Wolfhere stood on the palisade. He practically jumped down the ladder, he was in such haste to get to her.
“No hope!” she cried. “The Eika have breached the gate. Everyone must arm and fight, or go to the cathedral.”
“How—?”
“An enchanter.” She remembered, suddenly, that strange exchange. Someday it might be important that more people than she and Sanglant knew that name. “He calls himself Bloodheart.”
Wolfhere nodded once, sharply. “Then go, Liath. Go. If you win free, you must get word to the king.”
She did not wait to ask him what he meant to do. She did not have time. Already smoke rose in thick clouds, heavy, black, and forbidding, from the eastern part of the city, and flames licked the roofs of houses near enough to see. Perhaps the mayor’s guard had already run to the eastern gate.
But when she crossed out through the arch and started down the main thoroughfare of Gent, she found utter confusion. The street was packed, every soul there wild with fear. Half of them seemed to be headed to the western gate. Some few, armed with butcher knives and staves and shovels and hatchets and any object that might be used as a weapon, shoved their way toward the east. But not as many ran east. Mostly, the people of Gent had forgotten everything and completely panicked.
Liath pushed and elbowed her way through the crowd. At first she tried to yell, every third step, “To the cathedral!” but there was no point to it. Her voice simply could not be heard above the roar of shouting, donkeys braying, chickens squawking, children wailing, fire snapping, and untold feet slapping down on plank and stone roadway—all headed every direction and none.
But she needn’t have worried. Pushing her way along the length of the palace palisade, crossing the square, and reaching the broad steps and inviting facade of Gent Cathedral proved the easiest part of her journey.
The cathedral was packed.
People were shoved together on the steps, crowding in, crying and pleading, lifting their children high over their heads so the infants might be granted sanctuary inside if not their own selves.
“Make way!” Liath cried, although their noise drowned out her words. She drew her sword and used its hilt to knock hard into the people. When they turned, angry or sobbing, they gave way before her Eagle’s badge.
In this fashion, though slowly, she got up the steps. If possible, it was more crowded inside. All of them had shoved inside until she could not understand how anyone could breathe pressed up toward the Hearth, the haven, the holy space. Surely not even savages like the Eika would profane the holy space of the God of Unities.
They stank of fear and sweat. It was impossible, absolutely impossible, to imagine getting through this crowd to the Hearth where she might hope to find the biscop. She sheathed her sword.
And then, amazingly, she heard a shift in the tone of the crowd. Like a muting blanket drawn bit by bit across the congregation, the wordless mutter and yelling and weeping took on form and flow. Creeping back from the front, a hymn slowly took hold.
“Lift me up!” Liath commanded.
Half to her surprise, two men did so, grabbing her by the legs and hoisting her up. There, at the Hearth, the biscop presided, arms lifted toward the heavens as she led the congregation in a psalm.
“‘You that live in the shelter of Light,
you who say, ‘The Lord is my safe retreat,
the Lady the fastness in which I trust,’
He will cover you with His pinions.
She will grant you safety beneath Her wings.
You shall not fear the arrow that flies at night
or the spear that stalks by day.
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand close at hand,
but you it shall not touch.’”
Liath sang with them. When the psalm finished in a somber Kyria, the biscop turned her hands, palms outward, and the mass of people quieted so all were listening. Only the hiccuping sobs of terrified children broke the silence.
“Pray, let us have silence,” cried the biscop.
In that moment, while silence trembled and the roar of fire and battle and distant drums leaked in through the walls and the open doors, before the panic of the people outside could overset this tenuous peace found here, Liath raised her voice. She called attention to herself in the very way Da had warned her against.
“Never be noticed. Never stand out. Never raise your voice.”
“Biscop, I pray you, listen to my words. I am a King’s Eagle!”
The men holding her shifted, and she had to steady herself, one hand on each of their shoulders. Every head in the cathedral skewed round, faces bleached white with fear. The biscop lowered her hands and signed to her to continue.
