PROLOGUE (74 page)

"I won't keep you long." She could see by the Eagle's expression that she wanted to ride on but dared not disobey. "A few moments of your time won't harm your errand, I trust. Hanna, is it not?" The young woman nodded. She had a clean, strong face and wonderfully pale hair the color of old straw. "I recall your comrade, Liath, once had a book
—"

Hanna blanched. "The book!" She glanced around like an animal seeking a safe path out of a burning forest. The horse minced under her, and she reined it back with the studied if somewhat awkward determination of a woman who has come late to riding and means to master it.

"I see you know of which book I speak. Did she steal it from Father Hugh?"

"Never!" No one Rosvita knew could feign this kind of passion, and surety. "It was never his.
He
stole it from
her,
just as he stole her freedom from her when she was helpless."

"Helpless?"

"Her da died leaving debts, and then
—"

"That can scarcely be called helpless, if she was of an age to take on the debts as his heir. But that is not my question, Eagle."

"Always the book," muttered Hanna.
The book
clearly had a long and interesting history, and Hanna's reaction only made Rosvita more determined to discover the truth. "I swear to you by Our Lord and Lady and by the honor and virtue of the blessed Daisan that the book is Liath's, not Father Hugh's. It belonged to her da before her, and he gave it to her."

It was an impressive oath. "But if Liath was Father Hugh's slave because he bought out her debt price, then anything she had became his."

"She didn't have it when he bought her. It wasn't included in the tally of debts and holdings. I hid it for her. Ai, Lady!" She cursed, words learned from the soldiers, no doubt, and then flushed. "I beg your pardon, my lady."

"You must address me as Sister Rosvita, my child."

"Yes, my lady. May I ask you a question, my lady?"

Rosvita almost laughed out loud.
May I ask you a question?
Yet at the same time she refused to acknowledge the Tightness of the law. How could anyone possibly argue that Father Hugh had
stolen
Liath's freedom if he had paid the debt price legally?

"Why do you care about
—" And then, shuttering suddenly, her expression closed down and she looked away. "May I go on with my errand, my lady?"

Rosvita sighed. "You may go." Of course she had been about to ask why Rosvita cared about the book; but evidently she believed she already knew the answer.

Had an injustice been done? Yet the tale Father Hugh told was different in no particular except that of justice. Who was in the right? Whose claim would God defend?

Brother Fortunatus struggled up from the mired wagons, his robes sloppy with mud. "Here is a stool, Sister Rosvita."

"You surprise me, Brother! For all your gossip, you have a kind heart within." But she sat gratefully, and he only chuckled and went back to oversee the soldiers trying to unstick the wagons.

After a time the wagons lurched on, all but the one which was hopelessly bogged down, sunk to the axles in muck. Its contents were divided between other wagons or given to servants to carry on their backs. By dusk they had caught up with the main group.

Sentries riddled the forest on either side of the road. Trees had been chopped down to form barriers in case of a raid, but beyond that Rosvita could see little of the disposition of the camp. She and the other clerics were shown to the king's pavilion, which lay snug in the center of the sprawling camp, but although Princess Sapientia attended her father, talking excitedly about the coming battle, Father Hugh did not. It took no effort for Rosvita to ease herself away from the group gathered there, to gain directions to that part of the camp where those soldiers under Sapientia's command had staked out a position. By this time it was dark, but she had a single attendant with a torch and, as well, the moon was almost full, now rising over the treetops. Its light streamed through the trees onto a broad clearing where Sapientia's servants had set up her traveling tent.

Father Hugh knelt below the awning, unattended except by a few distant guards who chatted around a campfire. Here it was calm and quiet.

Hugh knelt on a carpet, lush grass crushed beneath its edges. He was praying. Where was the book?

Hidden in the darkness, she remained anonymous. Any lady or captain went attended by servant and torch in such a place as this and, in addition, she took care to stand just outside the flame's corona so he couldn't recognize her cleric's robes. She watched and searched . . . And found it thrust under his left knee, almost hidden by a fold in his robes.

He finished his prayers, sat back, and slid the book forward into the light cast by twin lanterns. The distant croaking of frogs in an unseen pool scored the night with a chatter no less intense than that of hundreds of soldiers whispering of the battle to come and the fury of the Eika. He opened it delicately.

Something lay within there, something she was not meant to see. She knew it in her bones. Did Liath steal the book from Hugh, or Hugh from Liath? Should she believe the testimony of the Eagles
or that of a margrave's son now sworn to the church?

Suddenly he twitched, closed the book, sat back, and looked out into the darkness toward her.

An eddy in the breeze swirled around her as suddenly as a roiling current turns a boat in the water. The sensation that Hugh could see her, that he knew
she,
Rosvita, was there when by no possible natural means he ought to be able to, struck her so forcibly that without meaning to she brushed her attendant on the arm and retreated.

That fast.

Only when she was back at the king's tent, when the first sip of ale cooled her throat, did she wonder why she had fled, and if it had been her own choice to do so.

IVAR hooked his feet under the bench and yawned. If he slid his feet forward in his sandals, he could rub his toes along the grain of the wood floor. Sweat prickled on his neck where the heat of the sun washed his back. At the front of the room, the schoolmaster droned on about the
Homilies
of the illustrious skopos, Gregoria, called "The Great."

The slow haze of summer heat smothered the room. Behind, the new first-year novices sat very quiet indeed; maybe they had fallen asleep. Ivar didn't dare turn to look because that would attract Master Pursed-Lip's attention. On the benches in front, Lord Reginar and his pack bent to their task diligently.

Their numbers had been reduced by one this spring when the unfortunate death of one lad's two elder sisters in a Quman road had left him as his mother's only remaining heir. Lord Reginar had railed bitterly against the fate that had deposited him in the cloister while leaving his elder brothers free to fight the barbarians, a tirade that had for the first time given Ivar some sympathy for the arrogant young lord. But his complaints had only precipitated a private interview with his aunt, Mother Scholastica, after which he had emerged chastened and so obediently humble that Ivar and his comrades wondered if the Mother Abbess had actually worked magic on him.

Ivar yawned again. Heat sapped all energy from his limbs, and the schoolmaster's voice grated on him as annoyingly as the ever-present tickling of flies. From outside he heard the barking of dogs and the neigh of a horse. The monastery kept few horses, so perhaps visitors had come to stay in the guest house, either to worship in the church or merely to spend a night before traveling on. But he couldn't bring himself to fret, as he once would have, at the idea that these unseen people beyond had leave to go out into the world at will.

"What is the world," Tallin had asked, "compared to the sacrifice made by the blessed Daisan? How little do our small jealousies and selfish desires mean next to his agony, suffered on our behalf!"

A distant if familiar voice
—his own self of a year ago-nagged at him sometimes.
What about Liath? What about his promise to Liath?
But there was nothing he could do about Liath, no court of higher appeal he could make than to his father's authority; his mother had died years before and any inheritance she might have passed on to him had been confiscated soon after her death by her siblings.

Like Ermanrich, he had become resigned to his fate.

He glanced sidelong at his comrades.

Baldwin sat with chin cupped on hand and stared atten-lively at the schoolmaster although Ivar knew him well enough by now to recognize that look as one of daydreaming. Ermanrich sneezed, then wiped his nose on his sleeve and resumed fiddling with his stylus. Even Sigfrid was restless; he had a habit of playing with the tip of his ear with his left hand when he was thinking about some-' thing other than what went on in front of him.

Ai, Lady. Ivar knew what they were thinking about. He I knew
who
they were thinking about, all of them.

The door to the schoolroom creaked open. As the r schoolmaster faltered, every head canted up to see who had i interrupted. Brother Methodius came into the room, his expression so dour that Ivar had a sudden horrible fear that the old queen, whose illness had taken a turn for the worse, had actually died.

Methodius called the schoolmaster aside. A low conver-j sation ensued. Ivar stretched his shoulders and then re-' garded the words inscribed in the tablet before him:
docet, docuit, docebit.
Thinking of Tallia, he wrote,
nos in veritate docuerat.
"She had instructed us in the truth."

Baldwin kicked his foot. Ivar started and looked up to see Brother Methodius signing to them:
Come, in silence.
I He stood obediently and followed the others out of the;. room and down the stair, but it became immediately apparent that only he, Baldwin, Sigfrid, and Ermanrich had been singled out. Perhaps Sigfrid knew why, or Ermanrich had heard something from his cousin, but Ivar dared not ask, I not when Brother Methodius had already enjoined them to silence.

But quickly enough he began to fear the worst: Methodius led them to Mother Scholastica's study and ushered them inside, then took up a station beside the door as a jailer bars an escape route from his prisoners. No one else was in the room.

Both shutters in the room stood wide, and dust motes trailed through the sunlight. Outside, a nun worked in the herb garden. From this angle Ivar could not tell if she was weeding or harvesting, only see the curve of her back and the stately, measured movements of a soul at peace with her place in the world and her understanding of God.

Ivar was not at peace.

Baldwin tugged surreptitiously at Ivar's robe and angled his head, a slight jerk to the right. There, through an open door, another room could be seen with the base of a simple bed in view. There the old queen lay, failing fast
—or so rumor had it. A robed figure, shawl cast over her head, knelt at the foot of the bed with her hands clasped in prayer. Ivar made a noise in his throat, surprised. Even with the shawl covering her wheat-colored hair, he knew her posture in prayer intimately by now; he dreamed of it at night.

Suddenly Mother Scholastica stepped into view, concealing Tallia as she crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her. The latch fell into place with an audible click. All four novices dropped at once to their knees in an attitude of humility. Ivar heard her walk across the room and settle into her chair. Crickets drowsed outside, their lazy rhythms punctuated by a sudden burst of song from a wren.

"Heresy," said Mother Scholastica.

They all four, as one, looked up guiltily at her. But she said nothing more, and her face remained as still as if it were graven in stone as she regarded them in silence. Behind her, a blackbird flitted to perch on the windowsill. He wore his black plumage as boldly as any proud soldier wore his tabard, marked by a bright orange bill and an orange ring around his keen eye. He hopped along the sill as they stared. Ermanrich coughed, and the bird took wing, fluttering away into the garden.

"You have all been contaminated by the words of a girl who is not even sworn to the church. Is this not so? Will you swear before me that you have not been tainted by her false preaching? Will you swear that her false vision of the blessed Daisan has not tempted you?"

Each word rang like the iron-shod hooves of a warhorse charging to battle. Ivar cowered under the weight of her outrage. Ermanrich sniveled. With his hands clasped before him and his head bowed modestly, Baldwin looked the very picture of a saintly penitent
—his goodness made manifest in his beauty—praying before God to be forgiven his sins, of which there were few and all of them trivial.

But not one of them
—not even her favored young scholar, Sigfrid, promised at age six to a life of learning within the arms of the church—crept forward to swear what she asked.