The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 354

Hanna was surprised to find herself shaking a little, indignant on Rosvita’s behalf. Where had this loyalty sprung from? When had she lost her heart to the cleric, who did not command the loyalty of those around her but claimed it nevertheless?

Rosvita would never desert them. She would never stain her own honor.

That was what her companions all knew. That was why they followed her. In her own way, she was a prince among men, too, but the army she led bore different weapons: the quill, the steady mind, the slow accumulation of knowledge put to good use.

“Do you know why the usurper came to Dalmiaka?” demanded Lady Eudokia.

“I do,” said Rosvita evenly. “I must have some assurances regarding the safety of my people before I will speak honestly with you.”

“Will you betray my father just as my brother has?” cried Sapientia, face flushed. She began to stand, but Geza’s hand tightened on her wrist and she subsided at once, trembling so hard that it was noticeable, as though that mild earthquake still gripped her.

“I have never betrayed Henry, Your Highness. Others betrayed him, but never me. The task which lies before us all is much graver, and will afflict high and low, Arethousan and Wendish and Ungrian and Dariyan regardless. What date is it, I pray you?”

“This night begins the feast day of St. Nikephoras,” said the attendant in the jade-green robes. “In the two hundred and thirty-sixth year as acknowledged by the Patriarch’s authority, and recalling the foundation of the Dariyan Empire, of which we are the only true heirs, one thousand six hundred and eight years ago.”

“I pray you, what date according to the calendar recognized by the Dariyan church?”

The beardless man sneered. Lady Eudokia looked offended and had actually to drink wine before she could bring herself to express her disgust. “You have forgotten the proper rites and observances! Can it be that an educated churchwoman of the apostate church no longer recalls St. Nikephoras, who was patriarch and defender of the True Church?”

Geza called forward a steward from his entourage who, with great reluctance, admitted to knowing and keeping track of the calendar of the apostate Dariyans. “Begging your pardon, Exalted Lady,” the man said to Eudokia. “This is the day celebrated by the false shepherd in Darre as a feast day of one of her ancestors, called Mary Jehanna, who also donned the skopal robes in defiance of the rightful patriarch. Rebels and heretics, all!”

“That means it is already the equinox,” exclaimed Rosvita. “We were six months or more within the crown!” Her color changed. She swayed, and Ruoda and Gerwita steadied her. “Nay, not six months at all!”

She was so stunned that she was talking to herself out loud, the workings of her mind laid bare for all to see. The secret method of their arrival in Dalmiaka, too, was betrayed, but she was profoundly shocked. “The Council of Addai took place in the year 499, and if the Arethousan church has counted two hundred and thirty-six years … then it is not the year 734 but rather 735. We wandered within the crown for fully eighteen months! How it can be so much time slipped away from us?”

“What does she mean?” murmured Geza, face tightening with suspicion.

Lady Eudokia leaned forward, her hand greedily gripping the blanket that covered her legs. “The crowns! How comes it that you have gained this ancient knowledge long forbidden to those in the True Church?”

Rosvita glanced at the girls. The flush that had reddened her face began to fade. “I pray you, Sisters. I can stand. It was a trifling blow.”

Hanna hardly knew whether to breathe. They all stared at each other, trying to comprehend what Rosvita had just said. Was it true they had lost eighteen months in one night? Was this the cost inflicted by the crowns for those who thought to spare themselves the effort of travel? Fortunatus’ lean face had gone gray with fear, and the others muttered prayers under their breath or gazed in astonishment at Rosvita. Mother Obligatia had closed her eyes, although her lips moved. Only Petra appeared unmoved; she swayed back and forth, eyes still half shut, singing to herself under her breath.

Rosvita drew in a shaky breath and clasped her hands before her in an attitude something like prayer. “Exalted Lady, I have learned many things in my time. What is it you want of me? If you wish to learn what I know, then I must get something in return.”

“Your life?” Rosvita shrugged.

“The lives of your companions?”

“That I will bargain for, it’s true, yet they are free to choose their own course of action. If the intelligence I know is true, then it matters little what coercion you choose to inflict on me, or on them. ‘The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood.’ A storm is coming—”