The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“The door,” cried Hanna, jumping forward. She brought the chair leg down on his head as a knife flashed in his hand. He dropped like a stone. The knife fell between a pair of holy books he’d discarded on the floor in his haste to find treasure.

Distantly, through the open door, she heard a second horn call followed by shouts of triumph and fear.

With a thud, the side door slammed into place, muffling the sounds from outside. Grunting with effort, Rufus dropped a bar into place. Through the archway that led back into the church, Hanna heard an odd scuffling sound. The steady drone of weeping and wailing drowned out the noise of the crowd pounding at the front doors.

“Why isn’t there such a bar for the church doors?” she asked as the three of them stared first at each other and then at the youth lying unconscious on the floor.

“The door leading to God’s Hearth must always remain open,” said the cleric, “and there is always a cleric or deacon awake to tend the lamps by the Hearth. But thieves may sneak in through the side door; seeking silver and silk while God’s servant rests here in solitude. What do we do with this one?”

This one had warts on his nose and hands and pustulant sores along his lower lip. His stink made her cough. His wrists were as thin as sticks. Hunger had worn shadows under his eyes. Drool snaked down from his slack mouth into his fledgling beard.

“Is there rope?” Rufus was grinning a little, sweating and excited. “We’ve got to tie him up.”

The youth moaned. They heard a shout and the slap of footsteps, and one of the young novices burst into the room.

“The king has returned! He’s at the gates. The mob is running away. We’re saved, Brother Fortunatus!”

They were all too tense to relax even at such hopeful news, and Brother Fortunatus gave Hanna such a look as an escaped slave might give to his companion just before the chains are clapped back on them.

“For now, Sister Gerwita.” He nodded at the moaning youth. “Drag him outside and let him go. I would not hand any poor soul over to the justice of the city guard.”

“But—” Rufus began.

“Nay,” said Fortunatus. “He still had his knife on him, so he’s not likely the one who assaulted Deacon Anselva. His only crime is poverty, and he stole nothing, after all. The other two must face justice for what they did to the deacon.”

Cheers broke out from the church, echoing through the archway. Hanna grabbed the youth’s ankles and dragged him out the door after Fortunatus unbarred and opened it.

Although twilight hadn’t yet faded into full darkness, the walls leaned so closely together in the alley that she had to pick her way by feel, stepping more than once into piles of noxious refuse. The stink was overwhelming. She shoved the boy up against the wall of the church. He stirred, retching. She stumbled back to the open door. Looking up the alley, she saw the thoroughfare beyond—torches and lamps lighting a magnificent procession. A roar of noise echoed among the buildings, the ring of hooves on paved streets, shouting and cheering and an undercurrent of jeering in soft counterpoint amid the clamor. Smoke stung her nostrils. The peal of the fire bell summoned the city guard.

When she slipped back inside, bending to get under the lintel without banging her head, Rufus barred the door behind her as she checked the soles of her sandals in the lamplight to make sure she wasn’t tracking in anything awful.

They took both of the lamps as they returned to the choir. The front doors had been thrown open. Most of the worshipers had flocked outside, but a dozen waited by the doors, too cautious to venture out. The walls looked different; holding high her lamp, Hanna realized they were bare. The two tapestries lay on the floor, rolled up tight around the two criminals’ bodies; it was odd to see them squirming so. The tall cleric and the one called Gerwita huddled by the Hearth, whispering to Brother Fortunatus, who still held the altar cloth. The third knelt beside the wounded deacon, holding a lion-shaped lamp in one hand. With a pad of cloth torn from her own robe she applied pressure to the wound on the deacon’s back. Blood stained the prone woman’s white garment.

Hanna bent down beside her. “Sister Heriburg, will the deacon live?”

She had a bland, amiable face but a glance that hit like the sight of black storm clouds in winter. “I pray she will. It is in God’s hands now.”

Rufus had gone to the doors to examine the damage done by the ax. Here in the silence of the choir they were alone except for the muffled groans and panicked curses coming from the men bundled up in the tapestries. They had only two lights. Another five or six burned along the nave, but most of the remaining lamps had been taken forward to the doors by worshipers, making a veil of light that shrouded the night scene beyond.

“Are you loyal to Henry, Eagle?” asked Brother Fortunatus, coming up behind her.

“Yes. That is why I came.”

“From Princess Theophanu.”

Although she had not met this man in the months she had loitered in the regnal palace, she knew that her arrival had surely been gossiped about from the lowest halls to the highest. “I rode here at the behest of Princess Theophanu to bring a message to her father, the king.”

“Was there no Eagle who came to Theophanu in the time you were with her?”

She rose stiffly. Her legs ached from the effort she’d spent bracing; her bruised shoulder throbbed. Even her fingers hurt from gripping the chair leg so tightly before she’d hit the thief. The two women now flanked Brother Fortunatus: the tall one, still nameless, and timid Gerwita. They hardly looked like a foul cabal of conspirators. Wasn’t it possible that Henry had enemies who might seek to entrap the ones most loyal to him? If Hathui had told the truth, those who now controlled Henry would seek to eliminate anyone, even a common, powerless Eagle, who might act against them.

o;The door leading to God’s Hearth must always remain open,” said the cleric, “and there is always a cleric or deacon awake to tend the lamps by the Hearth. But thieves may sneak in through the side door; seeking silver and silk while God’s servant rests here in solitude. What do we do with this one?”

This one had warts on his nose and hands and pustulant sores along his lower lip. His stink made her cough. His wrists were as thin as sticks. Hunger had worn shadows under his eyes. Drool snaked down from his slack mouth into his fledgling beard.

“Is there rope?” Rufus was grinning a little, sweating and excited. “We’ve got to tie him up.”

The youth moaned. They heard a shout and the slap of footsteps, and one of the young novices burst into the room.