Child of Flame

Hanna riding in the train of a battered army across a grassy landscape mottled with trees and low hills.

Hugh seated at a feast in the place of honor next to a laughing man who wears a crown of iron, yet as she takes in her breath sharply, horrified to see Hugh’s beautiful face, he looks up, startled, just as if he has heard her. He turns to speak intently to the veiled woman seated at his right hand.

Wolfhere walking with bowed shoulders down a forest path. She forms his name on her lips, and abruptly he glances up and speaks, audibly: “Liath?”

Lamps burn in a chamber made rich by the lush tapestries hanging on its walls. People have gathered around King Henry—she recognizes him at once—but as though a lodestone drags her, her vision pulls past him to that which she most seeks:

Ai, God, it is Blessing! The baby is crying, struggling in Heribert’s arms as she reaches out for her mother.

“Ma! Ma!” the infant cries.

Blessing can see her!

“Blessing!” she cries. Then she sees him, emerging out of a shadowed corner. Maybe her heart will break, because she misses him so much. “Sanglant!”

He leaps forward. “Liath!” But a figure jerks him back.

They were gone.

“Look!” shouted Cat Mask.

Through the fading blaze, Liath saw a sleeping man. His head was turned away from her, but two black hounds lay on either side of him, like guardians. He stirred in his sleep. That fast, fire and vision vanished, and the flames settled like falling wings to reveal Feather Cloak standing unharmed.

Liath sank down to the floor, shaking so hard she could not stand.

“Let this be a sign,” said Feather Cloak sternly. “Who among you saw the Impatient One and the man who must be her son, who partakes both of our blood and of human blood?”

But the others had not seen the vision made of fire, and Liath was too shaken to speak.

“She must leave,” said Feather Cloak to Eldest Uncle. “She bears an ill-omened name. Her power is too great, and like all of humankind, she does not understand it. I have spoken.”

“So be it,” said Eldest Uncle.

Cat Mask jumped forward. “Let her blood be taken to give us strength!”

They all began arguing at once as Liath leaped to her feet. “Is this what you call justice?” she cried.

“Silence,” said Feather Cloak in a voice so soft that it seemed more like an exhaled breath, and yet silence fell. A wind blew outside, making the roots at the ceiling tick quietly against each other in its eddy. “She must leave unmolested. I will not risk her blood spilled while we are still so weak.”

“Yet I would have her walk the spheres before she goes,” said Eldest Uncle as congenially as if he wished to offer an honored guest a final mug of ale before departure.

White Feather hissed. Skull Earrings made a sharp protest, echoed by others. Only Cat Mask laughed.

Feather Cloak regarded Liath coolly. She had eyes as dark as obsidian and a gaze as sharp as a knife. “Few can walk the spheres. None return unchanged from that path.”

“This I have seen,” said Eldest Uncle, “that if we would live, we must help her discover what she is.”

The glow illuminating the Eagle Seat dimmed until it had the delicate luminescence of a seashell. With dimness came a sharpening of smell: dry earth, sour sweat, the faint and distracting scent of water, and the cutting flavor of ginger on her tongue. Liath felt suddenly weary, cut to the heart by that glimpse of Sanglant and Blessing, as if her shell of numbness had been torn loose, exposing raw skin.

“Let her return here no more,” said Feather Cloak, “but if she can mount the path to the spheres, I will not interfere. When one day and one night have passed, I will send Cat Mask and his warriors in search of her. If they find her in our country, then I will look the other way if they choose to kill her. I have spoken.”

“So be it,” murmured Eldest Uncle, and the others echoed him as Cat Mask grinned.

IV

JUDGEMENT IN HASTE

1

“SHE isn’t at all what I remember.”

King Henry stood with his granddaughter in his arms at an unshuttered window in the royal chambers, attended only by Rosvita, Hathui, four stewards, six guards, and Helmut Villam. Princess Theophanu and four of her ladies sat in the adjoining chamber, playing chess, embroidering, and discussing the tractate Concerning Male Chastity, written by St. Sotheris, which had only recently been translated by the nuns at Korvei Convent from the original Arethousan into Dariyan. Their voices rang out merrily, seemingly immune from care.

Queen Adelheid had escorted Alia and Sanglant outside to show them the royal garden, with its rose beds, diverse herbs, and the aviary that the palace at Angenheim was famous for. Standing beside Henry at the window, with her fingers clamped tight on the sill, Rosvita saw Adelheid’s bright gown among the roses. A moment later, she saw Sanglant on his knees by one of the herb plots, fingering petals of comfrey. Brother Heribert knelt beside him and they spoke together, two heads bent in convivial conversation. The contrast between the two men could not have been bolder: Sanglant had the bulk and vitality of a man accustomed to armor and horseback and a life lived outdoors, while Heribert, in his cleric’s robes, had a slender frame and narrow shoulders. Yet his hands, too, bore the marks of manual labor. How had they met? What did Heribert know that he had not told them?