Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

Moving from the corridor under a stone archway that led to a staircase, they vanished from her view, carrying the only torch. Their conversation was quickly muffled by stone and distance. Her legs carried her after them, but by the time she reached the staircase she could only follow the receding glow of torchlight. She climbed quickly, chafed by a sudden cold draft of wind. Between one breath and the next, the torch went out, leaving her in pitch-blackness. She climbed the stairway by touch, fingers brushing the dressed stone, feeling the cracks and flaking mortar smoothing away beneath her skin until it seemed to her that she was in a narrow stair with wood walls, wood floors, and a ceiling so low that it brushed her hair. She stumbled up against a latch. Though her fingers touched the latch, they hesitated.

Her jaw had gone tight, clenched hard, and the pain brought a rush of questions. Where was she? Had she unwittingly descended back to Earth?

Quickly vanquished and fled. “Walk through the door,” her voice murmured, “and I will be one step closer to my heart’s desire.” Wasn’t it true? Surely it was true. She set her hand on the latch just as she heard muffled sounds of weeping to her right. Startled, she jerked back as the latch twitched, turned from the other side, scraped against wood, and snapped up.

The door was thrown open.

A pretty young woman blinked into the darkness. She had a fresh scar on her upper lip and wore only a shift, the fabric so finely woven that Liath saw the blush of her nipples beneath the cloth. “Oh, thank the Lady,” she said, grabbing Liath’s wrist and tugging her out into a bright chamber where a rosy light poured in through four unshuttered windows. “You got her safely hidden.”

The mellow light pooled over a parquet floor and set into relief a set of frescoes depicting such obscene subjects that Liath blushed. Her new friend pressed past her into the hidden cupboard—for such it was—and helped the weeping woman out from the shadows. She wore the long and rather shapeless wool tunic, dyed a nondescript clay red, worn by common folk, although unlike the Wendish style she wore also a tightly fitted bodice and a brown apron over it. Her hair was bound up in a crown of braids rather than covered by a light shawl, as a respectable Wendish woman’s would be. Beneath the streaked tears and the frightened expression, Liath could see that she was remarkably pretty, blackhaired with the kind of eyes one could stare into for hours. She shrank away from the sight of the huge bed and its silken canopy.

“I’ll not be abused by him without a fight!” she said in a voice made hoarse by screaming. “He may be king, but I’m a Godly married woman and I only come to pray at the cathedral to ask for God’s mercy on my poor sick child.”

“Hush,” hissed the pretty woman. “He’s gone now. What did you say your name was?”

“I’m known as Terezia. Ai, Lady!” She began to snivel again, overcome by relief. “I was just there in the Lady Chapel, praying, when in he come and grabbed me right out of there. What was I to say to the king? I never imagined—” She began to sob again while the pretty woman in the shift gave Liath a look to show that she’d seen this scene played over many times before, a shared glance of commiseration and disgust. “—that he would try to rape me. If it hadn’t been for that holy man who come in and put a stop to it—”

“Yes, friend, if it hadn’t been for him.”

“I thought the king was like to run him through. Ai, Lady, how brave he was!” Her eyes shone with remembered admiration.

“And so handsome.”

“And a holy presbyter, sister, not for the likes of us, so go back to your good husband and your sick child. Hurry, now, for the king might come back any time.” Two doors stood open, one leading into an opulent hallway and the other to a narrow servants’ corridor. She beckoned toward the servants’ corridor. “Go on. That’ll get you down to the servants’ hall. My friend Teuda will get you out of the palace. She’ll be waiting at the bottom of the stairs.”

“What about you? Aren’t you wanting to escape as well?”

The pretty woman laughed lightly. “Nay, we’re the king’s whores. We’re paid well enough to want to stay.”

“But you’re so pretty.” Terezia looked ready to faint again, and she hadn’t even gotten as far as the door, stopping to lean on the back of a chair. “Why would he be coming down to the cathedral to abduct God-fearing women who’ve just come there to pray when he has lemans as pretty as you to warm his bed?”

“Poor innocent,” said the whore with the slightest hint of contempt. “He does it because he can. Nay, listen. I hear someone coming.”

Terezia bolted down the servants’ corridor. Before the noise of her hasty escape had faded, the whore threw herself onto the bed with a chuckle. Rolling over, she reached for a silver tray, found a goblet, and raised herself up to sip at the wine contentedly. “Ai, Lady. When I think of those poor women slaving all day at their washing or cooking or raising a host of brats in a filthy hovel down by the marsh, I thank God that you and I lie here in silks.”

“Beauty doesn’t last forever,” said Liath, feeling the headache coming back. What a sight she herself must look in her tunic, fallen loose because she had no belt, with her quiver strapped to her back. Yet the whore smiled as seductively at Liath as if she, too, wore a fine shift to mark her exalted status, as if they had shared other intimacies here in this light-draped chamber while they waited for the king. Liath even took a step forward, as if to go lie down on that bed beside the pretty whore, as if her body meant to do what it willed without consulting her. It was like fighting a stubborn horse, to grab hold of a chair and sit down solidly, with a thump.

“Oh, don’t talk to me like that,” said her companion now. “I’ve seen you eyeing him when he comes in with Ironhead.” She laughed, not kindly. “Iron head, indeed. He’s as elegant as an ax, is the king. Pump and grunt, that’s him. Nothing like his presbyter, is he, darling? My Lord, now there’s a true man, all bright and handsome, clever and kind, with such a beautiful voice as you can get all lost in, and the hands of a saint. Haven’t you ever snuck into St. Thecla’s Chapel to watch him praying? I have, and I know you have, too. I just wonder what it would be like to have those hands soliciting me. Haven’t you just? Haven’t you? All witty and elegant as he is, thoughtful and wise. But I see the look in his eyes. He’s all lit inside, God’s chosen one.” She sighed so passionately, shifted so sensuously on the bed, that Liath felt all on fire, remembering the ecstasies known to the body. “Don’t you wish he’d choose you?”

“Yes,” she whispered, not sure what question she was answering, except that arousal warred with nausea as her thoughts sharpened for an instant. She had to get out of here. She lurched out of the chair, tipping it over behind her, and fled to the door.

But instead of the safety of the servants’ corridor, she stumbled into an anteroom so soft with carpets that her bare feet made no sound as she hurried across the room to the only open door. Out of breath, she leaned against a doorframe painted with a mural depicting the ancient Emperor Tianathano driving a chariot pulled by griffins.

In the dim chamber beyond, a man was reading aloud from the Holy Verses in a voice so beautifully composed and melodious that like a roped lamb she was drawn in past a carved wooden screen into a vast and subdued bedchamber shrouded by approaching death.

“‘In those days,’” the voice declaimed, “‘young Savamial came into the service of God. One day she was given the task of sleeping beside the holy curtain that concealed the glory of God. The lamp burning beside the holy curtain had not yet gone out, and while Savamial lay sleeping in the temple the voice of God called out to her, and she answered, “I’m coming.” She ran to the veiled woman and said, “Here I am. You called me.” But the veiled woman replied, “I didn’t call you. Go back to sleep.’”

That harmonious voice made her head throb painfully. A single lamp hung from a tripod set beside the bed. It illuminated an aged woman, so frail that the hands lying on the coverlet were seamed with blue veins, as pale and thin as finest parchment. Her eyes were closed. One could only tell she was alive because she had the merest brush of color in her cheeks and, once, an eyelid flickered at the expressive lift of the reader’s voice. Another man stood back in the shadows, looking on with a rapt face. The reader’s face was concealed from Liath because his back was turned, but she saw how his robe fell in elegant drapery from his shoulders. His hair gleamed golden in the lamplight as he continued to read.

“‘So she went back and lay down again. But God called a second time, “Savamial!” Savamial got up and ran to the holy woman and said, “Here I am. You called me.’”

“Hugh,” Liath breathed, lips moving although she hadn’t meant to make a sound. A sick, horrible pain clutched in her guts, and she could not move.

He turned to see who had come in. “Who is there?” he asked softly. She knew she should run, but her legs moved her forward into the soft glow of the lamplight. Seeing her, he looked surprised and even a little shy. Was he actually blushing as a youth might faced with the lady for whom he has conceived a sweetly guileless passion? It was hard to tell because the light was behind him.

o;Poor innocent,” said the whore with the slightest hint of contempt. “He does it because he can. Nay, listen. I hear someone coming.”

Terezia bolted down the servants’ corridor. Before the noise of her hasty escape had faded, the whore threw herself onto the bed with a chuckle. Rolling over, she reached for a silver tray, found a goblet, and raised herself up to sip at the wine contentedly. “Ai, Lady. When I think of those poor women slaving all day at their washing or cooking or raising a host of brats in a filthy hovel down by the marsh, I thank God that you and I lie here in silks.”