In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

The girl had pinched, unattractive features. Her skin was blotchy, neither dark nor pale, and she seemed all mismatched somehow, nose too small, lips too large, nothing quite right on her. Her sullen expression only exaggerated her sour looks.

“Must you make so much noise!” cried the lady, turning to glare at Ivar and Johanna. “Aren’t you finished yet, bumbling around like cattle?”

“Yes, my lady. I pray pardon, Your Highness,” said Johanna in a mild voice. “But I am always taken by the holy whisper of God when I pause here. It’s as if I hear Her voice, whenever you pray.”

Tallia’s expression softened, although she still had a tight grip on her daughter’s tiny wrist. The child whimpered as the princess frowned. “That’s right. I’ve seen you before. I remember you. What is your name?”

“I’m called Johanna, Your Highness. After the discipla who was martyred in such a cruel way, yet loving God and professing Her worship and Her Unity, now and forever.”

Horribly, that fervid gaze turned on Ivar, and he ducked his head but not before seeing how her eyes narrowed and a cunning, frightened look came to her face. “Who is this, then? He looks familiar, but I don’t know …”

“He’s my cousin from the countryside, Your Highness, come new to town. He was here some months back helping out but had to go back to aid his ill mother, who passed up to the Chamber of Light after many months of agonizing sickness, may God grant her peace now that she is well shut of the world.” Johanna was a babbler, and it was obvious she had learned long since how to lie to avoid the lady’s ill temper.

Ivar kept his shoulders bowed and his face cast down, hoping Tallia would not recognize him.

“Does he believe in the Redemption? I’ll have no servant toiling in my house who is a heretic!”

“Oh, he believes, indeed, Your Highness!”

d the smaller audience chamber lay a series of rooms that housed her attendants and clerics. They passed through the tiny room set aside for her schola, dark and empty now. The sloped writing desks were veiled by shadows, and chests and cabinets sealed tight against vermin. Beyond that lay a handsome chapel, lit at this hour by a dozen lamps molded into the shape of guivres. Quietly, they set down the buckets next to a trio of braziers. A woman knelt on cold stone although there were carpets aplenty to cushion her knees. Her wheat-colored hair was braided back from her face and covered with a mesh of gold wire threaded with pearls, held in place with a golden coronet. Because her back was to them, Ivar could not see her face, but he did not need to see her face. He had stared at her back, at her profile, at her pale, drawn features through that hole in the fence in Quedlinhame often enough that he would know her anywhere and instantly. It wasn’t only her rich burgundy underrobe and fur-lined overtunic that betrayed her as a woman of highest station. It wasn’t only the heavy golden torque shackling her slender neck that announced her royal status.

He recognized as well that particular way she had of clasping her hands, perfected in those days when it had hurt her to press her palms together because of the weeping sores, her stigmata, the mark of her holiness and the sign of the Lady’s favor. The ones she had inflicted herself, by digging at her skin with a nail, so Hathumod claimed.

If Tallia had been lying about the sores, then was it possible she had lied about the heresy as well? What if the phoenix was a lie?

Nay, God had sent Tallia to test their faith. She was the flawed vessel that leaked God’s word but could never hold it. They had seen the truth when the phoenix rose and healed Sigfrid.

She prayed all in a rush, words crammed together.

“Let them be chaff in the wind.

Let their path be dark and precipitous.

Let the unworthy fall to their deaths.

They hid a net to trap me.

They dug a pit to swallow me.

Let that net trap them, and the pit swallow them!”

Meanwhile, Johanna, the servant, transferred ash into the empty buckets and hot coals into the braziers.

“Are we done?” asked a childish voice.

“Do not disturb me!” Tallia exploded. Leaning back, she exposed a small child kneeling on bare floor in a position that had, previously, concealed her existence from Ivar. She cracked the little girl across the cheek, her own expression suffused with rage. By the movement of her body under her robes, it was obvious she was hugely pregnant. “How many times have I told you!”

“I don’t want to pray so many times. Papa said—”

“You’ll fall into the Abyss with the others! You’ll do as I say, Berengaria!”

The girl had pinched, unattractive features. Her skin was blotchy, neither dark nor pale, and she seemed all mismatched somehow, nose too small, lips too large, nothing quite right on her. Her sullen expression only exaggerated her sour looks.

“Must you make so much noise!” cried the lady, turning to glare at Ivar and Johanna. “Aren’t you finished yet, bumbling around like cattle?”

“Yes, my lady. I pray pardon, Your Highness,” said Johanna in a mild voice. “But I am always taken by the holy whisper of God when I pause here. It’s as if I hear Her voice, whenever you pray.”

Tallia’s expression softened, although she still had a tight grip on her daughter’s tiny wrist. The child whimpered as the princess frowned. “That’s right. I’ve seen you before. I remember you. What is your name?”