The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 131

She was about to throw herself into the camp of the Enemy, making her no different than Queen Adelheid, who had led them here the first time. Who could have guessed that Adelheid would prove so treacherous toward her husband? Yet fear, as much as treachery, might have impelled her. She might have succumbed to Hugh’s poisoned words or the skopos’ influence. She might only have done what she thought necessary to secure a throne for her infant child and surety for her own preeminent position among the princes of the land.

Perhaps Adelheid had stepped into the Pit while doing what she thought was right.

As I must.

Rosvita knew what she had to do to save her companions from their pursuers. But that didn’t make it right.

Her feet slipped on loose pebbles. She grabbed Gerwita’s hand to balance herself, heard Fortunatus, toward the back of the party, murmur a warning to the one who walked behind him.

They came to the bottom of the stairs where curving walls rose on every side into blackness. The well was dry except for a sheen of water caught in a hollow beyond Hilaria, but it wasn’t empty. At the center of the space a hole pierced the rock; a sturdy wooden ladder poked up out of the depths.

“How much farther?” gasped Gerwita.

“Not far,” said Diocletia kindly. She turned to take hold of the ladder, easing herself onto the rungs. “Follow me. Sister Hilaria will come last.”

Rosvita went second. The rungs were worn smooth by much use. At first, rock scraped against her back, but after six rungs the space opened up and after another seven she set foot on stone. A hand grasped her elbow.

“Stand aside,” said Diocletia. “We must all stand here together before we go on.”

One by one the others descended the ladder, rungs creaking beneath their weight, feet scuffing on stone when they reached the bottom. One by one, they edged cautiously past Rosvita into the blackness. It was so profoundly silent that she could distinguish each person’s breathing: Gerwita’s shallow and moist with tears; Jerome’s quick and nervous; Heriburg’s steady and even. Ruoda coughed wetly, echoed by Jehan’s dry cough. The Eagle shifted, rattling the arrows remaining in her quiver. Aurea probed the floor by tapping it with the staff: rap rap rap.

“Ai!” cursed Fortunatus. “You hit my toe.”

Everyone chuckled anxiously.

Above, Hilaria doused the lamp, so even that whisper of light was lost to them. The rungs creaked again; feet scuffed the ground.

“Are we all here?” It was impossible to mistake Diocletia’s high, raspy voice for the lower tones of her companion. “We are all here,” answered Hilaria.

It was too dark for Rosvita to see her hand in front of her nose. The earth had swallowed them.

“Where are we going?” whispered the Eagle from the right.

“Deeper,” said Hilaria.

“How can we go deeper?” asked Gerwita in a trembling voice. Her fingers brushed Rosvita’s hand and fixed on it, forefinger and thumb wrapping tightly around the older woman’s wrist as a child might cling to its mother.

A scraping rumble shuddered through the room. A kiss of dry air, faintly sulfurous, brushed Rosvita’s face.

“Take hold each to another’s hand,” said Diocletia, “and speak your name, so that we know that we have not left anyone behind.”

Someone giggled nervously, but Rosvita did not recognize the laugh. After some fumbling, each person spoke, some softly, others with more strength. When Hilaria spoke last of all, Rosvita felt a tug on her hand and she followed Diocletia grimly into such blackness as seemed impossible to fathom or endure. Behind her, Gerwita choked back sobs.

“Hush, Daughter,” murmured Rosvita, squeezing her hand. “We are in good company. They will not let us come to harm.”

For an eternity they moved through a darkness that had direction and space only because now and again the flow of air would shift and faint scents or stinks touch them before fading away: rotten eggs, yeast, the sting of an iron forge, lichen and, strangely, salt water. Mercifully the floor remained level. No one tripped or ran into anything, although they could not see their own feet much less any landmark around them.

Soon, a steady, labored wheezing drifted into audibility, like a blacksmith’s bellows or a man stricken by lung fever struggling to breathe.

“So might a sleeping dragon sound,” said Fortunatus out of the darkness, “as some poor deluded treasure hunter crept up on it.”

Hilaria laughed. “So might it, indeed, had we such a creature hidden in this labyrinth. It is no dragon, Brother, but something stranger and more unexpected.”