The Gathering Storm (59 page)

Alain laughed as a tiny frog hopped out of one of the standing pools and vanished under a tangle of blackberry vines. For months now he had been paralyzed by grief, unable to feel or think or move, but that morning with the sheep when he had passed from sleep into waking had brought blood back to his limbs, warmth to his skin, feeling to his heart, painful but blessedly welcome.

Adica was gone. He had lost her.

But he still had a task to complete.

“I don’t know. I only know I must reach the one called Stronghand, whom I see in my dreams.”

Ratbold turned his face away and touched his hidden cheek with one finger as if to wipe away a tear. “So be it, Brother. There is no one here who can stop you.”

No one.

When they reached the monastery, they were brought to Father Ortulfus’ study where the good father entertained exalted guests, the same clerics who had passed them three days before, taking no notice of two humble monks standing alongside the road.

The eldest of the clerics was a lean man called Severus whose ascetic face suggested that he had passed many long nights on his knees in prayer after long days of solitary scholarly study. He refused to speak Wendish, using only Dariyan.

“Had we known, we might have taken him then and gone on our way more quickly. These delays are a trouble to us. I have come all the way from southern Salia, leaving my assistants behind me to oversee the work necessary there. I am on my way to Alba.”

He looked Alain over, mouth tight, expression doubtful. “This one? This is the man we were sent to recover?” He shook his head, but his skeptical gaze touched the hounds sitting faithfully on either side of the door. Not even Father Ortulfus forbade the hounds any chamber they wished to enter. All of them had discovered that if the hounds were let be, they behaved peaceably enough. “Are these his hounds?”

“They are mine,” Alain replied. “Who has sent you, Brother?”

“You are bold, speaking before you are spoken to.”

“I beg your pardon, Brother, but it is obvious that I have been spoken of without my knowledge. Prior Ratbold and I are only just returned from a distant standing where we have watched over sheep suspected of carrying the murrain.”

The other clerics shuddered, wringing hands, whispering.

“Yes, there is a murrain abroad in the lands south of here,” said Father Ortulfus, “so these good clerics report. They passed skulls set on posts and whole steadings burned out. It’s a terrible plague, although some say it’s the work of soul-murdering bandits. But I have not yet heard your report, Brother. Prior Ratbold, what of Farmer Hosed?”

“He burned two of the sheep.” Ratbold glanced at Alain, then at the clerics, before returning his gaze to the abbot. “But the others … the other ewes and the lambs.” He hesitated, unwilling to speak further in the presence of strangers.

“Go on.”

Words came raggedly. “There is no murrain on our lands.”

Ortulfus had no experience concealing his feelings and thoughts; born of an ancient and noble lineage, placed in a position of power at a youthful age, he had never learned to school his expressions. His look now, staring first with disbelief at Ratbold before shifting to regard Alain, betrayed his innermost heart.

The intensity of Ortulfus’ gaze startled Alain.
They do not want to give me up.
At Lavas he had been cast out; no one had wanted him, although he had been accepted by the Lions because of the king’s imprimatur and, he hoped, his own hard work. Adica and her village had taken him in as one of their own, but he had been deposited there by a shaman of great power and terrible wisdom. Here at Hersford he had been accepted out of charity; he had believed himself suffered more than loved.

Had he misunderstood the good brothers? What man would smile sadly as Ortulfus did now, as if searching for a question to an answer he already knew?

“Brother Alain, these honorable clerics come from the skopos
in Darre. It is their wish that you journey to Darre to meet with the skopos.”

Their wish, Ortulfus said, but in his tone Alain heard otherwise.

Their command.

“Why would the skopos wish to meet with me?”

“We do not ask,” said Brother Severus coldly. “We only obey. We will leave in the morning.”

Ortulfus gestured to Ratbold and his other attendants, indicating that they should go about their business, see about supper, return to their work. “You may go, Brother Alain, and make any preparations necessary.”

Alain considered objecting. That powerful compulsion to seek Stronghand still rode him, yet the pragmatic voice of Aunt Bel whispered in his mind.

If it is true that Stronghand is in Alba, how will you cross the sea with no goods or coin to trade for your passage?

He was a pauper, living on the sufferance of the church. Surely the skopos had a powerful reason to seek him out. Perhaps she had knowledge of the magical forces that had cast him here. He would make her heed him. Once her belief was secured, all others must believe him as well.

“I will go then, Father, with your blessing.”

Ortulfus shook his head, that tight, ironic smile still caught on his lips. “You have my blessing, Brother Alain. I pray you, think as well of us as you can.”

“How could I think otherwise? You took me in when I was mad with grief. You have sheltered me. I pray none of you come to any harm.”

Father Ortulfus steadied himself on a chair, lowering his gaze humbly. His eyes brimmed with tears.

There was nothing else to say. Alain whistled the hounds to order and left the chamber, but as he walked away he heard them speaking still.

“He is not what I expected,” said Brother Severus, voice carrying, perhaps, farther than he meant it to.

“Nay, Your Excellency,” retorted Father Ortulfus boldly. “It is not for us to judge.”

Iso wept. “Let m-m-me come with you, B-brother. I am alone here.”

“You are not alone. The others will look after you.”

He grieved to leave Iso, who was so frail, so crippled, so trusting. He had abandoned Lackling to his fate, all unknowing; now it seemed doubly criminal to leave Iso behind, but the boy could not sustain the rigors of a long journey, nor did Alain trust the supercilious clerics who served the skopos to be patient with anyone who might impede their progress. They seemed an impatient group to him as he joined them in the cold breath of dawn with dew glimmering on every blade of grass. Cattle and sheep grazed placidly in their pastures. No trace of the murrain had blighted the monastic herds, Ratbold had told him last night, but the prior had spoken the words in the way a man relays information that his listener already knows.

With Father Ortulfus at their head, all of the lay brothers and monks gathered beside the gate to see him off. Even Brother Lallo cried. Iso trembled as he wept. The entire crowd of them remained watching at the gate, silent except for poor Iso’s convulsive sobs, as the cavalcade lumbered away. Alain kept looking back over his shoulder, lifting his hand a second time, a third, a fourth, to convey his fare-you-wells. A few raised hands in answer. The sun rose behind them, and as the road curved he lost sight of the monastery first in the glare of the sun pushing up above the forest and at last as the bend in the road concealed it irrevocably.

SHELTERED by a makeshift awning, Blessing sat unnaturally still, legs crossed, hands on her knees, and watched the centaurs confer. The woman-horses ranged in a circle, hindquarters out and torsos in. They spoke in voices both human and mareish, words punctuated by snorts, flicks of their tails, and the stamping of hooves. They remained at the crest of the slope while sentries surveyed the land on all sides. The prince’s forces lay out of sight, although threads of smoke from their campfires marked the sky.

The centaurs had not returned them to the prince’s camp.

Blessing’s silence made Anna nervous. She had never seen the princess go for so long without saying
something.

Had the centaur shaman bewitched the girl?

“Honored One? I see if your cuts heal?”

A fair number of actual people traveled with the centaur army, all of them congregating around a cheerfully painted wagon whose occupant Anna never, ever saw. The healer was one of these humans, although she was odd in her own right with dark eyes outlined with kohl and strangely large hands and feet. She wore a woman’s felt jacket, a skirt split for riding with leather trousers beneath, and a tall felt headdress
decorated with bronze spirals and prancing deer. Her voice, if rather low, was soothing, and her hands, probing Anna’s injuries, were gentle.

“How do you come to speak Wendish?” Anna asked.

The healer smiled. Bells tied to her headdress tinkled as she nodded. “We prepare for this meeting. For this reason, some learn the speech of your people. The Holy One sees the day to come and the day already walking past.”

Could the shaman see into the future? How much power did she have? Yet Anna could not say she felt particularly nervous as the healer fed her gruel and a sharp, fermented milk before leaving her and Blessing alone. The milk made her head spin. She became unusually aware of her hands, her lips, her elbows, the red-and-orange carpet on which they sat, the ragged clouds overhead in a pale blue sky which, to the east, faded to a stormy gray. She smelled winter, but it didn’t touch them.

Blessing refused both gruel and milk. Tears streaked her face, but she kept silent, all her fear and uncertainty held in. Anna’s heart broke to see her so bereft. She was so young, despite her size, no more than three or four years of age, still a baby for all that her body had matured rapidly. Although the girl looked twelve or so, she had neither experience nor maturity.

No wonder her father feared for her. He must have known it was only a matter of time before she got herself into trouble beyond his ability to fix. It was a miracle that the centaurs had rescued them from Bulkezu, and even now they were still in grave danger even if the centaurs seemed calm and polite.

It was no wonder Blessing feared the centaurs. She had never lived under the hand of any authority except that of her doting father. Then Bulkezu had abducted her most violently, and now she was held prisoner by these strange creatures.

Blessing hadn’t learned the lesson of Gent. She didn’t know that sometimes you had to bide your time and hunker down in such shelter as you could find, because you no longer had any control over the storm blowing around you.

The old one, the shaman, tossed her head abruptly, backed out of the council circle, and walked over to them.

Blessing stood and stepped forward, her little face creased with determination, her eyes black with anger.

“When are you going to take me back to my—”

She jerked and spun sideways as though a giant’s hand twisted her around. Her hands clutched at her throat, and her eyes rolled skyward. Light winked, flashed, in the corner of Anna’s eye—barely seen and gone as quickly.

Blessing screamed. “I hear her! I hear her! She came back! She’s all on fire!” She fell limp to the ground.

“Blessing!” Anna shook the girl, chafed her hands, but she did not respond although she was breathing and her eyes were open. A shadow covered the princess’ face, and Anna looked up to find the shaman looming over them. “What did you
do
?” she cried, then fell silent as the shaman’s gaze touched her.

The centaur said nothing, only gazed at Blessing, coolly appraising. Her face, despite its human shape, had an uncanny appearance, maybe only the luminous shine of her eyes or perhaps the oddly disturbing horn color of her skin and the contrasting gold-and-green-painted stripes across her torso.

It had to be a spell.

Slowly, Anna got up, although it still hurt to move. She was bruised and cut and aching, but it was incontrovertibly true that the centaurs had saved her and the princess from Bulkezu. For all their terrible strangeness, they didn’t look insane.

“Who came back?” demanded Anna rudely, forgetting prudence and courtesy. “Who is on fire?”

The shaman scented the air, facing east. “A powerful force has entered the land.”