The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“If the spark dies, then he is no more than a beast, without spirit or thought. Nay, I will make slaves where it benefits me, but let artisans and freeholders grow in such soil that will provide me with a rich crop.”

“You are not like the chieftains who have come before you,” remarked Ironclaw, but the comment rang like iron in Stronghand’s ears, a decisive stroke. Ironclaw’s caution had yielded; his distrust had given way to approval.

“No,” he agreed. “I am not.”

In the distance, out where stragglers fled into the surrounding woodland, a pair of beasts loped out of the forest. Something in their dark shapes triggered an avalanche of recognition. Around him, Eika dogs began barking, churning forward in a frenzy while their masters beat them back.

“Hold!” he cried, and his soldiers took up the cry as it carried outward so that no one there attacked the creatures who approached. He handed his standard to Last Son and ran toward them, and it was true, after all, that he knew them.

Their ribs showed, and dirt and leaves matted their black flanks. One had a torn ear and the other limped, but he knew them, and they knew him. They swarmed up with ears flattened and hindquarters waggling. Even starved and weakened, they were big enough to knock a man down and rip out his throat. His own dogs ringed them but stayed clear, warned off by the hounds’ growls and snaps.

“Yes,” he said, grinning as they licked his hands. “Yes, you have found me. Now you must lead me to Alain.”

XXVII

UNEXPECTED MEETINGS

1

ROSVITA dreamed.

Prince Sanglant rides at the head of a great army up to a noble hall. Atop the roof flies the banner of Avaria: the powerful lion. A thirtyish woman regally gowned strides out to meet him. She is one of Burchard’s and Ida’s heirs; the hooked nose and the characteristic droop of her lips confirm it. She is cautious but not unwelcoming.

“We have much to speak of,” the noble lady says to the prince as she takes hold of his bridle in the same manner that a groom holds the horse so his lord can dismount. “You know what grief my family has suffered. My elder brothers both dead in their prime, fighting Henry’s wars. Now my mother and younger sister have died of the plague, my duchy is ravaged, and I fear that my father is being held against his will in the south, if he is not already murdered as they say Villam was. Henry has not remained loyal to us as we have been to him.”

A thunderclap shudders the heavens overhead, and Rosvita is borne away on the dark wind, far away, until she sees her young half brother Ivar lying dead in the back of a cart, his body jolted this way and that as the cart hits ruts in the track. Grief is an arrow, killing her; then his eyes snap open, and he stares right at her. His blue eyes are the sea; she fails into the waters as night roars in to engulf her.

She swims in darkness as the last of her air bubbles out from her lips. Rock entombs her. She is trapped. The memory of starlight dazzles only to unravel into sparks that wink out one by one as the last of her breath fades and she knows she will drown.

A spatter of cold and damp brushed her brow and melted away, and a second cold splash kissed her lips, startling her into consciousness, but she still could not see, only heard the sound of the sea roaring and sucking around her as the waters rose and fell and rose again, battered against rocks. She was blind and mute and too weak to struggle.

Where am I? What has become of us?

Fortunatus’ dear voice emerged unexpectedly out of the black sea.

“Sister, I pray you. Can you hear me? Nay, Hanna, it’s no use. I can’t wake her.”

“We’ll have to carry her. We must go quickly, or we’ll be captured. Those are King Henry’s banners. How came his army here so quickly?”

“Better to ask how many weeks or months passed in the world while we walked between the crowns. They could not have known where we were going, since we did not know it ourselves.”

“The Holy Mother is a powerful sorcerer. Perhaps she can see into the future.”

“That may be, Eagle, but I think it unlikely since she would have to have known Sister Rosvita had the knowledge to weave the crowns. Best to ask ourselves where we are, and why the king and the skopos have led an army to this same shore.”

Hanna’s laugh was bitter. “You are right, Brother. No matter what the answer, we are in the place we least wanted to be! Hurry!”

Gerwita whimpered. Ruoda coughed, echoed by Jehan. These sounds roused Rosvita as no others could. They must make haste, or it would all have been for nothing. She could not expect mercy from the skopos for herself and particularly not for her attendants, for whom she was responsible.

“Ungh,” she said, clearing her throat, trying to force a word out. Her eyes were sticky, but she peeled one open to see a head swaying an arm’s length above her, face turned away as it surveyed a sight hidden to her. The crown of his head was bald, and his hair was thinning, streaked with gray. Even Brother Fortunatus was growing old. A snowflake twirled down to become lost on his shoulder. He looked down, saw her waking face, and smiled as brightly as a child, a beacon of hope.

“Sister Rosvita!”

The others crowded forward, an ocean of faces, too many and yet too few. Where was Sister Amabilia? How had she got lost? Others seemed only vaguely familiar to her, as if she had known them once, a long time ago, and then forgotten them. Weren’t those Hilaria and Diocletia from St. Ekatarina’s Convent? Their expressions appeared so anxious that their fear gave her strength, and strength reminded her that Sister Amabilia was surely dead. The old grief, muted now if no less painful, gave impetus to her resolve.

“I can stand.”

It took Hanna and Fortunatus to aid her, and her legs trembled under her as she licked her fingers and used the saliva to wet her still-sticky eye until the moisture loosened the gunk that had sealed it shut.