The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“That the blessed Daisan was brought before the Empress Thaissania and condemned to death, that he had his heart cut out of him while he yet lived.”

“Heresy! Foul heresy! You must pray that your ears should be burned off rather than another whisper of such foul lies touch them! This is the Enemy’s work!”

“Do you think so?” Adelheid’s voice was as light as that of a laughing child’s although her words were as heavy as lead. “The ancient Babaharshan astronomers said that a comet portends change. I will have need of you, Sister Antonia. One task.”

“If I can aid you, Your Majesty, I will.”

The queen nodded, as though she had expected this answer. As though she knew Antonia had few other options at this moment. “I fear it will come to battle, but we are ready, because we have been forewarned. Because we have already prepared the trap. Yet force of arms alone cannot win the day.”

At once, Antonia understood what Adelheid wanted. “What you ask is not a pleasantry, Your Majesty. Only blood can summon the galla. You are the one who must give me the lives I need to work the spell. Have you considered your part? Are you willing to do what is necessary? Are you willing to be the executioner?”

The queen placed a hand atop Antonia’s. Her fingers were surprisingly strong as they tightened on Antonia’s. “I will do what I must so that I and my daughters survive.”

XXVIII

HOLY FIRE

1

AT dawn he shook the leaves off his body that he’d used to make a nest for sleeping. The air was cool but promised heat later. He licked his dry lips. After he slaked his thirst, he could search for food. A haze blurred the valley, but he smelled water close by, and pushing through thickets he got in under the canopy of beech and headed downhill. The beech began to give way to a mixed wood of oak and hornbeam in the full leaf of summer; the shade made him shiver. The sun hadn’t yet risen high enough to penetrate the cover.

He heard a stream and kicked through wood-straw and fescue to the bank, where he knelt and drank his fill. For a while he lay on the grassy verge while insects crawled on his body and the sun’s light warmed his face, but at length hunger drove him on.

He followed the stream as it plunged down the hillside and found himself in a broad clearing where the water emptied into a pond. He paused at the forest’s edge, seeing movement not too far from him, out in the high grass: a man was cutting hay with a brush hook. There was a child, too, and a dog playing with a stick on the far shore of the pond within sight of the laborer. The man bent and cut, rose, bent and cut again. At once, suddenly, without warning, the iron hook tore free of the handle and flew spinning through the air to land with a splash in the pond.

At first there was silence, only the chirp of a bird and the lazy humming of insects; then the man cursed so loud and long and so despairingly that the child and the dog left off their play and came running.

“What happened, Uncle? What’s wrong?”

“Some damn fool didn’t fix the handle to the hook. Now it’s flown off and into the water. We’ll never find it! That was the iron blade I borrowed from the steward so we could make our tithe this month by bringing in straw for the lady’s stables.”

“It’s lost?” The child’s voice quavered as the enormity of the accident struck home. “But we can’t replace an iron blade, Uncle. Can we?”

The man shook his head, unable to speak through his tears. He and the child went to the shore. Neither wore shoes or leggings. They waded through the reed-choked waters, the man pushing the stick along under the surface, the child groping through the vegetation.

“Where did it fall?”

“Ai, God! It happened so fast! What will we do? Ai, God. What will we do when the steward demands recompense?”

He stepped out from the trees.

The dog barked at once and trotted forward to greet him, snuffling into his hands as the man stood and pulled the child against his body, shielding it.

“What is it, Uncle?” cried the child. “Is that a wild beast?”

“It’s a man!”

“That’s not a man. It looks like a goblin!”

“It must be a beggar, child. God enjoin us to give bread to beggars.”

“Even if we’ve none to feed ourselves? What if he’s a thief or a bandit?”

“Hush, now. See how Treu greets him.” The man pushed the child behind him. He stood to his knees in the water, and from the safety of the pond hoisted the dripping brush hook handle so it could be seen he had something to use as a weapon. “Greetings, stranger. You’re welcome to our steading if you’ve a wish for a hank of bread and a cup of sweetened vinegar.”

“Give me the handle,” he said as he approached. He held out his hand, and the man got the strangest look on his face, puzzled and wary at the same time, but as he waded into the water with Treu wagging his tail happily at his side, the laborer let him take the handle.

“I saw where it fell.” He thrust the handle into a stand of reeds, and after pushing it here and there for a little bit the stub jostled something hard. He reached into water made murky by all the wading. Groping through pond scum, his fingers skimmed over a curved blade.