"You know as well as I that normally St. Vitale's Pass is closed from mid-autumn to early summer. I've never heard of any party crossing a week before Candlemass!"

The other man shrugged. "It's been a mild winter. They just had good fortune. The soldiers I spoke to said that as they came down the last few leagues it had begun to snow behind them."

"That proves nothing. It could still have been weather sorcery. What about those other tales we've heard? What about those lights we saw from the height of the-fock last night? You heard screaming, too." (

"Hush," said his friend, glancing toward the soldiers. "W«'re here to see that he keeps his word to R rd John, nothing more. What matter if there is sorcery at work? Sometimes I wonder what harm there is in sorcery, if it can be used for good. I'm sick enough of this siege and these rations that I'd/not care if magic were used to persuade Queen Adelheid to surrender, so we could finally go home."

"Dominic!" His friend drew the Circle of Unity at his chest, like a ward against evil.

Theophanu tugged on Rosvita's hand, and Rosvita followed her into a passage so narrow that rock rubbed her shoulders, then her head, and she had to kneel and walk forward on her knees like a penitent approaching the altar.

The path dipped, Theophanu let go of her hand, and she touched a stair-step and, farther up, Theophanu's sandaled feet. She pulled herself up beside the princess in a cupboardlike space scarcely large enough for both of them. A hazy veil more mist than light screened one side of the space, but it took her a few moments to understand where she was.

They crouched together crammed inside the altar carved into the chapel.

The light that burned without, veiled by a screen of cloth, came from two lamps hanging from iron racks set on either side of the tiny chamber.

A man knelt before the altar, head bowed, hands clasped as he prayed.

She could not see his face, but she did not need to see his face. She felt Theophanu trembling beside her like a doe caught in a net. She knew the set of those shoulders, that golden sheen of hair, the perfect posture, neither too humble nor too proud as he knelt before God's altar and prayed in his mellifluous voice.

"Lord, my heart is not haughty nor my eyes lofty; neither do I exercise myself in things too high for me. Lady, surely I have behaved and quieted myself. My soul is like that of a weaned child clinging to its mother. Let us put our hope in God, for ever and ever."

A cleric straightened up after ducking through the archway that led back into the guest hall. "I beg pardon for disturbing you, Lord Hugh."

He looked up. It was truly amazing how perfectly the light framed his features even when he could not know that someone watched him. His expression was somber, his eyes kind. "Brother Dominic." He smiled gently, not quite enough to reveal the chipped tooth. "Speak, Brother. Tell me what troubles you."

"Has the mother abbess replied to your request yet, Lord Hugh? Will she see you and allow you to speak to Queen Adelheid?"

"I have heard nothing yet. But I trust in God, as must we all."

"Some have wondered if you volunteered to negotiate with the mother abbess only to escape Lord John's captivity. After all, you are safe from him up here. You might hope for rescue and watch from safety while those who brought you this far suffer below."

"I am humbled by your accusations, Brother, but I would be first to acknowledge that I deserve them." As he spoke, his features perfectly composed, he toyed with a red ribbon twined in his left hand. "I bear no ill-will toward the clerics and soldiers who were given the duty of escorting me to the skopos. Lord John's soldiers should not have taken us prisoner and brought us here, and once Lord John learned of our destination, he should have freed us to continue on. But I understand that he is an ambitious man and hopes to make use of us as hostages. If I fail here, then I will join my companions in a martyr's death. If I succeed, then we will ride on to Darre and I will present myself to the skopos as I was bidden at the Council of Autun."

Brother Dominic grunted, as if himself displeased. "Your words are reasonable, Lord Hugh." He hesitated, and finally spoke in a voice as low as that of a man plotting against his master. "It is hard to believe that any council could condemn you."

Hugh bowed his head. "God know the truth." Brother Dominic shuffled nervously, as if he feared he had said too much. "I will leave you to your prayers." He retreated. For a long while Hugh knelt there, head bowed, unmoving, saying nothing. Rosvita scarcely dared breathe. Her gaze was caught by the painting on the wall opposite, faded now but still perfectly legible. The images depicted a party of Aoi dressed in feathers and short capes and not much morf passing through a burning archway that led into a circle ot^tanding stones.

Beyond the stones lay a second and smaller stone crown, about a quarter the size of the first circle, situated within a cluster of buildings of a strange and wonderful design; a party tif travelers, painted proportionately small, emerged-from the second stone crown out of an arch of flame.

Hugh's movement pulled her back. He drew out a small chest that had been concealed by the fall of his robes. A blood-red ribbon wound like ivy through the clasp that locked it tight. He untied the ribbon, raised the lid, and lifted out a sprig of juniper and a rectangular shape muffled in linen. Unwrapping it, he revealed a book.

Rosvita jerked back, hitting her head against rock. She caught a gasp in her throat. How had he regained The Book of Secrets? He began to read out loud.

"When the Moon is full, the studious one can by means of the threads woven by the planets and the heated air engendered by the Moon's waxing coax down to the Earth the dai-mones of the lower air, those who live beneath the Moon's sway. It is well known that men who are perverted and greedy for earthly gains are more susceptible to their influence, and the studious one may gain what she desires in this way: If she wraps the threads of the heavens neatly around these daimones and speaks the charms and the seven names of the holy dis-ciplas and burns the smoke o juni

f

per and fennel to cloud and chain their

spirits, then they will do as she bids them. By certain unseen ways they insinuate themselves most subtly and marvelously into the bodies of humans because their own bodies have little corporeal substance but partake of the air and fire of heaven, and through certain diverse and imaginary visions they mingle their own thoughts with those of their hosts until one mouth may utter wha ano t

ther mind

whispers."

Ai, God, what had happened to Liath at the judgment at Autun? Her head throbbed.

Theophanu nudged Rosvita, and with Paloma they backed up along the tunnel until they emerged into the main corridor. She had to rest because her legs trembled and ached as if she'd just climbed the rock itself, but when she had recovered her strength, they walked in silence past the chapel where hump-backed Sister Carita knelt in prayer. Beyond the chapel lay the tiny library whose vertical shafts gave enough light that Rosvita could see all the shades of color in the soft rock, gray and pink and cream, that striped the walls. Sister Petra sat at the scribe's lectern, situated so that the light from the ventilation shafts striped her work. With practiced strokes, she drew her quill across parchment. Rosvita paused. Weeks ago in the throes of the worst of her fever, she had asked Mother Obligatia to continue the copy Sister Amabilia had been making of the Vita of St.

Radegundis. Was Sister Petra copying Brother Fidelis' work?

Theophanu and Paloma had gone ahead, so she hurried after them instead of going in to ask. Many hands had worn the walls smooth, and the ground slid like finest marble under her slippers, burnished by the passage of many feet over the centuries. They descended stairs and here, deeper in the rock, they came to a landing so dim that they almost ran into Sister Hilaria, who emerged from the broad stairs that led down to the well. Two full buckets swayed on the yoke set over her shoulders and a third balanced on her head on a base of rolled-up cloth.

She smelled of water and dripping rock. Behind her, two of Adel-heid's servingwomen staggered onto the landing and set down half-full buckets as they caught their breath and shielded their eyes from the light.

"A good day to you, Your Highness," Sister Hilaria said, seemingly unwinded by her climb. "Sister Rosvita, it is good to see you on your feet."

They stood aside to let her pass before them into the kitchens. Smoke stains decorated the walls above the kitchen hearths where huge ventilation shafts let in light and let out smoke. A fire burned on the middle hearth, tended by poor Sister Lucida, who was not only crippled but not quite right in the head.

At the single table, Gutta and another woman kneaded dough, in flour to their elbows. Gutta wore a crude burlap apron to protect the queen's fine gown. Two other servants made themselves busy, stirring a thin soup flavored mostly with horse fat and patting out flat cakes.

Sister Hilaria emptied the water info a barrel. She patted Sister Lucida on her shoulder, and the crippled nun bobbed her head happily and said a few slurred wjords which Rosvita could not understand. Sister Hilaria laughed. "Nay, I shan't let you have all the onions. You're a glutron for onions, aiid I won't be the one to lead you into sin!" Lucida honked out a laugh, and with a cheerful grin Hilaria set yoke and buckets/over her shoulders for another trip to the well just as~the_oiher water-bearing women finally made it to the barrel. "Just one more trip, friends!" Hilaria cried enthusiastically, "and we'll be done."

"For this hour!" groaned one, but Theophanu and Paloma had already gone on, and Rosvita hastened after them. She was still weak and didn't trust her legs, so she went cautiously down a steep ramp that rang with strange echoes. It grew dark quickly, and because the nuns had no oil to spare for lamps they had to feel their way. Rosvita noticed the change: a yeasty scent, a roughening of the walls under her seeking fingers. She stumbled on the lip of a little ditch dug into the rock, and Theo-phanu took her by the elbow to steady her. Groping, Rosvita discovered a millstone set on its side, rolled away into a recess cut into the rock.

"Careful," said Paloma. "It can be rolled across the passageway to block it."

"In the event of an attack," said Theophanu. "The nuns who built this place surely had little trust in human kindness."

"Oh, no," said Paloma with surprise. "The nuns didn't carve these chambers. They've always been here, so the story goes. The nuns and Teuda and I just live here. Even Mother Obliga-tia doesn't know how far into the rock the labyrinth goes. I've taken a candle and gone down to explore, but there's never time to get far before the candle burns low. Come. It's just around this corner."

It took Rosvita a moment to identify the sounds echoing around her as music, and then they rounded a corner and came into a cavern so high that she couldn't see its ceiling for darkness. A single lamp burned, revealing Queen Adelheid seated at her ease while soldiers entertained her. One had a battered lute, decently tuned, and he strummed a cheerful tune while a companion played the tune on a pipe. A trio slapped out drum patterns on their thighs and another man trilled birdcalls as a counterpoint to the melody. At the edge of the light, half a dozen soldiers stamped and spun in intricate little turns, dancing. It was odd to see Queen Adelheid smiling and clapping as if this rustic display pleased her as much as an elegant court entertainment. Her noble companions stood behind her, some enjoying themselves, others looking strained and tense.

Adelheid saw Theophanu and beckoned to her, indicating a chair next to hers. As soon as the soldiers saw Theophanu, they faltered and ceased their playing.

Theophanu removed the pillow from the chair and set it on the floor. "Sit here, if it pleases you, Sister."

"I thank you, Your Highness. Your Majesty, where is Mother Obligatia?"

"She is still with the wounded."

"If I may attend her for a moment?"

Both queen and princess assented. A soldier came forward to escort Rosvita to the side chamber where the wounded lay, and as she ducked under a low arch carved into stone, she heard the music begin again behind her, echoing weirdly in the great cavern.

Weeks had passed before Rosvita had understood that the ancient nun who was tending her through her sickness was Mother of the convent. Now, by the light of a single lamp, Mother Obligatia knelt beside a fair-haired man who had been wounded fighting off one of Ironhead's fruitless attacks. She was carefully rewrapping the poultice at his shoulder.

"Bless you, Mother," he murmured as Rosvita came up beside them.

She said a blessing over him before bracing herself on a stout walking stick as she struggled to her feet. Before Rosvita could move forward to aid her, Captain Fulk appeared at her side to help her up.

"How may I assist you, Mother?" Rosvita asked.

"Stay beside me a moment, Sister. I am done except for this poor soul, but I fear there is nothing I can do for his wounds."

One man rested apart from the others, and he lay silent except for a ghastly whimper that escaped him at intervals, sometimes followed by a string of hoarse words that made no sense until she realized he was speaking in Aostan, not Wendish: "no beginning no end cold sting in my heart falling the stone it hurts Lord protect me Ai God! the eyes!"

The shadows were a merciful cloak. His injuries had festered. Skin peeled away from his motith, exposing teeth and gums, and one eye seemed seared shut with silvery threads impressed into the curve of his skull. A faint nietallic scent | stung her nostrils, a flavor like iron filings that she could almos-t lick from the air. Then Mother Obligatia undid the wrappings that covered his chest.

Rosvita gagged at the stench of decay and had to step back. V,,—^___^

A hand steadied her: Captain Fulk. He murmured an apology and hastily stepped away. The soldier holding the lamp shut his eyes.

From the pool of darkness outside the lamplight, Brother For-tunatus ghosted into view to take his place at Rosvita's side.

"You are well, Sister?" The murky light made his face seem unnaturally pale, or perhaps it was only the poor soldier's suffering.

"You are too anxious, Brother," she said fondly. "I am recovering well for a woman of my years. I have nothing to complain of. Dear God, how could I?" She gestured. "What has happened to this poor man? Is he one of Queen Adelheid's soldiers?"

Mother Obligatia dabbed a sharp-smelling ointment on his wounds, and the soldier began thrashing, moaning horribly. Rosvita had to look away as Captain Fulk knelt to hold the man down.

Brother Fortunatus shifted nervously before he spoke in a whisper. "There is magic here, Sister. It has been hidden from us until now."

"You cannot believe that Mother Obligatia or any of these good nuns indulge in sorcery?"

"There is a secret hidden here," he insisted stubbornly. "Look at him. He was brought in last night, just before Vigils. It seems odd to me that their attack should come only hours after Lord Hugh begged leave to speak with the queen."

"What do you mean?"

The man gasped out a strangled croak, an unintelligible word, and then passed out. The threads of silver burned into his face gleamed, pulsing as if to the beat of his heart.

"He is one of Ironhead's soldiers. A party of a dozen or more climbed the north face of the outcropping last night. They reached the stone crown at the summit at dusk. I suppose from there they meant to drop down upon us from above."

She felt abruptly weak, shaken with memories of uninter-pretable dreams.

The ground seemed to rock beneath her like a boat shifting on the waters, and her stomach ached. "I must have been asleep."

Fortunatus caught her elbow. His voice trembled. "You were very ill, Sister.

I despaired of you."

His concern steadied her. She could look at the poor man lying unconscious on the ground; Mother Obligatia worked efficiently. "What became of the other soldiers, then? Were they taken prisoner?"

"Nay. Some creature haunts the stone crown. It killed them. This man was the only one to survive, and he will not live long."

Mother Obligatia rose with Captain Fulk's help and stepped away from the dying man. "There is nothing else I can do," she said to Fulk. "Has he taken any water?"

"He cannot keep it down, Mother." Fulk's expression was grave.

Obligatia nodded and at once made her way, hobbling slowly, out of the little side cavern with Rosvita, Fortunatus, and Fulk in attendance. Captain Fulk brought her a stood, and she sat between Adelheid and Theophanu, gesturing with a hand to show that the musicians should finish. Rosvita settled herself on the pillow at Theophanu's feet, and Fortunatus in attendance behind her. When the soldiers' song was done, Mother Obligatia turned to Rosvita.

"Sister Rosvita, I am pleased to see you looking so strong. You have seen our visitor?" Mother Obligatia was sharp without being proud, wise without being serene, and generous without being kind. As always, she came straight to the point. "He was sent by Lord John to negotiate an end to the siege. His companions from Wendar are being held as hostage for his good conduct. Do you know who he is?"

"Hugh of Austra," said Theophanu in a tone as cool as if she were reciting the list of crops to be planted, "illegitimate son of Judith, who is margrave of Austra and Olsatia as well as a valued companion to my father, King Henry."

"You are acquainted with him," said Mother Obligatia.

"If I may speak," said Rosvita quickly, and Theophanu nodded. After six weeks subsisting on Mother Obligatia's charity, Rosvita saw no point in sliding around the truth. "I believe that both Princess Theophanu and I were sent south to Aosta so that we could not testify when Father Hugh was brought before a church council last autumn in Autun. He was accused of sorcery."

Adelheid sat forward, expression bright and curious. "Would you have spoken for him, or against him?"

In the dim light, Theophanir looked mort than ever like an ancient queen caught in paint on some ancient church wall, gilded with gold leaf, eyes darkened^with kohl. She replied without emotion. "We have reason to belieyejthatLthe/charges laid against him were true. We must not trust him, whatever promises he makes."

"Strong words," observed Adelheid.

The ancient mother toyed with the polished walking stick laid across her thighs. Behind, half lost in shadow, Captain Fulk and the soldiers had hunkered down to listen. "It is difficult to know whom to trust when charges of sorcery are at hand," she said. "Have you had experience in these matters, Mother?" asked Rosvita.

"I have seen things I wish I had not. But nevertheless, in a week our stores will be depleted. It is time to make a decision. I am perfectly willing to starve for a point of honor, but I cannot ask my nuns to do likewise."

"Then it appears we must speak to him," said Adelheid. Her smile flashed like laughter. "My soldiers say he is a remarkably handsome man. Is that true, Cousin? I haven't yet seen him."

But Theophanu would not be drawn. "You must make up your own mind on that score, Cousin."

"Then it is agreed that we will speak with him?" "I am against it," said Theophanu coolly. She glanced at Rosvita; they all did.

Rosvita sighed. "In truth, Your Highness, there is no choice. I am no more eager than you, given what we have seen and experienced, but under these circumstances we must see what he has to say."

"I will not go to Ironhead without a fight," said Adelheid. The fierce lift of her chin and the ringing trumpet she made of her voice contrasted baldly with Theophanu's inscrutable calm, and by no means did Theophanu come off the better.

Captain Fulk stepped forward. "If I may speak, Your Majesty? Your Highness? Mother?" When they assented, the soldier went on. "We must take action soon, one way or the other. Both food and tempers grow short, trapped as we are. We've already lost a quarter of the horses. After last night there are rumors of a goblin haunting the stone crown. My men are afraid of stable duty, because those halls lie so close to the summit. Some are fearful that now that the creature has tasted blood, that it will stalk them. Some would rather surrender than die in such a terrible way."

Everyone quieted, and Rosvita realized now how much tension had ridden the air. The yellowy gleam of the lamp gave scant protection from the darkness.

But Mother Obligatia showed no sign of nervousness. "A daimone does indeed haunt the stone crown at the height of this rock, but it is not more dangerous than the goblins that lurk in the hearts of those who are discontented with their lot in this world. My predecessors and I have guarded this convent since the days of St. Ekatarina, four hundred years ago or more. We have not been troubled by the creature trapped above, nor felt its claws."

"Where did it come from?" Theophanu asked. "Why does it haunt this place?"

"It has always been here. That is why I forbade your party to explore the crown."

"You said it was a consecrated place, forbidden to any who are not sisters in this convent," objected Adelheid. "You did not say it was haunted by such a creature!"

"Now you see why it is forbidden. We do not tell everything we know. Nor do we need to."

Even a queen could look abashed. Adelheid did so now. "I beg your pardon, Mother. I'm sure you know better than we do in such matters."

"Ancient knowledge must be guarded lest it fall into hands made rough by ignorance or ambition. Do you think we want a man like Lord John suspecting we have secrets hidden within these walls?"

"Like the knowledge of the Aoi," murmured Rosvita, but Mother Obligatia had keen ears and now swung her walking stick off her thighs and rapped it once, sharply, on the floor. The sound rang with echoes in the cavern, and men jumped, startled. A murmur, a ripple of nervous chuckles, spread and settled.

"With old secrets it is better to be cautious. I would rather you not have known, because-, an ancient setret is like a great stone. Resting on the shore undisturbed it remains silent. Uprooted and cast into a still ond it creates strong ripples that alter the very fabric of the w^ter and may qven overset or wash away the net of life that flourished there .y "I give you my word, Mother ObUgatiti," said Adelheid. "You have shown us much generosity. I will never reveal your secret." "If any of Ironhead's soldiers escaped after their attack last night, they will have a tale to tell. So be it." She settled her stick over her thighs as if to indicate that the matter was closed. "Captain Fulk. Have a dozen of your men escort our visitor here. Be sure to blindfold him. What he does not know he cannot reveal to Lord John."

Captain Fulk chose five men and went himself with one lamp. Because they had so little oil left them, Mother Obligatia suggested they wait in darkness, and no one was eager to object. With the lamp snuffed out, the darkness in the cavern was so profound that Rosvita could not see her hand held in front of her nose. She felt the chill of the stone as intensely as the fever of curiosity as she sat in the blackness with the rustle of nervous soldiers around her. What would Hugh say? How had he come to be here? How had he gotten The Book of Secrets What was the creature that haunted the stone crown? Was it truly a daimone, and if so, what did a daimone look like? They were creatures of the aether who lived above the sphere of the moon, so how had it become trapped here below the moon? With what power had it killed the soldiers? Would it come in search of the rest of them, or did the crown itself contain it? And if the crown did contain it, then what property inherent in the stones could confine a creature of such power and unearthly provenance? And if so, did all stone crowns hold within themselves intrinsic magical properties? Was it even possible that poor Berthold had somehow been imprisoned within the stone crown above Hers-ford, instead of killed by a fall or a cave-in, as she had assumed? Was there truth in her dreams?

Theophanu shifted in her chair. Fortunatus coughed softly. "Perhaps a song," said Adelheid in a voice that the darkness made startlingly bright, like a sudden shaft of light that makes the eyes sting.

Tentatively at first and then more forcefully as the sound filled the echoing space, the soldiers began to sing: "To the Lady and to the Lord both light and dark are one."

"I have been reading your History, Sister Rosvita," said Mother Obligatia as the soldiers continued with a quiet tune composed of more secular sentiments: a lost love, a long journey.

"I fear it is incomplete. Had I time, and with your permission, I would consult your library to see what I could learn from any chronicles you may have here. Yet here in Aosta there is no reason why chronicles would contain records of the doings of the Wendish. No doubt my people are still considered barbarians to those who once ruled as part of the glorious Dariyan Empire."

"Then it is well you are writing their history, since no one in Darre will do so. I came here from the North."

"You have surprised me, Mother. I hear no trace of the North in your speech."

"I was raised from an infant at a convent in Varre, but when I was fourteen I was taken from there to St. Radegundis' convent in Salia. Indeed, I came to her convent not six months after St. Radegundis passed out of this world and into the Chamber of Light."

"That is incredible. Surely you have looked at the Vita, then?"

"Sister Petra has been copying it diligently these last six weeks. You yourself in your delirium mentioned that this manuscript is the only copy in existence. Such a precious document must not be lost to us." Her voice had the familiar quaver of age, as fragile as stalks of flowers torn by a gale. The company had stilled, and it was silent as Obligatia spoke as a biscop might, reading from the scriptures to edify her congregation. " 'The Lord and Lady confer glory and greatness on women through strength of mind. Faith makes them strong, and in these earthly vessels, heavenly treasure is hid. One of this company is Radegundis, she whose earthly life I, Fidelis, humblest and least worthy, now attempt to celebrate so that all may hear of her deeds and sing praise in her glorious memory. The world divides those whom no space parted once. So ends the Prologue.'"

Something in the abbess' tone made Rosvita's skin prickle, like a mouse nibbling cheese down to the fingers that hold it.

"How did you come by the book, Sister Rosvita?"

"I received it from Fidelis' own hands—" She broke off, hearing Mother Obligatia gasp, as, at a pain.

"His own hands! You must have been very young."

"Not at all, Mother. He lived to an incredible age. It was not two years ago that I received)it from him.j'

"Two years! How can thai be? He was already old—

The ring and echo of soldiers' voices and of boots tramping on stone cut through the oldXwoman's reply, and light rose just quickly enough that Rosvita cayghtjhe^nd of Mother Obliga-tia's gesture: wiping a tear from her cheek.

Then Hugh came among them. It was impossible to know how he could walk so gracefully, blinded by cloth bound over his eyes. Steered by Captain Fulk, who kept fingers pressed to Hugh's arm, he knelt before the three women, whom he still could not see. Rosvita hitched the trailing edge of her robe sideways, half afraid that if any part of him came in contact with it, he would know of her at once, that he would know everything about her and all that she suspected, all her loyalties and weaknesses.

"I had hoped to be brought before Queen Adelheid or the blessed Mother of this convent," he said in his beautiful voice. The soldier holding the lamp stood behind him, which had the effect of giving a halo, the crown of saints, to his golden hair. "I am Hugh of Austra, son of Judith, margrave of Austra and Olsatia.

I beg you, let me speak if that is your will."

"I am Adelheid." She rose, though she knew he couldn't see her, but surely he heard the change of position because his head shifted slightly, an odd questing motion like that of the great cats Rosvita had seen in the menagerie in Autun, lifting their heads when they heard the sound of the gate being opened and closed as a deer was driven into their enclosure. "How did you and your party come to be here, Lord Hugh? This convent lies on none of the main roads."

"Your Majesty." He did not precisely incline his head, but he had mastered the art of shifting his shoulders to show respect: as proud as a nobleman, he was not too proud to acknowledge her greater rank. "We had crossed St. Vitale's Pass and were riding south to Darre when we were accosted on the road by Lord John's soldiers and brought against our will to this encampment. We still wish to ride on to Darre. That is our only goal."

"Then why did Ironhead send you up here, if you are his prisoner? What of the other people in your party?"

"Alas. Lord John is an ambitious man, Your Majesty. I will tell you truthfully that he was suspicious of our reasons for traveling. He suggested that we must be agents of King Henry of Wendar. ,He believes that we have messages for the skopos from King Henry regarding the fate of Aosta. He was blunt, Your Majesty." He paused as Adelheid laughed. "He said that were he Henry, he would send a message to the skopos offering protection and gold if she were to support him as king of Aosta." "Is that the message that you and your company are bringing to Darre?" asked Adelheid sharply.

"Nay, Your Majesty. I have been accused of sorcery, and I am being sent before the skopos to be judged." How easily the words came out of his mouth, so easily that for an instant it was impossible to believe that he had been anything but falsely accused. "Lord John sent me to persuade you to surrender in return for letting my party go. That is all."

"Or in return for letting you go free, so that you can escape the skopos'

judgment!"

The cloth blindfold did not conceal his beautiful mouth. He smiled now, not quite enough to reveal the chipped tooth. "I do not intend to persuade you to surrender, Your Majesty. I intend to reveal to you how you can make your escape. After that, I will convince Lord John to release me and my party so that we can continue on to Darre."

Adelheid laughed delightedly, and Rosvita realized that she was enjoying the match, like two swordsmen playing at an absurd battle. "What loyalty do you have for me and my followers?"

"I have no loyalty toward you, Your Majesty, although I hope you will not take offense from my plain speaking. I am a loyal subject of King Henry. If Lord John captures you, he will force you to marry him and use that claim to establish himself as king of Aosta. King Henry has ambitions in Aosta as well."

"Does he?" asked Adelheid coyly. "I am not altogether sure what it is that Henry wants in Aosta." She glanced at Theophanu but did not address her directly. Theophanu sat unknowable in her silence.

Hugh seemed caught by surprise. "King Henry sent a force south to find you, Your Majesty, but perhaps you did not meet them. That would account for this terrible situation you now find yourself in. Therefore I beg you, Your Majesty, let me act as King Henry's ambassador: he seeks to aid you, who are the rightful queen of Aosta. He will aid you with an army, if need be."

"Yet I have heard he seeks to marry me to his bastard son, Sanglant, whom h§, intends to become king beside me."

There it was: a change in his expression as startling as a peal of distant thundeivripping away the calm of a hazy summer day. Then it was gonej "Why give to the son what the father deserves?" / I

"Do you think Henry wishes to marry me?" asked Adelheid.

"He would be a fool to turn away from a woman of your rank and quality, Kiut^Iajesty."

Theophanu came alive as a painted figure might stir, cracking its shell of paint, to walk out into the room. "My father's wishes cannot be known to you!

He hopes that Sanglant will marry Adelheid."

"Your Highness!" He was startled. He shifted, marking her place. "I did not know— This blinding cloth has disoriented me, or surely I would have been aware of your presence—

"And changed your tale?" demanded Theophanu. "But I am here, and I have listened. How do you intend to aid Ironhead in his plans?"

But he was more in control than she was. "No man can serve two masters.

To aid Ironhead for my own gain would be to betray King Henry." He had the elegant speech of a courtier, graceful and pleasing, but for the first time Rosvita heard a different timbre ring underneath that elegant tone, one as unyielding as granite. "I have done things I am not now proud of, I have been made to see how shamefully petty ambition can ruin a man of promise. But I have never acted in any way against my regnant." He almost seemed to be daring Theophanu to suggest otherwise, but she did not reply.

"I wish to hear Lord Hugh's proposal," said Adelheid.

"Is the Mother of this convent here?" asked Hugh. "Her permission must be gained, for what I propose might not meet with her approval."

Theophanu's grunt was itself a comment. "I am here, Son," said Mother Obligatia. "Speak freely before me."

"There is a crown of stones atop this rock. It is possible to travel long distances quickly through gateways created by the architecture of these stone circles."

"To travel?" demanded Adelheid, then laughed as at a particularly fine joke.

"You must explain yourself, Lord Hugh. I do not understand you."

"When we travel by ship, Your Majesty, we make landfall not at any cliff or coastline but at harbors suited to putting ashore. Think of the stone crowns as harbors, and the road traversed between each crown not as land or sea but as the aether, the element of the seven spheres, all that lies above the moon."

"How can this be possible?" cried Adelheid. "Isn't it blasphemy to suggest that we can travel the aether while we are living? Only the souls of the dead ascend through the seven spheres when they journey toward the Chamber of Light."

Hugh turned his head toward Mother Obligatia; despite his protestations about the blindfold, he could distinguish where each of the speakers sat. "Even the wall paintings in the guest chapel reveal the real purpose of the stone crowns. I cannot say if there are other paintings hidden away within this convent which reveal other secrets. But the painting I saw confirms that the ancient Aoi knew how to use the stone circles. Perhaps they even built them, for in the old stories they are portrayed as great magi."

"Can this be true, Mother?" asked Theophanu in a low voice. "Surely this is only the raving of a deluded mind. You don't believe him? Do you?"

Mother Obligatia was silent for a long time. Then she said only, "Go on, Lord Hugh."

He inclined his head to show respect and obedience. "Yesterday at dusk I observed strange lights emanating from the summit of the hill. I heard horrible screams. I even smelled a strange scent like that of lightning that has just struck, and I wondered. Can it be some creature resides there, guarding the crown? I have seen other crowns, but they are not so haunted, not any that I saw or heard tell of."

"Indeed, Son, you have guessed correctly. A daimone is trapped within the crown, by what agency I do not know."

"How long has it been trapped there?"

"Our records always speak of it dwelling there. St. Ekatarina founded this convent over four hundred years ago. So if it is possible to travel through the crowns, and I admit I am not sure I can believe such an incredible claim, then in any case ours is closed to such traffic because of the daimone which haunts it. It will kill anyone who comes too close."

He knelt with head bowed for a long time, and Rosvita watched those watching him. Adelheid leaned toward him as toward a tawny leopard that she wanted to stroke and yet remained unsure whether it might bite off her hand.

Theophanu's gaze was fixed on Hugh as if he were a snake about to strike.

Mother Obligatia merely watched him.

At last he .lifted his head and spoke. "What if I can bind that daimone, and free you from its shadow on this convent? Then Queen Adelheid, Princess/Theophanu, and their followers can escape through the crown/ and Ironhead can do nothing to stop them."

Adelheid sat back, face shining as if she had discovered that the leopard was vicious after all, and was pleased to have such a wild creature in her menagerie. "And you would come with us, leaving your party in Ironhead's hands?"

"Nay, I would remain behind. I will not abandon my escort. They are good men, and do not deserve such a fate."

"If you succeed at this plan, Ironhead will murder you for betraying him.

You have met him. How can you believe otherwise?"

"I recognize the kind of man he is. My mother is the same. I know how to handle Lord John."

"Surely, Cousin, you would not put your life in this man's hands," said Theophanu with soft fury. "How can we agree to be aided by the very sorcery for which he was condemned by the church? He himself admits that he was sent to be judged by the skopos for his crimes! How can we trust him? He could as easily send us into the crown to be killed by this creature—!"

The soldiers and courtiers all began to talk at once, a disturbed buzz that Captain Fulk did nothing to silence. Adelheid's noble companions afflicted the queen with a flood of questions while Theophanu's stouter companions were quieter but no less agitated as they whispered to each other, pulling on sleeves and pointing and gesturing. Hugh did nothing but listen, and Rosvita was abruptly afraid to breathe, as if he could hear the distinct quality of her breathing and by that means identify her. Had he known Theophanu was there all along?

Was he only playing with them? Yet the annoying suspicion plagued her that in speaking of his loyalty to King Henry, he was speaking truth.

The servants huddled in the darkness caught the fever, and soon the noise lifted until it echoed in the cavern.

Mother Obligatia rapped her walking stick three times on the floor, and there was a sudden numbing silence punctuated by two coughs and a sneeze.

"That is enough," she said without raising her voice. "We have heard what Lord Hugh proposes. Captain Fulk, escort Lord Hugh back to the guest hall, where he will await our decision."

Captain Fulk gestured to the escort. Hugh rose gracefully, as acquiescent as a tamed fawn.

"I pray you, Mother, let his blindfold be taken off before he goes," said Adelheid. "I would like to see if he is as handsome as everyone says."

Mother Obligatia merely turned her walking stick in her hands.

"In the convent of St. Radegundis, we worshiped at mass on either side of a screen that ran down the center of the nave so that we could not look one upon the other, female upon male. For as St. Radegundis herself was recorded as saying, 'The Enemy knows many ways by which to tempt women and men away from their holy path.' I have held to that rule here, and I do not let my nuns look upon men once they make their oaths as novices. But I know that custom is different in Wendar, and that clerics of both sexes mingle freely in God's work."

"I am no nun in any case, and not desirous of becoming one," said Adelheid.

"Even if that were the only way to save yourself from becoming Ironhead's bride?"

The question slipped out with deceptive smoothness. Theophanu's eyes widened, and she looked abruptly thoughtful. But Adelheid flung her head back, laughing, as if passion and price were things to be rejoiced in and embraced, the soul of her existence. "I will be queen in my own right, or dead, Mother. You know I mean no disrespect to the church."

"So you-will," agreed Obligatia, and Rosvita could not interpret the emotion in her voice. "Very well. Let him be unmasked for a moment."

At Adelheid's order, a lamp was lit. As Captain Fulk untied the cloth, Rosvita scuttled backward to hide herself in the shadows behind Theophanu's chair, and as Theophanu's remaining ladies shifted forward to see better, she was further hidden by their skirts. She could not see, only hear, as Hugh spoke in a gracious and amiable tone.

"Your Majesty," he said. "Your Highness. Mother."

Rosvita imagined him punctuating the greetings with an elegant bow, suitable to the humble yet melodious tone.

"Handsome enough," said Adelheid while her companions whispered and giggled among themselves, "but one young pretty husband/was enough for me!

He was always at the poor servant girls, arid I've always wondered if it was one of them who pushed hum down the stairs the night he died, Lady forgive him for his faults." /

"The, Lady and Lord kiiow our faults well," said Mother Obligatia, "and They are merciful. Captain, blindfold him and return him to thevgjjgst halL/then come back here."

It was done?~HTrgh was led away.

Rosvita slipped back to Theophanu's side. No one had time to comment on her odd behavior since Adelheid stood immediately to address abbess and princess.

"I say we chance it."

"We can't trust him!" cried Theophanu. "He'll drive us into the crown and let this terrible creature murder us all. Then Iron-head will be rid of us."

"Ironhead needs me! I am the last surviving member of the royal house of Aosta. Our kin has ruled here for fifty years. He can legitimately claim the throne only through me."

"Not if you're dead," retorted Theophanu. "Then the field is open."

"Not to him! His mother's father was a mercenary who made his fortune fighting with the Jinna and who later sold his daughter as a concubine to the lord of Sabina. But she was known to have had many lowborn lovers, and one of them is commonly supposed to have sired Ironhead."

"How came he to the lordship, then?" asked Theophanu.

"Ironhead murdered his half brother and married the widow, who possessed noble birth, lands, and treasure. But he sired no children on her, and the Arethousans now occupy her lands. No one knows if he murdered her or banished her to a convent. Do you think the nobles of Aosta will kneel before him?" Her anger cooled abruptly, and she turned to the abbess. "I beg your pardon, Mother. This is not our choice, is it? If you forbid it, then we cannot act."

Obligatia smoothed her hands down the length of her walking stick. "I will not interfere if you choose to accept Lord Hugh's aid."

"Do you think it possible the crown can serve as he says it can?" asked Rosvita, startled.

"When my predecessor was on her deathbed, she spoke to me privately and passed on to me knowledge that has been in the keeping of the abbesses here since the days of St. Ekata-rina. I have no proof, I have seen no evidence myself, but there are stories of crowns being woven into gateways that can lead a traveler to distant lands."

"An old magic now lost to us," mused Rosvita. "Yet, Your Highness," she added, addressing Theophanu, "did we not see the painting on the wal of the guest chapel? It could signify a way of traveling that humankind has long since forgotten—or never known."

"I am against it," replied Theophanu stubbornly. "I cannot do anything but speak against it, because I believe now and always that he tried to murder me by means of magic. But you have not yet said what you think, Sister Rosvita. Do you agree with me, or do you agree with Adelheid?"

"Is it right to accept aid from one who has already been censured for the act we would demand from him? And yet, a man like Ironhead who would cut down mature olive trees and castrate his enemies' loyal soldiers is not wise enough to make a good regnant. And if he is not of noble blood, then he is not worthy^" But strangely, she thought of Hathui, and she did not finish the comment. "In any case, Your Highness, we must act to benefit your father, whom we know to be a just and wise regnant." Yet she could only shake her head, burdened by the sudden weight of it all. "Nay, I cannot make a decision quickly when the matters before us are so grave. I must have time to think it over."

"Very well," said Theophanu, all cool strength again. "I will abide by your decision, Sister Rosvita. I will agree to whatever you choose."

"I pray you, Your Highness!" cried Rosvita, almost laughing, for the burden seemed doubly weighty now.

"Nay, I have spoken. I will agree to whatever you choose, Sister, because in this matter I trust your judgment better than I trust my own."

Ai, God! Theophanu trusted her to see Hugh in a reasoned light, where Theophanu could only view him through a veil of hatred and, perhaps, thwarted desire. But Rosvita was not sure she could judge Hugh and his offer with any greater wisdom, not given her own prejudices in the matter. She was not unbiased; she might yet be proved wrong about Liath.

Yet judge she must. The fate of a queen and a princess and the future of Aosta itself rode on her shoulders now.

Everyone was waiting on her. She found her voice at last. "If I might have some solitude to reflect, Mother?"

The abbess nodded. "As you wish, Sister. Paloma can escort you to the library."

It seemed a fitting place for a woman of her inclinations to make what might prove to be the most difficult, even damning, decision of her life.

FVAR woke disoriented. His head hurt, and his mouth tasted like rotten fish. After a moment, he realized he was not alone. Someone who was very warm, rather damp, and quite naked pressed against him on the lumpy bed.

From elsewhere in the dim hall, he heard whispers, giggles, grunting, and a moan that trailed off into a gasp of sudden pleasure.

The person beside him stirred. "Are you awake, my lord?" She had a high, breathless voice, like to a woman in the throes of carnal ecstasy. Last night at the Feast in honor of Candle-mass, that voice and her body had inflamed him past endurance; that, and the wine, of course. But it was like this every night, here in Gent in the newly built dormitory hall of the monastery of St. Perpetua, Lady of Battles and patron saint of the chaste and of barren women. Every night Father Ekkehard ordered a feast laid out and buxom young women brought in from ttown to serve food and drink, and after dicing, and singing, and dancing, and wrestling, and a great deal of wine, some of the girls left, and some stayed.

Someone flung open a shutter, and he shut his eyes. The light made his head pound. The girl slid off the bed and peed in the corner; he heard the quiet splash of it on the juniper boughs strewn on the floor. A moment later she sat down heavily next to him and stroked his loins unenthusiastically.

"We can ride that horse again, my lord," she said. "You know how I do love to ride."

In the sour grip of morning, her voice didn't sound quite as sincere as it had the night before. She sounded tired and frankly rather bored.

He fumbled under the mattress, found a few coins, and thrust them into her hands. "Nay," he said. "Go on, then."

"Ah!" For the first time, he heard real passion. "That's so generous, my lord."

He only waved his hand. He had to pee, and he wished mightily that she was gone. Yet as the girl shrugged on her clothing and left amidst sounds of other women leaving, someone vomiting, and the roll and scatter of a dice game starting up, he wished even more that he could fly away with her. But not with her, precisely; he didn't care any more for her than he had for the woman he'd bedded before her, or the one before that, or perhaps it had been the same woman several nights running; he wasn't sure. But Ekkehard never seemed to tire of their nightly feasts, and since Ekkehard was prince, and newly ordained father of the monastery of St. Perpetua on the Veser, they followed where he led.

"Darpng Ivar." Baldwin plopped down beside him, as naked as the girl had been. He was all sweaty, his hair was rumpled, and someone had dumped the dregs of the wine pot over his head. He was still the handsomest man in the hall.

"We're off to hunt. New game's been sighted in the eastern woods. Get dressed!"

Ivar groaned.

"Ridden to exhaustion!" Baldwin laughed. "Foundered! Or is he?" He nuzzled Ivar's neck far more passionately than the young woman had, and Ivar felt the familiar stirring of lust between his legs. Most anything could rouse it these days; most everything did.

"Not yet lamed!" Baldwin let his hands stray as he lay down beside Ivar on the narrow bed. And why not? There wasn't anything else to do here, day in, day out. At least Baldwin really loved him. The woman had just wanted the coin.

"Dear Ivar. How was she? Tell me about it, everything you did with her. Did she touch you like this? Did she remind you of Liath?"

Ivar bolted up, lust banished. "I have to pee." He practically fell off the bed in his haste to get away. The movement made his head swim, and his stomach curdle. He threw up into a corner, and began to weep, and after a bit he realized that Baldwin crouched beside him, a steadying hand on his back.

"There, now, I'm sorry," said Baldwin. "I promised you before not to talk about her anymore."

"I hope she's dead," said Ivar furiously. "She abandoned me. She never cared for me at all."

"That's right, agreed Baldwin. "Here, lie down again. You look ill." He whistled sharply, and one of the servingmen hurried over. "Get him some wine.

And get my clothes."

"I don't like it here," muttered Ivar. His head throbbed. "But there's nowhere to go, and no reason to go, and nothing, nothing, nothing! And I don't much like the prince," he added, hating himself for whining.

"I don't either," confided Baldwin. "But he got us away from the margrave, didn't he?" The serving man returned with a cup of wine and Baldwin's clothing.

"Come now. Where's that sweet smile?"

Ivar couldn't muster up any smiles, sweet, grumpy, or otherwise. He flung an arm over his eyes and lay there, hating himself and everything around him, except maybe Baldwin.

Must his head pound so? A moment later, the door into the dormitory hall was shoved open so hard that it banged on the wall behind. Baldwin leaped up.

The ill-named Brother Humili-cus appeared in the door like the wrath of God, glowering, with a frown so deep that it seemed permanently chiseled into his handsome features. He had been set in charge of the new monastery by King Henry; it was his precise and orderly rule that Ekkehard had, upon arriving, overset completely.

But Ivar didn't like Brother Humilicus either. In fact, Ivar no longer liked anyone, anywhere, anyhow. Except maybe Baldwin and Ermanrich and Sigfrid, because they had suffered with him at Quedlinhame. Except Lady Tallia, but he didn't really like her; one didn't like or dislike a saint. Saints lived beyond crude emotion. They simply existed to be venerated.

Yet he had done nothing but drown himself in wine and carnal lust.

Baldwin got a strong grip on his arm and yanked him to his feet as the other young novices stumbled up to show respect to Brother Humilicus, their senior in every way.

Including piety.

Prince Ekkehard sprawled on his bed, staring sulkily at Brother Humilicus but not bothering to rise. His bed was set somewhat apart from the others and, as was usual for him, he had two girls with him, one on either side. Milo lay curled like a dog at the foot of the bed, snoring loudly. One of the girls dressed hastily as Brother Humilicus stared at her with disgust. The other, Ekkehard's favorite, was a pretty, dark-haired woman at least five years older than the prince. Her slender body already showed signs of pregnancy. Carrying a royal bastard had made her proud, and she took her cue from the prince: She stretched insolently, displaying swollen breasts and belly.

"You have missed morning prayers, Father." Brother Humilicus felt obliged to say this every morning.

"So I have. Here, Milo." He nudged Milo with a foot, and the boy snorted awake. "Get me my hunting clothes. Dear Brother Humilicus, please see that the horses are ready. Will my cousin Lord Wichman be coming with us?"

"As you wish, Father," replied Brother Humilicus tonelessly. He withdrew without further comment.

Ivar pulled on his tunic, stumbled outside, and washed his face in the cistern. Although winter's chill stung the air, no ice had formed over the water.

In the last month or so snow had dusted the ground two or three times and melted off, and it had rained a few times, nothing more. As he stood breathing in the cold air, the ache in his stomach subsided, but nothing could ease the ache in his heart. He didn't want to be here in Gent; he didn't want to go back to Heart's Rest or Quedlinhame, and he couldn't anyway. There was no reason to be anywhere. He had had a good life before Liath. He had been happy then, almost. It was all her fault.

"Maybe she did witch you," said Baldwin, coming up behind him and resting a hand companionably on his shoulder.

Ivar began to weep, hated himself for weeping, and got angry instead.

"What was the point of seeing the miracle at Quedlinhame? Why would God torment us with seeing Her handiwork so close up, and then abandon us?"

Baldwin shrugged, found a ceramic pot on the ground, and used it to sluice water through his hair. When he straightened, he set the pot down and wiped water from his eyes and lips. A bead dripped from his nose. "God never abandoned us. The miracle is still with us in our hearts, if we let it be. Maybe Liath was really an agent of the Enemy, like they said at the council. The biscops and presbyters wouldn't condemn her for no reason, would they? Maybe she shot a poisoned arrow into your heat, Ivar, and that's why you're so sad and angry all the time. Prince Ekkehard has noticed it. He's not sure he wants you among his companions if you won't drink and laugh and sing with the rest of us."

"And whore and be drunk every night and never pray and do nothing but please myself? That's hardly God's work!"

Baldwin picked a spray of wilted parsley, chewed on it, then spat it out.

"How can we know what God's work is? I just do what I'm told."

"You don't! You ran away from Margrave Judith." "I had to," said Baldwin solemnly. "God made me. God whispered to me that Margrave Judith sent her last husband into a battle where she knew he'd be killed, because she wanted to marry me. God warned me that she'd do the same to me in four or five years, when a younger, handsomer boy came along."

Ivar regarded Baldwin in the fine light of a pleasant winter's morning.

"Baldwin, there isn't a handsomer man than you, not in this entire kingdom."

"She might still get tired of me. She might sell me to the Arethousans, and they'd cut off my cock. They like eunuchs there. That's what Father Hugh told me. Anyway, I don't like her and I never will. I don't want to be married to a woman like that. She treated me like a horse! Just something she would use and then keep around until she needed it again!"

"Is there a woman you would like to be married to?" Baldwin considered this for a long time. "One who treated me well," he said finally. "But meanwhile, I'm free of her. If I had to be Prince Ekkehard's whore before and his flattering courtier now, so be it. If I have to embrace his leftover whores because he thinks that's funny, so be it. I don't mind, as long as they don't smell. Why should I mind it?" "Because it's boring."

"Boring!" Baldwin's perfect features registered astonishment. "A woman or two every night, or a friend, if you wish that instead. Hunting almost every day.

Good food and the best wine. Singing and dancing and wrestling. Acrobats to entertain you in every way. Poets singing tales of ancient battles. How can that be boring?"

"Ai, God!" The notion, once conceived, took root fiercely in Ivar's heart.

"But it's just the same thing over and over again. In the end, you've nothing."

"The same thing! You can't tell me you weren't as amazed as the rest of us by those acrobat women and what they could do. Lord Wichman would have made them stay a month if he could have."

"But they didn't stay a month, did they? None of them wanted to." Ivar recalled the acrobats vividly. The lithe, half-naked girls who had done rope tricks were zealously guarded by the men of the troupe, even to the point of offending an amorous Ekkehard, but two of the older women had performed in other, quite astonishing, ways for the men. But the troupe had left as soon as their pockets were filled with coin and gifts. "They didn 't like us. No more than you liked being Margrave Judith's husband. Animals eat and drink and hunt and rut, Baldwin! How are we different from the beasts, as we are now?"

Baldwin blinked at him. A sudden burst of color and noise erupted from the dormitory hall as Ekkehard and his companions emerged into the cloister, laughing and chattering. The few monks who still labored under Brother Humilicus' rule scurried away into the church, which was the only place Ekkehard never profaned with whores.

"Come!" the young prince ordered. "Baldwin! We go to hunt!"

Baldwin grabbed Ivar by the wrist. "You've got to humor him," he muttered, "or he won't protect us!" He tugged Ivar along in the prince's wake, and Ivar let himself be led: After all, there was nothing else to do. At the monastery gate they were met by Ekkehard's cousin, Lord Wichman, who paced with furious energy. Looking up, he saw Ekkehard.

"You're late abed, little Cousin!" he cried. "We should have been out an hour ago. I won't wait for you again!" It had taken Wichman months to recover from the wounds he had received at the battle for Gent last summer, and he still limped, but he was otherwise hale and restless and, as Count Harl often said of such restless young men, ripe for trouble. He had made himself de facto lord of Gent in the absence of any other claimants, and he ruled by turns leniently and intemperately. He laughed now. "And I won't have to! I've received news that there have been Quman raids in the East. My companions and I are going to ride east to fight the barbarians!"

"I'll go with you!" cried Ekkehard.

"You've no experience fighting. You'll just slow us down and get in the way."

Ekkehard had a pretty face and a mulish way of thrusting out lips and chin when he was crossed. "How can I get experience fighting if no one will let me ride into the field?"

"You're an abbot now." Wichman laughed again, not particularly kindly.

Ivar didn't think Wichman liked his young cousin; he tolerated him because he was bored. "You have spiritual fields to tend."

Ekkehard did not back down easily. "But just yesterday you got a message from Duchess Rotrudis that you were to return to Osterburg to get married.

What about that?"

"I burned the message." Wichman shrugged. "I'll tell my mother I never received it."

"I won't tell her that," said Ekkehard slyly. "I'll write to her myself and tell her all about your disobedience."

Wichman scratched his beard, shifting off his bad leg. "Very well. But it's your head that'll hang from a Quman belt, not mine, Cousin." He didn't say the words fondly. "You and your companions can ride with me, but I warn you, you must abide by my command. I won't have you getting the rest of us killed because you're foolish."

Ekkehard thought about this, but he wasn't stupid. "Very well," he agreed.

"Now can we go to hunt?"

One of Wichman's companions stepped up and whispered in the lord's ear.

"Ah." He beckoned. A ragged-looking person was brought forward from the rear of his troop. "I've a gift for you, a fish my guards netted at the gates last night.

He demanded to be let in, said he'd come all the way from Firsebarg in Varre at your express order. But it's just another monk, and a fat one, at that. I don't think your lemans will think much of him." Then Wichman laughed with a sharp grin. "He's not pretty like the other ones."

And there he was, looking tired but still stout and untroubled. His bare feet were a mass of sores, and his hair was ragged and grown long, but he was happy to see them.

"Ermanrich!" Baldwin pounded Ermanrich on the back and then led him before Prince Ekkehard, who allowed Ermanrich to kiss his hand and then dismissed him. He was of no further interest.

"Come, Baldwin," said the prince. "I got you what you wanted. Now we'll go hunt."

"I'll stay behind and make sure he's tended to," said Ivar quickly, and Baldwin gave him a quick look, a silent gesture of approval.

Permission was granted. In truth, the young prince cared not one whit whether Ivar stayed or followed. Horses were brought;the prince and his followers mounted and rode away all in good cheer.

Ivar led Ermanrich to the infirmary, empty at this hour except for the infirmarian. That good man regarded Ivar suspiciously and signed Ermanrich to lay down on a cot. He rubbed Ermanrich's feet with lavender oil, then clipped and combed his tangled hair. After that he left, no doubt to inform Brother Humilicus of this new arrival. Ivar regarded Ermanrich's feet with awe: the skin on the soles was cracked and dry, as thick and tough as horn. "Did you walk the whole way? Barefoot? In this cold?"

"It took me two months!" cried Ermanrich cheerfully. "And what a fine road it was!" He rolled onto his stomach and tugged up his robe to display his backside. A mass of old welts and stripes marked his rump and back. "The prior at Firsebarg himself whipped me every day because I wouldn't recant! Burr'

knew God would hear my call." He let his tattered robe drop and heaved a sigh of relief. "Then Lord Reginar came from Firsebarg and released me to come here, to Gent. I knew God had called me!" Ivar handed him ale and bread, and as he bolted his bread between sloppy swallows of ale, the chanting of monks in the church serenaded them. Ermanrich broke the silence finally. "Do you chant mass at all hours here? They only did that at feast days at Firsebarg."

"Nay. You heard that Queen Mathilda died?" "So we did, may she rest in peace. We prayed for a whole week. Then Lord Reginar let me go."

"The queen bequeathed her computarium to Prince Ekkehard. So the monks here pray for the souls of the dead written into that book—all her dead kinfolk and, oh, as many other people as gave fine gifts to Quedlinhame or did some other service. All those prayers take up most of the day."

"But I saw Prince Ekkehard ride out to hunt. Isn't he father here, over the monks? He should be praying, not hunting. The queen's own computarium! How can he treat it so lightly? Isn't it his duty to pray for the souls of his dead kinfolk, as she did, so that his prayers here will help lift their souls to the Chamber of Light?"

"I see Brother Ivar has chosen to hold firm to his vows this fine morning and stay here to pray." The door darkened as Brother Humilicus entered, followed by the infirmarian, who wrung his hands. Humilicus' dry words always made Ivar wince. "What is this? Another stray taken in by our holy father? But he speaks with good sense. Do you seek to serve God, Brother?" he asked Ermanrich.

Ermanrich jumped to his feet and bowed respectfully. "So I do, Brother. I greet you in the name of God, Our Mother, She who delivered Herself of a child born of mortal parents who yet partook of no stain of the Enemy. This child She named Her Son, and through His suffering and redemption we ourselves can be saved." Then he squared his shoulders stoutly, waiting for the rod of martyrdom, or at least a switch across the buttocks.

"A heretic," said Brother Humilicus mildly. "I should have known. But, alas, we have fal en so far that I find I prefer a heretic who serves God with devotion than an abbot who mouths the truth but serves only himself. What is your name?"

"I am called Ermanrich, Brother." He made the sign of respect to Humilicus, and knelt obediently. "I see you are engaged in God's work, even if you are misguided. If you do not yet believe in the truth, then I will pray that God will lead you to the truth in time."

Brother Humilicus merely glanced at the infirmarian, who busied himself brewing some kind of drink over by the cupboard where he kept his herbs and simples. "These are the days when all things are turned asunder. Abbots use the cloister as a whorehouse, and novices lecture their elders. Still, it is an odd coincidence. Biscop Suplicia came to me only yesterday to complain of certain paintings fashioned by the Enemy, telling the tale of this heresy, that have appeared here and there on walls in the city. It's a foul hand that appears fair to the eye but conceals beneath its skin only maggots and worms."

They endured a lecture from Brother Humilicus on the evils of heresy and disobedience, but Ermanrich's presence had bolstered Ivar's heart. For the first time in weeks, he felt hope stir. Perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps life was not a meaningless round of eating and shitting and whoring and vomiting after all.

Who was painting pictures in Gent?

In time, even Brother Humilicus had to leave off. He grudgingly allowed Ivar and Ermanrich into the church to pray at the service of Terce. But Humilicus had a monastery to supervise which he ran on a tight rein in Ekkehard's absence.

He did not like Ekkehard's boys, as he called them when the prince wasn't around, and he made no effort to include them in the daily round of monastic life. It was easy enough to slip out the servants' gate and trudge alongside fields of winter wheat and rye, then cross the stone bridge into Gent. Because they were still novices, their hair hadn't yet been cut in a monk's tonsure, so they could pass for young fraters. Fraters passed aplenty through Gent on their way east to convert the heathens or to preach among the newly-converted tribes, the Rederii, the Salavii, the Polenie and the horse-sacrificing Ungrians, the red-haired Starvikii and the warrior clans who called themselves Rossi. Some of these fraters stayed a night at the guesthouse in the monastery, and sometimes Ivar would sneak away from the feasts in the dormitory hall to listen to them converse with Brother Humilicus about their adventures among the flat-faced Bodinavas who ate, peed, fought, fornicated, and gave birth all in the saddle, the dreadful Quman who took human heads and wore wings on their bodies, the Sazdakh warrior women who killed any man who set foot in their territory, or the mysterious Kerayit whose witch women were so ugly that one glance from their eyes would turn you to stone. They all knew tales of other fraters, their brothers in the church, who. had been granted glorious martyrdoms among the savages, and they spoke of these blessed events in marvelous, gory detail.

"Look!" murmured Ermanrich, shaking Ivar and pointing to a whitewashed wall. Color crept out over the long white wall, an unfolding tale told with pictures: God reigns in heaven upon her high seat, holding the entire universe in Her hand; into the body of the blessed St. Edessia She miraculously places a holy child who partakes both of human nature and of God's nature; he grows to be a man, and receives in a dream the Holy Word; he preaches, and followers come to him, chief among them The-cla, Matthias, Mark, Lucia, Johanna, Marian, and Peter; he is arrested on charges of sedition by the officers of the Dariyan Empire; he appears before the Empress Thaisannia, and when he refuses to honor her with sacrifices, she condemns him to a criminal's death; he is flayed alive and his heart is torn out of his body, but where his blood falls on the earth, roses bloom.

They stared, and as they stared, Ivar became aware that townsfolk passed by the wall to point and whisper. Someone had placed a withered garland of autumn flowers below the painting that depicted Daisan's suffering at the hands of the empress' executioners.

He moved forward to cautiously touching the painting. The colors already cracked and peeled; a few storms would erase it, as though it had never been.

But the images would remain in people's hearts.

Who had done this?

"Stop, friends!" Ermanrich was saying behind him. "Gather 'round! I can tell you of this mystery, which has been hidden from you. Here is the truth! Listen!"

Ivar began to turn round, to silence him—and bumped into a girl of perhaps twelve years of age. She was stout, well-formed, with the golden-blonde hair common to these parts and a peculiar cast of skin, a kind of reddish, nutty brown. She grabbed his elbow and looked him right in the eye, as if trying to see into his heart. Dirt smeared her chin but she was otherwise clean. A well-polished wooden Circle of Unity hung at her chest.

"What is it, child?" he asked, in the way of fraters. She tugged on his elbow, then signed, "Come," in the sign language used by churchfolk. Ermanrich was well launched into a sermon, and townspeople gathered to listen, some with interest, some with scorn, some no doubt because they had nothing better to do.

The girl pulled at him again, and signed again. "What do you want?" he demanded.

She didn't reply, but she pointed at the pictures and made stroking movements, as with a brush. Abandoning Ermanrich, he followed her.

She walked quickly, ducking into an alley. A stray dog nosed through trash.

A broken pot had been abandoned in a shadowed comer under overhanging eaves. They emerged onto a street and walked alongside the wall of the palace compound from whence Lord Wichman lorded it over the town; he had topped the walls with bright banners, red and gold, black and silver, that fluttered in a wind off the river. The girl tugged on Ivar's hand, and they cut through a courtyard where a dye-pot bubbled over an open fire and a delicately-formed girl-child of some four years played with a doll sewn out of scraps of cloth. She looked up and babbled meaningless syllables at them, but Ivar's companion only made the sign of "silence" toward the girl before pulling him on. Beyond well and cistern stood a small door; Ivar had to duck his head to avoid hitting it. They came into an alley made dark by houses built out over the narrow lane until they almost touched walls above. Rounding a corner, he blinked away the sunlight.

There, alongside a freshly plastered compound wall, a crowd of about fifteen people had assembled to stare. The girl tugged him forward, and when the townsfolk saw that she came attended by a frater, they stood aside to let Ivar through.

Beyond them, working feverishly, a slight, robed figure drew figures on the wall and filled them in with dyes: pollen gold, willow purple, cornflower blue, juniper brown. The blessed Daisan, released from the mortal clothing of his skin, rises to the Chamber of Light to rejoin his Holy Mother. His disciplas, below, weep tears of joy—

The painter turned to dab at a pot of ink, and Ivar saw his face.

"Sigfrid!"

He jerked up, spilling the pot, turned full to face his accuser. His thin face looked sweetly familiar, but there was something wrong with the set of his jaw.

"Ai, God! Sigfrid! What are you doing here?" Ivar leaped forward and grasped him by the arms, then hugged him. "How did you come to leave Quedlinhame?"

Sigfrid wept a few tears. His gentle face shone with joy as he embraced Ivar in his turn. Then, with ink-stained hands, he pointed to his feet and signed,

"Walk." His feet, like Ermanrich's were sore-ridden, callused, and filthy.

"We were there, Sigfrid, at the death of Queen Mathilda. Baldwin and I were in hiding because we ran away from Margrave Judith, and we escaped with Prince Ekkehard, but we couldn't stay in Quedlinhame Convent with the prince because we thought they might recognize us but we went to the church anyway and we heard you, we heard you jump up and start preaching. They dragged you away. Did they throw you out? How did you come to be here?"

Sigfrid didn't answer. That supple, sharp mouth merely smiled softly, betraying the intelligence that lit his being. Sigfrid was alive in a way the rest of them weren't. Once he believed, he believed with all of him, every particle. Ivar saw it shining from his face, and for an instant he was seized by the ugly claws of jealousy: Why should Sigfrid be granted such certainty while he spun in this agony of doubt?

But wasn't that only the voice of the Enemy, seeking to make him hate his friend?

He grabbed him by the shoulders. "Sigfrid, speak to me."

Sigfrid indicated the wall, and his hands and then opened his mouth.

They had cut out his tongue.

"God's mercy!" cried Ivar. "Who did this to you? Was it bandits on the road?" Sigfrid shook his head, all the time regarding Ivar with an expression brimming with unspilled joy.

Ivar felt his breath coming in gasps as the awful truth dawned. "They did this to you at Quedlinhame?"

Sigfrid signed, "Yes."

Simply enough: Mother Scholastica had ordered it done, but Sigfrid showed no sign of anger, of hate, of sorrow. God's will had been done: They had cut out his tongue, but they hadn't silenced him. Speaking with the tongue was only one way of talking.

It all flowered then, like the rose blooming from the blood of the blessed Daisan. Sigfrid had given up his tongue because he was not afraid to speak the truth. But Ivar still had a tongue. He could still speak, just as Ermanrich preached a few blocks away.

God had chosen them to witness the miracle. In their turn, they must give testimony. After all, it was that easy, God's will made plain. He saw now how everything had led him to this moment, and where they would go from here, riding east with Prince Ekkehard and Lord Wichman into those lands where the hand of the false church did not grip so tightly.

Ivar faced the crowd, now some two dozen in number. The mute girl stared at him, eyes wide, waiting. The whole world was waiting.

"My friends," he began.

IN the hours between Sext and Nones Rosvita sat in the library with the chronicle of St. Ekatarina's convent open on the lectern before her. Most of the entries were innocuous enough: In the year : There was a great plague among the birds. In the year : The queen sent her youngest daughter to become abbess over us. In the year : A blizzard came untimely in Cintre and all the grapes withered. A party of clerics from Varre stayed three weeks in the guest hall. In the year : Certain omens were seen in the villages, and there was a comet that blazed in the southern sky for two months, and after this there was an earthquake. Many villagers came to the ladder to beg for bread. The king died in Reggio.

Would the chronicle record Queen Adelheid's death? In the last months of the year : The queen starved to death at the convent of St. Ekatarina. Or there might be other outcomes. In the year : The queen was strangled by her husband, John Iron-head, after a child was bom to her who had a legitimate claim to the throne. Ironhead named himself regent for the infant.

Could they trust Hugh? Would they condemn themselves by trafficking in magic, even to save their own lives? Could his claims possibly be true in any case?

Was history merely a record of one bad choice made in place of a worse one? They had so few options left, and all of them desperate. Yet did it have to be so? She had searched in many chronicles, had learned to read between the lines and in the marginalia so that she wouldn't discover too late things that she ought to have known, that needed to be woven into the story so that her history of the Wendish people would be complete. There was always something that had been left hidden, something that had been forgotten.

What is in plain sight is hidden best, as the old saying went.

The pattern developed slowly and increased markedly over the last one hundred years, after the death of Emperor Taillefer. They began as marginalia but soon appeared within the main body of the text, listings that made no sense but mostly were linked with a comment about a noble entourage that had sheltered unexpectedly in the guest hall: Hersford in the duchy of Fesse, seven stones; Krona in the duchy of Avaria, nine stones; Novomo in the county of Tuscerna, eleven stones; Thersa in the duchy of Fesse, eight stones.

Mice scratched in the walls. "Sister Rosvita. I hope I do not disturb you?"

She started, slapping a hand down over parchment, then chuckled as Mother Obligatia hobbled in. "I thought you were mice, and then I remembered there aren't any mice here." She rose hastily and drew forward a bench so that Obligatia could sit.

"There are mice, surely enough. Most of us are mice, creeping along the halls of the powerful. If we do not stay out of their sight, they will crush us."

"Strong words, Mother."

"Surely the ways of queens and princes are no mystery to you." She rested a hand on the Vita of St. Radegundis, which lay closed on the second lectern next to the almost finished copy, abandoned these hours by Sister Petra, who had gone to help carry water. "Have you found your answers?"

"Nay, I have only found more questions, Mother. I am too curious. It is the burden God have given me. What am I to make of entries like this one: 'St.

Thierry in the duchy of Arconia, four stones.' The convent of St. Thierry is near the seat of the count of Lavas, is it not?"

"So it is," said Obligatia, not looking at the chronicle. "I was raised in the convent of St. Thierry, although I never saw Lavas Holding myself. Who rules there now?"

"Count Lavastine, son of the younger Charles, grandson of the elder Lavastine. His heir is a well-mannered and serious young man, Lord Alain, although I must note that he was born a bastard and only accepted as Lavastine's heir about two years ago."

"You are a true historian, I see. Lavastine had no legitimate heirs?"

"He was given no child born in legal marriage. Here is another entry, a place I have visited, above Hersford Monastery." She touched the entry. "Seven stones, just as it says here. Ai, God, Villam lost his son there, who had gone to play among the stones."

"The boy died?"

"I do not know. Young Berthold vanished with six companions. No one knows what became of him, but I had always assumed that he crawled too far in the darkness and fell, and was killed. Now I'm not sure what to believe. Poor child. He had the making of a good historian. He should have been put in the church."

"Ah. It is always a terrible thing to lose a beloved child."

"These are all stone crowns, are they not? When Henry was still prince, he lost his Aoi lover at Thersa, the one who gave him his son, Sanglant. She, too, vanished among the stones, so the story goes." She turned another page, searched it, and read out loud. "Brienac in the lordship of Josselin in Salia, seven stones. Here, another with seven stones, in the ruins of Karti-ako. I did not know there were so many stone circles."

"No one can know, unless they look. That which is in plain sight is easily hidden."

"But they were built a very long time ago, even before the Dariyan Empire.

The chroniclers of that time mentioned them as being ancient then, and they wondered if giants had once roamed the earth. No one knows who built them."

"Who do you think built them?"

"Giants, perhaps. But if it were giants, then why have we never found the remains of palaces fit for giants? I think Lord Hugh is right, that the Aoi must have built them." It was difficult to say; giving Hugh any truth undercut her desire to condemn him utterly. "If that's so, then their secret was lost."

Within the walls of the convent, wind did not blow, only a faint whine heard as down a far distance. No oil burned in the library, and with the sun no longer overhead to pierce down through the shafts, it had become quite dim.

Rosvita only noticed it now as she looked at the convent chronicle and had to squint to read the letters; the change had come so gradually.

"I do not want my secrets to be lost," said Mother Obligatia. Her fingers brushed Rosvita's like the flutter of a moth's wings, moved on to the Vita. "I have held them close to my breast for many years. But this book is a sign." She opened the Vita at random and read aloud.

" 'When the women of the court came to Baralcha, they brought the finest clothing sewn of Katai silk and embroidered with thread beaten out of gold and silver, but the blessed Radegundis would not wear the garments of earth, however splendid they might be. She would not come before the emperor dressed in gold and silver but only in the robes of the poor, which she had herself woven out of nettles. And the women of the court were afraid. They feared the displeasure of the emperor would be turned on them, who brought her to the holy emperor dressed like a pauper instead of a queen, yet in her beggar's robes the blessed Radegundis so outshone the multitude in their rich cloth

ing that even the emperor's fierce hounds bowed before her in recognition of her holiness.' " Her voice failed, and she shut her eyes. Like all old women, it was hard to judge her age. Her skin was wrinkled but otherwise soft and white, that of a woman who has spent much of her life indoors. She had a noblewoman's hands, unmarked by the calluses brought on by hard labor but still strong.

"Brother Fidelis ended his days at the monastery at Hereford," said Rosvita, seeing that his book had uncovered a deep well of emotion in the abbess. What had brought it on? "He must have been almost one hundred years old when I spoke to him. He gave the book to me just before he died. It was his last gift. It was his testimony."

"Indeed, it was his testimony." Her breath came a little ragged, as though she had been running. "That after all these years I should again touch something he once touched—

"You speak in riddles, Mother." She spoke in her calmest voice, but her heart was aflame.

"I think I fell under a spell that summer. He was old enough to be my grandfather, full fifty years of age, and I was perhaps fifteen. He worked in the garden, and because of that I thought he was a lay brother. But he was kind, and sad, and I had always been lonely and alone in the world. We girls at the convent of St. Thierry were never allowed outside the walls. Then I was uprooted from the only place I had ever known and brought to Salia, where I scarcely understood the language. I had taken a novice's vows because I knew nothing else in life, but I found those vows were easy enough to forswear."

" 'I have sinned once, and greatly,'" murmured Rosvita, recalling the scene: the door made of branches lashed together, his refuge a poor hovel so crudely made that the winter winds must have whistled through its gaps day in and day out. The butterfly whisper of his voice. " 'For lying with a woman.'" The thought was almost too blasphemous to utter, but Rosvita had never shied away from wells and ditches when her curiosity led her through rough country. "You were his lover, the one he sinned with."

Obligatia went white, as if she had been slapped, and then she chuckled.

"You are well suited to history writing."

"I beg you, I meant no insult! He said he still thought of her with affection."

A single tear budded at the corner of her eye, but it was so dry that the air wicked it away. Obligatia went on with perfect composure. "We did not sin. He did not touch me until he forswore his own vows as a monk, until we spoke the pledge of marriage before a witness, under the eyes of God. We should have left to start a life elsewhere. But we were both foundlings. We had known no place but the cloister. He thought we could remain on the estate as laborers. I see now how innocent we both were.

"Of course it was all discovered when my pregnancy became advanced.

The abbess was furious, because she wanted no stain to mar the sanctity of the convent founded by the saintly queen so recently deceased. Ai, Lady, the pain of my labor was as nothing to the pain of being separated from him. They took the child away from me as soon as it was born, but not before I saw that it was a girl. They never spoke of the child again. I never saw Fidelis again either. He was sent away, or locked away. I never knew. I was so terribly alone. Solitude is always worse once you have known companionship.

"I was taken to a convent in Wendar and placed under a vow of silence in a hermit's cell, but I ran away from there because my heart had broken and I could not bear to be alone with my thoughts as one day ran into the next. I could no longer hear God even in the songs of the birds. I wandered destitute for a week or more, eating berries and onion grass. I finally came to a manor house at an estate called Bodfeld. I was taken in because they wanted someone to teach their daughters Dariyan. The nearby convent dedicated to St. Felicity was run by an abbess from a family they had long feuded with, so they refused to ask her help in finding a tutor, but I had enough education to teach the girls how to read and write and figure.

"There was a nephew, the son of the lady's dead brother. He became infatuated with me. I was like any plant starved for water. Events progressed as they will with the young. He insisted on marrying me, and because they were kindhearted and had a plot of land somewhat away from the main house, because he mattered little in terms of their succession and I had the manners of a noblewoman and the education of a nun, they let us marry. In time, I gave birth to a boy-child. We called him Bernard, after my husband's dead father.

Then both my husband and his aunt died, and her sister came into the estate.

She did not like me. She took the baby from me and gave it to a monastery to raise, since she didn't want the expense of feeding us."

"How cruel," murmured Rosvita, but Obligatia went on steadily, as if she were afraid she would not get it all out of her heart, confined there for so long in silence as she had herself been confined within the rock walls of this convent.

"I was forced to retire to the convent of St. Felicity; but I was ill-treated there because they resented the work I had done at Bodfeld. God willed that an educated man, an Eagle who was the favorite of King Arnulf, sheltered one night at the guesthouse of the convent. It was my duty at that time to bring food for guests, although I had to slide it under a screen, for I wasn't allowed to see them. But I was curious, and he was talkative. Four months later the abbess received a letter from the king's schola, requesting that I be sent to study at the schola in Mainni. "I studied at Mainni for one year. Then that same Eagle came by the schola on his way to Darre with a party of clerics. I was taken south with them so that I might come to the attention of the skopos. I was badly injured in a fall on the passage over St. Vitale's Pass and the party brought me here to recover. Mother Aurica took me in with the promise to send me on once I had healed. But poor Sister Lucida was left as a foundling at the ladder not two months later, and I was given the care of her, such a small, sickly child. I could not bear to leave her, and I no longer trusted the world. Mother Aurica agreed to the deception: We sent word that I had died of blood poisoning. I gave up the name Lavrentia, given me by the abbess at St. Thierry, and I took the name Obligatia, to show that I understood that God had forgiven me for my sins by giving me a child to care for. That was forty years ago."

The story was so incredible that Rosvita could not fasten on it all at once, and in the way of such things got hold of a small detail, almost lost in the retelling. "You must be speaking of the Eagle Wolfhere."

"Ah." Her face lit, as at an old toy rediscovered. "That was his name! I had forgotten it. Stranger yet, I saw him a year ago, at the palace of the skopos in Darre. He is an old man now, certainly, but not one whose face I would forget, for he rescued me from misery."

"Why were you in Darre?" Rosvita found herself compulsively stroking flat the slightly curled edges of the parchment and at once clasped her hands and set them firmly in her lap.

"It is customary when the abbess of St. Ekatarina dies that her chosen successor travel to Darre to be blessed by the skopos. I waited in the palace guesthouse for a week before I was granted an audience with our blessed Mother, Clementia, in her audience chamber. I was there when the Eagle arrived, sent by King Henry of Wendar. I heard him tell his story of Biscop Antonia of Mainni and the accusations of sorcery laid against her. I heard Mother Clementia lay down the punishment of excommunication, and I will tell you honestly, Sister, that I feared for my daughters, the nuns who remained here while I ventured forth. What if we were accused of sorcery because of the creature who haunts the stone crown? Because of these chronicles so conscientiously recorded over the years, that take note of stone circles? What might they accuse us of, for as you have seen yourself, there are secrets hidden here. So I returned, speaking nothing."

"Yet you are willing to countenance Hugh of Austra working sorcery."

"I know what it is to be kinless and unprotected, at the mercy of those who have more power than you. Adelheid sheltered here once before, many years ago. She was a sweet, brave child, always cheerful. I would aid her if I can."

"But Hugh will know your secrets as well. He can use that knowledge against you."

Obligatia extended a hand to touch the library wall, here washed white and painted with lozenges inside lozenges, like puzzle pieces stacked one upon the next. Rosvita could not imagine living forty years within such walls, even if one learned to let the spirit fly free. A corner, a shadow, or a wall always broke the line of sight; only on the terrace did a vista open up, and then the view never changed. She had grown used to the view changing, like life, a journey where no scene is ever truly repeated, no river ever crossed twice because every river is always a new river from one hour to the next.

"He knows them now in any case," Obligatia said quietly. After a moment, she went on. "Last summer a lone frater begged leave to spend a night in our guest hall. It is unusual for us to receive guests, as you can imagine. If travelers over St. Vitale's Pass must leave the main road because of rain, then sometimes they will wash up here, but otherwise we live an isolated life. It is what we seek, each for our own reasons."

"Yet when guests arrive, it seems according to the testimony of this chronicle that you ask them if they know of any stone crowns."

"Few of us are immune to curiosity. So I asked our traveler that question.

He called himself Brother Marcus. And then he did a strange thing: He called me by my old name, the one I had given up when I chose life as a nun here. He called me 'Lavrentia.' How could he have known that name was once mine, for he was younger than I?"

"Who knew in any case that you were last seen alive entering this convent?"

"The Eagle, Wolfhere."

"Who may have seen you at the skopos' palace. Yet there must have been other people in the party that you traveled south with forty years ago."

"In all these years, I have seen no other person I recognized. Mother Aurica is long since dead. My nuns know me only as Mother Obligatia. The Eagle is the only link, and it suddenly seemed strange to me that he had made such an effort to remove me from St. Felicity all those years ago. Why would this other man come and ask for me by my old name? What of my secrets did he know?"

"'She is back in our hands,'" murmured Rosvita, recalling the scene before the fire high in Julier Pass. "Wolfhere was banished from the court by King Henry years ago. In the time of King Arnulf it was said that he knew more than a man ought. I have myself seen that he can speak through fire. Yet that power is also known as the Eagle's gift. Did this Brother Marcus give any reason why he wanted to find you?"

"Nay. But I admit freely, Sister, that I was frightened because I feared the woman who removed me from St. Thierry when I was a girl. I had nightmares that she still pursued me. It seems odd to me now that in Salia, in a monastery where women and men were so strictly separated, I managed to find my way into a garden where a monk worked."

"Hindsight is a marvelous thing. It might have been an accident."

"I no longer believe it was, and yet I have no proof. Did I not say who came to fetch me in Varre, what person took me away from St. Thierry? It was Sister Clothilde."

"The same Clothilde who was St. Radegundis' handmaiden and later her companion in the convent?"

"The same one. I never doubt that she was loyal to Radegundis. I believed then and believe now that she would have smiled kindly and cut the throat of any person who crossed her. No one ever crossed her."

"Except you. For a novice to have carnal knowledge of a monk, both of them under her care, in the monastery—

"Nay, Sister, she knew of it. She was the one who witnessed our pledge of marriage. She allowed it to happen. That is why I am telling you this. When I was young, I was too passionate and too starved to think clearly. But Brother Marcus asked questions that woke my memories, and now I can see patterns that I could not read then. You are a historian, Sister. I am sharing my secret with you because I think there is an answer to be found. I think now that they left me alive because I was ignorant."

"Or because they thought you were dead."

Mother Obligatia smiled bitterly. "You have a mind for this, Sister. But I am now determined not to let my secret die with me. I lost my first two children because I had no power in the world, no kin to protect me. I now rule as Mother over a tiny convent of six nuns and two lay sisters. That we guard a mystery within was the charge given to the mothers here centuries ago, but I wonder if the skopos and her advisers have forgotten its existence."

"You have honored me with your confession, Mother."

"Nay, I have only given you another burden. You have a keen mind and a level heart, Sister. I beg you, find out why a man calling himself Brother Marcus came to our guest hall last summer and asked for me by the name Lavrentia, which I abandoned long ago."

The rock had a muffling effect, close and confining. On the king's progress Rosvita had grown accustomed to the shouts of the wagoneers, the neighing of horses, the fall of rain, the heedless song of birds, the smell of the stable, and the laughter of wind on her face. Here, she couldn't even hear the mice. Lord John and his men might labor a hundred miles away, for all that their work lay invisible and inaudible beyond rock walls. No vibrations, no cracks within the stone brought her any hint of the man who bided his time in the guest hall. Was Hugh still praying? Would God ever forgive him for his sins? Would God forgive her hers?

'There is so much to find out." Rosvita turned the pages of the Vita to the end. Fidelis had mastered the art of script; even Sister Amabilia had found nothing to criticize in his precise hand. He had spoken of such peculiar things.

"The birds sing of the child known as Sanglant," she said, remembering his words. "Have you ever heard of the Seven Sleepers, Mother?"

"Of course. St. Eusebe tells the story of the Seven Sleepers in her History."

"You have heard no other tale that mentions them?"

"I have not. Why would the birds sing of this Sanglant? What sorcerer understood their language?"

"I do not know." Her eye followed the writing and her lips shaped the words, and then a thought occurred to her and she spoke out loud. " 'The world divides those whom no space parted once.' Do you suppose, Mother, that Fidelis was thinking of you when he wrote those words? I assumed he was writing of St. Radegundis. He lived on the men's side as a monk for the entire span of St.

Radegundis' life there, almost fifty years. Until her death, he would never have known a world without her in it."

"Surely he wrote this Vita long after I had gone from his life. He must have repented if he went back to the church and became a hermit."

"Or he felt he had no choice. But he wandered far from Salia in his later years. He was a curious man, the one flaw they could not smooth off of him."

Mother Obligatia smiled as at a fond and distant memory. "He was a curious man once his interest had been roused." The light of youth shone in her briefly, a glimpse of the fifteen-year-old girl who had captivated a fifty-year-old monk. Then she recalled who she was now, and she sighed. "God willed that I should spend my life in prayer. But sometimes I wonder what became of my two children. God forgive me, Sister. I am still afflicted with selfishness. In a way, I care nothing for your immortal soul or whether you condemn yourself by trafficking with an accused sorcerer. I want you to escape so that you can find out the truth, and I fear that if you surrender now, Lord John will imprison you and everyone in your party and hold you for ransom. You might be in his prison for years. You might die in Aosta. How then can you find out the truth? If there is no one to aid me, how can I be sure that no harm will come to those who live under my care?"

"Do you think it possible that the stone crowns are harbors, gateways from one to the next? That we can actually travel between them?"

"I do not know, but I know what my predecessors thought. They believed it." She drew a finger over the pages of the old chronicle delicately, as if she feared it might dissolve at her touch. "That is why they recorded the stone circles here. They thought there was a pattern, hidden in plain sight if they could learn to read it."

A hand bell rang, the call to prayer.

"What have you decided, Sister Rosvita? Will you counsel in favor of Lord Hugh's plan, or against it?"

"I don't know. I must pray for God to give me counsel." Rosvita closed both books and left them on the lectern as she assisted Mother Obligatia to rise. She offered her arm to her, and although Obligatia braced herself on Rosvita's elbow, her touch was so insubstantial that it seemed more like a memory than an actual presence.

With Theophanu and Adelheid and their noble ladies in attendance, the chapel was crowded. Its walls curved up into a dome, laden with symbols painted onto the whitewashed wall: St. Ekatarina sits in the center, arms extended to either side, palms out in the gesture of an open heart and complete surrender to God in Unity; a pale crown composed of stars burns at her brow, the mark of a saint; above her, twin dragons twine through hoary clouds, engaged in the fiery battle that denotes the conflict inherent in a creation stained by darkness; beyond that, as if seen from the mountaintop, a palace gleams in the sky, no doubt meant to represent the Chamber of Light where all souls return when the robes of darkness have at last been lifted from their spirit after their ascension through the seven spheres after death.

In deference to the several crippled or old sisters, railings had been set in rows so that, when they knelt, they might lean on wood. The dark grain was well polished, as if over the decades many of the nuns had needed a little such help at their prayers.

After so many hours, Rosvita found herself exhausted. She, too, needed the compassionate support of the simple wood'railing.

She had been ill for a long time and recovering for a much shorter one, and now she felt flashes of heat, sweat breaking on her forehead and down her spine. The hair at the nape of her neck was damp, and her palms slick.

Ai, Lady, she was tempted. Could Hugh bind the daimone? Could she see it done? She had never seen a daimone, of course, and the intense desire to see what she had never seen before and would likely never see again scalded her heart.

They sang from the Sayings of Queen Salomae the Wise, who had lived long before the birth of the blessed Daisan.

"Do not follow the path of evildoers. Turn aside. Avoid it. For the evil man cannot sleep unless he has done wrong. The evil woman cannot sleep unless she has caused someone's downfall."

Yet she and Theophanu would become accomplices to Hugh's misdeeds and his terrible acts if they accepted help from him, if they allowed him to aid them with that same sorcery they had been so eager to condemn him for before.

"For although the lips of the sorcerer drip honey and his speech is smoother than oil, yet in the end he is as bitter as wormwood and as sharp as a two-edged sword."

Could she stain her own hands, even for a good cause? Yet she knew herself no saint, willing to die rather than compromise her own honor. If Adelheid died rather than submit to Iron-head, then Aosta would suffer. If Theophanu surrendered, then she and everyone in her party would endure imprisonment and possibly death at Ironhead's hands.

Surely under these circumstances God would forgive them for setting foot briefly on the path known otherwise only to the wicked. Yet when did the end ever justify the means?

Mother Obligatia led the daily lesson in her frail voice. "Let us sing this day the hymn of creation, in honor of the feast day of St. Eulalia, she who was midwife to St. Edessia. Her hands brought forth that which is life to us, the blessed Daisan, who brought the Divine Word from heaven unto Earth."

"Everything is placed upon nothing.

In this way the universe came to be.

Yet something streamed out from the Father of Life and the Mother became pregnant in the shape of a fish and bore him; and he was called the Son of Life.

As his soul descended through the seven spheres he partook only of pu e r

things.

He took into his spirit nothing impure as he descended.

But we know this to be true, that the world is impure.

We know this to be true,that the impure world separated him from the Father and Mother in whom he o

nce dwelled without separation."

It came to Rosvita in that moment, unasked for, unexpected, a bolt from heaven not seen before it struck and shattered earth.

"The world divides those whom no space parted once."

What if Fidelis was Radegundis' son?

Then the enormity of it slugged her. She was suddenly unable to catch her breath. The railing seemed to shift under her like the earth when a tremor wrenches the ground on which you had once stood firmly.

What if Fidelis was Taillefer's son, his rightful heir?

"For God measured it and laid it out, h

t e Father with the Mother by Their

sexual union they founded it.

They planted it with their descendants.

To the Garden of Life, which is the Chamber of Light,all souls return."

If it were true, then why had Queen Radegundis not proclaimed abroad that Taillefer had a living son? Her silence had brought about the end of Taillefer's great empire.

Why had she not spoken?

"Yet out of necessity Love compels us.

It is completely impossible for a solitary one to bring forth and to bear,therefore he was the child that was produced by two,both Mother and Father, who together make life. "

"What are you, Eagle?" Rosvita had asked Liath that night last summer when she had given the young Eagle The Book of Secrets, which she had stolen from Hugh, because she had believed Liath and not Hugh. And Liath had replied:

"I am kinless."

"I lost my children because I had no kin to protect me," Mother Obligatia had said not an hour before.

Taillefer's legitimate son would have reigned after him if Radegundis could have found support among the Salian nobility for enough years to raise an infant to manhood. Salian princes often killed their rivals for the throne, even if those rivals were blood relatives, even if they were children. Radegundis was a woman without family to stand behind her. Her kin had all been murdered when she herself was only a child. Why should she have trusted the Salian lords?

"And he answered us, he said: You shall come to that paradise if you act rightly,if you heed the Word of Our Lady and Our Lord. "

Radegundis had not wanted to be queen. Perhaps she chose to remove the child from the temptations of worldly power. Or perhaps she only wanted to protect the child from his enemies. How better to do so than to give him as a foundling to the very convent in which she served?

What is in plain sight is hidden best.

Theophanu glanced at her and made a question with her expression, as if to ask if she were well. Rosvita shook her head, to show that she needed no help. To negate these disturbing thoughts. It was too incredible. She couldn't believe it.

And yet it was so unbelievable that she had no choice but to believe it.

"And he said to her, 'When will we see your wedding feast, you who are the blush of the earth and the image of the water? For you are the daughter I set upon my knee and sang to sleep. We all came to be because of the union of Father and Mother. The road to purification arises out of conception and birth.' "

Mother Obligatia had unknowingly given birth to Taillefer's legitimate granddaughter forty-five years ago. What had happened to that child?

As she knelt, the sweat cooling on her neck, the trembling in her hands subsiding, she was reminded again of words from the Holy Verses: "The beginning o wisdo

f

m is this: gain understanding, although it cost you all you have."

She had to escape, even if it cost her everything she had. She could not risk being held prisoner by Ironhead, even if it meant the greater risk of trusting to Hugh's sorcery, even if it meant her own complicity in that sorcery.

She had to find out if it were true. She had to find out what had happened to the child.

She had promised Mother Obligatia, and it was obvious now that someone else had discovered the old woman's secret and sought her out, hoping to find the only descendant of Emperor Taillefer, if she still lived. She had a duty to aid Adelheid and Theophanu. She owed loyalty to King Henry and his ambitions.

But mostly, she was just so damned curious.

Yet the song of Queen Salomae the Wise rang in her ears as the congregation knelt in silence and the rock walls of the tiny chapel breathed dust and the weight of uncounted years into the musty air: "Do not let your heart entice you to stray down his paths: many has he pierced and laid low. His victims are -without number. "

So be it.

She had long known that curiosity would be her downfall. She would find out the truth, no matter where the path led her.

TONIGHT," Hugh had said when they told him they would accept his aid, and now she found herself buffeted by the flood of activity as they made ready to leave. She was a leaf torn and floating on an uncontrollable tide. She had to find Mother Obligatia and speak to her before they left—there had been no time before, everyone had conspired to drive them apart as soon as it became clear that they would risk what ought to have remained forbidden.

And yet, she was exhilarated.

"Sister Rosvita, I beg you, wake up."

For a moment she did not recognize the brown hair and broad face of the woman staring down at her. Had she kept her suspicions to herself? How long ago was it that she had been shaken by revelation?

"May I help you rise, Sister? We must go now or we will be left behind."

She had fallen asleep in the library, slumped over the lectern. She had even drooled a little in her sleep; one corner of the chronicle was moist. Lady Leoba briskly put both the Vita of St. Radegundis and the copy so lovingly penned first by Sister Amabilia and then by Sister Petra into the sturdy leather pouch that contained Rosvita's unfinished History.

It was hard to stand. She felt weak and tired, and she ached everywhere.

Her neck had stiffened, and her spine crackled with pops and creaks as she straightened. Her left knee hurt, and her knuckles felt swollen. This was the burden of age.

"Let me carry this for you, Sister," said Leoba, graciously shouldering the pouch.

"Where is Mother Obligatia?" "She is with the princess." "I must speak to her before we leave." "As you wish, Sister. Princess Theophanu is waiting for you." By the light of a single lamp held aloft by young Paloma, they made their way to the cavern. It was empty, eerily so: not one scrap of leather remained to show what a great party had sheltered here, only a fading and somewhat putrid scent.

"That man died," said Paloma. "The one who was touched by the creature.

Will you all die, too, do you think?"

"I hope not, child," said Rosvita. Leoba shuddered, but she was too sow-headed a woman to voice her fear, if she had any.

Paloma led them past an odd array of side chambers carved out of the rock. Tunnels curved off on either side, descending and ascending.

"Was this a city once?" Rosvita wondered aloud as they reached a ramp that sloped upward, curled around a huge wall of rock, and narrowed abruptly where a groove was cut into the earth. Another millstone lay on its side, slotted into the rock, ready to be rolled shut in the event of attack.

"I think it was a refuge," said Paloma, "just like it is now. They built ways to block the path behind them if they needed to flee upward to the stone crown.

Here, careful—" She lit them over a plank that bridged a ditch, whose steep sides vanished into darkness below. "It's too far to jump. Can you smell the horses?"

Rosvita could smell them, and soon enough could hear nervous whinnies, the mutter of men, and the restless undercurrent of an entourage making ready to leave. Light bled in through cunning shafts angling sunlight down through the rocks. Paloma doused the lamp, and they climbed steps over a low wall whose sides were stippled with squares of light.

"Those holes make arrow slits, so defenders in the stables could shoot anyone coming down this corridor."

Two sharp corners brought them to the low, lit caves used as stables, high up on the rock where several more terraces gave light and air and room for exercise. Nevertheless, she saw several heaps of bone and offal, burned and swept to one side; six weeks under these conditions had been too much for some of the horses already weakened by the grueling ride from Vennaci.

Ahead, the retinue gathered in marching order, lined up and stretching out of her sight on a path that curled out onto a terrace and then on up around the rock face. Wind blew steadily; it was night, but the sky was clear and the moon bright and perfectly round. They dared use no lamps for fear of alerting Ironhead to their desperate ploy, and yet it was possible that his sentries might see them anyway, silhouetted by moonlight against the huge outcropping. Looming above, she saw the black mass of the summit and beyond it, the garden of winter stars, their brilliance dimmed by the glare of the full moon.

Leoba used her elbows as well as a few choice phrases, some polite, some coarser, to press their way forward through the rearguard and then the main party. Rosvita had to pause briefly to reassure Fortunatus, who was trapped in a clot of clerics and wanted desperately to join her. To salve his distress, she gave the pouch of precious books into his keeping. Then she went on to the front where Queen Adelheid and Princess Theophanu stood beside their mounts.

Captain Fulk and a dozen soldiers made up the van.

"Where is Mother Obligatia?" Rosvita asked after she had paid her respects.

"She has gone ahead with Lord Hugh," said Adelheid. "The rest of us will remain here until we hear the horn. That wil mark that it is safe to proceed."

"If it will ever be safe," murmured Theophanu. But she stood resolutely beside her mount, as calm as ever. She had accepted Rosvita's decision without objection, almost without reaction. The groom holding the reins of her mount looked nervous, shifting his feet as he stared up the path cut into the rock. It vanished around a curve in the rock, leading toward the summit. Was that a glimmer of light there, or only the trick of her eyes? "I must speak with her alone," said Rosvita. "Let me go up." "Nay, Sister!" said Theophanu sharply. "I will not lose you!" "Mother Obligatia warned us not to follow her until she knew it was safe," said Adelheid. "What if Lord Hugh cannot bind the creature? It might turn its killing gaze on you as well, Sister. And you are innocent."

"No more innocent than that soldier who died," said Rosvita. "Nay, Your Highness. I pray you, do not attempt to stop me. I will be cautious. But I must speak to her."

Theophanu said nothing, neither to give permission nor withhold it, so Rosvita walked on. Wind bit at her face, and she chafed her hands together to warm them as she kept her gaze fixed on the ground, always aware of sheer cliff dropping off to her right and the distant tiny campfires of Ironhead's encampment far below. But the path unrolled before as broad and easily negotiable as the apocryphal road that leads the unwary and the foolish and the wicked to the Abyss.

She labored up the slope and where the path cut left through a series of squat pinnacles, it gave out suddenly onto a flat summit. The standing stones blotted out the stars at even intervals. A faint tracery of white slipped between them like mist blown on the wind. Littered among the circle of stones lay putrefying bodies, a dozen at least, mangled, arms outflung, faces blackened, weapons broken and lying askew.

She staggered back from the sight, heard a warning whisper. A hand caught her elbow.

"You must go back, Sister Rosvita. It is dangerous for you to stay here."

"Someone must witness." Understanding had freed her: she was risking not just her body but her immortal soul, and she intended to see all there was to see.

"I have taken responsibility to witness," whispered Mother Obligatia.

Rosvita felt the old woman's walking stick pressed against her hip, and she marveled that the abbess had strength enough to walk so far on her crippled legs. She could not leave her alone.

"I will stay with you. I must speak to you of what I have discovered—

She saw him then, walking forward in plain sight, tall and glorious in moonlight as he crossed toward the circle of stones and halted about three paces in front of the first gaping archway of standing stones and lintel where an oval patch of sandy soil turned the ground white. A translucent figure darted forward through the stone circle, curling around the lintel sparking with the reflected glint of starlight. Hugh began to sing, hands lifted with fingers outspread. The wind died, and such an unnatural stillness settled over the height that she could hear his voice as clear and sweet as that of the angels.

"Matthias guide me, Mark protect me, Johanna free me, Lucia aid me, Marian purify me, Peter heal me, Thecla be my witness always, that the Lady shall be my shield and the Lord shall be my sword. Sanctify me, God, and destroy all that is evil and wicked. Free me f om al

r

l attacks of the Enemy. Let no

creature harm me. May the blessing of God be on my head. God reign forever, world without end."

Rosvita smelled burning juniper, a sharp incense underlaid with a second, sour scent. Still singing, Hugh knelt to place nine small stones on the ground in the same layout as the greater stones that made up the stone circle and, with a polished walking stick much like that on which Mother Obligatia leaned, he traced a pattern of angles and intersections between those stones in the sandy oval. Rosvita blinked rapidly, thinking surely that her vision was distorted, because as he drew the lines on the oval patch she thought that these same angles and intersections glimmered into life among the stones, like a huge cat's cradle of faint threads woven in and out between the monoliths.

Light flashed within the stones with the pulse of lightning, and she heard a wail. She expected Hugh to fall, stricken, and she clutched at Mother Obligatia's arm, to drag her backward to safety if she could, but it was not Hugh who had cried out. For an instant, the creature swelled until it towered over them, and she saw it clearly: It had the delicacy of blown glass and the sharp glitter of a drawn sword. Its wings, encompassing half the sky, seemed feathered with glass. Was this how the angels appeared?

"What are you?" said Hugh, more command than question. It had a humanlike form, but perhaps it was only imitating Hugh's figure or the form of the soldiers it had destroyed. It cried out again, a dissonant lament, and now Rosvita saw that it writhed against the threads woven through the stones, as if they trapped it. "Lost, lost," sang the creature in a vibrant bass tone that had the resonance of a bell.