PROLOGUE (49 page)

Tears filled her eyes suddenly, bringing with them the bitter memory of the young lord who had knelt before her at Steleshame and spoken gently to her. She hadn't answered him, and ever after that moment, she had lost her voice, as though God were punishing her for her silence.

"Here, now, Anna," said Suzanne, "it's a fine day for Matthias, is it not?" With a smile, she tugged Anna along with her, gesturing
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to the others to follow.” You look well enough, lass. You won't disgrace us when we process like a fine and wealthy family into church, will you?"

Helen was wiggling in Raimar's arms, and he was laughing good-naturedly as he tried to wipe a sooty stain gotten God knew where off her cheek. The rest of the household trailed behind Suzanne like so many sheep, and in this cheerful fashion they made their way down the dusky streets to the cathedral.

On Lordsday many folk crowded into the cathedral for the evening services, for tomorrow would be Hefensday, seventh and therefore highest of the days of the week. The service had already started as they entered, making their way down the nave to the spot under a window painted with a scene of the blessed Daisan teaching his disciples. An ugly scar still marred the painted robe of the blessed Daisan, where an Eika weapon had mauled the paint. Most of the pillars had sustained damage during the Eika occupation. Stone angels, gargoyles, and eagles carved into the pilasters bore rake marks, as though they had been repeatedly clawed by a creature powerful enough to gouge stone. The paved floor had been scrubbed often enough that only a few traces of the fires that had burned here remained. The shattered windows had been restored first, although one was still boarded over.

At the altar, a cleric led the congregation in the seventh-day hymn. '"Happy that person who finds refuge in God!'"

The altar had been cleaned and polished to a gleam, a holy cup of gold placed upon it, together with the ivory-bound book containing the Holy Verses out of the which the clerics and the biscop dictated the service. Only one object lent a discordant note to the apse: a heavy chain fastened to the base of the altar, hammered in with an iron spike.

Anna remembered the daimone whom Bloodheart had chained to the altar in misery. Suzanne noticed her shuddering, and put an arm around her to comfort her. But nothing could ever drive out that recollection, flashes of recognition that always assaulted her when they came to services.

"In the crypt lies the path you seek,”
the daimone had said in its unformed, hoarse voice. By that path she and Matthias had escaped Gent.

Yet it was the Eika who had stood by silently to let them escape. Matthias had forgotten that, but she never would.

The toddler had fallen asleep, but the baby was wakeful, now and again smacking its lips and taking a quick nurse at its mother's breast as the clerics sang the opening hymns.

"Where do you think Lord Hrodik is?" Raimar said to Suzanne. He caught Anna looking at him, and smiled at her. He always treated her and Matthias well. He had lost his family to the Eika, a young bride, his parents, and three brothers, and like Suzanne he was determined to make a good life for himself out of the wreckage. For that reason, as well as mutual respect, they had come to an agreement a few months ago and announced their betrothal, to be consummated in the spring.

Suzanne craned her neck to see the front of the congregation. The Lord's place near the altar stood empty.” He hasn't missed a Hefensday Eve service once since Lord Wichman quit the city. That must be fully eight months ago."

"Nay, love, he missed services that one time when he was caught out in a storm and broke his nose."

Suzanne stifled a giggle. In Steleshame she hadn't laughed much. No one had smiled much in Steleshame, but after being thrown to the dogs by her Aunt Gisela, Suzanne had had less reason to smile than most. Yet, in time, prosperity had cured her ills. She seemed content enough.

Anna only wished she felt content as well, but every night she dreamed of the young lord, Count Lavastine's heir. She couldn't remember his name. It seemed to her that he was weeping and lost, torn between sorrow and rage at the indignities and pain suffered by those he had loved.

Surely she could have helped him, if she had only spoken up. That must be the reason God were punishing her.

The clerics led the congregation in a hymn as the biscop entered from the side porch and took her place in her high seat behind the altar.

"Like a dry and thirsty land that has no water, so do I seek God.

With my body wasted with longing, I come before God in the sanctuary.

As I lift my hands in prayer I am satisfied as with a feast, and in the watches of the night I trust in the love which shelters me.”

The cleric leading the singing faltered, face washing pale, and a hush poured forward like a wave from the great doors at the entrance to the cathedral. Everyone turned to look.

A nobleman stood in the entry way. He seemed frozen, hesitant, as if he could not make his feet move him forward into the nave. Tall and broad-shouldered, he had a sharply foreign look about him: a bronze-complexioned face, high cheekbones, and night-black hair cut to hang loose at his shoulders. His features struck Anna with a disquiet that made her mouth go dry. He seemed familiar, but she couldn't place him. Lord Hrodik waited awkwardly behind him, staring at the big man in awe.

Suzanne staggered, and Raimar steadied her on his arm.” Prince Sanglant," she whispered.

The nobleman's gaze swept the congregation. For an uncanny instant, Anna actually thought he found and fastened on Suzanne, alone of the throng. Suzanne made a noise in her throat—whether a protest or 'a prayer was hard to tell—and hid her face against Raimar's shoulder.

As if that muffled sound goaded him forward, he strode up the aisle without looking to his left or to his right. The altar brought him up short. He stared at the chain lying at rest in a heap at the stone base, nostrils flaring like those of a spooked horse. The biscop hurried forward from her seat, but he dropped down to a crouch without greeting her and reached to touch the chain as though it were a poisonous snake.

"God save us." Matthias grasped Anna's arm so tightly that his grip pinched her skin.” It's the daimone!"

Anna shook her head numbly. The daimone trapped here by Bloodheart had not been human; it had only taken on human form when it had been forced down out of the heavens and into its painful imprisonment within the bounds of earth.

"It wasn't a daimone at all," Matthias went on breathlessly, "but a noble man, that same prince they spoke of. By what miracle did he survive?"

Sweating now and shaking, the prince settled to his knees before the altar and looked unlikely to budge. Lord Hrodik hurried forward as if to remonstrate with him, but a slender cleric placed himself between the two men and with an outstretched hand waved to the young lord to move away.

Biscop Suplicia was not easily startled, although for an instant her lips parted in astonishment. She gestured to her clerics to step back, resumed chanting the service alone in a resonant soprano. Slowly, in stuttering gasps, her clerics joined in, although many of them could not stop staring at the man in his rich tunic and finely-embossed belt who had fallen to his knees right there before the altar. It was hard to tell if he were remarkably pious, stricken by God's mercy, or simply striving not to fall apart altogether, for his hands clutched at that chain until his knuckles whitened and a trickle of blood ran from one scraped finger.

In this way, the congregation, led by an anxious Lord Hrodik, dutifully followed the service to completion. The prince spoke not one word throughout, and when the biscop lifted her hands to heaven at the close of the final prayer, he bolted up as though he'd been nipped. That fast, like a wind from heaven, he fled down the aisle toward the entryway, then suddenly cut through the crowd, who parted fearfully before him.

Anna darted away, using her elbows to make a path for herself through the crowd, which was by now in a furious state of excitement, everyone talking at once. The prince ducked under the doorway that led down to the crypt, and the folk following in his wake hesitated. The crypt below Gent had become a charnel house during the Eika occupation, and few dared walk there.

But Anna had to find him, to see if it were truly the same creature. Perhaps he was only masquerading as a man, or perhaps he had been a man all along, cast out of a mold different than that from which most folk were formed.

She hurried down the steep curve of the steps, remembering the way the darkness hit abruptly. The noise of the congregation washed away with unexpected suddenness, and she barely recalled the jarring end to the steps as she stumbled down the last one.

She was blind.

He said, out of the darkness, "Liath?" The voice drifted to her, scarcely more than a whisper, but memory flooded back as she <> swayed, made dizzy by fear and the pounding of her heart. She would never forget that voice, the hoarse scrape to it, as though it hadn't formed quite right. Of course, she did not reply.

His boots scuffed the floor. An unvoiced curse came off his lips in a hiss. A hand brushed her shoulder. Then he grabbed her arm.” Who are you?"

She could not answer.

He touched her face, exploring it with his free hand, grunted, gave up in disgust, and released her.

A soft glow penetrated the gloom, advancing steadily. Torchlight made her blink. The slender cleric who had stood beside the prince at the altar moved hesitantly off the last step and ventured into the vaults.

"Sanglant?" He extended the torch first this way and then that, pausing in surprise when he caught Anna in its smoky light. Beyond, the prince stood mostly in shadow, at the edge of the light, staring fixedly into the depths of the crypt, an impenetrable gloom beyond the torch's smoky flare.

"Do you know this girl?" demanded the prince.” She seems familiar to me, but I can't recall her."

She wanted to tell him, but she could not speak.” Who are you, girl?" asked the cleric in a kind voice, examining her. She could only shake her head, and abruptly he moved past her, following the prince on into the vault, past the gravestones of the holy dead, those who were once biscops and deacons. Anna trailed after them, torn by curiosity and longing. Anyway, she didn't want to be left alone in the dark.

"She brought them here," said the prince to his companion.” Liath led the refugees into this crypt. There was a passage, so they say. That's how the children were saved from the ruin of Gent."

They wandered farther in, vaults lost in the darkness that spread everywhere outside the torch's light. Anna was too terrified to leave them. At every step she expected her feet to crunch on the bones of the dead soldiers who had lain here, decaying, when she and Matthias had passed through, but she saw no trace of them now, not even a finger bone, not even a forgotten knife. The miraculous light carried by St. Kristine had led the two children through the vault to the secret passage, but she could not now recall what path they had taken nor recognize any landmarks.

The prince halted beside one newly carved stone, an effigy of a lady fitted in armor. Her carved face lay in repose, peaceful and, perhaps, a little stubborn even in death.” This must be the grave of Lord Hrodik's sister, Lady Amalia. She died when they took back the city."

"Come, my friend," said the cleric sadly, "let us climb out of this place." He glanced at Anna, aware that she followed them.” Can you speak, child? Know you the passage of which Prince Sanglant speaks?"

She dared only to shake her head. She knew she would never find it again.

"It's closed to such as me," said the prince bitterly.” Ai, God, Heribert, my heart is torn out of me. Five months have passed. Was it only a vision I saw at Angenheim? Liath must be dead."

"Nay, do not say so. How can we know? There are so many mysteries we do not comprehend."

The prince threw back his head and howled like a dog. The horrible sound reverberated through the crypt, echoing and whispering down the vaults and through the many chambers. The cleric stumbled back in surprise, bumping into Anna, and almost dropped the torch.

The prince shuddered all over, pressing a palm to his head. Light shivered over him, steadying as Heribert got a good grip on the torch.

"Your Highness?" the cleric asked softly.

Prince Sanglant dropped his hand. His expression was grim and angry, but his gaze was quite sane.” Nay, I beg your pardon, my friend. Liath stood here with me once, that day Bloodheart breached the walls." He caught in a breath, then went on.” Lord help me. I never thought I'd have the courage to touch those chains."

"Come," said Heribert, "you've had courage enough for one day. Lord Hrodik promises to entertain us with the best wine in Saony."