.

"I don't know," he said, blinking into sunlight that seemed abruptly twice as bright. "Just that I've heard that name before."

For an instant, he thought she would bolt and run. Instead she stopped dead, stared at him as he, too, halted, the hounds sitting obediently beyond. Bliss whimpered softly. His retinue eddied to a halt around him, keeping well away from both Eagle and hounds.