The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 316

“Better to ask how many weeks or months passed in the world while we walked between the crowns. They could not have known where we were going, since we did not know it ourselves.”

“The Holy Mother is a powerful sorcerer. Perhaps she can see into the future.”

“That may be, Eagle, but I think it unlikely since she would have to have known Sister Rosvita had the knowledge to weave the crowns. Best to ask ourselves where we are, and why the king and the skopos have led an army to this same shore.”

Hanna’s laugh was bitter. “You are right, Brother. No matter what the answer, we are in the place we least wanted to be! Hurry!”

Gerwita whimpered. Ruoda coughed, echoed by Jehan. These sounds roused Rosvita as no others could. They must make haste, or it would all have been for nothing. She could not expect mercy from the skopos for herself and particularly not for her attendants, for whom she was responsible.

“Ungh,” she said, clearing her throat, trying to force a word out. Her eyes were sticky, but she peeled one open to see a head swaying an arm’s length above her, face turned away as it surveyed a sight hidden to her. The crown of his head was bald, and his hair was thinning, streaked with gray. Even Brother Fortunatus was growing old. A snowflake twirled down to become lost on his shoulder. He looked down, saw her waking face, and smiled as brightly as a child, a beacon of hope.

“Sister Rosvita!”

The others crowded forward, an ocean of faces, too many and yet too few. Where was Sister Amabilia? How had she got lost? Others seemed only vaguely familiar to her, as if she had known them once, a long time ago, and then forgotten them. Weren’t those Hilaria and Diocletia from St. Ekatarina’s Convent? Their expressions appeared so anxious that their fear gave her strength, and strength reminded her that Sister Amabilia was surely dead. The old grief, muted now if no less painful, gave impetus to her resolve.

“I can stand.”

It took Hanna and Fortunatus to aid her, and her legs trembled under her as she licked her fingers and used the saliva to wet her still-sticky eye until the moisture loosened the gunk that had sealed it shut.

“How long have I been unconscious?” she asked as she blinked to clear the blurriness from her vision.

The sky stretched hazy dark above them, and although she found it difficult to get her bearings, she fixed on the spray of light that blanketed the vista before them: a hundred fires, two hundred, even more, laid out in an unreadable pattern that sloped away from them to an unknowable horizon lost to night. Snow dusted the ground, and the wind had a bite. A few flakes spun past.

“Long enough to pray. It was dusk when we walked out into this place, with only a few stars in the heavens to draw us here. The clouds came in swiftly. We can’t escape by the crown even if you were strong enough to weave it again.”

“Where are we?”

They answered with silence.

She attempted again to get her bearings.

In waking, she had struggled with confusion, but as she took in the ragged group she remembered everything. Heriburg still clutched the satchel that held the precious books, her History and the copy begun by Sister Amabilia and continued by other hands, as well as their copy of the Vita of St. Radegundis. Besides the clothes on their backs, a few knives, and Hanna’s weapons, the books were all that remained of the possessions they had carried away from Darre. Jerome sat on the one chest they had filled with certain provisions and treasures saved by the sisters from the convent and hauled with them through the crown. For they had not escaped the convent alone.

“Mother Obligatia! Where is she?”

“Here I am, Sister.”

Sister Hilaria stepped aside to let Rosvita pass. With Fortunatus’ aid she knelt beside the pallet on which the old abbess lay. Obligatia was so physically weak that it was always a surprise to hear how strong her voice was and to see the powerful spirit in her gaze—she bore the intensity of a much younger person.

“So,” said Mother Obligatia. “A gamble, which you won, Sister. You have woven the crowns and brought us here.”

“If only we knew where here is!”

“There are not many stone circles with precisely seven stones, as this one has.”

“Seven in all or seven still standing?”

The stones rose at the brink of a cliff, and although she could pick out seven massive pillars she could not be sure if others lay toppled along the ground. They seemed to be standing on the edge of the world with the wind beating and moaning through the stones and the waters spilling over rocks far below, gurgling and whispering. Landward, the ground sloped away down a long, gentle distance that couldn’t quite be called a hill. There might have been heights beyond where the army was camped, but without stars or moon it was difficult to tell what was shadow and what the land itself. Just beyond their group Teuda sat beside poor Sister Petra, who rocked back and forth babbling as Teuda soothed her.