Victory Of The Hawk Part 9

"Behold the young lady who can banish the Anreulag and restore health to the hurt and sick," Father Grenham said, with an arch sideways glance at Khamsin. "She who the people have begun to call Saint Faans.h.i.+. I submit for your consideration, my lady, that you should approach her with utmost care."

More and more heads turned in their direction. Khamsin could muster no surprise at the sight of the guardsman Semai, for all the man had sworn he was taking the ashes of her kinswoman Ulima back to Tantiulo. There were the Hawks who'd come to Lomhannor Hall, though neither Vaa.r.s.en nor Valleford wore Hawk uniforms anymore. There was the lady Ganniwer, Kestar Vaa.r.s.en's mother, rumpled but as determined as she'd appeared when the d.u.c.h.ess had last seen her in Shalridan, when she'd faced a Cleansing with her son. And there-the black-haired a.s.sa.s.sin she'd fought in her own bedroom, the man who'd tried to kill her husband. With him was a younger man who could only be the accomplice who'd worked with him. All were human faces, without the uncanny beauty of the Hidden Ones, but in human and elven visages alike Khamsin saw united purpose-and more than a little suspicion.

Even Faans.h.i.+ paused at her coming, lifting her hands away from the wounded elf sitting slumped on the ground beside her. The radiance around her hands died away, and Khamsin had to steel herself against the shock of a face distressingly like her dead sister's staring at her. Faans.h.i.+ wore no veil, and the korfi she'd acquired in its stead merely swathed her head and neck rather than hiding her features as a man's korfi would do.

Had she ever truly seen the girl? She had to sourly admit that she could not recall, and so, she supposed, there was nothing else to do but attempt an overture. It felt surpa.s.singly strange to step forward and bow to the girl, a violation of every caste among the Clans. But then, if the claims of her abilities were true, the ridah of wisdom dictated that matters of caste no longer applied.

"Eshallavan, Faans.h.i.+," she said. "Will you introduce me to your people?"

Chapter Twelve.

Dolmerrath, Kilmerry Province, Jeuchar 10, AC 1876 Faans.h.i.+ had known that her mother's sister, the akresha d.u.c.h.ess Khamsin, had taken command of the rebellion that had embroiled Shalridan and much of Kilmerry Province besides. But she hadn't really understood the truth of it until the woman stood before her in the flesh. In the wake of the Anreulag's disappearance it was strangely ridiculous to feel a renewed surge of fear, but fear rose up in Faans.h.i.+ nonetheless.

Khamsin was clad in garb she'd never seen her wear before, a tunic and silwar and even a korfi, worn as Semai wore his, wrapped to s.h.i.+eld her face from view, instead of the veil that most Tantiu women would wear. Likewise, the d.u.c.h.ess was armed, with both a sword and a dagger sheathed at her waist. Had she not spoken, Faans.h.i.+ might have mistaken her for another woman entirely. But she knew Khamsin's voice, and she knew the dark eyes that regarded her now, with a cool and considering gaze. The lack of disdain, though, was new. Faans.h.i.+ couldn't recall exchanging more than twenty words with her since she'd been a child, and what things Khamsin had deigned to say to her had never been more than the words of a mistress to her slave.

Yet she was no longer a slave. And if Khamsin was willing to speak to her with civility, the ridahs of strength and wisdom counseled that she should respond in kind.

"Eshallavan, akresha." Faans.h.i.+ returned her bow, and then, with a quick surrept.i.tious glance to either side, gestured to the others in range. Everyone important to her was near, and they'd paused in what tasks they'd been attending in the battle's aftermath, their attention now on the newcomers. "Allow me first to present my sister, Alarrah Tanorel, another daughter of my father."

"Akresha," Alarrah said. Now that she was done healing the scout she'd been attending, her sister stepped to her side, her tired features settling into a mask of wary politeness.

The crimson korfi she wore conveniently shrouded any obvious surprise on Khamsin's face at the notion that Faans.h.i.+ now had family. Nonetheless, the healer thought she saw a spark of reaction in the d.u.c.h.ess's dark eyes. Yet Khamsin made no interruption, and so Faans.h.i.+ continued, "Of course you already know the akres.h.i.+ Semai from Lomhannor Hall, and I believe you already know or at least know of the rest of my friends. Kestar Vaa.r.s.en, his mother the akresha baroness Ganniwer, and Celoren Valleford. And..." She had to pause for a moment, for it was awkward enough to perform introductions for the wife of her former master-an easier way to think of her than as her mother's sister-without the problem of identifying the a.s.sa.s.sins.

"Julian," said the Rook, as bland of voice as Faans.h.i.+ had ever heard him. "We've met."

"Nine-fingered Rab at your service, my lady," his partner added, bowing grandly.

Faans.h.i.+ flashed them both a smile of grat.i.tude, and then went on, "And finally, the akres.h.i.+ Gerren. He leads the elves of Dolmerrath. Everyone, I present the akresha d.u.c.h.ess Khamsin Kilmerredes, she who was the wife of my former master." Once more she had to pause, and only with a soft grudging breath in acknowledgement of the ridah of truth was she able to finish, "And the sister of my mother."

Black brows rose beneath the upper folds of her korfi, but Khamsin gave no other sign of astonishment as she gestured to the two who'd accompanied her out of the woods. "I am Khamsin Kilmerredes, but I am also Khamsin elif-Darim Sarazen, a name I reclaim with the pa.s.sing of my husband. I present Sister Idrekke Sother and Father Cortland Grenham, who have joined with me in support of the Nirrivan rising," she said, before she focused her attention on Gerren. "Akres.h.i.+, I shall come straight to the point. I have a regiment south of here, posted past where your people engaged the Hawks, as I'm sure your messengers have already informed you. We offer our aid, and to inform you as well that we have taken nine Hawk survivors into our camp."

Gerren came forward, as somber of expression as Alarrah, though he allowed a modic.u.m of welcome into his voice as he said, "I thank you for the offered a.s.sistance, akresha, as any help you can lend until Faans.h.i.+ and Alarrah can finish healing our wounded is most welcome. But I confess to some confusion as to why we should concern ourselves with any survivors of the force who attacked us."

"Most of them are also badly wounded," the d.u.c.h.ess replied, slanting a measuring look from Gerren back to Faans.h.i.+. "And I daresay that keeping them alive is well within my young kinswoman's capabilities, if she would care to come and attend to them."

"Not to mention that if they die, it'll be rather difficult to interrogate them," Rab put in.

Alarrah said, her voice taut, "These Hawks have caused the deaths of my heart-brothers. Let them die as far as I'm concerned. I've already spent most of my strength helping our own people." Her eyes gleamed damply for a moment, though she did not cry, and she added without meeting Faans.h.i.+'s gaze, "My sister may do as she wills."

Furrowing her brow, Faans.h.i.+ turned to face Gerren. Guilt nagged at her that she'd doubted Djashtet, even briefly, and her conscience demanded that she answer the ridah of compa.s.sion now. On the other hand, she had accepted a place among the people of Dolmerrath, and Gerren was their leader-and now, her own. "If you do not want these Hawks to die, then I should go to them without delay."

"You're not going anywhere without a few of us to guard your back," Julian said. "Because with all due respect to the d.u.c.h.ess, I'm not convinced her motives are entirely pure."

The man at Khamsin's side said, "I'm willing to vouch for Her Grace's intentions. We all want the same thing-the restoration of Nirrivy. And I think at least a few of you have reason to trust my word."

His attention lingered on Kestar, and Faans.h.i.+ realized she'd seen the man before, at Arlitham Abbey, trying to hold back the invasion of the duke of Shalridan and his men. Kestar and Celoren exchanged uneasy glances, and with a reluctant sigh, Kestar finally inclined his head. "It's true. He kept my great-grandmother Darlana safe at Arlitham Abbey, and didn't give us up to the Hawks until he had no other choice. He and all his people could have easily been condemned as heretics."

Khamsin's other companion was as prideful of bearing as the d.u.c.h.ess, and she spoke now with a clear, carrying resonance. "Heretics, heathens and inhuman, or so the Church of the Four G.o.ds sees us all. Yet two of you here now were counted among the Hawks, and you changed your allegiance when the G.o.ds moved you to do so. Could it not be that if we give these prisoners the same chance, they might do the same?"

"Being healed from the brink of death was a powerful inducement to consider my life's choices," Kestar said. He offered a brief lopsided grin to Faans.h.i.+, though that faded back into sobriety as Gerren slashed a hand through the air to silence them all.

"I have just seen the last haven of my people in this entire benighted country shattered, and many of those of us who stayed to defend our home are now dead," the steward snapped. "I am disinclined to show mercy to those who would have seen us all fall beneath the bullet and the sword. But the Anreulag attacked her own Hawks as well as us. We need to know why. She's never done that before."

"Akres.h.i.+, I can enlighten you in that regard, as I suppose you lack access to telegraph lines and thus would not have received the news." The d.u.c.h.ess kept her coolly affable tone, though her eyes nonetheless glinted with interest and antic.i.p.ation. "The Voice of the G.o.ds no longer answers to the authority of the Church."

Comprehension flooded through Faans.h.i.+, so swift and raw that it felt almost as though her magic had broken through its s.h.i.+elds-but this was not the need her gift kindled in her to seek out and mend illness and pain. This was something else, something she could scarcely recognize in herself.

Rage.

"That was what my master's priest was doing in Shalridan," she said, and in the grip of her anger she lunged at her kinswoman, her open hand flying out to clout Khamsin elif-Darim Sarazen across her cheek. The blow pulled her korfi down, revealing shocked, dusky features even as the other woman seized her hand. Faans.h.i.+ stopped, staring, unsure if she'd ever seen the woman's uncovered face and yet unable to care if she'd just displeased Djashtet. "He was setting Her free. Crone of Night curse you, he could have found a better way. He almost killed me when he stabbed us both. I know you always thought me tainted and unclean, I know you always hated me, but I never knew you wanted me dead!"

The anger felt odd, yet strangely liberating, and in the rush of it Khamsin stared back at her, as if seeing her truly for the first time in both their lives. "I did, once," she said, as blunt now as Faans.h.i.+'s blow had been. "You were the living reminder of my sister's death, and of my husband's obsession. But he wouldn't kill you, no matter how great a threat keeping you in our household was. And then you healed him when a fever would have taken his life. I couldn't wish you dead once you'd done that."

"Though you were apparently perfectly willing to let her remain a slave in your household," Julian drawled. He'd come up behind her, and while he hadn't actually drawn a blade, a quick glance over her shoulder showed her that he had one hand behind his back. That would have seemed casual enough, had she not known he had a knife sheathed there.

Nor was he alone in moving closer to her. Alarrah, stone-faced, was to her left; Kestar stood to her right. "You made quite the point of asking me about Faans.h.i.+'s whereabouts in St. Telran's," he said. "I'm with Julian. I must wonder at your eagerness to get her into your camp. Do these Hawk prisoners of yours actually exist?"

Khamsin's gaze flickered from face to face, and with the faintest breath of resignation she released Faans.h.i.+'s hand, taking a careful step backward. "Your doubts are just," she admitted. "I will not break the ridah of truth by denying my past actions, or that your aid would be a great boon to those who seek Nirrivy's rebirth. You must know what the people of the province have been saying of you."

"We've done our part to encourage this, for it serves our cause," Sister Sother said. "But not all of it comes from us. Word of your deeds has hardly needed a.s.sistance to spread from one corner of Kilmerry to the other, and beyond."

Saint Faans.h.i.+. It'd been impossible to ignore the cries of the people in Shalridan's streets when she and the others had pushed through fire and riots to save Kestar from the Cleansing in St. Telran's Cathedral. There'd been too many of them, overcome by smoke or wounded escaping from houses falling into flame, and she'd had to heal them-they'd been between her and her goal. But the people she'd helped had already known her name, and now she finally knew why. "You can't call me a saint to the people and then come to me speaking of the ridah of truth," she said, more sternly than she meant, and more sternly than was probably proper to women of their rank. But it distracted her from how she was blus.h.i.+ng, and enough of her anger remained that she let the a.s.sertion stand.

To her surprise, Khamsin didn't bother to return her korfi to its proper place. Even more astonis.h.i.+ngly, she offered no rebuke. "Why not?" she asked instead. "Everyone here knows you possess great power. How many of your companions have personally experienced it? How many witnessed your turning aside the Voice of the G.o.ds, not once, but twice now? How can you do such a thing if you are not the instrument of Almighty Djashtet?"

"I have had my differences with the akresha," Semai said, "but she has a point. Thus was also the counsel of the n.o.bi Ulima."

No one contradicted him, and under the weight of everyone's stares Faans.h.i.+ felt herself flush harder, enough that the heat surely had to stand out distinctly against the sun-golden hue of her cheeks. But Julian, who among all those around her had the most reason to understand what she could do, announced, "If Djashtet has an opinion, She can say so. As for me, I say Faans.h.i.+'s opinion is the one that matters. You've already been working for hours, girl. Can you keep going? Do you want to heal these Hawk prisoners?"

Grateful to meet his eyes, Faans.h.i.+ said, "If there are people who need my help, I can help them. I should go and see if they'll let me."

"I'm coming with you." Kestar's voice was quieter than Julian's and more somber, but no less resolute. "I've got to know who's survived. But you should know, many of them won't want your help. Most of the Order would consider it an abomination."

"Then they can die or not at the will of their G.o.ds," Gerren said. "Either way, I will hear from their own lips why they attacked Dolmerrath now, and whether any more of the Order are on the way." He turned to Alarrah, embraced her fervently, and told her, "Look after our people until I return, horolle. Vaa.r.s.en, the Rook and I will accompany Faans.h.i.+."

Lastly he looked once more at the d.u.c.h.ess, his gaze hard, without light.

"Akresha, take us to your prisoners."

Eventually, despite her scattered fragments of prayers to the Mother for deliverance, Jekke began to creep back toward consciousness and pain. Voices were moaning somewhere close by, but there were other voices as well, unfamiliar ones speaking in accents she didn't know. Nor was she lying on the ground where she'd fallen. Someone had placed her in a bedroll, and though the pillow beneath her head was thin and the woolen blanket scratchy, both were more comfortable than the unyielding earth.

Whoever had found her did not want her dead, then. But they weren't Captain Amarsaed's regiment, either. Warily she cracked open one eye, then choked and coughed at who stood within her field of vision.

Kestar Vaa.r.s.en, traitor to the Order. Beside him stood a male whose pointed ears and fine-boned features were so obviously elven that she fumbled without thinking for the amulet that should have been at her neck. When she didn't find it, her only recourse at the sight of a young woman in ragtag Tantiu garb, who laid a s.h.i.+ning hand on someone on a nearby bedroll, was to scream.

As one, all three faces turned to her, and two more besides. There was a second woman in Tantiu dress, her face concealed by a korfi, and a second man whose pale skin marked him readily enough as Adalon. This man, with a suspicious glint in his dark blue eyes, said dryly, "That one appears to be awake."

Jekke tried her best to scramble into a sitting position, for it was bad enough that she'd been captured by heretics and elf-lovers, but worse still that she was lying helpless before them. The moment she moved, however, pain stabbed in jagged shards through her flesh. She had no choice but to slump back against the thin pillow she'd been given, while Kestar came to crouch down on one knee beside her. "h.e.l.lo, Jekke."

His tone was earnest, perhaps even sad, and even in the midst of her agony that offended her. "I have nothing to say to you," she snarled. Or at least, tried to. Her words came out in a breathless gasp rather than the hiss of icy disdain she intended. "Bron's dead because of you, elf-blood."

Up close Vaa.r.s.en looked...well, no different than he ever had, albeit every bit as disheveled and dirty as she had to be, following the battle. What elven blood he'd been revealed to possess left no mark she could discern on his features, even in close proximity to a full-blooded elf. Much to her frustration, despite the regret in his eyes, his expression failed to register the penitence it should have done.

"All right then, you can listen to me instead of talking," he said. "Or rather, you can listen to Faans.h.i.+. Faans.h.i.+, this is Jekke Yerredes. She was ordained at Hawksvale the year after Celoren and me. Would you please tell her what's wrong with her?"

The younger of the two women in Tantiu garb came to kneel beside Kestar, and Jekke peered up at her in consternation. So this was the escaped slave, the mage for whom Vaa.r.s.en and Valleford both had betrayed their Order...and the girl who was reputed to have the power to turn aside the Anreulag Herself. She didn't look like much. She was darker-skinned than most elf slaves Jekke had ever seen, but something in the shape of her face, the shape of her cheeks or perhaps the size of her eyes, betrayed the inhuman taint in her blood. Her loosely wrapped korfi covered her head, and in particular her ears, but Jekke would not have been surprised in the slightest to find them pointed.

"Your right leg is shattered, akresha," she said, "into several pieces. I can only guess that you were thrown from your horse, and that you landed on the limb as you fell. Your right shoulder is also hurt, but more than that I can't tell, not without touching you."

"And she's not going to touch you until I give the word." The elf male joined Vaa.r.s.en and the girl, though he remained on his feet, looking down at Jekke from the end of her bedroll. "Kestar Vaa.r.s.en may not wish to argue with you, human, but I will. You throw the death of your comrade in his face, and I'll throw back at you the deaths dozens of times over of my people, decade after decade, without cease, without rest."

This should have been something Jekke could understand-the fury of an inhuman heathen. Captain Amarsaed would not be cowed, she thought, only to realize that the captain had fallen to the Anreulag. And with pain eating at the edges of her mind, all she could think as she peered up at the elf was how ordinary he looked. He was beautiful in the uncanny way of his kind, to be sure. But his hair and clothes were rumpled, and streaks of both dirt and blood marred the moonlight paleness of his skin. Shadows lurked at the corners of his eyes, and had he been human, she might almost have guessed he was exhausted.

It made him almost sympathetic, and she couldn't trust the feeling.

"And this means what?" she demanded hoa.r.s.ely. "That you intend to kill me?"

"What would happen if I did that, do you think? Would you go to one of the heavens your Church of the Four G.o.ds likes to preach about? Would the Anreulag sing your soul to its final repose?" The elf loomed over her with a preternatural stillness, without the slightest hint of s.h.i.+fting his weight from foot to foot as a human might have done. What signs of exhaustion showed in his features only served to amplify his focus upon her, or so it seemed, and Jekke felt a chill skitter over her at his words. "I'd gamble not, given that She was burning your people and mine alike only a few hours ago."

She was trembling now; she couldn't help it. They knew. The elves knew that the Voice of the G.o.ds had turned against Her Hawks, and surely now they would seize their chance and strike down the faithful. But if that were the chance, why was she not yet dead? "So what do you expect of me?"

The other voices around her stilled, but Jekke caught a strangled little cry to her right, and a fervently whispered oath to her left. Turning her head with effort, she saw that she lay in a tent along with others of Captain Amarsaed's company. They were wounded, like her, helpless prisoners of the elves.

"Whatever sorcery you worked on the Voice won't stand," someone rasped, only to provoke bitter laughter from Jekke's interrogator.

"You think the Anreulag's betrayal was my people's doing? I could only dream of such a coup," he said, turning round in a slow circle as he marked who else stirred in their bedrolls, before he indicated the other woman in Tantiu garb. "Credit for it must go to her people, not mine."

The woman strode into Jekke's direct line of sight, though she, like the elf, was keeping alert watch on everyone in the tent. "The akres.h.i.+ of the Hidden Ones speaks truth," she proclaimed. "I am Khamsin elif-Darim Sarazen, and I lead those who would see the nation of Nirrivy born again from the ashes of subjugation. Through the sacrifice of one of my priests, the one you call the Anreulag has been liberated from servitude-and oh yes, She lashes out at those who have made of Her a weapon. Now I bring to you this choice. Will you risk Her fires finding you again? Or will you join us, and help restore a nation where all, men and women, humans and elves, may stand together as equals?"

The man on the bedroll to Jekke's right, bloodied and bandaged past her ability to recall his name, drew the Star of the Four G.o.ds across his chest. His hand, like his voice, shook. "What kind of a choice is heresy? You might as well execute us all now."

"If the Anreulag doesn't kill us, the Church will," added the woman who lay to Jekke's left.

Kestar Vaa.r.s.en stood then, side by side with the elf and the Tantiu woman. "As they should have killed me? Brothers and sisters-because, yes, I still think of you as such, even though the Order turned me out-do you know what changed my mind? Not magic, though G.o.ds know, Faans.h.i.+ has the most magic I've ever seen." He gestured to the girl still kneeling at Jekke's side, who looked up at him with a plaintive half smile. "It wasn't her saving my life with that power. It was her being willing to do it even though I was sworn to hunt her, and even though it put her in mortal peril twice over. And I had to ask myself, what kind of G.o.ds would sanction the enslaving and murder of someone with the power to save lives?"

"To save your lives, to be precise," Khamsin elif-Darim Sarazen added. "If you will agree not to hinder us, Faans.h.i.+ will mend your hurts, and you will be escorted out of this camp to Camden, where you may do as you will."

"And if we don't agree?" Jekke asked, her gaze lingering on the one called Faans.h.i.+. "If we choose to follow our oaths as Hawks, what will you do then?"

Faans.h.i.+ returned her attention, and said simply, "I'll heal you anyway, if you permit it. I won't touch you without your leave." Then she drew in a ragged breath and pressed her eyes closed for a moment, the first sign she'd given that perhaps she too was exhausted. "But in Djashtet's name I beg you, decide quickly. I can feel what's wrong with every one of you, and if you can't abide a half-blood's touch, do me the courtesy of saying so to my face."

Neither of her comrades on either side offered an opinion, and in dismay, Jekke realized the healer expected her to answer-whether because Kestar had addressed her by name, or because she was simply the nearest of the wounded, she had no way of knowing.

She could barely think for the pain, which was by itself a powerful argument in favor of accepting what was offered to her. Even if what was offered to her was the use of magic.

Yet she'd already seen the Voice of the G.o.ds turn against those who'd pledged themselves Her eyes to see, Her swords to strike. And if the very One for whom they'd been waging war on magic had already struck her down, if the very bedrock of the Order of the Hawk could crumble, what else might be wrong in the preaching of the Church of the Four G.o.ds?

Jekke didn't want to think about it. She wanted to scream at the elf-girl to get out of her sight, or call Vaa.r.s.en out for the betrayal of the Order, or both. She wanted to find a priestess of the Mother and demand to know what would happen to them all-if indeed the priests and priestesses could be trusted, if the Anreulag could no longer be. She wanted to find her family, though she feared whether they'd welcome her back into their arms. She wanted to see the baker's daughter again, and see her smile over fresh bread and cakes. And, with a desperation that made her very bones ache, she wanted to sleep.

If she refused the healing, what would happen to her then? She lay among elves, heretics and rebels. The Voice of the G.o.ds no longer listened to Her Hawks, and in her heart of hearts, Jekke feared that the realm was beginning to rip itself apart. Her captain was dead, and so were several of her fellow Hawks. Could she risk being anything less than hale and whole until she could find out whether they'd died in vain?

I don't want to die. I don't want to be helpless. It felt selfish to admit it, and worse yet, it felt sinful. But it was also true, and with a grimace of resignation, Jekke beckoned to the healer. "Fine. Fix me. Pray, chant, whatever you have to do. Just do it."

Faans.h.i.+ gave her the same plaintive smile she'd given Kestar, though now there was more relief in it, brightening the green of her eyes, as with a sheen of sunlit gold. "All I need to do is this," she said, and laid her hand lightly on Jekke's leg. The touch was casual, even tentative. If she hadn't braced herself to expect the fleeting contact, Jekke might have missed it entirely.

But there was no missing the magic, for without warning, it filled her pain-racked limbs with warmth and light. The shock of the relief was so great that for a moment she forgot to breathe, yet still the magic continued, and not once did it falter even as she began to sob.

Chapter Thirteen.

The royal palace, Dareli, Jeuchar 9 and 10, AC 1876 In the Church of the Four G.o.ds none ranked higher than the High Priest or Priestess, the man or woman on whose shoulders rested the duty of providing spiritual guidance to the Bhandreid, to all other priests and priestesses, and to every man, woman and child in the realm. With the position, too, came the leaders.h.i.+p of the Order of the Hawk-and thus, none took on the rank without serving as a Knight of the Hawk themselves, for only a Hawk's hands could bless each amulet bestowed on a new Hawk. Only a Hawk's voice could sing the Rite of the Calling, and wield the power that manifested as the Voice of the G.o.ds. Once a High Priest or Priestess, the chosen man or woman served for life. Only death, and the return to the bosom of the Mother, brought surcease of sacred duty. So had it always been since the time of Saint Merrodrie.

But never since the time of Merrodrie had the Anreulag Herself struck down a High Priest, and then turned Her fury on the people.

And so convened a council that Dareli had not seen in over forty years. In Old Hethloni it was called the Ardtennal, and while the youngest priests and priestesses thought of it instead as the Choosing, none would have said so aloud. Aside from the crowning of a new Bhandreid or Ebhandreid, there was no more holy a task within their power to perform. To give it anything but its ancient and honorable name would have been an insult to their Church and to the G.o.ds.

In the face of the wrath of the Anreulag, further insult to the G.o.ds was not a risk they could afford to take.

They came together in St. Merrodrie's Cathedral, priests and priestesses of the Father, Mother, Son and Daughter, in a chamber none but the highest-ranking clergy were permitted to enter. There should have been eight, a priest and priestess for each of the Four G.o.ds. Only five came to the Ardtennal chamber, for the First Priest of the Son had fallen to the Anreulag's fire, and both the First Priest and First Priestess of the Father lay wounded in the care of Church physicians, and none knew if they would survive another night.

The chamber was high in the tallest tower of the cathedral, with eight windows facing in all directions. Each window held a lantern, and each priest and priestess lit the lantern accorded to his or her rank, behind a screen of translucent red gla.s.s. When their choice was made, they would change the screens to yellow, so that from afar it would seem that the tower was filled with golden light. The system was simple and elegant, and had even inspired the creation of the telegraph stations set up all over the realm.

Thus did the Church lead the people in advancing culture and science; thus had it always been, and if the G.o.ds were willing, so it would continue to be. But first the Ardtennal had to live long enough to make their selection.

Once their lanterns were lit, they turned their minds to the task at hand. Each had brought with them the names of candidates to consider, men and women with the age, wisdom and experience to make them worthy in the eyes of the G.o.ds. No one's list was long, for some of those who had been under consideration at the last Ardtennal had died, even before the Night of Fire. At least two more had died since that night. Of those who had experience and wisdom enough to be considered for the station, two now stood in the Ardtennal chamber-though none would succ.u.mb to the sin of pride and put his or her own name forth. The members of the council were ready to debate the worthiness of each candidate, even as they fought back the specters of doubt and exhaustion and fear.

"This might be a little easier if the Bhandreid joined us," the First Priest of the Daughter said to the others, the only one among them who gave any voice at all to his uneasiness. "It's allowed by holy law, and she surely must have opinions on who she would see fill the last High Priest's shoes."

The First Priestess of the Mother, eldest among them, turned from the lighting of her lantern and gave him a weary half smile. "We all know how Her Majesty favored the previous Ardtennal's choice," she said, "but we must do without her royal wisdom now. In this time of crisis she has her own duties to fulfill, and I for one am not going to be the one to call her from them."

In the end, Margaine was stunned that they didn't throw her into the Barrows.

Persons of breeding weren't supposed to know that the Barrows existed. To be sure, the place wasn't a fit topic of conversation for young n.o.blewomen, particularly the consort of the prince and the mother of his heir. But she read the broadsheets, and she knew where the criminals of Dareli went-the ones too dangerous to condemn to servitude, the violent and the mad. The Church sent heretics there when they didn't execute them outright, and the Church had never been slow to deliver a sentence of heresy, whether the condemned was of high birth or low. Margaine had never known anyone personally who'd been imprisoned there, but rumors had circulated through the high society of the capital for as long as she could remember whenever n.o.bles of notorious reputation went missing.