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She had co
With a bitter chuckle, she climbed on At last the path parted before her, the silver ribbon cutting out to either side along a pale iron wall that betrayed neither top nor bottoh which she saw a featureless plain Was this the Gate of the Sword, which heralded the sphere of Erekes, the swift sailing planet once known as the ht took wing and brought foruardian as white as bleached bone It did not, precisely, haveface The delicate structure of its unfurled wings flared as vividly as if a spider had woven the threads that bound bone to skin It barred her path with a sword so bright it seemed actually to cut the aether with a hiss
Its voice rang like iron "To what place do you seek entrance?"
"I mean to cross into the sphere of Erekes"
"Who are you, to deht One, and Child of Flah in answer to her words, it thrust, attacking her, and she leaped back Instinctively, she reached for Lucian’s friend, the sword she had borne for so long Drawing it, she parried, and where the good, heavy iron of Lucian’s friend ht sword, sparks spit furiously It struck again, and she blocked, jumped back, checked her position on the path, and made a bid to cut past it
Yet where it had not stood an instant before, it stood noord raised "You have too ate," it cried triumphantly, its voice like the crack of the blacksmith’s hammer on iron
The breath of hot wind off Erekes’ dark plain weighed her down She was too heavy to cross
But she would not be defeated She would not fall, nor would she turn back now
"Take this sword, then, if youthe sword at it
The iron pierced it The creature dissolved in a thousand glittering fraght her, and she tu over the threshold into the pitch-black realm of Erekes
4
THE trial coust Surprisingly, Sapientia refused to hinder her aunt’s inquiry, and while Biscop Alberada had shown herself willing, if reluctant, to look the other hen it came to sins of the flesh, she stood firm on matters of heresy
It continued to rain steadily,life in the palace environs wet and miserable The stench of smoke frorippe, an aching snot-ridden cold that left its victih the ar barracks
So there was a great deal of coughing and snorting and sniffling areat hall Alberada presided from the biscop’s chair, flanked by Bayan and Sapientia to her left and a dozen scribbling clerics seated at a table to her right Heresy was such a grave charge that Alberada’s clerics wrote down a record of the trial as well as of her judgment, to be delivered to the skopos so that Mother Cleht remain aware of the corruption that had infiltrated her earthly flock
Normally Alberada would have called for at least two other biscops to be present, to lend full authority to the proceedings Given the season and the desperate situation, with Quhted daily from the city walls, she contented herself with the local abbot and abbess from their respective establish’s walls They were coe the biscop no le, Hanna had to stand in attendance on the entire dreary proceeding so that she could report in detail to the king about the sins of his son and the righteous inquiry made by the biscop, Henry’s elder and bastard half sister
Ekkehard was given a chair facing his accusers The rest of the accused heretics had to stand behind hiht forward and, after several tedious hours of testiment:
A prince of the realm had used his rank and influence to infect hapless innocents with the plague of heresy And while some of his victims, faced with the wrath of a royal biscop, recanted quickly, others res
Ekkehard sat through it all swollen with the nation that a youth not yet sixteen years of age could muster out of his own terror, uncertainty, and fanatic resolve Perhaps he was too young and self-important to be truly afraid Six of his intimate companions had survived the battle at the ancient tumulus Biscop Alberada showed her respect for the loyalty necessary between a noble and his retinue byno attempt to force them to repudiate their lord For them to abandon him, as it were, in the heat of battle would have been a worse offense even than their spiritual error Let the