Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

She dabbed her quill in the ink pot.

Here begins the Second Book—

“Sister Rosvita.” Fortunatus came up behind her. He bent as if to examine the parchment, keeping his voice low. “Paloma did not meet me this morning. She has been patient, but I swear to you that yesterday when I met her, she was frightened. I convinced her to remain one more day…. but now I fear—” He broke off as a man wearing the red cloak of a presbyter walked into the scriptorium, marked Rosvita, and headed along the aisles toward her.

“We’ll speak later, Brother.”

The vault of ceiling made the scriptorium an airy place, filled with light. Watching Brother Petrus approach, Rosvita had leisure to examine the painted frieze at the far end of the room: martyrs and saints receiving their crowns of glory from the angels.

“Sister Rosvita.” He inclined his head. She hid a smile, regarding him somberly. She had the king’s confidence, the respect of the schola, and the ear of the queen. A presbyter like Petrus, however nobly born, did not wield as much influence as she did, and he knew it. “I have been sent by Lord Hugh to request your presence in the skopos’ chambers.”

Rosvita sighed, setting down her knife and handing the still wet quill to Fortunatus. He could only nod, frustrated and helpless, as she left him in charge of her history.

They crossed out of the regnant’s palace and into the gilded corridors of the skopos’ palace, dense with silence as a mere handful of presbyters, clerics, and servants hurried along the halls on their errands. No wall here was untouched; murals, friezes, paintings, or tapestries covered every wall. Columns were inlaid with tiny tiles or painted bright colors. Sculptures filled the courtyards and lined the colonnaded arcades down which they walked, in blessed shadow, while the sun beat down on empty graveled pathways beyond. This time of year, even as afternoon drifted toward twilight, no one walked under the sun because of the heat.

It was as quiet as if a spell lay over the palace. Pausing once at a break in the wall where she could see out over the city, she marked how the river dazzled as it wound through the streets, crossed in four places by bridges. A stuporous haze hung over Darre. Had even the buildings fallen asleep?

Pray God autumn would come soon, with cooler weather. She was sweating freely, had to dab at her forehead with her sleeve. They crossed into the heart of the palace and came to a door set with the skopos’ seal, a private audience chamber. Brother Petrus stood aside. Rosvita entered alone.

Mercifully, the Tile Chamber was dark and cool, surrounded by thick earthen walls and decorated with pale tiles, set out in geometric patterns said to represent the path of the soul as it ascends through the seven spheres toward the Chamber of Light. The skopos sat in a simple chair notable for its high back carved in a pattern of linked circles. Her ferocious black hound lay at her feet, growling softly as Rosvita approached but not raising its head. The chair, elevated on a low dais, presided over a set of benches, five deep, set in a semicircle facing the dais. A table stood between the foremost benches and the dais step.

Only five people inhabited the chamber: the skopos, Hugh, a servingwoman dressed simply in a pale shift belted with rope, and two elderly people wearing the garb of clerics. One lay on a couch in the shadows, half hidden, silent. Hugh and the other man stood at the table, holding open a scroll. A lit lamp stood at either end of the map, but it seemed to Rosvita that their light did more to illuminate Hugh’s handsome face than the faded markings on the scroll.

“Pray approach, Sister Rosvita,” said the skopos in her cool voice, extending her right hand.

Rosvita came forward cautiously, well aware of that huge hound so close that it could rip off her hand with one bite, but it did not react beyond another soft growl as she knelt on the steps to kiss Anne’s ring, the seal of her office. “Holy Mother, you honor me with your summons.”

Not a flicker of a smile touched the skopos’ face. She might have been carved in stone. It was hard to imagine anyone more regal sitting in that chair, though. Henry had been wise to grant her the skopos’ throne. That way, she could never challenge him for the earthly throne. “If you will, Sister, examine the scroll.”

Hugh moved aside to make room for her at the table, nodding with what appeared a genuine smile as she took her place beside him. The other man, older, with a severe face lined with old resentments and a more recent illness, examined her disapprovingly.

“It’s papyrus,” she said, “and so likely ancient. These symbols marked at the border of the map are not of Daisanite origin. I would say they are heathen and probably meant to represent heathen gods or perhaps the seven heavenly bodies. It is a map.” She touched it hesitantly, because something about its markings made a bell chime in her mind. “Here are mountains, a river, a forest, and the sea.” She pointed at each as she spoke the word. “It seems the map represents the placement of seven sites, towns perhaps, or temples. Hard to say. Here are six scattered through the land equidistant from the seventh, which lies in the center, ringed by mountains. Each site is represented by seven marks, like arrow points, which echo the larger design: six in a ring around a central seventh.”

“What is it a map of, Sister Rosvita?” asked Anne.

The elder man grunted. Hugh took a step away from the table.

Rosvita had learned in a hard school not to betray surprise, and she did not do so now, as an inkling of what she was looking at lit in her mind. “Perhaps the continent of Novaria, Holy Mother. This sea could be the north sea, and here might be the middle sea, and these the Alfar Mountains. It is a crude representation, if so, but I have seen sailors’ maps that show a similar outline of the coast. I have myself crossed the Alfar Mountains three times and know that they stand in about this place.”

“What do you know about the coming cataclysm, Sister?” asked the Holy Mother. “About the attack of the Lost Ones, who wish to regain their empire and enslave all of humankind?”

“Nothing more than what I have heard, Holy Mother. Prince Sanglant spoke of a cataclysm, as did his mother, when they sojourned briefly at the king’s progress last spring. But they both left when it appeared to them that the king was not willing to heed their words.”

“Did you heed them?”

“I would need more evidence, Holy Mother. I confess it is a difficult story to believe. I have read many chronicles in my time. Many times good souls have cried out to warn the regnant of a coming disaster only to discover that they were mistaken in their reading of the stars, or the omens, or the Holy Verses themselves. God’s will is a difficult book for mortals to read.”

s as quiet as if a spell lay over the palace. Pausing once at a break in the wall where she could see out over the city, she marked how the river dazzled as it wound through the streets, crossed in four places by bridges. A stuporous haze hung over Darre. Had even the buildings fallen asleep?

Pray God autumn would come soon, with cooler weather. She was sweating freely, had to dab at her forehead with her sleeve. They crossed into the heart of the palace and came to a door set with the skopos’ seal, a private audience chamber. Brother Petrus stood aside. Rosvita entered alone.

Mercifully, the Tile Chamber was dark and cool, surrounded by thick earthen walls and decorated with pale tiles, set out in geometric patterns said to represent the path of the soul as it ascends through the seven spheres toward the Chamber of Light. The skopos sat in a simple chair notable for its high back carved in a pattern of linked circles. Her ferocious black hound lay at her feet, growling softly as Rosvita approached but not raising its head. The chair, elevated on a low dais, presided over a set of benches, five deep, set in a semicircle facing the dais. A table stood between the foremost benches and the dais step.

Only five people inhabited the chamber: the skopos, Hugh, a servingwoman dressed simply in a pale shift belted with rope, and two elderly people wearing the garb of clerics. One lay on a couch in the shadows, half hidden, silent. Hugh and the other man stood at the table, holding open a scroll. A lit lamp stood at either end of the map, but it seemed to Rosvita that their light did more to illuminate Hugh’s handsome face than the faded markings on the scroll.

“Pray approach, Sister Rosvita,” said the skopos in her cool voice, extending her right hand.

Rosvita came forward cautiously, well aware of that huge hound so close that it could rip off her hand with one bite, but it did not react beyond another soft growl as she knelt on the steps to kiss Anne’s ring, the seal of her office. “Holy Mother, you honor me with your summons.”