The Gathering Storm (45 page)

“A presbyter,” gasped Jerome.

Rosvita raised her head to look but it was obvious that small movement exhausted her. Her skin had drained of all color; her lips seemed almost blue.

“Keep going,” said Hanna.

Heriburg and Jehan had reached the second ledge. A moment later, a basket slithered down the cliff to land beside Hanna.

“Sister Rosvita must go in the basket,” said Gerwita, her voice no more than a whisper. “I’ll climb.”

Rosvita did not protest as Hanna and Jerome helped her into the basket. Once the basket began to move, bumping up along the rock, Hanna strung her bow and knelt with an arrow held loosely between her fingers.

“Are you good with that bow?” asked Jerome diffidently.

“Not very good,” she admitted. “I don’t wish to kill anyone, only to encourage them to keep their distance long enough for us to get to the top.”

“If you could climb the north face, so can they.”

“Once they find it. Once they think to do so. We’ll have a little time.”

“For what?”

She smiled at him. Like the other clerics, he was young—not much younger than she was herself, in truth—rather sweet and a little unworldly, a lad who had grown up in the schola and spent his life writing and reading and praying. Not for him the tidal waves that afflicted the common folk, who had few defenses against famine, war, drought, and pestilence. No cleric was immune to these terrors, of course, but the church offered protection and stability that a common farmer or landsman could only pray for and rarely received.

“For Sister Rosvita to save us.”

The answer contented him; they all believed in Rosvita that much. He headed up the steps, following Gerwita. A head appeared to her right.

“Brother Fortunatus!” Even she was astonished how pleased she was to see him. With his good nature and sharp humor unimpaired over the months of their harrowing journey, he had wormed his way into her affections. But she did not move to help him as he swung over the edge and turned around to assist Ruoda, who was wheezing audibly, face red, nose oozing yellow snot.

“Go on,” he said to Ruoda. “Go up and help the others. I’ll follow.”

Aurea was only halfway up the ladder.

As the horsemen advanced across the open field, past the stumps of olive trees, a second score of riders emerged from the gully. No need to guess who commanded them. Even at this distance, unable to make out features or even, really, hair color, Hanna knew that the man in the red cloak was Hugh. She knew it as though he stood beside her, whispering in her ear.

Hanna. You know it is best if you wait for us. Do not think
you can escape. You have been led astray by the Enemy, but we are merciful—

“Not to Liath,” she muttered, nocking an arrow.

She sighted on the approaching horsemen, measuring their path, leading with the bow, waiting. Waiting. The staff thrust up abruptly into her view. As Fortunatus heaved Aurea up and over onto the ledge, the first rider got within arrow shot. Hanna loosed the arrow.

It skittered along the ground just in front of the riders, causing them to rein back.

“Pull up the ladder!” she cried as she readied a second arrow. She had only a dozen arrows left. Fortunatus and Aurea reeled up the ladder and cast it against the baskets while the riders huddled out of arrow shot, unwilling to expose themselves further.

“Go! Go!” she cried. “I’ll cover you.”

The rest of the party, led by the presbyter, closed with the five scouts. Fortunatus and Aurea scrambled up the staircase while Hanna waited. Now, at last, she could protect the innocent. She had stood aside for months while the Quman slaughtered her countryfolk and done nothing. She had never risked herself. She had never been able to act. But she could now, and she would.

She was no longer afraid.

Hugh and the others halted beside the scouts to confer. The longer it took them to decide what to do, the more time Rosvita and her companions had to escape. Hanna waited, bow drawn.

Yet surely Hugh understood their predicament as well. He did not dither. When he broke away from the main party, she heard the cries of his companions, calling him back, but he raised a hand to silence them and rode forward alone.

She loosed a second arrow, aiming for the ground at his mount’s feet. The horse shied, but Hugh reined it calmly back and kept coming. She saw him clearly. The sun’s light, as it sank toward the western hills, bathed him in its rich gold. The world might have been created in order to display him. He was beautiful.

But so was Bulkezu.

She readied a third arrow and drew the bowstring. “Leave us, I beg you, my lord,” she called down.

He reined the horse up below, an easy shot, yet she could not make herself take it. She could not kill a man in cold blood. Would it have been easier if he were not so handsome?

“I pray you, Eagle, do nothing hasty,” he called. “Where is Sister Rosvita? If I can speak with her, then surely we may come to an agreement.”

From far above, Rosvita called down, her voice faint and raspy, but audible. “I know what you are, Father Hugh. I know what you have done. I fear we are enemies now. Forgive me, but there can be no negotiation.”

He sighed as might a mother faced with a stubborn child who, having done wrong, will not admit his fault. “You cannot escape, Sister Rosvita. Better to surrender now, I think.” He shaded his eyes to survey the setting sun. There was perhaps an hour of daylight left. “If you refuse, I will be forced to besiege you and your party. I know it is possible to climb the north face.”

“Why not let her go, my lord?” Hanna asked. “What harm? If you wanted her dead, you had plenty of time to see it done when she was a prisoner.”

Hugh smiled softly. “I do not want her dead, Eagle.”

Hanna shuddered. How simple it would be to shoot him full in the chest.
I do not want him dead.
Was it sorcery that stayed her hand and clouded her mind? Or only the memory of a naive girl’s infatuation?
I was that girl once.

Rosvita knew the truth about King Henry and the daimone that infested him; she had witnessed the death of Villam at Hugh’s hand. But Hugh had not killed her when he could easily have done so.

He is deeper than I am.

Yet Hanna knew that if she could not kill him, then she had to run with the others and pray that Sister Rosvita could outwit Hugh. Rosvita was the only person who could. Not even Liath could stand against Hugh; he had abused her too badly.

Just as Bulkezu abused me.

I am no different than Liath. I have to learn to stand firm despite what I have suffered—and I haven’t even suffered the worst.

The other riders remained beyond arrow shot. She rose, unstrung her bow, and climbed the steep steps carved into the rock face. She resisted the urge to look down, although she heard the sound of horses moving, hooves rapping on the earth, men calling out each to the others. Any soldier who sought to impale her with an arrow would find her an easy target, clinging to the rock well within range of their bows.

No one shot. She reached the next ledge to find Fortunatus waiting for her. Aurea and Ruoda struggled up the second ladder, on their way to the next ledge. The basket bobbed against the wall somewhat above and to the side of Aurea, and it scraped and jostled the rock as it was hauled upward. She could not see Rosvita from this angle but was happy enough to catch her breath, leaning her weight against the cliff, as she watched the basket rise away from her.

“We’ll not be rid of them easily,” said Fortunatus with a grin. He was red in the face from the exertion of climbing but his usual wry humor lightened his expression. “Look.”

The servants below had begun to set up a traveling camp.

“Why does Lord Hugh not wish to kill Sister Rosvita?” Hanna asked. “Can she not convict him if she testifies against him?”

“If any court would believe her.”

“Then what does it matter to him if she lives or dies? Better to kill her and have done with the threat.”

“So you would think,” he agreed, glancing up at the basket, now nearing the next ledge where anxious faces peered down, awaiting its safe arrival. “Were I in Hugh’s place, I would have disposed of her as soon as I could. Perhaps it was not Hugh’s choice that she remain among the living. Perhaps the skopos stayed his hand.”

“Do you think so?”

“I am only a simple cleric. I cannot presume to guess the thoughts of the Holy Mother or her favored presbyters. They are as far above me as … an eagle above the humble wren.”

“I would take you more for a starling, Brother. They fly in a flock. Wrens are more solitary, are they not?”

“We will be an evening’s tidbit for the eagle below if we do not fly, my friend.”

She insisted he go first. By now they were high enough
that any archer might have trouble finding his mark. None tried: Hugh’s servants finished setting up camp as afternoon faded. One of them caught the goat while a score of soldiers took torches and fanned out to set up sentry posts around the base of the huge rock.

In the morning they would climb, as she had done. Then her party would be well and truly trapped, no better than Rosvita in her dungeon cell.

By the time Hanna reached the uppermost ledge, Sister Hilaria had already conducted the first arrivals within the safety of the convent walls.

“Well done,” Hilaria said as Hanna heaved herself over the lip and lay flat on stone, aching, out of breath, and greasy with sweat. Her heart hammered against the ground. A spasm stabbed through her right hand, and she lay there gritting her teeth as a wave of pain convulsed her hand and forearm.

After a while she could bend her fingers. Hilaria remained standing beside her, and Hanna rolled over onto her back, heaved herself up to sit, and stared blearily out over the gulf of air. A hammer rang on metal as an unseen servant drove a stake into the soil. She recognized the steady rhythm, the way the pitch flattened when the hammer didn’t hit quite head on. The sun had melted to a glowing reddish-gold ball, streaming pink and orange along the hills. In the east, the hills darkened, color leached out as twilight fell.

“They can’t climb at night,” said Hilaria. “We must hurry. If Sister Rosvita can do what she suggests, then tonight is our only chance. I pray Mother Obligatia is strong enough.”

“What does she mean to do?” asked Hanna, climbing to her feet, but Hilaria had already hurried inside and Hanna could only follow, aching all over, as Hugh set in his siege.

AS they pressed forward into the interior rooms of the abandoned empty convent, a sense of serenity settled over Rosvita
as might a cloak thrown over her shoulders. The dimness reminded her of the two years she had spent in the cell beneath the skopos’ palace, yet here, she knew, she was at last entirely free. She had chosen her path, for good or for ill, and she had taken responsibility for those who followed her and looked to her for leadership.

King Henry remained a prisoner. She might never have the power to free him, but she had to try. If Hugh caught her and delivered her to Anne, all this would be in vain.

As the light grew dim, Gerwita clutched Rosvita’s hand, whimpering. “I’m frightened,” she said in a low voice.

They paused on a landing. Ahead lay the kitchens, but Sister Hilaria indicated the stairs that led down to the well.

“This way.”

“Do we not go on to that great cavern where Queen Adelheid and Princess Theophanu and their attendants sheltered?” Rosvita asked.

“Not today.” Hilaria set down the lamp she carried and, striking flint to stone, caught a spark on a scrap of dried mushroom. This tiny flame, coaxed along, lit the wick.

“Is everyone here?” she asked as she lifted the lamp to survey their party. “Follow me.”

As they edged down the steep stairs, their path lit only by that one flame, Gerwita clung to the back of Rosvita’s robes. She had borne up bravely enough in the weeks after they had escaped from Darre, but the final push to the convent had drained her, and now the poor girl wept incessantly. The others shuffled along flat-footed, feeling their way down the steps. The ceiling entombed them, although for a mercy they could easily walk upright, nor had they to squeeze through any narrow passages. Ruoda coughed; she had succumbed to a stubborn grippe two weeks ago that had taken root in her lungs. Like the others, she needed to rest. They all needed to rest. They had been on the run for forty days, hounded and scared. It was no way to recover one’s strength. That they had held out this long amazed her.

“Sister Rosvita!”

A ghostly shape appeared at the edge of the flame’s halo. It took Rosvita two breaths to recognize Sister Diocletia, the weaver, standing below them on the steps. Like Hilaria, she
had become emaciated, and her skin had a deadly pallor, as white as mushrooms. But her smile had the same patient warmth Rosvita remembered.

“I pray you bring us good tidings, Sister Rosvita,” continued Diocletia. “We have been sorely tried. I fear we are on our last strength.”

“I beg you, tell me what has happened to all of you. Why have you abandoned the convent? Where is Mother Obligatia?”

Hilaria and Diocletia exchanged a glance. They had been the best natured and strongest of the nuns, and even now, as fragile and worn through as they looked, Rosvita sensed a powerful will shared between them.

“We’re taking you to her now,” said Hilaria finally.

They continued down, far down, until Rosvita lost count of the stairs and grew accustomed to stepping over the lip carved at the edge of each one, a fringe of stone that kept the foot from slipping on the descent. The stone was very cold to the touch but not wet. The footfalls of the others echoed around her, muffled by rock; she heard their breathing, but no one spoke. The light did little to dispel the darkness. She could touch solid stone on either side; otherwise they might as well have been descending into the Pit. Had the church mothers been mistaken all along, teaching that the sinful fell, bodiless and helpless, for eternity through a cloud of stinging aether? It was perhaps more reasonable to suggest that each erring soul carved her own path down the steep slope of the Abyss, trudging into eternal damnation. Sin itself was the punishment, turning away from what was right.