The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“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.

Anything might be possible.

From outside, the roar of acclamation rose to a high pitch as some notable—perhaps Henry and Adelheid themselves—approached down the thoroughfare.

“No Eagle came to Theophanu while I was with Her Highness, but I met one of my comrades north of the mountains who had come from Aosta. She rode one way, and I another. Where she is now I do not know.” The memory of Hathui’s expression, at the end of their conversation so many months ago, made her throat tighten. Yet for all the bitterness that curdled in her when she thought of Sanglant and Bulkezu, she could not wish Hathui ill. “I pray she is well.”

The cheering swelled at the porch of the church.

“Beware—” Fortunatus broke off as Rufus called to her and the people gathered at the doors cried out in thanksgiving as they knelt with heads bowed. A tall, elegant figure moved forward through the glow of lamplight like an angel advancing out of the darkness to lead the benighted to salvation.

Only this was not an angel.

She knew him even before she saw him clearly. No person who had seen him could ever forget him and especially not when he was burnished, as now, by the light of a dozen lamps and the heartfelt acclaim of people who had been rescued from certain death by his timely arrival. A fire burned in her heart, and she took a few steps forward before she remembered what he had done to Liath. She scarcely heard the whispers and footfalls behind her as Hugh entered the church.

Presbyter Hugh, they called him here. Everyone talked about him, but it was easy to ignore talk. Talk did not have golden hair, a handsome face, and a graceful form.

“Is this where it happened?” he asked with outraged concern. He caught sight of Rufus. “An Eagle! I thank God you survived. Lady have mercy! Look how they tried to chop their way in through the door.”

It was impossible not to be moved by that beautiful voice, both resonant and soothing. Impossible not to be lulled, until the moment when he looked up, directly at her.

She stood frozen halfway down the nave, forgetting how she had walked so far, drawn as though by a tether line being reeled in.

He saw her.