In the Ruins

  Astronomy concerns itself with the revolutions of the heavens, the rising and setting of the constellations, their movements and names, the motions of the stars and planets, Sun and Moon, and the laws governing these motions and all their variations.

  “Are you reading? Your lips aren’t moving.”

  Liath was so startled she almost overset the bench, and then was so embarrassed that she laughed nervously as she identified the tall woman who had slipped quietly into the tent and stood examining the furnishings with interest: a bed, a table, two chairs, two chests, two benches, and a half dozen carpets overlapping each other.

  “It is true, then. The servants must all sleep outside. I heard that in Arethousa the emperor dines in solitude at the high table, not sharing his platter or his conversation with his companions. It must be an eastern custom.”

  “Margrave Waltharia.” She rose. “Pray, be seated.”

  “Thank you.” She sat on the bench next to Liath, very close, and Liath had to sit down right next to her or risk insulting her offer of intimacy. She was dressed in skirts cut for riding, and she smelled of horses. “So, it transpires that you are not the great granddaughter of Emperor Taillefer.”

  “I was misled,” said Liath cautiously, “by the woman who claimed to be my mother.”

  “You could have lied. No one would know differently, since according to all reports it is certain that the Holy Mother Anne—who claimed to be your mother—is now dead.”

  “It isn’t the truth, so it would be wrong to say it was. Anyway, I never desired to be born to such a position.”

  “Yet you carry yourself as if it is already understood.” The words were said without rancor. Waltharia was not angry or suspicious, only blunt. “You are a puzzle. And you do gleam a little, in this dim light.”

  “Do I?” she asked, genuinely surprised. She looked at her hands but could see nothing unusual.

  “Did you not before?”

  “I don’t know. No one ever said anything.” No one but Hugh, but that was too intimate a confession to make to a woman she did not know, and one who had been, in times past, her husband’s most famous lover. “Would you marry him, if you could?” Liath asked. “Mother Scholastica suggested it.”

  Waltharia shook her head without any sign that the question irritated her. “She’s a canny tactician. She was only saying that to draw out a reaction from the others. She’d no more wish me wed to Sanglant than Gerberga or Theophanu would.”

  “But would you?”

  She smiled. She was not a beautiful woman, the kind who turns heads, but she was attractive, and strong, and healthy, and her gaze was clean and clear. She had power and knew how to wield it. “No, I would not, although you are right to wonder, because I am powerfully attracted to him. I might have when I was young and my dear father was still alive—years ago—but what I wish for has changed. I am margrave of the Villam lands. There is much to be gained for a family who can hold on in the marchlands. I take the long view. Marriage to Sanglant would not substantially aid my house in any way that my loyalty to the Wendish throne does not already do. And it would restrict my power. No, I have in mind to marry Lord Wichman.”

  “Wichman! You can’t be serious! He’s a beast …”

  Waltharia was already chuckling.

  Liath smiled awkwardly. “Ah. You were only joking.”

  “It would be more tempting if he were not quite so coarse. To marry a son of the royal house would bring an important alliance to my family. Still, I have in mind some lord out of Varre, one who will be grateful for a measure of distance between him and his older siblings. Sanglant promises to bring one back for me when the progress returns from Varre.”

  “Will he know what you would like?” Liath felt herself bit as she said it, wondering how Sanglant might understand a woman like Waltharia so well that she would trust him to find her a husband.

  Waltharia’s mood turned somber with startling ease. Her face remained calm, but her hands twisted up the fabric of her riding skirt. “Druthmar was a good man. My father chose him for me. I mourn him. You know, they never found his body. I must believe he is dead, but it is hard not to hope and pray that he is still alive and may somehow find his way back to me.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Waltharia looked at her for a long moment, then smiled softly and sadly. “So you are. I thank you for it.”

  Liath traced one end of the book compulsively, not knowing what to say next. The situation seemed so odd to her. At last, she blurted out, “I don’t know why you’re here. What do you want?”

  “Your measure. You are a puzzle, and in a way you are an obstacle. I believe that Sanglant will be a better regnant for Wendar than any of his legitimate siblings. Wendar needs a strong regnant in these dark days.”

  “That’s true. I know why you think I am an obstacle.”

  “Do you? Sanglant is so companionable and amiable and competent that it is easy to forget he is also like a dog in refusing to give up the things he craves. His father spoiled him. Even Queen Sophia—a very fine and strong-minded woman who was particular about her prerogatives—let the boy run wild in her chambers. He means to become regnant, despite being a bastard. He means to have you as his queen, despite the objections of most of the noble lords and clerics in this realm, who quite rightly object to your lack of rank, your suspicious heritage, and the evident fact that you know sorcery. That’s leaving aside the charge of heresy, and the excommunication. How these two desires can be reconciled is the question. I admit he has wrung victory out of defeat in terrible situations, but this battlefield is not the one he is accustomed to. Do you aspire to be queen, to rule beside him?”

  “No, in truth, I do not. But I won’t leave him.”

  “Ah. And if a compliant young woman of suitable rank can be found—God help her!—who would agree to be queen and accept you as his concubine? Would you accept such an arrangement?”

  Liath frowned, but she owed him this much, that she truly consider such a course of action. Waltharia waited, perfectly at ease as the light from outside faded and the space within the tent darkened until every shape was only a deeper cast of shadow, even her own. From beyond the walls of the tent came the many noises of the camp settling down as twilight fell over them: horses stomping and blowing, men singing or calling out orders, a wagon’s creaking rumble as objects were moved, a dog’s bark, the distant piercing cry of the golden griffin as it soared above. Liath felt herself caught within the inner heart of the camp, unseen but measured as the outer seeming went about its public life.

  “No, I couldn’t live with such an arrangement.”

  Waltharia nodded. “So be it.” Nothing in her tone revealed whether she approved or disapproved of Liath’s answer. “It can be done, but it will not be easy. You must agree to be patient and to work at this one step at a time.”

  “I can be patient. There is a thing he lacks, Lady Waltharia.”

  “Is there?” she said with a laugh. “I have not yet discovered it, then. No, I pray you, I am only jesting. What do you need?”

  “You see in what manner we are dressed. Sanglant’s road has been a difficult one. He and his army escaped the cataclysm with little more than their weapons and horses and the clothes on their backs. A regnant cannot be anointed and crowned without vestments appropriate to such a ceremony.”

  “Yes, it’s well you warned me. I will see that suitable robes are brought, although it will be difficult with his height. Still, it can be managed.” Unexpectedly, she reached out and took Liath’s hand in hers. “Ah. Your skin is warm. Do you have a fever?”

  “No. I’m never sick with such things.”

  “Is it true?” she whispered. “That your mother was a daimone of the upper air? A creature of fire?”

  “It’s true.”

  “What does it mean? Do you have a soul?”

  “All creatures created by God have souls.”

  “Can you fly, as it is said daimones can?” br />
  All at once, grief choked her as she remembered what she had lost. Barely, she was able to rasp out the words, although she didn’t know why she should confess something so dangerous, so terrible, and so private to a woman she scarcely knew. Her rival. Possibly her ally.

  “Once I could, but not on Earth. Only in the heavens.”

  “Have you walked in the heavens? Have you seen the Chamber of Light?”

  “No. Only souls unchained by death can walk there. But I have climbed through the armature of the spheres, I have climbed the ladder of the heavens. I have seen … such things that I weep to recall them. So much light.”

  “As in the prophet’s vision. Yet you are here.”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  “You were forced to return?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did you come back of your own volition, for him?”

  “For him,” she said hoarsely. “For the child.”

  “Ah.” She turned Liath’s hand over and placed the tip of a finger in the middle of Liath’s palm, as if reading something from that touch. “That was a great sacrifice. I think even Mother Scholastica does not understand this.”

  “Why are you here, Lady Waltharia?”

  “Do you think I mean to curry favor for my family by befriending you?”

  “I admit … I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I have already told you. Wendar suffers, and Sanglant will be a strong regnant. To support him, I will support you. But you must help me. No more scenes like the one played today in Mother Scholastica’s study. Do not hand them the weapon they can use to pierce you with.”

  “Yes, I understand that. I thought she would be my ally. She is a scholar! She ought to want to know the truth!”

  “She is a daughter of the royal line and the most powerful abbess in the land. Scholarship is not her first consideration.”

  “No, perhaps not.”

  “Have you taken thought to what you will do when Sanglant goes to the church to be crowned and anointed?”

  “Not yet. A little.”

  Waltharia nodded. “If there is aught else you wish to ask me, if you desire my counsel, send the Eagle with a message. My stewards know that she is allowed into my presence at any hour of day or night.”

  “The Eagle?”

  Waltharia released her hand and stood. “The one who witnessed my father’s murder.”

  She left as precipitously as she had come. In her wake, a woman entered bearing a lantern whose commonplace flame illuminated her familiar face and wry smile.

  “Hathui! Were you outside all this time?”

  “I brought the margrave here.”

  “Ah. It would make sense that you must speak with the margrave about her father, and what you saw.”

  “Yes, for my own part. For yours, however, she is only the first.”

  “The first?”

  Hathui hung the lamp from one of the horizontal poles that supported the canvas ceiling. Then she turned, still smiling, and shook her head as she might at a child who refuses to go to bed when she’s told. “Who will approach you, to gain your favor and your notice.”

  “There are others?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Hathui wickedly. “But I’ve put off the rest until tomorrow.”

  Liath laughed helplessly, angrily, and wiped tears from her eyes. “Books are easier to understand.”

  “For some.”

  “Ai, God, Hathui. What am I to do?”

  “Learn quickly.”

  Hathui’s scarlet-trimmed Eagle’s cloak was certainly the worse for so much wear, and it had been mended in a dozen spots. Her brass Eagle’s badge glowed in the lamplight.

  “It was easier riding as an Eagle,” said Liath. “I remember when I first saw you and Manfred. And Wolfhere.”

  “I remember,” said Hathui in a low voice, frowning.

  “Do you think Wolfhere is dead?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t see him through the crown. He wasn’t one of those weaving the spell. But Hugh was. It’s strange, now that I reflect on it. It was only a touch, at the end, but he was thinking of you.”

  “Hugh of Austra was thinking of me?” Hathui’s voice shook, and real fear creased her lips and eyes.

  That expression made Liath recall that day back in Heart’s Rest when Wolfhere had rescued her from Hugh. She had been so weak then, not in body so much as in spirit. As skittish as a calf, Hanna had once said. Hathui hadn’t seemed frightened then. In fact, she had seemed as clever and strong as any woman can be who knows herself and her power and her place in the world and is satisfied with all of these things.

  “The one who thought of you was with Hugh. Hugh was using him to absorb the power of the backlash that comes at the tail of such a powerful spell. Hugh must have known that the people who wove the spell would die, so he sacrificed this other man in his place.”

  “Who are you speaking about? I already know Hugh is a murderer twice over.”

  “Three times, then. This other man thought—that he would never see you again unless you met on the other side.”

  “The other side?”

  “I don’t know where that is.”

  “I know,” Hathui whispered hoarsely. Even in lamplight, with shadows thrown helter-skelter by the sway of the lamp, it was easy to see how the blood had drained from her face. “My grandmother was an unrepentant heathen. Even after she professed to enter the Circle of Unity she still set out offerings for the Old Ones. You said Hugh is a murderer three times. What did you mean?”

  “It was no one I had ever met, but I felt a kinship with him. He was seeking the same thing I seek. The heart of the universe. His name …” So much had happened so quickly; the spell had overwhelmed her. She had grasped his name, but she could not remember it.

  “It must have been Zacharias!” murmured Hathui, weeping. “Is he dead, then? Truly dead?”

  “Yes. I felt him die, through the spell. Who is he?”

  Hathui sank to the carpet as she sobbed. Liath knelt beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder, but she was helpless to comfort her.

  “M-my brother. Ai, God. How? How?”

  “Hugh of Austra was part of Anne’s weaving.”

  “You destroyed the spell by killing Holy Mother Anne.”

  “No. I killed Anne, it’s true. I did my part. But I had allies, whose names I do not know. It was the plan made by the ancient ones. I was only the final weapon they unleashed. Zacharias did his part as well. How they came in contact with him I do not know, but in the end he cast himself into the crown that Hugh was weaving. Northeast of here, somewhere out beyond the marchlands. Because of what he did, the entire northern span of the weaving was knotted and tangled and thereby ruined.”

  “Zacharias did that?” Hathui gasped through her tears.

  Not alone, Liath thought, but she hesitated. Others had done their part. Pale creatures erupting out of paler sands had consumed Brother Severus. An Eika prince had killed the pair of clerics weaving the crown in Alba.

  “Zacharias accepted death, to save what he loved most.”

  For a long time they remained without moving, Hathui weeping, Liath beside her, wishing she knew what words of comfort would ease Hathui’s grief but keeping silence, because silence was all she had to offer. A gust of wind rocked the tent, and long after it had departed the lantern’s metal handle squeaked softly against the wooden pole as it swung back and forth, back and forth, the light cresting and troughing in the corners until at last the motion stilled.

  “Ai, God,” Hathui breathed. “So he is gone. Truly gone. Oh, Zacharias. He was probably afraid.”

  “We’re all afraid. What lies within us can be as fearful a thing as all those terrors that lie without. He had courage when he needed it.”

  “That is enough,” said Hathui through her tears. She sat back on her heels and placed a hand over Liath’s. “I
’ll stand by you, Liath, whatever comes.”

  “Will you stand by Sanglant?”

  “He has already won my loyalty.”

  “Then I accept your offer gladly, Hathui, and I’ll tell you, there is none I value more.”

  Hathui’s gaze narrowed as she examined Liath’s face. “Did you know your eyes shine when it’s dark? I never noticed that before. It’s like a touch of blue fire. What lies within you, truly, Liath?”

  “Power enough,” said Liath softly, “that I am afraid of what it can do if let go unchecked.”

  “No!” said Sanglant from outside, clearly annoyed, “but let word be brought to me at once if there is any news.”

  Liath stood. Sanglant entered, and indeed he looked mightily irritated. Then he saw Hathui. He knelt at once to set a hand on her shoulder.

  “What is this? Have you come to some hurt?”

  “No, Your Majesty. Liath recalled a vision she had. She knows what became of my brother.”

  “Brother Zacharias?”

  “Yes. He is dead.”

  “Ah.” He glanced at Liath. She nodded, and briefly told him the tale. “I am sorry. Brother Zacharias was a troubled man, but a brave one. In his own fashion. This is yet one more crime to add to Hugh of Austra’s list.”

  “There is no sign of him, I take it,” said Liath.

  “None. I’ve heard more of the tale now. He arrived in Austra out of the east but would not say where he had come from, only that he needed shelter. Gerberga brought him with her when she came west to visit Theophanu in Osterburg. Now Hugh has vanished. He must have plotted it all along. Give you the damning book, and fly away so that the taint could not touch him.”

  “Where can he fly?” Liath asked. “His sister’s lands are closed to him. He must guess she has turned against him. Burchard and Liutgard will turn him over to you if they find him in Fesse or Avaria. No one in the North Mark will trust him, if he even wanted to return to such a benighted place. Where can he go? Who will take him in?”

  “I’ve sent riders south and west. He might go to Varre, to offer his services to Sabella or Conrad, but Conrad never liked him either and Sabella has nothing to offer him. Where else can he go, then, except back to the poisonous nest where he gained so much power?”