PROLOGUE (50 page)

"That's not the worst thirst I'm suffering." He walked to the edge of the flickering light thrown off by the torch and surveyed the gloom. With his back to her, Anna could not see his expression.” I heard it told that my Dragons were thrown down here to rot, but I see no sign of them." He stood there for a while in silence. The torch snapped and popped. Smoke tickled her nose. She sniffed hard and sneezed.

"Come," said the prince, as if the sound spurred him out of his reverie. He took the torch from the cleric and led them back up into the light.

"Why did you go down into the crypt?" Suzanne demanded later, when they had escaped the crowd and gotten home to a still-burning hearth, just enough warmth that they could take off their cloaks and sit sipping cider to warm their stomachs. A servant girl, left behind to tend to the house, served them, bringing mugs to pass around before taking a drink herself from the ladle.” It's dark down there. You might have gotten hurt."

Anna said nothing.

Suzanne sipped at her cider but could not leave the question alone.

"What did he say to you?" Her fingers asked another question, playing selfconsciously with her hair. She glanced at Raimar, who regarded her with thoughtful concern and a flicker of distress in his expression.” Why did you follow the prince down into the crypt?"

Anna couldn't answer, not even with such signs as she had learned to communicate with. She couldn't answer because she didn't know.

There were so many mysteries that humankind simply could not comprehend.

TO his surprise, Zacharias had come to admire the prince in the months they had journeyed eastward from one noble estate to the next. Prince Sanglant was frank, fair, honest, and a resolute leader, and he never asked anyone to do anything he wasn't willing to do himself.

"Nay, I never expected willingly to follow along in a noble lord's retinue," Zacharias said to Heribert as they shared a platter in the great hall of the mayor's palace in Gent, where wine flowed freely and a young apprentice poet mangled a hymn celebrating the encounter between the aged Herodia of Jeshuvi and the blessed Daisan in which the future saint had prophesied that the young Daisan would bring light to a benighted world.

"In truth, I never thought I would sit down to eat with a common man," replied Heribert thoughtfully. Sanglant sat at the high table, drinking heavily and speaking little as young Lord Hrodik boasted about a recent boar hunt in which he'd broken his nose.

"It was to escape men such as you that I became a frater rather than a monastic, for in a monastery I'd have had to bow down to a master born of noble kinfolk. My grandmother despised nobles as thieves and louts. She said they lived off the labor of honest farmers, and forced their foreign God of Unities onto those who preferred to worship in the old ways."

"She was a heathen?"

"Truly, she was. She worshiped the old gods. They repaid her faithfulness with a long life and prosperity and many grandchildren."

Heribert sighed. The young cleric had a lean, clever face, almost delicate, and the most aristocratic manners of any nobly born person Zacharias had ever come into contact with, although in all honesty he had not rubbed shoulders with noble folk much in his life. He had spent more of his adult life among the barbaric Quman tribes, to his sorrow.

"What fate befell your grandmother is long since settled. It is your soul I fear for, Zacharias. You do not pray with us."

"Yet I pray in my own way, and not to my grandmother's gods. Let us not have this conversation again, I beg you, for nothing you say will change my mind. I saw a vision—"

"Who is to say that it was not the Enemy who cast dust into your eyes?"

"Peace, friend. I know what I saw."

Heribert lifted a hand in capitulation.

Zacharias chuckled.” I will not pollute your ears with another description of the vision granted me. You are safe from that, at least."

"Safer from that than from this poet's wailing."

Zacharias snorted, for indeed the poet was not as skilled as he ought to have been—or else he was drunk.” Better the poet's song than Lord Hrodik's boasting. Is there a male servant among those serving at the high table? All of them women, as if to boast that he's bedding one or all of them each night." He had never shaken his grandmother's distaste for thralldom, and could not keep the disgust from his voice.” I suppose they're bonded servants, and cannot leave his service even if they wished to."

Heribert looked at him in surprise.” We are all of us dependents in one manner or another. Regnant and skopos, too, are vassals of God. How is this different?"

"Does God force regnant and skopos to be whores against their will?"

Chief among the servants and the one who stood somewhat removed from the others, directing the flow of food and drink into the hall, was a remarkably pretty young woman whose handsome features were marred only by a scar along her lower lip, as if she'd been bitten hard enough to draw blood. Lord Hrodik seemed determined to make an ass of himself by continually calling her over and making much of her presence, although any idiot could see that the poor woman had fallen completely under the spell of Prince Sanglant's charisma. Trying not to stare at the prince, she made it all the more obvious that she was trying not to stare at him.

"Ai, Lord," said Heribert with a rueful smile, "there is one woman who has caught Sanglant's eye."

"How can you tell? It seems to me he looks at her no differently nor more often than he does the others."

Heribert chuckled softly.” Does it seem so to you? Yet I think it seems otherwise to her. She's both shapely and handsome, and I fear me that our prince is particularly susceptible to women like her."

"Pretty enough," agreed Zacharias, who did not object to admiring handsome women and in years past—before his mutilation—had fallen short of his vows a handful of times.” Perhaps it's your own chastity you must watch over, friend, rather than the prince's."

Heribert blushed slightly.” Nay, friend, the charms of women hold no power over me. Pity poor Lord Hrodik. He fades quickly

when seated beside Sanglant, and the more so because of his incessant bragging."

"Truly, he wouldn't have lasted a day among the Quman tribes. For all that they were savages, no man among them dared boast of his exploits unless he were truly a warrior and hunter."

"Lord Hrodik's retinue is agreed that he shot a buck last month, so perhaps he can be accounted a hunter."

Zacharias laughed, unaccustomed to hearing the fastidious cleric resort to sarcasm.

Prince Sanglant's head came up at the sound, and he stood abruptly. The poet broke off in confusion, staring around wildly as if he thought an armed party might thunder into the hall.

"I pray you, Brother Zacharias," said the prince, turning to address him across the length of two tables, "if you can recite the hymn to St. Herodia, then do so. You know it perfectly, do you not?"

Zacharias rose, handing the wine cup to Heribert.” I can recite it, Your Highness, if it pleases you."

"It would please me greatly." Sanglant left the high table and came to sit beside Heribert, throwing himself into Zacharias' seat and gulping down what was left of the wine in his cup, leaving only dregs.” Ai, God," he said in a low voice, "I have no more patience for that pup's tail wagging nor for that truckler who claims to be a poet." He looked around desperately, lifting his cup, and the handsome servingwoman rushed forward to fill it, pouring the wine through a silver sieve that filtered out most of the dregs. Sanglant stared at her frankly, and she did not lower her eyes, so that this time it was the prince who looked away first, coloring somewhat, although a blush was hard to see against his bronze complexion. Lord Hrodik called to her sharply, and she hurried away to attend to him.

"Ai, Lord," muttered the prince.” I am not fit to be a monk."

"Our lord prince needs distraction," murmured Heribert to Zacharias.

When young, Zacharias had devised a way of memorizing the hymns and verses he loved so much by thinking of them as beasts tied up in a stable, each one in a separate stall and each stall marked by a bird or plant to remind him of its first unique word or phrase, something to launch him into the words. Walking down that stall in his mind's eye, he found a figure of a vulture, known as the prophet among birds, carrying a stalk of barley, called hordeum in Dariyan and sharing enough sounds with "Herodia" that it was easy to recall the second out of the first. It took him as much time as it took the prince to drain another cup of wine to gather the first words onto his tongue.

"Let us praise the first prophet, called Herodia, Who walked among the streets and temples of Jeshuvi And did not turn her eye away from mortal weakness, Nor did she fear to speak harshly to those who transgressed God's law."

Once he had begun, the words flowed freely, one linking itself to the next in an unbroken chain. It was the genius, so his grandmother had said, that the gods had granted to him. The frater who had brought the word of the Unities to their frontier village had praised him, telling him that he had been named well, for truly the angel of memory, Zachriel, had visited a holy gift upon him.

"So let the holy St. Herodia speak her blessings upon Us all, For her word is the word of truth.”

As he finished, he heard the prince mutter an exclamation just as Lord Hrodik jumped to his feet.

"Look here, cousin!" cried the young lord as a dozen townsfolk entered the hall, looking nervously about themselves. Unfortunately, the young woman standing at the head of the party with the scarf signifying her status as a respectable householder tied over her hair was even prettier than the servingwoman. Sanglant rose with cup in hand and his familiar, captivating smile on his face.

"Come, Mistress Suzanne," exclaimed Hrodik impatiently as she and her kinfolk hesitated.” I have called you to attend me here in order to honor you, not to eat you." He giggled at his own joke. Certain of his attendants made laughing noises as well, glancing over at the prince to see if he found the comment as funny as Hrodik did. But the prince had not taken his gaze from Mistress Suzanne's person since she'd entered the hall. Hrodik made a great show of leaving his place at the high table and moving out to the center of the hall, his feet half smothered in rushes, where he must become the center of attention simply by virtue of his position.

"You must not fear to stand before Prince Sanglant, for truly he is a noble prince and no harm will come to you. Come forward, for I mean to show Prince Sanglant what help we can be to him, here in Gent. His soldiers aren't properly outfitted for this winter weather. I mean to convince him to abide a while here while we provide him with such cloaks and armor as is fitting to his magnificence." He almost fell over himself with eagerness as he beckoned to the pretty servingwoman, who appeared at a side door.” Come, now, Frederun. Do you now bring forward those gifts which I mean to present to the prince, so that he may later boast of the fine hospitality he met in my hall!"

Sanglant still hadn't taken his gaze from Mistress Suzanne, but she had not looked at him at all, except for one shuttered glance. The man beside her kept his hand on her arm.

"Well," Heribert murmured as Zacharias sidled over to stand behind his chair, "there's one who's as handsome as Liath."

Sanglant glanced down at Heribert with a sharp smile composed more of irritation than amusement.” I am not my father, Heribert."

"Nay," agreed Heribert companionably, "for King Henry was famous for never walking down the path of debauchery, even after his wife died."

"How can sinless congress, when a woman and a man of their own free will join together for mutual pleasure, be counted debauchery? The Lord and Lady conceived the Holy Word between them, Brother, is that not so? Is not the universe and Earth their creation, brought about by desire?"

"By joining together in
lawful
congress."

Sanglant laughed, and every soul in the hall turned to look at him.” Truly, Heribert, it does me no good to dispute church doctrine with you." He sat down abruptly and lowered his voice.” But I swear to you, friend, I do not think I can remain virtuous much longer."

Lord Hrodik bustled forward to meet the servant Frederun, who held a fine scarlet cloak in her arms. Behind her, a young servingman carried an object draped with a sheet of linen. Hrodik grabbed the cloak out of her arms and shook it free to well-deserved exclamations of delight and amazement from the feasting crowd. The cloak was masterfully woven out of thread dyed a rich scarlet hue and trimmed by an accomplished hand with an embroidered edge of golden dragons twined each about the next.