“It makes no matter to me whether a discipla is a cleric or a woodcutter’s child, Lady Bertha. I will teach any woman or man who brings patience, a good memory, and a willingness to learn.”
By the lift of her head Liath could see she had startled the noblewoman. “Any woman or man?”
“Any, no matter their station in life or what they are now, as long as they will work, for it is a difficult and dreary labor and few will have the taste for it. At dusk, assemble those who wish to watch and listen.”
“What will you do?” Breschius asked.
“I know what day we left the steppes because you and Heribert kept a close record of the days during your journey. It is possible we have skipped months or years by traveling through the crowns.”
“How can that happen?”
“I walked in the land of the Aoi for only a few days while years went by here on Earth. When we cross through the crowns, we touch the aether, where time passes differently than it does in the world below. I suppose there must be a way to calculate how much time any crossing would take. We know how long ago the Aoi land was cast into the aether. If we knew Eldest Uncle’s exact age, we could discover how long a day in the aether expands into a day or month here on Earth. Then, if we knew how far we wished to travel between two crowns, we might predict how long we would spend within the crowns as we cross that distance. Unless there is some other factor that alters the measure of days. What if the time doesn’t remain as a constant, if a day measured within the aether doesn’t always equal a month on Earth but fluctuates—”
“Ai, God!” said Bertha, laughing. “You’ve lost me! What if we’ve walked right past the cataclysm? What if it’s already happened?”
“We would know if the cataclysm had rocked us while we crossed between circles. We would have felt its impact because of the thread that connects the exiled land and Earth. We still have time. I must see which of the wandering planets appear in the heavens, and where they walk. Then I can calculate backward to the places they stood when we first entered the crown in the east. That will give me a rough date.”
“The lore of the mathematici be no secret if any woman or man is allowed to learn it,” said Bertha abruptly.
“What is hoarded among a few loses its power when more share it. Only think of what might happen if more than Eagles learn the trick of gazing through fire. If merchants can hire sorcerers to weave the crowns and allow them to cross over these mountains safe from avalanches and bandits. Only think of Anne’s power, which she has guarded well. If there were more to combat her, she would not be skopos now, with the king dangling from a chain of her devising. Amulets protect us from her gaze, but they also cripple us because we cannot use my Eagle’s Sight, lest it expose us. We can risk the sight once a day at most, as I arranged with Sanglant. If we did not fear, we would not be so weak. As I know myself, for I was fearful and weak once, too.”
“You would even teach the common-born folk?” Bertha demanded.
“Those who can learn. Why not? Da and I lived among highborn and lowborn alike. I saw no great difference between those born to a high station and those from the most humble. Some chose wickedness and some good. Some chose an honest path, and some chose a road paved with lies. Some were clever, and some had no more wits than a sheep. Any Eagle could tell you as much, for they are all of them born of low station yet they walk along paths frequented by princes.”
Bertha was looking at her strangely. “You are born out of a noble line.”
“Am I? I am not Anne’s daughter. I am not Taillefer’s great grandchild. Da was born to a noble line, it is true, but I suppose they might have been free farmers digging a foothold into untamed land in the time of my great grandmothers. Why should I be prouder than Hathui? Why should I hold myself above her? With the gold she claimed from the Quman she’ll dower her nieces and nephews and who is to say that, if they prosper, their children’s children might not marry a noble lady’s sons and daughters? Or that a lord fallen on hard times might not send his youngest son into service as a soldier in another lord’s army, and if that boy ever marries and if his fortunes fall further, his children’s children might be no better off than that of a servingman who obeys the will of a count.”
When she stopped, having run out of breath, she saw they were staring at her as though she had been raving, a lunatic run wild right before their eyes.
“I pray you,” said Bertha, “fetch her some wine.”
Gnat and Mosquito leaped eagerly to the task, bringing a flask of wine and a tray of bread and cheese as well as a freshly plucked bunch of exceptionally sweet grapes.
Bertha left her under Breschius’ care and went to walk among the troops.
“I have troubled her,” she said at last to Breschius. “I didn’t intend to. I wasn’t thinking.”
“You have traveled a strange road, my lady. The touch of the aether must alter a person’s vision.”
“It did.” She looked after Lady Bertha, who was laughing with a pair of soldiers. Yet she was master and they were servants, evident by the way they stood each next to the others, the amount of space between them, their postures as the noblewoman made a final comment and moved on. “There is no going back to what I was before. Nor would I want to.”
Breschius nodded agreeably. He did not seem to think she was insane. “It’s true the blessed Daisan teaches us that all souls are equal before God.”
“Then why are they unequal on Earth?”
“Their position, not their souls, are unequal on Earth. God ordered the world so, my lady. That is why.”
“That’s not really an answer, is it? Did God so order the world? Or did humankind order it so and give the claim to God to justify their actions?”
“You tread close to heresy, my lady.”
“Do I?”
He smiled, and she could see that he was not one whit offended. This was a man who liked to wrestle with difficult questions. “You do. So I ask you this: What other order might obtain? How else can humankind prosper, if there are not some who command and others who serve? If we have no order in the world, then we will live in chaos, no better than the wild beasts. Even among the beasts, the strongest take what they wish and the weak die.”
“Beasts don’t think, not in any way like to us,” she said stubbornly, but she could not answer his question. God had so ordered the world, with regnants above and slaves below and the rest each in their own place. How could she change it?