“Who are you?” she whispered.

Ivar jerked back from the fence.

“She said something!” exclaimed Ermanrich. He stuck his face up against the fence. “Are you Lady Tallia?” he whispered.

Baldwin pulled Ermanrich back from the wall and wedged himself in as Ermanrich made a grunt of protest.

“You must not look upon me,” she said in that same quiet voice, as soft as the wind brushing Ivar’s hair. His hood had fallen back, and he hastily jerked it up over his head, looking guiltily back toward the barracks. The layservant left to watch over them was not in sight. “It is not seemly for you to stare so,” she continued. In the silence of the courtyard they could hear her words clearly. She hesitated, then went on. “But that we have stumbled upon this opportunity to converse—that, surely, is God’s doing, is it not?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Baldwin blithely, although, obedient to her wish, he had now drawn back from the gap in the fence. “Are you to be a nun?”

Sigfrid made a choked noise in his throat and immediately assumed a position of prayer. The layservant had walked back into view, a surly, stout man no doubt angered at having to watch over four disobedient novices rather than the colorful departure of king and court. All four boys hunkered down in attitudes of contrite prayer.

From the shelter of the colonnade, the layservant could not hear Tallia’s faint voice, but the four boys could. “It is my most devout wish to become a nun. Unless I can be a deacon, but they will not let me out into the world except to marry me to some grasping nobleman.”

“Why would you want to be a deacon?” asked Sigfrid. “In the cloister, we can devote all our hours to study and contemplation.”

“But a deacon who lives in the world can bring the true Word of God to those who live in darkness. If I were ordained as a deacon, I could preach the Holy Word of the Redeemer as it was taught me by Frater Agius, he who was granted God’s favor and a holy martyrdom.”

A low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance, like drums beating for the departure of the king. Ivar smelled rain on the wind. Dark clouds scudded overhead.

“Who is the Redeemer?” asked Ermanrich, his bland, friendly face bearing now a confused expression.

“That’s a heresy,” whispered Sigfrid, but he did not move.

Baldwin did not move.

Ivar did not move. He wanted to hear her speak again. She had a kind of monotonously fascinating voice, pure and quietly zealous. And she was female, and young.

“For the blessed Daisan was born not of earthly mortals but out of Our Lady, who is God. He alone was born without any taint of darkness. So did he suffer. By the order of the Empress Thaisannia, she of the mask, he was flayed alive because of his preaching, as was their custom with criminals and those who spoke treason against the Dariyan Empire and its ruler. His heart was cut out of him, and where his heart’s blood fell and touched the soil, there bloomed roses.”

Sigfrid made the sign of the Circle against what is forbidden—against this most erroneous and dangerous heresy. But he did not move away. None of them moved. They were caught there, spellbound, as the thunder rumbled closer and the first drops of rain darkened the dirt around them.

“But by his suffering, by his sacrifice, he redeemed us from our sins. Our salvation comes through that redemption. For though he died, he lived again. So did God in Her wisdom redeem him, for was he not Her only Son?”

She would have gone on, perhaps she did go on, but the wind picked up and lightning flashed bright against lowering clouds and thunder pealed overhead. The stinging bite of rain drove them to the shelter of the colonnade. Whether she ran in as well Ivar could not know, but he imagined her, kneeling still, soaked and pounded by rain as she prayed her heretical prayers. That image disturbed him greatly for many nights to come.

IV

ON THE WINGS OF THE STORM

1

THE king and his entourage rode south from Quedlinhame. Liath rode northeast through scattered woodland amid rolling hills with a message for Duchess Rotrudis, the king’s sister. She followed the Osterwaldweg, a grassy track that ran north from Quedlinhame and slanted east-northeast at the confluence of the Ailer and Urness Rivers, themselves tributaries of the Veser. In the morning the track, crisp with frost, glittered in the cold sun as though an angel had blown its sweet breath over the rutted road. By evening, wagon traffic, sun, and the usual passage of a swift autumn storm overhead had turned the path to a sludge that would refreeze over the long night.

It was always windy and sometimes quite chill, but in the late afternoon the sun would often shine brightly. During those times Liath would find a patch of sunlight while her horse foraged along the verge of the track. Sometimes, if the way lay empty, she would open The Book of Secrets and read words she had long since memorized or puzzle over the brief Arethousan glosses in the inner book, the most secret ancient text. Alas, without time to study or preceptor to continue her teaching, she had already forgotten much of what little Arethousan she had learned from Hugh. But perhaps if she forgot everything he had taught her, she would truly be free from him.