'What did you say, Father Hugh?" With narrowed eyes, he examined Hanna, resting his chin on a cupped hand. Rings glinted on his fingers, set with gemstones, a banded cabochon of onyx, polished sapphire, and a waxy red carnelian. No spark of recognition lit his face, but perhaps he had already seen and noted her as she came in.

'Your Majesty." Was there any hint, in his expression, in his carriage, in his tone, that Hathui's accusation had been true? She saw nothing damning. He seemed entirely himself, the regnant robed in dignity and luck. "Your daughter, Her Most Royal Highness Princess Theophanu, sent me with an urgent message." She bent her head, letting the words unfold that she had memorized over a year ago and kept fresh each day, awaiting this moment. " To my lord father, p{is Glorious Majesty Henry, king of Wendar and Varre, I, his loyal daughter Theophanu, send heartfelt prayers for his health, his well-being, and his wisdom. I pray you, my lord king, let my pleading words awaken compassion in your heart for the troubled state of your kingdom.'"

The litany of afflictions rolled easily off Hanna's tongue. Internal strife in Wendar and Varre. The Salian civil war spilled over into Var-ingia and Wayland. Famine and plague, flooding and hailstorms. A plague of heresy and the destruction wrought by the Quman invasion, under the command of Bulkezu, who had gone so far as to take Prince Ekkehard prisoner and with flattering words and rich presents turn him against his own countryfolk. The town of Echstatt burned and the palace at Augensburg still a ruin, where crows feasted on the corpses of Bulkezu's hapless prisoners. A rot spreading among the rye, poisoning the grain and any who ate it. A two-headed calf born alive. Tallia pregnant by Conrad, and the duke celebrating Penitire in Mainni as if he were a king. Biscop Constance's silence from Autun. The death of Duchess Rotrudis followed by plotting and quarreling among her unworthy heirs. Prince Bayan dead in battle against the invaders, and Princess Sapientia ridden east with Sanglant, who had taken over her army and made it his own. The traitor, Prince Ekkehard, promised to Margrave Gerberga.

Hugh made a stifled exclamation.

"Margrave Gerberga?" Henry sounded surprised, or perhaps puzzled.

'Judith was killed in battle three years ago against the Quman, who rode under the command of the same Bulkezu whom Prince Bayan and Prince Sanglant defeated at the Veser." No need to regale them with the story of how Judith's head had survived as an ornament hanging from Bulkezu's belt. "Her daughter Gerberga inherited Olsatia and Austra."

'The margrave has taken a grave step by marrying Ekkehard, Your Majesty," said Liutgard, speaking now that Hanna had already been interrupted. "No person vowed to the church may be forced Hito marriage vows. Wasn't Ekkehard promised to the monastery?"

'Indeed," said Hugh. Did he mourn the death of his mother? Or did he already know she was dead? "Ekkehard was invested as abbot °f St. Perpetua's in Gent. It was your own wish that he be offered to the church, Your Majesty. Do not forget the incident with Lord Bald win. You did not give permission for Prince Ekkehard to be released from his vows and ride to war, much less be allowed to marry."

'This is rebellion." Henry caught hold of a captured black dragon and squeezed it until his knuckles turned white. "My own sons and daughter have turned against me."

'Princess Sapientia may only be Sanglant's pawn," said Hugh. "It seems likely," said Liutgard, glancing toward Duke Burchard who, with the rest of the folk in the chamber, had drawn closer to listen. "Sanglant has the stronger personality, if indeed it is true this is rebellion and not some other business. If the Quman invaded, then perhaps he has pursued the remnants of their army east to make sure they do not threaten Wendar again."

'My God," murmured Burchard. Contemplating the ruin the Quman had made of Avaria, he looked as frail as a withered stick blown about in storm winds. "I should have been there to defend my people. Did the Quman meet no resistance at all? Were there none left to fight them?"

Hanna dared look at him directly, hearing shame in his voice. And oughtn't he be ashamed? He had not met his obligations to protect his own people. "No one, my lord duke, except the common folk who died defending the land and their families. I don't know how many of the noble lords rode south with you to Aosta. Those who remained in Avaria paid off the Quman so they would go away. Lord Hedo's son abandoned his post to join the quarrel in Saony. I don't know what happened to him."

'That's enough," murmured Hugh.

She flinched, expecting a blow. It did not come. Her knee hurt where it pressed into the carpet, not so thick after all; not thick enough to protect her from the obstinacy of the marble floor.

'There is more to my message."

Henry rose, cutting her off. "I have heard enough."

Even Liutgard looked surprised. No one ever cut off an Eagle's message.

Ever.

'Adelheid." The king held out his hand, making ready to leave, and as he turned, Hanna looked up full into his face.

She saw his eyes clearly.

She had never forgotten the complex brown of his eyes, veined with yellow and an incandescent leaf-green. He had beautiful eyes, worthy of a regnant, deep, powerful, and compelling.

His eyes had changed.

She could still see the brown or at least the memory of that pig-jnentation. But the deep color had faded, washed into a watery, pale blue substance that writhed in the depths of his gaze like a wild thing ;mprisoned and straining against the bonds that held it within its cage. With a shudder she swayed and caught herself on a hand. The emerald ring he had given her shone on her middle finger: an oiled, milky-green stone set in a gold band studded with garnets. She had sworn to bear witness for the king who had gifted her with that ring. But she was no longer sure the man standing here was the same man to whom she had given her loyalty, and for whom she had suffered and survived as a prisoner all those months.

'Your Majesty."

Henry brushed past her. His companions and attendants followed him to the covered terrace that looked out over garden and maze.

'Papa! Papa!" Princess Mathilda shrieked in the distance, galloping to greet him.

A handful of worried looking men and women, all Wendish, remained behind.

'I would hear the rest of your message, Eagle," said Duke Burchard, leaning on a cane as he stepped forward.

'I beg your pardon, my lord duke." Hugh moved smoothly up beside her. He had not left her alone since they had departed St. Asel-la's the night before; she had even slept on a pallet in his bedchamber, beside his other servants. "I am commanded to take down the Eagle's message in writing to deliver to King Henry when he has more leisure to contemplate Princess Theophanu's words. If you wish to interview this Eagle, you will have to wait until I have finished with her. I pray you will forgive me this inconvenience.

Your distress is evident."

Duke Burchard's lips tightened. He glanced at Duchess Liutgard. These signs were too fragile to stand up to scrutiny, and perhaps they were only the trembling quirks of an aging man.

'I know you are the king's obedient servant, Your Honor," Burchard said at last. "I pray that after you have taken the Eagle's statement you will allow one of your servants to escort her to my suite, so I may interview her. It appears she has firsthand knowledge of the Oilman invasion."

'So it does," replied Hugh with a lift to his voice that made Hanna rise to her feet, as in a sparring contest. She was still waiting for the blow. He gestured to her to follow the servant who hovered alvvav at Hugh's heels, carrying a satchel.

She glanced back as they left the chamber in time to see Burchard looking after her, beckon to Liutgard. The two heads, one hoary and aged and the other young and bright, leaned together as the duke of Avaria and the duchess of Fesse bent close in intimate conversation The door closed, cutting them off, and Hanna felt rushed along as Hugh led his retinue at a brisk pace under shaded porticos and out across the blistering hot courtyard that separated the regnal palace from the one where the skopos dwelled.

Too late, Hanna realized the direction they were heading. Shading her eyes did little to soften the sun's glare or the nagging fear that crawled in her belly. Her knee still hurt.

They crossed under the shadow of a vast arch and passed more sedately along corridors inhabited only by the occasional scuff of a cleric's sandals on swept stone. Open windows offered glimpses onto bright gardens, golden and sere after summer's dryness, where the spray of fountains made rainbows in the air. She felt the breath of that moistened air as they passed, swiftly fading, the merest touch.

Where was Hugh taking her?

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

This was no dream.

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

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

THEGATHERINGSTORM ^^,'

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

Did the outer form match the inner heart? Or was Hathui right? If she had not seen a difference in the king's eyes, then her memory had played her false. If she had, then an aery daimone infested him, hidden within his mortal form and glimpsed only through the window made by his eyes.

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

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

Otherwise, the hall was empty.

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

In silence, Hanna studied the floor, strips of marble and porphyry set into expanding and contracting spirals. The ceiling arched high above, dimly perceived, each span glittering with intricate mosaics. Even the single chair had its fascination, the dark wood grain inlaid with ivory rosettes and geometric patterns made of gems mounted in gold.

She had never seen so many amethysts in her life.

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

'Is there any man handsomer than you?" she had asked Bulkezu.

"One. I saw him in a dream."

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

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

She knew better now.

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

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

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

Hugh ascended the steps and knelt before her to kiss her ring. When he stepped back, she sat. The hound lay over her feet and rested its head on massive paws, but it gazed at Hanna as at an enemy, ready for her to bolt or to attack, so that it might have the pleasure of rending her limb from limb and gnawing on her bones. Hadn't she seen this hound before, or one very like it? "Who is this Eagle?" asked the skopos.

'She is called Hanna, Holy Mother. She comes from the North Mark of Wendar. In earlier years she called herself a friend to Lia-thano. She has recently ridden south bearing a message from Princess Theophanu, nothing we have not heard before except that she herself spoke with Prince Sanglant many months ago. He is now ridden east with a portion of the army that defeated the Quman." "To what end does he ride east, Eagle?"

Dared she speak the truth?

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

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

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

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

'Are you one of those who bears the Eagle's Sight?"

The question surprised her. "Yes, Holy Mother."

'Who taught you?"

'An Eagle called Wolfhere, Holy Mother."

'Wolfhere." A complex hint of emotion colored her voice. "When did you last see Wolfhere?"

'He rides with Prince Sanglant, Holy Mother."

'So he did."

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

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

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

Hugh coughed. "They're coming more frequently."

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

'It won't work," said Hugh curtly.

'Do you think not, Brother Hugh?"

'If I could not, then how can she?"

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

'Is it wise to speak so freely, Holy Mother?" "To you, Brother Hugh? You have joined our Order willingly and with a clear purpose. Is there some reason I should not trust you?" "I meant before this Eagle, Holy Mother." "The Eagle? She is only a servant."

"Even servants have tongues, Holy Mother." Hanna kept her head down, but she felt the touch of that devastating gaze. So might a fly feel before being swatted. So might a fly, holding still, be passed over as being of too little account to bother with when there were more annoying pests to exterminate. "If my daughter trusted her, that bond may yet link them." The cleric returned and set a brazier on the step in front of Hanna, then stepped back to work a small bellows so coals shimmered and flames licked along their length.

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

One did not say "No" to the skopos.

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

No person who had ever seen the Lavas hounds could mistake them for any other dog.

How had the skopos acquired this one? Hanna had last seen Alain on the field of battle with the Lions. Hadn't he died there?

Her gaze fell forward through the veil of fire.

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

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

Vaguely surprised—what was he thinking about just then?— he notices that he is weaving willow rods into a kiddle that the fishermen will place in the river to catch fish.

"I beg your pardon, Brother?"

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

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

Maybe it was all a dream.

Lallo tugged at his own ear with a frown. "You're a hard nut to crack. Enough of this.

It's time for prayer, Brothers." He shepherds his charges to church for Vespers.

Alain sets down the half-woven kiddle and follows with the others. Dusk has a way of sliding over the monastery, catching him in twilight unawares. Maybe he has been walking in twilight for a long time and never noticed it. Sorrow and Rage pad alongside.

Despite their fearsome aspect, they behave as meekly as lambs. No man here fears them, and the monks willingly give him scraps with which to feed them. Each hound eats as much as one man, and they provide no labor for the benefit of the monastery, so he works doubly hard— when he doesn't forget himself and fall into that dreaming stupor. He wants to earn the hounds' portion as well as his own.

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

As they file through the transept and thence into the dark nave, he notices the Brother Sacrist hurrying into the church with more oil for the lamps burning at the five altars.

The lamps flicker, wicks running dry but as he takes his place with the other laborers at the back of the nave as he murmurs reflexive words of prayer, the sacrist makes a startled exclamation and halts halfway down the aisle. A side door opens. The elegant abbot enters in company with the prior as well as certain nobly-cut figures unknown to him.

Have these visitors been here before? Were they here yesterday? One is a remarkably beautiful young man, unnaturally handsome and strangely familiar, who smiles and nods whenever Father Ortulfus speaks without making any reply himself. His redheaded companion answers the abbot's queries.

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

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

The liturgy slides by as smoothly as water pours down a rock. The abbot marks the stations of the service by moving from lamp to lamp in a complicated pattern that, were he attached to thread, might weave truth into the stone. Praying, Father Ortulfus seems agitated, distracted by a gnawing annoyance that causes his mouth to slip down into a fierce frown when he forgets himself. When he returns to the altar to deliver his homily, his indignation takes flower as he scolds the congregation with quotations from the Holy Verses.

" I have heard such things often before, you who make trouble, all of you, with every breath.' It is the Enemy who makes you so stubborn in argument, who makes your speech trouble the hearts of the simple man and the credulous woman. 'Can it be that God have thrown us into the clutches of malefactors, have left us at the mercy of those who are given over unto wickedness?' If you will walk with God, then walk in silence and free your heart from the Enemy's grasp. Let there be no more of these tales, which spread like a plague upon the Earth!"

The stone columns absorb this castigation in aloof silence. Carved flowers crown each column, and on this flowery support rest ceiling vaults ornamented with vines. High up on the wall above the central altar stand the stucco figures of martyrs, each displaying a crown of sainthood. Their grave faces do not move; they cannot, of course, they are only representations, and yet their steady gaze pierces to his heart.

Dead. Dead. Dead.

All dead.

Mice live in the nave. He has coaxed a few out of their hiding places when, late at night before Nocturns, he can't sleep and wanders like a shade from one place to another within the compound, rootless and lost. They shelter in his hands, so small and helpless and warm, giving him triflin§ comfort. Is that their scritching now?

He has had keen hearing ever since the day he bound himself to the Eika prince now known as Stronghand. He hears not the clitter of mice on wood but a human gasp and the scrabbling of fingers on another's arm, seeking attention. Looking to the right, he catches sight of two men wearing the mended but clean tabards of Lions.

They stare at him in shocked amazement, mouths open, prayer forgotten. They are no longer listening to the abbot's homily—any more than he is—as it thunders to a close and as the prayer for forgiveness swells up among the gathered monks, novices, laborers, and visitors.

They stare at him as though they recognize him.

The high halls reel around him. The vaulted ceiling shudders, and vines writhe.

Distantly, he hears Rage whimper.

Isn't that the young Lion called Dedi, who won a tunic off poor, foolish Folquin one night, gambling at dice? The older man called himself the boy's uncle, and probably he was. Yet they died in the east long ago. Is this church a gathering place for dead souls caught in purgatory, like him?

Why isn't Adica here with him?

He doubles over as men all around him drop to their knees in prayer, but he can no longer see or hear as he fights hot tears. Grief cuts into his belly. Claws are shredding his heart in two.

All he can do is sag forward beside the other laborers and hang on as the fit drowns him.

'Who is that young man she sees?"

The words dragged Hanna back as questions crowded her mind. How is it that he still lives? What grieves him?

Nay, she must concentrate. It seemed so long ago that she had last seen Liath, in disgrace at the palace at Werlida when she had married Sanglant against the wish of King Henry. She had ridden off secretly one night, never to return, but Hanna still saw her clearly, tall, a little too slender as if she never quite had enough to eat, her hair caught back in a braid, her eyes a fiery blue, as brilliant as the stars. In Heart's Rest no one had ever believed Liath and her father to be anything except nobly born, brought down in the world by fortune's wheel. But Liath had never treated Hanna differently by reason of birth. Liath had seen her as another soul, equal in the sight of God Ai, God. Where was Liath now?

Fire flared brightly among the coals before dying back as abruptly as if an icy wind smothered them.

She sank back onto her heels, sweating and trembling. Tears streaked her face. Was she crying for Liath, for Alain, or for herself? She wiped her nose.

'Nothing," said Hugh. "As I told you, Liath no longer walks on Earth."

'Who is that young man she saw?" the skopos asked again.

'He looks familiar… Nay, I do not know him."

'He was attended by hounds who might have been littermates to the one who guards me. Is this one not a descendant of Taillefer's famous hounds? Why do I see its kinfolk at the side of a common boy? Eagle, what man was that you saw in the flames?"

How could she lie to a sorcerer so powerful that she could see into the vision formed by Hanna's own Eagle's Sight? "His name is Alain, Holy Mother. He was heir to Count Lavastine until—"

'Lavastine!"

Hanna winced at the sharp tone, but that slight movement alerted the hound, which scrabbled out from under the throne to loom over her. The growl that rumbled in its throat was so low as to be almost inaudible. She shrank back. With only a word's command, it would rip her face off.

'Lavastine." The word was whispered with the calculation of a general about to embark on a holy campaign. "Sister Abelia, you will leave tomorrow to seek out Brother Severus. I want the one called Alain found and brought to me."

'Yes, Holy Mother."

The skopos rose and left the room with her attendant. The hound click-clacked after her; its nails needed filing. Hanna wondered, wildly, idly, who dared groom it.

'Do you know where Liath is, Hanna?" asked Hugh once the curtain had fallen into place behind the skopos and her attendant. "Have you seen her in the flames?"

'I have not, Your Excellency."

'Do you know what happened to her, Hanna?"

'I have heard the tale Prince Sanglant tells—that fiery daimones stole her."

'Do you believe it?"

She fixed her gaze on the mural. The temblor had shaken open a rack that split the plaster base right through the blessed Daisan's i ft foot. "For what reason would Prince Sanglant lie, Your Excellency?"

'Indeed, for what reason?"

A glance told her everything she needed to know: he was not Bul-kezu, who savored the battle of wills. He was not even looking at her; he had dismissed her already. The monster Bulkezu had seen her as a person of some account, almost as a peer, because she was the luck of a Kerayit shaman. Because she dared stand up to him. To Hugh she was only a servant. He recalled her name because of her bond with Liath. She did not matter to him at all; only Liath did, then and now.

Which gave her a measure of freedom she had never had with Bulkezu.

'Prince Sanglant is no poet, Your Excellency. It is poets who make up tales to confuse and beguile their listeners. I do not think he could have concocted a false trail to lead his enemies astray. That is not his way."

He gave a slight noise in assent. "No, he is not an educated man. There is a child as well. Does she live still?"

'When I last saw the prince, she did."

'Does she look like her mother?"

Strange that a cold draft should twist through the hall, chilling her neck. "In some manner, Your Excellency. She resembles both her mother and father. She is very young still."

'Very young still," he agreed, as if to himself, as if he had forgotten Hanna was there,

"and soft, as youth is soft and malleable. It is too bad Brother Marcus failed. Still, there may yet be a way…"

She braced herself, expecting more questions.

None came.

He had forgotten her already. She shifted her weight to her heels to take some of the pressure off her knees. Outside, the raking started up again. As Hugh's silence dragged on, she began to count the strokes.

She had reached four and ninety when Hugh spoke.

'Yes. That is the way to do it." He walked toward the doors, Paused, turned back.

"Come, Hanna. You must make your report and a cleric will write it down."

'Your Excellency." She stood. "It is an Eagle's duty to report to the regnant directly."

He waited in a stripe of sunlight. "Your loyalty is commendabl But it will not be possible for you to give your report to the kin today. He will be far too busy to see you."

'Then I will wait. It is by the regnant's own command that we Eagles report to him alone, when we come to his court. I dare not go against the king's express command, Your Excellency. Pray do not ask me to go back on the oath I swore to King Henry."

The quirk of anger twitched on his lips, and he clenched his right hand, the one he had most often struck Liath with. But this was not the reckless, arrogant young frater who had suffered the indignit of ministering to the half-pagan common folk of the North Mari with barely concealed contempt. This man had a presbyter's rank the respect of his peers, the love of the common-born Aostans, and an unknown wealth of power made palatable by his modest demeanor and undeniable beauty. He spoke easily with the Holy Mother herself and stood at the right hand of the king and queer who would soon be emperor and empress.

'Nay, nor should you," he said at last with perfect amiability. "Your oath to the king is what gives an Eagle honor. You were taker prisoner by the Quman alongside Prince Ekkehard, I believe?"

'I was, Your Excellency."

'Then how are we to know that you did not turn traitor against your countryfolk as well, if this tale of Prince Ekkehard's treachery is true? How can we be sure that any of these stories you bring to are truth, and not lies? Do you support the rightful king? Or do yov support those who rebel against him?"

God, what a fool she had been to think she could outmaneuve him.

He smiled sadly. The light pouring over him made him gleam, living saint. "So it is, Eagle, that the king must consider you a traitor as well. You know how he feels about Wolfhere, whom he banishec on less account than this. How can he treat a traitor otherwise? Hov can he even bear to speak to one of his own Eagles if he believes that Eagle has betrayed him together with his dearest children?" Although he had not moved, he seemed to have grown even more imposing, a power which, like the sun, may bring light to those trappec in darkness—or death to those caught out under its punishing brilliance.

'I will do what I can to see that you are not imprisoned outright for treason, Hanna. I have done that much for you already. The dungeons here are not healthy. The rats grow large. Yet if you do not oOperate with me, then there is nothing I can do, no case I can make before the king. If that happens, I do not know what will happen to you then. Do you understand?"

GASPING, he came to himself as everyone around him rose. The service had ended.

The two Lions no longer sat on the benches to his right. Maybe he had only hallucinated them. He was dreaming, confusing past and present.

Only Adica seemed real—she, and the bronze armband bound around his upper right arm that he could not pull off.

'F-friend." Iso had a limp and a stutter. Abandoned by his parents, he had been a laborer at the monastery for half of his life. Although he didn't act any older than sixteen, he looked aged by pain and grief and an unfilled childhood hunger. "It's a—uh—it's a—

uh—a hurt one. Come." He had bony fingers that no amount of porridge could fatten up, and with these he tugged at Alain's sleeve as the laborers waited for the monks to file out before them. The abbot sailed out with a fine stern expression on his face and his guests quite red with consternation behind him, but Iso kept pulling on him and his quiet pleading dragged Alain out of his distraction.

'I'll come." He let Iso lead him out of the church and, with the hounds following, to the stables.

Iso didn't have many teeth left, which was why he could only take porridge and other soft foods. Sometimes his remaining teeth hurt him; one did tonight. Alain knew it because now and again Iso brushed at the lower side of his right jaw as though to chase away a fly, and a tear moistened his right eye, slipping down to be replaced by another.

Iso never complained about pain. Maybe he didn't have the words to, and anyway it was probably the only existence he knew. Perhaps he had never experienced a day in the course of his entire life without physical pain of some kind nagging him, the twisted agony of his misshapen hip, the withered ruin of his left hand, burned and scarred over long ago, the nasty scars on his back.

Yet for all the pain Iso lived with, and maybe because of it, he hated to see animals suffer. More than once he had taken a rake from furious cat when he'd saved a mouse from its clutches, or risked being bitten by a wounded, starving dog at the forest's edge when I offered it a scrap to eat.

The beech woods had been so heavily harvested in the vicinity of the estate that the nearby woodland was dominated by seedlings and luxuriant shrubs. The hounds smelled a threat in the undergrowth beyond the stable, and they bristled, curling back their muzzles as they growled. Twigs rattled as a creature shifted position. It sounded big. The twilight gloom amplified the sense of hugeness.

Alain gripped Iso's shoulder, holding him back. The smell of iron tickled his nostrils, and a taste like fear coated his mouth. Although he saw only the suggestion of the shape where young beech trees struggled with honeysuckle and sedge for a footing, his skin crawled.

In the east, a waning gibbous moon, just two days past full, was rising.

'Th-they'll kill it if th-they f-find it." Tears slipped from Iso's chin to wet the back of Alain's hand.

'Hush now." Alain signed to the hounds and they sat obediently, although they didn't like it. Cautiously, he stepped forward to part the brush.

The creature lying under the shadow of sedge flicked its head around, and where its amber gaze touched him, torpor gripped his limbs. Iso whimpered. Sorrow yipped. The creature was as big as a pony, with a sheeny glamour. It scrabbled at the earth with its taloned feet. Leaves sprayed everywhere. It had the head of an eagle with the body of a dragon, and a whiplike tail that thrashed against the bole of the sedge behind it.

Awkwardly, it heaved itself backward. It was meant to fly, but its wings were still down, not yet true feathers.

'What i-i-is it?" whispered Iso. "M-my feet feel so slow." "It's a guivre." Its hideous shape should have frightened him. "It's a hatchling." The torpor wore off. It hadn't the full force of an adult's stare, that would pin a man to the ground. The nestling stabbed forward with a stubborn 'awk' but couldn't reach him because it dragged one leg under its body. It feared him more than he feared it and what it would become. "It can't even fly yet. Do you see the wings? They don't have their feathers yet. It should still be in the nest."

'I-it's a m-monster. Th-they'll kill it if they f-find it." "So they will."

jVlaybe they should. One shout would bring an army and with staves, shovels, and hoes they could hammer it to death, staving in •ts skull. But it was so young, and it was free, not chained and brutalized like the one that had killed Agius. In its own way it was beautiful, gleaming along its scaly skin where the last glow of sunlight and the silvery spill of moonlight mingled to dapple its flanks. Only God knew how it had come to be here.

Then he saw the wound that had crippled it, opening the left thigh clean to the bone.

'Iso, get me combed flax and a scrap of linen soaked in cinquefoil. Do it quickly, friend. Don't let anyone see you."

Iso mumbled the words back to himself, repeating them. He had a hard time remembering things. He lurched away with a rolling gait, for on top of everything else, he had one leg shorter than the other.

Alain eased into the brush and crouched as the hatchling hissed at him to no avail. It couldn't reach him, nor could it retreat. Leaves spun in an eddy of wind, fluttering to the ground as the breeze faltered. Distantly, voices raised in the service of Compline, the last prayer of the day. The monks' song wound in counterpoint to his own voice as he spoke softly to the hatchling. He spoke to it of Adica, of the marvels he had seen when he walked as one dead in the land where she lived. He spoke to it of dragons rising majestically into the heavens and of the lion queens on whose tawny backs he and his companions had ridden. He spoke of creatures glimpsed in dark ravines and deep grottos and of the merfolk and their glorious undersea city.

Guivres were unthinking beasts, of course, but the hatchling listened in that way in which half-wild creatures allow themselves to be soothed by a peaceful voice. The hounds lay in perfect silence, heads resting on their forelegs and eyes bright.

Iso returned with his hands full. The young guivre kept its amber gaze fixed on Alain but remained still as he pulled the lips of the wound together, pressing linen over the cut, and bound it with flax tightly enough to hold but not so tight that it cut into flesh.

'Harm none of humankind," he said to it, "but take what you must to survive among the beasts of the forest, for they are your rightful prey. May God watch over you."

As he backed into the spreading arch of a hazel, the hatchling came to life. It spread its wings and, beating them, rattled branches as though calling thunder. Sorrow and Rage barked, and the creature lurched away into the forest, using its wings to help power it along since it couldn't rise into the air. With a great deal of noise, it vanished from sight.

Behind, the last hymn reached its final cadence. Services were over This was the time of day when the worshipers returned to their final tasks before making ready for bed.

Iso hopped anxiously from foot to foot. "Th-they'll hear and th-they'll come." He wasn't frightened of the beast but of what Brother Lallo might do to him for missing Compline.

A stone's throw away, the stables remained oddly quiet, although now was the usual time for laborers who had no cot in the dormitory to make a final check on any animals stabled within before finding themselves a place to sleep in the hayloft. For a long time Alain couldn't bring himself to move away from the forest's edge, although he knew he ought to get Iso back to the dormitory. Instead, he listened to the progress of the beast and after a while couldn't hear any least tremor of its passing. Would it grow into a fearsome adult, preying on humankind? Had he spared it only to doom his own kind to its hunger?

He remembered the poor guivre held captive by Lady Sabella, tormented by starvation and disease, fed dying men and, in the end, used by her as ruthlessly as she used the rest of her allies. He could not regret saving one after having killed another.

Sighing, he turned away from the forest and walked back to the dormitories with Iso hobbling, gasping and whispering, at his side. It would be hard for Iso to keep silent about the guivre, but who would believe him?

Alain laughed softly. Maybe disbelief could be a form of freedom. For the first time since he stumbled out of the stone circle with the memory of Adica's death crushing him, he felt a lightness in his heart, a breath of healing.

As they passed the stables, they almost ran into old Mangod, who had labored here for more years than Alain had been alive. Like Iso, he was a cripple with a withered arm that, once broken, never set right. When he lost his farmstead to his sister's son, he retired to the monastery.

He had an excitable voice and a way of hopping from leg to leg like a child needing to pee. "Have ye heard?" he asked in his western accent. "There come some holy monks this morning to the abbot, and a couple of king's soldiers. They say they've seen sleepers under the hill with the look of old Villam's son, the lad who got lost up alriong the stones a few years back. Terrible strong magic, they say. a revelation, too, to share with us brothers." a ,'

His words made Alain nervous; they pricked like pins and needles foot that's fallen asleep. As he and Iso walked up past the stables, he saw most of the day laborers clustered on the porch although they would normally be in their cots by now. A dozen of the monks stood among their number, straining forward, and at one corner of the porch huddled six pale-robed novices who had escaped from the novices' compound where they were supposed to live and sleep in isolation until the day they took their final vows.

'

'His heart was cut out of him! Where his heart's blood fell and touched the soil, there bloomed roses.' "

'Th-that's a woman!" stammered Iso as they pressed forward into the crowd gathered on the dormitory porch.

The guivre''seye could not have struck such sluggish fear into Alain as did her voice.

He knew that voice.

'

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

'Heresy," murmured a monk standing at Alain's elbow. "This one comes from the east, from the Arethousans."

'All liars, the Arethousans," whispered his companion. "Still, I want to hear her."

'Do not let others frighten you. Do not let them tell you that the words I speak are heresy. It is the church that has concealed the truth from us — "

'To what purpose?" An older monk stepped forward. "Were the ancient mothers dupes and fools, to be taken in by a lie? Do you mean to say they were schemers and deceivers who conspired to damn us all by hiding the truth of the blessed Daisan's true nature and his final days on earth? You haven't convinced me with this wild talk!"

Alain pressed through the crowd until he was able to see the speaker. It was Hathumod. Somehow she had escaped the battle in the east and reached Herford. He hung back. He didn't want her to see him.

A frown creased her rabbitlike face as she examined the scoffer. She appeared the most innocuous of interlocutors. No one could look more sincere than she did. "Brother Sigfrid will answer you," she replied.

Four young men stood beside her: the handsome blond and th redhead whom Alain had seen at services, as well as a stout fell who resembled Hathumod and a slight young man no larger tha Iso though apparently sound in all his limbs. The two Lions, Ded' and Gerulf, stood behind them, arms crossed as they surveyed the crowd with practiced vigilance. As Dedi glanced his way, Alain ducked down behind the shoulder of one of his fellow laborers, and when he glanced up, the slight young man had climbed up on a bench to address the crowd. He was dressed in a tattered monk's robe, but despite his disreputable appearance, he responded in a voice both rich and sweet.

'Truly, Brother, I dare not set myself higher than the Holy Mothers out of whose words flowered our most sovereign and holy church. Yet you and I both know how few of their writings have come down to us, and how many have been lost. What might the ancient mothers say to us now, were they here and able to speak freely? What fragments have we been left to read, despite the best efforts of our brethren, brothers and sisters who copied and recopied the most holy texts? Has it always been the most holy who have worked in the scriptoria? In whose interest has it been to conceal this truth?"

'That's so! That's so!" one monk muttered, maybe reflecting on old grievances.

Another said, loudly, "In whose interest is it to spread this heresy?"

The laborers merely stared, mouths agape. Several fingered the wooden Circles hanging at their chests.

'Heretics are burned," said Sigfrid. "They gain no benefit from preaching the truth.

When the split with the Arethousan patriarch came in the year 407, over the doctrine of separation, those in power in the holy Church may have feared losing the staff by which they ruled. They may have wished to crush for all time any discussion of the divine nature of the blessed Daisan."

'The blessed Daisan does not partake of God's divine nature!" cried one of the novices, a hound belling at a scent. "The blessed Daisan is just like us!"

'Can it be that the blessed Daisan partakes nothing of God's substance?" demanded Sigfrid. "Can the Son be unlike the Mother? Are they not of the same nature? Would God reveal Her Holy Word to one who was stained by darkness, as are all of us who live in the vvor Nay, friend, Son and Mother are of like substance, and the one comes directly out of the Mother's essence-Brother Lallo's roar came out of the twilight like that of a chained lion prodded and poked until it lashes out. "What manner of heretical babble is this? These poor foolish men are my charges. Who are you to corrupt them?"

He lumbered up onto the porch, striking to each side with his staff. The laborers scattered before him. His gaze lit on poor Iso, and he grabbed the lad and shook him until the boy's teeth slammed together. Iso began to cry. "Must we throw you out for disobedience?"

The other laborers scattered into the night. The poor novices fell all over themselves trying not to be seen, but their master came running in Brother Lallo's wake, his face flushed with anger. Other torches bobbed, a flood tide of monks rushing to investigate the commotion. The abbot and several of his officials hurried up the steps onto the porch.

'You have abused my hospitality by preaching to these poor halfwits!" cried Father Ortulfus as he glared at Hathumod and her companions. "Are you oath breakers as well as heretics, that you take our bread and then throw it in our faces by breaking the rules by which we govern this monastery?" Son of a noble house, he had aristocratic bearing and elegant fury to spare, and his disdain was a well-honed weapon.

The frail Sigfrid did not back down. His friends moved forward around the bench, Lions forming a shield wall to meet an implacable enemy. "God enjoins us to speak the truth, Father. It would be a sin for us to remain silent. I do not fear your anger, because I know that God holds us in Her hands."

'So be it." Father Ortulfus beckoned to his burly prior. "Prior Rat-bold will escort you to Autun, where Biscop Constance can deal with you. The punishment for heresy is death."

The red-haired one stepped forward with the calm of a man who has faced battle and not faltered. "We won't go to Autun. We'll leave here peacefully, but we won't be made prisoners."

'Leave to spread your wicked lies throughout the countryside?" Father Ortulfus shook his head. "I cannot allow it." Behind him, Prior Ratbold signaled to certain brawny monks half hidden in the shadows. Iso trembled like a captured fawn in Lallo's grasp as the abbot went on. "You will be tak£n to Autun and placed under the biscop's authority—

"

'I won't go to Autun!" cried the handsorne one petulantly. All at once, Alain remembered him: the pretty young trophy husband taken by Margrave Judith and paraded through the king's progres in the same fashion she would have displayed a young stallion of fered for stud. "We won't go, and you can't make us!"

The mood shifted as violently as wind turns and gusts in a storm The novices were dragged away bodily by the master and his helpers Ratbold's assistants raised staffs, ready to charge. Dedi picked up the bench, bracing himself, and his uncle drew his eating knife while the young nobleman fell back behind their redheaded leader.

Alain could not bear to see any more. He stepped into the breach between the two groups. "I pray you, do not desecrate this ground with fighting." Words came unbidden as he turned to face Father Ortulfus. "These men rode with Prince Ekkehard. This woman serves God with devotion and a pure heart. These Lions are loyal soldiers of the king.

They fought a battle in the east, in the army of Princess Sapientia and Prince Bayan, and deserve more of a hearing than this!"

Father Ortulfus was so surprised to hear a common laborer scold him that he could not speak.

Hathumod shrieked and flung herself forward to kneel at Alain's feet. "My lord!" She grabbed his hand to kiss it. Horrified, he stepped back to escape her. "My lord, how have you come here? How have you escaped that terrible battle? I pray you, give us your blessing!" Her obeisance hurt, an old wound scraped raw. "Nay, I pray you," he said desperately. "Stand up, Hathumod. Do not kneel there."

'What would you have us do, my lord?" she asked. "We will do as you command."

Father Ortulfus stared in stunned silence with his officials clustered in like stupefaction around him. At the forest's edge, an owl hooted. Wings beat hard back in the woodland, and for an instant Alain thought the guivre had returned, causing them all to ossify into stone. The owl hooted again. The moon's light had crept up the east-facing porch, sliding up Hathumod's arms to gild her face until she looked waxy and half-dead.

'Biscop Constance is a fair woman. She will not judge you rashly," he said.

'But what of our case, my lord? You walked with Brother Agius before his martyrdom. You heard him speak."

'Brother Agius was a troubled man." It was the only answer Alain could give. "I cannot say if he was right or wrong, nor can any of Ou. Do not imperil your souls by bringing violence to this peaceful lace, I beg you. Go to Autun. If your cause is just, the biscop will listen to you." "I don't want to go to Autun!" objected Margrave Judith's young husband.

'Shut up, Baldwin," said the redheaded youth. "They've got twenty stout men with staves, and we've only got knives. We can hardly preach the truth if we're dead."

'We have nothing to fear," said Sigfrid, "since we walk with the truth. Remember the phoenix, Baldwin. Do not lose faith."

'I have not lost faith, my lord," cried Hathumod. She reached up boldly and touched his cheek where the blemish stained his skin, then flushed and pulled her hand away. She fumbled at her sleeve and thrust an old rusted nail into his hand. "I have not forgotten that God tested us by offering us a broken vessel in place of the whole one. I still have the nail."

Surely the guivre had returned, its baleful glare in full force, because he could not move. The nail burned his skin. He had rid himself of both promises and burdens, but what he had given away to the centaur shaman had returned to haunt and plague him.

Would he never be free of Tallia's sin? Was it possible he loved her still? Was his memory of happiness with Adica only a delirium, caught in the mind of a wounded man?

He refused to surrender to the chains that once bound him.

'This is no longer mine." He pressed the nail into Hathumod's pale fingers. "I am not what you think I am. I am bound to this monastery now—"

'Who are you?" demanded the abbot. "You came to us raving about the end times and yet stand here like a lord born into a noble house."

'He was a Lion," said Dedi, speaking for the first time.

'Nay, he was a count," said Hathumod. "It was wickedness and the greed of others that brought him low! I know what he truly is, for I have seen that which follows in his wake!"

'He's a laborer born and bred," objected Brother Lallo. "I've seen the calluses on his hands. He knows plaiting and weaving as would any child born to a family who work along the sea lanes."

'These cannot all be true." Father Ortulfus' irritation scalded his tone.

'I am no one, Father." He could not keep the bitterness from his voice, although he knew bitterness was a sin. He must not blame God for the happiness he had shared with Adica; too well he understood how brief life, and happiness, were. "I am just a bastard born to a whore and an unknown father."

'Yet those fearsome hounds follow you as meekly as lambs. One might say you had bewitched them."

'Say what you will," said Alain. "God alone know the truth of what I am. What kin my mother was born to I cannot say, only that she died a pauper and a whore."

Hathumod whimpered, the kind of bleat a small animal might make when caught in a falcon's claws.

'What are you now?" Father Ortulfus' intent gaze might have been that of the falcon.

'I am grateful to be a common laborer, working in peace at this monastery."

The sacrist appeared out of the clot of officials who had fallen back at the first sign of violence.

'Think of the oil, Father!" he whispered so loudly that all heard.

The abbot bit his lip, hesitating, then gestured for the sacrist to step back before he addressed Alain again.

'Is it your intention to declare yourself as a converso? To work for a year and a day at this place and then, when that year and a day have passed, to devote your life to God as a monk?"

The night was so still and restful, chill without the biting cold that would come with winter, that its tranquil presence spread a glamour over them, washing away the tensions that had threatened to erupt moments before. The evening breeze touched Alain's face and spilled peace through his soul. He remembered the breath of healing that passed over his heart after the guivre vanished into the wood. Was it a presentiment?

The man who raised him, his foster father Henri, pledged him to the church in return for the right to foster him. Didn't he turn away from that vow when he pledged himself to the Lady of Battles? All she had brought him was death.

Nay, love, too. He would not be dishonest. For all the pain it brought him, he would never disavow his love for Lavastine, for Adica, and even for Tallia, who had turned her back on him. For his faithful hounds, who followed him.

It was time to return to the vow first made, although he was only an infant when it was spoken over him.

'Truly," he said, meeting the abbot's avaricious gaze, "I will labor here for a year and a day, and then enter the monastery as a monk, jevoting my life to God, as it should have been all along."

'So be it." Father Ortulfus turned to Prior Ratbold. "Escort our visitors to cells. There's still the matter of Lord Berthold to investigate. We'll send a party up to the barrows in the morning. I will interview them further after we've seen if there's any truth to their claim."

'What if we can't find them again?" objected handsome Baldwin. "I don't want to go back to those nasty barrows. They scared me."

Hathumod turned on him angrily. Her tear-stained face glittered under the moon's light. "You'll hush now, Baldwin! I've had enough of your whining! No matter what happens next, no harm will come to us, will it, Lord Alain?"

He did not know the future. Yet in his heart he did not fear for them. They were not wicked liars, probably only mistaken in their belief, desperate for the passion brought to them by Agius' tortured vision.

'No harm will come to you," he agreed. "Father Ortulfus is a good man. He will listen carefully to what you have to say, as long as you are honest."

As soon as Prior Ratbold escorted the visitors away, the laborers crept back onto the porch and into the dormitory, slipping away to their cots in the hope no one would notice.

Father Ortulfus did not leave immediately. His attendants lingered beside him as the moon rose higher still, bathing the forest's edge in its gray-silver light. From here, on the porch, they could not see the other buildings of Herford Monastery, only a corner of the stables, the spindly outlines of apple and pear trees, and the fenced-off garden, fallow at this season except for a rank stand of rosemary.

The sacrist approached Alain, bobbing nervously. He wore a good linen robe, befitting his rank, under a knee-length wool tunic trimmed with fur. "There is a cell free for your use, Brother, set apart from the rest as befits your position among us, but with a good rope bed, a rug, and other small courtesies."

Alain regarded him with surprise. "Nay, Brother, what would I want such courtesies for? I will labor among my brethren here until I have fulfilled my vow. A cot in the dormitory is good enough for me.'

Father Ortulfus watched him but said nothing. He and his attendants departed quietly.

Alain stood on the porch listening, and after a while he heard the muffled sound of weeping. He walked into the dormitory to find Iso facedown on the coarse hemp-cloth cot, trying to stifle his sobs.

Kneeling beside the youth, Alain rested a hand on his bony back. "All has been set right."

Iso struggled to speak. Fear made his stammer worse. "B-but th-they'll th-throw me out. I h-h-have nowhere to g-g-go."

'Nay, friend, no one will disturb you. You'll stay here, where you belong."

As Iso calmed, Alain became aware of many listening ears, those of the other day laborers, poor men, some crippled, some slow of wit, some merely down on their luck or seeking the assurance of a meal every day, who served the monastery with labor day in and day out, although few of these men would ever be allowed to take the vows of a monk. It was so quiet in the dormitory that a mouse could be heard skittering along the eaves. It was so quiet that the moon seemed to be holding its breath. The wind did not sigh in the rafters, nor could he hear the night breeze moving through the trees outside.

Rage grunted and settled down beside Alain's cot. It was too dark to see her as anything but shadow. Sorrow stood by the door, as still as though he had been turned to stone.

'Go to sleep now, Iso," he said. "Let everyone rest. There is work to do tomorrow.

Don't let your hearts be troubled."

They did shift and settle, they did go to sleep at last, although Alain lay wakeful for a long time before sleep claimed him. Memories drifted in clouds, obscure and troubling.

He still felt the touch of the nail against his skin, like poison, and for a long time he saw Sorrow standing vigilant in the open door.

IGNS AND TENTS SHJE had once been a captive in hardship. Now she suffered as a captive in luxury. The food was better, and she slept on a comfortable pallet at night in a spacious suite among the devoted servants of Presbyter Hugh. She never saw anyone murdered for sport or out of boredom and neglect, but otherwise the two conditions contrasted little. Twice, a servant of Duke Burchard approached one of Hugh's stewards, asking that the duke be allowed to interview her himself; after the second refusal, the man did not come again. Hugh allowed no one to talk to her, not even the other Eagles. Seven Eagles besides herself attended Henry at court, including Rufus, but they slept and ate in other quarters to which she was never allowed access. Nor was she sent out with any messages, as her comrades were, riding out to various places in Aosta, north to Karrone, and even one to Salia.

She wore no chains, but she had no freedom of movement^ Of course it was preferable to be a prisoner without the misery she had endured under the Quman, even if she had been subjected to far less than the hapless folk forced to follow, and die, in the army's train.

Of course it was preferable.

That didn't make it palatable.

If Hugh suspected that she had seen Hathui and heard her accusations, he never let on.

Maybe he didn't think so. Maybe if he thought so, she would be dead by now. In fact, he paid no attention to her at all once she had given an account of her travels and travails to him while a cleric busily wrote it all down. He had questioned her; she had replied. She hadn't said everything she knew, but perhaps she had said enough. She could not tell if he suspected her of disloyalty' or treason. Anyone as unrelentingly benevolent as Hugh could not, as far as she was concerned, be trusted.

And yet.

Small acts of charity softened the path he trod every day. He did not fear to walk into the grimmer parts of the city, where folk lived in the meanest conditions: beggars, itinerant cobblers, and whole families whose work seemed to consist of gleaning from sewers and garbage pits. In a city brimming with poverty, he turned no beggar away without offering the poor man bread and a coin. Laborers were hired out of his own purse to work on the walls and reconstruct buildings damaged in the mild earthquake. Now and again he redeemed captives brought to the market for sale into service as domestic slaves, those who professed to be Daisanites. Each week he led a service at the servants' chapel to which any person working in the palace, high or low, might seek entry; no other presbyter deigned to humble himself in such a way when there were clerics aplenty available to minister to the lowborn.

No one at court spoke against him. Nor did any whisper of any unseemly connection between the beautiful presbyter and the young queen reach Hanna's ears. As days passed, Hanna saw herself that Hugh was never alone with Queen Adelheid. Never. It was so marked that she supposed it was done deliberately.

In any case, the queen was pregnant. A second child would seal Adelheid's grip on the imperial throne. Through all this, Hugh stood at the king's right hand.

So it was today, on the feast day dedicated to All Souls, the twelfth day of Octumbre.

The king received visitors in the royal hall with his court gathered around him. Hanna waited to the right of the throne, standing against the wall, watching as Hugh intercepted each supplicant before allowing them to ascend the dais and kneel before the king and queen.

No information reached Henry that did not pass Hugh first. He controlled what the king knew and how the king made decisions.

Hugh's influence remained subtle, but pervasive. Was it possible that no one else saw as clearly as she did?

But looking over these courtiers who chatted as they waited in attendance, bright in their fine clothing and precious jewels and baubles, she saw no suspicion in their bearing or their gaze. A wind had dispelled the heat wave that had lingered, according to the natives, unusually long into the autumn season, so it was no hardship to pass the afternoon in gossip and splendor as petitioners came and went, most of them artisans and guildsmen fashioning the many trappings and the great feast that would accompany the coronation.

Now that the king had begun his inevitable transition into emperor, none of the nobles had the kind of companionable intimacy she had seen them once share with Henry back in the days when Margrave Villam and Sister Rosvita had counseled the king. Had Henry become proud? Would the crown soon to grace his head exalt him far above those who had once been his peers?

She wondered if she had dreamed that flash of blue in Henry's eyes. Perhaps Hathui had betrayed the king and tried to drag Hanna into the conspiracy. Perhaps her own loyalty to Liath had disoriented her, complicated by the familiar tangle of envy, love, fidelity, and a tiny spark of resentment. Yet Liath had left her and the Eagles behind.

Why should she cling to a friendship that had likely meant far more to Hanna than it ever had to Liath?

She could not shake constancy. She understood better now the fears and weaknesses that had driven Liath. Whatever had happened in the past, she could not abandon the memory of the fellowship and harmony they had shared.

She had a sudden, odd feeling that someone was looking at her. Turning her head, she caught sight of a cleric sitting among a dozen others at a table to one side of the king's throne. These members of the king's schola were at work writing down the names and pledges of each of the artisans, making a careful record of the great undertaking they had now all embarked on which would culminate in the first Emperor since the days of Taillefer, one hundred years before.

One man had paused in his writing to look at her: Brother Fortu-natus, who had given the sermon at St. Asella's. He did not look away immediately when their gazes met. He studied her, frowning slightly, serious; he had a gaunt-looking face, as if he had once been a lot heavier and healthier and happier with the extra weight. No doubt he wondered why she walked among Hugh's entourage. Nc,' doubt he wondered if she had betrayed him.

A courtier approached the king to introduce three aged clerics, residents of the famous institution of the learned St. Melania of Kellai. They had studied the Holy Verses and with careful prognostications had several well-omened dates to suggest for the coronation itself. The king and queen listened as the scholars argued over the relative benefits of a coronation held on the feast day of St. Peter the Discipla, which was also Candlemass, or that of St. Eulalia, two days later, whose attendance at the birth of the blessed Daisan would bring her saintly approval to the birth of a new empire.

Beside Hanna, two of Hugh's clerics were chatting softly in counterpoint to the discussion going on publicly before the king.

'Nay, but the arguments for holding the coronation on the twenty-second day of Novarian are very strong, if we speak only of the stars."

'They'll say no such thing publicly! People still fear mathematici."

'That won't last. The Holy Mother herself did the calculations. It was she who said that when Jedu moves from the Lion into the Dragon, it would be well for the king to crown himself from the lesser beast into the greater."

'But I've heard others argue that we had better look to a conjunction with the Crown of Stars, for that signifies the empire, and thus would command better success. Erekes will reach conjunction with the Crown on the eleventh of Askulavre."

'Erekes is fleeting. Would that not cause the reign of the new emperor to be fleeting?"

'Life is fleeting, Brother. Yet doesn't Somorhas come into conjunction with the Crown soon after? And linger there for many days, into Fevrua?"

'Because she goes into retrograde. That can scarcely bode well. Yet on the first of Sormas, she touches the Child's Tore, signifying heaven's blessing on the rule of Earth's regnants."

They would argue endlessly. Hugh's private schola, his coterie of clerics and church-folk, was riddled with women and men professing to understand the teachings of the mathematici, magic outlawed by a church council a hundred years ago but come back into favor with the blessing of the new skopos, herself an adept of the sorcerous arts.

Brother Fortunatus was not the only one watching her: so did Duchess Liutgard, with narrowed eyes, as if wondering why an Eagle had sought refuge under Hugh's wing—or why Hugh had confined an Eagle within the cage of his faithful retinue.

She dropped her gaze to stare at her feet and the honest pair of boots covering them.

She had followed the trail set before her by the will of others for too long. Maybe it was time to branch off on a path of her own making.

- door into the chamber where he was confined for the night, separate from the others, stood so low that Ivar had to crawl to get inside. With a blanket wrapped around him, he huddled on the stone platform that served as a bed, unable to sleep, stricken with wretched cramps from the rich food.

Why did the righteous suffer and the wicked thrive? Ivar could not imagine Hugh spending even one single night in discomfort. No doubt he lay in a fine luxurious bed waited on by servants. Had he a woman in the bed with him? Yet the image wouldn't rise.

Hugh had never shown interest in any woman in Heart's Rest, not until Liath. Maybe Hugh lusted just as most men did but knew how to control himself.

Anger writhed in his gut at the thought of Hugh until finally he staggered over to the bucket placed in the corner and vomited the remains of his dinner. When he sagged back onto the hard bed, he felt a little better. He must not let despair and hatred control him.

He could not let the memory of Liath torment him. He had to figure out how to get his companions out of this prison, and he could not do so if he let jealousy and fear and hate consume him. He had always acted so impulsively before. Unbidden, the memory of his elder half sister, Rosvita, came to his mind. She would never have found herself in such an awkward circumstance. She would never be so stupid as to be thrown into a prison cell for some rash action or thoughtless words. How many times as a child had he heard her held up as a paragon of shrewdness and composure? He had to try to be like her. He had to set aside his passions and think.

How could three years have passed in the space of two nights?

In the morning, the prior came with a party of men and took away Gerulf as well as Baldwin, whose indignant complaining could be heard through the heavy door. Later, a servant brought venison,

bread, and leftover pudding, but Ivar couldn't bear to touch anything but the bread.

Wine didn't quench his thirst, but a diet of bread and wine eased the ache in his bowels.

The day passed with excruciating slowness. The afternoon service of Nones had come and gone when, at last, all seven of them were brought under guard to the abbot's office.

Ivar needed only one look at the expression on Baldwin's and Gerulf's faces.

'Nothing, my lord abbot," said the prior. "We entered each of the mounds and found a passageway in to a central chamber. Villam's men did the same thing five years ago when the lad first disappeared. The chambers lie empty. We saw no tunnels or stairs leading farther into the ground, nor did we find any trace of Lord Berthold or his companions."

The abbot regarded Ivar as he toyed with an ornament: a deer carved from ivory, so cunningly wrought that each least detail, ears, flared eyes, nostrils, the tufts of hair on its legs, had been suggested by the artisan's skill. A servant came in with a covered bucket to add charcoal to the bra,'ier.

'Truly, it puzzles me that Lord Ivar and his companions should make such a claim when they must have known how easily it would be disproved. They do not strike me as fools—well, perhaps with one exception. Still, this matter goes beyond my jurisdiction.

Only the biscop's court can judge cases of heresy, and whether these tales are true. A phoenix rising from the ashes, healing the lame and the ill. Three years passing in the space of two nights. A two months' journey overland accomplished by walking into and out of a barrow, through a labyrinth of chambers buried far beneath the old grave mounds."

'Sorcery!" exclaimed the prior. "Like those stories we've heard of bandits who eat the souls of their captives."

'Hush!" scolded Ortulfus. "Speak no ill gossip lest you bring the sickness back on yourself. Lord Ivar, at Hugh of Austra's trial you yourself admitted to consorting with a woman condemned and outlawed for the crime of sorcery. How am I to judge? I must send all of you to Autun."

'I don't want to go back to Autun!" cried Baldwin. "And you didn't tell them about the lions!"

'Ai, God," said Gerulf impatiently, forgetting his station as a humble Lion, "his ravings won't help our case any."

'Nay, hold," said the prior suddenly. "What lions?"

'The lions on that rock outcropping," said Baldwin irritably. "The one by that tiny old shelter."

Father Ortulfus set down the deer. His expression grew pensive, even troubled. The sacrist whispered furtively to the chief scribe, and the cellarer rubbed his hands together nervously while the prior plucked at his keys.

They knew something. Here lay the opportunity.

'I saw the lions, too," Ivar said at once. "They came at night while I was on watch with Sigfrid. They drove off a pack of wolves and kept watch over us where we sheltered under an overhang near by the hovel."

The abbot wavered.

They had struck on the one thing that might convince him.

'You never said you saw the lions!" exclaimed Baldwin indignantly. "You let everyone think I was a maniac!"

That quickly, Father Ortulfus' support slipped away. Picking up the deer, he surveyed his prisoners with a sigh of derision. "Convenient that you recall just now to mention that you saw lions, Lord Ivar."

'But I did see them," Ivar insisted, hearing his voice grow shrill. It was so hard to stay calm when disaster stared them in the face. God have mercy! Mother Scholastica had cut out Sigfrid's tongue for speaking heresy. What would Biscop Constance do to them?

'Why did you not mention it to your companions?" Ortulfus went on. "To see a lion in this part of the world would be an unexpected event, would it not? Did you see a lion, Lord Ermanrich? Lady Hathumod? Gerulf? Dedi?"

One by one, reluctantly, they shook their heads.

'Why did you say nothing?" repeated Ortulfus.

'I—I—it seemed like a dream to me. In the morning, I didn't see any tracks, so I thought perhaps I had dreamed about lions only because of what Baldwin had said."

'And you, Brother Sigfrid?" Father Ortulfus' tone was the more damning for being so composed.

'There were lions, my lord abbot, but unless you see them with your own eyes, you cannot understand that they exist."

'So be it. Suspected on the grounds of heresy and sorcery. Biscop Constance must judge this matter, for I cannot. Prior Ratbold, make ready a party to escort them to Autun for trial."

*T I went St. Asella's once," Hanna admitted as she ate supper that evening with the other Wendish servants in Hugh's retinue. "Do you go often?"

'Indeed, we do," said Margret the seamstress. Normally she had a piece of embroidery or mending on her lap. It was strange to see her clever hands engaged in any other activity, even so commonplace a one as spooning leek and turnip stew into her mouth.

"My lord Hugh is most generous, as you know, and gives us one morning a week to attend Vespers at St. Asella's."

'You're not frightened at going down into the lower city so late? The Aostans don't love the Wendish."

'They do not love us," said Vindicadus the scribe, "but they'll be ruled by us no matter what they wish." He glanced at Margret.

The seamstress brushed a tendril of graying hair out of her eyes. "We walk down in daylight. That is safe enough. By the time evening song is over, we are all together. We walk back to the palace as a troop. None bother us, even if a few throw curses our way."

'I wonder if I might come with you. It gladdened my heart to hear a lesson given in Wendish. My ears grow weary of hearing Aostan, if you'll pardon me for saying so."

'No need to ask our pardon, but you must ask the steward." "Vindicadus" wasn't the name given him by his mother. He came of low birth from a village in western Avaria but had learned to read and write regardless and been allowed to take the cleric's tonsure in a frontier monastery in Austra, where his talents (and, it was rumored, his pretty face and pleasing figure) had come to the attention of Margrave Judith. He had evidently flowered young and faded quickly, for although a well enough looking man he had gone to fat, and it wasn't clear to Hanna by what chain of events he had ended up in Darre. Hugh used him to make copies of any royal cartularies and capitularies which might be of interest to the skopos and to run errands.

The next day the steward said there was no objection to such an expedition as long as Hanna remained with Margret and Vindicadus.

The holy presbyter was a generous lord and favored those of his servants who obeyed him and did right by God.

So she found herself the following evening, as the service of Vespers began, sitting toward the back of the nave in St. Asella's, watching and waiting while Margret and Vindicadus bent their heads in prayer.

'May the Mother and Father of Life have mercy upon us—

Two male clerics led the service this day, but she saw Fortunatus and the three young women standing at the rear of the choir. Was that Aurea, the servant woman, sitting on the third bench? Even with lamps burning along the aisle, it was hard to tell because the drape of her shawl concealed her face.

'In peace let us pray to Our Lord and Lady."

The soothing words melded with the whispered gossip of the group of women on the back bench, more interested in chatting about their day than about saving their everlasting souls. It was hard to concentrate on prayers. There were so many distractions, thoughts flickering in and out of her mind as she struggled to quiet the tumble of ideas that fell one over the other. She became aware of a mild rumbling in her stomach, the gift of the strongly-flavored leek stew, three days old, she had eaten this afternoon. She covered her mouth to burp as the two clerics paced out the stations marking the blessed Daisan's life and ministry as he brought the Holy Word to the faithful.

She felt queasy, actually, a little shaky, as though the stew had turned bad. She shut her eyes, but the nausea didn't go away. The bench rocked back. The ground jerked so hard that she slammed into Margret. She fell forward, banging her knee on the bench in front of her.

A scream split the drone of the service as the ground pitched back the other way, grinding and howling. A brick fell square in the middle of the aisle. A tripod teetered, tipped, and spilled fire along the aisle. People leaped to their feet shouting and crying out in fe^r as Hanna stared uncomprehendingly at the spilled oil, fire running along the stone floor of the church, racing like wildfire. Bricks rained down. Dust smothered the lamps.

Chaos erupted. People bolted for the doors, yelling, as a sjecond tripod tipped over.

Fire caught the hem of a man's tunic.

The ground had stopped shaking, but another brick fell smack onto the head of a woman clawing her way past others. She fell and was jerked up by her terrified companion. A man slammed into Hanna and shoved her aside.

'Down!" shouted Hanna, dragging Margret down beside her using the benches as shields, cowering under them. Vindicadus had vanished. A brick hit the wooden bench right above her head and shattered into two, one half falling on each side. Dust coated her face. Screams deafened her. She saw a man tumble, crushed by the panicked crowd.

'We've got to get out of here!" cried Margret.

'Not that way!" It was hard to be heard with oily smoke filling her lungs when she sucked in air to speak. She kept her hand on Margret's sleeve as she coughed. "There's another way out past the Hearth!"

They clambered under and over tumbled benches, some standing miraculously upright, others pitched over on their sides, but when they reached the aisle, Margret fled toward the doors. Hanna stumbled through the acrid smoke and streaming dust to fetch up against the Hearth.

'Eagle!" A man's voice. "This way!"

Her eyes wept tears, and she had to cover her nose and mouth with her sleeve in order to breathe. A firm hand propelled her forward. She tripped on rubble, went down hard on her bruised knee, and fell flat as a body slammed into her. Other hands plucked her to safety, and they stumbled out into open air. The alley was littered with debris and fallen masonry. They picked their way over mounds of bricks, slipping, staggering, hands scraped raw and clothing torn as they reached the spot where the alley opened onto the avenue. There they huddled together, a forlorn group of eight wretched, terrified souls.

Clouds of dust blotted out the twilight sky and the first stars and billowed like fog down the street. Smoke poured skyward as fires took heart from the confusion to run wild. Everywhere men and woman stampeded along the streets without purpose, running, shouting, many seeking a gate out of the city. It was hard to tell anything with dust choking their view.

'Oh, God! Look!"

Hanna's neck hurt, but with a grunt of pain she turned. Wind had blown a gap in the dust.

The domed temple dedicated to St. Marcus the Warrior had caved in. Dust rose in clouds, drifting lazily into the sky. Moans and screams from folk trapped within the mound of rubble made a horri ble chorus. A distant horn blew. Drums beat from the palace; the upper city was visible in snatches through dust and smoke. The sun bled a deep red as its rim dropped below the horizon. It looked as if the heavens, too, were burning.

Brother Fortunatus stood beside her, weeping tears of fright, or compassion, or pain.

'What did you mean," she asked suddenly, "when you preached the parable of the child buried beneath a landslide?"

His face was streaked with dust and a smear of blood, and his eyes seemed startlingly white in contrast, like those of a spooked horse. "Are you Presbyter Hugh's spy?"

'I am a King's Eagle, Brother. But on my journey south to Aosta, I met one of my fellow Eagles, a woman called Hathui—"

He sank to his knees. Around him, his companions exclaimed while drums resounded and horns rang. Distantly she heard a troop of horse pounding along an unseen street. No one regarded them. A brick fell from the wall of St. Asella's, shattering where it hit the ground not a body's length from them.

'We are desperate, Eagle." Fortunatus clasped her hands as though he were a supplicant and she the regnant. "Sister Rosvita has been imprisoned in the dungeon of the skopos for over two years. I pray you, help us rescue her."

'How can it be that the king has allowed this to happen? She is his most trusted counselor. Did she turn against him?"

'Never! That night we heard only Hathui's frightened testimony. She told us that the queen and the presbyter had conspired to control the king with sorcery, with a daimone.

Sister Rosvita went away with the Eagle to seek Margrave Villam and the king. She musJJiaye seen the truth. Why else would they have imprisoned her?',' "Why not kill her, then?" (

'I have often wondered, but I think—" "Look!" cried Sister Heriburg. Cavalry advanced down the crowded avenue like ghosts advancing through fog. The soldiers pressed forward through the panicked mob, who threw bricks and screamed abuse at them.

'There will never be a better time," said Hanna, scanning the chaos. "They'll need every guard in the city to restore order, to dig out the injured, to protect the king and queen and the Holy Mother herself. If we go now, perhaps we can save her. Who is with me?"

'I am with you!" cried Fortunatus, rising to his feet. "Nor need I vouch for my companions." He gestured to the rest of their party.

'I am with you!"

'And I!"

'I will never desert Sister Rosvita!"

'God bless you, Eagle." Aurea wiped blood from her cheek with her scarf as she wept.

They all cried out, these soft, educated, nobly-born clerics. How much hardship had they ever faced, three girls freshly come from the convent? The two young men looked no more worldly. Only Fortu-natus and Aurea seemed constructed of sterner stuff, less likely to shatter if a cataclysm wrenched them. But they had all endured in Darre for two years, fiercely protective of their imprisoned mentor.

Hanna admired their loyalty.

She could not believe that Sister Rosvita would ever turn against the king, just as she herself would never turn against the king. But if the king were no longer in control of himself, then she must do what she could to fight those who had made him a captive in his own body.

'We must hurry, while they're still in confusion. Where does this alley lead if we go the other way? Can we get to the palace by back streets? We'll need lamps."

Fortunatus braved the church and returned with three miraculously unbroken lamps and a jar of oil. They made their way back toward the palace, keeping off the main avenues where they were most likely to meet soldiers. The destruction, although extensive, wasn't as bad as that terrible collapse of the dome of St. Marcus. Yet they still had to pick their way over waves of rubble. They still heard the screams of the trapped, the crushed, and those who feared a loved one might have perished. Dust made them cough, so they fixed cloth over their faces to protect themselves. Their clothing was filthy, their faces blackened by soot, ash, and the clogging, stinging dust.

The main ramp leading up to the palaces was choked with traffic as courtiers and servants fled. A fire had broken out in one wing of the regnant's palace. It was not easy to push against the flow of bodies frantically flooding away, but by the gates the crush worked to their advantage as they slipped past the guards undetected.

They pressed through the agitated crowd and into the relative quiet of a niche where travelers could water their thirsty mounts. A leering medusa face came into sudden focus as Hanna raised her lantern. The shaking earth had cracked its hair, and a chunk of the bowl had fallen to the ground. Water dripped uneasily from a loose pipe.

'Do you know how to find Sister Rosvita?" Hanna asked.

'I do," said Fortunatus.

'Then you and I, and you two, will seek her." She pointed to the young men, who identified themselves as Jerome and Jehan. "Sisters, you must brave the chaos. We'll need horses, mules, some kind of wagon or cart in case Sister Rosvita is too weak to ride.

Blankets, provisions, if they're easily come by. Weapons. I use a staff, and a bow. A sword, in dire straits. Knives would be better than nothing."

'None of us are fighters," said Fortunatus.

'Make way! Make way for His Honor!"

Hanna glanced out into the dusty courtyard, but the haze and the fitful movement of the torches made it impossible to see what noble courtier or presbyter fled the palace.

Perhaps the king had already seen his young queen to safety. Perhaps Henry waited in a smoky hall, unable to make any decision unless another voice spoke in his ear. She could not dwell on such things. She could, perhaps, save one person tonight. She could not save the entire world.

Aurea and the young women left to seek mounts and a wagon. Fortunatus led them through the servants' corridors into the palace of the skopos, to the ancient gate where corpses had, in olden days, been hauled down to the river.

Here, by this gate, a set of steps cut down into the foundation of the palace. No guards barred their path. They crept down the stairs cautiously. A rumble rattled under their feet, and they stopped, pressing against the walls, fearing that the masonry walls might collapse and bury them. Jerome moaned in fear.

The old palace seemed stable enough. Downward they went on stone stairs rubbed smooth by the passage of many feet, down into chambers cut out of bedrock. As they descended, the air cleared, becoming free of the clinging dust that abraded their lungs.

They stumbled into the guards' room. Everyone had fled, leaving a scarred bench and a table with dice and stones scattered heedlessly over the top. A wooden platter bore a half-eaten loaf of bread and a crumb of cheese. Two mugs had overturned, spilling ale over the tabletop, slowly drying up. A single helm molded of leather lay on the floor.

But not everyone could flee. Echoing down the two tunnels that cut deeper into the rock, where cells were hewn to house the prisoners, rose cries for help, prayers, and even one poor soul's maniacal laughter.

'This way," said Fortunatus, hurrying down one of the tunnels.

'What about the other prisoners?" asked Jehan. He and Jerome scuttled along like nervous dogs, shoulders hunched.

'Heretics, malefici, and worse," called Fortunatus. "We dare not let any of them go."

'I pray you, guardsman! Let me out!" "Is the world coming to an end?" "Have mercy!

Have mercy!" "There is no God but Fire!"

The cries resonated. Although muffled by the thick stone walls, the pleas pierced her heart. Would these captive souls be left to die?

She bent to pick up the helm. A rat scurried out of it, running over her fingers, and she shrieked and jumped back, cursing, and slammed into the wall. For an instant, sucking in air that would not come, she thought she would asphyxiate. The walls closed around her, dizzying in the feeble glow of the lamp she still gripped. The air smelled sour. Another tremor might cause the entire palace to fall in on top of them.

They would be buried alive.

'Get hold of yourself!" She kicked over the helm and cautiously picked it up, shook it.

No rats. She set it on the table before venturing three steps into the low tunnel that ran opposite the one down which Fortunatus had vanished. She heard, behind her, the scrape of a bar being lifted off a door, heard close by the scritch of hands, or claws, on the walls, a madman's chitter, all singsong. The flame wavered in an eddy of air. Voices.

'—deserting your post!"

'Nay, Sergeant! What does it matter if God chooses them to die? I can't bear to remain down there where it's all dark. The walls will cave in. I'm afraid, Sergeant. Don't make me go! Don't make me go!" She ran back into the guardroom. The guards had fled with their weapons. Grabbing the helm, she fastened it over her head, then tested the weight of the bench. If a humble bench could serve as a weapon one time, then it would surely serve again. Mercifully, this was a lighter bench than the long bench she and Rufus had hoisted in St. Asella's. She hoped Rufus and the other Eagles were all out of the city on the king's business. She prayed the king was safe.

Up the stairs, the shimmer of a lamp chased away the darkness. She slipped into shadow by the arched opening, the bench braced against her knees, upright. Her arms burned at the weight. Her heart raced.

Distantly, as through a fog, she heard Fortunatus' voice. "Come, Sister Rosvita. We are here to rescue you."

'Brother Fortunatus?" So changed was that voice, more like a frog's croak than a woman's speech, that Hanna would never have recognized it. But it was not without strength. She sounded weak but not weak-minded, frail but not beaten.

How could anyone survive for two years in such a pit? You might as well be flung into the Abyss.

'I'll whip you forward if I must!" cried the sergeant. "What are we to say to the skopos if—

Shadows spilled onto the floor before her feet. She heaved up the bench. The two soldiers lurched into view just as Jehan and Jerome appeared at the mouth of the tunnel with a body carried between them and Fortunatus bringing up the rear.

She brought the bench down hard on the soldiers' heads before they had time to utter a word. The sergeant went down hard, caught by the full weight of the bench. The soldier staggered forward two steps before his knees buckled under him, but even so he caught himself on his hands and, on hands and knees, retched.

No mercy.

She slammed the bench down on him again, and he fell flat. Blood pooled from his nose. Hanna set down the bench and stripped them of their weapons and belts: a stout spear, a short sword, and two knives.

'No time to get their armor. We've got to lock them up."

The soldier still wasn't knocked out, but he could only whimper and struggle weakly as she rolled him into the open cell where Rosvita had been confined.

'I pray you, mercy!" he sobbed as he clawed at the ground, trying to get up, but his legs wouldn't hold him. Blood and vomit smeared his face and the front of his tunic. The sergeant was a dead weight, and Fortunatus had some trouble shifting him, but together they dragged him down the tunnel and, after shoving aside the pleading weeping soldier, hauled the door shut and dropped the bar into place.

'Oh, God." A wave of dizziness so overset her that she stumbled and caught herself on the wall, hearing the moans, the cries, beseeching, begging.

'We must go," said Fortunatus.

It was a nightmare, as though she had fallen into the pit where the souls of all of the people Bulkezu had murdered were trapped forever within stone, never to be free, never to ascend to the Chamber of Light. She was leaving them all behind. She was abandoning them.

'Jehan and Jerome have carried Sister Rosvita up! Anyone might come! There's nothing we can do for these people!"

'We could let them go."

'Who knows what terrible crimes they have committed? Why else would the skopos have confined them here? Did you not hear the apostate crying out the Oath made by the fire worshipers?"

'What if they are unjustly imprisoned, as Sister Rosvita was?"

'We dare not take that chance. What if even one of them is mad and tries to stop us?

We must escape with Sister Rosvita before more people come. I assure you that the skopos, Presbyter Hugh, and the queen herself will not rest until they find her, once they know she is gone. I pray you, Eagle."

'I'm sorry," she whispered, knowing none of the prisoners could hear her although she heard them, their voices rising with despair and panic. "God, forgive me."

They took the last oil lamp, leaving the dungeons in a foul darkness.

A strange power afflicted her limbs, so that she raced up the steps and yet was not winded when they reached the top. The air reeked of dust and hot ash, scalding her lungs.

By the Dead Man's Gate they found Aurea and two of the young sisters waiting with a mule, a broken-backed nag of a mare, and a handcart in which the young brothers had already laid Sister Rosvita most tenderly, cushioning her on a blanket and covering her with another. The young women fussed and whispered, unwilling to let go of Rosvita's hands, chafing them, kissing them. Aurea had hold of the mounts. She wept silent tears, so overcome with emotion that her face had settled into a grimace as she stared fixedly into the darkness toward the main portion of the palace. The sound of soldiers marching, of a horn and drums, assailed them. Were the soldiers leaving the palace to march down into the city by the main gate, or were they returning in force to garrison the palace?

Hanna could not tell. Lights moved on the narrow path that led down to the riverside.

'Fortunatus." That croak of a voice had gained power. "What has happened? Why am I here?"

Dry-eyed, Fortunatus kissed Rosvita's hands fervently. "God brought about a miracle, Sister." He was distracted by the sound of hurried footfalls, the slap of sandals. "Where is Heriburg?" he demanded.

'She would go off!" cried one of the girls aggrievedly.

There she came, laden with books. "I have your History, Sister!" she cried as she caught sight of them. "I knew you would not rest easy if we had to leave it behind. We must hurry. A whole troop of soldiers is marching in."

'The books!" Rosvita lay back in the cart, exhausted.

Heriburg thrust the books in and around the cleric's legs and Hanna pulled the blanket over her completely, concealing her.

'Come," Hanna said. "We'll take turns with the cart. Let any who question us be told that we're rescuing books and cartularies from the king's schola."

It took four of them to negotiate the cart down the steep path, but they had better luck along the avenue that led directly to the western gate. None of the buildings on this stretch had collapsed, although they still had to negotiate the many people milling along the roadway, too afraid to go back inside to fetch their belongings yet unwilling to leave the city without their worldly possessions. A few shouted curses at them, as though the Wendish had brought the disaster down on the city. One man threw a stone that cut an ugly gash on Aurea's cheek.

They kept their heads down after that, and Hanna was glad they weren't leaving by the eastern gate, where anti-Wendish sentiment seemed more volatile. The roar of sound, shouting, wailing, drums, a booming crash that reverberated and collapsed at last into a long rumbling echo, the bleating of goats and the barking of frantic dogs, drove them on.

When they came to the gates, there were indeed guardsmen, but they trundled past in the safety of a mob of complaining, crying women, laundresses by their garb and talk, laden with bedding and dripping garments.

'May God have mercy," murmured Fortunatus as they cleared the wall.

They had escaped.

They pushed on, looking fearfully from one side to the other, afraid that someone might recognize them and call to them, but no one did. They walked, switching off at the hand cart, trudging along the road with thousands of refugees. Everywhere, in the fields and along the open pastureland that surrounded the city, people had halted in exhaustion.

No one dared to spend the rest of the night under a roof. All this Hanna saw in glimpses, shapes lost in darkness. Dust swathed the sky behind them, veiling half the sky. It was, horribly a new moon, so dark that the eerie glow of dozens of fires within the city walls, darkened and intensified by the pall of dust, made the place glow like a furnace, the forge of the ancient gods who had once ruled here. Maybe they had returned to wreak their vengeance at last. Maybe God had punished the interlopers.

She took a turn at the cart, pushing until she thought her hands would fall off, teeth gritted as she followed the bobbing lamp held by Jehan. No one had ridden the mounts yet. Without saying as much they all agreed to save the strength of the poor beasts for later. None of them ate. Hanna wasn't sure if they had provisions, even water. Her throat ached.

The night wore on endlessly as they took turns pushing the cart and, later, spelling themselves with a ride on the mule. Soon they left the refugees behind and made their solitary way along the deserted road. After a time, the ground sloped up. They had reached the foothills. Pausing partway up the first slope to catch their breath, they all turned to look back the way they had come. Fortunatus pulled the blanket back so that Sister Rosvita could see and held a lamp aloft beside her.

Darre was burning, not just the city itself but the plain all around, the glow of bonfires where people camped out and, closer in to the walls, lines of funeral pyres. Most strangely, to the southwest, in the mountains, the air was spitting sparks. She shuddered.

The earth rumbled and stilled beneath her feet.

'Where do we go?" asked Fortunatus. "We can't cross the Alfar Mountains this late in the year."

Silence greeted his words. Even Hanna did not know what to suggest. She and Fortunatus had led them this far, but they had come to the end of a rope spun from impulsiveness, courage, and loyalty. Once Hugh discovered in what direction they had fled, he would pursue them.

She shivered as a cold wind drifted down from the highlands.

Rosvita stirred, stretching her limbs. "Listen," she said in her croak of a voice.

"Listen."

They listened, but they heard only the night wind. Even the noise of the city had fallen behind them.

'We must go where they cannot follow, and pray that we will be given shelter." With some effort she raised herself on her elbows. Her hair had gone utterly white, startling even through the grime of the dungeon. "We must go to the Convent of St. Ekatarina.

Mother Obli tia helped us once before. If she still lives, I pray that she will aid us again."

that morning when Hathumod and her companions left Her-ford Monastery, the whispering hadn't gone away with them. For days and weeks after they left, as autumn lingered and winter gathered its strength, their heretical words endured like a ghostly presence among the inhabitants of the monastery and estate. Doubt haunted the monks and the laborers. Many scoffed, but others whispered of signs and miracles, of a phoenix, of lions, and of seven innocent and holy sleepers lost beneath a hill.

Although Father Ortulfus delivered more than one furious sermon on the dangers of heresy, even he could be found at odd intervals consulting books in the library or standing lost in contemplation at the edge of the forest, seeming to stare, as Sorrow had that night, at an unseen threat—or toward a promise.

A CALF IN WINTER'S SLAUGHTERHOUSE It was a dreary ride in horrible cold weather from Herford Monastery to Autun. Ivar lost count of the passing days as their escort prodded them grimly along. Once they were forced to spend a week locked up in a freezing outbuilding at a convent because ice floes made a river crossing impassable.

Once Prior Ratbold came down with such a bad fever that they had to bide in the stables at an isolated monastic estate while the prior thrashed in delirium, but by the fifth day he sweated out whatever evil humors plagued him and within two weeks felt strong enough to set out again. No one else got sick.

At Dibenvanger Cloister, Sigfrid almost got his tongue cut out a second time when he squeezed through a gap between boards—he was the only one small enough to fit—and sneaked into the novices' house to preach for the whole evening before Prior Ratbold noticed he was missing.

'A fox among the chickens!" the furious prior roared. "The only way to stop him is to make sure he can't speak!"

The mild-mannered abbot of Dibenvanger Cloister dissuaded Rat-bold from any violent acts and sent them on their way the next morning, but not before coming himself at dawn to counsel the wayward prisoners.

'Do not despair, friends," he said quietly. "You are not alone."

These mysterious words lifted Ivar's spirits as the days wore on.

Yet when at last they descended into the Rhowne Valley, a fit of melancholy swept over him. The painful anticipation wore him out. How would Biscop Constance rule at their trial? Would she be lenient or severe? Would they face excommunication? Even death? It seemed impossible to hold onto resolve through bad times as well as good.

The Rhowne Valley was rich country, well populated with prosperous holdings and verdant estates. Even blanketed by snow the roads and fields had a tidy look to them, well traveled and well tended. Biscop Constance shepherded a thriving flock.

A bell hung under a thatched awning by the ferry crossing. Prior Ratbold rang the bell.

The rest of them dismounted and led the horses around to keep them warm while, on the other side, the ferryman emerged from his cottage, surveyed their distant party, went back into his house, and came out a while later to haul the ferry across by a cable strung over the broad river.

It took three crossings to get them all across. While he waited, Ivar brooded.

Gerulf and Dedi went over with the first load. The two Lions had developed a friendly banter with the monks who were their guards; three of the monks had been in the Lions before they'd retired from war and the world and dedicated their lives to the church.

Despite their misgivings about the heretical charges set on Gerulf's and Dedi's heads, they still respected former comrades. It was its own form of kinship, based not on family ties but on shared service to the king. They'd fought, seen comrades fall, suffered and marched and remained faithful.

Prior Ratbold, a younger son of a noble house, had no such reason to treat his charges kindly. His family had no connection to any of theirs, and their families weren't important enough to matter to him. To Ratbold, they were sinful heretics, nothing else.

Maybe Ivar's sister Rosvita could have helped him, had she wished to, but she wasn't here. And his father had long since contrived to get rid of him. The old familiar desolation washed over him as he clutched the railing of the ferry in the last group to go across. Brownish-green waters swirled beyond his boots. A big branch thudded against the side of the ferry, rocking them and disturbing the horses, before the river's grip carried it on.

Everyone had deserted him. His father had never cared for him, not really, and he'd been an infant when his mother had died. To his brothers and sisters, he was a nuisance, the red-haired baby who got in their way. Hanna had ridden away to become an Eagle.

Liath had tempted him and then abandoned him for the embrace of a prince. Yet his life had been good before Hugh had come to Heart's Rest. He had a memory of how much he had once hated Hugh, a feeling like holding a burning blade in your hand. Hate had felt good once. Now his hate streamed away with the river's water, flowing downriver to the sea.

If he threw himself in the river, no one would miss him. Not even Hugh would care.

Hugh probably didn't even remember his name.

The river tugged at the ferry as it tugged at his heart. He saw figures in the water, water nymphs calling to him and stretching out their arms as they beckoned and wept.

Come to us, they said as their bodies undulated through choppy wavelets. Come to us. A cold grave, but a peaceful one. He tightened his grip on the railing and leaned far over, giddy with despair. The water looked so comforting. So final.

'Are you crazy?" Baldwin grabbed Ivar's shoulder, jerking him back. "You might fall over and drown, and then what would I do? You're not even paying attention to what I was saying! Can you see it, there? That's the tower of the biscop's palace of Autun."

Ivar's eyes were too blurred with tears to see. Ermanrich appeared on his other side, setting a steadying hand on his elbow. "Yes, I see it, Baldwin," he said, without letting go of Ivar.

'Don't you see, Ivar?" demanded Baldwin impatiently. The river wind streamed through his pale hair; color blushed his fair cheeks. If the water nymphs were mourning and wailing, it was probably because they'd just realized they'd never get their hands on any creature as handsome as Baldwin. "The biscop's banner isn't flying over the palace.

She's not there! And if she's not there, she can't hold a trial!"

To the ferryman's disgust, the others crowded over to stand alongside Ivar. The ferry pitched like an ungainly horse, and water spilled onto the boards and seeped away.

'Where do you think the biscop has gone?" Hathumod asked.

'She's duke of Arconia as well as biscop of Autun," said Ermanrich. "She'll have duties elsewhere in the duchy, not ji}st in Autun. When I was a novice at Firsebarg, I saw her one time when she rode by on her progress."

He glanced at their guards, standing at the opposite railing to make a counterbalance.

The ferryman and his assistant pulled mightily, dragging them along while the current did its best to wash them downriver.

'Biscop Constance is a fair-minded noblewoman," Ermanrich went on more quietly.

"I've never heard any but a respectful word spoken of her, even where it couldn't be heard. She'll be a fair judge."

'If there can be a fair judge," muttered Ivar.

'You must trust in God, Ivar," scolded Sigfrid. "Hasn't She watched over us all along?"

Baldwin leaned against Ivar, folded a warm hand over one of Ivar's cold ones, and bent his head close. "Of course she has." His voice caressed like a gentle kiss. "We'd be dead two or three times over if it wasn't for God. I'd still be married to Margrave Judith."

Who had died three years ago. It didn't seem right, or possible that so much time could have passed. Had Father Ortulfus lied to them as a cruel jest?

'Ivar, what do you think will happen if Biscop Constance isn't there?" asked Ermanrich expectantly. The others echoed his question: shy Hathumod, frail Sigfrid, even Baldwin, although Baldwin didn't speak, only batted his gorgeous eyelashes in attractive confusion.

They waited for him to speak. They looked to him for answers. Why on God's earth did they think he had any answers, when he couldn't even fathom his own heart? Yet they expected him to lead them. They counted on him.

They needed him.

'There!" Baldwin pointed. "Now do you see it?"

Ivar glimpsed a stone tower among trees, lost as the ferry pulled laboriously in to shore. The banner flying from that tower didn't look like Biscop Constance's white-and-gold standard.

Before disembarking, Ivar paused to study the flowing river. Had he only dreamed the water nymphs? Certainly he now saw nothing except water streaming past, its melodious song singing in his ears. Their horses were brought, they mounted, and rode on. Where they came out of the trees, Autun rose before them, its main ramparts clambering along a defensible hill and more recent settlements sprawled below the old walls along the river, each ringed by a palisade. The biscop's palace stood between a timber-and-stone cathedral and the old duke's tower, a squat watch post built entirely out of stone in the time of the Dariyan Empire. Above these magnificent edifices, on the highest portion of the hill, lay Taillefer's famous pal ace and the splendid octagon chapel where his earthly remains were interred in a marble tomb.

The banner flying from the biscop's palace displayed the green guivre, wings unfolded and red tower gripped in its left talon, that marked the presence of the duke of Arconia.

'Strange," murmured Prior Ratbold. "Why isn't the biscop's banner flying at its side, as it ought to?"

They waited at the main gates while the Autun guards sent for a captain from the citadel, a man called Ulric. He had a grim face and a cynical eye, and orders from his superiors.

'Heretics, is it?" he asked wearily, as if he'd heard this tiresome refrain a hundred times already that day. "Come all the way from Herford Monastery, have you? Isn't that in the duchy of Fesse?"

'So it is, Captain," agreed Ratbold, "but you might recall Father Ortulfus was but recently a member of the biscop's schola. That's why he was given the abbacy at Herford when it fell vacant."

'Ah, yes, so he was." Ulric grimaced in much the same way as might a man commanded to eat maggots. "I'll take these prisoners from you, Prior, and see that they are housed as they deserve. You may return on your way."

'Without even a night's shelter and a hot meal for our pains?" Anyone would have been outraged at this insult, and Prior Ratbold was not the most sweet-tempered of men.

"I can't believe we'd be turned away after a journey of four weeks' time, standing in muck to our ankles and likely snow coming on." The monks muttered among themselves, shocked by such a breach of the customs of hospitality. "Where are we to stay this night?"

'The ferryman has lodging enough to house you."

As Ratbold began to protest again, Ulric quite unexpectedly grabbed the prior by his robe and pulled him close. Only Ivar was close enough to overhear the captain's soft words. "Listen, friend. I'd advise you strongly to turn right round and get on your way before anyone takes notice of who your master is. You're just lucky it was me on duty this afternoon, or you'd be marching to a nice locked cell at this very moment. Do you understand me?"

'B-b-but—" For once, Prior Ratbold lost his power of speech.

Ulric let him go and watched with narrowed eyes and a bitter frown as Ratbold hurriedly got his party turned around and headed south, away from the city. The captain had the patience of a saint. Only when an orchard and a dip in the road hid their backs from his sight did he turn to regard his prisoners.

'Bring in the heretics," he said caustically to his guardsmen "What's seven more in our lady's service?"

They were taken to a low room in the barracks loft, the kind of prison that soldiers accused of a crime like petty theft or fistfighting would be thrown into. Here they languished for four days, measured by the light coming and going in the smoke hole.

Food and drink arrived at regular intervals. Their slops bucket was emptied twice a day.

They had no fire but plenty of straw for padding and although it was cold enough that Ivar was always shivering, the heat from below made it bearable. In fact, judging by the noise and activity, there seemed to be an awful lot of soldiers gathered in Autun, as many as if the king dwelled here. In the dim light they couldn't tell what was going on. They could only listen and pray.

On the fifth morning the trap was flung open, admitting a roil of smoke and a summons. One by one they climbed down the ladder. The awkwardness of their descent on a rickety ladder made them vulnerable, as did a dozen sour-looking guards waiting below. Impossible to make an escape in these circumstances.

'They'll need a wash before they're taken in to see Her Most Excellent Highness."

Captain Ulric paused in front of Baldwin, scratching his beard as he looked the young man up and down. "See that this one is given clean clothes. One of you can trim his hair and beard, but don't let him or any of his comrades handle the razor."

'Going for a bonus, Captain?" jested one of the guards, a slender young man with pale hair.

'Shut up, Erkanwulf. I do what I must to protect my position and the men under my command. If I can gain Her Ladyship's favor, so be it. Now move along."

'Something doesn't feel right," whispered Ermanrich, before getting a hard tap on his behind from the haft of a halberd.

'No talking," said the one called Erkanwulf. Like his captain, he had a surly expression as though he'd eaten something disagreeable.

Ivar glanced at Gerulf, but the old Lion just shrugged. Something wasn't right here, but it was impossible to know what it was except for the unusual concentration of soldiers, visible as the prisoners were marched through the barracks, out through the busy courtyard, and over to the famous palace baths.

In these stone halls, built long ago by Dariyan engineers, Emperor Taillefer had held court while luxuriating in the waters. His poets had sung of the curative powers of the baths, and more than one tapestry woven in those times depicted Taillefer at his ease among nis courtiers in the baths or reclining at dinner on couches as the ancient Dariyans were said to do. The great emperor had restored the glory of the old Dariyan Empire for a brief and brilliant span. ' Yet his Holy Dariyan Empire had collapsed when he had died.

No one after him had been strong enough to hold it together.

A pair of elderly women had charge of the baths at this hour. Not even they, crones both, were immune to Baldwin's staggering beauty, and by the time they were done with him, he looked better than he had in weeks with his hair neatly cut in the style favored by the royal princes and his beard trimmed to show off the handsome line of his jaw. A guard brought him a clean wool tunic, simple in cut and color but more than adequate compared to their travel-stained gear. Even Gerulf whistled admiringly.

'God above," swore Dedi, as if he couldn't help himself. "I'm glad my Fridesuenda never got a look at him. She'd have forgotten I ever existed."

Baldwin looked ready to weep, like a calf just realizing that it's about to be led off to the slaughterhouse. Ivar set a hand on Baldwin's shoulder. "Just stick by me."

'You won't abandon me, will you, Ivar?"

'Of course not, Baldwin. I'll never abandon you. Never."

Baldwin's bright-eyed gaze made Ivar uncomfortable, and even a little aroused. What had Ivar ever done to deserve Baldwin's loyalty? Well, a few things, maybe, that he blushed to recall now. Those months they'd spent drinking and carousing and whoring with Prince Ekkehard were not ones he cared to dwell on; it was as if they'd been stricken by a plague of lechery and greed that had burned away anything good in them until they were merely rutting husks. But it hadn't been all bad. He didn't regret the intimacy he'd shared with Baldwin, because that at least had arisen from genuine love.

Love.

Ai, God. Why hadn't he seen it before, when it had been staring him in the face all along? Baldwin stood there in all his beauty, so delectable that with only a little effort he could have just about any woman, and a few of the men, at his feet with a smile. But it was Ivar he gazed at trustingly, Ivar he clung to, Ivar he followed through thick and thin.

He loves me.

Captain Ulric arrived and, with a curse, surveyed Baldwin, Ivar, and the silence that had fallen between them. "Please don't tell me he can't get it up for women."

'He's a novice, sworn to the church," retorted Ivar angrily, hastily removing his hand from Baldwin's shoulder. But he knew a blush flowered in his face. His complexion always betrayed him.

The guards snickered until Ulric shut them up with a curt command. "Move them along. Her Most Excellent Highness doesn't like to be kept waiting."

From the baths to Taillefer's palace was a climb up a flight of stairs carved into the rock. A light snow fell, white flakes spinning down to dust rocks and rooftops, but not a single flake touched them because of the walkway built over the stairs so that the emperor could walk to and from his baths without getting rained on. Slender stone pillars supported a timber roof. Each pillar had been carved in the shape of an animal: dragons, griffins, eagles, and guivres accompanied their climb. Once Ivar came abreast of a noble phoenix, but when he paused to touch its painted feathers, Erkanwulf prodded him in the back with the butt of his spear.

'Move along, just as Captain said."

By chance he had ended up behind Baldwin, and as he climbed he could not take his gaze away from the curl of Baldwin's hair against the trim of his tunic, or the way glimpses of his neck, still moist from the baths, revealed themselves as Baldwin's tunic shifted on his shoulders to the rhythm of his climb up the stairs. Did Baldwin really love him? Or was he just the only thing Baldwin had to hold on to?

A gate carved with Dariyan rosettes admitted them to the palace compound. Guards stood watch here, too. They were everywhere; a wasps' swarm of guards inhabited Autun, all of them agitated and tense. Their party emerged into a courtyard bounded by a stone colonnade on one side and a stout rampart on the other. Opposite, Ivar saw the octagon chapel with its stone buttresses flaring out from each corner. He had once been allowed to pray inside the glorious chapel, kneeling in front of the stone effigy marking Taillefer's resting place. He remembered that stern and noble visage and, most of all, the precious crown held in carved hands, a gold crown with seven points, each point adorned with a precious gem.

But he scarcely had time to gape at the exterior of the chapel before he was hustled away down the colonnade and into the great hall. In this hall he had tried to intervene in the trial of Liath and Hugh. How miserable his failure had been. He'd got a beating for his trouble, Liath had been excommunicated, and Hugh had been sent south to stand trial before the skopos. No doubt that bastard Hugh had by now charmed his way into the Holy Mother's good graces. And for all Ivar knew, Liath was dead.

He couldn't hate a dead woman. Was Hanna dead, too? Tears started up in his eyes as he stared around at the tapestried walls, the high ceiling above, half lost in gloom, and the lamps hung from brackets on every pillar and beam. Those hundred blazing flames threw off enough heat to warm the room.

It was strange to stand here again. He seemed doomed to come to grief in this hall.

Baldwin caught his hand and squeezed it, then let go as the others were pushed up beside them.

Three princely chairs sat on the dais. Two were unoccupied. Soldiers, courtiers, servants, and hangers-on chattered casually among themselves as, on the dais, a noble prince sat in judgment. She was a robust, handsome lady of middle years, probably past any hope of bearing children, wearing a gold coronet on her brow and the richly embroidered clothing of a prince who might at any moment ride out to war. Ivar had only time to catch the glint of the gold torque at her neck, signifying her royal blood, before he was prodded forward. A dozen strides brought them to a halt in front of the dais steps.

The butt of a spear jabbed Ivar so hard in the back of his knee that he lost his balance.

Reflexively, he knelt, dropping hard, just as his companions did around him.

Captain Ulric stepped to one side, the better to display his prisoners. "Another party of heretics brought to the gate, Your Highness."

'Lord save us," whispered Gerulf, who was kneeling so closely behind Ivar that one of his knees had ridden uncomfortably up on Ivar's toes. "What's that traitor doing sitting in the seat of judgment?"

THEY followed the defile by the light of a full moon. The play of shadows across the rock and the daunting silence made the landscape ominous, but they had to keep going.

"Not much farther now."

Hanna had a hard time understanding their guide; the Aostan spoken in Darre seemed to have little to do with the language spoken in this God-forsaken region, although they were supposedly the same tongue.

'I recognize the path," said Fortunatus. He held the reins of the mule on which Sister Rosvita rode.

'I do not, except as snatches of a dream," replied Rosvita.

'You were very ill last time we came this way."

'Journey in haste, repent in leisure," she agreed, glancing back down the narrow track the way they had come. They were hemmed in by rock faces sculpted by God's hands into terrible visages that glowered over them. "We seem fated to travel here with enemies at our heels."

Hanna also looked back along the trail. It was too dark to see anything beyond their line of march: the three girls behind her, then Jerome and Jehan leading a goat, and, last, the servant woman, Aurea, with Hanna's staff gripped in her hands. In daylight, the dust of a large troop of horsemen would give away the position of those who followed them, but at night they had to rely on other stratagems. She fingered the amulet of protection she wore around her neck. Woven by Heriburg from fennel and the withered flowers of noble white, these were all that had allowed them to come so far without being spied out by the Holy Mother and her council of sorcerers.

Jehan coughed, echoed by Ruoda, a hacking cough that rose from her chest. Sickness dogged them, too.

'Here." The old guide halted, whistling softly. A thrown pebble snapped on the track in front of him, and in its wake a boy scrambled out of the rocks. The child had the family nose, beaked and noble if overlarge on such a small face, and the wiry build common to the countryfolk in this desolate region.

The boy babbled too swiftly for Hanna to catch more than a few words, but Rosvita listened intently before turning to the others, who crowded up behind her.

'The child says that there are twenty horsemen an hour or more behind us, led by a lord so handsome that some in the village wonder if he might be an angel and we the demons he's been sent by God to pursue."

'How did they find us?" demanded Heriburg. "We should have remained hidden from them. We have the amulets, and we used every means of misdirection."

'Yet these were evidently not enough." Rosvita lifted a hand to silence her. "Perhaps they picked up our trail at the village. It no longer matters. We must hurry if we hope to reach the convent before they catch us."

They kept going. They had very little left except their determination. At the last village they had traded the handcart in exchange for the old man's services as a guide. It was the only thing of worth they had left. The mare had gone lame and they had sold the mule for food. The last of the coins brought by Fortunatus had gone days ago to buy a milking goat, grain, and wine. They had nothing now except the clothes and cloaks on their backs, the precious books, Hanna's staff, bow, quiver, and knife, and three eating knives shared out between the rest of them. Even the blankets had been traded for quinces, porridge, and a stock of dried fish, now eaten.