A buzz of conversation undercut these proclamations. A pair of clerics whispered, standing so close that they almost stood on him, yet they seemed unaware that he lay just a footstep behind the curtain.
“So, after all, the skopos chose the first day of Sormas, as I told you she would.”
“So you did.” Spoken grudgingly.
“That Bright Somorhas, the Fortunate One, should come into conjunction with the Child’s Torque, signifies the rightful ascension of the true heir.”
“That’s true enough, but I thought the signs were most auspicious for the twenty-second of Novarian, last year.”
“The Arethousan usurpers still had a foothold in the peninsula then. It would have seemed premature to claim an empire he did not control. It would have been tempting fate.”
“So the skopos said. Yet how could you or I or anyone have foreseen it would take three years to drive the bandits and usurpers and rebels out of southern Aosta?”
“That’s all in the past. The last Arethousan heretic has fled, the Jinna bandits are dead, and Tiorno has capitulated at last—Look! But speak the name, and the Enemy winks into view! There is Lady Tassila and her nephew. Now that her brother is dead she is regent for the boy, but she intends to claim the duchy for herself and install her own children after her.”
“Can she do that?”
“Why not? Her brother fought against King Henry until last winter. The boy might bear a grudge because of the death of the father. He can’t be trusted. There’s this new campaign they speak of, to take back the Dalmiakan shore from the Arethousans. They’ll need Lady Tassila’s troops and her loyalty in the army. I heard that Empress Adelheid—”
“Hsst.”
In a different tone, they spoke in unison. “Your Excellency.”
Feet shifted. The cloth of their robes creased as the two clerics dipped knees and heads, blocking his view of the chamber.
“I pray you,” said Hugh kindly. “If you would attend me?”
“Of course, Your Excellency! What do you wish?”
“Pray go to my chambers. Ask for my steward. He has in his keeping a small chest that I need brought to me.”
“Of course, Your Excellency!”
They hurried off. Zacharias saw a fine, clean, strong hand take hold of the curtain and, with a firm tug, twitch it entirely shut, closing him into a tunnel of darkness. Beyond the muffling curtain the oaths continued.
For a long time he lay there, fretting and anxious. He knew how to run, but he didn’t know how to fight. He could babble, but he could not talk himself out of the maze he had stumbled into. Hathui had fled because she had no real power in the king’s court except the king’s favor, now turned against her. Yet he had pledged his loyalty to Marcus in exchange for teaching. His loyalties ought to lie here, but the bond with Hathui clutched too tight. If he betrayed her, then he was nothing but a soulless slave in bondage to those who meant to ruin or even kill her.
After some time, he groped around the pallet and, as softly as he could, rolled himself off into the gap between the mattress and a wall. He rested. When he could breathe normally again, he pushed up to hands and knees and crawled forward along the wall, trembling and sweating. He had not gone farther than the length of the pallet when he collapsed and lay there for what seemed a year before he could try again. The curtain that concealed the wall rippled as folk moved along its length. Once or twice it sagged in so far that it brushed him; the gap between curtain and wall wasn’t more than the span of his arms.
No one noticed.
He kept crawling.
Maybe there were miracles, or perhaps the curtain only served to allow servants to come and go in concealment. A door revealed itself to his questing fingers, and with great effort he rose to his knees and pushed up the latch. It opened inward. He fell into the adjoining chamber and lay there stunned and aching and gasping with his head and half his torso on a carpet and his hips and legs on the other side of the threshold.
At last he dragged himself through and pushed the door shut with a foot. The latch clicked into place.
He sprawled with eyes shut, unable to move. Just lay there as his muscles twitched and he thought he might melt into the rug whose fibers pressed into his cheek. A friendly whippet nosed him, licked his face, and, when he did not respond, curled up congenially against the curve of his bent knees.
Perhaps he slept.
The next thing he knew, hands took hold of his arms and dragged him over the rug as the whippet whined resignedly. He cracked his eyes open to see that day had fled. Lamps lit a chamber hazy with shadows that congealed into things he could recognize: a table carved of ebony wood, a magnificent broad bed hung around with curtains, two massive chests, a woman dressed in cloth of gold trimmed with purple who turned to regard him with a faint expression of surprise on her pretty face.
“Is this the same one?” she asked as the hands released him, turning him over and dropping him supine on the floor a body’s length from her.
“Yes, Your Majesty. This is the one.” Hugh stepped out of the shadows or perhaps through an unseen door. A servant scuttled past him to place a brazier full of red-hot coals next to a wall, then vanished back the way he had come. “I cannot stay long. It must be done quickly.”
The empress nodded, still staring curiously at Zacharias, but as she approached the bed, her attention shifted to the man lying asleep there, whom Zacharias had not seen before.