The Spirit Gate (36 page)

oOo

The next morning brought no opportunity to question
Lukasha about the old monastery, for no sooner had she appeared in his offices
than he took her aside and made an earnest plea.

“Kassia,
I have had bad news from Master Antal in Tabor. The Bishop Benedict has been
exercising his special gifts at court. He is trying to win King Zelimir over to
the Lombard by magical means. According to report, he is succeeding.”

When she had recovered from her shock and disappointment,
Kassia asked, “Are
you certain, Master, that it is not the charm of the Duchess Orsini that is
winning him over?”

He told her then, what Antal had said to him the night
before, his eyes tight on her face. “If
Michal Zelimir’s
feelings are to be weighed,” he concluded, “the
Duchess Orsini would not, I think, find the balance tilted to her side.”

“I
realize I understand little of politics and royal duties,” said Kassia, “but
to my mind, Michal’s
feelings are all that should be weighed.”

Lukasha shook his head, lips pursed. “You know that’s not realistic, Kassia. Mishka is a
king. He is not, like your Shurik, his own man. He must marry to satisfy other
desires than his own. But at least in the lady Zofia he seemed to have found
his intellectual match. In Fiorella Orsini, he has met only an adversary—someone who seeks to
breach his heart of hearts and mold it to another’s will.” He leaned forward, his grip on her hand tightening. “His people, too, have
met an adversary in the Bishop Benedict. He will not stop with converting
Mishka to his faith. He will convert every man, woman and child in Polia. He
must convert them. That is his charter. And so I must ask you to help me,
Kassia. Help me protect our king against this manipulation. Return to Tabor
with me. Perhaps you can free him from Benedict’s tyranny long enough for him to make his own
decision about whom he will marry.”

Kassia was uneasy. To return to Tabor . . .

“You
are the only one who has a clear sense of Benedict’s power,” Lukasha murmured, his eyes intent on her face

Yes, yes! I know that. But what if Mishka presses me,
again
—

“Antal
believes Michal has come to love Zofia Varyusha, a daughter of Bytomierz. Would
you have him lose her?”

She looked at him, her mind working feverishly. What if
Zelimir did love Zofia? Surely that meant he had forgotten his infatuation with
herself. “Please,
Master, may I have a day to consider this? To meditate and pray?”

He granted that, though she thought there was a glint of
impatience in his eye. Or perhaps it was only disappointment.

Though her mind swam with the decision that faced her,
Kassia did not forgot her quest for more information about Lorant’s earlier occupants.
While Lukasha was closeted with the other members of the Sacred Circle, she
asked Zakarij about the monks and their recorded works.

“The
only records I know about are the ones Marija found or transcribed,” he told her, “The
monastery was overrun by Mongols. They apparently left very little of the monk’s work intact.”

“Or
perhaps the monks left very little of it for them to destroy or absorb.”

“Another
possibility . . .” His eyes touched her face then swept away to scan the bookshelves of
their Master’s
library. “Master
Lukasha has asked you to go to Tabor.”

“Yes.”

“Will
you go?”

“He’s given me the day to
consider it. I don’t
want to go, but Benedict . . .”

“Yes,
Benedict. Your feelings for Zelimir haven’t changed?”

She shot him a direct look, anger tickling. “Do you also wish them
to?”

“Do
I also—?”

“Master
Lukasha is the essence of patience, but I can tell how badly he wants me to
love his Mishka. Do you also want me to love the king?”

He returned her gaze, his eyes dark and unfathomable. “No. I don’t want you to love the
king.” He paused, seemingly on the verge of saying something more, then shook
his head. “How
soon will you return . . . if you go?”

Kassia started to say that was at Master Lukasha’s discretion, then
smiled. “I can
return every night, if I please. Perhaps I will.”

oOo

Januarius 5:
Today, I had thought to be in the midst of planning
my wedding. I am not, for I discovered just last night how little I understood
the man I had thought to marry. Leliwa is so proud of his beloved Aspirant that
he will marry her, then demand that she never be vested as a Mateu. When first
he said the words, it was as though he spoke a foreign tongue. I must have bid
him repeat himself two or three times before he finally laid it out very
clearly so that even a child might have understood it.

This was not a request he made of me. Nor was it something I was
expected to think about before rendering a decision. It was an assumption; a
decision had already been made, I had but to abide by it. So you can
comprehend, Little Book, how surprised he was when I did not share that
assumption. How surprised—no,
stunned—his
family was when I gathered myself up and announced that I was not prepared to
trade my aspirations for marriage. Perhaps they are still sitting in their cozy
parlor, staring after me.

I have not heard from Leliwa all week, nor do I expect to, for I
have humiliated him and he is a supremely proud man.

Well, Leliwa, we are even on that score. I, too, am humiliated.

Kassia let the book fall closed in her lap, her heart
sodden. She had picked up the journal believing it would lift her spirits, but
so far it had had the opposite effect. Unwilling to leave Marija in such
misery, she opened the diary again, intending to forge ahead to happier times,
but a rap on her door interrupted her.

It was Master Lukasha, and the expression on his face, the
tide of adrenaline-pumped anxiety that washed from him, very nearly bowled her
over. It put Marija completely out of her mind. He said nothing at first, but
only swept past her into the room her with eyes that seemed to burn and weep at
once. She kept silence and waited with quivering attention for him to say what
he would.

“The
Gherai Khan has pushed across the borders of Khitan darugha and is marching on
the provincial capital.”

Whatever words she might have expected to hear him speak,
those were not among them. When finally her voice would allow her to speak,
Kassia whispered, “What . . .
Master. What can I do?”

Master Lukasha moved to stand before her, fixing her with a
dark and terrifying gaze. “Understand
Kassia, that this precisely what Polia’s
enemies have prayed for. We have not the military forces to expel the Horde.
Only with aid from foreign friends will we be able to push them out of Khitan.
All we may hope to do without that is check their advance . . .
for a while.”

“But
why, Master? What has made the kagan suddenly penetrate our borders?”

Lukasha raised a graying brow. “Perhaps he doesn’t like the selection of brides or allies our king
courts. Whatever the reason, he has done it, so the pressure on our king to
choose the correct bride—and
the correct ally—mounts.
I don’t need to
tell you what that means. The Bishop Benedict has suddenly gained a great deal
more leverage and Fiorella Orsini is one step closer to rising to the throne of
Polia.”

Kassia shook her head. “No, it can’t
happen. You’ve
told the Sacred Circle-?”

He nodded impatiently. “Of course. They knew as soon as I knew.”

“What
do they expect me to do?”

“You
must come to Tabor with me.”

“But
what can I do?” begged Kassia, desperate. “It’s gotten beyond
Benedict now.”

“Has
it? I wonder.” He moved close to her, grasping her arms with strong fingers. “Think, Kassia! Who has
the most to gain from the inroads of the Tartars? Perhaps what made the Gherai
Khan decide to move now is something or someone even he cannot name.”

“Benedict?” The thought froze her. “You
believe he has that kind of power?”

“You
felt what he tried to do to Michal. And now that you’re no long there to protect him, Antal tells me
tales of Benedict’s
success. What he can do to one man, could he not also do to another?”

She capitulated, knowing she was beyond choice. “When do you want to
go, Master?”

“Today.
Early evening.”

She shook her head. “Why
not now?”

“Early
this evening, Zelimir will hold a council of defense. Benedict, I am told, will
be present. I want the largest audience possible for our arrival, Kassia. Our
entrance to Zelimir’s
court will not be a secretive one. I want Michal to see what power supports
him, and I want Benedict to understand who his adversaries are.”

Kassia wasn’t
sure what chilled her more, the dark gleam in her Master’s eyes or the thought of being Bishop Benedict’s adversary.

By early evening Kassia was prepared for their journey,
having spent the afternoon in prayerful meditation. She read some more in
Marija’s journal,
as well, hoping to find in it something bright and happy. What she found
instead was a peculiar little note that she had originally thought was merely a
poem. It was scribbled in the margin of one of the latter pages.

The window and the doorway open to all,

but the Spirit Gate is in the thrall

of him who first invokes it.

Were these Marija’s
words, or Honorius’?
Did they mean what they seemed to—that
a spell could be owned? Kassia had little time to ponder the questions and no
chance at all to ask her Master what the verse might mean, for as Zelimir and
his close associates convened their council, she and Lukasha mounted the dais
in her studio. Lukasha bid her speak the words of the spell with him, which she
did, matching syllable for syllable and noticing, absently, how well she knew
her Master’s
cadence. Then, in a protracted moment of frenzied light and color, they were
swept from the round chamber in Dalibor to the royal council hall at Tabor.

Nerves made Kassia notice the frenzied movement behind the
crystal walls more than she usually did. She imagined people watching them as
they sped through the corridor, their faces pressed to the outside walls.
Perhaps they waved or gasped in fright and ran to hide.

They stepped from the spell’s doorway enveloped in a billowing cloud of
heatless flame. Lukasha provided this for effect, for the spell itself produced
no more than a shimmering effect. Kassia could see the splendor of their coming
mirrored in window and wall and highly polished floor, but nowhere was it more
thoroughly recorded than on the faces of King Zelimir and his counselors. Even
the sorcerous bishop was momentarily boggled.

Kassia could not contain the surge of exhilaration that
roared in her head. She had just stepped hundreds of miles through space and
time as easily as anyone else might step across a threshold between adjacent
rooms. The palace floors were solid beneath her feet, but her head was yet
being buffeted by a hot spirit wind of triumph. She felt laughter welling up
inside her, threatening to overflow her control. A second look at the face of
Bishop Benedict throttled it. There was nothing but venom in that look. Naught
but sheer, cold rage. They had declared war, she realized, by stepping across
the miles to Tabor. They had announced to their adversary that they were
prepared for battle.

Kassia swallowed a lump of fear. Her Master was speaking,
but she didn’t
hear his words. It struck her forcefully, as she shivered in Zelimir’s council hall, that
Lukasha meant to use his magic as a weapon. That he intended her to use hers
that way as well. She was not prepared for that.

Their display had impressed all, there was no doubt of
that, and gained them a hurried private conference with Zelimir, wherein he and
Lukasha heatedly discussed every facet of the past week’s events. Lukasha pressed the king hard to place
himself under Mateu protection, to eschew all but the most surface diplomacy
with the Frankish delegation, to rally his own people, his own forces.

Zelimir, while obviously torn, was not to be completely
convinced. “We
cannot fall back into isolation,” he insisted. “Our
borders are no longer an uninhabited frontier. There are people there. People
who are my responsibility. And beyond them are those to whom Polia can be
either ally or enemy, peaceful neighbor or conquest.”

“We
will not be conquered if you lay your affairs in the hands of the Sacred
Circle. If you eschew this diverse rabble and trust us to advise and protect
Polia.”

“It
is not a matter of trust. It is a matter of politics. As I find it necessary to
have closer ties to the Frankish Church, it is increasingly difficult for me to
lay my affairs in the hands of the Circle. The Christians in my domain wish to
have their interests represented as well.”

“Why
would we not represent them fairly? We are not intolerant.”

“No.
But they fear intolerance just the same. I must listen to other voices than
those of tradition.”

“If
you will not trust the Circle, will you trust Kassia?”

Michal looked at her, not for the first time during his
verbal sparring match with Lukasha. His eyes had come to her face again and
again during their debate. She sensed in him a mounting fever that made her
quail. In the brief time she had known him, felt his emotions glide past her
like stream-borne leaves, she had never thought of Michal Zelimir as a man
driven by his passions. Yet here, now, his eyes spoke volumes about want and
need. That silent dialogue made Kassia’s
face suffuse with color.

“You
haven’t spoken,
Kassia,” he said. “What
have you to say? Would you be my protector?”

“I
suspect Benedict to be a powerful sorcerer, my lord. You must not allow
yourself to be manipulated by him.”

“You
say I am manipulated by him?”