The moon set behind the western highlands as dawn lit the eastern hills. In this half light, as inconstant as hope, they cut to the right along the gully and found themselves on a flat field running up to the base of a vast cone of upthrust rock that loomed like the hammer of God before them.

Stumps of trees and patches of dry scrub gave the ground a leprous appearance. No birds sang. Where the valley broadened, it snaked back around either side of the huge outcropping, but the steep hills on either side quickly closed back in. Shadows still filled the valley. There was no sign of life.

'My God," said Hanna. She thought her legs would give out. "Are you sure someone lives up there?" "I am sure." Dismounting to stand at the foot of the cliff, Rosvita shouted out.

No one answered.

She shouted again. They waited. Wind teased the rock. Above, a pale scrap fluttered where a narrow ledge stuck out from the cliff face, but Hanna could not quite make out what it was. No one answered. There was no way up that precipitous slope.

The guide glanced repeatedly toward the gully, expecting the troop of horsemen to burst free at any moment. At last he edged away from them and, with a nervous burst of speed, jogged back the way they had come.

'Let him go," said Rosvita as Aurea started after him, brandishing the staff. "He drove a fair bargain, and gave us what we asked for."

'And no doubt had his kinfolk betray us to the ones pursuing us, for an equal price,"

said Aurea bitterly.

'I hope he got a better bargain than the one we gave him," said Fortunatus. "The axle on that cart had already broken once and it was ready to crack for good and all."

'One of you must have a stronger voice than I," said Rosvita. "We must all shout together."

They did so, but there was still no answer.

Day lightened around them, although they remained in the rock's shadow.

'How are we supposed to climb up there?" Hanna asked.

'There were rope ladders before," said Fortunatus, squinting at the glint of sun as it crested the eastern hills. He pointed to the fluttering scrap Hanna had noticed before.

"That's one there, you can see the corner of it, but it's been pulled up."

'There must be someone still up there," said Rosvita. "If they had all left, the ladders would be down."

'Oh, God, I'm afraid," said Gerwita, beginning to cry. "What will they do to us if they catch us?"

'I'll climb," said Hanna. "If I can reach that ledge, then at least we can get up that far, out of their reach."

'Not out of reach of their bows," said Fortunatus.

Rosvita had a serious gaze, one that Hanna had come to trust in the last weeks. "It will be risky to climb, Eagle. We might hide farther down into the ravine and hope our pursuers turn away, thinking we have escaped them."

'We might. But I don't think it would work."

'The north face can be climbed," said Fortunatus. "Lord John Ironhead sent soldiers that way. Don't you recall that they were killed by the daimone?"

'Yes, poor souls. May God have mercy on them."

'We're trapped, aren't we?" said Aurea. "No matter what we do. For even if we can get up there, we haven't enough people to hold off an attack if they choose to send soldiers up after us on this north face you speak of."

'We shall see," said Rosvita. "One can set traps of one's own in such precarious circumstances. They cannot besiege us forever. And there is one other chance…" She trailed off, looked at Hanna again, a searching gaze, and nodded.

'I'll go," said Hanna. None of the clerics were hardy enough, in truth, nor had they the strength to haul Rosvita up the cliff, and despite how much strength Sister Rosvita had gained in the last weeks of their flight, she had not the strength to climb a rugged rock face.

Fortunatus led Hanna around the base of the huge outcropping to the north face. It took a while; the outcropping was huge, and beyond the level field where olive trees had once grown, the ground became rugged enough that they had to slow down in order to pick their way through fallen rocks and shallow gullies. She was sweating by the time Fortunatus halted, out of breath, and wordlessly gestured to the rock face above them.

She studied its contours and ledges as well as the message written by the way burnet and scraggly pine had taken root in crevices and ledges along the face.

'Here," she said, stripping off her gloves and handing them over. She took rope, her knife, and a skin half full of bitter ale, leaving the rest of her gear with Fortunatus.

'I'll wait until I see you're safely at the top. Then I'll return to the others."

She picked her way over scree to the place where she had chosen to begin. The climb wasn't as difficult as she'd feared, as long as she didn't look down. Her fingers and hands began to hurt; that she had expected. But her shoulders ached, too, the soles of her feet, her thighs, any muscle she had to tense in order to hold on. She learned to brush dust from any handhold before surrendering her weight; she was less likely to slip if no grains slid under her fingers. At times she wedged her knees into hollows and shelves into the rock, and once or twice was able to lean into the rock face because of a shift in its slope, giving hands and feet a rest. Yet at such moments, given a chance to reflect, she decided that an enemy lurking above could easily send her plunging to her death by rolling rocks onto her from above.

But no one did.

No horsemen came riding out of the gully. No movement stirred above as she fought her way up the cliff, resting wherever she could but never for long. Human assailants were not the only danger she faced; the scree at the base of the slope was testament to that. One of her fingers began to bleed, stinging each time she used it to grip. The day remained quiet, disturbed by only a light breeze. The sun warmed her shoulders although the air remained chill.

Sister Rosvita had a plan. They had to delay their pursuit, that was all. As long as she believed that, she had the strength to go on. As long as she did not look down.

The steep-sided face gave way to a gentler slope slippery with loose rock. After a terrifying slip that almost sent her hurtling back over the cliff, she swept clean spaces for her feet as she crept forward until the ground leveled off and she entered a forest of rock pinnacles. She stumbled across a broad path and hesitated, not sure which way to turn. At last she simply began walking in one direction and within twenty steps the pinnacles gave way to a flat summit crowned by a stone circle.

The sight stunned her. She had never seen a stone crown in such good repair, but the upright stones seemed ominous rather than magnificent, a secret key to a place better left unexplored. The wind bit through her tunic, now soaked with sweat from her exertions.

Sun glittered on an oval patch of sand situated about three steps in front of the closest archway, which had been created by an imposing lintel stone bridging the gap between two of the standing stones. From this angle, she could not tell if there were eight or nine uprights. White glinted on the stony ground. She took several steps before stumbling to a stop. A sour taste rose in the back of her throat. Broken skeletons lay strewn within and around the circle of stones, the remains of a dozen people at least. One lay not two bodies' lengths from her, picked clean, bones tumbled by wind and rain, decaying tunic pinned by rock and ribs, a bit of fabric caught like a tongue between the gaping jaw.

Trembling, she drew the Circle of Unity at her breast to ward off its restless spirit.

No living creature waited here. She retreated, backtracking past the spot where she had come across the path, and followed it down. The trail cut along the rock face with cliff to one side and open air on the other. She kept a hand on the rock to steady herself.

Only once did she look out over the chasm of empty air. Were those tiny figures Rosvita and the others? Her knees buckled, and a wave of dizziness staggered her. She remained kneeling until her body stopped shaking. After that she kept her eyes on the path. The wind teased her hair. Although the sun was high, it gave no warmth.

In time the path broadened to become a terrace whose far entrance was a cave's mouth. She hesitated at the entry. A dank smell wafted from the depths, but there was light enough to see. She entered cautiously, finding herself in a low cave lit by openings along one wall that gave way onto narrow terraces. One cave opened onto another, this also with a terrace formed beyond. Animals had been kept here; heaps of scorched and broken bones littered the cavern. It grew darker, her steps more hesitant. She climbed over a low wall, its sides stippled with small squares hewn through the barrier like arrow slits. These were not natural. Whoever built this place expected to be attacked, and to have to defend themselves.

Beyond this wall she found herself creeping down a tunnel into the heart of the massive stone outcropping. Cunning shafts cut through the stone angled sunlight onto her path, giving her enough light to see.

Even so, the next barrier almost killed her. She felt a breath of air brush her face first; then she marked the ground, murky with shadow, shrieked, and sat back, catching herself before she tumbled over the lip of a chasm.

Panting, she sat there, listening to her breath and the silence of stone. She groped for and found a pebble, dropped it down the shaft. Counted. At "eight" the barest snick echoed up from the depths.

'Oh, God," she murmured. She found another pebble and tossed it across the chasm.

Snick. It wasn't far, but it was definitely too far to jump. A broad plank rested on the ground on the other side, a makeshift bridge.

Sister Rosvita was right. Perhaps the holy nuns and lay sisters who had once lived here were dead now, but in any case, they hadn't departed. Some had remained, to live or to die within the rock.

'Sisters," she called. "I pray you, heed my call. I seek Mother Obli-gatia or any of the holy sisters under her care. I come on behalf of Sister Rosvita—"

There came that sharp snick again, a pebble smacking against rock. As her eyes adjusted she saw past the chasm and the plank: the tunnel ended in a stone wall. Even if she found a way to cross the pit, the path was a dead end.

There was no way in.

Their flight had been in vain.

Tears flowed, choking her. She had failed Rosvita and the others. They would become prisoners again, at the mercy of folk so powerful that they could ensorcell the king. Their pursuers might already have captured Rosvita and the others while she searched for a path to freedom.

It had all been for nothing.

How long she sat there, stunned and exhausted, she was not sure, only that she was too discouraged to move.

Snick. Another pebble, although she'd not thrown anything.

A bodiless voice whispered out of the darkness.

"Who are you?"

She jumped to her feet, leaping back from the chasm.

There was no one there. No one in sight. Only silence. Snick.

The voice had spoken in Aostan, so she replied as well as she could after so many months in Darre. "I am called Hanna. Here I come with Sister Rosvita and her companions. We flee her enemies. I pray you, help us."

"Who is Sister Rosvita?"

She gritted her teeth in frustration, until she realized that the question might be a test.

"She is a cleric from Wendar. She is counselor to King Henry. She protected and counseled the king, but she made enemies, whom she now flees. I pray you, we do not have time."

"How may one know Sister Rosvita? What is her life's work?"

'To serve the king as well as she is able!" cried Hanna, exasperated.

Snick.

Think as a cleric thought, as a churchwoman might think. Act as Sister Heriburg had acted, when they had fled from Darre in the aftermath of the earthquake.

'A book! A history of the princes of Wendar. She has it with her still!"

Snick.

A grinding noise reverberated in the enclosed space. The blank wall beyond the ditch shifted and rolled to open a gap through which a slight figure slipped. Hanna faced across the pit an emaciated, corpse-white woman wearing the tattered robes of a nun, her sleeves pushed back to reveal wiry arms. She shoved the plank out across the chasm, balancing it deftly until the far end rested on Hanna's side.

'I am called Sister Hilaria. We live hidden deep within the rock now, since the day the daimone attacked us. It takes all of our strength to guard our prisoner and nurse our Holy Mother. We have turned our backs on the outside world. It was the pebble that alerted me while I was fetching water. I came at once to investigate. Follow me, friend. If we are to save Sister Rosvita, we must hurry."

GERULF'S traitor surveyed them with princely dignity and a keen gaze, although her eyes flared when she caught sight of Baldwin, kneeling to Ivar's right. But a prince of her stature could not be cowed even by Baldwin's singular loveliness. "You have been brought to Autun accused of heresy and implicated in matters of sorcery. Yet you have nothing to fear from me. The truth is welcome here in Arconia."

She paused, expecting a response; perhaps she was curious to see who would emerge as the leader. Ivar waited, too, until he realized that the rest were waiting for him to speak.

'Your Highness," he said, stumbling over the words. "I—I am Ivar, son of Count Harl and Lady Herlinda of the North Mark—"

'I know who you are." She gave an amused grunt. "I haven't forgotten the trial of Judith of Austra's bastard son Hugh a few years back, nor your part in it. It was one of the few entertaining days I had during my confinement here in Autun. I believe you must be related to Sister Rosvita, my brother Henry's favored cleric. Ah!" She looked up expectantly as a big man strode up onto the dais, attended by a handsome, shapely girl of eleven or twelve years of age. She had dark skin but unexpectedly light golden-brown hair, a contrast that reminded him bitterly of Liath although there was otherwise no resemblance.

'My lord duke," said Captain Ulric with rather more warmth than he'd shown to the lady. "My lady Elfwyn."

'God Above!" swore the duke as he sank down into the left-hand chair, leaving the middle seat empty. The girl stood behind him, holding onto the back of the chair while she examined the prisoners with bold intensity. "So this is the infamous bridegroom who escaped Judith's clutches!" A pair of brindle hounds swarmed up after him, licking his hands before collapsing worshipfully at his feet.

'No wonder the margrave was so furious," mused the lady prince. She had a strong face. Her silver hair had been braided and dressed with ribbons, but she wore it uncovered in the manner of an unmar ried maiden or a soldier. She gestured toward Ivar.

"Come, Lord Ivar you were speaking before Duke Conrad arrived. Go on."

Conrad the Black could not be mistaken for any other man in the kingdom. And although Henry had many sisters, only two were older than he was: his bastard half sister Alberada, who served as biscop in the east, and the woman who had already contested his authority once by leading a rebellion against him.

'My lady Sabella," said Ivar, inclining his head to show respect. "We are not heretics.

It is the church which has concealed the truth. Can it be possible you have heard and accepted the true Word of God and the truth of the blessed Daisan's sacrifice and redemption?"

Her attention had wandered back to Baldwin. "If report is true," she said absently,

"you were all novices at Quedlinhame."

'So we were, Your Highness, but we were punished for preaching the true Word. We escaped those who tormented us. Now we walk as best we can to spread the true Word to all those who live in the night of lies and deceit."

'Then let them preach," said Conrad impatiently as he rubbed the head of one of his hounds. He glanced up to mark his daughter, and her serious expression immediately melted into a charming grin, a comrade marking her best companion in her battle against the world. He winked merrily at her before turning back to address Sabella. "Let them preach. We were just about to ride out to hunt when you sent for me."

'Let us preach?" breathed Sigfrid, forgetting that Ivar was their spokesman.

'Let you preach," said Sabella with a smile obviously intended for Baldwin. "Here in Varre, all are welcome to preach according to their knowledge of the sacrifice and redemption."

Baldwin seemed struck dumb.

'We are?" squeaked Ermanrich, as Hathumod sighed happily.

'Yes, yes, you are," said Conrad, tapping a foot on the floor as he lounged back in the chair. His hounds whined and thumped their tails anxiously, catching his mood. "If there's no other business that needs my attention, Cousin, then I'll go."

'Nay, nay, Cousin. Wait a moment, if you please. You see there behind our novices two fighting men, who report has it are Lions, deserted from my brother."

'Deserters?" Conrad straightened. "I've never heard of Lions deserting their regnant.

What complaint have you against King Henry?"

'No complaint!" declared Gerulf stoutly. "Nor have we deserted. We marched east to fight the Quman and came temporarily under prince Bayan's command."

'Yet you are not in the east now," observed Conrad. "How goes the campaign there?"

Gerulf glanced at Ivar, unsure how to respond, but Ivar motioned him forward to stand before Conrad as a messenger. "We have no more recent news than you do, my lord duke. Prince Bayan and Princess Sapientia met the Quman begh Bulkezu on the field of battle beyond the eastern borderlands, and it went badly for them. The Quman are many, and we are few. The Wendish forces desperately need reinforcements or the Quman will overrun the marchlands. That is all we know."

'Yet two years ago Prince Sanglant defeated this same Prince Bulkezu outside Osterburg, on the Veser River," commented Conrad. "Or so we heard. Rumor says Prince Sanglant rode east after the battle, to what purpose I cannot say."

'I hear he means to rebel against Henry," said Sabella. "Yet how can it be called rebellion when Henry is more interested in his Aostan queen and her lands than in those he claims already to rule?"

'We've had no news since the battle Prince Bayan and Princess Sapientia lost to the Quman," said Ivar.

'Let it be said plainly," said Conrad. "Henry has married the Aostan queen and remains in Aosta to restore Adelheid's throne to her, and to play his own games with his dream of Taillefer's empire. If he chooses to turn his back on his own lands, then he must not be surprised if others choose to rule for him here."

No sudden death knell tolled from Taillefer's chapel. No hush dropped like the stench of the grave over the assembly. These words surprised no one except the seven prisoners who had so recently come into town.

'You're rebelling against King Henry's authority," said Ivar, knowing he sounded idiotic.

'Nay, child," said Sabella. "Henry abandoned us. We are simply caring for those he left behind. I pray you, consider what it means to you that Conrad and I now serve as regents in the kingdom of Varre. You may preach freely. None shall attempt to stop you, excommunicate you, or punish you. Is that not more than you could have expected under Henry's rule?"

Gerulf muttered angry words under his breath, and Ivar calmed the old Lion by laying a hand on his arm. "Truly, it is more than we expected. We expected to be brought to trial before Biscop Constance on the charge of heresy."

'Biscop Constance no longer rules here," said Sabella, while Conrad shifted restlessly.

"You are safe from her."

It was too much to take in all at once. Could it actually be possible that they had found a refuge where they could serve God in peace? "Who do you rule as regent for, if not King Henry?"

'Ah." The exclamation had no joy in it, nor even as much respectful anticipation as she'd shown when Conrad made his entrance. Conrad rose. Sabella did not. "I am glad you saw fit to interrupt your prayers, Daughter."

Many times Ivar had glimpsed her holy presence through the gap in the fence in the novices' courtyard in Quedlinhame. There she had dressed in sackcloth and ashes. Now she was arrayed in queenly robes made rich with gold thread embroidered in the shape of leaping roes. She it was who had brought the truth to them all. Her wheat-colored hair shone with health, and her thin face had filled out. Even her fingers, once nothing more than skin stretched over bone, had fat on them.

As she moved to touch Duke Conrad's hand in a gesture of anxious affection, one could see why she was noticeably plumper than she had been at Quedlinhame when she had scourged her earthly body with fasting and hair shirts in order to prove her holiness.

Lady Tallia was far gone in pregnancy.

Hathumod leaped to her feet with a wild look on her normally mild face. "Liar! Fraud!

I saw the nail you abused yourself with. I know with what lies the Enemy tempted you, and how you turned your back on the very one who showed you honor. And now this!

This! You betrayed every holy promise you made to him—

Ermanrich grabbed his cousin and wrestled her down, although she fought him, so in the grip of this unlooked-for frenzy that she seemed unaware of everything around her. It was already too late.

Tallia shrieked hysterically, hiccuping cries interspersed with bleating moans that made Ivar want to slap her if only it would shut her up.

'For God's sake," said Sabella, "control yourself, Tallia."

'I can't! I don't care! I won't have her here. She betrayed me when I needed her! She abandoned me! Everything she says is a lie. She's an evil, wicked woman—"

Conrad rose with the massive grace of a bull and slapped Tallia right across the face.

His young daughter winced at the sound, but her lips pulled tight with satisfaction. Tallia stopped screaming so quickly that Ivar flinched, thinking she might drop dead on the spot, but instead she started sniveling. Conrad put an arm around her.

'Hush, Tallia." He sounded as disgusted as might a man who, receiving a prized pup from the regnant, discovers that it has a habit of peeing in the bed. "Calm down. What is it you wish?"

Tallia shuddered and, finally, gazed up into his face with a look as abjectly worshipful as that of his hounds. Remarkably, after all that wailing and moaning, her eyes were dry.

"She's an evil, wicked woman." Ivar recalled her voice so clearly from Quedlinhame.

Who else spoke in such pure and monotonously zealous tones? That voice, the stigmata that had miraculously appeared on her hands, and the miracle of the rose; these had whipped him into the arms of heresy. But it was her voice more than anything that had driven like a spike into his heart. "An evil, wicked, wicked woman."

'So you said," observed Conrad. "What's that to do with us?"

'She lied about the nail!" shrieked Hathumod, breaking free of Ermanrich's grip. "God never came to her and tore her hands. She did it to herself! She's the broken vessel that the Enemy cast down upon this Earth to harm God's holy messenger—!" Then Ermanrich had her again, this time with Dedi's help, because she was writhing and fighting and ready to fall into a frothing fit. Ivar had never imagined that Hathumod, soft little rabbit that she resembled, could contain so much fury. And he had a bad feeling that it was unwise to insult a great prince's daughter so publicly.

'Take that madwoman out of here," said Sabella coolly. "I won't have my court disturbed in this way."

'Nay, let me go with her," pleaded Ermanrich. "She's my cousin. There's no harm in her—"

'Go!" commanded Sabella. "Ai, God! Take the others, too."

'Kill them!" shrieked Tallia, cowering in the shelter of Conrad's massive arm. "Kill them! Just kill them!" She began to sob, and as the guards jerked Ivar roughly away, he heard her mutter, "No one must ever know."

'An execution might serve to keep the troops in line, those who aren't sure of their loyalty," remarked Sabella.

'Stop there at once!" barked Conrad.

Captain Ulric halted the line of prisoners. He had the look of a good soldier, the kind who doesn't make mistakes because he's slack. His men regarded Conrad with respect as the duke continued speaking.

KL "I will not be party to slaughtering two innocent Lions. I hate Wasting good soldiers."

'And indeed,'' remarked Sabella as she studied Baldwin, "it would be a shame to put an end to such beauty."

'I haven't seen his ' end,'" said Conrad, laughing now as his arm tightened warningly around Tallia, "but I'm sure you'd find it to your taste, Cousin."

'So I might." Sabella's smile made Ivar shiver. "What of the others?"

'You must kill them. You must!" sobbed Tallia. She lifted her pale gaze to her husband's dark face. "You know how much I love you, Conrad. Wouldn't you do it for me?"

She faltered. Maybe she was just smart enough not to want an answer to that question.

Her thin lips curved down in a cunning frown as she shook off his arm and stepped forward.

'Am I not queen here, Mother?" Her eyes took on a feverish glaze as she spread her hands over her belly. "That's what you promised me. That I would be queen and my children rule over a realm where all people have to believe in the Holy Word of the Redeemer. I'll order the execution done if you are too squeamish to do so! Guards!

Guards! Take that woman and her companions away and execute them, at my order!

Now!"

Conrad shrugged, unwilling to interfere. Sabella lifted a hand as if to give permission.

Baldwin sprang forward, pushed past the guards, and threw himself on the steps at Sabella's feet. "I beg you," he cried, turning the full force of his cornflower-blue eyes on her. "If you kill them, I'll hate you forever. You can whip a stubborn horse and still not make it run. But if you spare their lives, then I'll do whatever you ask."

Sabella blinked, stunned either by his extraordinary beauty or else by the complete idiocy of his impulsive gesture. "Whatever I ask?"

Conrad swore appreciatively. "Now there's an offer that makes me look forward to a hard ride out in the fields."

'Guards! Do as I command!" Tallia's voice cracked into a whine.

'Shut up," said Sabella without looking at her daughter. She could not keep her gaze from Baldwin's delectable form.

'B-but you said that I was to be queen—" protested Tallia.

'Inter them at Queen's Grave," said Conrad. "Think of what a welcome their heresy will receive there."

Sabella didn't turn her head to acknowledge the duke's words. She looked, if anything, dumbfounded at the events which had landed Baldwin in her lap.

'perhaps you'd better haul him up to your chambers and just have done with it,"

Conrad finished with a snort of laughter.

'Nay, Cousin, that would be your style, not mine," Sabella replied. "I like to savor a well-spiced dish, not bolt it down like a dog. It's a good thing that Judith is dead, or we might come to blows over this handsome morsel."

'You're not listening to me!" cried Tallia. "I said I wanted them killed."

''Go along, Tallia, back to your prayers," replied her mother.

'You must rest and keep up your strength."

'But—"

'Daughter, there's no escape from Queen's Grave, so you needn't fear for your honor or whatever it is you're babbling about. For God's sake, Conrad, take her away."

'Come, Tallia," Conrad said firmly, but it was his big hand closing on her frail wrist that forced her to move. He dragged her away without a backward glance, chatting amiably with his daughter as they left the hall.

Ivar felt dizzy, and beside him Sigfrid moaned, Hathuniod sobbed softly, Ermanrich trembled, and Gerulf and Dedi stood rigid, awaiting events, glancing at every entrance as if seeking escape. Baldwin did not look at any of them. He was already alone, kneeling before Lady Sabella.

'Captain, remove the prisoners. Detail an escort to take that woman and those three youths to Queen's Grave. Conrad may do as he wishes with the Lions."

Gerulf laid a hand on Dedi's arm as if to reassure him, or restrain him, but the younger Lion did not respond. He seemed too stunned.

'As you wish, Your Highness," responded Captain Ulric with toneless obedience.

'I'll see you're rewarded for bringing Lord Baldwin to my attention, Captain," Sabella added.

'You are most gracious, Your Highness." Ulric gestured toward his prisoners. "Move on. Move!"

What could Ivar do? There knelt Baldwin, turning at last to stare after him with tears in his eyes. All this time Ivar had believed that because Baldwin was so damned handsome he couldn't truly care for anything but his own pretty face. There was no doubt now of Bald win's feelings. Baldwin had sacrificed himself to save Ivar and the others.

Would I have done the same, risk everything, throw all caution to the winds, for Baldwin? Or would I have treated him as Liath treated me?

Shame made him flush. Baldwin winced, seeing Ivar betrayed by his fair complexion.

'Go on, man," said Erkanwulf. "There's nothing you can do."

Prodded by a spear, Ivar staggered forward as Baldwin turned away, shoulders heaving with a sob. No choice but to abandon him. Just as he had been abandoned by Liath at Quedlinhame.

SISTER Hilaria used flint, iron, and a scrap of dried mushroom to light a lamp. As the fire caught, she wiped away tears. "I am not accustomed to the smell any longer," she said apologetically. Holding up the lamp, she indicated that Hanna should roll the stone back into place. "Then none can follow you."

The stone that blocked the path was so precisely balanced that it ground easily into place and Hanna turned, dusting off her hands, to regard her new companion. The nun was still blinking because of the wavering flame.

'I know these paths so well that I no longer use light. We conserve our meager oil in this way. Still, it will go more quickly for you if we have light. Follow closely."

The floor ran smoothly under her feet, although she kept one hand tracing the wall as she walked behind Hilaria, trying not to bump into her. The nun gave off a strong scent like overripe yeast, not entirely displeasing. The lamplight chased shadows around them, but it did little to dispel the gloom. Tunnels branched away on either side, some ascending and some descending. Passing one opening, Hanna caught a distinct whiff of rotten eggs. As she stopped, recoil ing from the strong smell, a will-o'-the-wisp shifted in the nether darkness, a flash of pale lightness like the glimmer of eyes.

'Sister!" She grabbed hold of the nun's arm. "I saw something down that tunnel."

The nun's smile was mysterious but untroubled. "We are not alone."

She hurried on. Hanna followed despite creeping shivers. Blackness closed in behind them. It was better not to look behind, in case something was sneaking up on her, but she looked anyway. She saw nothing but swallowing darkness.

'Are we safe? Where do those tunnels lead?"

'Into the depths of the earth. We stand atop a labyrinth, friend, whose heart lies beyond our knowledge. So much has been lost to us, who wander in darkness." Was Hilaria speaking of the little community of nuns, or of humankind? It was hard to tell. "Do not fear. The creatures that abide in the earth have done no harm to us. I wish I could say the same of our human brethren."

They came to a ramp that opened onto a cavern broad enough that Hanna felt a change in the air. Their frail flame barely lit the darkness. She saw neither ceiling nor floor, only the suggestion of an open area wide enough to house monsters, or a manor house and its outbuildings.

'Is this where you live?"

'No. But we harbored an army here once. This way."

The light formed a halo around them as they crossed the wide cavern, coming to a corridor that struck into the rock. Their footfalls echoed in whispers. They rounded a corner and came to another blocked passageway. Hanna set her weight to push aside the great wheel stone, but it did not budge as easily as the other one. At last she got it moving, and with a grinding grumble it rolled into a recess cut in the rock.

'Hold." Hilaria squeezed through the gap. "Now let it block the path again."

'We won't return this way?"

'No. We'll return by a different path."

They crossed a ditch dug into the rock that reminded Hanna of a channel where rainwater might run off, and as they toiled up a steep ramp Hanna realized that she could see the walls. Hilaria pinched out the flame. A chamber hewn from rock greeted her astonished gaze. Ventilation shafts cut through the rock let in light, revealing what had once been a kitchen with hearths, a single heavy table, and half a dozen large, open, but empty barrels.

'Quickly." Hilaria walked so swiftly through the chamber that Hanna scarcely had time to glance around.

Light shone bright and welcoming as they moved into the rock-hewn chambers that had once housed the convent dedicated to St. Ekatarina. Being good nuns, the sisters had not abandoned the outer rooms precipitously. Except for a thick coating of dust, the dormitory, the chapel, the library, and the refectory remained in perfect order. Benches in the chapel, lecterns and stools in the library, table and benches in the eating hall, two looms, all were set in order; before fleeing, the nuns had taken the time to tidy up.

Luminous frescoes adorned the walls, and the tale they told caught Hanna's interest: strangely-garbed folk walked through archways of light woven in stone crowns. "This way!"

Hanna shook herself before following Hilaria out into the h^rd sunlight on a terrace. A shout rang up from below, but the nun did not answer, instead shifting a heavy white canvas cover that concealed a rolled-up rope ladder. A shove sent it tumbling down the cliff face.

'I pray you, go quickly. Do you see the dust?"

Where the open ground folded away into hills, a gully cut up through the highlands.

This was the path they had walked to reach here. No mountains, these, but rather hills so ancient that all that remained were their dry backs and rugged terrain. Little rain had fallen over the winter. Now the dry path betrayed their pursuers. Dust puffed and billowed, marking the advance of their enemy.

'God help us," she murmured. "They're close."

'Go," said Sister Hilaria. "Below you will find a steep staircase. At its base there is a second ladder. Cast it down. And once more descend another set of steps cut into the rock, to where there is a third ladder, the longest. They must climb to safety."

Hanna scraped her knuckles more than once in her haste. The ladder gave her less trouble than the steep steps, where she felt she was hanging in midair, ready to tumble off. Coming to a lower ledge, she uncovered another rope ladder and rolled it over the side, cursing when it tangled. Below, her companions had fallen silent. As she swung over the side to start climbing down, she saw their upturned faces. They clustered at the foot of the towering rock. No need to call out: they understood what was happening.

Her elbows ached by the time she got down the next set of steps and ladders, where she found a broader ledge—wide enough to hold a brace of baskets shoved under an overhanging shelter. A broken winch had been abandoned in pieces. The rocks that pinned down the corner of the canvas covering the ladder had been knocked astray by the wind, and it was this white flap they had seen fluttering.

Below, Gerwita wept.

A horseman appeared at the gap where the gully gave out onto open ground. With a shout, the man turned and disappeared back the way he had come.

Hanna grabbed the ladder and flung it over the side. It unrolled with a hiss, rattling down the stone face. Aurea grabbed the base and yanked it down.

'Go!" shouted Hanna. "Bring my quiver and arrows up first!"

Their lack of baggage helped them. Heriburg started up first, the heaviest pouch of books slung over her shoulders, with Jehan behind her with the quiver and arrows on his back.

The rope struts on the ledge jerked and strained as the clerics climbed. Hanna heard Fortunatus' voice rising. "Nay, Sister Rosvita! You must go now. Better we be taken than you be lost."

'Sister!" Hanna shouted down. "Don't argue! Come quickly!"

She marked the dust cloud, but at this angle it was lost behind the hills. She had no way of telling how close their pursuers were, and if that first horseman had been their lead rider or a scout ranging far out in front of the main force.

Soon she heard Heriburg's ragged breathing. As soon as the young cleric's head and shoulders appeared, Hanna grabbed her under the armpits and helped her up onto the ledge. Heriburg crawled forward and rested on hands and knees before struggling to her feet and measuring the pitch of the staircase angling up the cliff. With a grimace, she started up.

Jehan rolled onto the ledge and stood. "I fear Gerwita is not strong enough to get up so many ladders," he said.

Hanna grabbed one of the large baskets to test the strength of the rope and the security of the hook hammered into the stone, where the rope was anchored. " 'Ware below!" she shouted before heaving the basket over the side and together she and Jehan paid out line until it rested on the ground. Rosvita was halfway up the ladder, Jerome behind her to steady her. Below, Fortunatus helped Gerwita into the basket. Aurea cut loose the goat.

With Jehan's help, it was not as difficult as Hanna had feared to haul her up; the girl had grown frail during their escape and weighed no more than a child. By the time they had her hauled up on the ledge, Rosvita and Jerome, too, had collapsed panting on the narrow terrace, and Ruoda and Fortunatus were most of the way up the ladder with Aurea just beginning to climb. The servingwoman had rigged her belt to bind Hanna's staff onto her back, but the staff impeded her progress. Every time she shifted her shoulders, it banged against the rock face.

'Look!" Jerome pointed toward the gully.

First one horseman, then five, spilled out of the ravine onto the open ground. As they fanned out, twenty more appeared. One rider bore a banner aloft which displayed a silver Circle of Unity sewn onto a field of gules. Beside him rode a man wearing a red cloak.

"A presbyter," gasped Jerome.

Rosvita raised her head to look but it was obvious that small movement exhausted her.

Her skin had drained of all color; her lips seemed almost blue. i 'Keep going," said Hanna. 't't Heriburg and Jehan had reached the second ledge. A moment later, a basket slithered down the cliff to land beside Hanna.

'Sister Rosvita must go in the basket," said Gerwita, her voice no more than a whisper.

"I'll climb."

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

'Are you good with that bow?" asked Jerome diffidently.

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

'If you could climb the north face, so can they."

'Once they find it. Once they think to do so. We'll have a little time."

'For what?"

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

of course, but the church offered protection and stability that a common farmer or landsman could only pray for and rarely received. "For Sister Rosvita to save us."

The answer contented him; they all believed in Rosvita that much He headed up the steps, following Gerwita.

A head appeared to her right.

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

'Go on," he said to Ruoda. "Go up and help the others. I'll follow."

Aurea was only halfway up the ladder.

As the horsemen advanced across the open field, past the stumps of olive trees, a second score of riders emerged from the gully. No need to guess who commanded them.

Even at this distance, unable to make out features or even, really, hair color, Hanna knew that the man in the red cloak was Hugh. She knew it as though he stood beside her, whispering in her ear.

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

'Not to Liath," she muttered, nocking an arrow.

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

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

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

'Go! Go!" she cried. "I'll cover you."

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

She was no longer afraid.

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

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

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

But so was Bulkezu.

She readied a third arrow and drew the bowstring.

'Leave us, I beg you, my lord," she called down.

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

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

From far above, Rosvita called down, her voice faint and raspy, but audible. "I know what you are, Father Hugh. I know what you have done. I fear we are enemies now.

Forgive me, but there can be no negotiation."

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

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

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

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

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

He is deeper than I am.

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

Just as Bulkezu abused me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

'If any court would believe her."

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

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

'Do you think so?"

'I am only a simple cleric. I cannot presume to guess the thoughts Of the Holy Mother or her favored presbyters. They are as far above jne as… an eagle above the humble wren."

'I would take you more for a starling, Brother. They fly in a flock. 't'tVrens are more solitary, are they not?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Af~'t't J> they pressed forward into the interior rooms of the abandoned empty convent, a sense of serenity settled over Rosvita as might a cloak thrown over her shoulders. The dimness reminded her of the two years she had spent in the cell beneath the skopos' palace, yet here, she knew, she was at last entirely free. She had chosen her path, for good or for ill, and she had taken responsibility for those who followed her and looked to her for leadership.

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

As the light grew dim, Gerwita clutched Rosvita's hand, whimpering. "I'm frightened,"

she said in a low voice.

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

'This way."

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

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

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

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

'Sister Rosvita!"

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

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

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

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

'We're taking you to her now," said Hilaria finally.

They continued down, far down, until Rosvita lost count of the stairs and grew accustomed to stepping over the lip carved at the edge of each one, a fringe of stone that kept the foot from slipping on the descent. The stone was very cold to the touch but not wet. The footfalls of the others echoed around her, muffled by rock; she heard their breathing, but no one spoke. The light did little to dispel the darkness. She could touch solid stone on either side; otherwise they might as well have been descending into the Pit.

Had the church mothers been mistaken all along, teaching that the sinful fell, bodiless and helpless, for eternity through a cloud of stinging aether? It was perhaps more reasonable to suggest that each erring soul carved her own path down the steep slope of the Abyss, trudging into eternal damnation. Sin itself was the punishment, turning away from what was right.

She was about to throw herself into the camp of the Enemy, making her no different than Queen Adelheid, who had led them here the first time. Who could have guessed that Adelheid would prove so treacherous toward her husband? Yet fear, as much as treachery, might have impelled her. She might have succumbed to Hugh's poisoned words or the skopos' influence. She might only have done what she thought necessary to secure a throne for her infant child and surety for her own preeminent position among the princes of the land.

Perhaps Adelheid had stepped into the Pit while doing what she thought was right.

As I must.

Rosvita knew what she had to do to save her companions from their pursuers. But that didn't make it right.

Her feet slipped on loose pebbles. She grabbed Gerwita's hand to balance herself, heard Fortunatus, toward the back of the party, murmur a warning to the one who walked behind him.

They came to the bottom of the stairs where curving walls rose on every side into blackness. The well was dry except for a sheen of water caught in a hollow beyond Hilaria, but it wasn't empty. At the center of the space a hole pierced the rock; a sturdy wooden ladder poked up out of the depths.

'How much farther?" gasped Gerwita.

'Not far," said Diocletia kindly. She turned to take hold of the ladder, easing herself onto the rungs. "Follow me. Sister Hilaria will come last."

Rosvita went second. The rungs were worn smooth by much use. At first, rock scraped against her back, but after six rungs the space opened up and after another seven she set foot on stone. A hand grasped her elbow.

'Stand aside," said Diocletia. "We must all stand here together before we go on."

One by one the others descended the ladder, rungs creaking beneath their weight, feet scuffing on stone when they reached the bottom. One by one, they edged cautiously past Rosvita into the blackness. It was so profoundly silent that she could distinguish each person's breathing: Gerwita's shallow and moist with tears; Jerome's quick and nervous; Heriburg's steady and even. Ruoda coughed wetly, echoed by Jehan's dry cough. The Eagle shifted, rattling the arrows remaining in her quiver. Aurea probed the floor by tapping it with the staff: rap rap rap.

"Ail" cursed Fortunatus. "You hit my toe."

Everyone chuckled anxiously.

Above, Hilaria doused the lamp, so even that whisper of light was lost to them. The rungs creaked again; feet scuffed the ground.

'Are we all here?" It was impossible to mistake Diocletia's high, raspy voice for the lower tones of her companion.

'We are all here," answered Hilaria.

It was too dark for Rosvita to see her hand in front of her nose. The earth had swallowed them.

'Where are we going?" whispered the Eagle from the right.

'Deeper," said Hilaria.

'How can we go deeper?" asked Gerwita in a trembling voice. Her fingers brushed Rosvita's hand and fixed on it, forefinger and thumb wrapping tightly around the older woman's wrist as a child might cling to its mother.

A scraping rumble shuddered through the room. A kiss of dry air, faintly sulfurous, brushed Rosvita's face.

'Take hold each to another's hand," said Diocletia, "and speak your name, so that we know that we have not left anyone behind."

Someone giggled nervously, but Rosvita did not recognize the laugh. After some fumbling, each person spoke, some softly, others with more strength. When Hilaria spoke last of all, Rosvita felt a tug on her hand and she followed Diocletia grimly into such blackness as seemed impossible to fathom or endure. Behind her, Gerwita choked back sobs.

'Hush, Daughter," murmured Rosvita, squeezing her hand. "We are in good company.

They will not let us come to harm."

For an eternity they moved through a darkness that had direction and space only because now and again the flow of air would shift and faint scents or stinks touch them before fading away: rotten eggs, yeast, the sting of an iron forge, lichen and, strangely, salt water. Mercifully, the floor remained level. No one tripped or ran into anything, although they could not see their own feet much less any landmark around them.

Soon, a steady, labored wheezing drifted into audibility, like a blacksmith's bellows or a man stricken by lung fever struggling to breathe.

'So might a sleeping dragon sound," said Fortunatus out of the darkness, "as some poor deluded treasure hunter crept up on it."

Hilaria laughed. "So might it, indeed, had we such a creature hidden in this labyrinth.

It is no dragon, Brother, but something stranger and more unexpected."

The faintest brush of color limned the walls, shading blackness into a rainbow of subtle grays. The tunnel down which they walked split at a crossroads, branching off in five directions, but Diocletia led them toward the light, toward the whistling wheeze.

'God save us," said Gerwita faintly, pressing up behind Rosvita as the tunnel opened into a cavern no larger than a village church, the rock walls marked with odd striations, ribbons of color painted onto the rock.

Here, the nuns had constructed a crude living quarters. Four pallets lay along one wall, three neatly made with feather bedding and one heaped up untidily. At the single table and bench a thin woman wearing tattered nun's robes sat fretfully twisting her hands; she did not look up as they entered. Three medium-sized chests, enough to store clothing or a small library of scrolls, sat beneath the table. j't't dozen assorted pots and amphorae lined the far wall, half lost in shadow, although Rosvita found it remarkable that she could see at all. Two oil lamps rested on a rock shelf in the cavern wall, but neither one was lit.

'What is making the light?" Hanna murmured.

'What is making that noise?" asked Fortunatus.

The untidy pallet stirred, like a beast coming alive. "Have they come safely?"

'God be praised!" Rosvita rushed heedlessly across the cavern to kneel beside the pallet. "Mother Obligatia! God is merciful! You are still alive."

'Sister Rosvita!" A painfully thin hand emerged, shaking, from under a blanket.

Rosvita grasped it, careful to hold lightly so that she might not crush those ancient bones.

"I had prayed to see you again, but I confess I did not hope that God would bless us so.

We are prisoners here, but against what enemy we do not know. Have you come to rescue us?"

Rosvita laughed bitterly. Obligatia looked so ill that it was impossible to understand how someone so frail could still live except through stubbornness, a sense of duty, or the simple inability to give up hope. Age had worn her skin to a dry fragility; a touch might crumble it to dust.

The others ventured cautiously into the cavern, spreading out so they wouldn't feel cramped, glancing around nervously, looking for the source of the light and that constant wheezing whistle. Sister Diocletia leaned down beside the seated woman and spoke to her ir an undertone. It was Sister Petra, the librarian and scribe. She lookec so changed, as though half of her soul had fled, leaving the rest behind in a broken vessel.

'Pray tell me what has transpired, Mother Obligatia. Why have you fled the convent?

Where are the others?"

'There are things we never dreamed of that still walk the Earth although they are mercifully hidden to our sight most of the time. Pray that it remain so. We have seen—"

That strong voice faltered.

body was weak, but her gaze remained sharp and solid, fixed on vita. "We have seen terrible things, Sister."

Look!" said Hanna from the other side of the cavern. "It's the lichen that gives off a glow."

'I have gone over the events so many times that I begin to feel as though I have lived through them a hundred times or more. Yet first, Sister Rosvita, tell me. We sent poor Paloma, that good girl, to Darre to seek you. Did she ever find you there?"

'God have mercy on her. She found us, but she was murdered. We had no way to send word to you. Nor do we know who killed her, or why. We can only guess."

The sigh that escaped Mother Obligatia's lips whispered out like an echo to the rhythmic wheeze that serenaded them: schwoo schwhaa schwoo schwhaa. "I feared as much. I knew she would not abandon us. I pray she rests at peace in the Chamber of Light with Our Mother and Father of Life." She murmured a prayer, and Rosvita joined her, the words falling easily from her tongue. How many times had she said the prayer over the dead?

Too many.

'After that a cleric came. She sought access to our library, saying she came from the schola in Darre to examine old chronicles. We had no reason to distrust her."

'You do not think she came to study old chronicles in the library?" Rosvita asked, rearranging the bolster that allowed the old woman to lie somewhat propped up. Obligatia grunted in pain as Rosvita helped her sit up.

'The good sisters move me frequently," she said, "yet still I have sores from being bedridden. Yet is it not a just punishment for my blindness?"

'Your blindness?"

'She called herself Sister Venia."

Heriburg and Fortunatus had crept forward to listen.

'I recall no such cleric," said Heriburg.

'The name seems passing familiar," said Fortunatus. "There are so many clerics in the palace schola, but I believe a woman who went by that name served the skopos."

Obligatia's lips pulled up, but not in a smile. "I know she did not. She came to kill us.

She murdered poor Sister Lucida and used her warm blood to summon a creature that had no earthly form or substance and a stench like iron. This thing she sent to kill us, or to kill me, I suppose, although the only one it killed was Sister Sindula. It consumed Sindula as though it were fire, leaving only her scorched bones. May God have mercy on her." A frail hand sketched the Circle of Unity in the air. "Yet I believe I was Sister Venia's target all along They know who I am, and they will stop at nothing to murder me.'

'So be it. I have no kind words in which to tell you this, Mother Obligatia. I found out what happened to your daughter."

Obligatia shut her eyes. A tear squeezed out from the closed lids sliding down to dissolve in the whorl of one ear. "My daughter," she said softly. "Even after so many years, I still grieve for what I lost."

How did one speak, in the face of such sorrow, knowing that the next words would only compound sadness? She had to go on. Without the truth being laid bare, they had no hope of winning free.

'Your daughter is now the skopos. She is called Anne, and she is a mathematici, a powerful sorcerer."

'My daughter." The words brushed the air as might a feather, a tickle, ephemeral.

Obligatia was silent for a long time, but she wept no more tears. "Then it is my daughter who wishes to make sure I am dead."

Rosvita looked up to see Fortunatus' dear face close by, pale with concern. "We should have listened to Prince Sanglant. He warned us against Anne and her cabal of sorcerers before we traveled south to Aosta. We did not heed him."

'How could we have guessed?" said Fortunatus. "Do not biame yourself, Sister."

'Now that they have raised Taillefer's granddaughter to a position worthy of her eminence, she fears what I know," said Obligatia. "What I am."

'Perhaps," said Rosvita. "But do not think others elevated Anne. She raised herself.

When Holy Mother Clementia died, may she rest at peace in the Chamber of Light, Anne came before the king and queen and displayed her power to them. In this way, she seduced them into supporting her election as skopos. She told him—" She recalled the words as clearly as if they had been spoken an hour ago. That was the price she paid for her prodigious memory: that every painful moment she had ever endured might be relived with awful clarity at unlocked for and unwelcome intervals. "She said, 'Without my aid, you will have no empire to rule.' "

'You have a powerful memory, Sister."

'I spent two years in the dungeon of the skopos. I had time to meditate, to pray, and to read back through my book of memory."

Yet this time had allowed her to complete, in her mind, her long neglected History. It had allowed her to master the skill that might allow them to escape their current predicament.

The wheeze sucked in and out, and by now she recognized on her skin the slight pressure in and suction out of air that accompanied the sound, not a breeze but more like the action of a bellows shifting the air. The temperature within this cavern remained cool, yet not as cold as the chill night would be outside. Fearing for their lives, they remained in more comfort than Hugh's men. The irony made her smile.

'I had another child," said Obligatia into their silence. "Another child." She faltered, her voice trembling as badly as her hands. She groped down the blanket that covered her slight body until she found Rosvita's hand and clutched it tightly. "What became of Bernard? I saw him—

'You saw him?"

'Nay, nay, I saw him in his child."

'You saw his child?"

Sister Hilaria returned with a bucket of water, which she set down beside the abbess.

Kneeling next to the pallet, she dipped a linen cloth into the water and bathed the old woman's forehead and throat. "You are tiring her, Sister Rosvita," she scolded.

'So I must, if we are to survive this. What do you mean, Mother? How could you have seen his child? If this man is the one I think he is, he had no child."

Hilaria looked up sharply. "She does not lie."

'Nor do I mean to say she does—"

'Hear me first," said Mother Obligatia gently. "When the demon came for us, we knew we would all die. It consumed Sister Sindula as easily as we breathe, and nothing we could do would stop it from devouring us as well. But there appeared out of the air a daimone. I do not believe it was an angel. It was a woman with wings of flame, yet one who bore an earthly bow and arrow. It was she who pierced the creature with her dart and banished it from Earth. It was she who warned us to bind the sorcerer who had attacked us. It was she—"

She began to weep quietly, unable to go on in the face of overwhelming grief. Hilaria dabbed cooling water on her forehead, murmuring words of comfort.

Rosvita burned. Shame afflicted her, to witness this woman's sorrow and yet exult in it. She was so close. In her heart, in her bones,

she understood that she had suffered in the dungeon, risked everything, to arrive at this moment.

'She saved our lives. Yet I knew her. I knew her." Obligatia pushed the damp cloth away from her forehead. "I pray you, Hilaria. I will not die in this hour." By the set line of her frail jaw and the stubborn and fixed nature of her gaze, Rosvita saw it was this memory that had kept her alive for so long. She had recovered the strength of her voice; she had mastered her sadness, as must all those who live to a great age, for otherwise they would have died of grief long ago.

'I saw her, Sister Rosvita. I saw Bernard's child. I saw him in her face. I do not know what she is, where she came from, or where she went. Can you explain what happened?"

The others had gathered close by to listen, struck dumb, it seemed, by the intensity of Obligatia's testimony and her question.

But not every one of them.

'You saw Liath." The Eagle pressed forward to stand beside Rosvita, towering there with her robust figure and her pale, northern coloring, her hair as colorless as snow. "I've seen her, too, these past two or three years, glimpses of her but nothing more than that.

She had wings of flame. I thought they were visions, hallucinations. But now I have to believe that what Prince Sanglant said is true. She was taken away, up into the heavens, by fiery daimones."

'I do not forget how we heard her voice manifest out of a whirlpool of air," said Fortunatus grimly. "That day when Prince Sanglant returned to the king's progress. That day when we saw that he had allowed his daughter to be suckled by a daimone."

'When did that happen?" Hanna demanded of Fortunatus.

'Before he rode east. Before you met up with him."

'Yes," she agreed thoughtfully. "That would make sense. It would fit with what you and Sister Rosvita have told me of your own history, and conclusions."

'Liath is Anne's daughter," Rosvita said, as if hitting the nail hard enough would drive it into impenetrable rock. "How can she be the daughter of Anne, yet look like Bernard, if the story Prince Sanglant told us is true? If only one of her parents is human?"

'It could be true if Holy Mother Anne is the one who is lying," said Hanna.

For a moment there was silence, except for the wheeze, and Gerwi-ta's sniffling, and Ruoda's cough.

If the Holy Mother were lying.

Hanna went on, her tone like ice. "Why shouldn't she lie? If she needed Liath, and everyone who knew her, to believe that Liath was descended from Emperor Taillefer? I knew Bernard. He loved his daughter. And they looked alike. Even though she was burned brown on her skin, any fool could see they were father and daughter, just as a puppy or foal may bear the markings of its sire."

'My grandchild," murmured Obligatia. "Can it be true? Bernard had a daughter? Can it be true?" How cruel the look of hope on her face. "Does he live still, my son?"

Hanna knelt beside the pallet. She was not a beautiful woman, more strong than handsome, yet her expression became so suffused with compassion that it shone from her in the manner of all true beauty, born of the inner heart and not the outer seeming. "I am sorry, Mother. He died years ago trying to save his daughter from those who pursued her.

I saw his dead body."

'My son." The words trailed into nothing, but Obligatia did not weep. Perhaps she had no more strength for weeping.

'He was a good man, with no more frailties than any one of us suffer, and many virtues. He helped others until there was nothing left for himself. But he feared those who sought to find him and Liath. He did the best he could. He loved her."

Schwoo schwaa schwoo schwaa.

Had they fallen under a spell? To Rosvita, it seemed they had. No one moved or spoke.

Only Mother Obligatia was strong enough to break that spell. She had survived too long to be overmastered.

'Why does my daughter wish to kill me, Sister Rosvita?"

Rosvita glanced at Fortunatus, at Hanna, but they only shook their heads. "I do not know. I can only guess. She has not given up. A presbyter of noble birth waits below the rock. Tomorrow at dawn he will send soldiers up the north face to capture us."

'He cannot reach us here."

'How can we sustain ourselves, trapped within the stone with no source of food or drink? How have you survived these past two years?"

'Where is Teuda?" Obligatia asked.

'She is coming, Mother," replied Hilaria. "She has seen to the prisoner, and gathered enough bread for everyone."

'Help me stand," said Obligatia.

With both Rosvita and Hilaria to support her, the old abbess was able to rise. She insisted on being helped to the bench, although the effort clearly taxed her. Sister Petra, still squeezing her hands anx iously and murmuring in an undertone, fell silent when Obligatja patted her soothingly on the arm as one might a nervous hound.

'Sister Petra has not been well since that awful day," said Obli-gatia without apparent irony, considering her own weakened condition. Yet her expression had such clarity and strength of will that Rosvita could not help but contrast the old woman's energy and evident sanity with the bewildered gaze of Petra as she stared at the shadows, mouth moving but no words coming out. "Sister Carita died soon after we fled here, may her spirit rest at peace in the Chamber of Light. Hilaria, Diocletia, and Teuda have remained rocks."

'God granted us strength," said Diocletia, who had risen in order to give Obligatia room to sit on the bench. "We serve you as faithfully in this life as we will serve God in the next, Mother."

Obligatia bowed her head, aware of the burden of their loyalty. Rosvita, looking up, saw her own dear companions gazing at her with that same dreadful and wonderful steadfastness. Like Lavas-tine's hounds, they had chosen with their hearts and now could never be swayed.

'Pray God we are worthy of their loyalty," she murmured to herself, but Obligatia's hearing had not suffered.

'Amen," the old woman whispered. She braced her hands on the table and with an effort pushed herself up to stand as Rosvita hurried to steady her with a hand under her elbow. "In this way I maintain my strength. My task on this Earth is not finished. I have a few more things left to do."

'Here is Teuda." Diocletia hurried to a passageway that struck into the rock opposite the tunnel through which they had entered. She met there the lay sister whom Rosvita recalled as a gardener. Teuda carried a large clay pitcher filled with water and a basket, which she set on the table. It was filled with white cakes shaped like small loafs of bread but formed of a substance Rosvita did not recognize. It had no smell. Obligatia led the blessing over drink and food, sat, and indicated that Teuda should pass the bread around.

When Rosvita bit into the cake handed to her, she discovered it had no taste as well as no scent, its consistency firm but not hard, with some give when you pressed on it without being spongy.

'What is it?" asked Hanna, too suspicious to eat.

'We call it bread," said Teuda. "Do not turn your nose up at it, my friend. It comes to us as a gift. Without it, we would all have died of starvation months ago."

'A gift from whom?" asked Hanna, unappeased. "Sister Hilaria said there are creatures that bide in the earth. Has this something to do with them?"

As with one thought, Teuda, Hilaria, and Diocletia looked at Bother Obligatia. Only poor Sister Petra did not respond; she nibbled at her cake as might a mouse, glancing up frequently at the shadows as though expecting a cat to spring.

'I heard a tale once," said Ruoda, who had been silent for so long because of the grippe that afflicted her, who had struggled to keep moving although she was feverish and ill. "I heard it said that the wealth of the Salian kings comes from a deep mine that strikes far into the earth, where lies a treasure-house of gold. Or iron. No man can suffer the deep shafts and live, so they say. They say that the Salians have made slaves of a kind of creature lower than humankind but above the common beasts, who burrow in the earth and seek silver and gold."

Obligatia nodded. "Long ago, creatures carved this labyrinth out of the rock. It runs deep. We have explored only a tiny portion of it. Paloma used to bring rolls of string down and unravel them behind her, so she could find her way back, yet even she discovered merely how much lay beyond our knowledge. What cunning and skill they must have had to construct such a vast network!"

'Do you mean to say that all this, and more, is not natural? That it was hewn from the rock?"

'Just as the convent was, yet even there the founding sisters merely expanded on what already existed. This labyrinth is, we believe, but the top layer of the onion. We will never know the truth." Gerwita began to weep again, her nerves stretched so fine that any least brush set them jangling.

'Pray go on!" said Rosvita. "What mystery lies beneath the rock?

Truly, I stand amazed."

Eating the bread had restored Obligatia enough that she could sit straighter and sip at the metallic-tasting water Teuda poured into a wooden cup.

'After the creature that murdered Sister Sindula was killed, we sought out and bound Sister Venia. No need to take her to trial. She was found in the midst of her sin, with Sister Lucida's corpse and the traces of her sorcery nearby. Yet what could we do? It was obvious we were in danger. If we let her go, she could strike again. She might return to those who sent her and seek additional help. Yet neither could I bring myself to kill her, even to save ourselves. I felt we had no choice but to keep her as a prisoner, with us, so that she might not work her mischief again. Yet if she did not return with a report to those who had sent her, surely they would send others to seek her out. And in time they did.

Where could we flee and gain refuge? Whom could we trust? In the end, we retreated. I would not suffer those in my charge to be harmed."

'If you had given yourself up to those who sought you, then those in your charge might have continued their lives undisturbed," said Hanna suddenly. "Did you even consider it?"

Teuda was a big-boned woman and not as thin as the others; she placed herself before Hanna, fists set on hips and chin thrust out in a challenge. "By what right do you speak to our Holy Mother so disrespectfully?'

Obligatia smiled. A leopard might smile so, before it gobbled up its unsuspecting prey. "Nay, let her speak. It is a fair question. Why not give myself up to save them?"

'As if such villains wouldn't have killed us anyway!"

'Hush, Teuda. Yet that is indeed the first reason. Why should I believe they would not pinch off all the loose ends, those who knew I existed, who knew my secret. If they would not hesitate to kill me, why hesitate to kill those under my charge? Who will notice if a handful of isolated nuns vanish? Few know of our existence. We matter to no one."

'You would matter to Liath, if it were true that you were her grandmother. Ai, God, she has prayed so often for some knowledge of her family…" Hanna trailed off, wise enough to be humble in the face of this woman who had suffered so much and survived despite everything.

'So you have the other answer. I am selfish, child. If Bernard's daughter still lives, if there is any hope I might yet clasp her hand in mine, see his dear face in hers, and kiss her as one kinswoman to another, then I will do so."

To Rosvita's surprise, Hanna knelt and bowed her head. "Forgive me, Mother. I have misjudged you."

'There is nothing to forgive, child—

Gerwita collapsed to her knees and began to sob noisily. "I have sinned!" she cried, words garbled by gusts of weeping. "I have betrayed you! God forgive me." She grabbed for the eating knife left out on the table after Teuda had cut up the cakes. Fortunatus got hold of her wrist; Hanna leaped forward and pulled the knife from her grasp before she could plunge it into her own abdomen.

'Flee!" she sobbed hopelessly. "No matter where you hide, he will find you. You cannot imagine his power."

The force of her wailing and crying racked her body; she jerked back and forth like a woman trying to expel a demon, and all that soft, placid, neat exterior, the calm, reserved novice, dissolved into a woman torn by pain and guilt.

For a drawn-out time, measureless, everyone stared at her, too shocked to speak.

But Rosvita recognized the dismay curling up her toes, into her limbs, suffusing her; it scrabbled at her heart, long-fingered dread, like the rats in the dungeon that never ceased to gnaw even and especially on the living who had become too numbed to feel and too weak to fight back.

'Hugh," she said at last.

Gerwita sobbed, curled up with her body against her thighs and her head hitting the floor repeatedly.

'Restrain her," said Rosvita. "Do not let her harm herself." "She betrayed us!" cried Heriburg. "We would have escaped. There had to be some reason they found our trail, despite everything. She betrayed us!"

'Heriburg! Leave off!"

Heriburg snapped her mouth shut, but she stepped back to grasp Ruoda's hand tightly as together the two young women glared furiously at their longtime companion. If a look could kill as easily as a dagger—

Rosvita knelt beside Gerwita. At her touch, Gerwita jerked sideways away from her and wailed and shrieked like a woman mourning the death of her only child.

'Gerwita! Hush! Listen to me, and grant me silence!" It took a space for Gerwita to calm down, to swallow her sobs, to lie still, face hidden, in silence. "Look at me."

Gerwita lifted her head. She had scraped her forehead on the stone; blood trickled into her eyes.

'Did you betray us willingly? For money? Preferment? Out of desire?"

Tears streamed down Gerwita's round face. At first she seemed unable to speak, but finally she choked out words. "N-nay, Sister Rosvita. I would never betray you willingly, not for anything. B-but he threatened my family. I have a younger brother who is a novice at St. Galle's, a great honor for our family for we are not of the first rank. He said he feared that harm would come to him, if I did not heed him and aid him. I believed him, Sister. I believed he could harm my brother."

'Why did you not come to me with this tale at the time?"

'B-because you were in the dungeon!" she cried, outraged and furious and humiliated.

"How could you have helped me?"

'What did he want from you in exchange? He can't have known that an earthquake would strike Darre. He can't have guessed that it would provide the opportunity for my escape."

She hid her face in her hands, ashamed. Rosvita could barely make out her muffled words. "He wanted to know what you knew, how much you knew, about the Holy Mother, Anne. The skopos. I-I told him." She wept again, choking and coughing on the sobs. "God forgive me. I told him everything."

Fortunatus began to chuckle, then laughed outright.

Outraged, Heriburg slapped him across the face.

'Child!" Obligatia's voice rang like a hammer.

'Nay, nay, give me silence for a moment," said Rosvita, rising. Fortunatus' cheek was red, but the slap had not discomposed him; he still smiled with his usual sly irony, fond of finding a friendly joke in the weaknesses of others. "Brother Fortunatus is right.

Gerwita, you did not betray me at all. I think, Daughter, that you may have saved my life."

'How?" said several of them at once, disbelieving.

Gerwita was too startled to protest.

'Why didn't Hugh have me killed? I saw him murder Villam. I know he is a maleficus, that he used condemned sorcery to imprison King Henry by insinuating a captured daimone—the very one that had been trapped in the stone crown at the height of this rock—into the king's corpus. Why didn't he kill me? My testimony, which is worth something, I believe, could and would condemn him in front of an ecclesiastical court."

Silence from the rest of them, waiting, tense, confused.

Only Fortunatus understood.

'Because he means to use me to protect himself against Anne. Holy Mother Anne does not know how much I know about her past. She does not know that I know the secret of her birth, of her incestuous marriage. That her mother still lives."

'Her incestuous marriage—?" Obligatia whispered faintly, slumping.

'I pray you, Mother. Let me explain later. I think you need not be ashamed of your son's behavior. Yet think. Hugh knows what I know, because of what Gerwita told him. If I am alive, then he holds a weapon to use against Anne, if need be."

'Why would he want to harm the Holy Mother?" asked Aurea.

'Because he is an ambitious man. That is his weakness, as Fortunatus has seen."

'I do not think Presbyter Hugh so simple as to have only one reason for anything he does," added Fortunatus. "There may be other reasons he has left you alive, Sister Rosvita."

Hanna spoke harshly. "Perhaps only to let you know that he holds the power of life and death over you. There are a few creatures in this world who hunger for that kind of power."

'So there are," agreed Rosvita. "But he does not have me yet, and I do not mean for him to capture me at all."

She turned to regard Mother Obligatia, who simply nodded, as if she expected the speech that would come next.

'You must trust me, Mother. Where is your prisoner?"

'Not far from here, safely interred. She no longer speaks to us, but I think her still sane."

'And the creatures from whom you have received your bread— what of them?"

'They are not ours. Soon after we fled into the depths, we found one wounded, and did our best to heal it. After that, we among their number led us to a spring deep beneath the rock beside which one could harvest this bread—although it is no true bread. On this nourishment we have subsisted."

'Leave your prisoner behind. Free her if need be. I agree that it would sit ill with a good conscience to murder her when she is helpless. Let others judge her and bring her to trial for her sins. We do not have time. Gather up what you must. We will carry you, Mother."

'Ah," said Obligatia, nothing more.

'But the rock is surrounded," protested Gerwita. "How can we escape?"

'I have had two years to meditate, to pray, and to remember all that I have seen and heard. My memory is good, and I have had many days to contemplate the spell woven by Hugh of Austra when we escaped Lord John with the queen. Now I must know, Mother-have you studied the lore of the mathematici all these years? Have you the knowledge to make the proper calculations?"

The secret, long hoarded, proved difficult for Obligatia to give up, but at last she nodded. "The abbesses of St. Ekatarina's have studied the murals left on the walls. They have taken down the accounts of travelers. This knowledge they have passed down to each new abbess in turn—to me, last of all. Yet I and my predecessors have never discovered the incantations that open the stones."

'I know them." Rosvita gestured to her companions, all of thern waiting, all of them hopeful, all of them trusting.

This was the burden of leadership.

'If you are willing to aid us, Mother," she continued, "we will gO now. It was a clear day when we arrived. We must pray that it has remained clear and unclouded. This night is our last chance. If we do not escape tonight, we will be trapped for good."

AFTER darkness came light.

Antonia, once biscop of Mainni, had endured her captivity in silence, but that did not mean she had not planned out in explicit detail the punishment she, and God, would inflict on her tormenters once she was free.

She had prayed, and she had meditated.

In a way, God had rewarded her for her diligence and loyalty by allowing her this respite, as interminable though it had seemed, in which she had had the leisure to ponder the sinful nature of the world and the myriad ways in which most of its creatures, humankind first among them, had gone astray.

At least the beasts of the water, field, and sky were simple and therefore innocent.

Perhaps some children were innocent, although she doubted it. The claws of the Enemy dug deep and swiftly. How many slights had she herself suffered as a child from her kinfolk, even from the smallest among them? Of course, they had each one earned their just reward in the end, but she had never forgotten the lesson she had learned.

In the end, only the innocent could be free from fear, and the evident fact that almost every person, adult or child, woman or man, suffered and feared obviously meant that they were all guilty. Had they been innocent, God would have had no reason to punish them.

These ruminations comforted her, yet even so at times she succumbed to the sin of anger at those who had thrown her in harm's way and abused her trust. In truth, she had recognized all along that Sister Anne was not as holy as she seemed, being afflicted with the sin of overweening pride. Anne must have known into what danger she had sent Antonia. She must have known that the nuns of this isolated, impoverished, and pathetic little convent possessed unexpected powers to confront and bind sorcery; if they had not, they could not have called up a winged daimone of fire to battle and banish the galla.

Antonia had not failed in her quest. She had been betrayed by the one who sent her. No doubt Anne feared her because of Antonia's greater righteousness.

Always it proved to be so, that the wicked envied the pure. Yet God again had rewarded her. Anne likely thought her dead and when, in the fullness of time, God freed her, she would be able to strike when and where Anne least expected her. She had enjoyed the many, many hours, or days, or weeks—impossible to keep track of the passing calendar when buried alive in this black pit—during which she had contemplated the defeat of vice by virtue and her final triumph over Anne and her minions. She must only be patient.

She was an old woman, and getting no younger, yet she knew in her heart that God would not abandon her. God would not deny her the final victory granted to the just.

After darkness came light.

A glimmer of light flickered above her where the hole opened in the ceiling of her pit.

The light announced mealtime, such as it was: a bucket of water and a tray of a bland, chewy substance that must not, she supposed, be scorned, since it had kept her alive.

As the light strengthened, shading black into a murky gray, she lifted her gaze to track its approach. She had to keep her eyes strong for that day when the sun again shone on her. She heard whispered voices, caught scraps of words. Was that a man's baritone, sliding in and around the lighter tones of a woman? Surely not. She had hoped never to fall into madness, but perhaps God had chosen a new way to test her.

She waited for the rope to lower down with its precious burden of food and drink—it was the one moment they were vulnerable, and she enjoyed their apprehension, an almost tangible smell drifting down to her.

Something scraped on the rock above. Twin spears stabbed down through the hole, and she was actually so startled that she scrambled back to avoid their thrust.

As the spears thudded onto the floor, she realized her mistake: it was a ladder. The voices faded, retreating, taking the light with them. They had left neither water nor bread.

What did this mean?

It was not her place to question God's will. She rose, tying the worn blanket they had given her around her midriff like a belt. She had been careful to exercise her body, walking circuits of the oval pit keeping herself as clean as she could through judicious use of the water for bathing and for her necessarium a much smaller hole that plunged so deep into the earth that she could not smell the stink of her own refuse.

The rungs held her weight easily, but she wasn't sure if the ladder would slip as she climbed with no one to hold it in place. Yet how else to ascend? Carefully she climbed, and when she heaved herself over the lip, she lay there for the space of several breaths, stunned by the change in the air and the coursing exultation that freedom sent through her body.

She had no time to waste.

Why had they freed her?

She rose, edging carefully away from the pit, and found the wall by touch. A faint glow permeated the air; she followed it, cautious with each step, not sure what traps might have been laid. The passageway ran smooth and straight. Lichen grew in patches on the wall, and it was these plants that emitted the steady, if fragile, light, which was accompanied by a wheeze like the rattling breath of a sleeping giant.

The passageway turned sharply to the left, debouching into a cavern the size of a humble village church. The remains of habitation littered it: four crude pallets, a table and bench, several chests and amphorae. These did not interest her. An oil lamp sat unlit on the table accompanied by a leather pouch pregnant with water, its sides glossy and damp, and a linen cloth unfolded around several loaves of the bread.

They had fled, abandoning her.

Well. She could expect no better behavior from the guilty, yet their sinfulness might not be the sole reason they had left.

Something had driven them out.

Despite the eerie glow, the dimness and the constant wheezing made her nervous. She shuddered; a shiver like the touch of the Enemy crept down her spine. Pebbles rattled behind her.

Creatures skulked in the rock. She had heard them while in captivity; she did not doubt the testimony of her weakened eyes now. Better to flee while she had the strength.

Tying up the food, she slung it and the pouch over a shoulder and nicked up the lamp.

Because her hands trembled, it took her several attempts to snap sparks from flint and catch a flame to the wick. Once the lamp burned, she hurried into the farther passageway, shading her eyes as best she could against its brilliance.

Was that the sound of footfalls behind her? Who followed? Had the others hidden, hoping to see her go?

God had mercy upon her. Although the passageway stretched on interminably, it dared not deceive her with twists and turns. Now and again she passed an opening out of which wafted distinct smells: the sea, rotten eggs, frankincense, rising bread, and the familiar iron tang that accompanied the galla. But these small passageways were either too low to admit a human form easily or set too high in the passage wall for any mortal woman or man to consider climbing up into them. Only one path led in the right direction; that was God's plan, after all.

Soon she found traces of those who preceded her: a worn leather strap; a stain of spilled water, not yet dry; a discarded scrap of parchment which she rolled up and tucked into her sleeve. Noises echoed around her: whispers and hisses, two snaps like rocks dropped from a height, a high-pitched giggle, the skittering of feet. Once she heard a horse's whinny, so strange a sound that she faltered, wondering if she had begun to hallucinate: first a man's voice, then that of a horse.

No matter.

The passage ended abruptly in a wall of rock, but to the left a narrow opening gave into a broad, circular chamber whose carpet was covered with puddles of water in the hollows and a floor of damp pebbles on the higher ground. The smell of the air changed, laden with moisture. She entered, careful where she put her feet. Near the center of the chamber a ladder thrust up and out a hole.

Whispers teased her. Standing here, even with the burning lamp to guide her, made her uncomfortable. She crossed quickly to the ladder and with some difficulty held the lamp in one hand while she steadied herself with the other, taking the rungs one at a time.

Her head had just reached the level of the base of the hole when echoes murmured and stretched around her. It took a moment for her to understand that she heard, ahead of her, voices belonging'tthose who had climbed this ladder before her. Yet those voices min gled and resonated with whispers below. Snick.

The sound startled her. She looked down.

Pale shapes scuttled into the chamber below. As ghastly white as lepers afflicted with a rash of silvery-white scales, the creatures balked as if the light hurt them. They had no eyes, only bulges on their faces like giant, moist egg sacs, but it was not only this deformity that made them grotesque and misshapen, wrong, the broken vessels from which the Enemy had attempted to create a mockery of angels. Their heads were too big for their bodies. Scabrous pustules grew on their twisted limbs. Some wore charms and amulets dangling at their necks; these ornaments chimed softly as they clamored each against the others in a wordless music as incomprehensible as their animal muttering.

They shuffled closer, clawed hands grasping and clicking at the air, seeking prey.

She scrambled up the final rungs, shoved the lamp safely onto the floor before her, flung herself over the lip of the hole, and dragged the ladder up behind her. God had not freed her only to allow her to fall into the hands of such creatures.

Panting, she sidled away from the hole. Could they leap? Fly? Dig? She hoped she had trapped them below, banished them within the depths of the rock.

Picking up the lamp, she hurried up a stairwell carved into the rock. Ahead she heard the faint voices and footfalls of the ones who had gone before her. Even had she been tempted to hurry, to catch them, she could not. Soon enough she had to stop, bent double as her sides heaved and she fought to catch her breath. Only after some time could she start up again, and each time she took fewer steps before she had to stop and rest—yet each time God gave her the will and the strength to continue.

She had keen hearing, honed during this time that sight had been denied her. Aided by a good sense of direction and a nose for misdirection, she followed the trail of her captors through winding passages, along the side of caverns that smelled of horses, past desiccated midden heaps and, at last, out under the blinding brilliance of a nearly full moon hanging just above the horizon in a cloudless night sky. She could barely endure its light and had to rest, after extinguishing the lamp, to fight off nausea.

After a while she felt able to continue, although her eyes hurt. As she walked, the night air swirled against her with such a bewildering miasma of scents that she staggered sideways, halting at the brink of a cliff. The path cut up along the shoulder of the vast rock that housed the convent where she had journeyed so long ago. The moon sank behind dark hills.

Dawn was coming and, with it, the sun.

Sparks and threads of light winked into existence at the topmost crown of the great rock.

Sorcery! She recognized the handiwork of a mathematicus, weaving starlight into a stone crown. Only Anne and her minions knew these well-guarded secrets. Had they betrayed her twice?

Astonished and deeply dismayed, she limped onward as quickly as she could, although her feet ached and her back burned and her eyes still stung. Lamp, water pouch, and bundle she dropped behind her; they seemed of little account now, and they weighed so heavily as she grew tired.

The path led her through a grove of rock pinnacles before vanishing on a flat summit crowned by a stone circle. There they stood, the miscreants, the very ones who had cast her into the pit. Yet surely her eyes had suffered after so long in the dark, for it seemed to her that there were twice the number that had inhabited the convent when she had first come. Three of their number were certainly male. Two held between them a pallet, where lay the very woman Antonia had been sent to eliminate.

Was Mother Obligatia the one whose power had thwarted Anton-ia's galla? Or had Anne betrayed Antonia by teaching the secrets of the mathematici to someone else?

Obligatia gestured to a woman who arranged small stones on a patch of oval sand the color of moonlight. Rising, that woman chanted in a clear, authoritative voice.

'Matthias guide me, Mark protect me, Johanna free me, Lucia aid me, Marian purify me, Peter heal me, Thecla be my witness always, that the Lady shall be my shield and the Lord shall be my sword." Using a polished walking stick, she traced lines between the stones, and with each line in the sand a line of light threaded down from the heavens to catch in the stones. "May the blessing of God be on our heads. God reign forever, world without end."

The others were too intent on her sorcery to notice Antonia, and yet she was herself too exhausted from her climb to act. The woman worked quickly as the night sky lightened imperceptibly with th coming of day, weaving threads where Mother Obligatia directed her.

Shouts rang up from behind, startling Antonia so badly that sh staggered back against rocks and sank down, too worn even'tstand.

'Hurry!" cried one of the assembled clerics, a very young woman now breaking down into sobs, while another hushed the crying girl sharply.

The woman sang while using the staff to weave the threads into a new pattern woven in and out between the monoliths. The web of light thrummed, pulsing as to the dance of an unseen spider tangled in its own weaving. Light blossomed into an archway surmounting the nearest lintel.

'Now!" cried the woman. The light of the weaving limned her gaunt profile.

Antonia knew her: a noble cleric from the north country of Wendar, a notable counselor to King Henry. What was Sister Rosvita doing here? Why was she not in Darre with the king and his court? Why did she look so old?

'Stop them!"

A man's voice rang out from within the forest of rock pinnacles behind her 'Go!"

shouted one among the clerics, a young woman with the pale hair common to the northern barbarians only recently come into the Circle of Unity. She wore an Eagle's cloak; her face, glimpsed briefly, seemed vaguely familiar. Antonia set her jaw and with an effort clambered to her feet, but it was too late. Behind, she heard the shouts of men rushing across rocky ground, feet crackling on stone. Ahead, the clerics hurried through the gleaming archway, the first two carrying Mother Obligatia. One by one the rest vanished.

'Rosvita!"

To Antonia's amazement, Hugh of Austra emerged from the pinnacles, furious, disheveled, and outwitted, a score of soldiers crowding up behind him and exclaiming aloud in terror and wonder.

Rosvita glanced back last of all, pausing on the threshold of the glittering archway.

She marked the man who, out of breath and flushed with anger, now stood beside Antonia, but she neither smiled nor frowned; she simply looked, measuring him, noting Antonia for the first time without any outward evidence of surprise.

The crown of light faded.

Sister Rosvita turned, stepped through, and was gone.

The crown disintegrated into a thousand spitting sparks that -fted to the ground like so many fireflies winking on and off.

'Damn!" swore Hugh. His hands were dirty, his golden hair wild • disarray; he wore a layman's tunic and hose, and these were cuffed and even ripped at one knee, as though he had been climbing, no better than the common soldiers massed behind him. Yet despite this he remained beautiful, almost radiant in his fury as the sun rose in pitiless splendor behind him.

She lifted a ragged sleeve to cover her eyes. The light gave her a vile headache, and spots of shadow and light flashed and whirled in her vision.

'I pray you, Presbyter Hugh," she said, pleased to discover that her voice worked, calm and in command, "I have been a prisoner here, cast into a pit of darkness. I would be most grateful if you would escort me back to my rightful place."

Her words like a hook yanked him back to himself. He brushed away a smudge of dirt on his cheek.

After a pause he spoke, now completely in control of himself, all that blazing emotion tucked away. "You must be Sister Venia. Holy Mother Anne thought you irretrievably lost, Sister, but I am heartened to find you whole and safe." He glanced heavenward before offering her the support of his arm. "Come. Let us retreat to the shade. I pray you tell me what happened, and why you did not return to Darre."

He found her a decent place to sit and made sure that a soldier padded the rock with several tunics to make a comfortable seat. He sent soldiers to reconnoiter. Meanwhile, wine was offered to her, a subtle vintage that cleansed her palate.

With these assurances to strengthen her, she was able to tell her story, careful to let no hint of her anger at Anne color her words. Hugh was surely well placed in Anne's councils by now; she could only guess at his loyalties.

'So you are free, after two years in captivity," he said wonder-ingly, laughing. "In exchange for Sister Rosvita, it seems. A clever irony."

'Was Rosvita also a captive?"

'She was. She…" He frowned as he glanced toward the stone circle, mostly hidden by the pinnacles that surrounded them. "She discovered things too dangerous for her to know. Holy Mother Anne, Queen Adelheid, and myself had to take action to help King Henry, who came under the influence of bad advisers, Rosvita among them."

The comment surprised her. Antonia had never hesitated to dispose of those who threatened her. "You did not simply eliminate her?"

His smile would have broken the heart of any maid, soft and sad as that of a gentle lover thwarted in his plans by the arrival of a nobler suitor. "You are a woman, Sister Venia, and thereby fashioned out of stronger metal. I am sentimental, as men are. I admire Sister Rosvita too much to deal so arbitrarily with her. I had hoped for another solution."

She did not believe him, but the words sounded nice. He knew how to evoke sympathy while hiding his true motives.

'A solution may yet be offered to those who are both patient and pure of heart, Father Hugh."

He laughed again, sweetly this time. "I fear I am not pure of heart, Sister Venia. I struggle with temptation as does every human soul."

No need to remind him of her own virtue; it usually irritated people, none of whom liked to be reminded of the select few upon whom God had showered Their favor.

He hesitated before speaking again, this time with an odd tremor in his voice. "Tell me what else you recall of this fiery daimone borne up on wings of flame. How is it she banished the galla? By what signs were you sure it was a woman?"

She had not forgotten what drove him. A man's weaknesses were the harness under which he could be put to work.

'I saw her only through what senses are granted to the galla, who come from another plane of existence. She was bright and powerful, most certainly a woman. You must not doubt me."

'I do not. Yet did she speak?"

'If she spoke, I could not hear her. Yet Mother Obligatia spoke, when she saw her."

'The abbess also saw this apparition?"

'Indeed she did. She recognized her."

'Recognized her?"

'She called her 'Bernard' before realizing her mistake, that it was no man who stood before her but rather a creature with a woman's form."

'Bernard," he mused. "But of course there was a striking resemblance between father and daughter. Yet if that is true, then how—?" "You are puzzled by something, Brother Hugh." He started as might a child who looks up to find himself discovered in the midst of secret mischief. "Nay, Sister. I am only wondering whether I seek a mule or a ninny."

She chuckled. "You are speaking of Liath. Do you suspect that she is not in truth Anne's child?"

Turning, he looked away as though to hide his face and what it might reveal, but when he turned back his expression remained bland, veiled. Only a certain tightening of the skin about his eyes betrayed his intense interest. "It is difficult to know what to think."

'The world is full of mysteries," she agreed, watching him closely. "I trust that Anne will reward her supporters with that which they desire most, whatever my own feelings.

Or at least, were I in her position, it is what I would do."

'Would you?"

'Oh, I would. God reward us all in the end with that we desire most. It is the fate of most people not to understand their desire until they have been swept into the Abyss—but upon reflection they can see that their entire lives were simply one long dialogue with the evil inclination. Yet there are a few who remain clear-sighted and who serve God and receive what they deserve in the end."

'We must all hope to ascend to the Chamber of Light," he said with a pious nod, "else we will suffer eternity with God's face turned away from us."

'Is that what you wish, Father Hugh?"

He trembled. The movement was slight but noticeable to a woman so long immured in the pit that she had come to rely on hearing, touch, and breath to capture any nuance of life and being around her.

'Or would you risk everything only to possess her?"

He could not answer.

She smiled and rested a comforting hand on his fists where they were clenched in his lap. With his gaze lowered humbly, he displayed his profile to advantage; even in the shade his hair shone as though the sunlight were caught in it. It was difficult to imagine how any young woman could resist him.

'Anne will never give her to you. But I will."

He flushed, but he did not look up at her. "That is a bold promise. How do you capture a woman who is only half humankind? How do you intend to defy Anne?"

'Anne need not know that I still live. If she believes that I died here, then she has no reason to guard herself against me. I mean no harm to Anne. She has set herself a great and worthy task. There is no one else who can accomplish it except her—"

'And those who aid her, the Seven Sleepers. Of whom you are, or were, once a part."

'It is true I learned much during my time among the Seven Sleepers. I also learned that when they weave a powerful spell, the weakest among them dies. The spell exacts its price for the power they draw down."

That she had startled him was obvious from the way he looked at her, leaned forward with hands pressing on the rock. Evidently he had never considered this striking and unfortunate possibility. "Is this true? The cauda draconis is struck dead?"

'I have suffered in the pit for two years, Father Hugh, but those two years have given me time to ponder much that mystified me before. Surely I will be accounted weakest among the Seven Sleepers now. Anne gathers and manipulates the power of the sorceries we weave, but she does not risk herself. That is why she needs a cauda draconis, although in truth I proved stronger than she expected, I suppose, since it was poor foolish Zoe who died."

'Are you not willing to die in order to enact God's will on Earth?"

'Certainly I am. But I am not convinced that Holy Mother Anne knows everything, that she knows or understands all of God's will. I come of royal stock in my own right. I served faithfully as biscop in the north before I was myself betrayed and cast aside. I have certain magics of my own and, as I said, I have been granted a very long time to meditate, pray, and think."

She smiled as he settled back. She had set wheels turning, made promises, exposed herself. He would now, of course, feel that he stood in a stronger position than she did, and that would make him reckless.

'So you see, Father Hugh, I am at your mercy now. You may arrest me for disloyalty and turn me over to Anne, thus insinuating yourself into her good graces."

He was too elegant and well bred to protest that such a deed would be beneath him.

The presbyters in the service of the skopos bought, sold, and betrayed each other at every opportunity in order to curry favor or gain a better position within the skopos' court.

'Or you can escort me elsewhere, somewhere isolated but civilized, where I might recuperate."

'Anne is a powerful sorcerer," he objected. "She could obliterate either of us should her anger be turned against us. Indeed, she might t this very moment be spying upon us, since she has mastered the Eagle's Sight."

Antonia drew an amulet, now withered and fragile, out from under her tattered and filthy robe. "If you have not protected yourself against farseeing, Father Hugh, then you are not as wise as you seem."

He touched a hand to his chest but revealed nothing. "Or I might encourage you, Sister Venia, and escort you to a private villa where you can recover your strength—only to turn you over to Anne later, when it serves my cause best."

'So you might. But I think that Anne will never give you Liath, and I think Liath is what you most desire."

Feet scraped on pebbles as one of the soldiers approached, pausing out of earshot. He inclined his head obediently as he waited to be beckoned forward.

'What is it, Gerbert?" Hugh asked genially.

'The boys have found a way through to the old convent, my lord. We need not climb back the way we came but can descend by way of the ladders they have on the other side."

'And the convent?"

'Deserted, my lord. No one has lived there for a long time. It seems everyone fled, or has died. There were bones."

Hugh rose. "Pray bring four men and a chair or pallet on which to carry Sister Venia. I will investigate the convent myself, but I think it likely we will leave tomorrow. Have Cook prepare broth and porridge for our guest, something gentle on the stomach."

'Yes, my lord." The man departed.

Hugh did not sit down. He seemed pensive, even unsure. He was tempted but fearful, avaricious but restrained by caution, like a half grown colt deciding whether to bolt through the open gate of its familiar corral for the wide open woodland beyond.

The rising sun had altered the shadows, and light began to creep up the stone on which she sat. Her eyes still hurt, but the pain was becoming bearable, slowly receding.

'I know a place," Hugh said at last, and offered her his hand.

x:

THE KING The Kerayit language, Breschius told him, there were multiple words for the manifold gradations of cold. Not cold enough to freeze broth. Lambs must be covered cold. So cold that bron,'e water jars burst.

Cold enough to turn dragon's fire to ice.

It was now cold enough to freeze piss, Sanglant reflected as he staggered back into the frail shelter of his tent. With three lit braziers set around the walls, the inside of the tent had warmed just enough that he could peel off the bulky furs that did not keep him warm outside. Malbert hung the furs from the cross braces. The prince was still bundled in the clothing that he would normally wear outside in the Wendish winter. His face ached from the cold blast.

'How do these people endure it?" he demanded of the two dozen people crammed shivering in the tent.

'I'm not cold," said Blessing. "Come see the letters I wrote, Papa. I hope you like them." She sat cross-legged on a feather bed on the opposite side of the tent and, indeed, wore nothing more than an ordinary wool tunic with her cloak thrown casually over her legs.

Heribert knelt beside her. Fingers white with cold, he picked up the wax tablet on which he was teaching her to form letters.

'My lord prince." A woman dressed in the fashion of the Quman slaves stepped out of the crowd, dropping to one knee. "Her Most Glorious Highness, Princess Sapientia, commands that you attend her. At once."

The thought of going back out into the cold was enough to make a strong man weep with frustration, nor did he like the tone that Sapientia, after months on the road in the company of the Pechanek Quman, was taking with him. But this was no time to pick petty fights.

He gestured for Malbert to help him back on with the furs. "Ha-thui. Breschius."

Prater and Eagle bundled themselves up, and Hathui grabbed a lantern.

'What about my letters? Aren't you going to look at my letters!"

'I will tomorrow, little one."

'I want to go!"

'You may not."

'You can't stop me! I'll go out whether you want me to or not!"

'You will not, Blessing. You are too valuable a hostage. I cannot trust the Pechanek. If they get hold of you, then I will be forced to trade Bulkezu in order to get you back, and then the Quman will have no reason to guide us to the eastern lands where we can hunt griffins."

'I want to hunt griffins!" she cried, shifting ground. She would never admit she was wrong.

'When you are old enough."

'I'm old enough now!"

'Your Highness," said Heribert gently, "you are not even a woman yet. Nor have you trained with arms for more than a few months, and in such limited circumstances because of this God-forsaken winter."

'You never looked at my letters! You hate me!" Blessing flung herself facedown on the feather bed and sobbed noisily. Her attendants fussed over her, trying to soothe her.

It was a relief to step outside into the cruel slap of winter.

'Is not the young princess old enough to be married, my lord prince?" asked the slave, falling into step beside Sanglant. She had a deadly way of looking sideways at a man, but he wasn't sure if she meant to be provocative.

'She is not yet a woman."

'She might still be betrothed and sent into the care of her husband's family so that she would understand their ways."

'In what land were you born?"

'In Avitania, my lord prince."

'Salian, then."

'That explains it," muttered Hathui.

Sanglant chuckled, sensing an undercurrent of hostility between the two women, who only ever met in such formal situations. "We have different customs. How came you to serve a Quman master?"

'I was sold to an Arethousan merchant, my lord prince, and taken into the east to the estate of a noble family. There I was captured by a Quman raiding party." She spoke the words with no sign of anger or grief.

'You learned Wendish from a good teacher."

She glanced at Hathui. "Brother Zacharias was what he was."

'A slave like you!" retorted Hathui angrily.

The slave nodded, choosing not to argue. Probably she had long since given up any notions of argument. She was a stolid woman in all ways, except for that amorous gaze, an open window in an otherwise shuttered-up house. She endured the cold without complaint, although she wore less clothing than he himself did: heavy felt trousers and tunic and a skin coat with the fur side turned in and wrapped tightly around her torso, all of which concealed the lush figure he recalled noticing in warmer days. Because she had the patience of a woman who has served a harsh master for many years and expects no release, she said nothing as he took his time making a spiral walk out of his own encampment, which was curled tightly around the two central tents.

At the entrance to the tent placed beside his own, he stopped to speak to the guards.

'How's the prisoner, Anshelm?"

'Quiet, my lord prince."

'It's a change."

'Truly, it is, my lord prince. Barely a peep out of him since those Quman came. I never thought to see him wetting his leggings like a frightened boy, but I admit it gives me pleasure still to think on it."

Sergeant Cobbo pushed through the entrance flap. "I heard voices." He bowed his head. "My lord prince."

Sanglant glimpsed the figure within, so heavily weighted with chains that it was a miracle the prisoner could sit upright, but sit upright he did. Before the flap cut off his view, Sanglant felt the for of Bulkezu's gaze like the nip of a cold wind biting his face.

Quiet, but not broken.

'We was just talking of the prisoner, Sergeant," said Anshelm "Think he lost his voice when he caught sight of his mum?"

Cobbo laughed. "Never did I think to see the day that beast would get his own back!

How it made me laugh to see him humbled!"

Unlike his soldiers, Sanglant gained no pleasure from Bulkezu's humiliation and fear; he recalled his own too well. "Stay alert." He nodded and went on.

The camp was laid out in concentric rings, the tents set in uneven ranks so as to break up the blowing wind as much as possible. He paused at each tent to inquire after the soldiers within. Certain companies always had the privilege of being set up within the inner ring. When the healer came out to greet him, the man wheezed as the cold air hit his lungs.

'Whew! Each night I think it can't get any colder. Then it does!"

'How many are sick this evening?"

'Not more than twenty. Chustaffus was the worst of them yesterday, but he seems better today. These Quman witches have a brew that brings the fever down and clears out the lungs. After the first two, poor lads, we've not lost a single man to the lung fever, which I count a miracle. Chuf's a strong fellow. I don't fear for him now."

Sanglant nodded and went on.

Resuelto and the remaining Wendish horses—about a third of the stock had died—had to be stabled at great inconvenience in shelters.

'Nay, it's true," said the stable master while Sanglant groomed the gelding and, when he was done, fetched from his pocket the last of the apples they'd brought from Sordaia.

It was withered, skin all loose, but Resuelto gobbled it up and slobbered on his shoulder, hoping for more.

'We'll lose another tonight," continued the stable master. "Colic. They can't take the weather, poor beasts. I'm nursing along six that are foundering, but two of those won't last. The weak ones aren't much to eat, either, with so little flesh left on their bones."

'I never thought to eat so much horseflesh," said Sanglant wearily. Even sturdy Resuelto had suffered, losing the flesh that would give him some protection against the cold. Sanglant prayed that they had survived the worst of the winter, yet although Breschius and Heribert had counted off the days and assured him that the new year come and that it was by rights spring, he had no idea how long this crushing cold might last.

The stable master's hands were seamed with work and hatched with white scars. He sniffed, wiped his nose. "Never stops running," he said, then waved toward the crowd of horses. "I hope the meat doesn't turn us into geldings like the ones we're eating!"

'They're keeping up their spirits," said Breschius when they left, continuing along the second ring of tents.

'So they are. Here, now, Ditmar. Berro. How fares it with you this night?"

'Well enough, my lord prince."

'We're dicing, my lord."

'Nay, we're dreaming of decent women, my lord. Those Quman woman are the ugliest creatures I've ever laid eyes on! They don't have noses!"

'I saw one who was as handsome a maid as any Wendish girl! That was back before it got so cold."

'And where is she now? Bundled up in furs, most like, and oiled up with stinking grease like her mother!"

The slave woman stood back and said nothing.

So it went, tent by tent. His soldiers greeted him cheerfully despite the searing cold and the interminable journey eastward across the bleakest land he had ever laid eyes on.

The men had stitched together smaller tents into larger ones, crudely strung up but strong enough to withstand the howling winds and able to house more all together and thus keep everyone warmer through the terrible nights.

He had placed his most experienced, strongest men along the outer rim of the encampment together with the steppe horses who suffered the cold and could dig through the drifting snow to find grass, twigs, or tree bark. Like Quman women, Quman horses were as ugly as any he had seen, but they were tough.

He lifted a hand to greet four sentries huddled in what shelter curtains of felt provided against the cutting wind, which thrummed merrily against the cloth. The covered lamp Breschius held rocked as the wind caught it square on.

'My lord prince! It's cold to be out tonight." "How do you fare?" he asked them.

'We're having a pissing contest, to see whose piss can reach the ground without freezing."

'Sibold left his sword out too long, so it froze off. Now he'll never get a wife!"

'A few sticks bound together will serve him well enough they, Surly?"

'I hope so, since that's more than you have, Lewenhardt!"

'Hush now, you men." Captain Fulk emerged from the tent, having heard voices. "You lot go in, you've been out long enough.

With groans of relief, the four men hurried inside. Ice splintered off the tent flap as they jostled it, raining down on the snow-covered ground in a crystalline spray.

'How do the men fare, Captain?"

'Well enough."

'Provisions?"

Fulk frowned at four soldiers moaning and chafing their gloved hands as they edged outside to replace the ones just come off watch. The men greeted the prince warmly and, stamping feet and rubbing arms, squinted into the darkness toward the fires that marked the Quman encampment, an arrow's flight from theirs. Over in the nomad camp a man was singing, voice rising and falling in a nasal whine; despite the skirl of the wind, Sanglant was able to pick out a few words—man, woman, river, ice, drowning, death. If the Pecha-nek Quman knew any happy songs, he had yet to hear them.

'We're down to the last two barrels of salted fish eggs, my lord prince."

'Thank God."

'I can't stand the taste of it either. Poor man's food, as Brother Breschius told us, but it will go hard on us unless we reach a place we can obtain food in greater quantities than what we have available to us now. We'll have to start eating horse every day, slaughter the weak ones."

'Or drink their blood, as the Quman do."

'I pray we never do such a barbaric thing, my lord. Their mill wine is bad enough."

'Do you think so? It isn't so bad."

Breschius moved up beside him to stare out at the gap of land between the two encampments. Snow dusted down, swirling on the ever-present wind, but Breschius squinted into the darkness as though seeking something that lay beyond Sanglant's sight.

Briefly the prince heard the tinkle of delicate chimes, fading and vanishing below the whine of the wind.

'Do you know where we are, Brother, or when we can expect to find better shelter and a good supply of food?"

Breschius shook his head, looking distressed.

'Do you know?" Sanglant asked the slave.

She shrugged, looking away from him. "These are not questions I can answer, my lord prince."

'Have you remembered your name yet?" he demanded, irritated by her placidity. At least Zacharias had hated and reviled his captors.

'You may call me what you wish, my lord prince. Whatever you require, I am bound to agree to, so the mothers have said."

Her lips were so red, full and shapely. Was she hinting that he might ask her into his bed? Or pleading with him in the only way she had, short of outright defiance of her masters, to beware what he asked of her? Was she begging for freedom?

'The wind would be worse," said Breschius suddenly, "but you can see how the slope protects us from the brunt of it."

'It's difficult to imagine it being worse," said Hathui.

Fulk drew the Circle at his breast. "May God have pity on us. I'll be glad to see spring, my lord prince."

'It is spring in Wendar," said Breschius, "but when the winter cold blows off and warmer weather comes, then the travel will get worse since it rains all day."

'And in summer you boil," said Hathui.

Sanglant laughed. "A fine place to make your home. Come," he said to the slave,

"grab the rope."

Each afternoon when they stopped to set up camp, a Quman boy strung up a rope between the two camps in case of blizzard. Because the ground was frozen, they could not drive in a post on which to fasten their end of the rope, so Gyasi and his nephews had volunteered to act as post wardens and gatekeepers. They strung the rope from the small felt tent in which they sheltered each night. Sanglant ducked under the awning that protected the entrance of their tent, slung at an angle to cut off the prevailing wind. The old shaman crouched at the threshold, eyes closed. Behind him, glimpsed through a slitlike opening, Sanglant saw the twisting flame of a lamp and dark shapes clustered around it. An owl hooted nearby, calling out of the night, and Gyasi raised hands to his mouth and answered it.

'Great lord," he said without opening his eyes. "Be warned. Storm comes."

'Worse than this? Is there any threat to my people?"

'I am still listening."

Captain Fulk followed him under the awning.

'Captain, send word along the line for the men to make sure ev erything is secure."

'Yes, my lord prince. Do you desire an escort?"

Sanglant glanced back toward the slave, who was, he gauged, out of earshot. He spoke quietly. "We still have Bulkezu. If I show weal ness or anything they interpret as fear, the Pechanek may feel free to attack."

'They might take you prisoner, my lord prince, and then we would have to bargain for your release."

'We have sworn oaths, an agreement."

'People are tricky," Gyasi said, still without opening his eyes. "One man may promise life to his brother and after this stab him in the back."

'What protection should I take?"

One of the nephews eased out from between the slitlike entrance. He dropped to one knee before Sanglant in the gesture of obedience common to the Quman, then slipped out into the night with his bow case bobbing on his back.

Because of the way the light cast shadows, Sanglant could not see Gyasi's face distinctly, but he knew when the shaman opened his eyes. That stare could be sensed even when it could not be seen, as a man can feel the glare of the sun on his back or the appraisal of an interested woman.

'We protect you, great lord. Bulkezu had one time a brother who is like me a shaman.

Now he is dead."

'He is the one whose magic killed Prince Bayan."

Gyasi shrugged. Bayan's fate held little interest for him. "Many seasons ago I am driven out of the tribe like a sick woman with no sons to protect her. My cousins know I hold no love for them in my heart after they have beaten me with sticks and burned my tent. No shaman walks with the Pechanek tribe who is so powerful that he can walk the shaman's path beside me. Do not fear them. They fear me. If they kill you, I will eat their flesh and grind up their bones to feed the dogs."

Sanglant laughed. "Then I shall walk into their camp without fear. I'll go alone, Fulk, with Breschius and Hathui. They can't kill me in any case, even if they try, and it's better if they continue to fear me because I do not fear them."

'I do not like this, my lord prince."

'I have made up my mind."

Fulk nodded unhappily. He was the most valuable of captains: a good man in all ways, including knowing when his protests might receive a hearing and when it was better to shut up.

Gyasi shut his eyes, humming in a singsong voice as though he had forgotten them.

Sanglant stepped out into the full blast of the wind and took hold of the rope. As they trudged across the open ground, the lamp sputtered and went out despite its glass casing, but with a hand on the rope it was possible to move with reasonable certainty across the uneven ground. A dark figure ghosted past—one of Gyasi's nephews, scouting the perimeter. They and their uncle guarded the camp at night and slept by day on horseback.

The cold never seemed to bother them.

Was it wise to leave his life in their hands? Or was he becoming more reckless? This long journey chafed him, thrown on the mercy of others without being able to choose direction or speed. Once upon a time he had ridden at his father's behest and never questioned, but he had lost the habit of obedience; he could no longer bear to be ruled by another, and he knew that he put himself at risk every time he pushed at the boundaries of what seemed possible.

He had forged out into a wilderness of his own making. He did not know what he would find at the end of his journey.

Before the winter, he could have smelled the stink of the Quman camp long before he reached it, but ice and snow had their mercies. Sooner than he expected, he came to the end of the rope, which was tethered to a slender line hung with tiny bells that encircled the entire Ojiman camp. The bells chimed in counterpoint to the whine and thrum of the wind among the tents. Only as the sentry stepped back to let him pass, ducking under the line, did he catch a hint of the familiar rank stench of rancid grease compounded with offal, sweat, and farting horses.

The Quman laid out their tents in a curving windbreak behind which most of the herd sheltered and a handful of dung fires burned. Men squatted around them, although he couldn't imagine how they did not freeze to death. He had already lost feeling in his toes, and his fingers stung as though he had rubbed them with ice. Although common sense and his own observations argued against it, maybe it was true that they weren't fully human. How else to explain their unnatural resistance to cold?

The tent of the mothers was constructed of white felt, spanning two wagons, the fabric blending into the snow swirling around it. Its entrance was turned to the south, away from the prevailing wind.

Two sentries stepped aside to let him climb the steps that led into th interior.

'Beware the threshold," murmured Breschius as Sanglant ducked through the opening.

Inside, smoke hazed the air, sated with a sour-sweet incense that did not cover the nauseating stink of rancid oil. Two musicians sat beside the center pole of the tent; one tuned a spiked fiddle while the other arranged a collection of rattles and scraps of bark around a pipe. Although several braziers placed up on tripod legs made it pleasantly warm, here where they need not lie down directly on the frozen ground, the sight of the little pipe chilled him with the cold breath of memory: Bloodheart had tormented him with such an instrument, a bone flute carved from the remains of one of Sanglant's own men.

Six men sat cross-legged on rugs and pillows near the musicians, all of them seated on the left-hand side of the circular tent. One was young and effortlessly handsome with features that resembled a younger Bulkezu. He rested his hand on a pair of wings constructed out of griffin feathers and, like the others, faced the right side of the tent where the three mothers of Bulkezu sat upright on two couches. The stiff posture of the men reminded him of Bulkezu, wrapped in chains but sitting bolt upright.

In contrast, Sapientia reclined at her ease beside the youngest of the mothers. A slave girl massaged the Wendish princess' bare feet.

'Brother!" she cried without sitting up to greet him properly. "I expected you sooner!"

The three mothers of Bulkezu did not greet him. Although one was a maid, one middle-aged, and one an enormously fat crone, they looked mightily similar, as if they were three ages of the same woman in three different bodies. Had one of the older two actually spawned Bulkezu, giving birth to him out of her own womb?

He did not know, nor did he have Zacharias here to interpret their customs and speech for him. Sapientia and her new allies had him at a disadvantage.

The slave woman from Salia crossed to stand behind the mothers' couch. Indeed, only slaves remained standing. He caught the eye of the griffin warrior. With the merest tightening of one eye, as though he wished to grin but dared not, the young man tossed him a pillow embroidered with a red-and-gold griffin. Sanglant sank down cross-legged, mirroring the casual pose of the other men. Hathui hunkered beside the entrance.

Breschius bowed his head, still holding the lamp and remained standing.

'The mothers of Bulkezu are displeased," said Sapientia. She sipped at a bowl half full of the fermented milk they quaffed like ale, and after she was done, handed it to a black-haired girl no more than ten or twelve years of age.

The mothers of Bulkezu watched him. They never blinked. They might have been carved in stone: maid, mother, crone, implacable and morose.

'We are traveling too slowly," continued Sapientia. "We have to spend too much time setting up and taking down camp each day because you insist that your army uses the big tents. They want to know why the western soldiers are such weaklings."

'These western soldiers defeated their great begh and their powerful army."

'Under Bayan's leadership! With the aid of Ungrians, who have left us."

'I won the battle, Sapientia, however bravely Bayan fought. Bulkezu remains my prisoner."

'Only because you betrayed me."

'Because you are the strongest piece on the chessboard. No other has as much weight as Bulkezu, to achieve our ends. You agreed to this yourself."

'Maybe you tell yourself I agreed to deliver myself to the Pechanek as a hostage. If you do, you are lying. You coerced me. I had no choice."

Drink and anger brought her emotions to the surface where, like a broad path through the forest, her thoughts were easily traced: consternation, pride, frustrated anger, shame.

'But that doesn't mean I am helpless, Brother. I am honored here as I deserve. If I were commanding the army, we would not suffer these troubles. You should have got rid of all our horses. The steppe horses are better. You're only slowing us down by having to kill so many. What a waste of horseflesh! You'll lose the entire army before we reach the hunting grounds!"

'We have lost five men out of eight hundred."

'Winter isn't over yet!"

'Where are your Wendish attendants, Sister? I have not seen Brig-ida or Everelda in many days, nor any of your servingwomen."

She changed color, flushed face bleaching to white. Her hands trembled as she took the shallow bowl from the slave girl, swallowed a healthy draught, lowered the bowl, looked at him, lifted the bowl again, and drained it.

The slave woman leaned forward to whisper into the ear of the crone, and the old woman lifted a hand in a gesture of command The fiddle player set his instrument vertically on its spike and sawed a drone on its string. All the Quman in the tent listened intently as after an interminable prelude featuring only that drone, the othe musician began to sing in a high-pitched, nasal voice.

Although he had made some effort to learn the rudiments of the Quman tongue, Sanglant found it difficult to pick out individua words: eyes, spear, griffin, and the ubiquitous references to deatl and rivers, usually together. Now and again, to break the monotony of a song whose melody did not seem to span more than five notes, the man lifted a scrap of birch bark to his lips and imitated the calls of birds.

His thoughts wandered. When had he come to despise his poor sister? He regarded her surreptitiously through the hazy air. She had been so sweet when she was a little girl tagging after him, passionate in her likes and dislikes. Envy had soured her.

Perhaps he had hoped that the Qurnan would solve the problem she represented for him. She was difficult, light-minded, easily led, and, despite her name, had no head for wisdom. Bay an might have made something of her, but Bayan was dead. King Henry was ensor-celled, and no other noble in the kingdom had the authority to make a marriage for her, except Sapientia herself.

Rash vows make weak alliances, so the saying went. Hadn't he rashly sworn to marry Liath? It was almost satisfying to press such needles of recrimination against himself.

Yet down that tangled path he hesitated to walk for the thousandth time. Every helpless night of longing, thinking of her, every memory of how when they were together they seemed never to speak the same language, every glimpse of the bright spark that lay at the heart of flame veiled inside her, brought home the foolish impulsiveness of what they had done. How had they come to be so stupid? He could not regret it.

The Salian slave woman knelt beside him. He had not noticed her cross the rugs, but now he was painfully aware of the swell of her breasts concealed beneath her felt jacket, brushing against his arm.

'This is the story of the ancestor of the Quman people." Her ex essive vojce flowed counterpoint to the monotonous tune.

'Is it a lengthy tale?"

'No. It only takes five nights to tell. Listen!"

The song rose and fell like waves on a shore, but now two slaves—a girl on the women's side and a man on the men's side— brought around a ceramic pipe with steam bubbling in its belly; a smoky odor drifted up from its bowels. Sapientia sucked greedily at the pipe before it was transferred down the row of mothers, the fierce-eyed girl, the powerful matron, the dour crone. The Quman warriors each took their turn on the pipe reserved for the men. When Sanglant's turn came, he inhaled cautiously. The smoke tasted sweet on his tongue, but it bit afterward deep into the lungs like a burrowing worm swollen and heavy with dreams.

He felt as if he were rising off the carpet, but it was some other part of him that, shifting, loosened from the cord binding it to the earth.

He hunted alone in the tall grass, flayed by a winter wind that had a malicious soul which hoped to devour his flesh until only his bones remained scattered on the steppe.

The wind was his enemy.

In the way of dreams, he came unexpectedly upon a shoreline where he saw himself in the cold blue waters: but he wore a face not like his own, with eyes shaped like almonds, with a mustache, with short black hair crowned by a white fox-skin hat.

If I am not myself, then who am I?

There came from the grass behind him a hooting cry of challenge: the griffin that stalked him just as he stalked it. Into the grass they ran, fighting the wind, tumbling and clashing, until he pinned her to the earth, and she became a woman clad in burnished iron skin struggling beneath him. He entered her, and in her rapture she transformed back into a griffin, but she was already his. He had tamed her. He had made her pregnant with his seed.

That night to mark his triumph he shot burning arrows into the sky, each one blossoming into a star.

Thus were the Quman people born of the mating of man and griffin.

He turned his head as the firelight glinted off the skin of the slave woman, giving her eyes an iron gleam, shading her skin until it shone like metal, silvery and strong. Was she a griffin, stalking him in her human form? He smelled her musk, but whether it was witchcraft sewn around her body to capture him or only the immemorial mystery of man drawn to woman and woman to man, he could tell.

She turned, and with the twist of her body the light shifted A man ducked out through the entrance flap. A gust of pungent srnok swirled.

He floated on the haze, staring down at Sapientia asleep on her couch, snoring softly as the mothers of Bulkezu sucked at their pipes and watched his empty body without expression.

The griffin warrior ran a finger along the sharp quill of one of the feathers that made up his wings, which were laid out beside him Down that trickle of blood Sanglant's thoughts drifted up through the smoke hole until he hovered above the camp, seeing tents like a flock of mushrooms battered by snow and wind. He smelled the blizzard coming. A solitary figure picked its way up the long slope below which they had set out their camps, but he flew higher still as effortlessly as an eagle catching the updraft under her wings.

A blizzard was coming, hard and powerful, as implacable as the stone-faced mothers and their hatred for the man who had defeated the son of their tribe.

The wind breathed ice through his spirit. The ancient hills bent under the weight of the storm.

Something was waiting farther away even than the approaching storm. He could not see it, but he felt it along his skin, a prickling like sparks in the frigid air.

Down a long distance, he heard an owl's faint call of warning. Something is coming.

He fell hard through the shivering night air, back into the prison of his body, jerked upright as he came back to himself. Lips brushed his ear. The Salian woman leaned against him, overcome by the lassitude brought on by the drug, moaning under her breath with such a perfume of desire that he at once, all of him, came alive with shamefully intense arousal, hot and strong.

His hands strayed to the laces fastening her jacket. He felt the promise of her skin so close, only the thin layer of clothing separating her from him, all of it easily discarded.

She pressed eagerly against him. He followed the movement, gaze sliding down the length of her body to the sensuous curve of her bare feet, but the twisting patterns in the rug caught his eye, seducing him along their unfolding paths. While the slave woman nibbled gently at his ear, he followed this other trail with his gaze until he ran up against the cold stare of the mothers.

They were waiting for him to bare the chink in his armor. They ere waiting for him to lose face, even if it meant sending their slave couple with him publicly as a bitch in heat seduces any nearby dog Every man has his weakness.

He pulled away, scrambling to his feet. The musician still sang as his companion bowed that infuriating drone on and on. "He heard thunder in the air. Tarkan heard the thunder of wings, these wings which were beating as the hunter approached. Now the heavens were full of the sound as the great creature approached."

Was that thunder, or the boom of wind against the tents?

Abruptly, the musicians ceased, bringing silence.

The griffin warrior leaned forward to blow along the length of his iron wings; the tone that sang so softly from them was sweet and deadly.

It did not sing alone against the rising wind.

Sanglant stepped to the entrance. Hathui stood beside him as he lifted the flap and listened.

'Something is coming," he said.

Lil, wake up!"

A hand pinched Anna's forearm.

'Anna! Wake up!"

'Ouch!" She sat up to find Blessing crouching on the pallet they shared. The girl's breath misted in the air. Lying back down, Anna pulled quilt and furs up to her neck, shivering.

'Anna!" The girl's voice was a hoarse whisper. Around them, the prince's courtiers slept hard, some snoring, some whistling in their sleep, others still and silent as the dead.

"Something's coming. I've got to go out and see what it is."

'Your Highness!"

'Don't call out! I command you."

Already dressed, Blessing moved fast. She had an almost supernatural sheen to her, apparent only when it was dark—a faint sugges tion not of light but of being, as though her soul could be glimpsed as a shimmer beneath the surface of her skin. By the time these muddy thoughts made sense to Anna, the entrance flap had stirred and Blessing had slipped outside into the deadly night. She drew in a breath to shout for help. Stopped.

The last time they had let Blessing slip away, Prince Sanglant had" whipped Thiemo and Matto and threatened to cast her out should she fail in her duty a second time. She still remembered the way his switch had cut into the dirt, the way grit thrown up by the force of his anger had lodged in her teeth. He would banish her and Thiemo and Matto out into the killing winter night.

Terror made her stutter out a bleat. Her voice choked off as if a hand throttled her.

Shaking, she groped for her third tunic, her cloak, and furs, fumbling and clumsy as she struggled into them and fastened pins and brooches.

Thiemo and Matto had been banished to the far side of the large tent, forced by the prince to share a pallet so they would learn to tolerate each other, but the merciless cold and the seemingly endless journey had done more than this punishment to dull their anger. She crept between the pallets and sleeping figures to reach them, shaking them awake.

'Hurry! The princess is gone missing."

She reached the entrance without mishap. The slap of the night air was cruel. It hurt to breathe, but she pushed out past the guards, scanned the dark camp, and turned on them.

'Where is the princess?" Her eyeballs hurt, stung by air so cold it seemed likely to freeze them in their sockets.

'The princess?" That was Den's gravelly voice, though she couldn't make out his features. "Anna, you must be sleepwalking. I've not seen the princess out here. She's in her bed, and warm, unlike us. You'd best go back in."

The moan of the wind shifted, rising in pitch. The tent shuddered, the entire frame bending under a blast. Snow spun out of the heavens and, abruptly, came down in streaming waves of dense white. Shouts, and frightened whinnies from the horses, broke out all through camp.

'God protect us!" shouted Den's companion, Johannes. A blinding curtain of snow driven on a gale obliterated their view of the nearby tents. The wind roared. Thiemo and Matto stumbled out of the tent. Inside, a babble of voices raised in alarm as the tent rocked in the wind.

Thiemo yelled, but she couldn't make out his words over the scream of the wind. She huddled miserably under the scant shelter provided by the tent's awning.

'… Princess Blessing!" Matto shouted, his words torn away by the wind.

'Where is she?" shrieked Thiemo.

Heribert appeared at the entrance, holding a lamp that blazed long enough for her to see his frightened face. A gust of wind rattled the tent and actually lifted her off her feet as the men around her cried aloud. The lamp flame snapped out. A groan and crash splintered the air as the tent next to them—the one that held the prisoner—keeled over under the force of the wind. Its felt walls flew; poles snapped in two, their shards spun away. Soldiers scrambled to grab hold of the covering, but they could not stand upright.

Snow swept down. She could no longer see Den or Johannes. The icy grip of the wind blistered her face and stiffened her fingers. Her toes went numb.

She was yanked back into the safety of the tent—if it could be called safety, with the entire structure creaking under the assault of the storm. Men gripped the tent poles in a desperate attempt to hold it down. Thiemo was yelling at her, his hand fastened so tightly on her wrist that his grasp burned, but she couldn't hear him over the roaring wind.

Heribert had fallen to his knees beside the feather bed where Blessing was supposed to be sleeping.

'She's gone!" screamed Anna. "She'll die!"

She jerked her arm out of Thiemo's grasp and pushed out through the entrance flap before he could stop her.

She flung herself forward into the blizzard, stumbled when a hand clasped her boot and dragged her into drifting snow. It was no hand; it was a tangle of rope. Her fingers were so cold she could scarcely unwrap the rope from around her ankle, and with every precious, passing moment the cold bit deeper into her bones. It was hard to stand, but the wind pressed her forward as she floundered through the remains of the collapsed tent.

Twice she collided with soldiers crawling over the fallen walls. They shouted at her and grabbed at her, but she eluded them. She had to keep going. She had to find Blessing.

She tripped over a fallen pole and fell into a nest of scalding serpents that writhed around her, tongues biting through her gloves to pierce her skin. She cried out, terrified, until she realized these not snakes but cold iron.

A chain writhed down over her head unexpectedly. It dug into her eye before scoring her cheek and nestling like a viper at the curve of her neck. A force more powerful than the wind jerked her back into a solid wall. The chain choked her. She threw her head back, trying to get air. Snow dusted her lips and eyes; she swallowed, struggling against a powerful grip.

'Give it up, or I will kill you."

Bulkezu's voice had the ability to penetrate the howling winds where none other could. His icy grip squeezed off the useless scream rising in her throat. He pushed her down on top of the chains and knelt on top of her chest, his weight forcing her into the rough metal links. Although the pain drove like knives into her spine and back, terror made her mute.

This is how I will die.

Snow blowing into her face made tears come to her eyes; her legs burned as the cold melted through her clothing to scald her skin, a cold so intense that it burned like heat.

His hand curled around her throat, pushing just so at the soft belly of her neck. She gagged, choking, coughing, drowning. Figures swam into view through the wall of snow, hanging back when they saw that the prisoner had taken his own captive.

Stalemate. She had watched the prince play chess many times; she had sat silently while Brother Heribert tried to teach an impatient Blessing the basic strategy of the game.

"Lions can be sacrificed," he would tell her, "to advance the other pieces."

With her peripheral vision she glimpsed a suggestion of cautious movement to either side, but to move her head even slightly caused Bulkezu to probe for a more painful place to squeeze. She whimpered; his lips creased upward in a smile, although he did not look down at her.

She lay still as her body grew numb from terror and cold, as Bulkezu's hand twitched, once, twice, a third time, on her neck as if reacting to a sight she could not see. He darted forward, then fell back with one knee grinding hard into her abdomen. He had ripped a spear away from one of the prince's soldiers. Which one had thrust at him, risking her life?

She was only a Lion. The prince would sacrifice her rather than lose Bulkezu.

Tears turned to ice on her cheek. She could no longer feel her lips her fingers or her toes. How could she have been so stupid? If she hadn't panicked, if she had kept her head and asked for help, she wouldn't lie here at his mercy.

If Blessing hadn't run away.

The loathing and rage hit with as much force as the storm: ,' hate her, the spoiled brat.

I don't care if she's dead!

'Anna! Anna! You let her go, you ugly monster!"

Shouts broke the stalemate.

'Catch her!"

'Stay back, Your Highness!"

'She got my knife!"

'Grab her, you fool!"

The spear's haft slapped against her head as Bulkezu twirled it, getting a better grip to meet a new attack. There was a scuffle, roars of anger from the soldiers, and a body hit Anna across the chest so hard that the wind was knocked out of her. The weight of that small body caused the chains to bite into her shoulder blades. She coughed out a mewling cry of pain as her vision hazed. Blood dribbled down around her ear, freezing. Her eye would not open.

Blessing had tried to rescue her.

Shouts reached her faintly, a distant swarm of movement felt more than heard.

Bulkezu straddled both Anna and the second body as he braced for a new attack. When he laughed, high-pitched and gleeful, the sound cut across the screaming pitch of the wind.

'Free me, prince of dogs," cried Bulkezu triumphantly. "Or I kill her."

Blessing whimpered in pain.

Prince Sanglant's voice reached her over the buffeting wind, a ringing tenor that easily pierced the clamor of battle. Anger and thwarted frustration made him sound hoarse—but then, he always sounded like that.

'Let her go free, and I'll let you go free when we reach the hunting grounds of the griffins."

Bulkezu laughed again. "To be hunted down by my own tribe?" "Very well," shouted Sanglant. "I'll throw down my weapons and trade myself for her—

'Your daughter is a far more valuable hostage than you would be. Free me, or I kill her. But I will take her with me, so that you will keep my tribe from hunting me."

Why had Blessing charged in against a foe she could not hope to defeat? Now she was unconscious, wounded, and Bulkezu's prisoner "Take me as your hostage and my soldiers will see that your tribe does not hunt you. I can make no bargain with my daughter's life—" The wind roared, obliterating the sound of the prince's voice as a wave of white swept over them. She could no longer see Bulkezu through frozen eyes and the howling white fog of the blizzard. This was the end.

Something smooth and silken brushed her lips. The stinging blast of the snow and ice faded under an entirely unexpected surge of warm wind. White flower petals swirled over her like a cloud of butterflies. Ice melted on her face, making runnels down her cheek as petals tickled her mouth and eyes. This was no natural wind— Sorcery!

The soldiers cried out in alarm and surprise at the shower of petals and the shock of the wind's abrupt change.

'Hai!" Bulkezu shouted. A weight hit him, throwing him off her. Within the streaming petals two men fought—Sanglant and Bulkezu—wrestling and rolling. The chains writhed around her, scraping over her legs, burning her arms. Snow that had been caught beneath chains sprayed and scattered. "Get the princess!" cried Matto. "Anna! Anna!"

Thiemo yelled, running toward her. She was trapped in a tangle of spitting, biting iron.

She got to her knees, but a hand grabbed her ankle and jerked her hard so she fell forward while being dragged backward. Iron ripped up the skin on her cheek. She screamed.

Bulkezu threw her on top of Blessing's prone body. Anna's swollen eye was crammed into the slush, a muck of snow and petals and mud that covered the ground, but she could see the awful scene unfolding a hand's breadth from her face.

Bulkezu grabbed Blessing's hair and twisted the princess' head back. A knife blade pressed against the vulnerable skin at her throat. The prince cursed violently but helplessly.

Bulkezu laughed that giggling, mad chuckle that would, surely, sour milk and curdle eggs in the nest; she hadn't heard it for months. She began to weep.

The soldiers beyond had gone deadly silent as petals spun down. "Now we are both trapped," said Bulkezu. "Only a Kerayit witch-woman or her mistress can raise a wind like this." He laughed again. "Free me. I am still fast enough to kill the girl and strong enough to kill her even if you wound me first. My freedom. Or your daughter's life."

A crowd of men gathered around them, holding back as if a fence caught them up short. The blade biting into Blessing's skin raised a trickle of blood although the girl remained limp.

Was she already dead?

Beyond, the camp had dissolved into chaos: horses trumpeting in fright, men shouting and cursing, a thin voice wailing in agony.

A horn call rising in strength: the call to arms.

Petals streamed everywhere as the warm wind drowned them.

'My lord prince! Come quickly!"

'My lord! My lord! An army approaches!"

'We've been ambushed!"

'Horsemen, my lord prince!"

'So be it." Sanglant's was not a voice that hid emotion often, but she could not tell if fury, frustration, fear, or cold raging bitterness ruled him now.

'Your sister, Princess Sapientia, my lord—"

'Not now, Breschius. Captain Fulk, I want spears to the fore, braced to face down a cavalry charge."

'Yes, my lord prince."

An object hit Anna hard on the head, slid down her nose, and fell into snow and petals. It was a key.

'Let the hunt begin, Bulkezu. If you harm her, you will suffer tenfold what she suffered."

Bulkezu's weight shifted painfully on her back as he grabbed the key off the ground.

The knife pricked Blessing under the jaw as he shifted. Chains clattered down. He took hold of the back of Blessing's tunic and hoisted her up, holding her tight with the knife still at her throat.

'If you want her to live, girl," he said to Anna without looking down at her, "then you will accompany us because I cannot be bothered to care for her."

Blessing had risked her own life. Anna could do no less.

She pushed up to her feet, swaying and dizzy. Blood stippled the churned snow and muck and stained the iron links of the chain. Men scattered around them, running to the boundary of the camp with weapons in hand. Grooms fought down maddened horses as petals drifted in clouds through the air. Mud spattered everywhere as the warm wind melted snow, as feet ground moisture into grass and dirt.

Anna staggered after Bulkezu through the clamor and chaos. NO one heeded them, although perhaps it only seemed so because sh could not see very well. He had no trouble keeping Blessing held tight with one arm while brandishing the spear with the other; he had remained strong even after months of captivity.

Men formed up around the perimeter, tense but ready, their spears and shields a fragile line of defense.

'Let him through! Let him through!" shouted Matto ahead of them. "God curse you!

Make a way through for him, or he'll kill them both!"

Bulkezu carried the princess past the line of men formed up along the outer perimeter of the camp. He paused long enough to sling the girl over his back, a shield against arrows, and plunged forward up the slope with knife and spear in hand, silent but breathing hard. Snow turned to sludge under his feet as a last few petals spun down around them. In the east, light rose as dawn threatened.

Blessing woke at last, kicking at the backs of his knees.

'Quiet, worm!"

The iron edge of his voice subdued her.

He will kill us, thought Anna, too stunned to weep. Was it better to struggle and die fighting or to follow quietly in the hope they might escape?

Though he labored, he did not slow. They crested the hill as the rim of the sun splintered the horizon. In a broad valley below, a river meandered through towering grass that shimmered like gold. The lowland ended abruptly at the foot of steep crags jutting up along the eastern horizon. A petal brushed her cheek; another settled on Blessing's upturned rump. Wind carried the scent of grass and of spring. Snow melted into dirty mounds, the icy remains of winter; spring had swept in.

On its wings, off to both left and right, an army of mounted men approached with bows and spears held ready. They weren't Quman—they didn't wear wings—but there was something misshapen about them nevertheless that Anna could not discern with one swollen eye and her back and arms on fire with pain.

Bulkezu had seen the soldiers, too, had heard the thunder of their approach across the ground.

'Witches!" He spat on the ground before forging down a slope made slippery by melting snow and the sheen of fresh mud churned up under his footsteps. He stumbled once, swearing as he fell to one knee, but his grip on the girl did not falter. He was unbelievably strong. His hands were chains, as unyielding as iron. He had tucked the knife into a boot where Blessing could not reach it, but Anna wondered if she herself could grab for it. Yet he still carried the spear. If he killed her, then Blessing would be at his mercy.

As they descended the slope, the grass rose from knee-high at the crest to thigh-high as the ground leveled off. The pale sea cut off her view of everything except the ragged summits of the crags. He waded into this ocean, the grass reaching his waist, his chest, and soon higher than a horse's head.

She had heard that the griffins roamed in the lands where the grass grew as tall as houses.

Maybe that was how she would die: Bulkezu would stake her out and use her as a lure for the griffin he meant to kill so he could build himself new wings. Grass stung her face, whipping against her, focusing her thoughts as she jolted along.

,' will not die. I will not let Blessing die.

There had to be a way to escape. He said nothing, just trudged at a steady pace.

'Please," Blessing said at last. "If you put me down, I'll walk."

He stopped, dropped her, and waited without speaking, breathing hard, while the princess winced and, cautiously, pushed up to stand.

'Anna?" she croaked.

'I am here, Your Highness." Her shoulders throbbed; her eye ached and her cheek stung. She saw the sky as patches of blue and white, clear sky and clouds, glimpsed through the waving stalks above her. It was impossible to know what direction they walked in; she could no longer see even the eastern crags. Only the trail Bulkezu had left, beaten down by his weight, betrayed their path, and even so the grass was springing back up behind them.

Soon they would be utterly lost.

'Go." He poked Blessing with the spear.

The two captives led the way, walking side by side. It was exhausting work trampling the grass, pushing through with arms raised. Vegetal dust matted her hair and formed a layer of grit on her lips. Soon she was sweating although it was warm only in contrast to the killing cold they had survived.

Twice she veered sideways, thinking to lead them back around in a circle in the direction of camp, but he poked Blessing each time hard enough to make the girl cry out, so Anna had to fall back in line. He was herding them like beasts in the direction he wanted them to go.

Once Blessing tried to outrun him, hoping his long captivity would make him slow, but he caught up, slammed her across the back with the haft of his spear, and waited silently as she groaned and struggled back to her feet with Anna's help.

He, too, seemed exhausted, but there was in his expression a look of such cold determination that Anna knew he would never falter His gaze met hers. He had beautiful eyes; even his face, scarred as it was, remained handsome—if one could admire such swarthy features. But he measured her as a man measures his horses, wondering which is healthiest and which he might need to kill for food on a hard journey.

'Come, Your Highness," she said.

Wincing, weeping silently, Blessing took Anna's hand and went without a word.

In time, the sun rose above the grass and tracked across the sky. She was sweating in earnest, dressed in her winter clothing, but dared take nothing off. If this warm spell was only a sorcerous spell, how soon would winter blast back in to kill them? For how long could a witch alter the weather? How far did the spell's reach extend? They might easily walk right out of this warm cocoon into the blizzard. Surely a weather witch, no matter how powerful, could not wipe away a storm of such power. Yet there was nothing she could do about that. She staggered on, concentrating on each single step as the only thing that mattered in the world. Blessing did not speak, only trudged.

As long as they kept moving, he would not kill them.

A high scream pierced the heavens, an eerie cry that lingered on and on and chilled her to the heart.

'Go!" said Bulkezu, although she had speeded up at the cry.

Was he frightened?

Almost she turned to examine his expression, but she dared not. It was wounded animals that were most likely to maul you. The cry rose again, off to the left this time, not behind them, echoed by a second voice to the right.

'We're being hunted," whispered Blessing, squeezing her hand.

Bulkezu jabbed her with the haft. "Go! Go!"

She heard the murmur of running water just before the ground broke away precipitously and she slid and stumbled down a steep, short slope. Breaking out of the thick grass, she rolled on the gravelly shore of a river not more than a strong man's spear toss across, nothing like as deep and wide as the Veser River at Gent. East across the river, visible from this shore because of the lay of the ground, clouds roiled over the crags. A veil sheeted down from the cloud cover. She smelled the chill scent of streaming snow. The blizzard did indeed still churn above the mountains, reaching north and south like gigantic arms to encircle them where they rested in the heart of a spell. The sun shone above as merrily as it might on any fine spring day.

Bulkezu cursed wickedly, standing at the brink, not going forward into the current although the river looked fordable. She crouched to splash water on her face. Its touch stung, so sharp a pain especially on her bruises and cuts that she whimpered, trying to hold the sound in so he wouldn't know how scared she was. That was the lesson she and Matthias had learned in Gent: never let your fear rule you. Those ruled by fear died.

The wailing cry cut through the air again, closer now, followed by an answer off to the right and, abruptly, a third yipping wail behind them.

A rider galloped toward them along the shore of the river. Anna blinked, thinking the sun or her injuries had addled her mind: the creature had only one head, yet it was obviously human. Wasn't it?

'Pray God," she murmured, drawing the Circle of Unity at her breast, waiting for Bulke,'u to force them out into the water. "Lord and Lady protect us."

'Anna! It's centaurs! I heard them coming!"

Bulkezu broke to the right, but as Blessing bolted for the slope, he whirled back, grabbed her, and slammed her against his body, holding his knife to her throat.

Three horsemen came out of the grass, bows drawn and arrows fixed, aiming right at Blessing's chest. Anna's heart thudded madly.

They were not horsemen.

They were not human.

They were women—that was obvious, for they went bare-breasted— but at their hips their human form flowed away and became beasts. Women with the bodies of horses.

Centaurs.

Bulkezu did not move nor did his knife waver.

One of the centaurs, a cream-colored mare with dark hair on her woman's head, spoke to him in words Anna could not understand. Still he did not move, although he was surrounded.

'They told you to let us go!" shouted Blessing indignantly, squirming in his grasp. "I hate you, you smelly bag of grease!"

He released her. The centaurs backed up, still with their arrows trained on him, but they did not move as he bolted away Upri running east toward the crags.

'I told you something was coming, Anna! No one ever belie me!"

Anna staggered. The sun made the swaying grass into a green-gold haze, impossible to focus on. A cloud of white butterflies ro up from the shoreline of the river, light winking with each beat o their dazzling wings. A distant call rose, high-pitched, melding with the song of the river. Far above, a graceful shape emerged out of the vanguard of the new storm sweeping in from the east.

'Look!" shrieked Blessing. "Look there!"

Its iron wings flashed and glittered, catching the sun's light. It wore an eagle's proud head and a lion's strong body, with a snake's tail lashing as it flew. If it saw them, it ignored them; perhaps they were beneath its notice. Certainly it was too far away for any of the centaur women to shoot at it.

'I knew we'd reached the hunting grounds! Now we can hunt!"

Anna's knees gave out, but she did not hit the ground. Strong arms caught her, and she was lifted as easily as a grown woman hoists a weary infant and thrown across the back of the cream-colored mare.

She clutched at the creature's mane to drag herself upright. This was neither mare nor woman. Creatures out of legend had rescued them. Bulkezu had not raped and murdered them. They were free. Laughing, crying, she could not speak to thank them, but she had no need to do so since Blessing had already begun asking questions, demanding to know more about the griffins and the river and the storm of butterflies.

Someday Anna would go home to Gent and tell the tale of her adventures. Matthias would never believe her.

That thought only made her cry more.

'CENTAURS!" breathed Captain Fulk. Like the rest of the men, he stared in astonishment at the inhuman army—perhaps five hundred strong—that approached their hastily-drawn line.

'Let the men remain in formation," said Sanglant, "but do not act unless I give you a signal. Or if I fall." "My lord prince!"

'I know what I'm doing. Breschius, accompany me." He sheathed his sword and stepped out in front of the line of soldiers drawn up along the slope with the camp behind them. They had a terrible position, downslope, where the weight of the centaur charge would press them backward into the wreckage of their camp, scattered, frightened horses, tangled ropes, twisted and fallen canvas everywhere… yet such a ruin gave dismounted soldiers an advantage over four-legged opponents.

Breschius and Hathui fell in behind him as he trudged up the slope toward the creatures advancing at a walk over the crest. Behind, men called out, calming horses, seeking armor, trading weapons, strengthening their line in case the worst happened. He had only his red cloak to shield him should they attack—that, and his mother's curse.

"Are these the sorcerers we seek, Breschius?"

'We must hope so, my lord prince. The Bwr people have little mercy for our kind."

'Be sure I am remembering the history of the Dariyan Empire and their fate at the hands of a Bwr army so long ago. Yet in the old tales it is always said that the Bwr people came not only to plunder and capture slaves, but because they hated the empire itself. Why would the centaur people hate the Dariyans so much?"

'Poets entertain by embroidering fancy patterns on plain cloth. I think bloodlust and greed suffice to explain the Bwr invasion that destroyed the Dariyan Empire. After all, they are more like to the beasts than we are. Yet if these meant to attack, they could have done so under cover of the storm when we were helpless."

'So I am also thinking." Grass whispered against his legs as he followed the scars left by Bulkezu's passage up the hill, pockets of snow melting into slush that made for slippery going. "Do you think there are weather witches among them who brought the storm?"

'Truly, it is said the centaurs of old taught weather magic to the Kerayit shamans, my lord prince. They might have sent the blizzard before them, or overwhelmed it with this spring wind."

'The Quman are retreating, my lord prince," said Hathui. "They are abandoning their tents and fleeing."

'Keep your eye on them in case they attack us from the rear." He dared not shift his attention away from his new adversaries as he and his companions came into bow range.

He had to try to turn these inhuman creatures into his allies, but he wasn't at all sure they would believe his stories of distant conspiracies and a vast cataclysm And what of Blessing? What she might suffer at the Quman chieftain's hands… He dared not think of her if he was to command effectively.

Although it was hot only in contrast to the appalling cold they had just suffered, Sanglant sweated under the blaze of an unexpectedly bright sun. He paused to catch his breath and wipe his brow. Ahead the massed line of the centaurs came to a halt. He noticed for the first time that although they carried bows and wicked-looking spears they wore no armor.

'God help us," he breathed, half laughing, "can it be that they are all females? Are there no stallions among them? Nor even geldings?"

'Beware, my lord prince," said Breschius. "One comes to meet us."

'What of the Quman, Hathui?" He kept his gaze fixed on the silver-gray centaur now picking her way down the slope, stepping with precise neatness through pale winter grass.

'They seem truly to be running, my lord prince. I would guess that they did not expect to meet up with the ones we face now."

'They are wise to be fearful," commented Breschius, but his voice seemed steady enough for a man approaching, unarmed, an army that might prove foe as easily as friend.

Sanglant glanced at the fra-ter's right arm, which ended in a stump, but although Breschius, too, was sweating, he did not seem afraid. Sanglant waited, more impressed than he cared to admit, as the centaur halted a body's length from him, surveying him as closely as he examined her.

She was old. Strands of glossy black hid within her fine silver coat and the coarse braids of her human hair, which fell past her hips. She wore no clothing of any kind except a quiver across her back and a leather glove covering one hand and wrist. Once all her coat and her woman's hair had been black, a fine contrast to the creamy color of her woman's skin. Now faded green-and-gold paint striped her human torso, even her breasts, which sagged as did those of crones well past their childbearing years. It was hard to read age on her face, for she did not possess the exact lineaments of a human face but something like and yet unlike, kin to him and yet utterly different. The expression of her eyes seemed touched by ancient pain and hard-won wisdom. Like a virtuous biscop, she wore holiness like a mantle on her shoulders. She looked older than any creature, human or otherwise, he had ever seen.

He inclined his head respectfully. "I give you greetings, Holy One," he said, using the Kerayit title which, Breschius had taught him, was used to address the most senior of their shamans.

She returned his scrutiny with her own appraisal. "I do not know you, although you have the look of my old enemy. Yet you are not the one I seek, the one I hoped for. Has he not returned?"

'I do not know what person you speak of."

'Do you not? Is he not known in your country?"

Already she had lost him. "Who is your old enemy, Holy One?"

'Humankind once called them the Cursed Ones, but the language you speak now is different from the language you spoke when you were young."

'I have always spoken Wendish, even as a child," he began, but he faltered. "You are not speaking of me." When who was young? He felt as though he teetered on the edge of an abyss whose depths he could not plumb. "How old are you, Holy One?"

She smiled, something of warmth and blessed approval in her expression. "You see keenly, you who are son of two bloods, for I smell both humankind and the blood of my old enemy in you. What are you called?"

'I am Sanglant, son of Henry, king of Wendar and Varre."

'This 'Henry' is your mother? Is king among her people?"

'Henry is my father."

Her surprise startled him. Although he could not be sure that he could interpret her expressions as though she were a human woman, she seemed taken aback at the word

"father," as though it were ill-mannered or even a little coarse to mention such a word.

But she recovered quickly.

'You are bred out of a stallion of the human line, then. Who is your mother?"

'My mother no longer walks on Earth. She is one of the Aoi, the Lost Ones."

'You have more the look of the Ashioi than of humankind. You are therefore a prince twice over in the manner of your people, for your mother must be a shaman of great power. I have seen her—or the one who must be her, since in all the time of their exile only one among them has negotiated the crossroads where worlds and time meet. She alone has set foot upon the earth they yearn for."

'You know of their exile?"

Her smile now was less friendly, even bitter. "I helped bring it about, Prince Sanglant.

Do you not know the story?"

'I know no story of the Aoi exile that includes mention of your people, Holy One. I would gladly hear your tale."

'So you may, in time."

A spike of anger kicked through him; he was not accustomed to being spoken to so dismissively. She seemed unaware of his annoyance, however, and continued talking.

'First I need to understand what has brought you here, in the company of those vermin who call themselves children of the griffin."

He looked over his shoulder. The Quman had fled, leaving their tents and half their wagons, but none of their horses. The dust of their passage formed a cloud that obscured their flight, or perhaps that was only one of their shamans raising a veil to hide them.

He turned back. "How is it you speak Wendish, Holy One? Have you met one among my people before?"

'I survived the bite of a snake and now carry its magic in my blood." She tossed her head as might a restless horse. "Such things are not important. If you were come to attack us, surely you would have done so by now, Prince Sanglant. Nor would you have approached us alone, with these two unarmed companions, if you did not wish to speak with us. What do you want? Why have you traveled so far?"

'To meet you," he said, "for it is known that among the Kerayit tribe, who are your allies, there live powerful sorcerers. I seek powerful sorcerers and the feathers of griffins."

'You have ridden a long way, seeking that which you are unlikely to obtain. What is your ambition, Prince Sanglant? What manner of man are you, who desires what he cannot have?"

He laughed, because the pain never left him and now had scarred him afresh. "I have already lost what I cared most for. Twice over. What I seek now I do not desire for my own use, but only for duty's sake—that duty which I was born to because I am the son of the king. I owe my people protection and well-being. Do not believe, I pray you, that because you live so very far from the cities and lands ruled by my people that you are therefore safe from those among them who can work magic."

'The seven died, and their line died out too quickly. Only the Kerayit remember the ancient knowledge."

'Do you mean the Seven Sleepers? They live still, and they have uncovered a working of great power which they mean to weave again in order to cast the Lost Ones back into the aether." Was that jmpatience in her expression? She stamped her back leg, and he had an odd instinct that, had she been able to, she would have lain her ears back in annoyance and snapped at him as does a mare bored with a stallion who is bothering her. "If you would only let me explain the story to you in full, I pray you—

'I know the story, as you cannot. I know what is coming, Prince Sanglant, as you cannot."

'Many will die—

'Yes. Many will die. They always do. The Ashioi were our enemies once. We banded together with humankind to war against them. But in the end it is your people who crippled us and brought us low. It is your people who threaten us now, the Quman, the Sazdakh, the Jinna, the Arethousans, these Daisanites who bring their words that make us sick. We chose the wrong enemy. Or perhaps our fate was already sealed."

'I am not your enemy!"

'I could argue that you are my enemy twice over. Still, I will be willing to speak with you as if you were a female, Prince Sanglant, but only when you have proved your fitness to lead."

The words angered him, but he replied as evenly as he could. "How may I do that?"

'Have you not already spoken of it? Males prove their fitness in the same fashion, whether human or horse. They exist to breed,and to protect the herd when brute force is needed. There is a beast loose in the grass—"

'You have seen him?" Hope shone briefly. Anger sparked, blazing hot and strong. "He has taken my daughter captive!"

'Destroy the beast that stalks in the grass," she repeated. "Then I will speak to you again."

'Will you not help me save my daughter?"

She raised an arm. A huge owl glided in to perch on the centaur's glove. Breschius gasped out loud. The centaur leaned closer to the owl, but even with his keen hearing, Sanglant made out only a rustling as soft as downy feathers rubbed together. She launched the owl back into the air, and it flew away over the ranks of the centaurs, quickly lost to sight.

She examined Sanglant again. "Hunt, Prince Sanglant. If you return, then we will negotiate."

With a flick of her tail, she sidestepped, turned, and walked up the hill to her army.

Hathui had got a spear from Captain Fulk and now hastened up the slope to bring it to Sanglant. He unfastened his cloak and tu it inside out, hiding the bright red cloth and exposing the pale f°! fur lining, which blended better with the grass.

'My lord prince." Hathui handed him the spear, the best balanc of those he possessed.

Fulk had chosen well, of course. "I beg my lord prince, go carefully. We are all of us—all of Wendar a Varre—lost if you are lost to us."

'I am lost if I let a man like that kidnap and despoil my daughter "

'He wants you to follow him. Surely he must kill another griffin and defeat you, in order to restore his honor and position. Princess Blessing is merely bait."

'So I hope," said Sanglant as he surveyed the sky and the slope of the hill. "That will make it easier to find him."

'Shall I attend you, my lord prince?"

'Nay. Repair camp. Find a more sheltered spot, if you can. Fortify yourselves against unexpected attack, from whatever quarter. Take what you need from what the Quman abandoned. Do not forget that they may creep back and ambush you, but I think that Gyasi can warn you if they approach."

'If we can trust him," said Hathui.

'I trust that he seeks revenge against those who wronged him. Watch him, but do not ignore what he has to say."

'As you wish, my lord prince," said Breschius.

'What if Bulkezu's tribe claims him?" asked Hathui.

'They fled before they could collect on their bargain, taking my sister with them. No matter."

He hefted the spear. Storm clouds piled up to the east where a line of crags erupted out of the high plateau. He smelled the tempest on the west wind. Out in the grasslands, up in the highest lands beyond the reach of the centaur witch, winter still ruled.

Its chilly blast could not possibly be as savage as his anger.

'Bulkezu is a dead man now." a moment only, as she crossed through the heart of the burning stone, she kept hold of Alain and his hounds. Then the weight of the world below ripped them out of her grasp, and she spun, between the worlds, balance lost, the Earth turning beneath her as she fell back into the world she had left behind days ago. She glimpsed the winking glimmer of the crown of stars, laid out across the land, but the turning spheres caught her in their rotation, propelling her away from the lands she knew.

The heavy elements of earth and water dragged her down as her wings disintegrated, their aetherical substance too fragile to exist in the world below.

As she passed from the aether into the net of the solid world, she fell through a nether world, betwixt and between, neither grounded in the world below nor afloat in the aether like the Ashioi homeland. She glimpsed a band of shadowy figures on the march, outfitted with spears and bows, children and dogs, both male and females armed and ready. They wore clothing like to that worn by the Lost Ones, and the young man leading them looked strangely familiar to her although she knew she had never seen him before.

He looked a little like Sanglant.

He glanced up, sensing her, but he could not see her. "Soon!" he called to the people following him. "We have not much longer to wait. Make haste! Make ready!"

She reached for him, seeking an answer to this mystery, but tumbled past, drawn by a force she could not measure and could not see. Eastward as the land lay, as the world spun, helpless against that great dragging weight, she was pulled far off course as by a grasping hand. What linked her to Earth, calling her back?

Was it Sanglant? The baby?

An instant she had to pray before she fell into a screaming blizzard, the cold so bitter that she could not take in a breath of air because her lungs froze and her face burned and her courage splintered, cracked, and shattered.

Cold.

She was numb with cold. She would never be warm again. Hugh would come, with his lamp, and lead her back into the church where he had made her his slave. She whimpered. God Above, let her imprisonment not happen again.

All this passed through her mind as swiftly as a rock drops from hand to ground.

Then, as stinging snow bit into her skin and the wind screamed against her, she fought up to her knees, defying the storm.

She was not that girl any longer. She was no longer defenseless and alone. She had walked the spheres. She had found her mother's kin. She had made peace with her father's memory and his struggles. She had unlocked the door behind which Da had sealed her power.

Hugh no longer ruled her.

But cold could still kill.

The howl of the storm deafened her and she could not see more than a stone's toss in any direction, blinded by snow. She knelt in grass bent earthward by the wind's force; it, too, gave no shelter, but within its fibrous stems lived fire.

Downwind, she called fire out of the grass. Flames licked upward, burning fiercely in an arc of brightness, and she pressed as close to the fire as she dared, careful of her cloak and clothing. The blaze warmed her for a time, difficult to count how long she stood there shivering, but the blizzard beat against fire and bit by bit smothered the flames until they wavered, receded, and died.

The wind screamed, scattering the ashes. She tugged her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. Already, through her gloves, her fingers grew numb. Her ears hurt. Cold seared her.

Again she called fire, this time in a wider swath.

As the flames sprang to life in a semicircle around her, a hunched figure emerged from the blizzard, approaching her at a run. It was a man; that much she could see. He carried a spear.

She drew her knife and waited. No use shooting arrows in this wind. The heat of the fire melted the snow around her; icy water pooled at her feet, soaking her boots. The man halted a prudent distance from her, measuring her as she measured him. Although the clothing he wore appeared scarcely heavier than her own, he did not seem on the verge of death by freezing. He was, oddly enough, smiling as he surveyed her. Ice rimed his black hair, and he had a startling and massive scar across one cheek that marred his features but did not, quite, make him ugly. Otherwise he appeared as might any man caught out in such a storm: wary, freezing, desperate, and respectful of the fire burning at her back.

'I saw the fire," he shouted, words almost inaudible under the scream of the wind.

"Are you the one called Liathano? I did not think to find you in this country."

She had never seen this man before. Or had she? Memory nagged at her, but she had no time for the luxury of caution. Questions must come later. Already she could not feel her feet, and the hot flames were losing their battle against the storm, dying down around her despite their initial fury. Against the blizzard, even fire could not triumph. By his coloring and the cast of his features, this man was one of the steppe tribesmen. Although barbarians, they knew this country as no other humans did.

'Do you know where we can find shelter?" she cried, pitching her voice to be heard above the wind.

He laughed, a mad and rather disturbing cackle. "Here there is no shelter but that found where griffins nest."

'So be it," she said, "for I will certainly die out here without shelter but may yet survive hidden within a griffin's nest."

He gestured with his spear. Within this storm, all directions looked the same to her.

"Come," he said.

Bracing herself against the wind, she followed him.

XV A HAPLESS FLY the great hall that had once belonged to the queen of Alba, Stronghand held court as winter winds blew a chill rain across the courtyard outside, visible through open doors.

'Bring the prisoners forward."

A captain herded the captives up before the dais, adults and children all together, a pack of ragged fugitives. They had been living no better than animals out in the woods when a patrol had stumbled across their stick hovels and crude tents and rounded them up. Winter had rendered them too weak to fight and now the presence of his dogs, eager to kill, made them too scared to run away.

They huddled together in such a trembling mass that it was difficult to distinguish one from another. Their clothes hung in tatters; their emaciated bodies gave them the look of cattle better slaughtered for soup bones than left out to graze winter pastures, where they would only die and their carcasses be gnawed by wolves.

But these Alban folk had not died, or at least not all of them had. Daily his troops captured such refugees, folk who had escaped the fall of the city or who had fled the nearby farms which had once fed the town. While his strike forces searched and harried the countryside beyond the reach of the Temes River, he had a different task.

He beckoned to his interpreter, a Hessi merchant's son named Yeshu. Like a well-trained dog, he approached without fear.

'Discover what manner of people these are," he told him.

The Hessi merchants taught their children many languages, the better to follow the trade routes. Yeshu spoke his tortured mother tongue as well as Alban, Wendish, and Salian.

'They are artisans, my lord, so they say," he replied after an interrogation of the eldest woman. "According to their report, they fled the city and hid in the forest lands. Half of them have died so far this winter, so they claim."

'What kind of artisans?"

'Carpenters and turners, my lord."

He glanced around the great hall, crudely refurbished after the battle fought last autumn but in need of good craftsmen to restore it. "Are they kin to each other? Of one tribe?"

'Out of two clans and three houses, my lord." He wore a cap out of which black locks straggled. His dusky skin stood in marked contrast to the fair-skinned, light-haired Albans. "This is what they tell me: They came together in their flight because some of their kinfolk married between them, as is the custom of Alban artisans."

'Woodworkers," he mused, looking them over. They were a sorry lot, and many might still die no matter what mercy he showed them, but that they had survived for so long and stuck together in numbers, to protect themselves, suggested intelligence and practicality.

A tool may look worn and almost broken yet may still be fixable. Useful.

There was more than one way to conquer a country.

'Let them be given grain and such salt as they need for the remainder of the winter.

They will be left in peace to ply their trade as long as they reestablish themselves in their home and put themselves to such tasks as they are accustomed to. They will give me labor in exchange for my protection. This hall needs rebuilding. The doors do not shut properly. What tithe did the queen require of them?"

Another conversation ensued. The youth could bargain; since Stronghand could understand what Yeshu was saying to the Alban prisoners he understood that the elders of their house, despite the seeming hopelessness of their condition, hoped to convince the lad that the Alban queen took less of a tithe than he knew she normally did based on the testimony of other prisoners and the Hessi merchants with whom he had established trading relationships.

'Enough," he said at last, in Wendish. Even the Hessi lad did not yet suspect that he understood the Alban speech. In truth, he was surprised he understood it at all, but ever since the return of Alain, the speech of all creatures seemed eerily open to him, as though the all-encompassing wisdom and sight of the OldMothers had infested his mortal, crippled blood. "If they argue, then they do not wish to tell the truth. One day in three will be their tithe. If they are faithful, they can earn the privilege that those loyal to my rule enjoy of one in six. Tell them to return to their home and rebuild."

This mercy they had not expected. Weeping and wailing, they threw themselves down before him to offer obeisance, but he knew he could not trust them. To show his displeasure he chose the healthiest looking child from their group to send to Mother Ursuline at Rikin Fjord as an acolyte. He cared little for the quarrels between the gods of the Alban tree sorcerers and the circle god esteemed by the Wendish, but the adherents of the circle god were more useful to him, especially while the tree sorcerers remained his adversaries.

As the prisoners were herded away, he stroked the wooden circle that he wore around his neck. While he mused, his councillors maintained a respectful silence: the chieftains of Hakonin, Vitningsey, Ja-tharin, and Isa, Papa Otto, and Samiel, the Hessi merchant he had appointed as his steward because he knew how to read, write, and figure numbers.

'Woodworkers can also build a bridge upstream, where the river narrows. That will make our task easier. When spring comes, and they have finished the hall, let them work one day out of four on this task."

'Yes, my lord."

Out in the courtyard, a scouting party jogged into view.

'Let them through."

His herald—one of his littermates—called them up.

The captain among them—one of Hakonin's sons—gave the report: they had ridden south and west following the winding course of the Temes River. One fortlet they had burned, three skirmishes fought with no men killed. There were two substantial towns, both fortified although, in truth, they could be taken with a sufficiently large force. Of the Alban queen they had seen no sign.

Stronghand turned to his councillors. "Of the eight parties sent out, six have returned.

None have found any trace of the queen. We await news from the north."

'We should strike now at the towns we can plunder," said Vit-ningsey's chief, called Dogkiller.

'We should strike where our blows will have the most effect and not waste ourselves seeking treasure," said Hakonin's chief, called Flint.

'These prisoners are a burden," continued Dogkiller. "If we killed them, we would be free to seek farther afield for their queen and their riches. What do you say, Ironclaw?"

'I say nothing," said Isa's chieftain. "I am still waiting to see whether Rikin's son flies, or falls."

Jatharin's chief remained silent, as he usually did.

Stronghand nodded at Papa Otto, who had learned over time that his master preferred his counsel to his silence. "If you defeat the Alban queen, then you can become ruler in her stead. But as long as she or any of her lineage remain alive and free and allied with the tree sorcerers, the Alban people will fight behind her banner and for her heathen gods.

Strike at their gods, and you will win Alba."

'Kill the Alban people, and there will be no one left to fight you," said Dogkiller.

Papa Otto shook his head. "Kill the Alban people and the land will become wasteland, worth less to you than the good crops farmers can grow to feed artisans and soldiers."

Stronghand rose, surveying the court he had gathered around him: councillors, RockChildren eager to gain glory and gold, human men willing to serve a better master than the one they had left behind, slaves, prisoners, and the doubters, like Ironclaw, who were waiting for him to falter so that they could wrest from him what he had so far gained.

But even Ironclaw, who was wiser than most, did not fully understand Stronghand's purpose and methods.

'We will wait until we have heard from the north. Our forces will continue to sweep the countryside until all the land three days' walk on every side of Hefenfelthe is under our control. Burn what you must, but build where you can. A burned house is not a strong house; it cannot hold off rain, storm, and wind. Let the priests of the circle god follow in your wake and walk among the Alban folk."

So it would be done. He sat, shaking his staff; it clacked softly, bells chiming, as he beckoned to his herald.

'Bring the next group forward. Are there any farmers among them?"

There were.

Satisfied, he sent this starving and pathetic group back to their farms with seed corn and enough grain to last through winter and early spring. He dispensed justice while morning passed, the rain stopped, and the sky cleared, although the wind still cut wickedly into the hall, leaving the humans shivering. The carpenters would have much to repair.

Recently more and more prisoners had fallen into his hands, not all unwillingly. It was easy enough to let rumor do its work for him and to allow Alban scouts sent from parties hiding in the woodlands to penetrate the lines of defense around Hefenfelthe and see for themselves the increasing activity in the city. To see their countryfolk hard at work, fed, and alive.

QUEEN's Grave.

The words had an ominous sound, but the rolling hills and countryside they walked through with their escort before and behind them seemed pretty enough to Ivar despite the winter chill.

'Pretty enough for a graveyard," said Ermanrich, observing the leafless orchard trees and the shriveled gardens of the most recent village they passed by. Folk came out of their houses to watch them pass, but said nothing. They whispered, gesturing to the banner that marked this party as Lady Sabella's men-at-arms.

'They don't like us," whispered Hathumod.

'Or they don't like Lady Sabella," muttered Ivar. "Don't despair."

'Not yet, anyway," said Ermanrich.

'Look," said Sigfrid, pointing down the road. "That's a palisade. It looks like a fort."

As they came closer to a prominent ridgeline, they saw where the log wall closed in a narrow valley's mouth. A makeshift camp with barracks, tents, and a small number of cottages lay outside the palisade beside a stream. A few men loitered there, staring—

soldiers by the look of them. A woman came to the door of one of the cottages, pulling a tunic on over her grimy shift, and grinned as they marched past.

'Hey, there! Handsome!" It wasn't clear whether she was talking to the prisoners or their escort. A man emerged beside her, slapped her on the bottom, and went out, whistling.

'What's this?" he called to his fellows. "A new crop of sparrows to clap into the cage?

A brace of lads and a boy! That'll put the cats in among the pigeons!" He whooped.

A surly captain met them at the gates, herded them inside, and sent their escort packing without even offering them ale to wet their throats before setting off again into the chilly day on their way back to Autun.

'We were ten days on the road!" protested young Erkanwulf, who'd been given charge of the expedition by Captain Ulric. "Can't we at least spend the night and dry our clothes before heading back?"

'Get!" snarled the captain. "No one's allowed to bide here except those guards assigned to my command. That's by order of Her Highness, Lady Sabella."

Erkanwulf scowled, glanced at the prisoners, and with a shrug of frustration ordered his men to depart.

'That's that, then," said the captain, closing the gates so as to leave the four of them on one side and the captain and his guardsmen on the other.

'Hey!" called Ivar from inside the palisade, where they'd been abandoned. "What about us?"

The bar slammed into place. They were locked in. He turned. They stood at one end of a well-tended valley with several fields, a pasture dotted with sheep, an orchard, a stream, and a compound of buildings.

'This is a very old convent, an early foundation," said Sigfrid, studying the layout of the buildings. "Do you see? It's laid out in the old style."

'What old style?" asked Ermanrich.

'Before the reforms of St. Benedicta and the elaborate plans of the Brothers of St.

Galle created a new ideal for the construction and layout of monastic foundations.

Quedlinhame and Herford were laid out in the new style. This isn't. Perhaps this was a villa in the time of the old Dariyan Empire, refurbished as a convent. But I think it's more likely the architect built it in imitation of Dariyan villas. Not all the details are right. See how the drains—"

'Why would you build a villa to be a prison?" asked Hathumod.

'Hush," said Ivar.

A very pretty girl approached them, eyeing them warily. "Who are you?" she demanded. "We got no message saying anyone was coming. What do you want?"

Ivar stepped forward. "We've been sent here by Lady Sabella to join your convent."

'Have you?" She tossed her head; the movement made her scarf slip halfway back on her head. She had black curls so astonishingly lustrous that all three youths stared at them, then remembered that they were novices and she a holy nun, sworn to the service of God. She snorted, smiling at their discomfiture. Hathumod stared at her admiringly.

"Come."

The main compound was built as a square with an inner courtyard placed in the center.

Guards stood watch at double doors, but the black-haired girl ignored them, opened one door, and ushered her charges into the suite of rooms beyond.

'Your Grace! Biscop Constance!" She had a piercing voice and was not afraid to use it.

"We have new sheep. Do you think they're spies for the usurper?"

A silver-haired woman sat at a writing desk, an older lady by the hunch of her shoulders and the color of her hair. Ivar looked around the chamber hoping to see the biscop, whom he remembered well from the trial at Autun—young and glorious and handsome as befitted a daughter of the royal house. An elderly nun came into the room, stopped, and frowned.

'Sister Bona!" said the nun, chiding the girl who had led them in. "You must ask permission before you come charging in here—"

'Nay, let her be," said the woman at the desk. Laboriously, favoring one shoulder and one leg, she turned. "Give me my staff, if you will."

Ivar gasped.

Biscop Constance smiled wryly. She was still a handsome woman, vibrant with command, but she had aged thirty years. When she rose, when Bona leaped forward to help her, Ivar saw why. She could barely walk. She had sustained some kind of massive injuries, although he dared not ask how.

'Sit, I pray you," she said patiently to her visitors. Bona helped her to the biscop's chair and Ivar, Sigfrid, Ermanrich, and Hathumod hastily knelt before her. She offered them her hand to kiss. They did so.

'They're spies!" insisted Bona.

'Are they? I'm not so sure I think they are. Sabella has never been a subtle chess player. I remember you, Ivar. You are son of Count Harl out of the North Mark. You gave testimony at the trial of Hugh of Austra. I admired your foolhardiness and your passion for justice although you by no means helped yourself that day. Indeed, as I recall, you vanished soon afterward and were presumed dead or lost or absconded together with Prince Ekkehard, my nephew."

He bowed his head in shame. "The last, Your Grace. It is nothing to boast about."

'Bona, bring wine and something to eat."

Bona flounced out but returned quickly with a tray. Half a dozen others arrived just as they had finishing telling the biscop their names and lineages. Constance chuckled to see her nuns crowd into the room.

'You see, my friends, you are a nine days' wonder. We live very quietly here at St.

Asella's."

'I thought this place was called Queen's Grave," said Ivar.

'So it is. It was founded by the saintly queen Gertruda. She lived centuries ago. Her story is told in the chronicles of those times, that written by St. Gregoria of Tur. She was married against her wishes to a cruel king who was no proper Daisanite. In fact, he was a pagan or a heretic, as it suited him and his political needs of the moment. When he died, poisoned by a former wife, I think, Gertruda fled to this valley and founded the convent in honor of St. Asella."

'Who walled herself up alive," said Sigfrid, nodding to show he understood the lesson.

Constance smiled. "You have studied well, Brother Sigfrid. We need another scholar in our ranks, for my schola has grown thin this past year." The pain never left her; that was clear enough. But she possessed a quiet determination that would not let pain or defeat break her. She had retained a sense of humor, a subdued appreciation of irony.

"Queen Gertruda took vows as a nun to escape the marriage her grasping relatives wished to force her into. In her cunning she created a refuge for other women, and a very few men, who also sought to escape forced marriage and instead devote themselves to God."

'It's too bad Baldwin didn't know about this place," muttered Er-manrich.

Ivar frowned. Shame flared and turned to anger. "He did!"

'Ah!" said Constance. "There's a story there. Well, then. You have an audience, for we hear nothing and see nothing. That is the fate of those interred in Queen's Grave—to be buried alive. We would like to find out what goes on in the world outside. Tell us your tale, I pray you."

T IN early spring, Alain stood knee-deep in muddy water, wielding a shovel. He and a dozen of his lay brothers drained a strip of marshland, extending the land and channeling away the standing water. The slap of watery earth tossed onto the margin made a soothing rhythm as the men alongside him sang.

"Out into the four corners of the world walked the blessed ones. Sing again their stories. '•'

The tales of the early saints made a good chorus for working, because the verses could be added to as long as the lay brothers could recall saints to sing about. The afternoon passed quickly.

Rage and Sorrow waited farther up the slope as Alain bent, thrust the edge of his shovel into the muck, and cast mud and dripping tangles of vegetation onto the growing shoreline. The hounds usually dozed all afternoon while he worked, but now Rage, growling softly, rose to her feet and shifted her attention away from him, scenting the wind. Brother Iso was bundling reeds to hold the margin; he lifted a hand to shade his eyes against the sun as he squinted westward. It was unusually mild for this time of year, warm enough that they only needed to wear their cloaks at night.