The Burning Stone

Page 192

The horses struggled along on stony paths that in some places were little more than goat tracks. Toward dusk, one went lame. Its rider threw off his armor and took to the countryside, hoping to escape Ironhead by hiding in the hills. The rest pressed on. By this time Rosvita’s robes were covered with dust, her lips chapped, her face burned by sun and dry wind. Her back still ached, and she was hungry. But at least her horse remained sound and strong. Slowly, her world had shrunken until the health of her horse and the blessedly empty path behind encompassed her entire world.
Water had collected in the shadowed depths of the next defile, a trickle that fed into a pool and then drained away into rocks. Here they stopped to drink and to water the horses. They were not well provisioned; food and clothing had been lost with the wagons, but the soldiers carried with them dried meat and yesterday’s bread, made palatable by keen hunger and by the knowledge that Ironhead was better armed, better provisioned, and probably gaining on them. There were enough oats for the horses for three days at most. After that, they would have to forage in an increasingly harsh countryside.
Twilight had lowered over them suddenly, but a waxing gibbous moon shone strong enough to light their way as they walked, leading the horses. It was very quiet except for the sound of their passage. Leather creaked. A man whispered to his companion. Brother Amicus coughed. Water trickled down a stony rock face, and after horses and people had drunk their fill, Rosvita took handfuls of it to bathe her face. Grit smeared on her cheeks. One of the combs holding up her hair had come undone, and tendrils of hair stuck to her neck, pasted there by sweat and grime.
They walked on, leading the horses, until the moon set and they had to catch what sleep they could alongside the path with sentries set to watch before and behind. Rosvita dozed fitfully and dreamed of Brother Fidelis’ book.
The opening lines of the Life of St. Radegundis burned in her mind as if they had been set afire, lines of flame on shimmering, unearthly vellum. “The Lord and Lady confer glory and greatness on women through strength of mind…. One of this company is Radegundis, she whose earthly life I, Fidelis, humblest and least worthy, now attempt to celebrate…. The world divides those whom no space parted once.” There was more, but it was not from the Vita at all. It was a scrap recalled from a florilegium which she had read years ago before the words made sense to her, but she could not now remember where, only that the words swam to the surface of her mind in the way of such thoughts, a shoal of minnows darting along the shore.
“In this way the mathematici read the past by means of that ancient record we can comprehend through the uniform movements of the heavens, which God have left as their record book, which hides nothing from the scholar who has learned the secret language of the stars. All that has happened may be read there, and all that will happen, and she who masters this language may find revealed to her even the most ancient hidden knowledge of the Lost Ones who vanished off this earth long years ago by means of powers beyond our understanding.”
The burning words flashed with sparks as bright as stars falling to earth like angels fleeing God’s justice, and she heard a voice in her dream, completely unfamiliar and yet as clear as if she had heard it yesterday:
“And they called that time the Great Sundering.”
She woke suddenly, shivering. Ai, God! What had happened to the book? What of Brother Fortunatus and poor, ill Brother Constantine? Had they died in the conflagration? Had Ironhead taken them prisoner? Had he tarnished the book? Had it burned? Had it been lost, and the copy so painstakingly made by Sister Amabilia lost with it, all of Brother Fidelis’ knowledge, his Vita of the blessed saint, obliterated in a flash of lust and greed?
Without the moon to dim their light, the stars shone with the brilliance of a thousand fiercely burning lanterns. The River of Heaven spilled westward, brimming with the souls of the dead as they streamed toward the Chamber of Light. A horrific fit of certainty overtook her: Amabilia was dead, lost to the world. Her soul flowed overhead in the great river, one of those myriad sparks of light.
She wept a little, and weeping, shifted her seat on the cold rock. Her back flared, hot pain that made her wince. Sparks of light shivered in front of her eyes, only to vanish, then reappear, then vanish again into the hazy distance.
She heard whispers, abrupt and intense. Around her, the company readied to move, although it was still night. The inconstant lights resolved themselves and became will-o-the-wisps and then, with a shudder of fear, she realized they were lanterns carried along the trail.
“Sister!” Brother Amicus knelt beside her, more felt than seen. “We must move quickly.”