Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (16 page)

"Martha died."

"Now, lass. It may not be to your liking, and I have no doubt that Hugh may ask of you what you may not wish to give him." Here Birta hesitated. "He's noble, and we can't argue with his kind. When old Count Harl, as was younger then, brought little Ivar down and told me to suckle the boy with my Hanna, I might have worried there wasn't milk enough for both, but I did as I was told. You must do the same. There's far worse you could be doing."

Liath flushed, heat like a slap stinging her cheeks. "He swore a vow to the church. Like all brothers he has shaven off his beard as an offering to the Lady together with his vow to serve only Her."

Birta snorted. "I'm sure he'll never marry, not wanting to risk Their displeasure or, to more point, that of the skopos. What has that to do with you? There's those who say a man's not a true man without his beard, and that the churchmen are but men pretending to be women, but it's a rare man, even sworn to the church, whose feet do not tread on the earth. Are we to expect them all to lack the appetites of men?" Then her expression changed, as if she had at that instant come upon a new thought. "Or were you thinking that he might forsake his vows to marry
you?

"I wasn't! I never said that!"

"Listen you to me, girl. You and your father came from far parts into these lands, and you with that coloring and accent and he with his fine educated ways. Anyone can see that you're not like us, landbred and freeborn, but of another place entirely, though I know not what that place might be. I've heard no talk of kin coming to rescue you, and you told Marshal Liudolf yourself that you have none. You're too handsome a girl to be on your own with no family to protect you. Prater Hugh will take care of you, if he's a mind to, and he comes from a powerful family with a noble mother. Ai, lass! Think before you cry out against injustice. You'll not do better than him."

Goaded beyond bearing, Liath lost her temper. "He
beats
me!"

"With that temper, I'm not surprised. He
bought
you. Whatever you may have been before, wherever you have come from, whatever kin you left behind, if there is any, you're a slave now. Hugh's slave. If you're smart, you'll see that he comes to value you. Perhaps in time, if you are obedient and useful, he'll write a manumission and free you from his hand, but until that time comes, you are lower than the least poor freeholder who farms in these hills. You're a proud girl, and I think you do not realize that yet."

Liath fought down several savage retorts. Ai, Lady, but weren't Birta's words the simple truth? At last, her voice strangled by anger and grief and a real fear of losing Hanna by antagonizing her mother, she choked out a reply. "Forgive me, my wretched tongue. You've been nothing but kind to me, Mistress, and I'm sorry if I've been rash and impolite."

Birta laughed uneasily. "You're a good girl, Liath.

You must learn to make the best of what Our Lady and Lord have given to you. There's many a girl in this village who's looked longingly at our handsome frater. For all that the church teaches us that men sworn to the church have forsaken congress with women, it's a rare churchman who can say he's done so with a clean heart."

Liath woul not stand to think that people already spoke of her as Hugh's mistress. "I never
—!" She stumbled over her own words, furious and flustered. "And I never will!"

Mistress Birta sighed and smiled sadly. Then, to Liath's immense relief, Hanna entered from the stable yard.

"Liath!" Hanna ran to hug her, then pushed away. "You smell like the pigs, Liath. The frater was by, to say he'll be gone for
—What's wrong?"

"Perhaps you should take Liath outside and sit a moment, the both of you, drink a bit of warm milk."

Hanna looked startled. "Why, yes. Mama." She grabbed Liath by the wrist and dragged her quickly out of the front room. "Before she changes her mind." In the pantry she got down mugs and filled them from a pitcher, talking all the while. "She's never so generous when it doesn't bring coin with it. What's happened?"

"She's just told me that the whole village knows that I'm to be Hugh's mistress, and that the whole village approves it, and she's just discovered that I don't, and I'm not, and I won't be."

"Ah. Come outside. We'll sit on the bench." Hanna led Liath outside to the stable yard. The broom and rake leaned against the side of the house and a large swathe was raked clean, parallel stripes marking the beaten-down earth. The two girls sat on a bench in the sun. "You've never had time just to sit with me, not since the auction
—except that week he was gone to Freelas and I came to visit you. I've seen how he never lets you out of his sight." She glanced toward the inn and lowered her voice. "Do you really mean he hasn't bedded you yet? Everyone knows he intended—"

"Hanna!" Liath laid a hand on Hanna's arm to silence her. "What happened to the book?"

"The book?" Then her face lit. "I thought you'd come mad. Don't tell me you went looking for it?"

Liath grabbed both of Hanna's hands. Her heart pounded wildly. "You have it?"

"Ow! Let me go! Yes! I buried it where you said, but then I thought that wild animals or young Johan's pigs, or even one of the children out looking for eggs might get to it, so I moved it. When were you up there?"

"Yesterday. I thought Hugh had gone."

"You went up there the same day he left? I thought he looked angry when he came by. You idiot. I could have told you to wait a day or two, to make sure he'd gone. If he wants that book so much
—

"I know. I know. I didn't think. But he'd gone before. I thought it was safe. I just
have
to see it, Hanna."

Hanna looked furtively around the stable yard. She got up, ran over to the cookhouse door, and peered inside, then looked into the back room of the inn. Finally, with a wordless sign, she led Liath into the stables.

All the way back, past the stalls and the sheep pen and the pig trough, back where straw and hay drifted lazily down from the loft above, spinning in sunlight streaming through the windows where the shutters had been thrown back. Up in the loft her younger brother was kicking at nothing, legs dangling.

"Karl. Out. You're to finish raking the yard."

"That's your job!"

"It's yours now. Go!"

He made a face, grunted a "hello" to Liath, and clambered out by a side ladder. Hanna waited until he was gone and then knelt and pulled boards out from below the pig's feed trough. From underneath the trough she drew out a package wrapped in old, stained wool.

Liath grabbed it out of Hanna's hands. Her hands shook as she unwrapped it. Her fingers brushed the long metal clasps that held the book together and beneath it the leather binding, thick and graying with age, fine cracks like veins of hair revealed to the light as she pulled off the last of the cloth. She ran a finger down the spine, traced the brass roses that adorned the metal clasps, read with her fingers the embossed Dariyan letters:
The Book of Secrets.
A masking name. Da called it, to hide the true name of the books within.

Liath clutched the book against her chest. For a long while she simply gulped in breath, half panting, eyes shut. She opened her eyes at last to see Hanna watching her with a bemused expression.

"I thought it was gone." Liath's voice caught, then steadied. "Oh, thank you, Hanna. I knew you wouldn't fail me." She embraced her, the book crushed between them, then stepped back. "He thinks if he beds me that I'll give him the book. But I never will."

"Liath." Hanna regarded her with a frown. "That isn't a church book. I've seen the psalter Prater Hugh uses on Lordsday, and that once when the deacon came and read a mass here, she had the Holy Verses with her." She hesitated, looking troubled. With her pale hair plaited back and her blue eyes as bright as the clear autumn sky, Hanna looked as guileless as any ignorant freeholder's daughter ought to. But Liath knew she was deeper, and thought more, and understood much, though no one might suspect it of her. Hanna had inherited as well her mother's ruthless practical streak. And she never told secrets.

"Liath. I know very well you can read and write. Not just because you used to correct Mama's tallying, but
— well—I would see you writing in that book you're holding, sometimes when I'd come up the path to your Da's cottage before you saw me coming. If you don't trust me, who will you trust?"

"It's true enough. I've no one but you now, Hanna."

"Ivar."

"Ivar is still a boy, with five elder siblings and that old bear for a father."

"He's the same age we are
—"

"He never looks past his nose. He acts before he thinks, and then doesn't think anyway."

"How can you say so? He has a good heart, and he's not too proud to think of himself as my kinsman, though he's a count's son. He's never been ashamed to be my milk sibling. It's all very well for you, Liath. Even old Prater Robert, strict though he was, kept a mistress for a while. Old Martha, it was, and he was probably the one who gave her the pox. For all that the monks and fraters talk about giving themselves up entirely to Our Lady and Lord, there's always those who bind their hair or shave their beards and yet don't keep faith in every article. But Hugh's never noticed a woman in this village or any of the holdings hereabouts. Not even to be angry with, nothing except to order them to water his horse and fetch his bread. We're too far beneath his notice to even care for, except that he must minister to all. There's many who still think he's truly heartsworn to Our Lady and Lord, as Deacon Fortensia is, or the flock of brothers at Sheep's Head. Except for the way he looks at
you,
Liath. If it was just the book he wanted, he'd find another way to get it. He'd never sully himself with anything he didn't want." Liath stood stunned by Hanna's tirade. "Hanna
—" Words did not come. "Hanna, I—" Hanna waited, and at last Liath collected herself. "You don't actually wish that Hugh would . . . that he wanted to— that—" She faltered. The gap was too great to leap. "But you and Ivar—

"Ivar is my milk brother. Of course I'm fond of him. But Ivar is a boy. Hugh is a man. Haven't you ever noticed how clean his hands are? The fine weave of his clothing? The way he smells different, sweeter? How blue his eyes are? He even smiles sometimes. But he doesn't know that people like me exist."

Liath was so shocked by Hanna's confession that she did not know what to say, or how to say it. "I didn't want this. I didn't want him to notice me." Hanna sighed. "Of course you didn't. You never do.

Ivar loves you, Liath, but you never notice that either. I hope you never fall in love with a man you can't have. Now." She reverted to her usual practical self. "What do you mean to do with the book?"

From the yard, they heard Mistress Birta calling. "Hanna! You girls have spoken long enough. There's work to be done."

Liath clung to the book. It was all she had left of Da. Yet was it truly the only thing he had left to her? There remained a secret to be unlocked, her birthright, kept hidden all these years. But she could not imagine where to start looking.

"Liath," said Hanna, exasperated, "you'd be a fool to take it to the church if you don't want the frater to get it."

Reluctantly, Liath handed back book and oilcloth. She had to wring her hands together, biting her lips, as she watched Hanna wrap up the book and shove it into the gap below the trough and cover it, otherwise she would have snatched it out of Hanna's hands. But she did not. They walked together back through the stables.

"Hanna," she said softly as they crossed the inn yard where Karl raked away fallen leaves and sticks blown by last night's winds, "he may be handsome, I know he is, but you would never want him if you really knew what he was like."

"You're my friend first. That's all that counts."

Mistress Birta met them at the door. "Will you have supper in with us, then, Liath?" Her face was streaked with sweat and soot from standing so close to the hearth.

"Gladly. I'll return in the afternoon." She took her leave.

Jhe walk back to the church seemed short enough, with her mind so confused. How could Hanna think of Hugh in that way? Da had always claimed that it did no good to take vows unless you meant to keep them. She had disliked Hugh the instant she first set eyes on him, that day over a year past when he had appeared at their cottage. He had said he was making his rounds, meeting

his new charges, gathering his flock, but she felt instinctively that he had heard something in the village to make him investigate Da.

He had courted Da assiduously but carefully, and Da was so very lonely for another educated man to talk to. Da had never been the same since his beloved Anne had died; he had never really been able to take care of himself. For the two years in Andalla they had lived decently, but that had ended terribly one night. They lived poorly and precariously in the four years since then, and while Liath never minded the extra work she sorely missed the sense of simple well-being. Or as Da sometimes said, when he drank too much:
"What man can call himself a lord who has no retinue?"

She wiped away a tear. It had done no good to cry when Mother had died, and they had thrown what they could carry in packs and fled their house in the middle of the night. It would do no good to cry now.