The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

Nervous, she pulled away from him and bumped up against the wall. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ivar. Is this some madness that’s gotten into you?”

“No madness.” He groped for her hand, found it, and tugged her against the wall. Her boot wrinkled the edge of a neatly-folded wool blanket, uncovering a posy of pressed flowers beneath, a love token. “The Translatus is a lie, Hanna. The blessed Daisan didn’t pray for seven days, as they wrote in the Holy Verses. He wasn’t lifted bodily into the Chamber of Light. It’s all a lie.”

“You’re scaring me. Isn’t that a heresy?” Surely the minions of the Enemy had burrowed inside him and now spoke through his lips. She tried to edge away, but his grip was strong.

“So has the church taught falsely for years. The blessed Daisan was flayed alive by the order of the Empress Thaisannia. His heart was cut out of him, but his heart’s blood bloomed on the Earth as a red rose. He suffered, and he died. But he lived again and ascended to the Chamber of Light and through his suffering cleansed us of our sin.”

“Ivar!” Perhaps the curtness of her voice shocked him into silence. “Let me go!”

He dropped her hand. “You’ll do as Liath did. Abandon me. Only Lady Tallia wasn’t afraid to walk where the rest of us were imprisoned. Only she brought us hope.”

“Lady Tallia is spreading these lies?”

“It’s the truth! Hanna—”

“Nay, Ivar. I won’t speak of such things with you. Now hush and listen to me, and please answer me this time, I beg you. Why aren’t you at Quedlinhame?”

“I’m being taken to the monastery founded in the memory of St. Walaricus the Martyr. In Eastfall.”

“That’s a fair long way. Did you ask to be sent there?”

“Nay. They separated the four of us—that is, me, and Baldwin, and Ermanrich, and Sigfrid—because we listened to Lady Tallia’s preaching. Because we saw the miracle of the rose, and they don’t want anyone to know. That’s why they cast Lady Tallia out of the convent.”

“Oh, Ivar.” Despite the fever that had overtaken him, she could only see him as the overeager boy she had grown up with. “You must pray to God to bring peace to your spirit.”

“How can I have peace?” Suddenly he began to cry. His voice got hoarse. “Have you seen Liath? Is she here? Why haven’t I seen her?”

“Ivar!” She felt obliged to scold him despite what he’d said about Rosvita. “Listen to the words of a sister, for I can call myself that. Liath isn’t meant for you. She rides as an Eagle now.”

“She abandoned me at Quedlinhame! I said I would marry her, I said we would ride away together—”

“After you’d sworn vows as a novice?”

“Against my will! She said she’d marry me, but then she just rode away when the king left!”

“That isn’t fair! She told me of your meeting. God Above! What was she to do? You’d already sworn vows. You had no prospects, no support—and she has no kinfolk—”

“She said she loved someone else, another man,” said Ivar stubbornly. “I think she abandoned me to be with him. I think she still loves Hugh.”

“She never loved Hugh! You know what he did to her!”

“Then what man did she mean?”

She knew then, at once, whom Liath had meant, and a sick foreboding filled her heart. “That doesn’t matter,” she said hastily. “She’s an Eagle. And you’re traveling east. Ai, God, Ivar! I might never see you again.”

He gripped her elbows. “Can’t you help me escape?” Letting her go, he answered himself. “But I can’t abandoned Baldwin. He needs me. Ai, Lady. If only Liath had married me, if only we had run away, then none of this would have happened.”

They heard voices at the door, and she hid under a cot as several of Judith’s stewards came in. “Ah, there he is! Lord Baldwin is asking for you, boy. Go attend him now.”

Ivar had no choice but to leave. They rummaged around on other errands that at length took them into other chambers, and she slipped out, unseen. But Ivar’s words troubled her into the evening, when at last king and court gathered for the wedding feast. The bridal couple were led forward wearing their best clothes. A cleric read out loud the details of the dower, what each party would bring to the marriage. Lord Alain spoke his consent in a clear, if unsteady, voice, but when it came Tallia’s turn, King Henry spoke for her. Was she being forced into the marriage against her will, as Ivar claimed? Yet who would quarrel with the regnant’s decision? The children of the nobility married to give advantage to their families; they had no say in the matter. Tallia was Henry’s to dispose of, now that he had defeated her parents in battle.

The local biscop had been brought in from the nearby town of Fuldas to speak a blessing over the young couple, who knelt before her to receive it. Lord Alain looked nervous and flushed and agitated. Lady Tallia looked so pale and thin that Hanna wondered if she would faint. But she did not. With hands clasped tightly before her, she merely kept her head bowed and looked at no one or no thing, not even her bridegroom.

The long summer twilight stretched before them as they crowded into the hall. Fresh rushes had been strewn over the floor. Servants scurried in and out with trays of steaming meat or pitchers of wine and mead. Slender greyhounds slunk away under tables, waiting for scraps. Sapientia allowed Hanna to stand behind her chair and occasionally offered her morsels from her platter, a marked sign of favor which Father Hugh noted with a surprised glance and then ignored as he directed Sapientia’s attention to the poet who came forward to sing.

The poem was delivered in Dariyan, but Hugh murmured a translation to Sapientia.

“She said: Come now, you who are my own love. Come forward.