The Gathering Storm

  By the lift of her head Liath could see she had startled the noblewoman. “Any woman or man?”

  “Any, no matter their station in life or what they are now, as long as they will work, for it is a difficult and dreary labor and few will have the taste for it. At dusk, assemble those who wish to watch and listen.”

  “What will you do?” Breschius asked.

  “I know what day we left the steppes because you and Heribert kept a close record of the days during your journey. It is possible we have skipped months or years by traveling through the crowns.”

  “How can that happen?”

  “I walked in the land of the Aoi for only a few days while years went by here on Earth. When we cross through the crowns, we touch the aether, where time passes differently than it does in the world below. I suppose there must be a way to calculate how much time any crossing would take. We know how long ago the Aoi land was cast into the aether. If we knew Eldest Uncle’s exact age, we could discover how long a day in the aether expands into a day or month here on Earth. Then, if we knew how far we wished to travel between two crowns, we might predict how long we would spend within the crowns as we cross that distance. Unless there is some other factor that alters the measure of days. What if the time doesn’t remain as a constant, if a day measured within the aether doesn’t always equal a month on Earth but fluctuates—”

  “Ai, God!” said Bertha, laughing. “You’ve lost me! What if we’ve walked right past the cataclysm? What if it’s already happened?”

  “We would know if the cataclysm had rocked us while we crossed between circles. We would have felt its impact because of the thread that connects the exiled land and Earth. We still have time. I must see which of the wandering planets appear in the heavens, and where they walk. Then I can calculate backward to the places they stood when we first entered the crown in the east. That will give me a rough date.”

  “The lore of the mathematici be no secret if any woman or man is allowed to learn it,” said Bertha abruptly.

  “What is hoarded among a few loses its power when more share it. Only think of what might happen if more than Eagles learn the trick of gazing through fire. If merchants can hire sorcerers to weave the crowns and allow them to cross over these mountains safe from avalanches and bandits. Only think of Anne’s power, which she has guarded well. If there were more to combat her, she would not be skopos now, with the king dangling from a chain of her devising. Amulets protect us from her gaze, but they also cripple us because we cannot use my Eagle’s Sight, lest it expose us. We can risk the sight once a day at most, as I arranged with Sanglant. If we did not fear, we would not be so weak. As I know myself, for I was fearful and weak once, too.”

  “You would even teach the common-born folk?” Bertha demanded.

  “Those who can learn. Why not? Da and I lived among highborn and lowborn alike. I saw no great difference between those born to a high station and those from the most humble. Some chose wickedness and some good. Some chose an honest path, and some chose a road paved with lies. Some were clever, and some had no more wits than a sheep. Any Eagle could tell you as much, for they are all of them born of low station yet they walk along paths frequented by princes.”

  Bertha was looking at her strangely. “You are born out of a noble line.”

  “Am I? I am not Anne’s daughter. I am not Taillefer’s great grandchild. Da was born to a noble line, it is true, but I suppose they might have been free farmers digging a foothold into untamed land in the time of my great grandmothers. Why should I be prouder than Hathui? Why should I hold myself above her? With the gold she claimed from the Quman she’ll dower her nieces and nephews and who is to say that, if they prosper, their children’s children might not marry a noble lady’s sons and daughters? Or that a lord fallen on hard times might not send his youngest son into service as a soldier in another lord’s army, and if that boy ever marries and if his fortunes fall further, his children’s children might be no better off than that of a servingman who obeys the will of a count.”

  When she stopped, having run out of breath, she saw they were staring at her as though she had been raving, a lunatic run wild right before their eyes.

  “I pray you,” said Bertha, “fetch her some wine.”

  Gnat and Mosquito leaped eagerly to the task, bringing a flask of wine and a tray of bread and cheese as well as a freshly plucked bunch of exceptionally sweet grapes.

  Bertha left her under Breschius’ care and went to walk among the troops.

  “I have troubled her,” she said at last to Breschius. “I didn’t intend to. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “You have traveled a strange road, my lady. The touch of the aether must alter a person’s vision.”

  “It did.” She looked after Lady Bertha, who was laughing with a pair of soldiers. Yet she was master and they were servants, evident by the way they stood each next to the others, the amount of space between them, their postures as the noblewoman made a final comment and moved on. “There is no going back to what I was before. Nor would I want to.”

  Breschius nodded agreeably. He did not seem to think she was insane. “It’s true the blessed Daisan teaches us that all souls are equal before God.”

  “Then why are they unequal on Earth?”

  “Their position, not their souls, are unequal on Earth. God ordered the world so, my lady. That is why.”

  “That’s not really an answer, is it? Did God so order the world? Or did humankind order it so and give the claim to God to justify their actions?”

  “You tread close to heresy, my lady.”

  “Do I?”

  He smiled, and she could see that he was not one whit offended. This was a man who liked to wrestle with difficult questions. “You do. So I ask you this: What other order might obtain? How else can humankind prosper, if there are not some who command and others who serve? If we have no order in the world, then we will live in chaos, no better than the wild beasts. Even among the beasts, the strongest take what they wish and the weak die.”

  “Beasts don’t think, not in any way like to us,” she said stubbornly, but she could not answer his question. God had so ordered the world, with regnants above and slaves below and the rest each in their own place. How could she change it?

  “Yet I will teach any person who comes to me, no matter their station,” she said, peeling the sour skin from a grape and tasting the sweet center. “They must only show themselves willing and able to learn.”

  He chuckled. “Anyone, lady? Even these two Jinna idolaters?”

  Gnat and Mosquito were watching her in the manner of dogs hoping to catch their master’s intent and mood. She was still learning to tell them apart. Mosquito was the one with the round scar on his left cheek and a missing tooth. Gnat had broader shoulders, a broader face, and was missing the thumb on his right hand.

  “Would you learn the sorcerer’s skill, if you could?” she asked them in Jinna. “Master the knowledge of the stars?”

  They considered, looking into each other’s faces as if what one thought, the other could read by means of a lip quirked upward or the wrinkle in a brow.

  Finally, Mosquito spoke. “Who would teach us, Bright One?”

  “I would.”

  Again they spoke to each other by means of expression alone, and this time when they were finished, Gnat replied. “We will do as you command, lady.”

  “But do you wish it?”

  “Yes, lady,” they said.

  Breschius smiled, watching them. “What do they say?”

  “I don’t know whether they wish to please me, or to learn!”

  “It is for this reason that princes must defend themselves against flatterers. Slaves are in some measure like courtiers, because they fear—rightly enough—that they have no existence without the good favor of the master. Therefore, it can never be known whether they speak truth, or lie to protect themselves.”

  She smiled, liking him very well. “Have some more grapes, Brothe
r. I pray you, do not flatter me only because you think I desire it, for I do not. I think we should see if there are any likely disciplas among our party in addition to these two. If you agree to this task, I will expect you to teach what you learn to others, and to be my captain. If you will.”

  He considered her with an unnerving intentness, as though he saw a different face hiding behind her own. “Will you raise an army of sorcerers and become an empress?”

  “I have no taste for empire. I do not wish to rule over others and make them do my bidding. I don’t need a court of flatterers surrounding me! If I can defeat Anne, then I want to delve into the mysteries of the heavens and of Earth. There is so much to know and understand. That will be enough for me.”

  A smile touched his lips, then vanished. “You remind me of someone I once knew,” he murmured, “who was dear to me.” He inclined his head, touched fingers to forehead in a gesture of respect, and met her gaze. “I will be your captain, my lady.” His expression held a spark of laughter; he rubbed the stump of his missing hand and pressed it against his chest, over his heart. “I will gladly serve as you command.”

  Sanglant always had a hard time sitting still, but sit he did for the entire afternoon under the shade of a canopy that was all that sheltered him from a hot summer sun. The supplicants waiting for a turn to speak to him had no such shelter, but he had directed Captain Fulk to make sure that each soul there was given a cup of something to drink, although it depleted the army’s stores. The stories had begun to sound the same, and yet every woman and man who knelt before him grieved his heart.

  “I pray you, Your Highness. No rain fell all summer and the wheat died on the stalk. We’ve nothing to eat but berries and grass, and nothing to lay in for stores for the winter.”

  “God help us, Your Highness. Bandits have raided our village twice. My daughter and son were stolen.”

  “It was the plague killed my family, all but me and my cousin, Your Highness. We didn’t dare bury them, it was so bad. We had to abandon our village.”

  “I pray you, Your Highness. Help us.”

  Although he had nothing to give them, each one went away lightened, as if the touch of his hand alone could ease their troubles. As if the griffins he had tamed made him a saint. His mood was sour and his shoulders itched from the sweaty tunic, but he dared not show discomfort. His trivial cares were nothing compared to the suffering these people had endured.

  The field in which his army camped lay in the marchlands, in border country where no person quite knew what land lay under the suzerainty of which lady or lord. Most of the folk here believed they lived in Eastfall, but few were certain; their concerns were more immediate and so pressing that they braved a camp inhabited by two gleaming griffins, one staked and hooded but the other roaming free.

  “There’s two noble families at feud, Your Highness. They’ve begun stealing our sheep although we’re just farming folk. Their quarrels mean nothing to us. Can you stop them?”

  “My lord prince, our monastery was burned by the Quman and half the monks killed, those who hadn’t time to hide. All our precious vessels and vestments were stolen by the barbarians. We lost our entire crop, for there wasn’t anyone to harvest it.”

  The petitioner, Brother Anselm, clearly chewed his nails, and looked as if he wished he could do so now as he glanced toward that section of camp where war bands of eight Quman tribes had set up their tents. Their wings fluttered in a rising wind blowing up from the southeast; their banners snapped. Gyasi stood directly behind Sanglant with arms crossed, his blank expression more terrifying than any glower.

  “Be at ease, Brother,” said Sanglant. “These Quman serve me, not their former master. Go on.”

  The monk bobbed his head too quickly and stammered as he continued. “W-we live as well as we can in the ruins, but this summer two score foundling boys were left at the gatehouse. One was just an infant. No doubt their families can’t feed them. The older ones are good and eager workers, but we need seed to plant winter wheat, and for next spring’s planting as well, and stores to tide us over this coming winter.”

  It was getting near dusk, with dark clouds piling up on that wind, and he had spoken to no more than half the folk who waited here, some of whom had walked for days upon hearing that his army was marching through this region. Twenty score or more of them camped nearby, perhaps most of the population of the surrounding region. A few seemed eager to join his troop or to follow along behind the rear guard. Many seemed simply to desire assurance that someone, anyone, meant to protect them from whatever disaster would strike next. He could promise them so little, yet that he listened at all, that he had set foot in this land, seemed enough for most of them.

  It burned at his heart. Henry should never have abandoned Wendar to chase after dreams of empire. Henry was needed here. The time to chase an empire was when your own house was strong, not when it was tottering.

  “My lord prince!” Hathui strode up, her cloak flapping as the wind gusted. She was damp but in good spirits, with a grin that seemed likely to split her face. “I bring news from Walburg. And from the fire.”

  Walburg meant Villam, but the fire meant that Hathui had at long last spoken to Liath through flame. He beckoned impatiently to one of his stewards. “Bring the Eagle something to drink!”

  A soldier brought wine. Although it was turning, so sharp he could smell the flavor of vinegar, she gulped it down as wind shook the awning and made the tents and banners dance all down the long slope where the army had pitched camp. There was a commotion at the far edge of the tents, where Hathui’s escort was moving in and, no doubt, startling the new recruits who had joined up in the days since he had sent Hathui and her escort on their detour to Walburg while continuing his own southwestward march.

  It was hard to wait, but he did; he reined himself in, tapping one foot on the ground in a staccato until she was at long last finished although it hadn’t taken her more than ten breaths.

  “What news?” he asked in a low voice. “What news of Liath?”

  “Each night at dusk I’ve lit a fire and taken off my amulet and looked into the flame, just as we planned, but I’ve seen nothing. Until last night. She’s at Verna.”

  “Verna” The name rocked him; he pushed so hard with his legs that his chair teetered, and Gyasi leaned forward to stop it tipping over.

  Hathui shifted to put more of her weight on her other knee, the one not plagued by an old injury. “Verna. That’s what she said. She thinks it likely they’ll cross back into the crowns tonight.”

  It chafed him, for he had no skill to speak or see through fire, but perhaps it was for the best not to have to see her and hear her voice. That would be torment. Even the centaurs were beginning to look attractive to him, and he did his best to keep women well away from him. It was the only way to keep his promise to her.

  “We’ve been five months marching at a hard pace,” he said at last, “yet she leaps farther in one step.”

  “So be it, my lord prince. We have each chosen our own path. Had you willed it, you might have crossed through the crowns, but you needed to shepherd the griffins and raise your army.”

  “So I did. What of Villam? Has Lord Druthmar returned with you?”

  “He has. The milites who marched east have gone back to their farms, all but the soldiers. He comes at the head of an army of five hundred, which is all the margrave can spare. These are her words: ‘My lord prince, march south if you must, but be swift in this task. Wendar suffers and will break apart if you linger too long in the southern lands as does your father. Beware. There are those in the southern lands who know the gift of Eagle’s Sight. They will spy you out if they can, and prepare where they must. Go in haste. Bring home the crown and the mantle that will rule Wendar in peace once more.’”

  He grunted, and brushed his fingers over the gold torque at his neck that Waltharia had given him, symbol of his descent from the royal line. “Is it my father she wishes to rule Wendar, or me?”
he asked softly.

  Hathui’s smile cut. “The margrave wishes for prosperity and peace, as do we all. That her people have not suffered as badly as some is due to her wise and prudent stewardship.”

  “What do you think, Eagle? Ought I to remain in Wendar and restore what I can?”

  She would not be drawn. “I am the king’s Eagle, my lord prince. I serve Henry. It is to Henry that I desire to return. Free him, and he will return to Wendar of his own volition and set all things right.”

  “Very well. What of supplies?”

  “Ten wagons.”

  He gestured to a steward. “Let two bags of seed grain be given to Brother Anselm. Brother.” The monk crept forward, tears in his eyes. “Husband this grain well. Your monastery must become a refuge to all folk who suffer in difficult times. Hold fast.”

  The monk kissed his hand, weeping openly. “Bless you, Your Highness.” The steward led him away.

  “Let the next one approach.”

  A brawny man with arms the size of tree trunks shuffled forward; he was lame in one leg. His face looked odd until Sanglant realized that he lacked eyebrows. His face was red, but his gaze was steady.

  “I am a smith out of Machteburg, my lord prince. By name of Johann.”

  “How goes it in Machteburg? That’s a long walk from that town to this place, if I judge it rightly.”

  “A long walk, it’s true, but I came east hearing a report that my sister’s village was besieged by barbarians, these Quman. By the time we came, we saw no sign of them for they’d ridden on west into Avaria.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Still living, thank God. I stayed to help her people rebuild their village and forge weapons. I married again, for my wife died two years back of the lung fever. But I found these things out in the woodland where we went to get trees for the palisade.”

  He gestured to the trio of men who followed at his heels and they opened leather bags and poured out a treasure trove of armor, pieces large and small as well as two complete suits of mail. The prince picked up a shoulder piece stamped with a dragon rampant and turned it in his hands. A gold tabard had been washed and mended, but many small tears and cuts obscured the black embroidery that adorned the front. Last of all they set down a shield; its rim had splintered and half of the middle had been stove in, but it was still possible to make out the remains of a dragon rampant matching that on the tabard and the shoulder piece.