In the Ruins (45 page)

“Your Highness, I have found you an apple.”

Antonia looked away, letting the branches ease back into place. It was bad enough to hear his voice. She could not bear to look at him as well.

“Thank you, Brother Heribert.”

“Properly spoken, brat,” said Berthold with a laugh. “We’ll teach you manners yet.”

“I hate you,” said Blessing in a tone that meant exactly the opposite. “Come, Brother Heribert,” she added
grandly. “We’ll go up to Anna. We don’t need
him
anymore.”

“It’s time for your lessons,” he said in the voice that sounded like Heribert but not like him.

“I hate books!”

“You must learn. It is what he wanted.”

“Go on, brat. Learning is a weapon as sharp as steel.”

“You’ll come too, Berthold?” she asked plaintively.

“In a bit.”

Her sigh seemed loud enough to rattle the leaves. She tromped off. Antonia from her concealment saw the pair as they climbed the steps onto the long porch that looked over the enclosed garden. A trio of bored guards dogged their heels. One held the chain bound to Blessing’s left wrist, a necessary precaution after her first two escape attempts. On the third step Heribert paused and glanced back over the garden, and for an instant Antonia thought he looked right at her, although surely she was safely hidden in the bower.

“That child has a terrible liking for you, my lord,” said the older of the two guards attending Berthold. He spoke in Dariyan.

“Do you think so?” Berthold had taken to Dariyan so easily that it was likely he had some prior knowledge of the language, although nothing Antonia knew of the Villam clan suggested an earlier link to Aosta.

“Surely enough, for I’ve two daughters close to her in age and I know the look they gave those lads they took a liking to.”

“Poor thing,” said Berthold.

“Think you so?” asked the younger guard. “She is a brat. Princess Mathilda is a nobler child.”

“I pray you, Philo, I will not hear Princess Blessing spoken of in that way.” The tone was gentle enough to make the older guard chuckle and the younger one truckle.

“I beg pardon, my lord. I meant nothing disrespectful. Yet it’s her father killed our lord, the queen’s husband. His own father! Surely the stain of his patricide marks her somehow. She hasn’t the look of proper people. What if that’s the influence of the Enemy?”

“I’m no cleric to answer such troubling questions. Princess Mathilda is a fine young lady, indeed, as she must be with such royal parents. What say you we go find those pastries you were speaking about?”

“Is it the pastries you lads are wanting a closer look at, or the cook’s helpers?” said the elder, and the younger two chortled.

They walked away in good charity with each other. Queen Adelheid had no idea how thoroughly Lord Berthold had cozened his guards and what freedom they allowed him, none of which she had approved. He had the run of the castle, as long as he kept out of the way of those who would get his guards in trouble. Antonia watched the three men retreat down the length of the garden between the serried ranks of fruit trees only now leafing and budding as the warmth of spring tried to penetrate the clouds. There was a brilliance in the sky today that gave her hope that the sun would break through soon. If not now, when?

Berthold could have escaped a hundred times in the last three months, but he had not, because Blessing could not. Like Villam, he was loyal to Wendar and, despite Mathilda’s superior claims, it was obvious to Antonia that Berthold had made his choice. Adelheid might believe otherwise, but she had allowed herself to be blinded by his youthful charm.

Nay, Heribert was the cause of it all. He had turned Berthold’s heart, although it wasn’t clear with what inducements. Blessing, too, had a hand in it, however unwitting. Mathilda had many fine qualities, including Henry’s infamous temper and openhanded generosity and Adelheid’s devious mind, but she did not shine, not as Blessing did. The child was without question an abomination, intermingling the blood of three races, but she had power that could be molded and used as a tool, either by the Enemy or by the righteous.

Adelheid knew that. It was the only reason she hadn’t killed Blessing in revenge for Henry’s death.

Antonia sat down on the bench to resume her meditations, but peace had fled. It was dry and cool and the air had a dusty bite to it. No breath of wind rustled leaves.
Even the poplars that lined the far wall stood in silence, although normally any least breeze caused them to murmur. There hadn’t been rain for a month although usually the dry season commenced much later in the year. These signs seemed bad omens.

Worse yet to come, as the holy prophets said, although how anything could be worse than what she had seen and the reports that filtered in from the provinces of Adelheid’s blasted realm she could not imagine.

When she rose, her knees popped, and her back hurt. These days she was always out of breath and battling a nagging cough. By the dry fountain, two clerics and one attendant waited for her. Few had survived the destruction in Darre, but that was just as well.

“Your Grace,” said young John.

“Your Holiness,” said elderly Johanna.

The servingwoman, Felicita, took her arm and assisted her up the steps, which had gotten steeper in the last month.

“We will go first to the queen’s chamber and then to my audience hall for the afternoon’s petitioners.”

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

At midday, Adelheid usually sat for an hour beside Berengaria, but she was not in the nursery today. Antonia sank down on the couch beside the bed where the tiny child tossed and turned in fitful sleep. Her face, normally pale, would turn red when she coughed. She had not spoken a word for three weeks now, and it was supposed by everyone except Adelheid that she was dying.

Had Berengaria been innocent, or guilty? It seemed she had been guilty, although it was difficult to know how a child so small could have offended God. Perhaps she was being punished for her mother’s sins, as in the ancient days of the prophets when God smote the unrighteous for their failings, great and small, old and young, female and male, and even the cattle.

So be it.

“Poor thing,” murmured Felicita. Antonia smoothed sweat-soaked hair back from the child’s face as the nurse looked on with resignation.

“Has the queen been in to see her daughter today?” Antonia asked.

“No, Your Holiness,” said the nurse. “I heard her in the corridor with her attendants, but then Captain Falco came with some news and they went away again.”

“What news?”

“I’m not sure, Your Holiness. There was some talk of prisoners, but you know how the guard do bring in all kinds of folk these days, most of them beggars wanting a loaf of bread and nothing more.”

Antonia went into the sitting room where Mathilda sat at a table and laboriously formed her letters. The girl looked up, hearing footsteps, and smiled.

“Your Holiness! Come see, I pray you. I know every one!”

She was a cunning girl, and eager to display her skill on the wax tablet although generally in the church novices were not taught their letters this young.

After every letter had undergone scrutiny and approval, and been done again, the child peeped up at her. She had big eyes and long lashes, but she wasn’t sweet, not anymore, not since the days before. As it had in the greater world, the cataclysm had shaken loose the many lesser evils that cut into a soul and thereby in those gouges gave purchase for the Enemy’s minions to claw their way inside.

“I’m better at my letters than
she
is, aren’t I?”

“You are very skilled at your letters, Your Highness.”

“Better than her?”

“My child, do not seek to be compared to that you do not wish to become.”

“She doesn’t like me.”

“She doesn’t like herself. She is very young.”

“She’s older than me. She can’t make letters like I can. Will Berengaria die?”

“We will all die, child. We will all come to dust someday.”

“But our souls will live.”

“Those that do not fall into the Pit.”

She shivered. “I saw it.”

“You saw what?”

“The Pit. There was a big wind. There was fire. The earth
split apart. It swallowed people. All that poison poured out. Wasn’t that from the Pit? It was stinky.”

“Maybe so, child. Do not vex yourself. You were not punished.”

She bit her lip and stared at the letters, then with a sharp movement wiped the slate clean. “I’ll do them again,” she said. “I’ll be perfect so God won’t punish me.”

ANTONIA meant to stop in her audience chamber—there was so much work to be done—but her steps led her to the North Tower. This time of day, all the prisoners would be within. Blessing was allowed into the courtyard only in the morning, under guard, and her attendants had leave to exercise only in the afternoon, so none would be able to attempt escape without leaving the others behind.

“Holy Mother.” The guards dropped to one knee, bowing heads, then rose and opened the door.

The lowest room of the North Tower was now a barracks. Pallets and rope beds filled half the floor, benches and three tables the rest. Men knelt as she entered. At least two dozen were barracked here.

“Holy Mother.” A sergeant—she’d forgotten his name—came forward. “The queen is above with Captain Falco. Have you come to see the new prisoners? They were brought in at dawn.”

“Yes. I’ll go up.”

A stone staircase curved along the outer wall of the tower, leading up to the next level. Here, the three servants slept on pallets laid out on the plank floor. Two of them, the barbarians, sat here now. The young male was binding hemp into rope. He looked up at her, his gaze impassive, and without the least interest in her rank and exalted status he went back to his work. The female had her eyes shut and, although she was sitting, seemed to be asleep. What
coarse hands she had! They were large and callused, and she had the unattractive, flat-faced features of the Quman, although Antonia had been told she was born to a different tribe entirely. It made no difference. They were both doomed to the Pit, because they were heathens who refused to accept the Circle of Unity. Except for a single chest, the rest of the circular room was empty and the shutters barred. A pair of guards sat on the wooden steps that had been lowered from the level above, fastened with ropes and a pulley. The stone staircase, continuing upward, had been blocked off with planks.

“Holy Mother! Will you go up to see the prisoners? Let us help you, if you will.”

A brawny and gratifyingly polite young soldier lent her a steadying hand. It was not as easy as it had once been to climb stairs that were almost as steep as a ladder, but she got to the second floor without incident. In this chamber Lord Berthold and his attendant slept on decent beds, and therefore good tapestries were hung from the walls and two braziers, now cold, hung from tripods. Carved benches flanked a good table. There was even a chair set beside an open window.

He
sat there, staring out over Novomo with an expression on his face that made her shiver because it was so inhuman in its lack of emotion.

“Brother Heribert,” she said, that thrill of rage and helpless expectation flooding her weary bones. Ought not a child to love its parent? Didn’t the Holy Book enjoin obedience? He did not turn or even acknowledge that she had spoken. She might as well have been invisible, and mute.

“Heribert!”

He roused, startled, and looked at her, but did not rise to greet her, as any natural child would have. He should love her and be grateful to her. He had been a great burden to her, after all, since it was expected she would be celibate. That his father had seduced her—well, that was the work of the Enemy, and no doubt those seeds sown had sprouted and corrupted Heribert in a most improper way to make him so rebellious and ungrateful.

Before she could speak to tell him so, Captain Falco
spoke, his voice heard through the open trap cut into the ceiling. “I will ask you again, where have you come from? Who is this young woman who accompanies you?”

He got no answer.

She walked to stand under the trap. The stone staircase here had also been blocked off, and the ladder that offered access to the third floor rested against one of the benches.

“Can I help you with that, Holy Mother?” asked the guard, who had followed her up. “Can you climb the ladder?”

“I can,” she said grimly.

The man set the ladder up through the trap. Heribert rose. From the chamber below, she heard voices.

“Let me up, I pray you!”

“My lord, you weren’t to have gone out! The queen was very angry. We told her you were ill with a terrible flux. Lord Jonas threw a hood over his head to pretend he was you and let Paulinus and Tedwin escort him out to the pits. He rowled like a cat hung out on a hook.”

Berthold’s laugh rang merrily. “After all those pastries, I may yet wish I were that cat—”

Above, the queen said, “Hit him. Make him talk.”

A slap fell hard on flesh.

“Stop it! Stop it, you bitch!”

“Shit!” swore Berthold, from below. “Who is that?”

“The other prisoner, my lord. Dark as honey, that one, and I’m sure she tastes as sweet. I didn’t know Wendish women came so dark, like Jinna. But she carries herself like a duchess and she’s Wendish, all right, the bitch.”

A second slap cracked, from above. From below, feet scrambled on the steps. Heribert’s brow furrowed as he considered Antonia’s face, or the bright tapestry depicting a hunting scene, or the air itself, perhaps, where the sunlight caught the drifting of dust motes. His gaze was focused on no single thing.

She set foot on the lowest rung as Berthold’s head appeared in the open trap.

Above, a scuffle broke out. There came another slap, a muffled shriek, and a woman’s sharp curse. Blessing screamed.

“Sit down!” roared Captain Falco.

“You’ll not treat me in this manner! Get your hands off me, you pig!”

“I pray you, child,” said a new voice, a man’s voice. “Sit down.”

Antonia recognized
that
voice. She climbed as Berthold dashed across the floor and, seeing her on the ladder, hopped from one foot to the other because he was too well bred to demand she hurry up.