“Liath.” He had no lamp, but she needed no lamp to see his shadow emerge into the loft and swing onto the floor.
Bent over, breathing in gasps more like whimpers, she drew her short sword.
“Now we shall have this out. And you will put away your sword, my beauty.” He walked forward two steps, one hand held out. “I have no doubt you can thrust that blade through me, but what will you tell them when they find me dead? You will be condemned for murder, and executed. Is that what you want? Give me the sword, Liath.”
“I’ll tell them you used sorcery to spell everyone to sleep and then tried to rape me.”
He laughed. “Why would anyone believe you? Can you imagine such a story coming to my mother’s ears and what she would say about it? A mere Eagle accusing a margrave’s son?”
Theophanu would believe her, but Theophanu had charged her to keep silence on the matter of sorcery. Theophanu had her own plans and, to a royal princess, an Eagle was simply another servant.
“I am right, as you know,” he added, his tone coaxing. “Put down the sword.”
“Get away from me,” she whispered. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”
“That is the choice given you after your da died. Be mine, or be dead. Which will it be?” He stopped, shifted, then fumbled with something unseen. A moment later he unlatched the shutter and opened it. The dull light of winter’s sky flooded into the loft, searing her eyes. And when she had done blinking and had finally, truly, to look upon him, he smiled. Cold air boiled in past him, a wind of ice drawn in to this, her prison, for her prison was any place where she was confined with him. The cold was itself the shackles, binding her as it curled around her, freezing her heart.
“Hush, my beauty,” he murmured softly. “Do not be scared of me. I won’t hurt you. I found a book at the monastery at Firsebarg, locked away in a chest which only the father abbot is allowed to open. I learned much from that book, as you see. ‘Lavender, for sleep.’ How did you make those arrows burst into flame? Do you even know? I can teach you what it means to have power, to know what is within yourself that you can use. I want only what is best for you. For you and for myself.”
The hilt of her sword felt like ice in her hand. He crossed the low attic to her, ducking his head, and took the sword out of her lax hand. His touch was warm, but his eyes were cold.
At last, she recognized that peculiar deep tone in his voice; she had learned well what it presaged, in the depths of winter in Heart’s Rest.
“I can’t wait any longer, Liath. And there is no one here to witness.”
“I’ll give you the book,” she whispered, voice half caught in her throat. Ai, Lady, she was begging. She was offering the only and most precious thing she had left to her, but losing that would be better than this again.
He shook his head impatiently. “You already gave me the book, and your submission, last spring, before Wolfhere stole them from me. I have been waiting a long time to get them back.”
She was too numb to resist when he gently stripped her of bow and quiver and saddlebag, when he lay her down on the hard plank floor. But when he kissed her, when his hand sought and found her belt, loosening it, she remembered finally through terror and numbing weakness one thing.
Wood burns.
6
THE road back to the king’s progress had proved so miserable and so full of hardships, appalling detours, and frustrations that Hanna had begun to wonder if Wolfhere might have gotten back with the news about Biscop Antonia before her. She had never seen the palace at Augensburg, of course, but two of her three remaining Lions had slept in the barracks there only two years ago while attending the king.
Now, with clouds sweeping in low over hills glazed with a thin crust of snow and with the last forest crossing behind them, they could see in the distance the market village and sprawling palace complex of Augensburg.
“That,” said Ingo, the most senior of the Lions, “is a lot of smoke. Even for Candlemass.”
“Lady’s Blood!” swore Leo. “Fire!”
Hanna had been walking in order to spare her horse. Now she mounted and left the Lions behind. Soon she came upon traffic that slowed her down as people rushed out away from Augensburg and others—farmers and foresters—rushed in, coming to aid the king against an implacable foe. They made way for her as best they could in the crush, but despite this she was forced to pull up just inside the low outer wall. Here she stared past river and market village, which lay to her left, and up at the palace, which lay on a low rise protected by its own inner palisade and the steep bluff on its other side. Her horse laid its ears back, trying to back up. The stench of burning was caustic as she breathed in.