The Time Weaver

Chapter Nine

She lived, apparently, in the halls of an empty cathedral.

It was a cathedral, or had been once, but it wasn't truly empty. After the press of people in the palace, jammed in the streets, it was a shock to discover a building such as this, with open passageways of colorful ceramic tile, and chipped pillars of onyx, and towering stained glass windows, many broken, covered from the outside with boards. Alexandru smelled no rodents, no pigeons or even insects, only the residue of all of them, and the heavier, more fragrant whiff of rain, perhaps a few hours away.

But there were humans dwelling in the shadows. Young ones, a few very old, all of them shrouded in blankets or shawls, all of them watching in silence as he and Honor crossed the floors. A child of about seven had cracked open a side door for them at Honor's single sharp rap; that child trailed them still.

Male. Grubby. Brown-eyed, garbed in cotton and wool with an incongruously new leather belt stiff around his waist. Sandu sensed no metal upon him but for the buckle, so if the boy was armed, it wouldn't be with a gun or blade.

Honor had exchanged a few muted words with one of the older Others before melting into the shadows herself. He heard her pause a few paces in, felt the weight of her gaze as she turned about. She'd smiled back at him and tipped her head toward the dark, an invitation to follow.

"It's safe," she said. "I promise."

So he was following.

The cloistered air carried a dull, cool tang. In fact, it was much cooler in here than it had been outside, certainly far more so than the overstuffed palace. He moved through its gloom listening hard: the hushed singing limestone, the rumbling onyx, a few brighter notes of garnets and granite thrown in.

Angels in the windows regarded them with flat glass eyes. Every now and again they passed a single-flamed lamp set within an alcove, and then the colored panels would flare and shimmer in time with his footfalls.

Honor made no attempt to touch him again. She seemed perfectly at ease with the child behind them as they glided deeper, and then higher, into the bowels of the building. With her hair covered, her figure draped in elaborate ebony, she blended too well with the shadows; he followed her by the sound of her gown, the skirts brushing the floor, a cadenced bare hiss of satin over tile.

At the end of a corridor the boy suddenly darted ahead. He rushed to a pair of closed wooden doors and pushed them open with both hands, revealing a slender rectangle of light, a glow that deepened and expanded until it was a pair of blown-glass candelabras on a table, a gleam of blue and violet against the night.

It was a private chamber, even more splendid than the halls, with settees and chairs and rugs and that long, glossy table laden with food.

Honor began to strip off her gloves. She waved a hand at the boy, who dipped a bow and shot Sandu a look from the bottom of it, then retreated as far as a corner, settling on a stool.

"I purchased it a few years ago," she said, and for a peculiar instant he thought she was speaking of the child; serfdom was a very recent memory in his land. But then she glanced at him from over her shoulder, freeing herself of the veil, and Sandu realized she meant the cathedral, this echoing and glass-shining place.

"You reside here?" he asked.

"Sometimes."

The table was set with china and silver, platters of cold meats and olives and cheeses, a carafe of chilled red wine gathering dew along its curves. Sliced bread lay in a fan upon a platter, surrounding a bowl slick with oil and spices. He realized that he was hungry—it had been a long while since he had eaten anything but the orange and he was starving, actually—and when Honor took a seat at the head of the table he was already only a step behind her, in time to hold her chair, to glimpse the movement of her fingers against the burled wood arms.

"An interesting home," he said. "Very ... Gothic."

"Romanesque, actually." She reached for the wine, began to pour into the goblets nearby. "It's the devil to heat, if you'll forgive the saying. At least it's temperate here most of the year."

"Who are those people?"

She positioned a drink before him. Secure in his corner, the boy produced a fiddle and bow. "Just people. People who needed a place. Strays, rather like me."

"They're not your servants?"

"Not in the traditional sense. They're Roma, their own unique tribe. Grandparents and parents and grandchildren, everyone interconnected. They stay here betimes, I stay here betimes. They bring me things when I need them. It suits us all."

He'd spent too many years holding court; the compliment came easily, without thought. "You have a generous heart."

Her head tilted as she looked back at him, neither agreement nor disagreement, only that rich blue gaze, unsettling. Her skin glowed pearl against the stark bodice of her gown, the ice-pink teardrops of her necklace.

Alexandru glanced away. He unwound the bells from his wrists, set them gently upon the table, as the Gypsy boy began to play.

Slow notes, almost a lullaby. The boy was surprisingly good. "Do they know about you? About . what you are?"

"I don't know," she answered, frank. "I imagine not. Certainly not the Weaving part, and as for the rest ..." She lifted her hands, palms out. "They have no reason to suspect I'm more than what I seem. I look just the same as everyone else."

Hardly.

He nearly said it aloud—she could not be so ignorant of her own person as to be serious—but this time something in her gaze stopped him. Alexandru said instead, "Yet otherwise, when you're not here, and not, ah, Weaving ."

"Otherwise I am the obedient daughter of Lia and Zane Langford. Yes, you know that name. We rent a set of apartments here in the city."

He sat back in his chair. "I didn't realize—you are their child?"

"Lia says so." The doors opened again; a pair of adolescent girls slipped inside bearing ladles and spoons. They moved to the food without speaking.

"They're my second family. My first was back in Darkfrith. If you'll recall, I mentioned this before. In fact," Honor lifted a hand again and one of the girls pulled a sheet of paper from her apron, handed it to her with a curtsy, "I took the liberty of writing down some of the more salient facts. Since you seem to enjoy that."

Sandu accepted it, skimming the words.

Stolen as a girl

My Life in Danger from the English

Saved by Zane and Lia

But Trapped in Barcelona

Drawn to you

Don't know why

Sorry

And gleaming between all that, her secret message: You Make Me Unafraid

He refolded the sheet, studying her, the face of perfect lines, the hair coiled in tinted powder, the intense eyes painted dark, sophisticated. She was, by her own admission, two years older than the last time they'd met, and the changes were subtle but there. Yet he found that he could still see that little girl in her, that girl he'd first met, who'd had no paint or powder or even poise. He could see that same burning concentration behind her gaze, passion and stubbornness and tremulous courage.

It was the strangest sensation, like he was looking at a rice-paper image traced over another. Old. New. And yet they were both the truth.

The song from the fiddle began a crescendo. Honor flicked her gaze toward the boy. He caught her whispered "suaument," and the melody softened instantly back into its lullaby.

Alexandru pinched a hand to the bridge of his nose. He was becoming light-headed again. That had to be the reason for his lack of mental balance around her.

"Are you unwell?"

He shook his head, tried the wine. Cinnamon and tannins, a welcome rush of flavor. He took another swallow, then replaced it carefully by the chains of bells.

"I must confess, Mistress Carlisle ... I've never known anyone like you."

"I know," she said.

Far and away, the first of the thunder began to rumble across the Mediterranean.

His hostess was running a finger over the crystal rim of her goblet, lightly, around and around. "I feel that ... for the sake of utter honesty between us, I should tell you that, technically, you purchased this cathedral for me."

"Did I?"

"Yes. And thank you."

He began on the bread. "What a generous fellow I am. When did I do that?"

She ducked her chin and smiled. "As I said, a few years back. I have no income of my own, you see. Had I remained in Darkfrith, I would have been considered something of an heiress. But here, I'm as penniless as young Adiran over there with his begging songs. Zane and Lia feed me and clothe me. You provided my shelter."

He paused, watching that smile, small and not quite abashed butknowing, a slight curve that spoke plainly of mischief.

"You have," she said, after a moment, "a great many gemstones embedded in your castle. Uncut diamonds, right there in the mortar. Every room."

"Ah."

The last of the Zaharen wealth. The last glimmering, corporeal link to their heritage, the overflowing riches of those first few dragons.

"I've taken only the slightest of them. You've not even missed them, have you?" "No. Not yet."

Her smile erased. "I apologize. I wish I could say I wasn't raised to steal, but truthfully, nearly every aspect of my adult life has been shaded with thievery. It feels rather natural to me now. And it seemed to me, that if, in the future, I'm the mistress of your castle, or even just a consort, it couldn't really be considered stealing ."

Alexandru pressed his fingers back against his nose. "Sorry," she said again.

More thunder. The notes of the fiddle, rising and falling. The room felt heated now, the scent of food and her surrounding him, flooding him, erasing all thoughts of practicality and caution, promising pure magic in return.

"I'm enjoying the wine," he said, when he could speak again.

"It's from the Roma," she responded gravely.

Jasmine and honey, her smoky voice, her luminous skin. He wanted her so badly he thought his blood would boil dry.

Sandu dropped his hand.

"Do you realize what it would mean, were we to wed? To be involved at all? The trouble it would cause?"

She tipped her head again, impassive.

"We are at war," he said. "Perhaps you don't know that. It seems impossible that you wouldn't, but it's so. It's a silent war, one without blood, but very real nonetheless. Your tribe is determined to oust me, to take what is mine. For years they've been stalking us, sending spies, attempting to feel their way around my grasp on my kin. I think perhaps the only thing holding them back now is my sister—her last, lingering loyalty to me—but she can't keep them out forever. I know our ways. I know what I'd do, were I the English Alpha. I would have sent an army a full five years ago, and done what I could to win. War is pitiless, and war is cold, and I guarantee you someday your tribe will strike. We've done what we can to prepare, but I don't needyou to be their excuse."

She regarded him without moving. "The English are no longer my tribe, Sandu."

"I don't believe they view matters quite the same way. You disappeared from their shire, you claim they want you dead. Do you even know why?"

Her lips flattened. She shook her head.

"Because they think you are sanf. That you are a member of the sanf inimicus."

The fiddle song died. Honor leaned forward, biting off her words. "That marks the second time you've accused me of that. I don't appreciate it."

"I don't accuse. I repeat to you what I was told."

"It is a lie."

"It doesn't matter. Lie or not, it's what they accept as truth."

She shoved back from the table. "Then someone is lying to them! The sanf are an atrocity! I've never had anything to do with them."

Yet.

It lingered in the air over the fading echo of her voice, that single unspoken syllable, sinking heavy between them.

One of the serving girls inched forward, placed a hand on Honor's arm. Slowly she resumed her seat, a well of satin puffed around her. Her face shone even paler than before.

"I would never," she vowed softly, her beautiful eyes vehement. "Never."

Alexandru lowered his own, finding her sheet of paper on his lap, their ardent sideways sentences.

"Da,"he murmured, without lifting his own gaze. "Gentle One. I believe you."

He left her at the door to his chamber. Rather, she left him. It was, after all, her cathedral, not his, no matter how she'd managed the payment. She'd taken a lamp from one of the alcoves and guided him here, to this small square room with a faded mural of what appeared to be apostles and cherubs, and a bed with feather ticking, and a basin of water on a stand.

There was no scent of her within. It wasn't her bed, and the disappointment that jagged through him at that realization was tempered only slightly by strained, prudent relief.

He hardly knew her, or even what to think of her. If nothing else she was a gentlewoman, and the gentleman in him—serf, sneered a malevolent voice from the black corners of his mind—would respect that, no matter how bright her skin or smoldering her gaze.

She would mean war. He knew it down to the marrow of his bones. Taking her, claiming her, would unquestionably shatter the frigid, watchful stalemate he and the English had managed these past few years. Sanf inimicus or just a stolen child: They'd never abide his mating to her.

"Good evening," Honor Carlisle had said to him, her hand on the door.

"Good evening," Sandu had replied, a bow to her curtsy.

She'd left trailed by that Gypsy boy, who was the only one throwing glances over his shoulder as they faded into the gloom.

Outside, the autumn storm drew nearer, promising wet and wind.

Tomorrow Alexandru would return to the belfry, fetch the satchel he'd left there, and go.