The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“TONIGHT,” Hugh had said when they told him they would accept his aid, and now she found herself buffeted by the flood of activity as they made ready to leave. She was a leaf torn and floating on an uncontrollable tide. She had to find Mother Obligatia and speak to her before they left—there had been no time before, everyone had conspired to drive them apart as soon as it became clear that they would risk what ought to have remained forbidden.

And yet, she was exhilarated.

“Sister Rosvita, I beg you, wake up.”

For a moment she did not recognize the brown hair and broad face of the woman staring down at her. Had she kept her suspicions to herself? How long ago was it that she had been shaken by revelation?

“May I help you rise, Sister? We must go now or we will be left behind.”

She had fallen asleep in the library, slumped over the lectern. She had even drooled a little in her sleep; one corner of the chronicle was moist. Lady Leoba briskly put both the Vita of St. Radegundis and the copy so lovingly penned first by Sister Amabilia and then by Sister Petra into the sturdy leather pouch that contained Rosvita’s unfinished History.

It was hard to stand. She felt weak and tired, and she ached everywhere. Her neck had stiffened, and her spine crackled with pops and creaks as she straightened. Her left knee hurt, and her knuckles felt swollen. This was the burden of age.

“Let me carry this for you, Sister,” said Leoba, graciously shouldering the pouch.

“Where is Mother Obligatia?”

“She is with the princess.”

“I must speak to her before we leave.”

“As you wish, Sister. Princess Theophanu is waiting for you.”

By the light of a single lamp held aloft by young Paloma, they made their way to the cavern. It was empty, eerily so: not one scrap of leather remained to show what a great party had sheltered here, only a fading and somewhat putrid scent.

“That man died,” said Paloma. “The one who was touched by the creature. Will you all die, too, do you think?”

“I hope not, child,” said Rosvita. Leoba shuddered, but she was too sow-headed a woman to voice her fear, if she had any.

Paloma led them past an odd array of side chambers carved out of the rock. Tunnels curved off on either side, descending and ascending.

“Was this a city once?” Rosvita wondered aloud as they reached a ramp that sloped upward, curled around a huge wall of rock, and narrowed abruptly where a groove was cut into the earth. Another millstone lay on its side, slotted into the rock, ready to be rolled shut in the event of attack.

“I think it was a refuge,” said Paloma, “just like it is now. They built ways to block the path behind them if they needed to flee upward to the stone crown. Here, careful—” She lit them over a plank that bridged a ditch, whose steep sides vanished into darkness below. “It’s too far to jump. Can you smell the horses?”

Rosvita could smell them, and soon enough could hear nervous whinnies, the mutter of men, and the restless undercurrent of an entourage making ready to leave. Light bled in through cunning shafts angling sunlight down through the rocks. Paloma doused the lamp, and they climbed steps over a low wall whose sides were stippled with squares of light.

“Those holes make arrow slits, so defenders in the stables could shoot anyone coming down this corridor.”

Two sharp corners brought them to the low, lit caves used as stables, high up on the rock where several more terraces gave light and air and room for exercise. Nevertheless, she saw several heaps of bone and offal, burned and swept to one side; six weeks under these conditions had been too much for some of the horses already weakened by the grueling ride from Vennaci.

Ahead, the retinue gathered in marching order, lined up and stretching out of her sight on a path that curled out onto a terrace and then on up around the rock face. Wind blew steadily; it was night, but the sky was clear and the moon bright and perfectly round. They dared use no lamps for fear of alerting Ironhead to their desperate ploy, and yet it was possible that his sentries might see them anyway, silhouetted by moonlight against the huge outcropping. Looming above, she saw the black mass of the summit and beyond it, the garden of winter stars, their brilliance dimmed by the glare of the full moon.

Leoba used her elbows as well as a few choice phrases, some polite, some coarser, to press their way forward through the rear guard and then the main party. Rosvita had to pause briefly to reassure Fortunatus, who was trapped in a clot of clerics and wanted desperately to join her. To salve his distress, she gave the pouch of precious books into his keeping. Then she went on to the front where Queen Adelheid and Princess Theophanu stood beside their mounts. Captain Fulk and a dozen soldiers made up the van.