“Is our situation so desperate?”
In the dim light it was hard to see Theophanu’s expression clearly. Was that anger or anguish that flashed across her cool Arethousan features? “It is desperate enough. The good abbess has been generous with her stores. But we are seventy-five people and fifty horses in a convent that houses nine. There cannot be more than a week’s worth of food and fodder left. We have taken everything that the nuns have, and won no advantage against our enemy. If I give myself up to Ironhead, then we would not leave the nuns destitute.”
“A noble gesture, Your Highness. But we know what kind of man he is. He would make a poor husband.”
“He would make a husband. I have been patient, Sister. I despair of my father ever agreeing to marry me to any man, or even to the church. Ironhead is ambitious and ruthless. Am I any better in my heart? I would rather have a husband like Ironhead than wait for my father to marry again and displace me with younger children who please him more.”
“It is your words I heard in my dream! I thought it was another voice—”
Was that color in her cheeks? “I beg your pardon, Sister. I should not have spoken so rashly. The Enemy troubles my thoughts.”
“Be patient, Your Highness. Surely in this harsh land Ironhead is having trouble maintaining an army of three hundred men.”
“So we have hoped. But Ironhead is not stupid. I have other news.” Some tone in Theophanu’s cool voice made Rosvita dread what would come next. “You must come with me, Sister. You must see. I am not sure I can trust my own eyes.”
Such a statement could not help but kindle Rosvita’s curiosity, always a flammable thing. She rose and was pleased to find her legs steadier today than they had been yesterday. Theophanu called her attendant in from the hall to help Rosvita dress. Then they made their way down a tunnel carved out of stone that led to the refectory. Light poured in through seven windows carved into the rock high up in the wall, revealing a single trestle table, enough for the nine women who made their home here, and the tall loom at which Sister Diocletia knelt, having just thrown newly-measured warp threads over the crossbar. She acknowledged them with a nod, then grabbed a handful of loose threads and deftly began tying them to a loom weight.
Beyond the refectory a terrace opened out. Rosvita heard the sounds of Ironhead’s camp: mallets and hammers pounding in a ragged rhythm, captains calling out orders, men grunting and cursing. Their cries carried easily, echoing off the monumental rock face of the huge outcropping into which the convent was carved. The terrace was a commodious slab of south-facing rock high up on the cliffside. The sun spread such a pleasant light over the terrace that it was hard to believe it was winter, two days after Candlemass. At a shallow basin hollowed out of the rock, Teuda, the stout lay sister, hunched over, grinding grain into meal. Pots of grain soaking in limestone water sat beside her, next to a basket for the freshly-ground barley. A spacious garden filled the rest of the terrace, cut into quarters by walkways raised above the soil and handsome interlaced screens that served as windbreaks. No doubt the dirt had been drawn up basket by basket from below. Sister Sindula was weeding mint; she was quite deaf, and intent on her task, and did not notice them. But the other lay sister, young Paloma, knelt a few strides away, watering herbs. She set down her ceramic beaker, stood, brushed the dirt on her robe back into the plot, and crossed to them. No older than Theophanu, she already had a withering look to her like that of her elderly companions, as if the wind sucked them dry on this isolated height.
“Come.” She led them to the railing from which they could look down.
Off to the right on a lower terrace, a dozen of Fulk’s soldiers stood guard over the winches. The smaller winch had been damaged in the last attack, one of the support legs smashed by a rock from a catapult. The larger winch held the big basket in which she had been hoisted up on that day six weeks ago, although she recalled it now no more clearly than she would a dream. According to Theophanu, Captain Fulk and his soldiers had devised a broad strap to replace the basket so that they could winch up the horses rather than lose them to Ironhead. She traced with her eye a series of drops and shallower ledges, the ladder path; all the ladders had been drawn up and taken inside. There were also several steep staircases lower down, and an abandoned winch, burned in the first assault. Cliffs loomed above them broken into giant stair-steps that ended in a small tabletop plateau marked by a stone crown: from this angle she couldn’t count the great stone slabs set upright at the flat height, nor could she imagine how anyone could possibly have carried them up this massive outcropping that was almost too steep to climb.
“For a holy place,” remarked Theophanu, “it is certainly defendable.”
“No doubt the ancient mothers who hollowed out the convent here were well acquainted with the imperfections of humanity.”
The scaffolding being built by Ironhead’s soldiers now reached about halfway to the lower terrace, with a broad base, reinforced sides, and plenty of dampened hides to protect the timber. Ironhead had even allowed his troops to cut down the dozen mature olive trees growing at the base of the cliff. No one seemed idle. Ironhead’s banner flew from the central tent, well out of arrow shot of the lower terrace and almost out of sight where the gully cut away to the left. She did not remember riding down that gully on their last gallop to safety, but she could see it was the only path to the convent.
“Is there something new you wished me to see?” She saw it just as Theophanu pointed to a banner fluttering atop a small traveling pavilion half concealed behind Ironhead’s palatial white tent: red silk with an eagle, dragon, and lion stitched in gold.
“Isn’t that the sigil of Wendar?” asked Paloma. “Does that mean the king of Wendar has come?”
Rosvita almost laughed, imagining the king confined to such a paltry tent and with no sign of his elaborate entourage. “Nay child. A party riding on King Henry’s business and under his safe conduct would carry such a banner. There, at the tip, is a gold circle. That signifies an embassy led by a cleric from the king’s court.”
“They arrived yesterday at dusk, escorted by Ironhead’s soldiers,” said Theophanu.
“Can it be that your father has heard of our plight?”
“You shall see,” said Theophanu. She turned to the young lay sister. “Paloma, you know the route.” The young woman nodded. “Gutta,” she said to the dark-haired girl, “go see what work awaits you in the kitchens.”
Paloma led princess and cleric back through the refectory, down a side tunnel that banked into stairs, and through a hanging that concealed a smaller tunnel ventilated by air holes. Soon it grew too dark to see except by touch, and they crept forward as quietly as wolves nosing up on unsuspecting prey. Then, abruptly, dim light filtered through a screen carved so cunningly out of a thin sheet of rock that they could see into the lit chamber beyond without their own shapes being revealed. Rosvita eased in beside Theophanu and together they gazed into the whitewashed guest hall. Rosvita had come to that hall four days ago to see Brother Fortunatus who, like the soldiers and male servants, could not venture into chambers consecrated as a holy convent. Now she saw only soldiers standing at nervous guard over a pair of Aostan clerics. A red-haired Eagle stood off to one side, expression shadowed.
“It still seems incredible to me,” one cleric was saying to another in Aostan. “I’ve crossed St. Vitale’s Pass in Aogoste and met blizzards. I don’t see how his party could have made it over the pass this late in the year and then brag of fine weather.” He dropped his voice. “What if it was weather sorcery? Yet none of his escort will utter an ill word of him. It’s as if he’s bewitched them all.”
“Or was wrongfully accused.”
“You know as well as I that normally St. Vitale’s Pass is closed from mid-autumn to early summer. I’ve never heard of any party crossing a week before Candlemass!”
The other man shrugged. “It’s been a mild winter. They just had good fortune. The soldiers I spoke to said that as they came down the last few leagues it had begun to snow behind them.”
“That proves nothing. It could still have been weather sorcery. What about those other tales we’ve heard? What about those lights we saw from the height of the rock last night? You heard screaming, too.”
“Hush,” said his friend, glancing toward the soldiers. “We’re here to see that he keeps his word to Lord John, nothing more. What matter if there is sorcery at work? Sometimes I wonder what harm there is in sorcery, if it can be used for good. I’m sick enough of this siege and these rations that I’d not care if magic were used to persuade Queen Adelheid to surrender, so we could finally go home.”
“Dominic!” His friend drew the Circle of Unity at his chest, like a ward against evil.
Theophanu tugged on Rosvita’s hand, and Rosvita followed her into a passage so narrow that rock rubbed her shoulders, then her head, and she had to kneel and walk forward on her knees like a penitent approaching the altar. The path dipped, Theophanu let go of her hand, and she touched a stair-step and, farther up, Theophanu’s sandaled feet. She pulled herself up beside the princess in a cupboardlike space scarcely large enough for both of them. A hazy veil more mist than light screened one side of the space, but it took her a few moments to understand where she was.