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“I must agree with you, Your Grace. Unless these were only half walls of stone and the rest built out of timber, but I doubt that. I have seen other ruins from the old Dariyan Empire, and they are without exception buildings of stone with perhaps a timber or thatched roof.”
“Let us go, then, and I will ask you to speak of this to the count.”
had his back to the entrance, but he felt Agius enter, felt the frater’s presence behind him. What could he say to her? He could not lie to a biscop! Yet if he confessed, might he not be branded as some kind of ungodly witch? Suddenly being the bastard son of the shade of a long-dead elvish prince did not seem quite so advantageous, not if he could be condemned for it; just as the bastard son of Count Lavastine might become the pawn in a struggle to gain power over the count’s holdings if the count had no other direct heirs.
Alain touched his hand to his chest where, under the wooden Circle, his rose rested, warm and somehow bright under cloth. As he shifted, both Agius and Biscop Antonia turned to look at him expectantly, as if they could sense the hidden rose. Suddenly being the child of Merchant Henri and the nephew of Bella Adelheidsdottir, respectable householder of Osna village, seemed a much safer alternative to his other more grandiose dreams.
Yet neither was it right to lie.
“I have had visions, Your Grace,” he said reluctantly, lowering his hand, then added, “but I am pledged to the church.” Hoping that might explain it.
“It is true,” said the biscop calmly, “that many who are sworn to serve Our Lady and Lord are also granted visions, if they serve faithfully, but there is yet a taint of darkness in the world that may bring on false visions and false beliefs.” She looked again, pointedly, at Agius.
The frater was beginning to look angry.
“I believe this building is known as the altar house?” She bent to run an age-spotted hand over the marble surface of the altar stone. “This might be the Hearth of Our Lady, might it not? You see, I detect traces of old burning here, in the center.” With one finger she flicked dirt out of the runnels carved into the stone. These runnels traced a spiral pattern similar to the pattern carved into the walls outside, but here four spirals led into a fist-sized hollow sunk into the center of the white stone. She smiled, still looking at the altar stone. “It is a terrible burden to carry an inner heart that does not live in harmony with the outer seeming, is it not, Frater Agius? If we each one of us know what we ought to do and act as is fitting, then by our outward seeming Our Lady and Lord will know that we follow the faith gladly and with an honest heart. To profess belief in a heretical doctrine and yet conceal it from all but those who think as you do seems to me to be hypocrisy of the worst sort.”
“It is not a heretical doctrine!” cried Frater Agius. His face had gone bright red. “It is the skopos who denies the truth! It was the Council of Addai which denied the redemption and concealed the truth!”
Unshaken by this outburst, Biscop Antonia straightened. She surveyed the circular walls; next to the ground, half concealed by moss and weeds, carvings decorated the white stone, curled snails graven in stone surrounded by delicate rosettes. Counting out her steps, the biscop paced around the altar, measuring it. Then she walked past the frater, who stood as if rooted to the ground by his own passion, and went outside.
Alain hesitated.
Agius threw himself to his knees on the ground. “I will proclaim it,” he said, muttering as if to himself or as if to the heavens. “I must speak the truth aloud so those who linger in the twilight of the false belief can come into the true light granted to us all by His sacrifice and redemption.”
These were strange and troubling words. Alain sidestepped past the frater, but Agius, forehead resting on clasped hands, did not notice him. Outside, Biscop Antonia was helping Lackling stack loose stones into a pile. She looked up and smiled at Alain.
“He is devout but misguided. I will pray that Our Lady and Lord will bring him back into the Circle of Unity.” She turned to her clerics. “There is good stone here. It could be used to improve the wall of Count Lavastine’s stronghold, do you not think?”
“The local people refuse to walk up here or indeed to disturb these ruins,” said one of the clerics.
“Yet these ruins were surely once greater in extent than they are now. Someone must already have taken stone from here, for these walls to be as low as they are now. There is not enough fallen stone to rebuild them to what I might guess to be their former height. What do you think, Brother Heribert? You have studied masonry and building for the church at Mainni.”
“I must agree with you, Your Grace. Unless these were only half walls of stone and the rest built out of timber, but I doubt that. I have seen other ruins from the old Dariyan Empire, and they are without exception buildings of stone with perhaps a timber or thatched roof.”
“Let us go, then, and I will ask you to speak of this to the count.”
They bowed to her and began to walk back up through the ruins. Alain glanced back toward the altar house.
“Let Frater Agius pray, child. He has need of prayer. Come with me.”
So he walked back to Lavas Holding with Biscop Antonia. Lackling trailed three steps behind, shying like a frightened pup at every flutter of the wind through the trees. The biscop sang hymns to the glory of Our Lady as they walked, and although Alain was far too much in awe of her to presume to join his voice to hers, her clerics did so gladly and with vigor.
For the next two days, Alain saw Agius in the same place, as if he did not or could not move: on his knees in the church, head bowed, clasped hands pressed against his forehead, praying in a low murmur that sounded rather like a stream’s whisper heard from far off.
Alain served at table. Count Lavastine was polite to Lady Sabella, as of course he must be, but Sabella herself began to grow restive, even to look obviously annoyed … as if she was not getting something she wanted.
Twice daily a slaughtered sheep was thrown into the shrouded cage by the scarred and silent man who was its keeper. Once, while out running the hounds, Alain heard the sounds of a creature eating, much like a hound gnawing on bones. But no one dared peek inside, not even the youngest, brashest men-at-arms.
On the evening of the sixth day of the Ekstasis Alain fed the hounds as usual, fed the Eika prisoner, who suddenly lifted his head as if he meant to howl but instead growled low in his throat and shook his chained hands at Alain. The hounds barked and raced to the gate, snarling. Alain quickly ran over to control them, but they milled around him, barking so loudly it was only by chance he heard soft voices from the other side of the gate. He set a hand on the ladder and began to climb, then froze, listening, as the hounds circled and whined below him. Because the stockade was sturdily built of logs lashed together with rope, each log the thickness of a man’s leg, they could not see him through it, and he had not gotten high enough that those speaking on the other side of the gate could hear him.
But he could hear.
“He has agreed, but reluctantly, and only because I let it be plain that I would not leave until I received the creature as a present in return for our moving on. Now you must win me the other promises I need.”
“It is all arranged for tomorrow night, after the Feast of the Translatus, Your Highness. We will remove the prisoner and convey him to the ruins, and there perform the rite. Strong blood will attract the spirits and draw them under my control.”
“What of the hounds?”
