Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4) Page 109

Alberada looked surprised and discomfited. “I am not accustomed to presiding over executions, Lord Dietrich.”

“If you fear to do so, Your Grace, you must acknowledge that I am right. I do not fear death because the blessed Daisan embraced it in order to redeem humankind from our sins.”

“Neither do I!” exclaimed Ekkehard, not wanting to look less courageous than a mere lord. Since he had not been afflicted by the grippe, his voice had a clear and robust ring, free of doubts or phlegmatic listlessness. “I will embrace martyrdom, too!”

“I think an execution would be bad for morale,” said Sapientia wisely. Oddly, she looked not at all nervous at the thought of her younger brother’s potential demise. After two days in the biscop’s palace, she had a sleek satisfaction clinging to her in the same way a sour smell clings to a dying person. It was almost as if she hoped to be rid of him.

“King Henry must be told,” began Alberada, temporizing. “A prince of the royal line, who wears the gold torque, cannot be treated as though he were a common-born troublemaker.”

“Then send my Eagle,” replied Sapientia, with a wickedly complacent smile. “She has made the journey twice before from the east. She’ll take the news to the king.”

Was this the blow that Hanna had feared for days, landing at last? Did Sapientia mean to rid herself of her supposed rival by any means necessary?

Bayan said nothing. Brother Breschius, standing behind his chair, leaned down to whisper in his ear, but the Ungrian prince merely shook his head impatiently as if, after his last outburst, he had resolved to stay out of the fray no matter what.

Abandoned on every side, Hanna waited for doom to fall. Thunder clapped in the distance. She heard rain clearly, and then it subsided again, as though a door had been opened and closed. Reprieve came from an unlikely source.

“Send an Eagle alone through the marchlands while the Quman ride where they will and we hide here behind our walls?” Alberada surveyed her heretics with distaste. “That is in itself a death sentence, Sapientia.”

“Make way!” A messenger hurried in, sopping wet. Her dripping cloak left a drunken line of water drops the length of the hall, and her feet, wrapped only in sodden leather shoes laced up with a cord, made a trail of mud on the carpets. Servants scurried forward to wipe the dirt away while it was still moist.

“Your Grace!” The messenger dropped to her knees. She looked relieved to be kneeling rather than walking or riding, secure in a safe haven. “Is this Princess Sapientia and Prince Bayan? Thank God, Your Highness. I bring terrible news. Machteburg is besieged by the Quman. The town of Dirden is burned, and those who weren’t killed have been dragged away into slavery.”

Bayan rose, looking grim. “We are answered.” He raised a fist as though it were a club. “Bulkezu mocks me.” His good nature had vanished, and Hanna thought she saw the ghost of his dead son in his expression, ceaselessly goading him toward vengeance. She shivered, remembering how he had chopped off the fingers of a Quman prisoner. It was hard to reconcile a man so often pragmatic and cheerful with the harsh, merciless soldier who sometimes took his place. “Your Grace, this is not time to prison good soldiers. Every person who can fight, must fight.”

“The Quman are not our only enemies, Prince Bayan. Once we let the minions of the Enemy into our hearts, they will destroy us. What they will bring is worse than death.”

She would not be moved. She called her stewards to her and spoke to them in an urgent undertone. As soon as they had hurried away to make whatever preparations she had ordered, her palace guards led Ekkehard, Dietrich, their retinues, and the dozen or so other heretics to the church. At Alberada’s command, the rest of the assembly followed.

Like the great hall and the palace rooms, the biscop’s cathedral—if one could dignify it with that word—had a raw newness about it. There were still artisans working on the ornamentation inside and out. Here in the marchlands, wood was easier to come by than stone, and even a biscop’s cathedral might appear humble compared to the old imperial structures still standing in the west.

Here, too, dour saints surveyed the multitude—some hundred souls—who crowded uneasily into the nave. These statues carved of oak and walnut looked so remarkably displeased that Hanna expected them to begin scolding the sinners gathering below them. Four remained unfinished, all angle and suggestion, a hand emerging from wood, the curve of a forehead half hewn from dark wood, a frowning mouth in an eyeless face.

Tapestries relieved the monotony of the oak walls, but they had been woven in such dark colors that Hanna couldn’t make out their subject because so few windows cut the gloom. The largest window, behind the altar, faced east. Segments of old Dariyan glass had been pieced together to form a mosaic, an image of the Circle of Unity, but because it was afternoon, most of the light filtered into the nave through the open doors. Cold air licked in from outside, stirring cloaks. From her station in the front, Hanna felt the merest breath of it on her lips, cool and soothing. A hot, oppressive atmosphere weighted down the crowded chamber, a scent of fear, anticipation, and righteous wrath as thick as curdled cheese.