Part 11 (1/2)
The sergeant merely shrugged helplessly, but Villam stepped forward.” I spoke to him.”
”And?”
Villam shook his head.” I advise you to let it rest for now.”
”Bring me my horse,” said Henry.
Before the others could rouse, he was off. Rosvita made haste to follow him, and she reached the stables just in time to commandeer a mule and ride after him. Besides a guard of a dozen soldiers, he rode alone except for Hathui, whom he engaged in a private conversation. When Rosvita caught up with the group, he glanced her way but let her accompany him without comment.
At first, she thought he meant to pursue his son, but once past the palace gates they took a different track, one that led past the monastery and into the forest, down a narrow track still lush with summer's growth.
The path wound through the forest. Alder wood spread around them, leaves turning to silver as the autumn nights chilled them. A network of streams punctuated the thick vegetation, low-lying willow and p.r.i.c.kly dewberry amid tussocks of woundwort and gra.s.sy sedge. A rabbit bounded away under the cover of dogwood half shed of its leaves. The hooves of the horses made a m.u.f.fled sound on the loamy track. Through a gap in the branches, she saw a buzzard circling above the treetops.
The track gave out abruptly in a meadow marked by a low rise where a solemn parade of hewn stones lay at odd angles, listing right or left depending on the density of the soil. One had fallen over, but the main group remained more or less intact.
”Here?” asked Henry.
”This far.” Hathui indicated the stone circle.” She went in. She did not come out, nor have I seen any evidence she walked through the stones and on into the forest beyond. There isn't a path, nothing but a deer track that's mostly overgrown.”
He beckoned to Rosvita.” Your company pa.s.sed through one of these gateways, Sister. Could it not be that the Aoi have hidden themselves in some distant corner of Earth, biding their time?”
”It could be, Your Majesty. But with what manner of sorcery I cannot know.”
”Yet there remain mathematici among us,” he mused, ”who may serve us as one did Adelheid.”
She shuddered, drawing in a breath to warn him against sorcery, but he turned away, so she did not speak. Light spread slowly over the meadow, waking its shadows to the day, and these rays crept up and over the king until he was wholly illuminated. The sun crowned him with its glory as he stared at the silent circle of ancient stones. A breeze stirred his hair, and his horse stamped once, tossed its head, and flicked an ear at a bothersome fly. He waited there, silent and watchful, while Hathui made a final circuit of the stones.
”What news of the mountains?” he asked as the Eagle came up beside him at last.
”Most reports agree that the pa.s.ses are still clear. It's been unseasonably warm, and there is little snow on the peaks. If G.o.d will it, we will have another month of fair weather. Enough to get through the mountains.”
On the ride back he sang, inviting the soldiers to join in. Afterward, he spoke to them of their families and their last campaign. At the stables, a steward was waiting to direct him to the chapel where Adelheid, Theophanu, and their retinues knelt at prayer.
Henry strode in like fire, and Adelheid rose to greet him with an answering strength of will. Theophanu waited to one side with inscrutable patience as the king made a show of greeting his fair, young queen. But he did not neglect his daughter. He kissed her on either cheek and drew her forward so that every person, and by now quite a few had crowded into the chapel, would note her standing at his right side.
”Theophanu, you will remain in the north as my representative.” He spoke with the king's public voice, carrying easily over the throng. The news carried in murmurs out the door and into the palace courtyard, where people gathered to see how Henry would react to the news of Sanglant's departure.
What Theophanu's expression concealed Rosvita could no longer guess. Was she glad of the opportunity or angry to be left behind again? She only nodded, eyes half shuttered.” As you wish, Father.”
Henry extended an arm and took Adelheid's hand in his, drawing her forward to stand by his left side, as he would any honored ally.” Tomorrow,” he said, addressing the court with a sharp smile, ”we continue our march south, to Aosta.”
LIGHT lay in such a hard, brilliant sheen over the abandoned city that Liath had to shade her eyes as she and Eldest Uncle emerged out of the cave into heat and sunlight. The stone edifices spread out before her, as silent as ghosts, color splashed across them where walls and square columns had been painted with bright murals. She retrieved her weapons from the peace stone and the water jar from the pyramid of skulls. Her hands were still unsteady, her entire soul shaken.
She and Da had run for so many years, hunted and, in the end, caught. She had been exiled from the king's court, yet had not found peace within her mother's embrace. Now this place, too, was closed to her. Was there any place she would ever be welcome? Could she ever find a home where she would not be hounded, hunted, and threatened with death?
Not today.
The huge carved serpent's mouth lay empty, although she heard the incomprehensible sound of the councillors' distant conversation, muted by the labyrinthine turnings of the pa.s.sageway, each one like a twist of intrigue in the king's court, m.u.f.fling words and intent.
”I have been given a day and a night,” she said to the old sorcerer. She had learned to keep going by reverting to practical matters.” Can I walk the spheres in that length of time?”
”Child, the span of days as they are measured on Earth has no meaning up among the spheres. You must either return to Earth, or walk the spheres.”
”Or wait here and die.”
He chuckled.” Truly, even with such meager powers of foretelling as I possess, I do not predict that is the fate which awaits you.”
”What fate awaits me, then?”
He shrugged. Together they walked back across the city toward the bank of mist.” You are new to your power,” he said finally.” The path that leads to the spheres may not open for you.”
”And the burning stone may remain hidden. What then? Will Cat Mask choose to hunt me down?” ”He surely will. Given the chance.”
”Then I must make sure he is not given the chance.” The silence hanging over the abandoned city made her voice sound like nothing more than the scratch of a mouse's claws on the stone paving of a vast cathedral.” I could return to Earth.”
”So you could,” he replied agreeably. He whistled, under his breath, a tune that sounded like the wandering wind caught among a maze of reed pipes.
”Then I would be reunited with my husband and child.” ”Indeed you would, in that case.”
”My daughter is growing. How many days are pa.s.sing while we speak here together? How many months will pa.s.s before I see her again?” Her voice rose in anger.” How can I wait here, how can I even consider a longer journey, when I know that Sister Anne and her companions are preparing for what lies ahead?” ”These are difficult questions to answer.” His calm soothed her.” Of course, if this land does not return to its place, there might be other unseen consequences, ones that aren't as obvious as a great cataclysm but that are equally terrible.” ”So there might.”
”But, in fact, no one knows what will happen.” ”No one ever knows what will happen,” he replied, ”not even those who can divine the future.”
She glanced at him, but could not read anything in his countenance except peace. He had a mole below one eye, as though a black tear had frozen there.” You're determined to agree with me.”
”Am I? Perhaps it is only that you've said nothing yet that I can disagree with.”
They walked a while more in silence. She pulled one corner of her cloak up over her head to shade her eyes. The somber ranks of stairs, the platforms faced with skull-like heads and gaping mouths or with processions of women wearing elaborate robes and complicated headdresses, the glaring eye of the sun, all these wore away at her until she had an ache that throbbed along her forehead. The beat of her heart pulsed annoyingly in her throat. When they came to the great pyramid, she sank down at its foot, bracing herself against one of the monstrous heads. She set a hand on a smooth snout, a serpent's cunning face extruding from a petaled stone flower. Sweat trickled down her back. Heat sucked anger out of her. She would have taken off her cloak, but she needed it to keep her head shaded. The old sorcerer crouched at the base of the huge staircase, rolling his spear between his hands.
”Did you use magic to build this city?” she asked suddenly.
His aged face betrayed nothing, ”Is the willingness to perform backbreaking labor a form of magic? Are the calculations of priests trained in geometry and astronomy more sorcery than skill? Perhaps so. What is possible for many may seem like magic when only a few contemplate the same amount of work.”
”I'm tired,” said Liath, and so she was. She shut her eyes, but under that shroud of quiet she could not feel at peace. She saw Sanglant and Blessing as she had seen them through the vision made out of fire: the child-grown so large!-squirming toward her and Sanglant crying out her name.” I'm so tired. How can I do everything that is asked of me?”
”Always we are tied to the earth out of which we came whether we will it or not. What you might have become had you the ability to push all other considerations from your heart and mind is not the same thing that you will become because you can never escape your ties to those for whom you feel love and responsibility.”
”What I am cannot be separated from who I am joined to in my heart.”
He grunted. She opened her eyes just as he gripped the haft of his spear and hoisted himself up to his feet. A man ran toward them along the broad avenue with the lithe and powerful lope of a predator. As he neared, she felt a momentary s.h.i.+ver of terror: dressed in the decorated loincloth and short cloak ubiquitous among the Aoi males, he had not a human face but an animal one. An instant later she recognized Cat Mask. He had pulled his mask down to conceal his face. In his right hand he held a small, round, white s.h.i.+eld and in his left a wooden sword ridged with obsidian blades.
She leaped up and onto the stairs, grabbed her bow, slipped an arrow free, and drew, sighting on Cat Mask. Eldest Uncle said nothing, made no movement, but he whistled softly under his breath. Oddly enough, she felt the wind s.h.i.+ft and tangle around her like so many little fingers clutching and prying.
Cat Mask slowed and, with the grace of a cat pretending it meant to turn away from the mouse that has escaped it, halted a cautious distance away.” I am forbidden to harm you this day!” he cried. The mask m.u.f.fled his words.
”Is that meant to make me trust you?” She didn't change her stance.
After a moment he wedged the s.h.i.+eld between arm and torso and used his free hand to lift his mask so that she could see his face. He examined her with the startled expression of a man who has abruptly realized that the woman standing before him has that blend of form and allurement that makes her attractive. She didn't lower her bow. Wind teased her arrow point up and down, so she couldn't hold it steady. With an angry exclamation she sought fire in the iron tip and let it free. The arrow's point burst into flame. Cat Mask leaped backw^d quite dramatically.
Eldest Uncle laughed outright, hoisting his spear. The bells tied to its tip jangled merrily.” So am I answered!” he cried. He frowned at Cat Mask.” Why have you followed us, Sour One?”