There will not be many survivors from those who gathered at Gent—and those who survive will belong to him.
His followers do their work well, and efficiently. He climbs to the little fort and from this vantage point he watches as the heart of Old-Man, the moon, sinks into the west and the stars, the eyes of the most ancient Mothers, stare with their luminous indifference upon the streaming waters and the silent earth. In the fjall of the heavens, the vale of black ice, only the cold holds sway and their whispering conversations take lifetimes to complete. But they are nonetheless beautiful.
6
IT was night, but Liath could not sleep.
She had sent Hathui to sleep and offered to stand middle night watch, as one Eagle always did, over the king’s pavilion together with the guards.
With the moon one day past full, only the brightest stars were visible. But she could not even concentrate enough to watch those stars and read their secret turnings in the language Da taught her, the language of the mathematici.
Sanglant was alive.
Alive.
Yet so changed.
Yet not changed at all.
“Eagle.”
The whisper came out of the shadows, twisted from the steady breath of the night breeze on the many pavilions staked out around her. She stiffened and turned to seek out the voice.
Two guards with torches appeared out of the gloom. A third man led a mule, and there, on the mule’s back, sat a woman in the robes of a cleric. But she did not venture in far enough that the guards beside the king’s tent could see her face.
Cautiously, Liath walked out to meet her.
It was Sister Rosvita, looking drawn and anxious.
“Aren’t you with the train?”
Rosvita allowed her servant to help her dismount and then waved him and her guards away. They retreated and stood a few paces off. “I was, but I had to leave and come here, and the moon gave enough light for the journey.”
“But some Eika may still haunt the woods!”
“It was not as far as I feared it would be. We saw no Eika. I must speak to you, Eagle. It is by the Lady’s grace that my path brought me directly to you.”
To Liath’s amazement, the cleric took a bundle wrapped in linen from a bag tied to the mule’s saddle and held it up before her. Liath knew immediately what it was.
“How did you?” she whispered, scarcely able to force the words out.
“Do you know what is in here? Nay, do not trouble yourself to answer. I see that you do. I know you can read Dariyan …” The cleric spoke in a rush, clearly agitated though Liath had never seen her anything but calm before. “Why should I give this back to you?”
She was half the cleric’s age. She could easily snatch the book from her and run. But she did not, though neither could she compose an eloquent or compelling reply. “It’s all I have left of my da!”
“Was your da a mathematicus?”
There was no use in lying. Rosvita had obviously read in the book. “Yes.”
“And what are you, Eagle?” the cleric demanded.
“Kinless,” she said flatly. “All I have are the Eagles. I pray you, Sister, I am no threat to anyone.”
Rosvita glanced up at the stars as though to ask them if this was truth, or a cunning dissemblance. But the stars only spoke to those who knew their language, so she did not. “I dare not keep this,” she said in a low voice.
“How did you get it?”
“That does not matter.”
“Can you—how much did you—?” But she was afraid to ask. She shifted. Beyond, the three servants who had escorted the cleric huddled close, sharing something from a leather bottle. She thought she smelled mead, but there were so many smells mingling and unraveling in the air around them that she could not be sure if it was honey’s fermented sweetness or the aftertaste of drying blood.
“I cannot read Jinna, although you can.” It was not a question. “And the fourth language is unknown to me. I had only a moment to look at the Arethousan and the Dariyan, but I needed no more than that to recognize what I was seeing. Lady protect you, child! Why are you riding as a common Eagle?”
“It is what was offered me.”
“By Wolfhere.”
“He saved me from Hugh.”
The moonlight bleached Rosvita’s face of expression, but she shook her head and then simply offered the book to Liath.
Liath grabbed it and clutched it against her chest.
“I think it properly belongs to you,” said Rosvita softly, hesitantly. “Pray God I am right in this. But you must come speak to me, Eagle, of this matter. Your immortal soul is at risk. Who are the Seven Sleepers?”