The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

Hands gripped him by shoulder and hip and heaved him back against the wall. He looked up at the worried servant and, beyond him, a golden-haired man clothed in a fine pale linen tunic who gazed at him so pensively that Zacharias thought the man was about to weep.

“Can you hear me, Brother Zacharias?” asked this magnificent figure in a fine, mellifluous voice. “Can you speak?”

“Who are you?” he croaked.

“Ah.” The man called to an unseen fourth party. “Vindicadus, bring me my robes.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

The patter of footsteps faded as the lord examined Zacharias. “What shall we do with you?” he mused. “What shall we do? Two days yet until the king’s ascension. Can you move?”

Zacharias tried to wiggle his feet, to move his hands, but nothing happened. He might as well have been stone, and it sickened him to think of lying here in helpless terror as each day spun into the next. “Am I a cripple, Your Excellency?”

“His finger moved, Your Excellency,” said Eigio.

“So it did. Sister Meriam’s nostrums have had their effect, as she promised us in her letter, but faster than expected. Strange.” As he bit his lower lip in a gesture more common to children puzzling over an unanswered question, he looked startlingly young and oddly frightening, but the shiver of fear passed quickly.

“Very well, Eigio.” He walked to the door and paused there. “Let no person enter. Say his condition has taken a turn for the worse and that he is near death, and on no account let any soul hear him speak. Your meals will be brought as usual and a guard will be posted outside the door. You are not to leave this room again. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Your Excellency. It will be done as you say, Your Excellency.”

“I am sure it will be.”

Eigio shut the door behind him, closing them in.

“Where am I?” Zacharias asked, and the man looked at him in surprise, as if he had forgotten Zacharias was there.

“Nay, Brother,” he said, wrinkling his brow in distress. “Only Presbyter Hugh is to speak to you, he made that clear. You may ask all you want, but I can say nothing.”

Zacharias had nothing left to do but wiggle his fingers and toes as he surveyed his domain: the bed, a bench and cot for the servant, a side table with a basin and pitcher of water, and a garland hanging over the door. On the bench rested a tray of oddments including a ball of bright red yarn and two large hooked wooden needles, a wine cup, a chess set carved of ivory, a bowl and spoon, a bundle of rosemary with a sprinkling of pale blue flowers among the spiky leaves, and a writing knife, stoppered inkhorn, and several uncut goose quills.

Two shutters leaned against the whitewashed walls beside a single embrasure. Outside it was day.

“Where am I?” Zacharias repeated, but Eigio turned mute and would answer none of his queries, only gave him a ghastly sweet mead to drink.

He slept, and when he woke it was dark, the chamber illuminated by a single candle whose light gilded the pale head of the lord Eigio had called Presbyter Hugh. He had pulled the bench up to the side table, on which a sloping writing desk had been set. He worked industriously, pen scratching as he wrote on vellum, his attention fixed on his labors as he copied onto the parchment from an exemplar out of Zacharias’ sight beyond Hugh’s left arm. He was a remarkably handsome man, with a face that light cherished and women no doubt swooned over, that wealth of golden hair, and his limbs and figure so well proportioned that he seemed more angel than man.

All at once Zacharias knew who the man was and, therefore, where he must be.

“Am I in Darre? How did I get here?”

Hugh set down the pen and used the penknife to scrape off a blot before turning to regard him with that same pensive expression Zacharias had seen before.

o;Where have I come to?”

The man shrieked, dropped the half-cleared bedding, and ran from the room, leaving him propped up on his side like a board.

Was that truly his own voice, so rough and low? He tried again.

“Where have I come to? What day is it?”

Elation spilled tears from his eyes, streaming down his cheeks to spot the rumpled bedding. Emboldened, he tensed and rocked, overbalanced, and tipped forward to land facedown on the lumpy mattress at a tilt, caught between the mattress and the ridges made by the half-stripped blankets. A hollow cradled his face so he could breathe, inhaling the musty smell of straw ticking and coarse canvas cover moist with his sweat and effusions.

“Yes! He spoke as clear as can be, Your Excellency. God in Heaven! Look there! He’s rolled himself forward.”

Hands gripped him by shoulder and hip and heaved him back against the wall. He looked up at the worried servant and, beyond him, a golden-haired man clothed in a fine pale linen tunic who gazed at him so pensively that Zacharias thought the man was about to weep.

“Can you hear me, Brother Zacharias?” asked this magnificent figure in a fine, mellifluous voice. “Can you speak?”