The Gathering Storm (34 page)

Where was Hugh taking her?

The golden halo of his hair was no less brilliant than the sun’s light. His carriage was graceful, his attitude humble without false modesty, and each glimpse of his face reminded her of whispered tales of innocent children half asleep at their prayers catching sight of angels.

This was no dream.

Elderly presbyters bowed their heads respectfully as Hugh passed, and he paused to greet them with such unassuming sincerity that it was impossible to fault him for pride or self-aggrandizement. It was hard to imagine him in his humble frater’s robes disdainfully leading services in the rustic church at Heart’s Rest for a congregation of half-pagan and thoroughly common northern folk whom he obviously despised. Even Count Harl had seemed crude beside Hugh’s elegance, and Hugh had not deigned to hide his scorn for Harl and Ivar and their rough northern kin. Yet to see Hugh here was to see a man so different in all ways that she felt dizzy, as though she were seeing double.

This man did not seem the same arrogant frater who had abused Liath, been outmaneuvered by Wolfhere, and who had left Heart’s Rest in a fury. The one she had admired so foolishly because of the beauty of his form and the cleanness of his hands.

Perhaps he’d had a change of heart. Perhaps God had healed him. Perhaps his beauty now masked nothing more than a heartfelt and pure desire to serve God and the king.

Did the outer form match the inner heart? Or was Hathui right?

If she had not seen a difference in the king’s eyes, then her memory had played her false. If she had, then an aery daimone infested him, hidden within his mortal form and glimpsed only through the window made by his eyes.

Because she had never been in the skopos’ palace before, because it was such a warren of rooms and branching corridors, she was lost by the time they halted in front of a set of double doors. Gilded with gold leaf hammered over a relief carved into the wood itself, the doors displayed scenes from
the Ekstasis of the blessed Daisan, who prayed and fasted for seven days as his soul ascended through the seven spheres to the threshold of the Chamber of Light.

Guards outfitted in the gold tabards representing the glory of the skopos, God’s representative on Earth, opened the doors to admit them into a hall striped with light from a succession of tall windows. At the far end of the hall stood a dais and a single chair and behind it a mural depicting the Translatus of the blessed Daisan, when he was taken bodily up into the Chamber of Light by the Lord and Lady, who are God in Unity; the Earth lay beneath his feet. The mural filled the entire wall, broken only at the far right by a curtain dyed the deep blue of lapis lazuli and worked into the design of the painting as the depths of the sea.

Otherwise, the hall was empty.

Hugh spoke to one of the guards, and the man hurried off down the corridor. Then Hugh walked into the hall, his footsteps echoing through the space as he crossed from shadow to light to shadow to light, Hanna and his servant behind him. The second guard remained at the open door.

They stopped at the foot of the steps, and there they waited, in silence.

In silence, Hanna studied the floor, strips of marble and porphyry set into expanding and contracting spirals. The ceiling arched high above, dimly perceived, each span glittering with intricate mosaics. Even the single chair had its fascination, the dark wood grain inlaid with ivory rosettes and geometric patterns made of gems mounted in gold. She had never seen so many amethysts in her life.

The servant coughed, clearing his throat. Hugh had closed his eyes, as though praying. But she didn’t like to look at him. Looking at him reminded her of Bulkezu.

“Is there any man handsomer than you?” she had asked Bulkezu.

“One. I saw him in a dream.”

This could be a dream, except that from outside, through the windows, she heard the sound of a gardener raking dirt.

Better to be a pig starving in the forest than a fat rooster strutting in the farmyard when feasting time comes. She had
once envied Liath for attracting Hugh’s attentions. She knew better now.

Bells tinkled as a cleric stepped through the curtain and held it aside for a woman to pass. The lady wore a white robe overlaid with an embroidered silk stole falling over both shoulders, its fringed ends sweeping the floor. A gold torque shone at the woman’s throat, and on her head, almost concealing her pale hair, she wore a golden cap. A huge black hound padded at her heels, growling softly as it lifted its head.

Hanna sank to her knees. She had never thought she would stand before the skopos, the most powerful person on Earth, closest to God Themselves. She bowed her head and clasped her hands so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Her bruised knee was already hurting, but she dared not look up into the face of the Holy Mother.

“Brother Hugh.” The skopos’ voice was neither soft nor loud. It did not ring sharply, yet neither did it carry a tone of merciful compassion. “You may approach.”

Hugh ascended the steps and knelt before her to kiss her ring. When he stepped back, she sat. The hound lay over her feet and rested its head on massive paws, but it gazed at Hanna as at an enemy, ready for her to bolt or to attack, so that it might have the pleasure of rending her limb from limb and gnawing on her bones.

Hadn’t she seen this hound before, or one very like it?

“Who is this Eagle?” asked the skopos.

“She is called Hanna, Holy Mother. She comes from the North Mark of Wendar. In earlier years she called herself a friend to Liathano. She has recently ridden south bearing a message from Princess Theophanu, nothing we have not heard before except that she herself spoke with Prince Sanglant many months ago. He is now ridden east with a portion of the army that defeated the Quman.”

“To what end does he ride east, Eagle?”

Dared she speak the truth?

“I am only an Eagle, Holy Mother,” she said, surprised she had enough breath to form audible words.
I am only a pig, hiding in the forest
. “For many months I was held captive by Prince Bulkezu of the Pechanek tribe, the leader of the Quman army. When Prince Sanglant and Prince Bayan defeated
Bulkezu at the Veser River, they freed me. Prince Sanglant sent me west to bring news of his victory to his father.”

There was so much else she could say, but in the end, it came down to this: Did she hate Sanglant for sparing Bulkezu more than she feared the power of those who might have ensorcelled the king? Even if Hugh had done what Hathui accused him of, did that mean that the Holy Mother was involved? She didn’t know whom could she trust or who was most dangerous.

“Your Excellence,” began Hugh, “this Eagle brought news about Prince Sanglant and the folk who travel with him. I think it worthwhile to question her closely about—”

A movement by the skopos, glimpsed by Hanna but not really seen, stopped him.

“Are you one of those who bears the Eagle’s Sight?”

The question surprised her. “Yes, Holy Mother.”

“Who taught you?”

“An Eagle called Wolfhere, Holy Mother.”

“Wolfhere.” A complex hint of emotion colored her voice.

“When did you last see Wolfhere?”

“He rides with Prince Sanglant, Holy Mother.”

“So he did.”

That delicate place between her shoulder blades prickled, as though an archer stood at the far doors with bow raised and an arrow sighted at her back.

Did
, which meant not any longer. Whose side was Wolfhere on?

The earth lurched sideways beneath her. The hound barked once before settling beneath the throne. A grinding noise shuddered through the palace and faded as quickly as it had come, draining away to silence. The sound of raking stopped, leaving nothing but faint echoes, more a memory of the sound than the sound itself.

Hugh coughed. “They’re coming more frequently.”

“God are angry that we have not acted more swiftly and decisively to drive out the Arethousan interlopers. Sister Abelia, bring the brazier. Fan the coals into flame.” The cleric nodded and went out behind the curtain.

“It won’t work,” said Hugh curtly.

“Do you think not, Brother Hugh?”

“If I could not, then how can she?”

“It may be so, but we must leave no avenue untrod. It will take months, even years, to locate and rebuild the lost crowns. My envoys have heard stories of an intact crown by the sea in Dalmiaka, but the Arethousan despots who rule there refuse to let them travel to that place. On every side we are thwarted. We are too few, and our enemies too many. Sister Venia is missing and St. Ekatarina’s Convent closed up and apparently abandoned. We must have seven when the time comes, aided by tempestari so we can be assured of clear skies. I need my daughter.”

“Is it wise to speak so freely, Holy Mother?”

“To you, Brother Hugh? You have joined our Order willingly, and with a clear purpose. Is there some reason I should not trust you?”

“I meant before this Eagle, Holy Mother.”

“The Eagle? She is only a servant.”

“Even servants have tongues, Holy Mother.”

Hanna kept her head down, but she
felt
the touch of that devastating gaze. So might a fly feel before being swatted. So might a fly, holding still, be passed over as being of too little account to bother with when there were more annoying pests to exterminate.

“If my daughter trusted her, that bond may yet link them.”

The cleric returned and set a brazier on the step in front of Hanna, then stepped back to work a small bellows so coals shimmered and flames licked along their length.

“Watch carefully and learn, Sister Abelia,” said the skopos before turning her gaze on Hanna. “Use your Eagle’s Sight to seek the one you know as Liathano.”

One did not say “No” to the skopos.

She leaned forward, hearing the hound’s menacing growl at her movement and the command of the skopos, calling the dog to heel. It was hard to concentrate, knowing how nearby that fierce creature bided. It hadn’t seemed so menacing when Lord Alain had commanded it. Without meaning to, she recognized it. She had last seen this hound, and Lord Alain, when she had watched King Henry pluck the county of Lavas out of
Alain’s hands and give it over to Lord Geoffrey and his young daughter.

A Lavas hound.

No person who had ever seen the Lavas hounds could mistake them for any other dog. How had the skopos acquired this one? Hanna had last seen Alain on the field of battle with the Lions. Hadn’t he died there?

Her gaze fell forward through the veil of fire.

The only way he can bear his sorrow is to keep silence and let work soothe his soul into a stupor. There is plenty of work for a pair of able hands on a well-run estate in the autumn: pressing apples for cider, rhetting flax, splitting and sawing, cutting straw to repair roofs. He binds wood with trimmings from flax and soaks the bundles in beeswax and resin for the torches needed to light the winter months. His hands know how to do the work. Just as well, because his head seems stuffed with wool, hazy, clouded, distant.

“Did you live by the sea?” asks Brother Lallo, stopping beside him where he sits on the porch of the Laborers’ dormitory. The hounds lie docilely at his feet. “You have a knack for plaiting and net-making.”

Vaguely surprised—what was he thinking about just then?—he notices that he is Weaving willow rods into a kiddle that the fishermen will place in the river to catch fish. “I beg your pardon, Brother?”

“The Enemy is pleased with feet that wander off the path of good works! Keep your thoughts here with us. I asked you, did you live by the sea?”

To remember the sea makes him recall Adica and that long voyage, towed by the merfolk, when they had stared into the watery depths and seen the vast whorl of a city unfold beneath, strange and wonderful. All dead now.

Pain drowns him. Grief makes him mute. It is a kind of madness
.

Maybe it was all a dream.

Lallo tugged at his own ear with a frown. “You’re a hard nut to crack. Enough of this. It’s time for prayer, Brothers.” He shepherds his charges to church for Vespers.

Alain sets down the half-woven kiddle and follows with the
others. Dusk has a way of sliding over the monastery, catching him in twilight unawares. Maybe he has been walking in twilight for a long time and never noticed it. Sorrow and Rage pad alongside. Despite their fearsome aspect, they behave as meekly as lambs. No man here fears them, and the monks willingly give him scraps with which to feed them. Each hound eats as much as one man, and they provide no labor for the benefit of the monastery, so he works doubly hard—when he doesn’t forget himself and fall into that dreaming stupor. He wants to earn the hounds’ portion as well as his own.

The hounds sit obediently outside the church. He goes in with the others.

As they file through the transept and thence into the dark nave, he notices the Brother Sacrist hurrying into the church with more oil for the lamps burning at the five altars. The lamps flicker, wicks running dry, but as he takes his place with the other laborers at the back of the nave, as he murmurs reflexive words of prayer, the sacrist makes a startled exclamation and halts halfway down the aisle. A side door opens. The elegant abbot enters in company with the prior as well as certain nobly-cut figures unknown to him. Have these visitors been here before? Were they here yesterday? One is a remarkably beautiful young man, unnaturally handsome and strangely familiar, who smiles and nods whenever
Father Ortulfus speaks without making any reply himself. His redheaded companion answers the abbot’s queries.

The lamps at the main altar and the seven stations dedicated to the disciplas burn strongly. Brother Sacrist hesitates in confusion but when Father Ortulfus lifts his voice in the opening chant, he slips into his place at the front with the other monastic officials, setting the unused pot of oil at his feet.

Father Ortulfus has a reedy voice, not full but true. “Blessed is the Country of the Mother and Father of Life, and of the Holy Word revealed within the Circle of Unity, now and ever and unto ages of ages.”