The Burning Stone

“Walk on, Brother,” said Anne. “We are in no danger.”



Sometimes, Antonia reflected, allies walked right into your camp and declared themselves.



“Truly, Prince Sanglant,” she said, coming up beside him when Anne and Marcus had vanished into the tower, “there have been many unexpected comings and goings. Yet I wonder that those who most wish to depart remain behind.”



“Why do you wonder?” He had Blessing with him, swaddled in a linen band and resting at his back in much the same way, she supposed, he carried his broadsword during wartime. The infant was not allowed in the magi’s tower, so when Liath took her lessons or met with the others, he had perforce to carry the baby with him. After all, now that Heribert was gone and the guard dog dead, there was no one else he could trust to watch over her.



“It is no wonder you are suspicious of me,” she said, “so I will offer you a confidence, so that you can understand that I am also imperfect, and not your enemy. Heribert is not my nephew: He is my son.”



She had surprised him. That was good.



“He kept your secret,” he said.



“He is an obedient son.” Had been, at least, until the magi here at Verna corrupted him. Truly, they had a lot to answer for. “Why tell me now?” he asked, but she only gestured to the air.



“Nay,” he said, “There are no servants near us now. There is no one to hear except for me.”



It was true he had an uncanny way of knowing when the servants gathered nearby and when they were absent. Nor would it be to his advantage to offer any more knowledge to Anne than what Anne already knew. “Trust is a complicated thing. Some have said that either you trust completely, or never trust at all. As one who has studied the Holy Verses at some length, I can see there is a great deal of truth to that. Either we trust in God, or we do not. Either we abide by Their laws, trusting that They hold us in Their hands, or we do not. There is no bridge between faith and apostasy. But in earthly matters we are all stained with darkness, even the best of us. All but the blessed Daisan, of course, for how else could he have been lifted bodily up to the Chamber of Light if any taint of the Enemy had touched him? He alone among humankind was entirely of God.”



“Isn’t that a heresy?” he said, almost laughing, and it angered her that he would make light of her wisdom and experience in this way. It angered her, until she remembered that he was not wicked: like the beasts, he simply lacked understanding.



“Nay, child,” she said, “the heresy mistakenly teaches that the blessed Daisan partook of both a mortal and an immortal soul, that he was both human and divine. This cannot be, of course. God did not allow Their messenger to be sacrificed, as some heretics claim. It is on this very point that the true church, in Darre, broke off with the Arethousans three hundred years ago, because the Arethousan patriarch was in error—” She had lost him. He had that same blank look in his gaze as the cattle chewing their cud in the field.



With some men, one had to interact on the most basic terms. She tickled the baby under its chin. “Such a precious burden,” she said, and saw him soften. Like most men, he suffered from an excess of sentiment. She recognized it, of course, because of her own weak affection for Heribert. In some ways she admired Anne’s ability to disregard sentiment with her own daughter when, in the cold, clear light of day, she had to make hard choices. Antonia had never been able to use Heribert as ruthlessly as Anne used Liath. “My son trusted you, Prince Sanglant,” she said now. “So do I.”



“Sister Venia!” Zoë called to her from the door of the tower, and she had to leave him.



“He is useful,” Anne was saying when Antonia crossed the threshold and came into the tower chamber. Anne stood at the head of the table. Severus sat to her right, and next to him sat Brother Marcus, then Sister Zoë. To Anne’s left, Sister Meriam sat with hands folded. She was so small and bent that she almost looked like a child sitting at table. Liath sat next to Meriam. Anne saw Antonia enter and gestured toward the empty bench beside Liath. “That we can eat and sleep in the comfort of the hall is due in part to his efforts.”



“It seems strange,” said Brother Marcus, but his lips quirked. “Yet there must be some satisfaction in setting the child of our enemy to work like a common laborer, to benefit ourselves. Perhaps it is a sign.”



Antonia sat down next to Liath, who was mute, picking at the edge of the table with a finger while she stared at the wall. A book lay closed before her; its ivory cover had been cleverly carved in miniature to show the famous episode of St. Valeria confounding the pagan astrologers in the city of Saïs the Younger. A few days ago Liath had begun wearing the gold torque, symbol of her royal kinship; her dark complexion set off the rich gold sheen more beautifully, really, than did Anne’s pale, fair skin. And although it was lowering to think that Sanglant had stumbled on the secret of Anne’s descent before she had, Antonia was not one to throw away information just because it came from an unlikely quarter. Indeed, what Antonia found most interesting was that not one of the other magi had ever commented upon Anne’s breeding, or Liath’s sudden adoption of the torque.