The mask of stone had concealed Henry’s true face again. He said nothing, moved not at all, as certain brawny and unexpectedly attractive young men among Sabella’s retinue hurried forward and pried Tallia off her uncle before carrying her, still sobbing and writhing, away.
“Let us pray,” said Henry in the silence that followed, “that my blessed mother may rest in the peace she deserves, and that we may all be reconciled as God—and she—would wish.”
Biscop Constance bowed her head and lifted her hands as in prayer. “For it was sung in the city of Queen Salomae the Wise, ‘let there be peace among sisters and brothers.’” She looked at Henry in a way that suggested to Hanna that she and her brother had had a long conversation about this meeting. “Come.” She opened a hand to indicate that they should move forward. “Let us pray.”
It was Luciasmass, the first day of summer, and therefore a feast was laid out in the biscop’s hall. Hanna had almost become accustomed to the splendor of royal feasts, but even so, Biscop Constance’s table had the grandeur and sumptuousness of a feast set out in heaven. White linens swathed the tables, and at every place lay a folded knee covering—a table napkin embroidered with grapevines in green and purple. No person there did not sit on a cushioned bench, or eat off platters of gold or silver or brass, according to her station, that had been polished to such a high gloss that they could also have served as mirrors. Noble girls poured wine for the king and his royal siblings through delicate sieve spoons. A swan, decorated with its own feathers, was brought forward on a gold plate so heavy that it took two men to carry it. Haunches of beef still steaming from the spit were carried to the lower tables, and outside the hall chicken and pork were served to those who could not enter. On midsummer’s long afternoon they had no need of candles to light their merrymaking, but fully three harpists traded songs or joined together, not that their music could often be heard above the noise of the feasters or the throngs of petitioners who were led forward at intervals to entreat the king.
Hanna waited behind the king’s chair with Hathui and in this way was able to gain a bite of the coveted swan, dark meat swimming in a sauce so pungent that she had to shut her eyes as she savored it. The flavor was so overwhelming that she didn’t hear him come in among the newest crowd of arrivals, only heard the king make a terse comment, and then his familiar, grave voice, a man never afraid to speak before the regnant.
“I left Princess Theophanu in Aosta, Your Majesty. She was then whole and healthy, and she had arrived safely with most of her retinue intact after a tremendously difficult journey through the mountains. But as I reported to her myself, Queen Adelheid at that time lay under siege in the city of Vennaci. An Aostan warlord calling himself Lord John Ironhead has been determined to wed her since the news of her young husband’s death.”
It was indeed Wolfhere, as hale and hearty as ever if that were possible. He saw her standing beside Hathui, and Hanna could have sworn he winked. She was always surprised by how pleased she was to see him.
Henry grunted irritably before he took a sip of wine. “You know nothing more?” He swirled the dregs, staring into the cup like a conjureman of the old religion who could read fortunes from such leavings. “Damned stubborn child,” he muttered so softly that only his attendant Eagles and, perhaps, his sister Constance could hear him. “If he had obeyed me and gone—” But he trailed off, then held out his cup so that it could be refilled.
Sabella, at his left, regarded the Eagle who knelt before Henry with a quizzical eye, rather like a woman who wonders if the dancing bear can also talk. “I’ve heard news of this Ironhead from one of my clerics, who was educated in Aosta,” she said. “It’s rumored he murdered his nobly-born half brother and married the widow. But if he’s pursuing Queen Adelheid, the woman must be dead. Or retired to the convent.”
If Wolfhere was surprised to see Sabella feasting at table with her brother, he did not show it. He only inclined his head in agreement. “I met Lord John, Your Highness. I expect that retirement to a convent would be a merciful release from his attentions for a woman of noble breeding.”
Sabella snorted, looking well entertained.
“There is other news,” added Wolfhere. “While I was still in Karrone after crossing the mountains, we heard news that Ironhead had pursued Queen Adelheid and Princess Theophanu into the hills northwest of Vennaci. They took refuge at a small convent in the Capardian wilderness. Since then, I have heard nothing more.”
While Henry mulled over this troubling news, Hanna was given leave to take Wolfhere outside and see that he was fed.
“Why didn’t you stay with them?” she asked.
“I had other duties, as you know, Hanna, and other messages to deliver. How fares it with you?”
She sat with him and told him of her adventures while he picked clean half a chicken that was only slightly charred from too much roasting, then washed it down with bread and ale.
“What do you think these dreams mean?” she concluded. “Are they true visions, or false ones?”
“I cannot tell you. An indigestion in your stomach might cause them. Or it may be you have picked up a strange destiny. I have caught a stone in my shoe now and again, and once it was a beautiful agate that I polished and hung on a chain.” He smiled as at a very old memory. “Nay, I cannot say. I know little of the Eastern tribes.” He chuckled. “I met Prince Bayan in earlier days. Who would have thought Princess Sapientia would have liked him so well?”
“Who would have thought,” muttered Hanna, “that she would have liked him better than Father Hugh? Do you know where Liath is, Wolfhere?”
“Somewhere safe, I should hope,” he replied smoothly. “It would go ill for her to return to a court where she would face trial on the charge of sorcery.”
Since Wolfhere was always surprising her, it took her a moment to respond. “How can you know what happened at the Council of Autun? I only learned of it ten days ago when I joined the king’s progress.”
The summer evening had a drowsy light to it, not quite day and not quite night. “You have seen enough, Hanna,” he said at last. “I can trust you with the Eagle’s sight.”
“What is the Eagle’s sight?” she demanded, but she already had her suspicions.
“Meet me tomorrow at cockcrow out beyond the Lions’ encampment.” He would say no more.
In Taillefer’s chapel the clerics were singing Vigils as she made her way past stables and palace to the field where three hundreds of Lions had set up their campground, with small tents and larger pavilions, wagons placed in a corral, and a dirt arena roped off for training.
Some few Lions were up and about. As commoners and field soldiers, they marched with few servants, and part of their duties were to take care of themselves like the Dariyan legionnaires of old who, it was said, dug their own earthen forts each night when they were on campaign and moreover did not scorn doing so.
She could not pass the sentries without looking for her old friends, but as it happened, she found Ingo out by the wagons with a piece of sausage in his hand and a kitten hissing at him from behind a wagon wheel.
“Friend!” she called just as the kitten scratched, and he yelped, dropping the bit of sausage. The kitten scampered into a mound of straw lying heaped up along the axle. “Now that’s a dangerous foe,” she said, crouching beside him. “I beg pardon for startling you. It looks like a hard-fought battle.”
He sucked on his scratched finger. “Poor things. Their dam was run over by one of the water wagons yesterday and we’ve tried to coax them out, but they won’t come near even to take a bit of meat.”
The waning quarter moon hung low at the trees. The stars were fading as dawn grew around them.
“Skittish,” said Hanna. “So my dam always said, that you can’t shove a child among strangers and expect it to sing and dance.” He smiled. Picking up the sausage, he held it out again and clucked under his tongue, hoping to tease out the kittens. She heard their sharp and almost laughable hi
sses from their hiding place in the straw. “I haven’t seen your new recruit at the palace,” she added.
Ingo shrugged without taking his eyes off the straw, which had a pronounced wiggle and slip to it; briefly, a gray tail peeped through, then vanished. “Thiadbold’s captain of our company now,” he said, “and he’s decided to keep him busy here in the camp for the time being. No need to make him suffer more than he has already, poor lad. After all he went through, he hasn’t a bad word to say of anyone.”
“She turned on him,” said Hanna in a low voice. “But perhaps he was a bad husband.”
“Hush, friend,” said Ingo suddenly. He rose, and she shifted to see a tall figure coming down the line of wagons with a shovel resting on his shoulder and two huge dogs walking at his heels. He stumbled to a halt just before them and almost tripped. The dogs sat down as polite as you please, without a noise. But she saw who they were now, and she couldn’t help rising to face them, though they made not one threatening sound or movement.
“I beg your pardon, Ingo,” said Alain. “I didn’t see you.” He saw Hanna, too, and offered a polite greeting. Obviously he didn’t know who she was, and she wasn’t about to remind him of Liath, whom he might associate with happier days. He gestured toward the wagon. “Are we moving out today? I didn’t hear any orders.”
“Nay, not today. It’s those kittens—”
“Ah.” He, too, seemed to know about the kittens. He knelt by the wheel, setting the shovel down, and examined the now-motionless heap of straw.
This close to the shovel, Hanna could smell the pungent aroma of the pits and see bits of dirt and stickier substances clinging to the spade’s edge. He had been on nightsoil duty, an odd chore for a man who had not ten days ago walked among the great princes of the realm. But if the labor annoyed him, she could see no trace of resentment on his face; he had an interesting profile, clean, a little sharp because of the cut of his nose. His dark hair was growing out raggedly and had been caught back with a leather string. At this moment, he stared so intently at the straw that she wondered if he had forgotten she and Ingo crouched beside him. Slowly he extended a hand; he made the slightest whistling noise under his breath, hardly a sound at all, but the straw wiggled and shuddered and a tiny pink nose peeped out, then a second, beside it.
His hand did not move, nor had he taken the sausage from Ingo. The gray kitten slipped out of the straw and tottered skittishly forward, sniffed his fingers, then with its little pink tongue began to lick. A second shadow, more motley than gray, staggered out beside the first, followed by a third.
Hanna was afraid to move. Ingo seemed frozen with amazement, sausage dangling limp from his fingers. The hounds watched, eerily silent. One settled down to lick a paw.
After the kittens had licked Alain’s fingers, he turned his hand over slowly and stroked them until tiny purrs rumbled. Still moving cautiously, he scooped them up against his chest, where they settled down, faces hidden.
“I’ll take them to Cook,” he murmured. “Maybe they’ll take some cream.” He gestured with a foot toward the shovel. “I’ll come back—”
“Nay, comrade,” said Ingo. “I’ll take the shovel to its place.”
“Thank you,” said Alain, and with his burden and his disquieting attendants, he walked on down the line of wagons and vanished into camp.
“Well,” said Hanna. “What do you make of that?”
“He’s a strange one, in truth,” said Ingo, staring after Alain with a pensive expression. “Not disrespectful or arrogant, considering what he was. Nor is he humble and groveling either. You’d think he’d always been a Lion, really. Yet when I saw him sit among the lords, I never doubted he belonged there. And those hounds. Fierce as lions ’round anyone else but him, and with him they might as well be lambs.”
“I thought the hounds belonged to the Lavas counts! Didn’t they stay with Lord Geoffrey?”
“Nay, they’re here in camp. I don’t know if they followed him or if Lord Geoffrey turned them out. Still, it’s very odd.”
She left him there, thinking it odd herself, but she was late, and Wolfhere was waiting out beyond the sentries where a campfire burned. He was just feeding it another log when he saw her and indicated that she should sit down opposite him.
“I had hoped Hathui could come as well, but she must stay beside the king.”
“He trusts and respects her.”
“As he should,” retorted Wolfhere, but then he smiled his wolf’s grin, sharp, deadly, and oddly reassuring. “I’ve a trick to teach you. We call it Eagle’s Sight. It’s a way of seeing long distances through fire.”
Hanna laughed at such an absurd claim.
“Yet you believe me, don’t you?” he observed. “With proper training, many Eagles can learn to see through fire any person we have observed closely enough that we can form their likeness in our minds. In time, you may learn to hear voices within the flames as well, but that won’t happen at first. And I must warn you that some people simply are blind. If that proves so for you, Hanna, then think no worse of yourself.”
“Only envy those who aren’t blind!”
“Here, now. Look into the fire. See nothing, not even the flames. No, truly see nothing. Expect nothing. See what lies beyond the flames, not my hands or the trees or the camp, but that stillness which lies at the heart of all things. That stillness links all of us, and through it as through a window we can see.”
She sat as still as she could, just staring.
“Good,” he whispered. Clearly he felt something she did not. She felt only the heat of the flames and yet a taste of some other pulse, another thread that drew her toward the wasp sting in her heart. Shadows quivered in the flames, and for an instant she thought she saw the profile of the Kerayit princess. “Tell me who you see,” he murmured.
“Liath,” she whispered. “I want to see Liath.”
And she saw something truly, not flames, not shadows, but a wall, like a veil of fire. “Is that the Chamber of Light? Ai, God. Is she dead?”
“Or only hidden from us,” he replied so calmly that her fears dissolved. “You’re fast to catch on to this, Hanna. I begin to think your dreams are true dreams, and that some portion of your soul has already opened to these teachings.”
“But I don’t see anything!” Frustrated, she wiped a hand over her eyes, which stung from the smoke. “Ai, Lady! Isn’t this sorcery? Am I imperiling my immortal soul by doing this?”
He sat back, relaxing. “Nay, child. This skill you use for the sake of the king. With Eagle’s Sight you can gather intelligence hidden by distance or through intrigue. When you travel, you can find the king’s progress more easily if you know where he’s traveling.”
She chuckled. “Rather than track him always two days behind! No wonder you arrive so quickly, and with so few detours.”
“Have you seen enough? The sun is rising, and we’ve our duties to attend to.”
“And no doubt look a little crazy staring into the fire like this. But—may I try one more time? What about Prince Sanglant? Surely if he’s with Liath, then I would at least know where Liath is.”
He simply lifted a hand, as if he hadn’t the energy to dissuade her. Yet as the fire burned and snapped, she saw nothing, and she began to think that he was only humoring her, that she’d never seen anything at all in the flames.
“Well, then, one last time,” she said, because Mistress Birta’s daughter wasn’t one to give up so easily. “I tell you truly, Wolfhere, I’ve always wondered what became of Biscop Antonia and Brother Heribert, if they really did survive that avalanche. Lady knows I got to know their faces well enough. Poor Heribert. He seemed harmless enough. I always wondered why he was so loyal to her.”
At first she thought it was smoke, a wet branch caught in the middle of the fire. But the shadow spread and grew form, and Wolfhere made a little noise, almost inaudible, what a mouse might utter when the cat sprang upon it.
“We dare not delay any longer,” says a
woman whose silhouette is regal and whose voice is cool and measured. It is a familiar voice, but through the agency of flame Hanna cannot quite make out the secret of its timbre. “We left Novomo before we were certain the pass was open because we got word that Ironhead was marching north to take Adelheid into custody. He styles himself king of Aosta now.”
Was that hiss the flames, or Wolfhere?
A supplicant kneels before the great lady. “He meant to follow me at once, Your Highness. If he did not, then he was held against his will.”
More shapes cluster beyond the flames yet somehow still in them; they are like the shadows of buildings seen beyond a palisade, and one among them speaks. “We found nothing, Your Highness. The goat track runs out on the hillside, and the cliffs are too steep to climb. Either he is lying to save his own skin—”
“Or there is more magic loose than we have ever suspected,” says the regal woman. “After everything we have seen, I think we must believe the latter. Nay, I am convinced this man was with my brother. Can you not tell me more, Brother Heribert?”
Is this a true vision, or a false one? Hanna dared not speak for fear that her voice would scatter the shadows. Was it truly Brother Heribert? Where had he been hiding all this time?
“I can say no more except that he was alive and healthy when I left him. I fear to say any more, Your Highness. Some words are better left unspoken.”
“It’s a thin reed to build a bridge on,” says the man in the distant shadows.
“Once more, where is my brother?” she asks.
“If he did not follow, then he could not follow,” insists Heribert. “There are powers you do not comprehend—” He seems afraid to say more.
“What, then, do you suggest, Brother?” She sounds slightly exasperated, and Hanna begins to believe that the curve of her shoulders isn’t natural, it’s a cape, some item of clothing common to travelers; the regal woman is simply ready to leave and is only waiting to receive, or to give, the final word.