He shrugged. "I cannot say. I may be able to get back across the pass this autumn, but most likely I won't be able to return until next summer. You must convince Henry, child." He touched her, briefly, on her Eagle's badge, newly made and still as bright as if the memory of Manfred's death lit it.

"You have earned this, Hanna. Do not think you are unequal to the task." He went inside the stables.

Hanna lingered outside, staring up at the three great peaks so beautiful, so silent, so at peace in their vast strength, their sheer living force, that it seemed impossible to believe at this instant that three-brief-human lives had been extinguished in the shadow at their feet. What was it the bard had called them? Youngwife. Monk's Ridge. Terror. She shaded her eyes against the rising sun and looked for the hawk, but no birds flew in the sky this fair morning.

She would return to Wendar, to the king's progress, without seeing the city of Darre and the palace of the holy skopos. Without seeing, perhaps, a few elves or other strange creatures not of humankind. And yet, this also meant she would return to Liath sooner.

Thinking of Liath made her think of Hugh, though she did not want to think of Hugh. Beautiful Hugh. And thinking of Hugh made her remember what he had done, and so she thought of Ivar. Ai, Lady, where was Ivar now? Had he reached Quedlinhame safely? Did he like it there? Was he resigned to his fate? Or did he still fight against it?

IVAR hated Quedlinhame. He hated the monastery, he hated the daily round of monotonous prayer, and most of all he hated the novices' dormitory, which was a narrow barracks of a building where he spent all of his nights and much of his day in miserable silence along with the other novices. Worst, because of the careful reckoning of days at Mass and in prayerbooks, he knew exactly how many days he had been imprisoned here.

One hundred and seventy-seven days ago, on St. Bonfil-ia's Day, he had knelt before the postern gate in a cold rain and after a night of utter wretchedness had been admitted onto the grounds of Quedlinhame. They did not even give him a tour of the famous church. Instead, his new keepers immediately led him to the novitiary and locked him in with the rest of the poor souls consigned to this purgatory.

The poor male souls, of course. Quedlinhame was a double monastery; the abbess, Mother Scholastica, ruled over both monks and nuns who lived apart but prayed together. The novices'

dormitory let out onto a small cloister, a courtyard marked off by trim columns. A high wood fence ran down the center of this cloister, dividing it into two smaller courtyards, one for the male novices and one for the female novices whose dormitory lay on the opposite side.

Ivar prayed briefly at that fence every day unless the weather was awful, once in the morning just after the service of Terce and once in the afternoon before Vespers. Or at least, he appeared to be praying. In fact, in these, his only unsupervised moments of the day, he studied the wood planks. In the last five months, he and the other three first-year novices had examined that fence finger's breadth by finger's breadth, each upright plank, each horizontal beam, each crack and warp and weathered knot.

But he could not find any chink through which to see onto the other side.

Were the female novices young? Almost certainly. Like him, most of them would have been put into the church- most willingly, some not-by their families when they reached adolescence.

Were they pretty? Perhaps. This goal he had set himself soon after he arrived: to identify each female novice by name and face. It kept him from going crazy, even though he knew it was wrong and against the rules. Or perhaps because it was against the rules.

Right now, his fellow first-year novice, Baldwin, had finished digging dirt out from under his nails with his shaving knife and now he stuck that knife into the minute gap between two warping planks. He wiggled the blade back and forth in what Ivar supposed would be a vain attempt to try to widen the gap enough to peer through. Baldwin, however, would not give up. In all things, fair-haired Baldwin knew that eventually he would get his way.

Ermanrich lumbered up and plopped down beside Ivar. He shivered in the cool autumn wind, which Ivar found pleasant after a hot summer confined within walls, but Ermanrich, though stoutest in body of their band of four, was also most susceptible to fevers and runny noses. He coughed now and wiped running eyes and squinted at Baldwin's handiwork.

"There must be a weak spot," Ermanrich muttered. He picked at his nails, which were dirty from turning over soil in the garden now that all the vegetables were harvested. "Hathumod says the first years all think Baldwin is very handsome." Hathumod was Ermanrich's cousin and in her second year as a novice. She and Ermanrich had mysterious ways of communicating which Ivar had not yet divined the nature of.

"What does Hathumod think of our Baldwin?" Ivar asked. "She won't say."

Baldwin glanced at them and grinned, then went back to his work.

He had every reason to be vain of his looks, but of course, according to his own account, it was those looks that had landed him in the monastery. He was, indeed, the handsomest fellow Ivar had ever laid eyes on...with the exception of Prater Hugh.

Ai, Lady! Even thinking of that bastard Hugh made Ivar angry all over again, trapped by helpless fury. He had tried to free Liath but had been made to look a fool and then gotten condemned to this life in the bargain. All of it Hugh's fault, that damned arrogant handsome bastard. What had happened to Liath? Was she still Hugh's concubine? At least, if reports were true, Hanna was with her.

Ivar could not begrudge Hanna her choice-service with Liath rather than with him. Liath needed Hanna more than he did, and anyway here at Quedlinhame he was not allowed to converse with any woman except Mother Scholastica. He had brought two male servants with him, and they tended to his clothing and his bed and with the other servants tidied the dormitory and in general did whatever manual labor he himself did not have time for, since as a novice his main duties were to pray and to study. Had he brought Hanna, she would have been sent to work as a laundress or cook, and he would never have seen her. Better that she stayed with Liath. He sighed heavily.

Ermanrich touched a hand to his elbow, though novices were not supposed to touch, to form bonds of affection and sympathy. They were meant to devote themselves only to God. "You're thinking of her again," said the stout boy. "Was she really as pretty as Baldwin?"

"Utterly unlike," said Ivar, but then he smiled, because Ermanrich always made him smile. "She was dark-"

"Dark like Duke Conrad the Black?" asked Baldwin without looking up from his scraping at the fence. "I met him once."

"Met him?" demanded Ermanrich.

"Oh, well, not met. I saw him once."

"I don't know if they look anything alike," said Ivar. "I never saw Duke Conrad. How did he get to be so dark?"

"His mother came from the east. She was a princess from Jinna country." Baldwin had a treasure trove of gossip about the noble families of Wendar and Varre. "She was a present to one of the Arnulfs, I forget which, from one of the sultans of the east. Conrad the Elder, who was then Duke of Wayland, took a fancy to her and because King Arnulf owed him a favor, he asked for the girl. She was just a child then, but very pretty, everyone said. Conrad had her raised as a good Daisanite, for she came of heathen fire-worshipers. When she was old enough, he took her as a concubine, but of all his wives and concubines only she conceived by him, so perhaps she knew some eastern witchery, for the rumor went round that Conrad was infertile because of a curse set on him by one of the Lost Ones he raped when he was a young man."

Ermanrich coughed again and cocked one eyebrow up.

"You don't believe me?" demanded Baldwin, cheek ticking as he tried to suppress a grin.

"Which part do you wish to know that I believe?" asked Ermanrich.

"And then what happened?" asked Ivar, trying to imagine this Jinna girl but only able to see Liath in his mind's eye. The thought of her made his heart ache.

"She gave birth to a baby boy, the second Conrad, whom we now know as Conrad the Black.

He succeeded to the duchy when his father died. She still lives, you know, the Jinna woman. I don't know what her old name was, her heathen name, but she was baptized with a good Daisanite name, Mariya or Miryam. Something like that."

"They let a bastard inherit?" asked Ermanrich, looking skeptical.

"No, no. At the end of his life, when it came time to name his heir, Conrad the Elder claimed he had been married to her all along. The first tame deacon he got to say she was present at the ceremony then turned out to have been only ten years old when the marriage was supposed to have been solemnized. So Conrad finally made a huge bequest of land to the local biscop and she agreed that God had sanctified the union before the child's birth. Look! I've made a crack!" He leaned down and stuck his perfectly-proportioned nose up against the wood, closed one eye, and peered through the tiny gap with the other. Then he withdrew, shaking his head. "All I can see is warts. I knew they would have warts."

"Dearest Baldwin, doomed by warts to a life in the monastery," said Ermanrich in a sententious voice. "Now move and let me try." They changed places.

"Hush," said Ivar. "Here comes Lord Reginar and his dogs."

Lord Reginar had a pack of five "dogs"-the other second-year novices-and a thin face made ill-featured mostly because of its habitual sour expression.

"What's this?" he said, pausing beside the three first-year boys. He touched a scrap of very fine white linen to his lips as if the stench of the first years offended him. "Are you at your daily prayers?"

That he meant to insinuate something was clear, though what exactly he meant was not.

Ivar stifled a giggle. He found Reginar's conceit so pathetic, especially compared to that of Hugh, that he always wanted to laugh. But a count's son never ever laughed at the son of a duchess and one who, in addition, wore the gold torque around his neck that symbolized he came of the blood of the royal family and had a claim-however distant-to the throne.

Ermanrich clasped his hands tight and leaned against the fence, covering the telltale signs of cutting. He began to murmur a psalm in the singsong voice he used at his prayers.

Baldwin smiled brightly up at the young lord. "How kind of you to deign to notice us this day, Lord Reginar," he said without any obvious sign of sarcasm.

Ermanrich made a choking sound.

Reginar touched his lips again with the linen, but even he-youngest son of Duchess Rotrudis and nephew of both Mother Scholastica and King Henry-was not immune to Baldwin's charms. "It is true,"

he said, "that two march-landers and a minor count's son are unlikely to receive attentions from such as myself every day, but then you are entitled to sleep near me, as are all these others." He gestured toward his sycophants, an indistinguishable collection of boys of good family who had had the misfortune to be dedicated to the monastery last year, together with Reginar, and had by necessity-or by force-fallen into orbit around him.

"Pray you," said Baldwin sweetly, "do not forget our good comrade Sigfrid, Mother Scholastica's favorite. I am sure he, too, is not insensible to the favor you show us."

Ermanrich fell into a fit of frantic coughing. One of the boys hovering at Reginar's back tittered, and the young lord turned right around and slapped him hard. Then he spun and stalked away, his "dogs"

scurrying after him.

Fittingly, at that moment Sigfrid came running out of the dormitory, his sharp face alight, his novice's robes all askew. He did not notice Reginar. He never did. And that was the worst insult of all, although Reginar never understood that Sigfrid noticed nothing except his studies, his prayers, and-now-his three friends.

"I heard the most amazing news," Sigfrid said as he halted beside them. He knelt with the practiced ease of a person who has spent years moving into or out of a kneeling position, as indeed Sigfrid himself cheerfully admitted he had, having come at age five to his vocation: monk-in-training.

"That was cruel," said Ermanrich.

"What was?" asked Sigfrid.

Baldwin smiled. "Poor Reginar. He can't abide that his own dear aunt, Mother Scholastica, favors a mere steward's son and lavishes her favor-and her private tutorials-on that lowborn creature instead of on her nephew."

"Oh, dear," said Sigfrid. He looked concerned all at once. "I do not mean to make anyone envious of me. I have not striven for Mother Scholastica's attention, and yet-" His face took on an expression of rapt contempla Doos tion. "-to be privileged to study with her and with Brother Methodius-"

"You know what they say." Baldwin cut in before Sigfrid could launch into a long recitation-by heart, of course- of whatever horrific matristic text written centuries ago he had studied today in Mother Scholastica's study. "Why, no," said Ermanrich. "What do they say?" "That Lord Reginar was put into the monastery only because his mother detests him. Had she allowed him to become ordained as a frater and then be elevated to the rank of presbyter, he would have had to visit her every three years as is traditional, as long as she lives, and she decided it was better to put him in the monastery where she'd never have to see him again if she didn't wish it."

Ermanrich snorted, gulped, and began to laugh helplessly.

Sigfrid gazed sorrowfully at Baldwin and only shook his head, as if to remind the other boy that the Lord and Lady looked ill on those who spoke spitefully of others. "I believe it," muttered Ivar.

"I'm sorry, Ivar," said Baldwin quickly. "I didn't mean to remind you of your own situation."

"Never mind," said Ivar. "What's done is done. What was your news, Sigfrid?"

"King Henry's progress is coming here, to Quedlinhame, for the Feast of St. Valentinus. They expect the king today or tomorrow!"

"How do you know this?" Ermanrich demanded. "Not even Hathumod knows, for if she did, she'd have told me." Sigfrid blushed. He had a sensitive face, his expressions made interesting by the conflict between his studious nature and solitary soul on the one hand and the very real and passionate liking he had taken to his year-mates on the other. "Alas, I fear I overheard them. It was ill-done of me, I know-but I couldn't wait to tell you, for I knew you would want to hear! Imagine! The king!"

Baldwin yawned. "Ah, yes. I've met the king."

"Have you really met him?" demanded Ermanrich, laughing.

The schoolmaster appeared under the colonnade and they all leaped guiltily to their feet and with contrite faces made their way to the line. As first years, they took their place at the end, matched up in pairs. Before them walked Reginar and his sycophants, and in front of Reginar-although Reginar hated anyone to walk in front of him- stood the humble third years.

As they marched out of the dormitory and made their way along the path that led to the church, Ivar craned his neck when the brown-robed female novices came into view. For his pains he got a sharp whack on his shoulders from the schoolmaster's willow switch. It stung, but in a way the pain helped him.

The pain helped him remember that he was Ivar, son of Count Harl and Lady Herlinda. He was not truly a monk, not by vocation as Sigfrid was, nor was he resigned to his fate as was Ermanrich, sixth of seven sons of a marchland countess who, to her horror, had never given birth to a girl and had perforce made her eldest son her heir and after that hastily dedicated the superfluous boys to the church so they would not contest their brother's elevation to the rank of count after her death. Unlike Baldwin, he had not escaped an unwanted marriage by begging to be put in the church.

No. He had been forced to take the novice's hood. Forced because he loved Liath and she loved him and he would have taken her away from Hugh, and this had been Hugh's way of revenging himself on Ivar.

No. He never minded the pain or the austerities of a novice's life. The pain, even of the willow switch, reminded Ivar daily that he would, somehow, avenge himself on Hugh and save Liath from Hugh's clutches. No matter that Hugh-bastard though he was-ranked far above a minor count's youngest son.

No matter that Hugh's mother, a powerful margrave, was an acknowledged favorite of King Henry.

By hating Quedlinhame, Ivar kept himself strong enough to hate Hugh. Somehow, some way, Ivar would have his revenge.

BLOODHEART had sons. As time passed, Sanglant learned how to recognize them: by their ornamentation. Only the sons of Bloodheart could stud their teeth with gems; the mail skirts they wore, as intricate as lace, were gilded with gold and silver and woven with bright stones and flashing jewels; a stylized red-ocher arrowhead, symbol of their father's hegemony, figured prominently in the pattern of colorful painting with which they decorated their torsos.

As summer passed into autumn and the vast nave of air in the cathedral grew steadily colder, sons came and went .from their favored place in front of Bloodheart's heavy chair. They left for expeditions whose fruit brought gold, cattle, slaves, and a harvest of endlessly fascinating small items: an eagle-feather quill, a length of sky-blue silk, a sword with an ornamented gold hilt, vases carved out of horn or marble, an arrow fletched with the iron-gray feathers of a griffin, a turquoise pendant engraved with six-pointed stars inlaid with gold, a silver paten, a bloodstone cameo ring, a linen tablecloth embroidered with silk, slivers of ossified dragon's fire sharpened into thin blades, a hoard of green beads, translucent angel's tears polished and strung together as a necklace, silk bed-curtains, and silk-covered pillows. Bloodheart tossed one of the pillows to Sanglant, but the dogs ripped it to pieces and bits of its feather stuffing floated, spinning in the still air, for the rest of the day.

One son haunted the cathedral more than the others, favored or in disgrace, Sanglant could not tell. He was easily distinguished from the others: He wore at his chest a wooden Circle of Unity, no doubt a trophy ripped off a corpse, and he had taken upon himself the odd habit of, once a day, overseeing the slave who brought bucket and rags to clean up the spot where, at the limit of his chains, Sanglant relieved himself. This humiliation Sanglant endured in silence. It was, in its own way, a mercy not to be left to fester in worse filth than what he already had to suffer.

But Bloodheart was fickle, or perhaps it served his purposes to act so.

Day by day more Eika trickled in until their numbers swamped the cathedral. They were like a swarm of locusts, all of them pestering him with pricks of their spears, with spit, with dogs sent to fight him until the tunic he had wrapped his forearms in lay in shreds on the floor and his skin was a mass of bleeding scrapes and bites. But it would heal. It always did, cleanly and without infection. Some of the dogs died, to be eaten by his pack and, finally, by him as well; this food he could not scorn, because he had so little. The dogs that fled him were quickly killed by their pack brothers.

The Eika cheered on these battles, ringing him and shouting and calling out encouragement. Since he understood so little of their language, he could not tell whether they hoped he died, or whether his living was entertainment enough. They sang until all hours of the night and seemed to have no need of sleep, nor could he sleep in any case, with the dogs testing him and the curious coming to stare and point and howl with laughter at the sight of a half-human prince among the dogs.

Bloodheart sat and surveyed all from his throne, and his priest crouched at his side, scratching the scars on his scrawny chest now and again, rolling bones to read the future, caressing the little wooden chest which he kept always beside him.

But at last, on a day made warm by the press of bodies and cold by the gloomy light that filtered in through the windows, Bloodheart rose and howled them to attention.

"Which of you has brought me the greatest treasure?" he cried, or so Sanglant assumed, because at once the sons came forward with magnificent treasures, some of which Sanglant had seen before, some of which were new: gold chalices; a necklace of emeralds; a sword of such terrible beauty and slender killing sleekness that it must have come from the forges of the east; a woman's veil woven so cunningly that it could have been a spiderweb unfastened from branches and gilded with silver and pearls; rings made gaudy with precious stones; a reliquary of ivory and gold and pearls; a Quman bowcase-Sanglant shut his eyes. He had to lean forward onto his hands, swept by such a powerful memory of Liath walking ahead of him through the stables, her body ornamented by a bowcase incised with a griffin devouring a deer, that he trembled. His dogs growled, always alert to weakness. Bloodheart barked out words, and Sanglant jerked up, ready to fight. Never let it be said that he did not fight until his last breath.

But Bloodheart's attention was on another. He called one of his sons before him, the one who wore the Circle. This one, young and straight, had less of the bulky mass of his brothers, but there was yet something about him that was different, something Sanglant recognized but could put no name to, unless it was intelligence.

Bloodheart gestured to the treasures scattered like leaves at his feet. He spoke, indicating this last of his sons. What had he brought?

The other Eika howled and dogs began barking and howling in response. Never allowed to leave the city, this Eika son could hardly have been expected to find and bring home treasure. But perhaps he was in disgrace, and this, finally, was the moment Bloodheart had chosen to make the point.

The young Eika stood calmly under the storm of their howling and derision. At last, seeing they had not made him cower, they quieted. He did not speak immediately. He waited, and when he did speak, he spoke only to his father and, amazingly, in good Wendish.

"I bring you the most precious treasure," he said, his voice as smooth as the tone of the bone flutes Bloodheart played each day. "Wisdom."

"Wisdom!" Bloodheart grinned, flashing gems. "What might that be?"

"Which of your other sons can speak the tongue of the human kind?"

"Why should they? What use are the humans to us? They are weak, and being weak, will die.

We will take what we want from them and go on our way."

"They have not died yet." He did not look toward Sangiant. "The humankind are as numerous as flies on a corpse. Though we are stronger, we are fewer."

Murmuring, the others grew restless at an exchange few of them could understand.

"What matters it if we are fewer," said Bloodheart, "if they are weaker?" But he still spoke Wendish, to Sanglant's surprise. "What matters it as long as we kill twenty for every one of our brothers who dies?"

"Why must we kill so many if we could gain more with less killing?"

Bloodheart's laughter sounded long and ominously in the echoing nave. Abruptly, he spat at the young Eika's feet. "Go back to Rifcin fjord. You are too young to bide here any longer. Your captivity weakened you, and you are not strong enough to fight this war. Go home and rest with the Mothers.

Prove yourself there in the fjordlands, bring the other tribes under my heel, and perhaps I will let you return. But while you are under my displeasure, let none among my sons speak to you in the language of true people, but only in the language of the Soft Ones. I have spoken." He turned, spat toward Sanglant, and seated himself on his throne. The priest translated his words in a quavering voice, and then the hubbub began, so loud with howling and laughter and harsh words, with the scraping and banging of spear hafts on stone, and with the stamping of heels to the ground that Sanglant was deafened.

The Eika princeling stood his ground, oblivious to the taunts and the abuse. When at last Bloodheart began to distribute gifts to his favored soldiers, he alone left quietly, without looking back-out to the lit world beyond this stone and timber prison. A breath of wind touched San-giant's lips. He licked it, moisture from rain almost painful on his dry tongue. Free to go, even in disgrace.

The madness came as a cloud covers the sun. But he fought it this time, fought succumbing to it.

He did not want to fall into madness in front of so many, an animal in truth. But the dogs circled in, and the black cloud descended, and he forgot everything except his fear that he would be chained here forever.

A. rich autumn light streamed in through the schola windows, bathing Ivar in such a soporific warmth that he nodded, then jerked himself back to attention as the schoolmaster paused beside him.

"Mundus, munde, mundi, mundo, mundum, mundo, Ivar. Certainly if you would bestir yourself, you could master Dariyan easily. Ermanrich, pay attention. Ah, yes, Baldwin, of course you are doing well; it just needs more practice. See, it is mundi here, not mundo, in the vocative."

The schoolmaster moved forward to the second-year novices, whose study of Dariyan, the language of the old Empire and now of the Daisanite Church, was more advanced than that of the first years-all but Sigfrid, who spoke and read Dariyan fluently.

Ivar yawned and painstakingly impressed the word into the wax tablet. He was a slow writer and reader, having only learned the alphabet upon leaving the world and entering the monastery. Mundus, the world. Ivar very much wanted to be out in the world right now. He shifted, trying to get comfortable on the hard wooden bench, but of course it was impossible to get comfortable. One was not meant to be comfortable in the monastery but rather and always discomforted by one's own unworthiness in the face of God's majesty.

However, if he slid forward just so, he could lean a little farther into the sunlight that spilled over the table. The heat of the sun melted through the coarse fabric of his robe. The warmth was too powerful a spell. Ivar dozed off over his tablet while the schoolmaster, lecturing to the row of third-year novices, droned on about the elegant style on display in St. Augustina's City of God.

Something nudged Ivar's foot, and he snorted and started awake, losing his grip on his stylus. It fell to the stone floor, and the sound of its impact in the silent chamber resounded in his ears at least as loudly as if one of the huge stone pillars in the church had just crashed down.

But Fortune was with him this day, as She had not been yesterday when he had been caught trying to look at the female novices. Ermanrich-for he was the culprit who had nudged him awake-made a quick sign with his free hand: Look.

The schoolmaster had walked to the door and was now speaking in a low voice with Brother Methodius, prior of the monastic half of Quedlinhame as well as Mother Scho-lastica's deputy. Finally he turned back to survey his pupils and signed: Stand.

Dutifully, they stood. Ivar stooped to grab the stylus off the floor and set it next to the tablet, for once free of the punishment that would normally attend his carelessness.

"Come." Brother Methodius stepped forward. "You are to be granted the honor of attending the adventus of King Henry. Keep silence, I pray you, and keep your heads bowed humbly." His eyes glinted, and Ivar thought the good brother suppressed a smile. "No doubt Our Lord and Lady will forgive you a single glance at the magnificence of the king's progress as it passes by, if you are not yet strong enough to resist such temptation."

He signed in the hand language learned by all the monks. Come. The novices formed rows quickly, for they had by now much practice in obedience. But even Sigfrid's eyes were wide with awe at the thought of seeing the king.

Ivar had never seen the king, of course. Heart's Rest and the North March of Wendar was too far north, too remote, and too poor to be of much interest to the king; the counts of the North March were left to rule as they wished, unless that rule came into direct conflict with the king's authority. During Ivar's lifetime such an incident had never happened, but his father, Count Harl, could dimly recall an expedition by the King's Dragons-his elite cavalry-to put down a northern rebellion in the time of the younger Arnulf many years ago.

Here at Quedlinhame, of course, they could expect to see the king frequently. King Henry preferred to spend Holy Week at the foundation ruled over by his sister, Mother Scholastica, and inhabited by his widowed mother, Queen Mathilda, now a nun. In autumn, as it was now, the king and his court often rested here on their way to the royal hunting lodges in the Thurin Forest.

The king! Even Ivar, who tried very hard to dislike everything at Quedlinhame excluding his new friends, could not help but be excited. As they walked down the steps from the schoolroom and out of the dormitory, he noticed as if for the first time what a veritable hive of activity the great monastery had become. Servants swept pavement or whitewashed exterior walls. Women aired out blankets and featherbeds at the guest houses. By the kitchens, wagons waited in neat rows, their beds heaped with vegetables, casks of ale, baskets of ground wheat and rye, and crocks of honey. Cages of chickens stood stacked by the slaughter pit and a half dozen servants worked feverishly, chopping off heads, while others carried the dead chickens to huge vats of boiling water and threw them in to scald off the feathers.

Butchered pigs and cattle hung, draining, from the beams of the slaughterhouse shed. The bakery fires roared, and the smell of cooking permeated the air.

The line of novices joined that of the assembled monks and they walked out together under the great archway that spanned the gate. Up until the time of the first Henry, Quedlinhame had been a fortress, part of the vast inheritance his wife, Lucienna of Attomar, had brought to their marriage.

Together they had dedicated both the fortress and their only daughter Kunigunde to the church, and at age sixteen she had become first abbess-first "Mother"- of Quedlinhame Convent. During her long rule the foundation had expanded to include monks-which unfortunate ambition had transpired in the end to bring Ivar here to this prestigious foundation against his wishes.

Not even these troubling thoughts could dampen Ivar's excitement as the entire community left the enclosure in dutiful silence and walked down the hill on the stone-paved avenue that led through town. They walked out beyond the town walls and along the road for at least a mile. They passed townsfolk, standing at the side of the road, who had left their tasks and brought themselves and their children to witness the arrival of the king. Out here, newly sown fields of winter wheat wore brown earth laced with shoots of tender green as their autumn garb. The view behind was dominated by the great hill on which stood the ancient fortress that was now the monastery; the towers of the church pierced the deep blue of the heavens, reaching toward God. They halted on either side of the road, two lines of simply-clad brothers and sisters of the church and the many layservants who served them and God both-perhaps two hundred souls in total.

Ivar heard the king's progress before he saw it. He heard a muttering as of many feet and hooves and rolling wheels, felt the subtle vibration as a tremor rising up through the soles of his feet. He heard them singing, many voices raised in a joyful psalm. The strength of their combined voices, the sheer power of it, made him shiver with joy; not even a full prayer service and the chanting and singing of the monks and nuns in unison at Quedlinhame made him feel this sudden pull to be torn away from his own person and become some other one, one who could join in the con-cordia, the power that attended upon the king's presence.

/ sing of loyalty and justice.

I will raise this psalm to Thee, Our Lord and Lady Who are God in Unity.

I will follow a wise and blameless course whatever may befall me. I will go about my house in purity of heart. I will set before myself no sordid aim. I will hate disloyalty. will silence those who spread tales behind men's backs. I will not sit at table with those who are proud and pompous. I will choose the most loyal for my companions; my servants shall be folk whose lives are blameless. Morning after morning I will put all wicked men to silence and I will rejoice in all on God's earth which is good.

The schoolmaster always enjoined his pupils to keep their heads bowed and their eyes toward the ground, for in this way they made themselves smaller and indicated their insignificance. But as the cavalcade drew near enough that he could hear the small noises of a hundred or more souls in movement, Ivar could not help himself. He had to look.

Ermanrich stirred beside him, and Baldwin drew in a sharp, surprised breath. Only Sigfrid kept his head dutifully bowed.

A King's Eagle rode in front, as herald. She wore the scarlet-trimmed cape and the brass badge of an Eagle, and she stared straight ahead at the road before her; she had a hard, interesting face, broad shoulders, and the look of a person sure of her position and name in the world. In her right hand she held a staff, its haft wedged against her boot. The king's banner draped from the staff, curling down to hide the hand itself, for there was no wind to lift the banner.

Behind her rode six young nobles honored this day with a position at the head of the procession.

They, too, carried pennants, one for each of the duchies under Henry's rule: Saony, Fesse, Avaria, Varingia, Arconia, and Wayland. Ivar guessed the four boys and two girls to be about the same age as himself; the girl holding the standard of Arconia had hair as pale as wheat and fingers so delicate that he wondered how she had the strength to grip the banner pole. He wondered whose child she was. If only he had been sent to court, instead of to Quedlinhame, then he might have ridden proudly at the front of such an adventus-an arrival-as this! His gaze skipped back to the riders who followed directly behind the pennants.

In this group of nobles, each one attired magnificently in fine embroidered and trimmed linen tunics, in fine leather riding boots, with handsome fur-trimmed capes or richly colored wool cloaks thrown over all, the eye still leaped immediately to King Henry. Ivar had never seen him before, yet he knew instantly that the middle-aged man riding in the center was the king though he wore no crown. He needed no crown. The weight of his authority was like a mantle cast over his shoulders. He wore clothing no plainer and no richer than the others, one prince among many, but the leather belt that girdled his waist, embossed with the symbols of each of the six duchies that made up the kingdom of Wendar and Varre, and the many small and subtle gestures of the others as they deferred to him, proclaimed him prima inter pares, first among equals. From the back of a handsome bay mare, he surveyed the hooded monks and nuns, most of whom still stared fixedly at the ground, with stern approval for their humility.

Just as he passed the ranks of the novices, his eye caught Ivar's gaze. One royal eyebrow arched, intrigued or censorious. Ivar blushed and dropped his gaze.

He saw booted feet march by, heard the renewed voices of many men lifted in song: The King's Lions had been granted the honor of marching directly behind the king. They halted suddenly and their song cut off, to be replaced by the stillness of a fine autumn day, the creak of leather, the restlessness of horses farther down the line, the barking of a dog.

Ermanrich shifted next to Ivar and whispered to Baldwin. "If only I were closer."

Startled, Ivar glanced up at the same time as did Sigfrid. Their view was partly blocked by the ranks of Lions, sturdy men clothed in fighting gear and gold tabards marked by a black lion, but beyond the milites-the fighting men-and the nobles, the king had ridden forward with only the Eagle in attendance to greet Mother Scholastica.

She was also mounted, as befit a woman of royal birth come to greet her brother; she rode on a mule whose coat was so polished a gray as to be almost white. In her dark blue robes, adorned only with the gold Circle of Unity hanging at her chest, with her hair drawn back under a white scarf and her face guileless and calm, she appeared every bit as regal as her elder brother. Of course it was not fitting that a woman of her ecclesiastic rank dismount to greet anyone except the skopos, but neither could the king dismount to greet her. So the king had ridden forward on his mare to meet her, and now, with the two animals side by side, the royal siblings leaned across the gap and gave each other the kiss of family, once to each cheek, as greeting.

"And if," continued Ermanrich in that whisper, "you took Master Pursed-Lips' willow switch-"

Baldwin started to snicker.

"-and gave a quick twitch of it to the mare's hindquarters, what do you think would happen?"

Sigfrid snorted and clapped a hand over his mouth. I-ar was so aghast at Ermanrich's imagining either Mother Scholastica or the king made ridiculous by a bolting horse that he started to giggle.

That same willow switch lashed hard against his rump and he yelped. Then Ermanrich gulped down a yelp as he, too, was disciplined.

"Keep silence," hissed the schoolmaster, stationing himself behind the four boys. He did not, of course, switch either Baldwin or Sigfrid, and poor Sigfrid looked horrifi-cally guilty, for had he not responded by laughing at Ermanrich's jest? Ivar bit his lip as he blinked back tears; his buttocks stung.

Ermanrich had his usual sly grin on his face. He had unknowable reserves and rarely showed any visible sign of feeling pain. The schoolmaster cleared his throat and Ivar hastily looked down just as the king and his sister parted, her mule being brought around by a servant so abbess and king could lead the procession up to the monastery together.

On past Ivar's station marched the Lions, then the rest of the train, a stamp of feet and hooves and rumble of wagons. Beyond, toward town, people shouted and cried out praise to the king.

Ivar's rump still smarted. He could practically feel the schoolmaster's breath on his neck, but the schoolmaster had moved on. A sudden feeling like the whisper of elfshot made his neck prickle. He glanced up, or he would have missed her.

"Liath!" He almost fell forward. The three other boys jerked their heads up and stared. Baldwin whistled under his breath.

Liath! He could never mistake her for someone else: dark hair, golden-brown skin, her height and slender frame. She wore the cape and badge of a King's Eagle. She wore the badge of a King's Eagle! Somehow she had gotten free of Hugh.

Envy pierced him, as ugly an emotion as he had ever felt. Who had helped her? He did not want to share that victory, share her gratitude, with anyone. Had she freed herself? Surely not. Hugh would never let her go. Perhaps Hugh was dead; yet not even that thought satisfied Ivar. He, Ivar, son of Harl and Herlinda, must be the one to kill Hugh-or, preferably, to humiliate him.

As wagons rumbled by, he could only stare at her receding back, at the braid that hung in a thick line to her waist. She looked closely at the ranks of hooded monks, their heads bowed modestly so none might see their faces. She knew he was here, didn't she? Surely she remembered he had been sent to Quedlinhame, only because he had tried to help her.

As he watched her ride away, he almost wept, yet was so filled with joy that he thought he must shine with it. Now, as she passed the last line of layservants, she stopped looking. She stared straight ahead instead, gaze fixed on some unseeable point, perhaps on the church towers whose gilded roofs glinted in the noonday sun. She was lost to him as the king's progress rode into Quedlinhame and the train-wagons, produce, servants, spare horses, tents, furnishings, the entire ponderous cavalcade that attended the king-trundled past, kicking dust up into his teeth.

Still he stared after her, keeping his head lifted defiantly as the long train passed, the last of the courtiers and their attendant servants at the end. He searched them all, looking for Hanna. Hanna had sworn to stay by Liath. But of Hanna he saw no sign.

The willow switch surprised him. This time it landed on his shoulders and he actually grunted out loud, it hurt so badly.

"It is unseemly to stare," said the schoolmaster coldly. "You bring notice on yourself."

Ivar clamped his lips shut over a retort. Now he could not get angry. Now he must plan. Liath had come to Quedlinhame and though the novices rarely stirred outside their dormitory and courtyard, though they were always heavily supervised, he would find a way to let Liath know he was here. He would find a way to see her, talk to her. To touch her.

Even thinking such a thing was a sin.

But he didn't care.

The last of the train rolled by. The monks and nuns fell into place behind the king's progress.

Bells rang in Quedlinhame. Someone at the head of their procession began to sing and the others joined in as they walked back toward town, following the king.

O God, endow the king with Thine own justice, and give Thy righteousness to the king's heir so this one may judge Thy people rightly and deal out justice to the poor and suffering.

Doos By this time the road was a swirling, choking mass of dust made no better by the hysterical townsfolk who swarmed in behind the line of monks and nuns. Their excitement was itself a creature, huge and perilous and joyful. Was this not the king? There would be a ceremony later, after the king had washed himself and greeted his sainted mother in quieter rooms. Queen Mathilda was not strong enough for a public greeting. Then Mass would be sung in the town's church, and as many townsfolk as could manage would crowd into the church to see the king robed and crowned in royal splendor, his sacred presence a reminder of God's heavenly grace and Henry's earthly power. After the Feast of St.

Valentinus tomorrow, townsfolk could bring their grievances to the king's personal attention, for he would rest in town for Hallowing Eve and the holy days of All Souls and All Saints which followed. Only then would he and his retinue ride on to Thurin Forest, where they would hunt. Ivar envied them the freedom to hunt.

But he had his own hunting to do. Somehow, at some time in the excitement during the next three days, Master Pursed-Lips would stray from his attentiveness. He would forget to watch quite as closely.

Somehow Ivar would find a way to contact Liath.

LIATH had searched the line of monks along the roadside, but their heads had remained bowed, their faces hidden. So she rode on into Quedlinhame, through the town, and up a winding road that led to the top of the hill where thick walls protected monks and nuns from the temptations of the world; so Da had said to her. Had he been a brother here once?

Beyond the monastery gate, layservants took the horses and led them away to the stables. She started after them, swinging her saddlebag off the horse and draping its weight over her shoulder-then heard her name above the clamor of horses and wagons.

"Liath!" Hathui hailed her.

Liath threaded her way through the mob, avoiding a whippet hound snapping at the end of a leash, stepping over a fresh pile of horse manure, waiting as a noble lady still mounted on a fine gray gelding crossed in front of her.

"Come. We are to attend the king." Hathui smoothed down her tunic and straightened the brass badge that pinned her cloak. Then she frowned at Liath. "You should have left your gear with the horse.

It'll be safe in a convent, I should think!"

Liath attempted a smile. "I didn't think. I just grabbed it."

Hathui crooked an eyebrow. She was not a woman easily fooled nor one to succumb to nonsense. "What's in there so precious that you'll never let that bag leave your side?"

"Nothing!" It was said too quickly, of course. Liath shifted the saddlebag on her shoulders, shrugging the back pouch aside where it had gotten tangled with her bow quiver. "Nothing special except to me. Something Da left to me. The only thing I have left of him."

"Yes, so you've said before," replied Hathui in the tone of someone who doesn't believe what she is hearing. "But if Wolfhere minds not, than neither shall I. He may settle this with you when he returns."

Which, Lady grant, might be many months from now. Though she missed Hanna bitterly, Liath did not regret that she would not see Wolfhere until next year, when he and Hanna could cross back over the mountains from Darre and return to the king's progress. She liked Wolfhere, but she could not trust him.

Monks walked through the gate. She looked for Ivar's pale, familiar face.

"Come, come, Liath. We wait upon the king. He does not wait upon us. Why are you staring so?"

Liath shook off the older woman's hand and followed beside her as they crossed the field.

Ahead, the king and a few of his most trusted retainers gathered by the stairs that led up to the church's portico. "I know someone who is a novice here-"

"Ivar, son of Count Harl and Lady Herlinda." Liath glanced sharply at her. "How did you know?"

"Hanna told me. She told me all about Ivar, her milk brother."

It stung, the dart of jealousy, that Hanna had formed such a friendship with this tough marchlander woman. Liath liked Hathui but could never be comfortable with her. She dared not trust anyone she had met after Da's death. Trusted no one now, except Hanna. Except possibly Ivar, if she could find him. No one else, except Sanglant-and he was dead. "Never meant for me even if he had lived," she muttered.

"What?" asked Hathui. Liath shook her head, not answering. "Hanna said Ivar loved you," Hathui added in an altered tone of voice. "Do you feel guilt for it still, that Prater Hugh condemned him to a life as a monk though it was no wish of the boy's? Only because he interfered with what Hugh wanted?"

"Hanna told you a great deal," said Liath, voice choked. "We are friends. As you and I might be, but you are such a strange, distant creature, more like a fey spirit than a woman-" Hathui broke off, not because she wished to avoid offending Liath-Hathui said what she meant and intended no offense by it-but because they had reached the king. King Henry caught sight of Hathui and indicated with a gesture that she should walk behind him as they proceeded into the church. Liath stumbled over her own feet and hurried to catch up, not knowing where else to walk except behind Hathui. In the midst of so many fine nobles she could nurse her pain in private because, to the noble lords and ladies, she was merely an appendage of the king, like his crown or scepter or throne, not a real living person they had to take any notice of. She was simply an Eagle, a messenger to be dispatched at the king's whim.

Hanna had every right to tell Hathui whatever she wished, had every right to count Hathui as a friend. Wolf-here and Hathui and poor dead Manfred-the three Eagles who had rescued her from Hugh-surely knew or guessed the truth of her relationship to Hugh, knew that he had kept her warm in his bed though he was a holy frater and dedicated to the church, that he had gotten her with child and then beaten her nearly to death for defying him, after which beating she had miscarried. In the end, worn down by exhaustion and fear, she had given him The Book of Secrets and all it represented: her submission to him.

Only the arrival of Wolfhere and his two companion Eagles had saved her. They had rescued her from Hugh; she had not truly escaped him. Liath glanced up at Hathui's sturdy back, she who walked directly behind the king. Hathui had not once treated Liath with disrespect or scorned her, even knowing she had been a churchman's slave and concubine. Hathui might be only a freeholder's daughter, but the freeholders of the marchlands were notoriously proud. The king himself had seen fit to bestow on Hathui his favor. In the four months Liath had ridden with the king's progress, she had seen how Hathui was called frequently to the king's side, how he now and again asked her advice on some matter. This was indeed a signal honor for a woman born of common farmers.

Yes, Hanna had every right to count Hathui as a friend. But that endless niggling fear pricked at Liath: What if Hanna came to prefer Hathui? What if she loved Liath the less for liking Hathui more? It was a weak, unkind thought, both toward Hanna and toward Hathui. Liath could even now hear what Da would say were he alive to hear her confess such a thing: "A rosebush can give more than one bloom each season."

But Da was dead. Murdered. And Hanna was all she had left. She wanted so desperately not to lose her. 'Wo use fretting about the donkey," Da would say, "when he's safe inside the shed and you've loose chickens to save from the fox."

At that moment Hathui glanced back at her and gave her a reassuring smile. They entered the church. It was surprisingly light inside the nave, a long lofty space with a wooden ceiling made of a checkerboard of crossbeams. A double row of arched windows set high in the wall, well above the decorative columns that lined the nave, admitted this light. The party walked forward solemnly so that Henry and his sister could kneel before the Hearth. Liath admired the parallel rows of columns, two round columns alternating with every square one to form the central nave. Eagles and dragons and lions adorned the capitals, carved cunningly into stone; these symbols of power served to remind visitors and postulants alike whose authority reigned here, second only to God in Unity. The floor was paved in pale yellow-and-dun granite. She tried, superstitiously, not to step on any of the cracks seaming the blocks into a larger whole.

The king mounted the steps at the far end of the nave and knelt before the Hearth. Liath knelt with the others, many of whom perforce had to get down on their knees on the stairs in all manner of awkward positions. Her knee captured the trailing end of Hathui's cloak so that the poor woman could not kneel forward comfortably, but it had become so very quiet in the church that Liath dared not shift even enough to loosen the cloak from her weight.

Mother Scholastica said a prayer over the Hearth to which the assembled nobles murmured rote responses. Liath could not keep her eyes from the Hearth, where a sparkling reliquary cut entirely from rock crystal and formed into the shape of a falcon rested next to Mother Seholastica's hand. Beside the reliquary stood a book so studded in gems and coated with gold leaf that it seemed of itself to emanate light.

Blessed and sanctified, King Henry rose, shook off his cloak into the hands of a waiting servant, and beckoned to Hathui and his two most trusted advisers: the crippled margrave, Helmut Villam, and the cleric, Rosvita of Korvei. Hathui beckoned to Liath, and the two Eagles hastened to follow these notables as they descended the stairs and exited the church by a smaller door that led into quarters reserved for the mother abbess and her servants.

In an insignificant room just off the abbess' private cloister, King Henry knelt beside the low bed on which his mother lay. He kissed her hands in greeting, as any son gives his mother the honor due her.

"Mother."

She touched his eyes gently. "You have been weeping, my child. What is this grief for? Do you still mourn the boy?"

He hid his face even from her, but not for long. A mother's demands must be acknowledged. At last he set his face against the coarse wool blanket-fit for a common nun but surely not for a queen-and wept his sorrow freely while the others turned their gazes away.

They had all knelt in emulation of the king. Liath, at the back, studied their faces. Hathui stared steadily at the rough flagstone floor of the cell, her expression one of mingled pity and respect. The old margrave, Helmut Villam, wiped a tear from his own cheek with his remaining hand. Mother Scholastica frowned at the display-not at the sight of a grown man crying, for of course the ability to express grief easily and compassionately was a kingly virtue, but at the excessive grief Henry still carried with him at the death of a son who was, after all, only a bastard. The cleric had no expression Liath could read on her intelligent face, but she glanced Liath's way, as if she had felt her gaze upon her, and Liath looked down at once. "Don't let them notice you," Da had always said. "Safety lies in staying hidden."

"Now, child," the old queen was saying to Henry. Though her body was weak and her voice tremulous, her spirit clearly had not quailed under the burden of her illness. "You will dry these tears. It has been half a year since the boy died-and an honorable death he had, did he not? It is time to let him go. Is this not the eve of hallowing? Let him go so that his spirit may ascend, as it must, through the seven spheres to come to rest at last in the blessed Chamber of Light. You bind his soul to this world with your grief."

"These are heathen words," said Mother Scholastica abruptly. "It is a heathen holy day, is it not, though we have given it a Daisanite name?" retorted the queen. Married young, she had borne at least two of her ten children before she was Liath's age, or so Liath calculated. She was at most fourteen years older than Henry, who was her eldest child. Her hair, uncoifed in the privacy of her cell, had a few brown strands still woven in among the white. Whatever sickness ravaged her came not only from the assault of time but also from a more physical malady. "We speak of Hallowing Eve still and pray to all the saints on these days when the great tides of the heavens bring the living and the dead close together-bring them so close that we might even touch, if our eyes were open."

Liath caught in a sob. As she listened to the old queen speak, she recalled Da so vividly that it was almost as if she could see him standing beside her, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye.

"It is a form of respect," continued the old woman, "that I think God will not begrudge us."

Mother Scholastica bowed her head obediently, for although she was mistress of Quedlinhame and Mother over all the nuns, including Mathilda, she was at the same time this woman's daughter.

Mathilda had been queen once and was a powerful woman still, queen by title though she no longer sat upon a throne.

"Henry, you must let him go, or he will wander here forever, trapped by your grief."

"What if he can't die as we do?" asked Henry in a rasping voice. "What if his mother's blood forbids him entrance to the Chamber of Light? Is he then doomed to wander as a shade on this earth forever? Are we never to be reunited in the blessed peace of the Light?"

"That is for Our Lord and Lady to judge," said Mother Scholastica sternly, "not for us to trouble ourselves over. Many books were written by the ancients on this question- whether the Lost Ones had souls-but this is not the time or place to debate that issue. Come, Henry. You are tiring our mother."

"No," said the old queen. "I am not tired. If you speak to me of your grief, Henry, perhaps that will ease it." She looked up, her gaze sharper than Liath had expected from a bedridden woman. "Villam is here."

It struck Liath suddenly that Helmut Villam was as old as Queen Mathilda. Despite his crippling injury, he had far more vigor, the energy of a much younger person. The margrave came forward, kissed her hand, then retired to the door. The queen acknowledged Rosvita next, clasped the cleric's hands in her own in the sign of fealty. "My History?" she asked with a gentle smile. "How does it progress?"

The cleric's smile in answer was brief but sweet. "I hope to complete the First Book this year, Your Majesty, so that you may have it read to you 'and learn of the illustrious deeds of the first Henry and his son, the elder Arnulf."

"Do not tarry too long, my sister, for your words interest me greatly, and I fear I have not too many more days upon this earth."

Rosvita bowed her head, touching her forehead to the old queen's wrinkled hands. Then she stood and retreated.

"Who are these?" the old woman asked, looking at the two Eagles.

Henry glanced back. At first he appeared surprised. Then he registered Hathui. "My faithful Eagle," he said wryly. He looked beyond Hathui-Liath flinched when his powerful gaze focused on her.

For an instant it was like Hugh's gaze, penetrating, absolute; like the strike of lightning, it could obliterate her. But Henry only marked her and looked away without further interest. "This other Eagle was at Gent.

Together with Wolfhere she witnessed the destruction of the Dragons and the death of-" His voice broke, unable to speak the name of his dead son.

"Together with Wolfhere," said the queen thoughtfully, as if the name meant something to her.

Liath stared at the gray stone, at its uneven surface and rough grade. No polished marble or fine granite blocks graced this common nun's cell. "Come forward, child."

One did not disobey a queen, even one who now professed to be a nun, not when she used that tone of voice. Liath hooked a foot under her body, stood, took seven small steps forward, and knelt again. Only then did she look up.

Gray eyes as cool as winter storm clouds and yet with a deep calm beneath them met Liath's gaze. "You are some relation to Conrad the Black, perhaps?" Queen Mathilda asked. "I have seen such coloring nowhere else, except per haps in-" She made a tiny gesture with one hand, a scissoring of fingers quickly made and quickly vanished. Mother Scholastica rose and left the cell. Henry still gripped his mother's other hand, the one that lay so still upon the rough wool blanket. Mathilda had the most delicate wrists Liath had ever seen on an adult. Her small hands were weathered with work, for Queen Mathilda was famous for serving in common with the other nuns, such was her humility. "You are no relation?"

Liath shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

"You were in Gent?"

Liath nodded. Lady Above, please let her be satisfied with this knowledge; please let her not demand that Liath tell the entire awful heart-wrenching tale again, so that she had to live through it again: that last vision seen through fire, Sanglant struck down by an Eika ax and Bloodheart gloating above his fallen body, holding aloft in his bare bloody hand the golden neck torque that signified the prince's royal kinship.

At that moment Liath realized Queen Mathilda did not wear the golden torque, though her son and daughter did. But she was not born of the royal lineages of Wendar and Varre. She had only married into the family. At this moment, under that calm gray but utterly penetrating gaze, Liath could not remember where Mathilda came from, of what kin, of what country-only that she had ruled as queen beside Arnulf the Younger, his second wife, and that she now examined Liath with keen interest and not a little understanding.

"You knew Sanglant," she said.

Liath nodded, dared say nothing in answer. I loved Sanglant. But the prince was not for her; even Wolfhere had warned him away from her. "Down that road I dare not walk," Sanglant had said to her, for was he not an obedient son? "Be bound, as I am, by the fate others have determined for you. That way you will remain safe."

But the fate that had bound Sanglant, captain of the King's Dragons and bastard son of a king, was nothing like the fate she struggled against, whose bonds she could not even recognize. Just as well, she thought bitterly, that he was killed. It was only safe to love someone who was already dead.

Her expression betrayed her.

"The last," said the queen, comprehending the whole, "if not the first. Pretty enough that any might understand why he was tempted. That is enough, child. You may go."

Liath was mortified. To be discovered, to be seen through so easily, and by a woman who did not even know her! Henry was staring morosely at the far wall, idly twisting the signet ring on his right hand, not paying attention. Villam had gone outside to the sun. Only Hathui and Ros-vita witnessed.

Perhaps the queen had spoken too softly for them to hear. Liath dipped her head obediently and retreated, still on her knees, back to the safety of the door and Hathui's shadow.

But a queen-a girl brought from foreign lands to marry an older and possibly indifferent man-surely must learn to study faces and puzzle out intrigue from every line and utterance. After all, she had gotten her son onto the throne of Wendar and Varre despite the claim of the elder half sister-Arnulf s only living child from his first and some said more legitimate marriage. It would not do to underestimate a woman like Mathilda, no matter how weak she looked now.

Liath was allowed to leave, although Hathui remained with the king and the king appeared determined to remain for some while with his mother. Outside, no one asked her to run errands or carry a trifling message. She couldn't enter the innermost cloisters, of course, but when the king's progress had come to Quedlinhame it was impossible to stop visitors from wandering the grounds and gardens of the monastery. She climbed the outer wall and found a vantage point from which to look down over the foundation.

All monasteries-whether housing monks or nuns-were built on the same general plan, one laid out three centuries ago by St. Benedicta, founder of The Rule. Liath had seen plans of various monasteries, and once she had seen a thing and committed it to memory, it was the work of a moment to dredge it up again. Mathilda. She searched in the city of memory. Past the gate surmounted by the Throne of Virtue stood the halls of the kingdoms. She found the one inscribed with the Dragon, Lion, and Eagle of Wendar and went inside. On the dais Henry sat alone now that his queen, Sophia, had died. Behind him, through a curtain, lay the chamber of Arnulf the Younger, flanked on the right by his first wife, Berengaria of Varre, and on the left by Mathilda. This seated statue of Mathilda held in its right hand a scroll bearing the names of her nine children and in its left, signifying her descent, a small banner embroidered with the sigil of the kingdom of Karrone.

Liath backtracked to the hall of Karrone. There among the gathered dead and living nobles of the royal house, all cast in stone, she found Mathilda. Granddaughter of Berta, princess and later Queen of Karrone, the first Karronese prince to defy her Salian overlords and style herself regnant. Daughter of Berta's only son, prince and later King Rodulf, the last of Berta's five children, all of whom had held the throne, each in succession. Having seen the chronicle of the monks of St. Galle, Liath could even recall the dates of their reigns and their deaths. Rodulf had reigned from until . His death had brought forth two claimants to Karrone's throne: his niece Marozia and his grandson, Henry. Marozia had seized the throne by right of proximity, and Henry, newly crowned king of Wendar and Varre, was too young in power to contest her. Instead he had married his younger brother Benedict to her daughter, also called Marozia; these two now reigned in the mountainous kingdom of Karrone as Queen Regnant and King Consort.

All of this Liath remembered, and much more besides. It was only in the central tower, the highest point in the city itself, that a door stood which she could not unlock- behind it rested Da's secrets, all he had kept hidden from her. She shook her head impatiently and scanned the monastery, searching for a small building with its own cloister, set apart from the others: the novitiary.

Eventually the novices would have to emerge from the novitiary, to pray, to attend to their bodily needs, to perform manual labor. The Rule enjoined that all nuns and monks spend some part of each day in labor, "for then are they truly laborers for God when they live by the labor of their hands."

She hunkered down to wait, finding a patch of warm autumn sun and tugging her cloak tight around her. The sudden cold autumn wind on her neck made her shudder, and she was abruptly seized with an unreasoning panic, heart pounding, breath caught in her throat and her hands trembling as if with a palsy. But Hugh wasn't here. He wasn't here. She still had the book, and other weapons besides. To calm herself, she touched them one by one, like talismans: Her short sword rested easily on her left hip; her eating knife nestled in a sheath; the weight of her bow, quiver and arrows made a comforting presence on her back. Ai, Lady! Surely she was safe from Hugh now. The door to the novitiary opened and a double line of brown-robed novices, heads bowed humbly, emerged from the novitiary and walked in strict columns by paved paths, then dirt ones, out to the gardens. Liath jumped up to follow them.

Certain of the noble lords and ladies lounged at their leisure on the withering autumn grass or admired the late flowers in the herb garden; unlike Liath, they ignored the novices-all, that is, except the wheat-haired girl Liath recognized as Lady Tallia.

As the column of novices passed Tallia, she knelt on ragged grass and bowed her head in prayer.

Liath found the girl's piety grating and excessive, but others praised her for it. Liath had been on the road for too long to find it admirable that Tallia ruined her gowns by using them to wash the Hearths of churches, scraping her pale fine hands raw in the process. That was all very well for a noblewoman who could replace such fine stuffs, but something else again for those who had little to spare. Tallia might fast at every opportunity and turn away fine meats and soft breads and rich savories, but at least she had such food to turn away. Liath had traveled the roads with Da for eight years. She had seen faces gaunt with starvation because the last harvest had run scant; she had seen children scrabbling in the dirt for precious grains of wheat and rye and oats.

Some among the novices did not ignore the nobles. Some looked up, curious-as she would have been curious, in their place. The watching schoolmaster scurried down the line and applied his willow switch to shoulders. They plodded out to the gardens where a ridge of soil lay dry and crumbling on one side from a summer under the sun and fresh and moist on the other where the novices had turned it up the previous day. With hoes, pointed sticks, and shovels, they commenced digging the unturned earth. Liath picked her way down the steep stone stairs and took a circuitous route across the grounds. Lady Tallia had ventured to the edge of the garden and Liath saw her pleading with the schoolmistress-for both male and female novices worked in the gardens this day, though at separate ends as was proper. After a bit, the schoolmistress relented and handed the girl a stick. With this in hand, she promptly climbed over the little stone fence that served to keep vermin out of the vegetables and with more enthusiasm than skill commenced digging beside the other female novices, oblivious to the stains that now accumulated on the hem and knees of her gold linen gown.

Liath circled in and took up a stance east of the novices, where she pretended to study the towers of the church. She busied herself with her cloak, flashing its scarlet trim.

Of a sudden she saw him, caught with his astonished gaze on her and his hoe frozen in the dirt.

He nudged the boy next to him. Ai, Lady! Even from this distance Liath could see that his friend was remarkably handsome. The handsome boy elbowed another and that one the next until four faces stared at her while she stared back.

Ivar! He gaped at her for long stunned moments, then straightened, yanked his hoe out of the earth as if he meant to run over and greet her-and suddenly hunched over again to strike his hoe back into the dirt. All of them did, dutiful novices attending to their labor just in time for the schoolmaster to pass them by, willow switch in hand, and glower first at them and then, briefly, at the Eagle who was making a spectacle of herself so close by sheltered novices.

It would be impossible to speak to Ivar.

Impossible.

At that moment she noted the long narrow shed with many plank doors which sat out away from the cloister: the necessarium. Even holy church folk must attend to the needs of the earthly body. She looked back toward Ivar. He was chopping the hoe onto the dirt with one hand, pointlessly but enough to make it look as though he were working, and with his other hand making signs. Though Da had taught her the silent hand language used by nuns, and monks, she stood too far from Ivar to read what he said, and she dared not move closer since the schoolmaster had already marked her. Instead, knowing Ivar watched her, she ostentatiously stretched one arm up over her head and slowly lowered it until her hand pointed toward the neces-sarium. She turned her back on the gardens and walked over to the long shed.

Picking a door at random-not at the very end, not in the middle-she pulled it open, paused so that Ivar had time to mark her, then stepped up onto a rough raised plank floor and closed herself into the gloom.

Lady Above! It stank of piss and excrement. But there was room to turn around and also, because this was a royal monastery, a sanded wood bench with a hole cut in the middle on which to sit.

She sat on the edge of the bench, extremely careful to make sure no trailing end of cloak snaked down the hole to the pit below, and covered her nose and mouth with an edge of that cloak. In this way, shielded somewhat from the ripe smell of human waste by the honest scent of good plain wool, she waited.

She waited for a long time, so long, in fact, that the smell began not to bother her as much, and the occasional sounds as doors banged open or shut and folk-monks, nuns, and courtfolk alike-went about their business in the long shed began to have a kind of monotonous lulling pattern to them.

Suddenly, a hand scraped at the rope handle. She shrank back into the corner as the door opened.

As quickly, a brown-robed figure slipped inside and closed the door behind him. She stood up, and because the space between bench and door was so narrow and because her left foot had gone numb, she staggered. He embraced her, steadying her, and clasped her hard against him. His hood fell back. She stood there, stiff and dumb, and he began muttering her name over and over as if he knew no other word and kissed first her neck and, as he got his bearings, her ear, her cheek and finally her mouth.

"Ivar." She slid a hand between them. He was taller than she remembered, filled out, broader in the shoulder. His embrace-so unfamiliar and yet utterly familiar-reminded her of long-ago nights in Heart's Rest when she and he and Hanna would run laughing out of a rainstorm and huddle together in the shelter of the inn stables. But they had so little time. "Ivar!" she said urgently, pulling away.

"Say you will marry me," he said softly, lips moist against her skin. "Say you will marry me, Liath, and we will escape from here somehow and make our way in the world. Noth ing will stop us." He took in a sharp breath to speak more passionate words yet, then grunted. "Ai, Lord! What a muffled her giggles in the coarse fabric of his robe; he buried his face in her hair. In moments she was crying softly and he was, too. She closed her arms about his torso and hugged him tightly. Kinless, she had no one left her but Ivar and Hanna. "Ai, Liath," he whispered. "What will we do? Whatever will we do?"

NIGHT came as it always did, whether this day's night or the next one he did not know. He no longer had any conception of time, only of the stone beneath him, the rain-or lack of it-on the roof, the dogs growling around him, the slaves scurrying about their tasks, bent and frightened, and the Eika on their way in and out of the cathedral, always moving. Sometimes they left him alone through days and nights he could no longer keep track of, for there was still a world outside although he had long since forgotten what it looked like. Most of the dogs went with them, then, although some few always stayed beside him. He was never truly alone. Perhaps it was better that he was never truly alone. Without the dogs, he would have forgotten that he existed.

Sometimes when they left him, he could only stare at nothing, or else at the stippling in the marble stone with its veins running away into nothing, or else at the scars on his arms and legs which were in all stages of healing, some still oozing blood, some pink, some scabbed, some the white of a cleanly healed wound.

Sometimes he was seized with such a restless surge of energy that he paced in the semicircle that was the limit of his chains, or lunged, or ran in place, or sparred with imaginary sword or spear against an imaginary opponent, the old drill he had learned so well that his body knew it by heart though he could not now put words to its movements. Only the chains hindered him. Always the chains hindered him, the iron collar, the heavy manacles chafing his wrists and his ankles.

"Why aren't you dead yet?" Bloodheart would ask with irritation when he returned, or in the mornings when light flooded in through open doors and the painted windows shone with stories from the Holy Verses: the blessed Dai-san and the seven miracles; the Witnessing of St. Thecla; the Vision of the Abyss of St. Matthias; the Revelation of St. Johanna: 'Outside are dogs and murderers, fornicators and sorcerers, and all who love deceit; only those whose robes are clean will have the right to enter the gates of the blessed city.'

Dog he was now. Murderer he had once been named by the mother of a young nobleman who had rebelled against the king's authority and paid for that rebellion with his life and the lives of his followers; no doubt the families of the barbarians who had invaded Wendar's borders and been killed by his Dragons in fair combat felt the same, but they never came to court to face him or his king. Fornicator-well, he could not regret a single one of the women he had slept with, and he had never heard that they regretted the act either.

He would have used sorcery to escape this torment had he known how. But that gift, said to be the life's blood of his mother's kin, he knew nothing of. She had abandoned him, and he had taken up instead the birthright of his father's people. Trained to fight and to die bravely, he knew nothing else. He had nothing else.

The brass badge pressed painfully against the joint where arm met shoulder as he shifted, trying to find a comfortable position so that the chains did not rub him raw.

The Eagle's badge. Her image came to his mind's eye as sharply as if he had seen her yesterday.

Her name he remembered, when he had forgotten so much else: Liath.

"My heart rests not within me but with another, and she is far away from here." Was it true? Or had he only spoken those words as defiance, as a shield against Bloodheart's enchantment?

What if it were true? What if it could be true?

There was a world beyond this prison, if he could only imagine it. But when he imagined life, he imagined war, battle, his brave Dragons dying around him. That imagining always led him here, chained to the altar stone in this cathedral. What was the name of the city?

She would know.

Gent. It was in Gent he waited, imprisoned, scraping sometimes at his chains, sawing at them with the knife when the Eika were absent, but he could not get free.

Yet as the holy man is freed from the world by contemplating God, surely he could free at least his mind from this prison by contemplating the world outside. He was not a holy man, to meditate on Our Lord and Lady, although surely he ought to. He was too restless for that holy peace, and uneducated in the disciplines of the mind.

The world outside waned from autumn to winter. It was cold. The dying sun would be reborn, as they sang in the Old Faith, and then spring would return. And he would still be chained.

She had led others to freedom. If he only imagined himself walking beside her through a field of oats, then Blood-heart could touch him no longer.

YOUNG Tallia, her wheat-colored hair and wheat-colored gown rendering her almost colorless, knelt on the hard stone floor before Mother Scholastica's chair. The girl carefully avoided the carpet laid on the floor, as if she dared not succumb to the luxury of padding beneath her much-abused knees.

"I beg you!" she cried. "I want nothing more than to dedicate my life to the church in memory of the woman I was named after, Biscop Tallia of Pairri, she who was daughter of the great Emperor Taillefer. If you would let me pledge myself as a novice here at Quedlinhame, I would serve faithfully. I would humble myself as befits a good nun. I would serve the poor with my own hands and wash the feet of lepers."

The king, pacing, turned at this. "I have had several marriage offers for you, none of which I am tempted to act on at this time-"

"I beg you, Uncle!" Tallia had the dubious ability to make tears spring out at any utterance. But Rosvita did not think this entirely contrived: The girl had a kind of tortured piety about her, no doubt from living with her mother Sa-bella and her poor idiot of a father, Duke Berengar. "Let me be wed to Our Lord, not to the flesh."

Henry lifted his eyes to heaven as if imploring God to grant him patience. Rosvita had heard this argument played out a dozen times in the last six months-indeed, Tallia seemed to have memorized the speech-and the cleric knew Henry wearied of it and of the girl's dramatic piety.

"I am not opposed to your vocation," said the king, turning back finally and speaking with some semblance of patience, "but you are an heiress, Tallia, and therefore not so easily removed from the world."

The girl cast one beseeching glance toward Queen Mathilda, who reclined on a couch, then clasped her hands at her breast, shut her eyes, and began to pray.

"However," said Mother Scholastica before the girl could get well-launched into a psalm, "we have agreed, King Henry and I, that for the time being you will reside with the novices here at Quedlinhame. But only until a decision has been made over what will become of you."

By this means, of course, Henry and Scholastica placed Tallia as a virtual hostage in the middle of Henry's strongest duchy. But Tallia wept tears of gratitude and was finally-thank the Lady-led away by the schoolmistress.

Queen Mathilda said, into the silence, "She seems fierce in her vocation."

"Indeed," said Henry in the tone of a man who has been pressed too far. "Her privations are legendary."

Mother Scholastica raised one eyebrow. She studied the owl feather-her quill pen-that lay by her right hand; touching its feathers briefly, stroking them with the tip of a finger, she looked at her mother.

"Excessive piety can itself be a form of pride," she said dryly.

"So did I observe in you," said the old queen with the barest of smiles, "when you were young."

"So did I come to observe in myself," said Mother Scholastica without smiling. Here, in her private study with only family and clerics in attendance, she had let slip her white scarf to reveal hair, rather lighter than Henry's, liberally sprinkled with gray. Only three years younger than Henry, she looked perhaps ten years younger. This contradiction was much debated in the matristic writings. Women, blessed with the ability to bleed and to give birth, suffered from that birthing if they took advantage of the blessing, while those who pledged themselves and their fertility to the church, living their lives as holy virgins, often lived much longer lives. Mathilda, who had given birth to ten children and been widowed at the age of thirty-eight, looked as ancient and frail as Mother Otta, the abbess of Korvei Convent, but Mother Otta was ninety and the queen only fifty-six.

Now, later that same day, these thoughts came back to Rosvita as she knelt with the congregation in the Quedlinhame town church. Thunder rumbled in the distance as Mother Scholastica intoned the final words of her homily.

"The Lady does not give out her blessing freely. This is God's way of teaching a lesson to humankind. Although the gift of bearing children is certainly a blessing, the means by which we mortals can in some measure know immortality, all earthly beings are tainted with the infinitesimal grains of the primordial darkness that mixed by chance with the pure elements of light, wind, fire, and water. That intermingling brought about the creation of the world. And those of us who live in the world are thereby stained with darkness. Only through the blessed Daisan's teaching, only through the blinding glory of the Chamber of Light, can we cleanse ourselves and attain a place at Our Lord's and Lady's side. So ends the teaching."

The brethren-monks and nuns from Quedlinhame- sang the Te Deam, the hymn to God's glory.

Their voices blended with the fine precision of a choir used to singing in concord. With this music as accompaniment, King Henry entered the church in formal procession.

Rosvita stifled a yawn. It was so very muggy for this late in the year, and she was not as young as she once had been. It was no longer easy to stand-or kneel-through an entire service. For how many years had she traveled with the king's progress? How often had she seen the banners representing the six duchies carried in and displayed, symbol of the king's earthly power? How. many times had she watched the ceremonial anointing, robing, and crowning of the king on feast days? Yet even now as King Henry ascended the steps that led to the altar stone and Hearth, the familiar quaver of awe caught in her throat.

Bareheaded but clad in a robe woven of cloth-of-gold, his shoes detailed in gold braid, King Henry knelt before his sister, Mother Scholastica, offering himself before the Lady's Hearth. Every soul knelt with the king. The abbess combed his newly cut hair with an ivory comb encrusted with gold and tiny gems. She anointed him with oil, on the right ear, from the forehead to the left ear, and on the crown of his head.

"May Our Lord and Lady crown you with the crown of glory, may They anoint you with the oil of Their favor,"

she said.

Assisted by certain local nobles singled out for this honor, she placed the robe of state over his shoulders; trimmed with ermine, woven of the finest white wool, the cloak bore the emblems of each duchy embroidered across its expanse: a dragon for Saony, an eagle for Fesse, a lion for Avaria, a stallion for Wayland, a hawk for Varingia- and a guivre for Arconia.

"The borders of this cloak trailing on the ground," the abbess continued, "shall remind you that you are to be zealous in the faith and to keep peace."

Rosvita shuddered, thinking of the guivre-the terrible basilisk-like creature-whose presence had almost won the Battle of Kassel for Sabella.

But Sabella had not won. A monk and a boy had killed the guivre, surely a sign of God's displeasure at Sabella's attempt to usurp her half brother's power. Henry's luck- the luck of the rightful king-had held true.

Now Mother Scholastica handed Henry the royal scepter, a tall staff carved out of ebony wood and studded with jewels, its head carved into the shape of a dragon's head with ruby eyes gleaming.

"Receive this staff of virtue. May you rule wisely and well."

On this staff the king leaned as Mother Scholastica crowned him in the sight of all the folk who were present.

"Crown him, God, with justice, glory, honor, and strong deeds."

A great sigh swept through the crowd, mingled awe and pleasure at the rare sight of their king crowned and robed in the sight of God and his countryfolk.

From the gathered host a single voice cried out: "May the King live forever!" Other voices from the crowd answered the first with the same words until the acclamation was a roar of approval.

From her station on the steps below the Hearth, Rosvita surveyed the assembled courtfolk, brethren, and local nobles come from their estates to watch the ceremony and to feast after with the king and his retinue. She sought in their faces some clue to their state of mind. Few of the nobles here would harbor any sympathy for the recently imprisoned Sabella. But in other duchies the king's position was not so strong. That was why he had to travel constantly across his kingdom: so that his people could see him; so that his nobles would be reminded in ceremonies like this one that he was king and therefore had authority to rule; and so that Henry, appearing before them, could demand troops and supplies for his wars-in this case, for an assault on Gent.

The boom of thunder rolled, shaking glass windows and causing one child in the back of the nave to start crying.

What did the thunder portend? Those called fulgutari claimed they could divine the future by observing the sound and appearance of storms and the direction of thunder and lightning. This display now, with great booms of thunder rattling the church and lightning scoring bright flashes against the lowering sky of late afternoon, seemed to underscore Henry's power, as if God in Their Unity reminded the assembled people that he had received God's grace.

But perhaps it portended other things. Divination by thunder was condemned by the church as were all forms of divination, for women and men must trust to God and not seek knowledge of what is to come. It was sacriligious even to think of heathen practices. |

Rain lashed the windows. The side doors were opened to allow the poor to process through in an orderly line. None complained that, waiting outside, they had gotten soaked through. They waited gratefully for this chance to be blessed and touched by King Henry himself, for was it not true that the anointed king's touch might bring healing?

Rosvita yawned again. She ought to be watching the holy blessings, but she had seen this same scene, albeit rarely with the dramatic background of thunder and lightning, so many times before on the endless itinerant progress of the king. Could the heathens foretell the future from the sounds and directions of thunder? Surely not. Only angels and the daimones of the upper air could see into the future, and back into the past, for they did not live in Time in the same way humans did. But, alas, she could never help thinking of such things, sacrilegious though they might be. She would be damned by her curiosity; Mother Otta of Korvei Convent had told her that so many times, although not without a smile.

Thunder rumbled off into the northwest, and the rain slackened as the last of the poor and sick shuffled past King Henry for the ritual blessing. The nobles shifted restlessly-as restless as the weather or as their fears that Henry would demand large levies from them in the coming season of war.

At last the final hymn was sung. A happy babble of voices filled the church as the king led the procession out of the church. In the royal hall, the Feast of All Saints would be celebrated. Rosvita followed the king together with the rest of his retinue, nobles and townsfolk crowded behind, all eager to partake in some way of the meal, even if it was simply bread handed out from the doors. Her stomach, like a distant failing echo of the thunder, rumbled softly, and she chuckled.

In the morning, still driven by nagging thoughts of thunder and portents, she availed herself of Quedlinhame's excellent library. She ought to be working on her History of the Wendish People, but she knew from long experience that until this nibbling curiosity was satisfied, she would be able to think of nothing else.

Rosvita turned first to Isidora of Seviya's great encyclopedia, the Etymologies, which contained descriptions of various forms of sorcery and magic. But Isidora's book had only a passing reference to the fulgutari.

Dissatisfied, Rosvita replaced the volume in its cabinet and latched the door. The library had long since outgrown its original chamber and now several smaller rooms contained the overflow books. She stood in one of these chambers now; the Etymologies had been consigned here not because the work was unimportant-far from it-but because, Rosvita thought uncharitably, Quedlinhame's librarian was incompetent and disorganized. There was no logical order to the placement of the books, and in order to find which cabinet any book might reside in, one had to consult the catalog-which sat on a lectern in the central library hall. Rosvita sighed. In wrath, remember mercy. No doubt her own faults were greater than those of the librarian.

As she crossed back through the warren of dark rooms, she saw a cloaked figure standing in the pale light afforded by a slit of a window high in one stone wall: one of the King's Eagles.

She paused in shadow and stared-not at the young woman, for this Eagle was instantly recognizable for her height and coloring, but at what she was doing. Clerics took little notice of Eagles, who were recruited from the children of stewards, freeholders, artisans, or merchants. Clerics wrote the letters and capitularies and cartularies which were handed over, sealed, to the king's messengers. Eagles carried those messages; they did not read them.

Doos A very few, like the infamous Wolfhere, had been educated-as had, evidently, this strange young person as well.

The young Eagle stood and, in light surely too dim for any human eyes to see finely written calligraphy, read a book. Her finger traced the lines of text and her lips moved, her profile framed by dust motes floating downward on the thin gleam of light. So intent was she on her reading that she remained oblivious to Rosvita's presence.

In the silence of Korvei Convent, where nuns communicated by hand signs, Rosvita had learned the trick of reading lips. She had even used this skill to learn things forbidden to novices. Now, curiosity piqued, she tried to puzzle out syllables and sound from the movements of the young woman's lips-

-and was baffled. The Eagle read not in Wendish or in Dariyan, but in another language, one Rosvita could not "hear" through seeing. Where had such a young person learned to read? What on earth was she reading?

Rosvita glided softly out of the room, passed through an arch, and emerged into the library hall, blinking at the sudden shift in light. Here, at individual carrels, several nuns read. Cabinets stood along the walls, shut and latched. The catalog rested on a lecturn carved with owls peeking out from oak trees. It lay open. Rosvita skimmed the titles listed on the page: St. Peter of Aron's The Eternal Geometry, Origen's De Principiis, Ptolomaia's Tetrabiblos, Abu Ma'shar's Zlj al-hazarat.

Rosvita blinked back amazement. Could it be this book that the girl read? She recognized the language, here transposed into Dariyan script, though she could not read Jinna herself. Did the girl claim Jinna ancestry, revealed in her complexion? Had she been trained to read the Jinna language? This was a mystery indeed. The young Eagle would bear watching.

Given the company it kept, the book appeared to be about matters astronomical. Surely even the librarian here, for all her faults, would catalog books about the weather- which took place in the sky-near to those about the heavens. Rosvita flipped idly through the pages, searching for what she was not sure, but could find nothing that seemed to be what she wanted.

Distracted, she shrugged and stretched and examined the room. From here she could see into the scriptorium, where nuns and monks worked in silence writing correspondence and making copies of missals and old texts. The monastery had recently received from a sister institution six ancient papyrus scrolls written in Dariyan and Arethousan. These were being recopied onto parchment and bound into books.

Drawn by the light pouring in through the windows and the quiet murmur emanating from the scriptorium, Rosvita wandered past the cabinets and out under a wall set with arches into the scriptorium.

Here some of the novices had assembled to observe the scribes at work-work they would themselves be engaged in once they became monks. One restless boy, his hood slipped back to reveal curly red-gold hair and a pale freckled face, sidled up to the schoolmaster and made a hand sign: Necessarium. With obvious disgust, the schoolmaster signed assent. No doubt the poor boy had been consigned to the monastery against his will and now chafed at the discipline: Rosvita had seen such novices in her time at Korvei.

With a sudden and violent start she recognized the boy. Ivar had not yet been born when she entered Korvei Convent, and she had actually only met him on two occasions. Perhaps she was mistaken; perhaps this was not Ivar at all but merely a northcountry boy who resembled him in coloring.

But their father, Count Harl, had written to her not six months ago telling her that Ivar was to be pledged as a novice at Quedlinhame. It had to be him.

Ivar hurried out of the scriptorium, not noticing Rosvita. But he went on into the library rather than going outside. And meanwhile, three other novices distracted the schoolmaster, asking him about a parchment laid on one of the desks. Clearly they meant him not to notice where Ivar had gone.

So Rosvita followed him.

He hurried through the library hall and vanished into the warren of dim rooms beyond. She entered cautiously and was quickly rewarded by the sound of voices, so soft that had she not been listening for them she might have thought it the sough of the wind heard through the windows. By listening for direction and sound, as the fulgutari were said to observe the movement of storms, she managed to creep close enough to overhear without being seen.

"But your vows-

"I care nothing for my pledge! You know that. My father forced me to become a novice here, just because of- Here he bit off a word. "I'm not like Sigfrid, I have no vocation. And I won't be like Ermanrich who resigned himself long ago-"

"But is it so easy to be released from that pledge? Ai, Lady. Ivar, I'm flattered-"

"You don't want to marry me!"

Rosvita almost stumbled and gave herself away, but she had just enough presence of mind to lay a palm against the carven door of one of the cabinets: the same one, she noted with a dry smile, in which resided Isidora's Etymologies. She recognized the image carved into the oak door. It was St. Donna of Pens, the famed librarian of the first convent founded by St. Benedicta, holding scroll and quill pen. If only Quedlinhame's librarian had followed the good saint's example, this fine collection of books would not be arranged in such disorder.

Lady and Lord! Her little brother, now a novice, wanted to marry some unknown and unnamed woman! Their father would be furious.

"Ivar," said the unknown and unnamed woman in a calm voice. Her accent was slight but peculiar. "Ivar, listen to me. You know I have nothing, no kin-This was all it took, that he would become infatuated with a kinless woman! No wonder Count Harl had sent him to the monastery: to get him out of trouble.

"-or none who know me. I have safety in the Eagles."-The Eagles!-"Surely you understand that I can't marry you unless you offer me that kind of safety."

The Eagle Rosvita had seen loitering in this chamber earlier had waited here for this very assignation! At that moment, groping as for a stone, Rosvita could not recall the young woman's name.

Instead, the cleric leaned against the carved cabinet doors and settled herself for a long wait while she listened to her brother launch into an impassioned, if whispered, plea for love, marriage, indeed every part of the world which six months ago on entering Quedlinhame he had sworn to renounce forever.

I'LL leave the monastery," Ivar concluded. "We'll travel east and find service in the marchlands.

There's always need for soldiers in the east-"

"But don't you understand?" she said with fine disregard for his sincerity. Did she not think he could do what he pledged? Did she not understand that he would do anything for her? "Until you had such a place, until I was assured of such a place, I can't leave the Eagles. How can you ask me to?"

"Because I love you!"

She sighed, brushing a hand across her lips, breathing through her fingers. He wanted to kiss those fingers but dared not. After their first embrace-in the privies-she had become, not cooler but more distant.

"I love you as well, but as a brother. I can't love you-" Here the hesitation. "-in that way." Her second hesitation was longer and more profound. "I love another man."

"You love another!" Angry, he said the first name that came to his lips. "Hugh!"

She went still and cold and deathly rigid.

"Ai, Lord, forgive me, Liath. I didn't mean to say it. I know-"

"It doesn't matter." She shook herself free. Dim light sifted in through the stout cabinets of books, books upon books upon books, so many that their weight alone felt like a pile of stones crushing him.

Just as Liath's words crushed him. "This man's dead. I trust you, Ivar, but if it ever came to pass that all obstacles were put aside and we married, you must understand I could never love you in the way I loved him."

//. "If" sounded to Ivar like a very good word.

"Lady!" She rested a hand-too briefly-on his shoulder. The warmth of her flesh burned him through his coarse robes. "I sound so selfish. But I'm alone in the world. I have to protect myself."

"No, / am here." He gripped her hand in his, the clasp of kinship. "I am always here. And Hanna is with you, surely." In the privies, he had not had time to ask about Hanna, only time to arrange this meeting-only time to kiss her. He had dreamed of Liath last night and embarrassed himself in his sleep, but the others, Baldwin, Erman-rich, and Sigfrid, had helped him hide the traces.

"Hanna was sent south with Wolfhere, to escort Biscop Antonia-" She shook her head, impatient with herself. "You wouldn't know about that. I beg you, Ivar, understand that-it's not just Hugh I need to be safe against. It's . . . it's other things, things that chased Da and me for years until they finally caught up and killed him, and I don't know what they are. Ai, Lady." She leaned forward, against him-but not to embrace him as he wished, only to whisper as if she feared the walls themselves, the books in their silent waiting, might hear. "Do you understand?"

A year ago, Ivar would have dismissed all these concerns with a wave of the hand and with grandiose plans that came to nothing. But he was older now, and he had, amazingly, learned something.

"All right, then," he said, as calmly as he could, for she was still leaning against him. "You will marry no man but me."

She gave a caught-in laugh, more a sob perhaps. "I could never have married him. If not him, then you, because I can trust you." But she said it wistfully, as if she still mourned that other man whose name she dared not utter out loud.

Ivar felt he might float, he was so happy. She trusted him.

In time, he thought, she would forget the other man. In tune she would love Ivar alone and only remember as a kind of hazy dream that she had spoken so about another man, a dead man. A dead man was no rival to a living one. And, because he had learned, for the first time he thought rather than acted impulsively. She was kinless, so needed kin, clan, family. There was Hugh to deal with; but Ivar wanted his revenge on Hugh, and he understood Hugh well enough to know that if Ivar had Liath, then, sooner or later, Hugh would appear. There remained only how to get out of the monastery. He must find a way to escape. But this would take planning.

"It will take time," he said at last and with reluctance. "Will you wait for me?"

She smiled sadly. "I will stay an Eagle. That much I can promise you. They are my kin now."

"Hush," he said suddenly, pressing her away from him. A rustling more like mice than wind sounded from the hidden corner of the room. "Who's there?" Ivar demanded.

She came out quietly from behind a row of cabinets. It took Ivar a few moments to recognize her in the dim room, and then his mouth dropped open in astonishment.

"Are you my sister Rosvita?" he demanded.

"Ai, Lady," swore Liath. She jerked away from him.

"Yes, Ivar." As soon as the cleric spoke, he knew it for truth. "My brother," she continued, expression bland and eyes bright with-laughter? anger? He did not know her to be able to judge. "My brother novice," she went on, gesturing toward his coarse brown robe, "this is most irregular. I will have to report you to Mother Scholastica."

But at those words, Ivar exulted. "Very well," he said, drawing himself up. "I will go willingly."

Brought to Mother Scholastica's notice for the sin of consorting with a woman, surely- surely-the mother abbess would throw him out of Quedlinhame once and for all time.

It was a serious enough offense that Ivar had only to wait through Sext, the midday prayers, kneeling like a penitent on the flagstone floor in front of Mother Scholastica's empty and thereby imposing chair, before the door opened behind him and the abbess entered her study. Rosvita walked with her.

Ivar could not read his sister's expression. He wished he knew her, so that he might guess what she had told the abbess, might guess whether Rosvita was sympathetic or hostile to his cause. But he did not know and dared not guess.

"I gave you no leave to look up, Brother Ivar," said Mother Scholastica.

He flinched and dropped his gaze, watched feet shift, a dance whose measure and steps he could not follow. To his horror, Rosvita retreated from the room to leave him alone with the formidable abbess.

He clenched his hands together, wrapping the fingers tightly around each other, and bit down on his lower lip for courage. His knees hurt. There was a carpet, but he had been strictly enjoined not to kneel upon anything that would soften his penance.

Mother Scholastica sat down in her chair. For a long while, though he dared not look up, he knew she studied him. A knob, an uneven hump in the stone, dug into his right knee. It was so painful he thought he would cry, but he was afraid to utter any complaint.

She rules with a rein of iron, so they all said. She was the king's younger sister. Why had he ever ever thought, in that wild liberating moment in the library, that he could face her down?

She cleared her throat as a prelude to speaking. "In our experience," she said, "when the king visits Quedlinhame with his court, there runs in his wake like the wash of a boat on the waters a shiver of restlessness through those of the novices and some few of the brothers and sisters who are not at that moment content in their vows. Always a few, seduced by the bright colors and the panoply and the excitement, mourn their loss of the world and seek to follow the king. It is our duty to rescue these fragile souls from their folly, for it is a fleeting temptation, dangerous but not, I think, unforeseeable." "But I never wanted-:

"I did not yet give you leave to speak, Brother Ivar." He hunched down, nails biting into knuckles. She did not have to raise her voice to make him feel humiliated and terrified.

"But I do mean to give you leave to speak. We are not barbarians, like the Eika or the Quman riders, to enslave you for no cause but our own earthly enrichment. It is your soul we care for, Ivar. Your soul we have been given charge of. That is a heavy burden and a heavy responsibility." She paused.

"Now you may speak, Brother."

Given leave to speak, he also took the chance to shift his right knee off the digging knob of rock.

Then he took a breath. Once begun, he could not hide his passion. "I don't want to be here! Let me go with the king. Let me be a Dragon-"

"The Dragons are destroyed."

"Destroyed?" The news shook him out of his single-minded fury.

"They were overwhelmed by a force of Eika, at Gent."

Destroyed. Trying to make sense of this, he looked up at her. He had never actually seen Mother Scholastica from this close before; only the rare novice, like Sigfrid, came into contact with the abbess. She had a handsome face, her hair tucked away inside a plain linen scarf draped and folded over her head and twisting in neat lines down over her shoulders. She wore dark blue robes to distinguish her from the other nuns, a gold Circle of Unity studded with gems on a gold chain that hung halfway down her chest, and the golden torque that signified her royal kinship around her neck. Her gaze remained cool; she was not one bit flustered by this meeting or by the circumstances which had brought him here. He had a sudden, awful notion that she had judged many a boy or girl whose complaint was similar to his.

He would not let himself be overawed by her consequence! He was also the son of noble parents, if not of a king. "Then-then they'll need more Dragons," he blurted out. "Let me go, please. Let me serve the king." "It is not my decision to make."

"How can you stop me if I refuse to take vows as a monk when my novitiate is ended?" he demanded.

She raised an eyebrow. "You have already pledged yourself to enter the church, an oath spoken outside these gates."

"I had no choice!"

"You spoke the words. I did not speak them for you." "Is a vow sworn under compulsion valid?"

"Did I or any other hold a sword to your throat? You swore the vow." "But-"

"And," she said, lifting a hand for silence-a hand that bore two handsome rings, one plain burnished gold braid, the other a fine opal in a gold setting, "your father has pledged a handsome dowry to accompany you. We do not betroth ourselves lightly, neither to a partner in marriage-" He winced as she paused. Her gaze was keen and unrelenting. "-nor to the church. If a vow can be as easily broken as a feather can be snapped in two-" She lifted a quill made from an owl feather from her table, displaying it to him. "-then how can we any of us trust the other?" She set down the feather. "Our oaths are what make us honor able people. What man or woman who has forsworn his noble lord or lady can ever be trusted again? You swore your promise to Our Lady and Lord. Do you mean to forswear that oath and live outside the church for the rest of your days?"

Said thus, it all sounded so much more serious. No man or woman who made a vow and then broke it was worthy of honor. His knees ached; his back hurt. His hood had slipped back, and the hem of his robe had doubled up under his left calf to press annoyingly into the flesh.

"No. I-" He faltered. Had he actually imagined scant hours ago that he could get the better in a debate with Mother Scholastica?

"Why now, Ivar?" She, too, shifted in her chair, as if her back hurt her, and for one uncharitable moment he hoped it did. "You are a good boy and never rebellious, never like this. Was it the king's arrival?"

He flushed. Of course she must already know.

"You are tempted by the presence of so many women who are not bound by vows," she went on, as if toying with him, though her voice remained level and her expression clear and calm. "Do not be ashamed to admit such to me, Ivar. I understand that we who pledge ourselves to the church have to battle the temptations of the flesh in order to make ourselves worthy. Those who remain in the world do their part as well, but theirs is a different path. We in the church strive to set the darkness behind us, to make of ourselves an immaculate chamber, to set aside the taint of darkness that lies within each of us, that is part of each of us. For did the blessed Daisan not preach that although we are bound by our nature, God's goodness to humankind was in giving us liberty?"

" 'Keep clear of all that is evil,' " responded Ivar dutifully, for these sayings had been drilled into the novices, " 'which we would not wish to befall ourselves.'''

"Good is natural to us, Ivar. We are glad when we act rightly. As the blessed Daisan said, 'Evil is the work of the Enemy, and therefore we do those evil things when we are not masters of ourselves.'"'

"But-but I don't want this path. Not this one. I want-"

"Can you be sure?"

"It isn't women-it isn't just any-"

"One woman?"

He betrayed himself, but surely that did not matter. She already knew. He caught in his breath abruptly, a stab of pain in his lungs. What had happened to Liath? What if she was thrown out of the Eagles?

"A woman who traveled with the king's progress," continued Mother Scholastica in that same emotionless voice. Not emotionless, no-she spoke without being torn by emotion, without the violent feelings that ripped him apart from within.

Ai, Lord. The memory of embracing Liath-even in the stink of the privies . . .

"This, too, will pass, Ivar. I have seen it happen so many times."

"Never!" He leaped to his feet. "I will always love her! Always! I loved her before I came here, and I will never stop loving her. I promised I would marry her-"

"Ivar. I beg you, take hold of yourself and remember dignity."

Panting with anger and frustration, he knelt again.

"As the blessed Daisan said, 'For desire is a different thing from love, and friendship something else than joining together with evil intent. We ought to realize without difficulty that false love is called lust and that even if it gives temporary peace, there is a world of difference between that and true love, whose peace lasts till the end of days, suffering neither trouble nor loss.' "

He could not speak. He stared fixedly at one of the paned windows which let light into the study.

A branch scraped the glass as it swayed in a rising wind, and the last remaining leaf dangled precariously, ready to fall.

"You must have your father's permission to marry. Do you?"

There was no need to answer. He wanted to cry with shame. None of this had gone as he had planned.

"Do not think I take this lightly, child," she said. He risked a glance up, for a certain note of compassion had surfaced in her tone. She did indeed have an expression on her face that he could almost call sympathetic. "I can see you are firm in your resolve and passionate in your attachment. But I am not free to let you go. You were given into my care by your father and your kin, you spoke your vows-willingly, I thought-and were taken into this monastery. It would be unwise of me to let every young person walk free at each least impulse toward the world."

"This isn't an impulse!"

She lifted her ringed hand for silence. "Perhaps not. If it is not an impulse, as you claim, then time will not dull it. I will send a message to your father, and you will wait for his reply. What you propose is not an undertaking to be entered into lightly, just as we should not any of us enter into the church lightly."

By this mild rebuke she scolded him. "There remains also the young woman to be considered. Who is she? She has a name, I have discovered-an unusual name, Arethousan. Who are her kin?"

"I don't know anything about her," he admitted finally. "Not really. No one in Heart's Rest did."

"Is she of noble birth?"

He blinked. Perhaps silence was the better choice. Liath and her father had been close with their secrets. And her father had died-although only Liath had claimed it was murder; Marshal Liudolf had decreed the death came of natural causes.

"Answer me, child."

He did not like the stern look Mother Scholastica fixed on him. "I-I think so. Her father was educated."

"Her mother?"

He shrugged. "She never had a mother. I mean-we never knew of her mother."

"Her father was educated-? Was he a fallen monastic, perhaps? Ah, yes, I see it in your face."

"I don't know that he was. But we all thought he must have been a monk once, or perhaps a frater-"

"If he left the church, he would scarcely speak of such an act out loud. Educated in and then fled from the church. You are sure she was his child?"

"Yes!" he exclaimed, indignant on Liath's behalf.

"Not his concubine or servant?"

"No! Of course they were father and child."

"It might explain all," said Mother Scholastica, musing now; she appeared to have forgotten Ivar's existence, and certainly cared nothing for his indignation. "Why she could read Jinna."

Read Jinna? What else was hidden in Liath that she had L never shared with him? He had a sudden sick intuition that Prater Hugh might not have been interested in Liath only for her beauty and youth.

"Dark of feature. A fallen churchman. Perhaps my mother was right. A frater may travel as a missionary to the four quarters of the world, even unto the Jinna heathens who worship the fire god Astereos. Such a man might have been seduced by the potions and perfumes of the east, such a man might have forsworn his oath to the church and gotten a child on an eastern woman and then, as an honorable Daisanite, refused to leave the child behind to be raised as a heathen. That would explain her complexion and her ability to read. Well, Ivar." The abrupt change of subject startled him, her sudden cooling of interest in him. "It is good you confessed this to me. Return to the noviti-ary. You will study.

You will obey. In time, if you do your duty and remain meek and humble, I will call you here again and let you know what answer your father has given." The interview was over. She signed with her hand the gesture for departure, and he knew there was no point in protesting. But he could not leave one question unasked, even if he was punished for asking it.

"What will happen to Liath? Because of what I did, I mean."

She favored him with a sudden smile, and its power-its approval-struck him as if he had been granted a glimpse of the Chamber of Light in all its brilliance through a crack in the gates. "That is the first time in this interview you have spoken of her need and not your own. She serves as a King's Eagle, and I have heard no complaint of her service there. It will continue. Now." He bowed his head over clasped hands, was allowed to kiss her opal ring, and backed out of the room, stumbling down backward over the doorstep.

Master Pursed-Lips waited outside, as glowering as any looming storm cloud. Mercifully, he withheld the willow switch.

"You may be certain," said the schoolmaster in his disagreeable voice, "that you and your fellows, whose connivance in this matter has been duly noted, will be confined in the novitiary for the remainder of the king's visit, and closely guarded thereafter. Take no notion in your mind to escape and run after them.

We have dealt with these kinds of things before."

Spoken ominously, the schoolmaster's threats proved true. The king's progress left the next day and although the other novices got to leave the barracks and line the road to lend pomp and dignity to the departure of king and court, Ivar, Baldwin, Ermanrich, and Sigfrid were left behind. They waited out the dreary interlude in the courtyard, taking turns with their knives at the fence.

"She's really in love with you?" demanded Baldwin.

"Why should that surprise you? Am I that ugly?" Ivar wanted to slug his friend.

Baldwin looked him over consideringly, then shrugged.

"No."

"But if she's an Eagle," pointed out Ermanrich, "then she can't be of noble birth. Why would your father ever allow you to marry a common-born woman?"

"But her father was in the church, and educated," Ivar protested. "He must have come out of a noble lineage!" Thinking about it only made it worse, but he couldn't help thinking. Mother Scholastica had promised to send a message to his father. He would have to be patient-and Liath had promised to wait.

Sigfrid had been given his turn with Baldwin's knife and he was trying to wiggle the little gap into a wider gap, something they could actually see through. Now he glanced over his shoulder toward the empty courtyard, then leaned forward to the others. "While I was waiting for my lesson," he said in a low voice, "I heard that Lady Sabella's daughter is going to be held here until King Henry decides to marry her off or let her become a novice."

"Ah," said Baldwin. "The young Lady Tallia. I met her once."

Ermanrich snorted.

"Oh!" said Sigfrid in the tone of man who has opened the door only to find a snake in his room. "I didn't think it would work."

"Hush," said Baldwin. "Move this way, Ermanrich. Ivar, get on your knees as if you're praying.

Move over here." Sigfrid had accomplished the deed. Pressure had forced one thin plank to slide behind another, and now they had a gap through which they could see a thin strip of the other side of the courtyard.

Baldwin hunkered down and flattened his face against the fence. He gasped and jerked back.

"There's someone there!" he hissed. "A novice!" "Does she have warts?" asked Ermanrich. "Be serious!"

Baldwin stuck his right eye against the gap again, closing his left and squinching up his face to see better.

After a pause, he backed away and spoke in a whisper. "She's kneeling just opposite us. I think it's Lady Tallia!"

Ermanrich whistled under his breath. Even Ivar was impressed. "Let me look," he demanded.

Baldwin scooted back and Ivar pressed his face up against the fence. The wood scraped his skin.

Ermanrich's breath blew against his neck as if, with enough force of will, the other boy could see through Ivar's eyes.

She had thrown back her hood and he recognized her at once: the wheat-haired girl who had carried the banner of Arconia-her father's duchy-at the forefront of the procession the day King Henry had arrived at Quedlinhame. Only three days ago! How much had happened since then. She prayed, thin hands clasped before her breast, pale lips touching her knuckles. Then, abruptly, her eyes opened and she looked straight at him. She had the palest blue eyes, like a many-times-washed indigo tunic bled so fine that only the memory of blue remained in the threads. "Who are you?" she whispered. Ivar jerked back from the fence.

"She said something!" exclaimed Ermanrich. He stuck his face up against the fence. "Are you Lady Tallia?" he whispered.

Baldwin pulled Ermanrich back from the wall and wedged himself in as Ermanrich made a grunt of protest. "You must not look upon me," she said in that same quiet voice, as soft as the wind brushing Ivar's hair. His hood had fallen back, and he hastily jerked it up over his head, looking guiltily back toward the barracks. The layser-vant left to watch over them was not in sight. "It is not seemly for you to stare so," she continued. In the silence of the courtyard they could hear her words clearly. She hesitated, then went on. "But that we have stumbled upon this opportunity to converse-that, surely, is God's doing, is it not?"

"Oh, certainly," said Baldwin blithely, although, obedient to her wish, he had now drawn back from the gap in the fence. "Are you to be a nun?"

Sigfrid made a choked noise in his throat and immediately assumed a position of prayer. The layservant had walked back into view, a surly, stout man no doubt angered at having to watch over four disobedient novices rather than the colorful departure of king and court. All four boys hunkered down in attitudes of contrite prayer.

From the shelter of the colonnade, the layservant could not hear Tallia's faint voice, but the four boys could. "It is my most devout wish to become a nun. Unless I can be a deacon, but they will not let me out into the world except to marry me to some grasping nobleman."

"Why would you want to be a deacon?" asked Sigfrid. "In the cloister, we can devote all our hours to study and contemplation."

"But a deacon who lives in the world can bring the true Word of God to those who live in darkness. If I were ordained as a deacon, I could preach the Holy Word of the Redeemer as it was taught me by Prater Agius, he who was granted God's favor and a holy martyrdom."

A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, like drums beating for the departure of the king. Ivar smelled rain on the wind. Dark clouds scudded overhead.

"Who is the Redeemer?" asked Ermanrich, his bland, friendly face bearing now a confused expression.

"That's a heresy," whispered Sigfrid, but he did not move.

Baldwin did not move.

Ivar did not move. He wanted to hear her speak again. She had a kind of monotonously fascinating voice, pure and quietly zealous. And she was female, and young.

"For the blessed Daisan was born not of earthly mortals but out of Our Lady, who is God. He alone was born without any taint of darkness. So did he suffer. By the order of the Empress Thaisannia, she of the mask, he was flayed alive because of his preaching, as was their custom with criminals and those who spoke treason against the Dariyan Empire and its ruler. His heart was cut out of him, and where his heart's blood fell and touched the soil, there bloomed roses."

Sigfrid made the sign of the Circle against what is forbidden-against this most erroneous and dangerous heresy. But he did not move away. None of them moved. They were caught there, spellbound, as the thunder rambled closer and the first drops of rain darkened the dirt around them.

"But by his suffering, by his sacrifice, he redeemed us from our sins. Our salvation comes through that redemption. For though he died, he lived again. So did God in Her wisdom redeem him, for was he not Her only Son?"

She would have gone on, perhaps she did go on, but the wind picked up and lightning flashed bright against lowering clouds and thunder pealed overhead. The stinging bite of rain drove them to the shelter of the colonnade. Whether she ran in as well Ivar could not know, but he imagined her, kneeling still, soaked and pounded by rain as she prayed her heretical prayers. That image disturbed him greatly for many nights to come.

ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM THE king and his entourage rode south from Quedlin-hame. Liath rode northeast through scattered woodland amid rolling hills with a message for Duchess Rotrudis, the king's sister. She followed the Osterwaldweg, a grassy track that ran north from Quedlinhame and slanted east-northeast at the confluence of the Ailer and Urness Rivers, themselves tributaries of the Veser. In the morning the track, crisp with frost, glittered in the cold sun as though an angel had blown its sweet breath over the rutted road. By evening, wagon traffic, sun, and the usual passage of a swift autumn storm overhead had turned the path to a sludge that would re-freeze over the long night.

It was always windy and sometimes quite chill, but in the late afternoon the sun would often shine brightly. During those times Liath would find a patch of sunlight while her horse foraged along the verge of the track. Sometimes, if the way lay empty, she would open The Book of Secrets and read words she had long since memorized or puzzle over the brief Arethousan glosses in the inner book, the most secret ancient text. Alas, without time to study or preceptor to continue her teaching, she had already forgotten much of what little Arethousan she had learned from Hugh. But perhaps if she forgot everything he had taught her, she would truly be free from him.

Other times, frustrated by her ignorance, she would simply close her eyes and imagine Da beside her on the quiet road. The sun's warmth was like his presence, soothing and secure; oddly, she could never imagine him by her on cloudy days. Perhaps his spirit, looking down on her from the Chamber of Light where he now resided at peace, could only see her when his view down through the seven spheres was unobstructed.

"Do you suppose," she imagined him asking now, "that souls have sight? Or is that sense reserved for those who wear an earthly body?"

"You're trying to trick me, Da," she would answer. "Angels and daimones don't wear earthly bodies. They wear bodies made up of the pure elements, fire and light and wind and air, and yet they can see with a sight that is keener than that of humankind. They can see both past and future. They can see the souls of the stars."

"Some have argued they are the souls of the fixed stars. " Thus would the argument be joined, over free will and Fate and natural law. And if not that argument, then a different one, for Da had a fine treasure-house of his own, knowledge earned over many years of study, and though his "city of memory"

was not as finely honed as Liath's-for he had taught her skills of memory which he had only mastered late in life-it was yet impressive. He knew so much, and all of it he meant to teach to his daughter, especially the secrets of the mathematici, the knowledge of the stars and of the movements of the planets through the heavens.

A sudden gust of wind fluttered the pages of the open book, set on her knee. Snow swirled past, but there were no clouds in the sky now. The cold wind brought memory.

Wings, settling on the eaves. A sudden gust of white snow through the smoke hole, although it was not winter.

Asleep and aware, bound to silence. Awake but unable to move, and therefore still asleep.

The darkness held her down as if it were a weight draped over her.

A voice of bells, heard as if on the wind. Two sharp thunks sounded, arrows striking wood.

"Your weak arrows avail you nothing," said the voice of bells. "Where is she?"

"Nowhere you can find her," said Da.

"Liath," said a voice of bells, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Heart beating wildly, she dared not move, but she had to look. Snow spun past like the trailing edge of a storm, flakes dissolving in the sun. A feathery gleam lit the track where it bent away northward, a roiling in the air like the fluttering of translucent wings as pale as the air itself.

Something came toward her down the road.

The fear bit so deep, like a griffin's beak closing on her throat, that she could not draw breath.

Certainly she could not run. Da's voice rang in her ears: "Safety lies in staying hidden."

She did not move.

"Liathano."

She heard it then, clearly, the voice made of the echoes of bells ringing away long into an unbroken night. She saw it though it was not any earthly being. It did not walk the track but rather floated above it, as if unable to set its aetherical being fully in contact with the dense soil of the mortal world. It came down the track from the north, faceless, with only humanlike limbs and the form of a human body and the wings of an angel to give it shape.

It called her, alluring, not unmusical, with that awful throbbing bass vibrato in its tone. It wanted her to answer. It compelled her to answer.

But Da had protected her against magic. Silent, as still as stone, she did not move. She held her breath. A leaf blown free by the wind fluttered over her arms and came to rest on the open book, and then a second, as if the earth itself collaborated in hiding her.

The creature stalked past her, still calling, and went on up the road to the south and, at last, out of her sight. A single white feather swirled in the eddy left by its passing and drifted down to the ground.

It was so pale that it shone like purest glass. Where she had tied it to a leather cord to hang around her neck, the gold feather left to her by the Aoi sorcerer burned against her skin as if in warning. Still she did not move. She was too stunned to move. She sat so still that eventually a trio of half-wild pigs, all tusks and bristles and sleek haunches, ventured out onto the path to investigate this bright interloper. But as soon as the lead pig nudged the white feather with its snout, the feather spit sparks, flashed and, with a whirlpool of smoke, dissipated into the air. The pigs squealed and scattered.

Liath laughed almost hysterically, but as soon as the fit passed, she was swept by such anger that she could barely get the book back into the saddlebag because her hands shook so. Was it such a creature that had murdered Da? Even that very one? Anger and terror warred within her, but anger won out. It hadn't seen her. Da's magic still protected her; whatever spell he had laid on her long ago had not died with him.

With anger came revelation: All those years she had thought him a failed sorcerer when instead he had poured that power into keeping her hidden.

"I swear to you, Da," she whispered, standing beside her horse with her eyes turned to the heavens where, perhaps, his soul looked down upon her, trapped on the mortal earth, "that I'll find out what it was that killed you."

"Nay, Liath, you must be careful," she imagined him saying to her. He was always so afraid.

And for good reason. Was it the aetherical daimone itself that stalked them, or a human sorcerer, a maleficus, who had drawn it from its sphere above the moon and coerced it to do his bidding?

"I'll be like a mouse," she murmured. "They'll never see me. I promise you, Da. I'll never let them catch me." With that, in her imagination, he seemed to be content.

A distant flock of sheep crested a rise and disappeared out of her view, an amorphous body herded by unseen dogs and a single shepherd. She did not want to stay here, where the creature had come so close. Apprehensive now and still unnerved by that unearthly sight and by the horrible, sick fear that had come over her when its inhuman voice spoke her name, she mounted and rode on. On this, her third day out of Quedlinhame, she could expect to come by nightfall to the palace at Goslar, so Hathui had told her. Please the Lady that she did; she did not want to sleep alone this night. And from Goslar, if the weather held, another four days of steady riding would bring her to Osterburg, the city and fortress favored by Duchess Rotrudis.

But when she rode into Goslar that evening, it was to find a large retinue already inhabiting it. A groom took her horse and she was brought at once into the great hall. There, seated on a chair carved with dragons and draped with gold pillows embroidered with black dragons whose curling shape and fierce demeanor echoed those of the King's Dragons, waited Duchess Rotrudis herself.

"What message does Henry send to me?" she asked without preamble as soon as Liath knelt before her. She did not resemble those of her siblings Liath had seen: Henry, Mother Scholastica, and Biscop Constance; she was not handsome nor had she any elegance of form. Short, stout, and with hands as broad and red as a farmer's, she had a nose that looked as if it had been broken one too many times, and old pockmarks scarred her cheeks. Even so, no one would have mistaken her for anything but one of the great princes of the land.

"King Henry speaks these words, my lady," began Liath dutifully. " 'From Henry, King over Wendar and Varre, to Rotrudis, Duchess of Saony and Attomar and beloved kinswoman, this entreaty.

Now that winter is upon us, it is time to think of next summer's campaign. We 'must drive the Eika out of Gent, but for this endeavor we will need a great army. Fully half of my forces died at Kassel. I have taken what I can out of Varre, and asked for more, but you, as well, must bear this burden with the others. Send messengers to your noble ladies and lords that they will increase their levies and send troops to Steleshame after the Feast of St. Sormas. From this staging place we will attack Gent. Let it be done.

These words, spoken in the presence of our blessed mother, represent my wishes in the matter.' "

Rotrudis snorted, took a draught of wine, and called for more wood on the hearth. "Fine words,"

she said indignantly, "when it is my duchy that the Eika ravage now.

They are not content with Gent. My own city of Osterburg has been attacked!"

"Attacked!" The memory of Gent's fall hit Liath as hard as a sword's blow, and she swayed back, horrified.

"We drove them off," said the duchess bluntly. "It was only ten ships of the damned savages."

She handed the gold cup to her cupbearer, a pretty young woman dressed in a plain gown of white linen.

With a grunt, she heaved herself up and walked over to look down on Liath. Pressing the tip of her walking stick under Liath's chin, she lifted the Eagle's head up so she could examine her face. "Are you some relation to Conrad the Black?" she demanded. "His by-blow, perhaps?"

"No, my lady. I am no relation to Duke Conrad."

"Well-spoken, I see," said the duchess. "Too old to be his get, in any case." She had a limp and one swollen foot, and when she sat heavily down in her chair, the pillows sighed beneath her. A servant hurried forward to prop the foot up on a padded stool. All along the walls rich tapestries hung, a sequence depicting a band of young ladies on the hunt, first after a stag, then a panther, and last a griffin.

"You tell this, then, to my dear brother Henry. Good God, where is he now, dare I ask?"

"He and the court have ridden south-"

"To hunt in Thurin Forest, no doubt!"

"Yes, my lady."

"While my villages burn under the raids of the Eika! Ah, well, no doubt he'll claim he must meet and trouble every southern lord in order to get them to pledge troops for next summer's war. A war every summer, that is Henry for you." She put out her hand and her cupbearer placed the gold cup in her hand. The duchess examined its contents, then frowned. "Here, child, my cup is empty." A boy dressed in a neat white linen tunic rushed over, took the cup away, and returned with a full one. A cleric leaned over and whispered into the duchess' ear.

Liath wished the noble lords would think of placing carpets or pillows down in front of their chairs so that her knees might have some respite.

"True enough," commented Rotrudis to the cleric before returning her attention to Liath. "Tell Henry that I expect more help from him. These Eika are like flies swarming around fresh meat. What if I can't wait for next summer?"

" have no further message from the king, my lady. But-" She hesitated.

"But? But! Go on. I'm no fool to think Eagles don't notice that which others might miss."

"It's true, my lady, that Henry's forces were badly hurt at Kassel. His complement of Lions went from perhaps two hundred men to a bare sixty, and though he has sent for more centuries from the marchlands, there is no guarantee those men can march so far so fast or that the marchlords will be able to let them go."

"Huh. The Quman haven't raided for years. I think there's no threat there. But go on. What of the Varren lords?"

"They, too, suffered at Kassel, though under Sabella's banner. But the king has collected levies from them and expects more to be sent in the spring."

"That isn't good enough! I've had to send my own son Wichman and his band of reckless young gadflies to Steles-hame to restore order. What has Henry risked?"

This was too much. Furious, Liath lifted her gaze to stare straight at the duchess. "King Henry lost his son at Gent!"

Courtiers murmured, shocked at her tone, but the duchess only laughed. "Here's fire for you!

Well then, it's true enough that Prince Sanglant died at Gent together with the Dragons, but that's what the poor boy was bred for, wasn't it?"

"Bred for?" said Liath, appalled.

"Quiet! You have spoken enough. Now you will listen to my words and carry them faithfully back to my dear brother. I need more help, and I need it soon. According to my reports, there's not a village left standing within a day's ride of Gent, and half the livestock stolen from the villages within three days' walk likewise and my people slaughtered, frightened, and running with a scant harvest to feed them this winter and no chance to sow in the spring, if the Eika aren't driven out. These Eika raid up the Veser as they wish, although winter's ice may dull their oars in the water, and none of the waterways are safe-nor will they be after the thaw come spring. Tell Henry this: I know where our royal sister Sabella is.

If he cannot help me, then she will-and bring me those lords who pledged loyalty to her, if Henry can't."

She paused, sipped wine, winced as she shifted her foot on the stool. "Now then, have you understood it all?"

Liath could barely speak, she was so astounded at the reference to Sabella. "That's the message you wish me to take back to King Henry?"

"Would I have spoken it if it were not what I wished delivered to him? Your duty is not to question, Eagle. Yours is to ride. Go on, then. I am done with you."

Liath rose, backed away, and retreated to the farthest corner of the hall. Was she meant to ride out immediately into the twilight? Where anything might await her? But a steward led her to a table placed in the back of the hall while the nobles began their evening's feast. Here, with some of the other servants, she was fed royally, a fine meal of goose, partridge, fish braised in a tart sauce, mince pie, and as much bread as she could eat together with a sharp cider. The nobles' feast went on forever, what with singing and dancing and tales, and even when the last platter of food was taken away, they still drank so heavily that Liath was surprised they hadn't emptied the cellars.

She crept away from the table at last and curled up in the corner, and yet woke intermittently throughout the long night, roused by their laughter, each time seeing through the haze of smoke and torchlight the nobles still drinking, singing, wrestling among the young men, and boasting while they paced the floor and drank again. Only at dawn, when she struggled to her feet and made ready to ride, had they at last given up the night's carousing and themselves gone to their beds.

KING Henry and his court were out hunting when she rode into the broad enclosure that formed the northernmost of the royal hunting lodges in the Thurin Forest. It had taken her seven days to ride here, pushing her pace and changing horses at Quedlinhame. This time, at the monastery, she had been restricted to the stables; she'd had no chance to contact Ivar again. On the road, she'd seen no trace of the mysterious creature who had passed so close by her before.

Great hall and barracks, kitchens, smithy, storerooms, stables, and a few guest houses made up the hunting lodge. A large grassy field surrounded these buildings, bounded by a steep-bedded, narrow river on one side and the palisade wall on the others. Servants scurried here and there about the lodge.

Liath heard the squeal of pigs being driven to slaughter for the night's feast. A veritable army of servants swarmed around the cookhouse-set well away from the great hall in case of fire-and farther, down a grassy slope to the river, servants aired linen and featherbeds and washed clothes.

Once she crossed under the palisade gate, a groom took her horse and informed her that the king was gone for the day. Liath was glad to miss the hunt. She could take no pleasure in hunting some poor, terrified creature-it reminded her too much of her own life.

She settled her saddle and harness in the same empty stall where she found Hathui's familiar gear, saddlebags and rolled-up wool blanket. Hathui had gone out with the king. She crouched to open the bag, set her hand on the book within-and hesitated. Had the daimone appeared- tracked her down-because she had opened the book out on the road? Or because she had, in her thoughts, recalled Da's death? Or had it only been coincidence that the creature had appeared then? She closed the flap and tied the pouch shut, shoved the saddlebag under her saddle, then went outside.

It was a fine blustery autumn day with clouds aplenty and the scent of cooking fires heavy on the wind. Brittle leaves of faded yellow and orange rolled across Liath's boots, blown by the wind. Goats grazed on the verge of the forest on the other side of the river, attended by a solitary shepherd. No one marked her. They were all too busy.

The morning's sun which had shone on her earlier had now vanished, shrouded by the wings of a coming storm. This was the season of storms, blown in one after the next. She shivered, thinking of the Eika, themselves a storm blown in from the north; it was still painful to remember the fall of Gent.

Yet the world beyond seemed far away, here deep in the heart of the forest. No one lived here, no freeholders or peasants working a noble lady's estate or church lands fanned the steep hills and densely wooded valleys. The Thurin remained a forest wilderness, and here the king hunted most autumns.

The cool bluster of the day drove her to seek shelter in the great hall. But to her surprise and dismay, clerics tenanted the great hall, half a dozen garbed in neat robes. She had thought they, too, would be out hunting.

Instead, they sat quietly at the long tables where, in the evenings, the king and his court feasted.

They went about the king's business while the king went about his pleasure. Goose quills bobbed evenly, dabbed in ink, letters curving across parchment or vellum.

Liath took a step back, but it was too late. At the chair nearest the door sat Ivar's sister, Rosvita.

She looked up, caught sight of Liath, and beckoned to her. A bound book, parchment pages folded into a quire, some of them not yet cut, lay open on the table before her. Her fingers were stained with ink.

Cautiously, Liath ventured closer.

"You are back, Eagle," said the cleric.

"I am, Sister. I bring a message from Duchess Rotrudis for the king."

"You left Quedlinhame swiftly," observed Rosvita, "and must not have tarried there long on your way back."

Ai, Lady! In all that had happened since, Liath had scarcely thought about poor Ivar. What was it Da had al ways said? "When the wolf has your arm in its jaws, then use the other to tickle its belly."

"What are you writing?" Liath asked, but the words written in fresh ink caught her in their spell and she read out loud:

"Then Henry, born to Kunigunde, Duchess of Saony, and her husband, Arnulf of Avaria, became duke by reason of his mother's death and his elder sisters having died before him. But Queen Conradina, who had often tested the valor of the new duke, was afraid to entrust to him all his mother's power. By this attitude the queen incurred the indignation of the entire Wendish army. She then spoke many words in praise of the new and most noble duke, promising to bestow on Henry great responsibilities and to glorify him with honor. But the Wendish soldiers were not deceived. The queen, seeing that they were more unfriendly than usual, and realizing that she could not destroy the new duke openly, tried to find a way to have him slain by treachery.

"She sent her brother with an army into Wendar to lay it waste. But when he came to the city which is called Gent, it is related that he boastfully stated that the greatest trouble he anticipated was that the Wendish would not dare show themselves before the walls so that he could fight them. With this boast still on his lips, the Wendish came rushing upon him and once the battle was joined they cut down his army of Arconians and Salians and Varingians with such slaughter that, as the bards tell us, the Abyss must indeed be a large place if it can contain so great a multitude of the slain.

"Eberhard, the queen's brother, was freed from his fear that the Wendish would not put in an appearance, for he saw them actually before him, and he fled from them."

"A history!" Liath exclaimed. She turned her gaze to Rosvita only to see the older woman staring at her with an ominous smile touching her lips. All the other clerics had ceased their writing to stare at this oddity, a King's Eagle who could read the language of educated church people, Dariyan.

Ai, Lady. She had betrayed herself again, and this time in front of the king's schola, his retinue of educated clerics.

"I am working on a history of the Wendish people," agreed Rosvita without any sign of astonishment, unlike the others. "I am relating here the story of how the first Henry, Duke of Saony, became King of Wendar upon the death of Queen Conradina."

"What will you write next?" Liath asked, hoping to distract her.

Rosvita coughed politely, and the other clerics hastily and obviously went back to their work.

She set down her quill-a magnificent eagle's feather, surely the mark of great favor from the king or his mother-beside the book. "Queen Conradina was herself wounded in battle, and thus finding herself burdened with disease as well as the loss of her earlier good fortune, she called her brother Eberhard to her side and reminded him that their family had every resource that the dignity of the rulership demanded-every resource except good luck. She gave to Eberhard the insignia of their royal ancestors-sacred lance, scepter, golden torque, and crown-and told him to take the insignia and give them to Duke Henry along with his allegiance. Soon after this she died, a brave and valiant woman, outstanding both at home and in the field, well known for her liberality-"

"Both in and out of bed," said one of the clerics, and others laughed and then quieted when Rosvita signed for Silence.

"Eberhard offered both himself and the treasures to Henry, made a peace treaty with him, and established friendship. That friendship he kept faithfully to the end. Then, at the city known as Kassel, in the presence of all the great princes of the realm, he made Henry king."

"Of course," said Liath. "And now the first Henry's great-grandson, our Henry, is King of Wendar and Varre." She bowed slightly, backing up. "I beg pardon for disturbing you, Sister. I will leave you and these others to your work."

She turned and hurried out the door, then leaned against the wall and thanked Lady and Lord that she had escaped their scrutiny. The faint lime scent of freshly washed plaster burned in her nostrils and with it burned a wash of envy. Had events transpired differently that dimly recalled day nine years ago, she might have taken orders herself and become a cleric. She could have sat together in the company of others like herself, and written, and read, and talked. How strange that Ivar chafed where she might have found happiness. But it was not to be.

Still, seeing the clerics made her wistful-and bold. She walked back to the stables, feeling a sudden urge to touch the book again, even if the act itself of touching the book brought her into danger.

The dim light in the stables draped like a cloak of secrecy thrown over her shoulders, giving her courage. She pulled The Book of Secrets out of the saddlebag and opened it delicately. She waited a moment, but no cold wind disturbed the stillness of the stables. Even for her salamander eyes, it was too dark in the stables to read. Instead, she simply sat touching the book, the binding, the grain of the leather, the parchment leaves and the fragile touch of the innermost book, ink on papyrus.

She laid her check against it, breathing in its dry perfume. Da's book. All she had left of him and everything he had given to her. Ai, Lady. He had given her all that he had, literally; all the power that was in him. She had only doubted him because she hadn't understood.

It was never safe, not for her. She no longer wondered at Da's exaggerated vigilance, his fastidious wariness, his attention to each least detail at every monastery guest house, at every isolated inn or farmer's shed they had bedded down in. Not any more.

Hugh had understood Da's power better than she had, it seemed. Wind rattled the stable doors and she started around, but it was natural wind. She could smell rain, though none yet fell, could hear the clatter of bare branches outside as the storm's breath, running before it, stirred the trees in anticipation of its coming. Hugh.

That suddenly, as if the name itself had magic, she shuddered, trembling violently, and caught the book against her chest as she fought back tears. She must not, could not, give in to the old fear. She had escaped him.

"Eagle. Liath."

She jerked, startled, and spun around, but it was too late. She had been run to ground, cornered, and cut off.

Rosvita had come after her.

I ROSVITA knew she would be damned for her curiosity, so she had given up trying to stop herself from succumbing to its lure.

She had blotted the fresh ink carefully and left the book open to dry, pushed back her chair, and risen to follow the young Eagle. Since the incident in the library at Quedlin-hame, she had not been able to stop thinking about the young Eagle.

Once out in the courtyard she saw the young woman vanish into the stables, so she followed, tracking her to an empty stall where she sat alone in the gloom.

"Eagle. Liath."

As soon as she spoke the words, she saw the object the girl clutched to her chest like a frightened child. It was a book. Surprised and puzzled, Rosvita acted before thinking. She stepped forward and plucked the book from the Eagle's grasp. The girl gasped out loud and jumped up, but Rosvita had already retreated to the door and thus the Eagle had perforce to follow her outside as a starving dog slinks at the heels of a woman gnawing on a succulent rib of pork.

"I beg you-" stuttered the girl, face washed gray with fear. She was of good height but so slender that she appeared frail.

At once, faced with such an expression of abject misery and terror, Rosvita relented. She handed back the book and yet, as the young woman locked the book under her left arm, immediately regretted her own act of generosity. The title was lost in the folds of the Eagle's cloak. What on God's earth did an Eagle mean by carrying a book? And what kind of book was it? But Rosvita was too wise to attempt a direct assault.

"I can't help but wonder where a woman such as yourself learned to read Dariyan so fluently,"

she said. "Are you church educated?"

The girl hesitated, her fine mouth turning down stubbornly. Then, with an effort, she smoothed her expression. Rosvita had studied faces for too many years not to recognize a person who wanted to remain unnoticed and unremarked-although how, with such a striking face, this young person thought she could remain unnoticed, Rosvita could not fathom.

"My da educated me," she said at last.

"You mentioned him to Queen Mathilda, did you not? He was in the church?"

She shrugged, not wanting to answer.

"Perhaps he left the church after you were born," suggested Rovita, trying to sound sympathetic, trying to worm her way past the wall the girl had thrown up. "Does he have kin? Do you know who your people are?"

"I have been told he has cousins at Bodfeld. But they disclaimed the kinship after-" She broke off.

That, Rosvita saw, was the girl's weakness. Once begun, she would forget to stop. "After he acknowledged you as his child? Or had he already left the church?"

"I don't know," said the girl, a little rudely.

"I beg your pardon. But then, I was often told by my mother abbess that my curiosity is unpardonable." Rosvita offered a smile. The girl almost smiled back, but did not. The fierce blue of her eyes, as brilliant as sapphires or the blue depths of fire, shone bright against her dusky skin. "Your mother?"

"Is dead. These many years."

"And now Wolfhere has taken you on as his discipla. Perhaps you knew him before?"

"No, I didn't-" She shook her head impatiently. "He took me into the Eagles. He saved me from-" She winched her right arm more tightly against her side, concealing the book.

Lady Above! Had she stolen it from the library at Quedlinhame?

It was time for the direct approach. "What book is that?"

Rosvita had never seen anyone look quite so fragile and terrified. Had the girl stolen it? Ought she to seek justice in this case, and force her to tell the truth-or was it better to be merciful and let her confess in due time?

"It-My da gave it to me," the girl said at last, in a rush. "It's the only thing I have left of him."

A rumble of thunder sounded closer now. Rain brushed the cleric's cheeks and struck her hands like thoughts falling from the heavens to disturb what little peace of mind she had ever managed to secure.

So many thoughts distracted her, like the drops of rain increasing in frequency now: old Brother Fidelis and his legacy, the Vita of St. Radegundis, which he had given to her; his last whispered mention of Seven Sleepers, daimones or humans or some other creatures whose power he feared; the terrible and mysterious disappearance of Villam's son, Berthold, and his six companions, in the stone circle in the hills above Hers-ford; her History, which she really must continue working on so that it might be finished before the old queen died; the book that this vulnerable girl clutched to herself so tightly.

The book. Rosvita knew at that instant, as if the sound of thunder divined it, that she would somehow, in some way, get a look inside that book.

Suddenly, as lightning flashed and a fresh peal of thunder cracked and roared in response, the girl spoke. "Do you know how to read Arethousan?"

Rosvita arched one eyebrow. "Yes, I do. I learned from Queen Sophia herself." The girl remained silent, quite unlike the unrolling turmoil in the sky. Seeing an opening, Rosvita continued.

"Would you like to learn Arethousan? You read Dariyan very well."

She bit her lip. She was tempted.

Tempted. This Rosvita understood. This fault she knew how to nurture, although surely it was a sin to do so. "I can teach you Arethousan. I saw you reading in the library, a Jinna work, I believe, one of the astronomers. That was just before Ivar-"

"Ivar," whispered the girl, looking embarrassed.

"My brother Ivar," agreed Rosvita, and saw at once the wedge through which she could penetrate this girl's defenses. "Did he ever speak of me? You knew him in Heart's Rest, I believe, before he entered the church."

"He always spoke of you with respect," she admitted, "though he never wanted to emulate your vocation!"

"So he gave me reason to understand."

The Eagle flushed and looked away, embarrassed either to replay that scene in the library in her own mind or to remember that another had witnessed the whole. "He trusts you."

Rosvita took in a careful breath, measuring her words. This moment was the crucial one. Here might all be won, or lost.

"Sister!"

She almost cursed out loud, managed not to. She glanced toward the sound of the voice and grimaced. A middle-aged man with dark hair and undistinguished features-a King's Eagle-led his horse through the gate into the courtyard.

"I beg you, Sister, I bring an important message." He led the horse forward-it was limping-and halted before her. "Sister," he repeated respectfully.

Lady's Blood! Granted this distraction, the girl escaped, slinking away like a hunted creature escaping the hounds. It was too late to call her back, and in any case, Rosvita knew her duty: The man looked worn, weary, and as if his feet hurt him.

"Where have you come from?" she asked politely. It was not, after all, his fault, not precisely, anyway. By such means did God remind her of her duty.

"I am the herald for Princess Sapientia."

"Sapiential"

"I was meant to ride in half a day before her, to make sure her lodgings were properly prepared, but my horse came up lame, so I am-" He halted, silenced by the ring of harness and by the laughter and animated cheer of voices carried on the wind in a sudden lull. Lightning brightened the darkening sky; thunder, almost on top of them, cracked and rolled, shaking the shutters. It began to rain.

The riders appeared in the gate, laughing, untroubled by storm and rain. It was a small retinue, not above twenty riders together with several wagons and a number of servants walking beside, but clearly a noblewoman's party. A banner sodden with rain fluttered limply in the wind. The horses wore rich caparisons, and the soldiers were outfitted in good armor.

The princess rode at the front. Rosvita judged she could scarcely be more than four months gone, given that she had only ridden out on her heir's progress some six months ago, but the princess was of such a slight build that even through her heavy wool traveling tunic Rosvita could see the telltale swelling of her belly.

But the cleric's gaze skipped almost immediately away from the princess to the man riding with easy grace beside her.

Rosvita's mouth dropped open. Without any words being spoken, she knew this man was the father of Sapientia's as yet unborn child. Knew it, as she was meant to know, as all were meant to know, by the little gestures of intimacy he and the princess exchanged. Truth to tell, she was scandalized, although after so many years in the king's progress she had thought herself inured to scandal.

The Eagle, still beside her, grunted, acknowledging her surprise. "Not quite what anyone expected."

And yet, after a moment's consideration, Rosvita realized she was not at all surprised. Henry's grief had rendered him incapable of sending his eldest legitimate child on her way for her heir's progress, as was traditional. He had left that duty to another, to Judith, margrave of Olsatia and Austra.

This, of course, was the inevitable result.

SHE jammed the book into the saddlebag, cursing herself under her breath. Why must she continually betray herself? Wouldn't it be better to stop pretending to be what she was not-a simple, uneducated Eagle? Why not confide in the woman? She looked trustworthy enough, and she was Ivar's sister.

Yet Rosvita had lived for many years in the circle of the king's progress. She could not be a simple woman, uncomplicated in the way Ivar was; she might involve herself in many intrigues unknown to Liath, dangerous to Liath. As a good church woman, surely she would not be sympathetic to tales of daimones and the forbidden knowledge of the mathematici.

/ would never know. I can never know whom to trust. That is why Da told me to "Trust no one."

Thunder boomed. The entire stables shook under that great crack and rumbling roar. She jumped, startled, hating herself for being scared all the time. If only Hanna would return, but she could not expect Hanna for months. And with Hanna would come Wolfhere and his damnable questions and his watching eyes.

And yet, was not Rosvita more likely to be trustworthy than Wolfhere? Liath liked Wolfhere-that was the worst of it-but she could never trust him. He had known both her mother and father. He knew what she was, and he wanted something from her, just as Hugh had wanted-But she was not going to think about Hugh. She could not. Hugh looked like someone who could be trusted. Beautiful Hugh. She touched a hand to her cheek, remembering the pain when he hit her.