The Burning Stone

Page 25

Wolfhere said nothing. The fire popped loudly and spit a red coal onto the end of her cloak. She shook it off and then sank forward to rest elbows on knees and stare into the fire. A long while passed in silence as the yellow flames flickered and died down into sullen coals. Wolfhere seemed to have fallen asleep.
He had looked for her, but he had not been able to see her through fire. Was Da’s spell still hiding her? She had felt the presence of others looking for her, had felt the wind of their stalking, the blind grasp of their seeking hands. She had seen the glass-winged daimone. She had seen the creatures that stalked with a voice of bells and left flesh stripped to bone in their wake. Were they still out there? Could she, like a mouse, scuttle into places forbidden to her and spy them out?
She made of the coals a gateway and peered into its depths. If only she could recall her mother clearly enough in her mind’s eye, then surely she could vision her through fire, actually see her again. But as the fire flared under the weight of her stare, she was suddenly seized by a foreboding of doom as real as a hand touching her shoulder—as Hugh’s hand had imprisoned her, binding her to his will.
The fire leaped with sudden strength as if it were an unnatural being blooming into existence, wings unfurling into a sheet of fire, eyes like the strike of lightning, the breath of the fiery Sun coalesced into mind and will. Its voice rolled with the searing blaze of flame.
“Child.”
She shrieked out loud and scrambled backward, so terrified that she couldn’t gulp down the sobs that burst from her chest.
Wolfhere started up. The fire winked out, that fast, to become ashes and one last spark of heat, a dying cinder, gone. “Liath!”
She jumped up and ran out to the half-built palisade, logs felled and sharpened and driven into a ditch to make a barrier against the beasts of the forest. She leaned against one of the stout posts. With the bark peeled off, oak lay smooth against her shoulder and cheek; the foresters had done their work well, for the post did not shift beneath her weight.
She was still shaking.
An owl hooted and its shadow fluttered past, then vanished into the night.
“Ai, Lady,” she whispered to the silent witness of stars and night breeze and the many busy animals about their nocturnal labors. “Sanglant.”
II
A LILY AMONG THORNS
1
IVAR had never prayed so much in his life, not even in his first year as a novice at Quedlinhame. His knees ached constantly. But Baldwin had taken it into his head that if he prayed enough he could protect himself from his bride’s attentions: He hoped that even a powerful margrave would be loath to disturb a young man at prayer, no matter how long she had been waiting to get her hands on him.
So it proved for the first five days after they left Quedlinhame. But Ivar had ears, and he had grown up with sisters. Margrave Judith wasn’t so old that her holy courses had ceased. He even caught a glimpse of a stained cloth laid reverently on a blazing hearth fire.
Women were specially holy at their bleeding time, not to be corrupted by base desire. Even a noblewoman such as Judith followed the wisdom of the church mothers in such matters. Ivar suspected that all Baldwin’s praying was a pretty show that counted for very little except to whet his bride’s appetite; sometimes while praying, Ivar glanced sidelong at the margrave watching Baldwin, who did indeed pray beautifully.
“You oughtn’t to pray unless you pray from your heart,” said Ivar. “It’s a sin.”
It was late afternoon on yet another day of travel, west, toward the king. Ivar rode a donkey, as was fitting for a novice, but Baldwin had been given a proud black gelding to ride. No doubt Margrave Judith could not resist the chance to display two handsome creatures together.
Right now, however, Baldwin came as close to scowling as he ever could. “You scold like Master Pursed-Lips. I am praying from my heart! You don’t imagine I want to marry her, do you?”
“As if you have a choice.”
“If the marriage is not consummated, then it is no marriage.”
Ivar sighed. “She’s no worse than any other woman. You’ll have fine clothes to wear, excellent armor, and a good iron sword. You’ll have the Quman barbarians to fight in the march country. It won’t be so bad.”
“I don’t like her,” said Baldwin in the tone of a child who has never before had to accept anything he didn’t like. “I don’t want to be married to her.” He cast a glance forward where Lady Tallia rode beside Margrave Judith. “I’d even rather marry—”.
“She isn’t to be married!” hissed Ivar in a low voice, suddenly angry. “Not by anyone! God has chosen her to be Her handmaiden, to be the uncorrupted bride of Her Son, the blessed Daisan, as all nuns ought to pledge themselves to be.”