Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (7 page)

If she told Da, and Da believed her, he would accuse Prater Hugh, might even attempt to strike him. Two years ago in Autun something like had happened; Da in his impetuous way had attacked the merchant who proposed a concubine's contract for Liath but only managed to get himself a beating by the city guards and the two of them thrown out of the city. But if Da accused Hugh, if he attacked Hugh, he would make a powerful enemy. Hugh's mother was a margrave, one of the great princes of the land, as Hugh himself made sure everyone knew. She and Da had no kin to protect them.

And if she told Da, and Da did not believe her, then . . . Ai, Lady. Da was everything to her, he was all she had. She could not take such a risk.

"Da?" In all her long silence, he had not replied. "Da?"

When she heard a pained grunt from below, the faint crackling of parchment, she half slid and half jumped

down the ladder. Da crumpled the letter and threw it into the fire. Flames leaped, flaring. She jumped forward, grabbed
—and Da slapped her hand.

"Leave it be!" He was pale and sweating. "If you touch anything their hands have touched, they have a further link to you." He sank down onto the bench, resting his forehead on a hand. "We must leave tomorrow, Liath."

"Leave?"

"They will not let us rest."

"Who, Da? Who are we running from? Why won't you tell me?"

"Because your ignorance is all that protects you. They have the power of seeking and finding, but I have sealed you away from them." So he always said.
In time. When you are stronger.
"If we go in the morning, we'll have several days' start at least. We should not have stayed here so long."

They had stayed here so long because she had begged him to. Because for the first time in her life she had made friends. Standing in the center of the little cottage, her head almost brushed the rough planking of the loft. Da was a shadow in firelight, half formed, half sunk in gloom, but she could see him clearly despite the dimness. It was a joke between them: salamander eyes, named for the salamanders, the tiny spirits who inhabited the element of fire. Liath remembered seeing them, many years ago before her mother died, their forms as liquid as water, their eyes sparks of blue fire.

No longer. No matter how closely she peered, no matter how long, she saw only flames leaping and sparking in the.hearth, consuming the wood until it burned as red coal, ashes sifting down to make a dark blanket beneath.

"She is not strong enough yet," he said into his hand.

"I'm strong, Da. You know that."

"Go to bed, child. Keep the book with you. We'll take what we need in the morning and go."

She swallowed tears. They would go, and leave

behind two years of contentment. This was a fine place, this village, or had been at least until Prater Hugh had arrived last autumn. She could not bear the thought of leaving her friends behind: two friends
—imagine!—as close as if they were her own kin, of which she had none. Only her father.

But they would go. Whatever drove Da drove her along with him. She would never abandon him.

"I'm sorry, Liath. I'm a poor excuse for a father. I haven't done well by you. I should have
—" He shook his head. "I was made weak by blindness."

"Never say so, Da!" She knelt beside the bench and hugged him. He had aged so fast in the past two years, since that beating in Autun. His hair was now gray, that had once been rich brown. He walked bent over, as if under an invisible burden, who had once strode hale and straight. He drank enough ale for four men, as if to drown himself, despite that they could not pay for so much. There was little enough work to be had in such an isolated spot for a man who was no longer strong enough for field labor, whose only skills were drawing hex signs against foxes around hen coops and setting down on parchment or strips of bark the words of women and men wishing to make contracts with colleagues many leagues away or send letters to relatives. But they had managed.

"Go to bed, daughter," he repeated. "We must leave early."

Because she did not know what else to say, she did what he had asked of her. She kissed his cheek. She let go of him and stood. Pausing by the fire, she searched in the flames but the parchment was burned to nothing. To aslies. Her father sighed heavily. She left him to his thoughts, for certainly she could not fathom what they were or where they led him.

In the loft, she stripped to her shift and lay down under the blankets, tucking the book against her chest. The fire's shadow danced on the eaves, and its soft pop
a
nd roar soothed her. She heard Da pouring more ale for himself, heard him drink, it was so quiet.

So quiet.

"Trust no one," he murmured, and then her mother's name, on a dying breath: "Anne."

Many nights she heard him speak her mother's name, just so. After eight years his sorrow still sounded fresh, as raw as a new knife cut.
Will I ever be bound to someone so tightly?
She wondered.

But the dance of shadows, the rustling movements of her father below, the shush of wind over the steep roof, the distant whisper of trees, all together these weighed on her, bearing her down and down. She was so tired.
What was that strange star that came to life in the Dragon? Was it an angel? A daimone of the upper air?

She fell into sleep.

And sleeping, dreamed.

Fire.
She often dreamed of fire, cleansing, welcoming.
There are spirits burning in the air with wings of flame and eyes as brilliant as knives. At their backs a wall of fire roars up into black night, but there is nothing to fear. Pass through, and a new world lies beyond. In the distance a drum sounds like a heartbeat and the whistle of a flute, borne up on the wind like a bird, takes wing
Wings, settling on the eaves. A sudden gust of white snow blew down through the smoke hole, although it was not winter.

Asleep and aware, bound to silence. Awake but unable to move, and so therefore still asleep. The darkness held her down as if it was a weight draped over her.

Bells, heard as if on the wind.

Had old Johannes' wife passed on into the other life? Did the bells ring her soul's ascension to the Chamber of Light? One bell to toll her past each sphere and the last three for the
Alleluia
of the voices of the angels raised to greet their new kinswoman.

But the bells were a voice shuddering in the air. Two sharp thunks sounded, something hard striking wood. If she could only look, she could see, but she could not
m
ove, she dared not move. She had to stay hidden. Da said so.

"Your weak arrows avail you nothing," said the voice of bells, whether a man or a woman she could not tell. "Where is she?" Liath felt that voice against her like the touch of something old and corrupt dragged over her skin.

"Nowhere you can find her," said Da, panting, out of breath as if he'd been running.

Sweat started up on her forehead as she strained to move. But it was only a dream, wasn't it?

The fire flared suddenly until it flashed, brilliant, and sparks glinted in sudden bursts and then all was dark and quiet.

She slept.

And woke. It was the hour before dawn, the light more a suggestion of gray. She stirred, caught herself with the book pressed against her arm, fingers tingling, half asleep.

Something was not right.

Da had fallen asleep draped over the bench, arms thrown over the table, head lolling at an odd angle. His bow, strung, lay on the floor beside him. Cold all over, she scrambled down the ladder.

Da was not asleep.

The shutters were closed and barred. The door was barred. For eight years, wherever they stayed, there was always a fire in the hearth. Now the hearth lay stone cold.

And there, as if tracked out of the hearth itself, a slender footprint dusted with gray ash. Two of Da's arrows stuck out from the log wall beside the hearth.

And on the table, next to Da's right hand, lay a white feather of a kind she had never seen before, so pale it shone.

Wind whistled down through the smoke hole, stirring the feather, smoothing the ash footprint and scattering its lines until no trace remained. She reached for the feather. .
L
eave it be!

She jerked her hand back as if Da had slapped it. //
you touch anything their hands have touched
—

"Where is she?"
the voice had said. And Da refused to answer.

She stared at his body. He looked so old, as if his mortal frame would crumble into dust at the slightest touch of wind.

Trust no one.

The first thing she did was to hide the book.

THE slow drip of water nagged Liath out of her restless sleep. "Da?" she asked, thinking the trough behind the cottage had sprung a leak again. Then, opening her eyes into the gloom of the cell, she remembered.

Da was dead. Murdered.

The thin slit of a window, set high into the earthen wall, admitted only a dim streak of light that the stone floor absorbed like a dry plant soaks in water. The drip still sounded. Liath curled up to sit. Dirt clung to her tunic, but she was too filthy and too tired to brush it off. Her face still hurt from Prater Hugh's blows. She lifted fingers to her right cheek. Winced. Yes, it had bruised. Her left arm ached, but she did not think it was broken. She allowed herself the barest of smiles: small favors.

She sat forward onto her knees. The movement brought with it a lancing pain in her head, and for an instant she was back in the cottage. She was kneeling on the bench next to Da's body. It seemed to stiffen as she watched. The door banged open and the draft pushed the white feather against her bare skin.

Pain, like a knife driven into her temple. A voice, so far distant that it was no more articulate than the surf on a rocky shore. . . .
S
he pressed her palms to her head and shut her eyes, as if that could shut out the vision. Slowly the pain and the memory ebbed. She set a hand on the wall and got up on her feet. Stood a moment, testing her strength.

The drip came from the opposite corner, steady and remarkably even. A dirty pool of water covered the earth there. She didn't really remember coming in here, but she was sure this must be the Common House root cellar. Even Hugh could not have persuaded Marshal Liudolf to confine her in the church crypt. Which meant, by the drip, that she must be below the pig troughs and therefore just five strides from the edge of the wood. If only the windows were not so narrow and the four iron rods barring it so very thick.

A hissed whisper sounded, sharp and anxious, next to the slit. "Liath? Are you there?"

"Hanna?" Her heart raced with sudden hope. "Did you find the book?"

A gusting sigh, of anxiety lifted, answered her. After a moment Hanna spoke again. "Yes. Under the floorboards, just where you said it would be. And buried it where you said to." "Thank the Lady," Liath murmured. Hanna went on, not hearing this brief prayer. "But we haven't enough coin for the debt price. Or . . ." She hesitated. "Not even the bond price. It'll be the auction tomorrow. I'm sorry."

Liath went to the window and grasped an iron bar in each grimy hand. Peering up into the sunlight, she could not quite make out Hanna's face. "But Da's four books. Surely they brought a good price. Those four books alone are worth two horses."

"Didn't Marshall Liudolf tell you? Prater Hugh said those books were church property and he confiscated them. They're not to be sold at all."

"Lady's Blood," swore Liath, but the bitter anger, filling her, made her hurt everywhere. Why had Da trusted Hugh?

"I'm sorry
—" Hanna began again.

"Don't be sorry. What could you have done?"

"If Inga hadn't been so selfish about her wedding feast, we might have been able to at least pay the bond price
—

"It isn't Inga's fault. Prater Hugh means to pay the debt price, so it wouldn't have mattered."

"Even so, Liath, how did your Da run up such debts in two years? You never said anything. All this time . . ." Her voice dropped even lower. A shadow colored the ground and Hanna's chin and mouth appeared to Liath's view. A moment later, a strong hand gripped hers. "My mother says it isn't from
natural pursuits
."

Hanna's hand felt warm in hers. Liath held it tightly.
My father is a sorcerer. Of course it isn't from natural pursuits.
But she could not say it aloud, not even to her dear friend. In the village they all had thought Master Bernard was a defrocked monk, a man who had dishonored his vow to Our Lady and Lord and been forced to leave the cloister because he had confessed to getting a woman with child. A churchman knew how to write. A churchman understood the power of herbs and hexes to ward off pests and sickness and worse evils. Da had never disabused them of this notion. It made it possible for the villagers to accept him without fear. A fallen monastic was a shamed man but not a dangerous one.

Only Prater Hugh had suspected. Only he had wormed himself into Da's confidence. Footsteps sounded in the corridor behind. She heard muffled voices.

"Hanna. Go."