Child of Flame

Every noble in Bayan’s army attended, because not to attend might place them under suspicion. From her position close to the altar, Hanna scanned the crowd, but she hadn’t enough height to see anyone except the top of Captain Thiadbold’s head, recognizable because of his red hair, far to the back. The biscop had commanded the highest ranking Lions to witness as well, so they could report the proceedings to the soldiers under their command. No spiritual charge was graver than heresy. It was, truly, akin to treason against the regnant.

But all Hanna could think about was losing her head to a Quman patrol. Maybe she would have been better off letting magic carry her east. Maybe she’d been meant to choose Sorgatani over that glimpse of Liath. Yet hadn’t that been only a dream? Couldn’t she be excommunicated if Biscop Alberada knew the extent of her involvement with sorcery? Sometimes it was better to keep quiet. In a way, that puzzled her most about Ekkehard, Lord Dietrich, and lost Ivar. Why did they have to be so obstreperous about their beliefs? Why did they have to keep rattling the chain?

But that was her mother, Mistress Birta, talking. “Why make a date to meet trouble,” she would say, “when trouble won’t go out of its way to avoid you should you happen on it in the road?” Like Prince Bayan, Mistress Birta saw the world in practical terms. Probably that was one reason Hanna respected Bayan, despite his annoying admiration of her—scarcely possible to call it a flirtation, given the chasm between their stations—that might well send her to her death. Of course, Birta had never cut off anyone’s fingers, but there was no saying she wouldn’t do so, if she thought it necessary.

A morose hymn came to its close. Hanna used her elbow to get room, nudging aside one of Sapientia’s stewards so she could see better. Clerics walked forward in ranks. Each carried a lit candle to signify the Circle of Unity, the Light of Truth. These they set in a circle around Ekkehard, Dietrich, and the others, who had been herded into a clump at the front of the nave. Their light burned hotly, making Hanna blink. The bright light threw the expressions on the carved saints into relief, a lip drawn down in pity, a hand lifted with two fingers extended to show justice, a glowering frown under heavy-cut eyebrows, twin to that emerging on its unfinished companion. They watched, and they judged.

Biscop Alberada mounted steps to the biscop’s platform. She raised her hands for silence.

“Let unsweetened vinegar be brought forward, so that the accused may taste the bitterness of heresy.”

Her servants brought cups forward, each distinguished according to the rank of its recipient: for Ekkehard a gold cup, and a silver one for his noble companions; for Lord Dietrich a silver cup as well, and one of brass for his stubborn retinue. The common-born heretics had to make do with a wooden cup passed between them. One man refused to drink and was whipped, three times, until he did so. All of them choked and gasped, coughing, from the bite, all but Lord Dietrich, who drained his cup as though it were honey mead and did not flinch as his defiant gaze remained fixed on the biscop.

“Let any who wear the Circle be stripped of it, for they no longer rest within the protecting ring of its light and truth. Let their hair be cut, to be a badge of their shame.”

One of Ekkehard’s youths was vain of his blond hair, and he began to weep while Ekkehard stood at a loss to aid him as clerics moved among them with knives, chopping off their hair in ragged bunches. Only when Lord Dietrich moved to comfort the lad and speak to him softly did the young man stiffen, clench his hands, and lift his chin with tremulous pride as a sour-faced cleric hacked off his beautiful hair.

“Let them see in truth that the light of truth no longer burns in their hearts.” Descending from her pulpit, she paced the circle, extinguishing the candles one by one by capping them. Smoke drifted up in wispy ribbons. “Thus are you severed from the church. Thus are you become excommunicate. Thus are you forbidden the holy sacraments. Thus are you cut off forever from the society of all Daisanites.”

Light died. Afternoon dwindled to twilight. Colors faded into grays.

“Let any woman or man who aids them be also excommunicated. They no longer stand in the Circle of Light. God no longer see them.”

Ekkehard staggered as if he’d been struck. One of his companions fainted. Others sobbed.

“I do not fear,” said Lord Dietrich. “Let God make Her will known. I am only Her willing vessel.”

There was silence. Alberada seemed to be waiting for a sign. Back in the crowd, a man coughed.

Lord Dietrich gave a sudden violent jerk that spun him out of the circle. Three candles went rolling as he fell hard to the floor. He twitched once, twice, and thrashed wildly, struck by a fit of apoplexy.