Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (47 page)

Sabella's thin lips turned up, though she did not really smile. She gestured to one of her servants. At once, a serving woman entered the tent, bringing with her a girlchild of some five or six summers, a well-grown girl with hair as pale and wispy as Agius' was dark and thick. Her face still wore tears, but she shrieked aloud when she saw Agius, tore herself out of the serving woman's grasp, and flung herself on him, crying, "Uncle! Uncle! They killed my nurse!" She burst into tears.

He held her tightly, hushing her with whispered words.

When she quieted, Sabella spoke again. "My outriders came across your niece and her retinue as they rode in toward Autun. There was a skirmish. Some number of her retainers refused to come without a fight."

"What do you mean to do with her?" he demanded. "She is meant for the church, as you must know."

Rodulf fidgeted, playing with the rings on his fingers. He looked as if this interview were distasteful to him. Biscop Antonia beamed sweetly on all concerned. Alain felt her gaze settle on him, and he shuddered as if spiders crawled up his back. Rage growled, and he set a hand gently on her muzzle.

"I mean to do nothing with her," said Sabella. "Unless I am forced to. I want Biscop Constance."

Agius was so pale his dark eyes stood out as if they had been painted black, as a whore might to attract men. The child clung to him, face buried in his robes.

"Constance will not suspect you, Agius," Sabella continued. "You were raised together, and of course, as I recall, there was even talk of a betrothal between you and her before it was settled she should enter the church and you should marry Duchess Liutgard." She touched the gold torque she wore at her neck, then lowered the hand to display her palm, a hand empty to the air. "But that betrothal did not end in
your
marriage to the young duchess but rather in your brother's. A kind and generous man was young Frederic. A good soldier, too. Alas. So many killed in Henry's wars in the east when he ought to have been paying better attention to the lands he claims already to hold. Now." She signed again to the servingwoman, who went forward to take hold of the girl.

The girl began to cry again, clutching at her uncle. He embraced her more tightly at first, a look of utter fury on his face, but in the end, his expression now twisted with self-loathing, he coaxed her into letting go of him. The servingwoman led her away.

"I see we understand each other," said Sabella to Agius. Without further discussion, she left the tent.

"You must see," said Rodulf abruptly, "that I will have no more Wendish kings and biscops set over my lands. You're of Wendish blood on your father's side, so you may have little sympathy for my views, but I hold strongly to them. But still, I do not like
these
methods.."

"Many lives will be spared thereby," said Biscop Antonia soothingly, "and the city of Autun will not be devastated by war. Surely we agree that peace is better than war."

"War is at least an honorable profession," mumbled Rodulf under his breath. "Deceit is not, even if approved by a biscop." He went outside.

"We leave tomorrow at midday, then," said Biscop Antonia. "I will escort you." She gestured toward the tent and its furnishings. "Prepare yourselves as you see fit."

When she had left, Alain and Agius were allowed privacy to bathe. Alain poured water from a pitcher into the plain copper basin reserved for the use of the biscop's servants. He stripped off his tunic and washed his chest and arms and face. The water was bitterly cold.

Agius' deep set eyes were red with exhaustion. He knelt and clasped his hands in prayer.

Alain felt a terrible compassion for the frater. Surely Our Lady and Lord did not intend for any one person to mortify themselves with this agony of self-doubt? Was it not through Their Mercy that people were given the promise of being cleansed of darkness?

Taking the basin, he carried it over to Agius and knelt beside him. "Here is water to cleanse yourself, Brother."

Agius grimaced in pain. "I am tainted forever with the sin of pride," he said between clenched teeth, his eyes tight shut.

For the first time, Alain noticed the frater's feet, half covered by his threadbare robes. They were bare, covered with old, suppurated sores and fresh cuts caked with dried blood and dirt. Every step must hurt. Alain suddenly wished fervently to spare Agius any more pain, for he was so very full of pain, that was apparent by his expression of utter wretchedness. He dabbed cloth in water and gently wiped the other man's face.

"I pray you," said Agius without opening his eyes, "I am not worthy of your compassion."

"Surely every soul is worthy of compassion," replied Alain, surprised. He dabbed more water on the linen cloth and carefully began to wash the frater's feet. "Is kindness not what we are commanded to give freely to our sisters and brothers?" He glanced up. To his horror, Agius was weeping silently. He drew the cloth away at once. It was mottled with blood and pus and dirt. "I beg your pardon. I did not mean to cause you pain."

"I care nothing for my body's pain. It serves to remind me of my sins. Ai, Lady, in my pride I thought I had put aside the threads that bind me to the old ties of blood and earth. But it is not so. I cannot set my affection for my brother behind me. I cannot love him less than I love Our Lady, even though he is dead and in Her care. So now his child is put in harm's way and I am brought forward to be used, forced by that threat of harm, by those who seek power in this world. In my pride I thought I had put my birth behind me. Now I see it is not so. It can never be so, as long as I am bound by old affections. I am not willing to make the true sacrifice, that of unbinding myself from the ties of kin and giving myself entirely to Our Lady."

Not knowing what else to do, Alain went back to washing the frater's feet, dabbing carefully, trying not to break open freshly healed scabs. "Who are you?" he asked, then feared he was being presumptuous.

After a long silence, Agius replied. "I am the eldest son of Burchard, Duke of Avaria, and Ida, daughter of the due de Provensalle."

In Osna village, it was considered the duty of the eldest daughter to inherit her mother's goods and property and carry on her work and title, and the duty of the eldest son to marry well and thus weave a greater web of connection between households. Only younger children were sent into the church. Surely the great princes of the realm, men and women, expected the same from
their
sons and daughters.

"No wonder your parents were angry," said Alain as the full import of Agius' rebellion hit him.

The frater merely grunted. He sat back abruptly and ran a hand through his hair, tousling it, then fingered his chin to rub at the days'-old beard now growing there.

"What will you do?" asked Alain.

"I will save my brother's daughter, for the love there was between us. So will the number of my sins become greater."

"But you said you would not aid them . . . and she is so young." Alain trailed off. The girlchild was only a little younger than Aunt Bel's youngest daughter, sweet Agnes. "What hold do they truly have over you? Surely they wouldn't
—

"Kill
her?" Agius smiled sourly. "You are a good boy, Alain. You do not yet understand what we are capable of, we who still pursue the power held before us by the Enemy as a temptation. For the power given us to wield on this earth is an empty power compared to the sacrifice of the blessed Daisan and the promise of the Chamber of Light. But we are tainted by darkness, and so with clouded eyes we grasp at shadows," He clapped his hands once, imperiously. "Cleric! Bring me a knife. I am not worthy to call myself a good churchman with such a beard." His expression was ragged with despair, but he moved with the sure and decided movements of a man who has come to terms with a terrible destiny.

I walked, and Alain walked beside him, trailed by the hounds. Biscop Antonia rode at the front of the procession on her white mule, led by her servants. A cleric carried a green banner on a pole, marked with the badge of her city: a black tower at the confluence of two rivers. The black cloth of the tower was embroidered in gold thread with a biscop's crosier.

"There is so much talk of dukes and lands and biscops and allegiances," Alain confessed. "I can't make sense of it."

Agius smiled thinly. "You cannot make sense of why I am to be used as the snare to trap the white deer?"

"The white deer?"

"That is the name we gave Constance." When Alain nodded, trying to look as if he understood perfectly well what Agius was talking about, the frater gave a sigh of
king's dragon
frustration. "Constance is King Henry's sister, his youngest sibling except for Brun."

"But why would Lady Sabella call you cousin? You do not wear
—" Alain drew his fingers around the curve
of his throat.

"Only those descended from the house of royal kin are permitted to wear the golden torque. It signifies their royal blood. Both Sabella and her husband Berengar may wear the golden torque. Duchess Liutgard is so ornamented. I am not."

"But why would
—? And not you—? If you are the son of a duke?" Clouds had come in from the east. It was colder than it had been in the morning. Alain felt the dirt of the road under his boots. If it rained, the road would get muddy; how much rain, how much mud, would it take to prevent this plan from going forward? Yet he marched with Sabella's forces, under the aegis of Count Lavastine. Should he not wish devoutly for her victory? "As reading and prayer, so the ordering of the world," said Agius with a sigh. "What?"

"I seem fated to teach you, Alain. I trust to Our Lady's Wisdom that you will take better to the great truth of Her Son's sacrifice and redemption than you have so far to your letters. Now. Attend."

They walked along a deserted road. The farmers and freeholders who owed allegiance to Autun had all fled inside the city walls at the approach of Sabella's army. Though clouds were their roof and the green fields their chamber, Alain felt transported back to the days of lessons with the frater at Lavas Holding. Agius was not an easy teacher, more often ruthless and impatient with mistakes than forgiving of lapses. What he knew he was determined others should know.

"There are ten great princes in the kingdom of Wendar and Varre. Six of these princes we know as dukes. Four we know as margraves, since they administer the marches that lie along the eastern border. The sovereign is first among these princes, not apart from them. It is by their consent and the sovereign's strength that a prince or princess of the royal line comes to be acknowledged as the next ruler of Wendar and Varre."

"But weren't Wendar and Varre once separate kingdoms?"

"I can't imagine what your father was thinking," said Agius with some exasperation, "not to educate you properly."

"My father taught me all the things a merchant's son needs to know," said Alain hotly, stung by this unwarranted criticism. "I can repair a ship. I know a bit about sailing and navigation. I know the worth of coins from many different kingdoms and peoples. I can barter."

"I did not mean your foster father."

Distracted, Alain forgot his anger momentarily. "Surely you don't still believe I might be Count Lavastine's bastard?"

Agius gestured eloquently toward the hounds, which padded faithfully after Alain. They were as meek as puppies
—as long as Alain or Count Lavastine was next to them. Agius knew well enough what they would do to anyone else who approached them. "But that is neither here nor there. I will perform the task given me by our Lady. Attend."

They crested a rise. In the distance, Alain saw the city of Autun, the cathedral tower, the city walls, and the faint glimmer of the River Rhowne as it wound through fields lush with growing grain. Then the road dipped down into forest, and trees obscured the view.

"I will not trouble you with the story of the rise of the house of Saony. It is a long and complicated affair better left to the nuns of Korvei, who have for many years chronicled the deeds of the great princes of this realm. What you must know is that in the year , according to that chronicle, the young King Louis of Varre, known as Louis the Child, died. Two years later the elder Arnulf, king of Wendar, died. Arnulf the younger, his son, became king of both Wendar and Varre. What year is it now, Alain?"

What
year'?
It was spring. This particular day was St. Casceil's Day, as had been duly recited in the morning service. Since they had not yet celebrated the Feast of St. Susannah, it must not yet be the month of Sormas, but he could not recall now which day of Avril St. Casceil's Day fell on.

And as for
yearsl
Alain was not used to the marking of years. He dredged back into his memory, stumbled over a pothole in the road, and remembered.

"It is the year since the Proclamation of the Word."

"That is right. You know of the struggle of Henry and Sabella for the right to sit on the throne of Wendar and Varre." Agius gestured, lips twisted in a frown, toward Biscop Antonia. She had begun to sing and as usual her clerics joined in with great sweetness of tone. Alain could not understand the words, since they sang in Dariyan.

But Agius, distracted, murmured words in time to their singing.

'These four Deacons were treasurers, Who held in their integrity, The key to the mystery. Four days did they open to us, Each one of them with her key. To Thee be glory, Who chose them wisely!' '