The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Any fool knows that it’s—um—what year is it, Sigfrid?” The prior made to speak, but Father Ortulfus silenced him simply by lifting a hand. “Go on, Brother Sigfrid,” said the abbot more kindly than before, although his sudden gentleness made Ivar unaccountably nervous. “What year is it?”

“The year of our Lord and Lady, seven hundred and thirty,” answered Sigfrid quietly, but he had a sad little frown on his delicate face.

The door set into the wall behind the abbot’s seat opened. “My lord abbot,” said a brother, leaning his head in. “The brothers have assembled and are waiting for you.”

It was time for prayer.

“It was a miracle,” said Sigfrid stubbornly. Despite his small size and unprepossessing appearance, he had both the intelligence and strength of faith to speak with an authority that made others listen. “Ask if you will at Quedlinhame, for they will remember clearly enough when they cut out my tongue: How, then, can I speak now, if not by a miracle?”

“A difficult question to answer,” agreed Ortulfus, rising from his chair. His officials stood as well, leaving only Baldwin, Sigfrid, and Ermanrich on their benches. “Be sure I will write to Mother Scholastica for her account. But it will take many weeks or even months to get a reply, and I must decide what to do with you in the meantime. In truth, like any pestilence, heresy spreads quickly unless it is burned out.”

The monks blocked the doors, and while the chief of scribes hadn’t the ready stance of a fighter, the others looked able to hold their own in a scrap.

They were trapped.

“You are three years too late,” added Father Ortulfus. “This is the autumn of the year seven hundred and thirty-three since the Proclamation of the Holy Word by the blessed Daisan.”

Three years.

Sigfrid swayed, and Ermanrich made a squeak, nothing more, as his eyes widened in shock and his mouth dropped open with an of surprise and disbelief. No one knew better than Ivar how well Sigfrid attended to his studies. Sigfrid hadn’t been wrong.

“What three years?” demanded Baldwin.

Ivar felt the grasp of that ancient queen who had appeared to him in the barrow, clutching him by the throat, squeezing the life from him, her hands cold as the grave. Magic had caught them in its grip, and now they were paying the price. They had escaped the Quman, but not at the cost of two nights. Not even at the cost of a month.

“Three years,” he whispered.

“Maybe we were asleep,” said Ermanrich, who for once had no joke to make, “like that Lord Berthold we saw under the barrow.” Monks murmured in surprise and alarm, and a startled servant, hearing that name, scurried out the door.

“It’s a lie!” cried the prior, a bluff, soldierly looking man. “They’re liars as well as heretics! I was here the day Margrave Villam’s son disappeared up in the stone crown among the barrows. He hasn’t been seen since, and those tunnels were searched for any trace of the young lord.”

“We did see them!” protested Baldwin. “I don’t know why none of you believe anything we say!”

“I’ll have silence,” said Father Ortulfus, his voice like the crack of a whip.

Cold air eddied in through the open door, disturbing the warm currents off the braziers. A misting rain darkened the flagstone pathways in the courtyard, seen beyond the brother waiting patiently in the doorway. In the center of the courtyard stood an elaborate fountain depicting four stone unicorns rearing back on their hind legs. A hedge of cypress hid the colonnade on the opposite side of the courtyard, but several stout monks loitered there. The abbot had left no escape route unguarded.

“My lord abbot,” said the servant again. “The brothers are waiting for you to lead Vespers.”

“Come, then,” said Father Ortulfus grimly. “Let us pray all of us together, for surely in this hour of trouble and confusion we have need of God’s guidance.”

X

THE DEPTHS OF HIS GAZE

1

“THE Eagle, Your Majesty, recently come from Princess Theophanu at Osterburg.”

All morning every person in the palace had done nothing but talk about the triumphal procession of Henry and Adelheid into the city yesterday evening. With each hour the story grew in the telling: how the king had single-handedly quelled the riots, how the queen’s mercy had saved children from death, how malcontents had thrown down their staves at the sight of Presbyter Hugh. God had smiled on the righteous in their campaigns in Aosta. They had won a great victory over the Jinna bandits outside the town of Otiorno. Although the Arethousan usurpers in southern Aosta still clung to power, the authority of Henry and Adelheid in northern and middle Aosta could now be called decisive.

Yet despite these epic feats, the scene confronting Hanna seemed strikingly domestic in its intimate charm. King Henry sat at a table in a private chamber, staring at the chessboard across which he and Duchess Liutgard of Fesse battled, ivory against black. Hanna knelt, grateful for the cushion of carpet beneath her knee. Because the king did not look up from his game immediately, she had time to study the room and its occupants.

The king looked little older than when she had seen him last. Had it really been three years since she had left his court at Autun bound for the east with a company of Lions? Much of that time seemed like a blur to her, passed in captivity or in illness. She had been on the road a long time.

About half of the royal garden was visible through an open window. A dark-haired child played in that garden, followed by a veritable swarm of attendants. Even at this distance Hanna heard her shrieks of delight as her nursemaids tried to catch her while she ran excitedly along the twisting pathways of a floral labyrinth, stumbling on unsteady feet but always climbing gamely up with a new burst of energy.

Mathilda, child of Henry and Adelheid, was the anointed heir to the kingdoms of Wendar and Varre and to the kingdom of Aosta. She was not much more than two years of age, but every one spoke of her as the child who would be empress in the years to come. No one spoke of Henry’s children by Sophia at all, except muttered comments about the untrustworthiness of Arethousans bearing gifts. And soon Mathilda would not be sole child of Henry and Adelheid.