The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 134

She began to weep quietly, unable to go on in the face of overwhelming grief. Hilaria dabbed cooling water on her forehead, murmuring words of comfort.

Rosvita burned. Shame afflicted her, to witness this woman’s sorrow and yet exult in it. She was so close. In her heart, in her bones, she understood that she had suffered in the dungeon, risked everything, to arrive at this moment.

“She saved our lives. Yet I knew her. I knew her.” Obligatia pushed the damp cloth away from her forehead. “I pray you, Hilaria. I will not die in this hour.” By the set line of her frail jaw and the stubborn and fixed nature of her gaze, Rosvita saw it was this memory that had kept her alive for so long. She had recovered the strength of her voice; she had mastered her sadness, as must all those who live to a great age, for otherwise they would have died of grief long ago.

“I saw her, Sister Rosvita. I saw Bernard’s child. I saw him in her face. I do not know what she is, where she came from, or where she went. Can you explain what happened?”

The others had gathered close by to listen, struck dumb, it seemed, by the intensity of Obligatia’s testimony and her question.

But not every one of them.

“You saw Liath.” The Eagle pressed forward to stand beside Rosvita, towering there with her robust figure and her pale, northern coloring, her hair as colorless as snow. “I’ve seen her, too, these past two or three years, glimpses of her but nothing more than that. She had wings of flame. I thought they were visions, hallucinations. But now I have to believe that what Prince Sanglant said is true. She was taken away, up into the heavens, by fiery daimones.”

“I do not forget how we heard her voice manifest out of a whirlpool of air,” said Fortunatus grimly. “That day when Prince Sanglant returned to the king’s progress. That day when we saw that he had allowed his daughter to be suckled by a daimone.”

“When did that happen?” Hanna demanded of Fortunatus.

“Before he rode east. Before you met up with him.”

“Yes,” she agreed thoughtfully. “That would make sense. It would fit with what you and Sister Rosvita have told me of your own history, and conclusions.”

“Liath is Anne’s daughter,” Rosvita said, as if hitting the nail hard enough would drive it into impenetrable rock. “How can she be the daughter of Anne, yet look like Bernard, if the story Prince Sanglant told us is true? If only one of her parents is human?”

“It could be true if Holy Mother Anne is the one who is lying,” said Hanna.

For a moment there was silence, except for the wheeze, and Gerwita’s sniffling, and Ruoda’s cough.

If the Holy Mother were lying.

Hanna went on, her tone like ice. “Why shouldn’t she lie? If she needed Liath, and everyone who knew her, to believe that Liath was descended from Emperor Taillefer? I knew Bernard. He loved his daughter. And they looked alike. Even though she was burned brown on her skin, any fool could see they were father and daughter, just as a puppy or foal may bear the markings of its sire.”

“My grandchild,” murmured Obligatia. “Can it be true? Bernard had a daughter? Can it be true?” How cruel the look of hope on her face. “Does he live still, my son?”

Hanna knelt beside the pallet. She was not a beautiful woman, more strong than handsome, yet her expression became so suffused with compassion that it shone from her in the manner of all true beauty, born of the inner heart and not the outer seeming. “I am sorry, Mother. He died years ago trying to save his daughter from those who pursued her. I saw his dead body.”

“My son.” The words trailed into nothing, but Obligatia did not weep. Perhaps she had no more strength for weeping.

“He was a good man, with no more frailties than any one of us suffer, and many virtues. He helped others until there was nothing left for himself. But he feared those who sought to find him and Liath. He did the best he could. He loved her.”

Schwoo schwaa schwoo schwaa.

Had they fallen under a spell? To Rosvita, it seemed they had. No one moved or spoke.

Only Mother Obligatia was strong enough to break that spell. She had survived too long to be overmastered.

“Why does my daughter wish to kill me, Sister Rosvita?”

Rosvita glanced at Fortunatus, at Hanna, but they only shook their heads. “I do not know. I can only guess. She has not given up. A presbyter of noble birth waits below the rock. Tomorrow at dawn he will send soldiers up the north face to capture us.”

“He cannot reach us here.”

“How can we sustain ourselves, trapped within the stone with no source of food or drink? How have you survived these past two years?”