She shrieked out loud and scrambled backward, so terrified that she couldn’t gulp down the sobs that burst from her chest.
Wolfhere started up. The fire winked out, that fast, to become ashes and one last spark of heat, a dying cinder, gone. “Liath!”
She jumped up and ran out to the half-built palisade, logs felled and sharpened and driven into a ditch to make a barrier against the beasts of the forest. She leaned against one of the stout posts. With the bark peeled off, oak lay smooth against her shoulder and cheek; the foresters had done their work well, for the post did not shift beneath her weight.
She was still shaking.
An owl hooted and its shadow fluttered past, then vanished into the night.
“Ai, Lady,” she whispered to the silent witness of stars and night breeze and the many busy animals about their nocturnal labors. “Sanglant.”
II
A LILY AMONG THORNS
1
IVAR had never prayed so much in his life, not even in his first year as a novice at Quedlinhame. His knees ached constantly. But Baldwin had taken it into his head that if he prayed enough he could protect himself from his bride’s attentions: He hoped that even a powerful margrave would be loath to disturb a young man at prayer, no matter how long she had been waiting to get her hands on him.
So it proved for the first five days after they left Quedlinhame. But Ivar had ears, and he had grown up with sisters. Margrave Judith wasn’t so old that her holy courses had ceased. He even caught a glimpse of a stained cloth laid reverently on a blazing hearth fire.
Women were specially holy at their bleeding time, not to be corrupted by base desire. Even a noblewoman such as Judith followed the wisdom of the church mothers in such matters. Ivar suspected that all Baldwin’s praying was a pretty show that counted for very little except to whet his bride’s appetite; sometimes while praying, Ivar glanced sidelong at the margrave watching Baldwin, who did indeed pray beautifully.
“You oughtn’t to pray unless you pray from your heart,” said Ivar. “It’s a sin.”
It was late afternoon on yet another day of travel, west, toward the king. Ivar rode a donkey, as was fitting for a novice, but Baldwin had been given a proud black gelding to ride. No doubt Margrave Judith could not resist the chance to display two handsome creatures together.
Right now, however, Baldwin came as close to scowling as he ever could. “You scold like Master Pursed-Lips. I am praying from my heart! You don’t imagine I want to marry her, do you?”
“As if you have a choice.”
“If the marriage is not consummated, then it is no marriage.”
Ivar sighed. “She’s no worse than any other woman. You’ll have fine clothes to wear, excellent armor, and a good iron sword. You’ll have the Quman barbarians to fight in the march country. It won’t be so bad.”
“I don’t like her,” said Baldwin in the tone of a child who has never before had to accept anything he didn’t like. “I don’t want to be married to her.” He cast a glance forward where Lady Tallia rode beside Margrave Judith. “I’d even rather marry—”.
“She isn’t to be married!” hissed Ivar in a low voice, suddenly angry. “Not by anyone! God has chosen her to be Her handmaiden, to be the uncorrupted bride of Her Son, the blessed Daisan, as all nuns ought to pledge themselves to be.”
“Why can’t I be chosen?” murmured Baldwin plaintively.
“Because you’re a man. Women serve God by tending Her hearth, for they are made in God’s image and it is their duty to administer to all that She creates.”
“If you preach a heresy,” whispered Baldwin, “then the church will punish you.”
“Martyrdom isn’t punishment! The heathen Dariyans rewarded the blessed Daisan by flaying him alive and cutting out his heart. But God gave him life again, just as martyrs live again in the Chamber of Light.”
Baldwin flicked a fly away from his face as he considered the women riding at the front of the procession. “Do you suppose Margrave Judith will be lifted up to the Chamber of Light when she dies, or will she be flung into the Abyss?”
At the vanguard rode some twenty guardsmen, soldiers fitted out in tabards sewn with a leaping panther. After them came Margrave Judith herself. She had a proud carriage, silvering hair, and a handsome profile marked in particular by a strong nose; she wore a tunic of the richest purple, a hue Ivar had never seen before and marveled at now, embroidered so cunningly with falcons stooping upon fleeing hares and panthers springing upon unsuspecting deer that at odd moments he thought he had glimpsed a real scene, not one caught by silk thread on linen. Riding beside the margrave, Tallia looked frail with her head bowed humbly and her shoulders curved as though under a great weight; she still dressed as simply as a novice, in a coarse robe with a shawl draped modestly over her head. Other attendants surrounded them, laughing and joking. Judith preferred women as companions; of the nobles, clerics, stewards, servants, grooms, carters, and humble slaves who attended her, almost all were female, with the exception of most of her soldiers and two elderly fraters who had served her mother before her. She rode at the head of a magnificent procession. Of the entourages Ivar had seen, only the king’s had been larger.
“Why would such a powerful noble be flung into the pit?” Ivar replied finally. “Except that she is in error about the Holy Word and the truth of the blessed Daisan’s death and life. But that is the fault of the church, which denies the truth to those eager to hear the Holy Word. I suppose Margrave Judith will endow a convent at her death and the nuns there will pray for her soul every day. So why shouldn’t she ascend to the Chamber of Light, with so many nuns praying so devoutly for the care of her soul once she is dead?”
Baldwin sighed expansively. “Then why should I bother to be good, if it only means that I’ll endure for eternity next to her in the Chamber of Light after I’m dead?”
“Baldwin! Didn’t you listen at all to the lessons?” Ivar realized at that moment that Baldwin’s rapt attentive gaze, so often turned on Master Pursed-Lips, Brother Methodius, and their other teachers, might have all this time concealed his complete mental absence from their lessons. “In the Chamber of Light all of our earthly desires will be washed away in the glory of God’s gaze.”
At that instant the margrave chanced to look back toward them. The gleam in her eyes caused poor Baldwin to look startled and abruptly shy, but unfortunately Baldwin’s modesty only highlighted the length of his eyelashes, the curve of his rosy cheeks, and the blush of his lips. The margrave smiled and returned her attention to her companions, who laughed uproariously at some comment she now made. Like a cat, she gained great pleasure in toying with the plump mouse she had snared.