The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

When the last namers fell quiet, he nodded and struck the haft of his standard three times on the ground.

“Alba belongs to the RockChildren whom humankind calls ‘Eika.’ We have work yet to do here in Alba to consolidate what is now ours, but we will not stop here. I turn my gaze east and I see Salia at war with itself, brother fighting brother. Where brothers fight, the land is weakened. So we know from our own struggles. That is why we were weak for so long.”

The fen waters gleamed under the sun’s hard light, a cold spring day so clear that he could distinguish each separate reed stalk out where beds of reeds grew thickly around hummocks of land. A body floated in the water, the cloth of the tunic billowing as ripples captured it. North lay the wash and the sea, with no one to hinder their journey. Geese flew high overhead. One of the clerics whispered to Brother Severus, but the old man shook his head impatiently, cautioning the nervous one to hold still. Their allies were anxious, as they should be.

His army waited, restless as the geese, ready to be on the move again, to fight the next battle, but the discipline he had honed in them held fast. Even the dogs sat obediently, licking their bloody muzzles and paws.

They were ready.

“We are weak no longer,” he cried. “From this island we will launch a new ship, and we will call it Empire.”

PART THREE

CAUDA DRACONIS

XXIII

INTO THE PIT

1

THE ship lay at anchor beneath a cliff so high and sheer that it looked as if a giant had used a knife to slice through the island before carrying half of it away. To their right, the land dropped precipitously in ragged terraces and rock-strewn falls to the sea where it gave out in a curving line of islets and rocky outcrops thrust up to make of their harbor a sheltered bay. The water beneath them was, according to the shipmaster, too deep to sound. Gentle swells rocked the deck. Zacharias found the motion soothing after so many weeks beating before a stiff wind out of the north.

The intensity of the light dazzled him. He shaded his eyes, peering up to a tangle of white houses perched along the top of the high cliff. What a view! It made him dizzy to think of living so high, staring each day out over the brilliant sea.

Marcus stood beside him, hands gripping the rail as he watched a boat work its way between a pair of scrub-crowned islets before heading, true as an arrow flies, toward them. Four men worked the oars of the craft; she carried six passengers, one scarcely larger than a child. When the boat drew alongside, a sailor threw down a rope ladder.

Wolfhere clambered aboard first, together with the Arethousan-speaking sailor who had gone with him to interpret. The old Eagle blew on his hands and examined them with a frown; the rowing had raised a pair of blisters. Next came a pair of servants, hardy looking souls, a man and a woman dressed simply but in the finest cloth. Below, the childlike figure was lifted into a sling tied around a third servant’s torso, a man with the muscular build of a soldier. In this way, hoisted like a pack, she was brought aboard. Marcus hastened to the rope ladder. He had an odd expression on his face, one Zacharias did not recognize until the cleric clasped the hands of the ancient woman seated in the sling.

“You are looking well, Sister!”

He cared about her.

“Well enough for a woman who survived a shipwreck.” Though she was strikingly foreign in appearance, with black hair and dark skin, her accent sat lightly on her tongue. “Two months on this island has been efficacious for my lungs.”

“I feared for you in Darre.”

“The air in that city would fell the healthiest of bulls. Its stink nearly did me in, but the sea air has revived me.”

Once she had been a beauty, black and lovely. Now her hair gleamed white, and her age-spotted hands trembled, but her gaze remained inquiring and keen. She caught Zacharias’ eye and nodded. “Who is this?”

“A discipla,” said Marcus.

“Ah.” Her bland expression made Zacharias twitch nervously. “I will speak to him later.”

The servants unfolded a canvas chair, and as they transferred the old woman into this more comfortable seat, the last two passengers clambered onto the deck: a second female servant and a handsome girl no more than fourteen or sixteen years of age, strongly built and with a complexion darker than that of the Wendish servant’s, but not as dark as the old woman’s.

“Grandmother, I will see that the cabin is made ready for you.” The old woman and Marcus had been speaking in Aostan, which Zacharias could understand better than he could speak, but the girl spoke Wendish.

“Elene, I wish you to acknowledge my comrade, Brother Marcus, of the presbyter’s college. We will travel with him until we reach Qahirah.”

“My lady,” said Marcus with the politesse of a man raised at his ease among the nobility.

“Presbyter Marcus.” She inclined her head as between equals.

Whose child was this, so grand, powerful, and proud? So Wendish, yet with a heathen’s looks?

He dared not ask.