Hathumod shrieked and flung herself forward to kneel at Alain's feet. "My lord!" She grabbed his hand to kiss it. Horrified, he stepped back to escape her. "My lord, how have you come here? How have you escaped that terrible battle? I pray you, give us your blessing!" Her obeisance hurt, an old wound scraped raw. "Nay, I pray you," he said desperately. "Stand up, Hathumod. Do not kneel there."

'What would you have us do, my lord?" she asked. "We will do as you command."

Father Ortulfus stared in stunned silence with his officials clustered in like stupefaction around him. At the forest's edge, an owl hooted. Wings beat hard back in the woodland, and for an instant Alain thought the guivre had returned, causing them all to ossify into stone. The owl hooted again. The moon's light had crept up the east-facing porch, sliding up Hathumod's arms to gild her face until she looked waxy and half-dead.

'Biscop Constance is a fair woman. She will not judge you rashly," he said.

'But what of our case, my lord? You walked with Brother Agius before his martyrdom. You heard him speak."

'Brother Agius was a troubled man." It was the only answer Alain could give. "I cannot say if he was right or wrong, nor can any of Ou. Do not imperil your souls by bringing violence to this peaceful lace, I beg you. Go to Autun. If your cause is just, the biscop will listen to you." "I don't want to go to Autun!" objected Margrave Judith's young husband.

'Shut up, Baldwin," said the redheaded youth. "They've got twenty stout men with staves, and we've only got knives. We can hardly preach the truth if we're dead."

'We have nothing to fear," said Sigfrid, "since we walk with the truth. Remember the phoenix, Baldwin. Do not lose faith."

'I have not lost faith, my lord," cried Hathumod. She reached up boldly and touched his cheek where the blemish stained his skin, then flushed and pulled her hand away. She fumbled at her sleeve and thrust an old rusted nail into his hand. "I have not forgotten that God tested us by offering us a broken vessel in place of the whole one. I still have the nail."

Surely the guivre had returned, its baleful glare in full force, because he could not move. The nail burned his skin. He had rid himself of both promises and burdens, but what he had given away to the centaur shaman had returned to haunt and plague him. Would he never be free of Tallia's sin? Was it possible he loved her still? Was his memory of happiness with Adica only a delirium, caught in the mind of a wounded man?

He refused to surrender to the chains that once bound him.

'This is no longer mine." He pressed the nail into Hathumod's pale fingers. "I am not what you think I am. I am bound to this monastery now-"

'Who are you?" demanded the abbot. "You came to us raving about the end times and yet stand here like a lord born into a noble house."

'He was a Lion," said Dedi, speaking for the first time.

'Nay, he was a count," said Hathumod. "It was wickedness and the greed of others that brought him low! I know what he truly is, for I have seen that which follows in his wake!"

'He's a laborer born and bred," objected Brother Lallo. "I've seen the calluses on his hands. He knows plaiting and weaving as would any child born to a family who work along the sea lanes."

'These cannot all be true." Father Ortulfus' irritation scalded his tone.

'I am no one, Father." He could not keep the bitterness from his voice, although he knew bitterness was a sin. He must not blame God for the happiness he had shared with Adica; too well he understood how brief life, and happiness, were. "I am just a bastard born to a whore and an unknown father."

'Yet those fearsome hounds follow you as meekly as lambs. One might say you had bewitched them."

'Say what you will," said Alain. "God alone know the truth of what I am. What kin my mother was born to I cannot say, only that she died a pauper and a whore."

Hathumod whimpered, the kind of bleat a small animal might make when caught in a falcon's claws.

'What are you now?" Father Ortulfus' intent gaze might have been that of the falcon.

'I am grateful to be a common laborer, working in peace at this monastery."

The sacrist appeared out of the clot of officials who had fallen back at the first sign of violence.

'Think of the oil, Father!" he whispered so loudly that all heard.

The abbot bit his lip, hesitating, then gestured for the sacrist to step back before he addressed Alain again.

'Is it your intention to declare yourself as a converso? To work for a year and a day at this place and then, when that year and a day have passed, to devote your life to God as a monk?"

The night was so still and restful, chill without the biting cold that would come with winter, that its tranquil presence spread a glamour over them, washing away the tensions that had threatened to erupt moments before. The evening breeze touched Alain's face and spilled peace through his soul. He remembered the breath of healing that passed over his heart after the guivre vanished into the wood. Was it a presentiment?

The man who raised him, his foster father Henri, pledged him to the church in return for the right to foster him. Didn't he turn away from that vow when he pledged himself to the Lady of Battles? All she had brought him was death.

Nay, love, too. He would not be dishonest. For all the pain it brought him, he would never disavow his love for Lavastine, for Adica, and even for Tallia, who had turned her back on him. For his faithful hounds, who followed him.

It was time to return to the vow first made, although he was only an infant when it was spoken over him.

'Truly," he said, meeting the abbot's avaricious gaze, "I will labor here for a year and a day, and then enter the monastery as a monk, jevoting my life to God, as it should have been all along."

'So be it." Father Ortulfus turned to Prior Ratbold. "Escort our visitors to cells. There's still the matter of Lord Berthold to investigate. We'll send a party up to the barrows in the morning. I will interview them further after we've seen if there's any truth to their claim."

'What if we can't find them again?" objected handsome Baldwin. "I don't want to go back to those nasty barrows. They scared me."

Hathumod turned on him angrily. Her tear-stained face glittered under the moon's light. "You'll hush now, Baldwin! I've had enough of your whining! No matter what happens next, no harm will come to us, will it, Lord Alain?"

He did not know the future. Yet in his heart he did not fear for them. They were not wicked liars, probably only mistaken in their belief, desperate for the passion brought to them by Agius' tortured vision.

'No harm will come to you," he agreed. "Father Ortulfus is a good man. He will listen carefully to what you have to say, as long as you are honest."

As soon as Prior Ratbold escorted the visitors away, the laborers crept back onto the porch and into the dormitory, slipping away to their cots in the hope no one would notice. Father Ortulfus did not leave immediately. His attendants lingered beside him as the moon rose higher still, bathing the forest's edge in its gray-silver light. From here, on the porch, they could not see the other buildings of Herford Monastery, only a corner of the stables, the spindly outlines of apple and pear trees, and the fenced-off garden, fallow at this season except for a rank stand of rosemary.

The sacrist approached Alain, bobbing nervously. He wore a good linen robe, befitting his rank, under a knee-length wool tunic trimmed with fur. "There is a cell free for your use, Brother, set apart from the rest as befits your position among us, but with a good rope bed, a rug, and other small courtesies."

Alain regarded him with surprise. "Nay, Brother, what would I want such courtesies for? I will labor among my brethren here until I have fulfilled my vow. A cot in the dormitory is good enough for me.'

Father Ortulfus watched him but said nothing. He and his attendants departed quietly. Alain stood on the porch listening, and after a while he heard the muffled sound of weeping. He walked into the dormitory to find Iso facedown on the coarse hemp-cloth cot, trying to stifle his sobs.

Kneeling beside the youth, Alain rested a hand on his bony back. "All has been set right."

Iso struggled to speak. Fear made his stammer worse. "B-but th-they'll th-throw me out. I h-h-have nowhere to g-g-go."

'Nay, friend, no one will disturb you. You'll stay here, where you belong."

As Iso calmed, Alain became aware of many listening ears, those of the other day laborers, poor men, some crippled, some slow of wit, some merely down on their luck or seeking the assurance of a meal every day, who served the monastery with labor day in and day out, although few of these men would ever be allowed to take the vows of a monk. It was so quiet in the dormitory that a mouse could be heard skittering along the eaves. It was so quiet that the moon seemed to be holding its breath. The wind did not sigh in the rafters, nor could he hear the night breeze moving through the trees outside. Rage grunted and settled down beside Alain's cot. It was too dark to see her as anything but shadow. Sorrow stood by the door, as still as though he had been turned to stone.

'Go to sleep now, Iso," he said. "Let everyone rest. There is work to do tomorrow. Don't let your hearts be troubled."

They did shift and settle, they did go to sleep at last, although Alain lay wakeful for a long time before sleep claimed him. Memories drifted in clouds, obscure and troubling. He still felt the touch of the nail against his skin, like poison, and for a long time he saw Sorrow standing vigilant in the open door.

IGNS AND TENTS SHJE had once been a captive in hardship. Now she suffered as a captive in luxury. The food was better, and she slept on a comfortable pallet at night in a spacious suite among the devoted servants of Presbyter Hugh. She never saw anyone murdered for sport or out of boredom and neglect, but otherwise the two conditions contrasted little. Twice, a servant of Duke Burchard approached one of Hugh's stewards, asking that the duke be allowed to interview her himself; after the second refusal, the man did not come again. Hugh allowed no one to talk to her, not even the other Eagles. Seven Eagles besides herself attended Henry at court, including Rufus, but they slept and ate in other quarters to which she was never allowed access. Nor was she sent out with any messages, as her comrades were, riding out to various places in Aosta, north to Karrone, and even one to Salia.

She wore no chains, but she had no freedom of movement^ Of course it was preferable to be a prisoner without the misery she had endured under the Quman, even if she had been subjected to far less than the hapless folk forced to follow, and die, in the army's train.

Of course it was preferable.

That didn't make it palatable.

If Hugh suspected that she had seen Hathui and heard her accusations, he never let on. Maybe he didn't think so. Maybe if he thought so, she would be dead by now. In fact, he paid no attention to her at all once she had given an account of her travels and travails to him while a cleric busily wrote it all down. He had questioned her; she had replied. She hadn't said everything she knew, but perhaps she had said enough. She could not tell if he suspected her of disloyalty' or treason. Anyone as unrelentingly benevolent as Hugh could not, as far as she was concerned, be trusted.

And yet.

Small acts of charity softened the path he trod every day. He did not fear to walk into the grimmer parts of the city, where folk lived in the meanest conditions: beggars, itinerant cobblers, and whole families whose work seemed to consist of gleaning from sewers and garbage pits. In a city brimming with poverty, he turned no beggar away without offering the poor man bread and a coin. Laborers were hired out of his own purse to work on the walls and reconstruct buildings damaged in the mild earthquake. Now and again he redeemed captives brought to the market for sale into service as domestic slaves, those who professed to be Daisanites. Each week he led a service at the servants' chapel to which any person working in the palace, high or low, might seek entry; no other presbyter deigned to humble himself in such a way when there were clerics aplenty available to minister to the lowborn.

No one at court spoke against him. Nor did any whisper of any unseemly connection between the beautiful presbyter and the young queen reach Hanna's ears. As days passed, Hanna saw herself that Hugh was never alone with Queen Adelheid. Never. It was so marked that she supposed it was done deliberately.

In any case, the queen was pregnant. A second child would seal Adelheid's grip on the imperial throne. Through all this, Hugh stood at the king's right hand.

So it was today, on the feast day dedicated to All Souls, the twelfth day of Octumbre. The king received visitors in the royal hall with his court gathered around him. Hanna waited to the right of the throne, standing against the wall, watching as Hugh intercepted each supplicant before allowing them to ascend the dais and kneel before the king and queen.

No information reached Henry that did not pass Hugh first. He controlled what the king knew and how the king made decisions.

Hugh's influence remained subtle, but pervasive. Was it possible that no one else saw as clearly as she did?

But looking over these courtiers who chatted as they waited in attendance, bright in their fine clothing and precious jewels and baubles, she saw no suspicion in their bearing or their gaze. A wind had dispelled the heat wave that had lingered, according to the natives, unusually long into the autumn season, so it was no hardship to pass the afternoon in gossip and splendor as petitioners came and went, most of them artisans and guildsmen fashioning the many trappings and the great feast that would accompany the coronation.

Now that the king had begun his inevitable transition into emperor, none of the nobles had the kind of companionable intimacy she had seen them once share with Henry back in the days when Margrave Villam and Sister Rosvita had counseled the king. Had Henry become proud? Would the crown soon to grace his head exalt him far above those who had once been his peers?

She wondered if she had dreamed that flash of blue in Henry's eyes. Perhaps Hathui had betrayed the king and tried to drag Hanna into the conspiracy. Perhaps her own loyalty to Liath had disoriented her, complicated by the familiar tangle of envy, love, fidelity, and a tiny spark of resentment. Yet Liath had left her and the Eagles behind. Why should she cling to a friendship that had likely meant far more to Hanna than it ever had to Liath?

She could not shake constancy. She understood better now the fears and weaknesses that had driven Liath. Whatever had happened in the past, she could not abandon the memory of the fellowship and harmony they had shared.

She had a sudden, odd feeling that someone was looking at her. Turning her head, she caught sight of a cleric sitting among a dozen others at a table to one side of the king's throne. These members of the king's schola were at work writing down the names and pledges of each of the artisans, making a careful record of the great undertaking they had now all embarked on which would culminate in the first Emperor since the days of Taillefer, one hundred years before.

One man had paused in his writing to look at her: Brother Fortu-natus, who had given the sermon at St. Asella's. He did not look away immediately when their gazes met. He studied her, frowning slightly, serious; he had a gaunt-looking face, as if he had once been a lot heavier and healthier and happier with the extra weight. No doubt he wondered why she walked among Hugh's entourage. Nc,' doubt he wondered if she had betrayed him.

A courtier approached the king to introduce three aged clerics, residents of the famous institution of the learned St. Melania of Kellai. They had studied the Holy Verses and with careful prognostications had several well-omened dates to suggest for the coronation itself. The king and queen listened as the scholars argued over the relative benefits of a coronation held on the feast day of St. Peter the Discipla, which was also Candlemass, or that of St. Eulalia, two days later, whose attendance at the birth of the blessed Daisan would bring her saintly approval to the birth of a new empire.

Beside Hanna, two of Hugh's clerics were chatting softly in counterpoint to the discussion going on publicly before the king.

'Nay, but the arguments for holding the coronation on the twenty-second day of Novarian are very strong, if we speak only of the stars."

'They'll say no such thing publicly! People still fear mathematici."

'That won't last. The Holy Mother herself did the calculations. It was she who said that when Jedu moves from the Lion into the Dragon, it would be well for the king to crown himself from the lesser beast into the greater."

'But I've heard others argue that we had better look to a conjunction with the Crown of Stars, for that signifies the empire, and thus would command better success. Erekes will reach conjunction with the Crown on the eleventh of Askulavre."

'Erekes is fleeting. Would that not cause the reign of the new emperor to be fleeting?"

'Life is fleeting, Brother. Yet doesn't Somorhas come into conjunction with the Crown soon after? And linger there for many days, into Fevrua?"

'Because she goes into retrograde. That can scarcely bode well. Yet on the first of Sormas, she touches the Child's Tore, signifying heaven's blessing on the rule of Earth's regnants."

They would argue endlessly. Hugh's private schola, his coterie of clerics and church-folk, was riddled with women and men professing to understand the teachings of the mathematici, magic outlawed by a church council a hundred years ago but come back into favor with the blessing of the new skopos, herself an adept of the sorcerous arts.

Brother Fortunatus was not the only one watching her: so did Duchess Liutgard, with narrowed eyes, as if wondering why an Eagle had sought refuge under Hugh's wing-or why Hugh had confined an Eagle within the cage of his faithful retinue.

She dropped her gaze to stare at her feet and the honest pair of boots covering them. She had followed the trail set before her by the will of others for too long. Maybe it was time to branch off on a path of her own making.

- door into the chamber where he was confined for the night, separate from the others, stood so low that Ivar had to crawl to get inside. With a blanket wrapped around him, he huddled on the stone platform that served as a bed, unable to sleep, stricken with wretched cramps from the rich food.

Why did the righteous suffer and the wicked thrive? Ivar could not imagine Hugh spending even one single night in discomfort. No doubt he lay in a fine luxurious bed waited on by servants. Had he a woman in the bed with him? Yet the image wouldn't rise. Hugh had never shown interest in any woman in Heart's Rest, not until Liath. Maybe Hugh lusted just as most men did but knew how to control himself.

Anger writhed in his gut at the thought of Hugh until finally he staggered over to the bucket placed in the corner and vomited the remains of his dinner. When he sagged back onto the hard bed, he felt a little better. He must not let despair and hatred control him. He could not let the memory of Liath torment him. He had to figure out how to get his companions out of this prison, and he could not do so if he let jealousy and fear and hate consume him. He had always acted so impulsively before. Unbidden, the memory of his elder half sister, Rosvita, came to his mind. She would never have found herself in such an awkward circumstance. She would never be so stupid as to be thrown into a prison cell for some rash action or thoughtless words. How many times as a child had he heard her held up as a paragon of shrewdness and composure? He had to try to be like her. He had to set aside his passions and think.

How could three years have passed in the space of two nights?

In the morning, the prior came with a party of men and took away Gerulf as well as Baldwin, whose indignant complaining could be heard through the heavy door. Later, a servant brought venison, bread, and leftover pudding, but Ivar couldn't bear to touch anything but the bread. Wine didn't quench his thirst, but a diet of bread and wine eased the ache in his bowels.

The day passed with excruciating slowness. The afternoon service of Nones had come and gone when, at last, all seven of them were brought under guard to the abbot's office. Ivar needed only one look at the expression on Baldwin's and Gerulf's faces.

'Nothing, my lord abbot," said the prior. "We entered each of the mounds and found a passageway in to a central chamber. Villam's men did the same thing five years ago when the lad first disappeared. The chambers lie empty. We saw no tunnels or stairs leading farther into the ground, nor did we find any trace of Lord Berthold or his companions."

The abbot regarded Ivar as he toyed with an ornament: a deer carved from ivory, so cunningly wrought that each least detail, ears, flared eyes, nostrils, the tufts of hair on its legs, had been suggested by the artisan's skill. A servant came in with a covered bucket to add charcoal to the bra,'ier.

'Truly, it puzzles me that Lord Ivar and his companions should make such a claim when they must have known how easily it would be disproved. They do not strike me as fools-well, perhaps with one exception. Still, this matter goes beyond my jurisdiction. Only the biscop's court can judge cases of heresy, and whether these tales are true. A phoenix rising from the ashes, healing the lame and the ill. Three years passing in the space of two nights. A two months' journey overland accomplished by walking into and out of a barrow, through a labyrinth of chambers buried far beneath the old grave mounds."

'Sorcery!" exclaimed the prior. "Like those stories we've heard of bandits who eat the souls of their captives."

'Hush!" scolded Ortulfus. "Speak no ill gossip lest you bring the sickness back on yourself. Lord Ivar, at Hugh of Austra's trial you yourself admitted to consorting with a woman condemned and outlawed for the crime of sorcery. How am I to judge? I must send all of you to Autun."

'I don't want to go back to Autun!" cried Baldwin. "And you didn't tell them about the lions!"

'Ai, God," said Gerulf impatiently, forgetting his station as a humble Lion, "his ravings won't help our case any."

'Nay, hold," said the prior suddenly. "What lions?"

'The lions on that rock outcropping," said Baldwin irritably. "The one by that tiny old shelter."

Father Ortulfus set down the deer. His expression grew pensive, even troubled. The sacrist whispered furtively to the chief scribe, and the cellarer rubbed his hands together nervously while the prior plucked at his keys.

They knew something. Here lay the opportunity.

'I saw the lions, too," Ivar said at once. "They came at night while I was on watch with Sigfrid. They drove off a pack of wolves and kept watch over us where we sheltered under an overhang near by the hovel."

The abbot wavered.

They had struck on the one thing that might convince him.

'You never said you saw the lions!" exclaimed Baldwin indignantly. "You let everyone think I was a maniac!"

That quickly, Father Ortulfus' support slipped away. Picking up the deer, he surveyed his prisoners with a sigh of derision. "Convenient that you recall just now to mention that you saw lions, Lord Ivar."

'But I did see them," Ivar insisted, hearing his voice grow shrill. It was so hard to stay calm when disaster stared them in the face. God have mercy! Mother Scholastica had cut out Sigfrid's tongue for speaking heresy. What would Biscop Constance do to them?