Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (73 page)

He ran across the field, stumbling on corpses, jumping over men who writhed or struggled to drag themselves to safety. He ran toward the
guivre,
and paused only once, long enough to take a sword from a noble lord's slack and bloody body. He did not even register the man's face.

But another figure reached the
guivre
before he could. Someone else, riding a dun-colored horse. The man flung himself off the horse and slapped it on the flank. The horse bolted away.

And the frater
—for it was Frater Agius, Alain saw that now as he ran, knowing suddenly that he would come too late—walked without fear into the circle of the
guivre's
talons.

Its cry was as much delirium as fury, but it stooped and plunged. Half-starved and long since driven wild by captivity and the torment of its wasted and suffering body, it took the food offered it.

Agius vanished under a flurry of metal-hard wings and sharp talons. The
guivre
lowered its head to feed.

Henry's army
—what was left of it—and Henry him-selt casoa to \\fe,. ^NViVi cries oi tage, driven almost to a frenzy by what they had witnessed and been helpless to prevent, they charged and hit Sabella's line, which had fallen out of formation as they took the hill and killed their easy prey. The soldiers from Fesse and Avaria
regrouped and slammed into Duke Rodulf's stretched-thin line. Saony's troops fell back, reformed, and drove for Sabella's faltering center.

Alain ran for the
guivre.
Already the first of Sabella's men, shocked and not yet recovered from this reversal, stumbled backward past him. He ignored them, though Sorrow and Rage nipped and barked, protecting him so no man tried to stop him.

Why would any man try to stop him? The
guivre
loomed huge, this close, a stooped shape that was yet as high as two men, one standing on the other's shoulders. Sun glinted off its scales, and it fed with the rapacity of a creature who has been denied pleasure for too long. Alain came up behind it, thought of striking but did not. It remained oblivious to him. He heard the crunch of bone and
—Ai, Lady!—a horrible moan that pitched up into a strangled wail and was abruptly cut off.

He circled the great beast. Worms fell from its diseased eye to slither away on the ground. From this side it could not see his approach. And anyway, it was too busy feasting.

He raised the sword just as he heard a warning cry behind him and then a cry from farther away: "Hailililili!" and the thunder of hooves and shouts of dismay, carrying Rodulf's name on the wind, and again and again the cry of "Henry! For King Henry!"

He brought it down with all his strength on the creature's neck. It screamed aloud, deafening him, and lifted its great and ugly head from what remained of Agius. Lifting, casting first to its sighted side and then slewing round the other way, it beat its wings, sending him tumbling forward underneath it. It was an ungainly thing, not meant for the ground; it had only the one set of talons and wings.

It clawed for him, missed, because it could not see him, tottered, because it was so ill and could barely find its balance. Alain stumbled back and righted the sword, turning it so the blade pointed up. His heel met resistance and he fell to one knee. Glanced behind himself.

The
guivre
had opened Agius at the belly, to feed on the soft entrails. Horribly, the frater's eyes caught on and tracked Alain; he was still alive.

The
guivre
screamed its fury and found its footing. Its shadow covered them, Alain and the dying Agius.

But, of course, as the old tales told, every great beast has its weak spot. Alain did not hesitate but plunged the sword deep into its unprotected breast.

Blood fountained, pouring over him like the wash of fire. He let go of the sword's hilt and jumped back, grabbing Agius and tugging him as the
guivre
writhed in its death throes. Spitting and coughing, blinded by the stinging, hot blood, he stumbled backward, dragging Agius. The
guivre
fell and the impact jarred Alain off his feet. He collapsed on top of the frater. The
guivre
shuddered, a great convulsion, and was still.

Agius breathed something, a rattling word and then another. Alain bent, eyes streaming, his hands smarting. A body slammed up against him, and then Rage was licking his face and hands. He tried to chase her away. He could not chase her away and concentrate on Agius. "Free the white deer," whispered Agius. "Ai, Lady, let this sacrifice make me worthy of Your Son's example." His eyes glazed over and he shuddered once, like the
guivre,
and died.

Sorrow nudged up against Alain. The hound had something in his mouth. Rage licked Alain's eyes clean of the
guivre's
blood and Alain blinked into sudden brightness and made sense first of all of the field lying washed by the sun's light and the chaos ranging there: Sabella's banner fell back and farther back yet. All the weight of victory had shifted. With the death of the
guivre,
their standard, Sabella's soldiers had lost heart and now they turned and fled.

A thorn cut Alain's cheek, a thin prick. He started back to see Sorrow carrying the rose in his mouth.

brought from the other side of the battlefield. Its petals had darkened to a deep blood-red, as red as Agius' blood that yet leaked onto the ground. Alain dropped his face to his hands and wept.

THE PROMISE OF POWER
ROSVITA
could not concentrate when she was waiting. She paced up and down in the feasting hall that adorned the palace built by the first duke of Fesse some eighty years ago. Now and again she walked over to the great doors that opened onto a beautiful vista of the town of Kassel, lying at the foot of the hill on which the palace had been erected. A huge gray-blue stone capped the lintel of this monumental doorway. When Rosvita stared up, she saw tiny figures and patterns carved into the stone, their outlines blurred by age.

In the town below, a few bedraggled streamers still decorated the streets. When Henry and his army had marched in, the town of Kassel had been recovering from the raucous Feast of St. Mikhel, celebrated four nights before. Though the biscop dutifully spoke out against several of the local customs, even she could not prevent the usual festival which involved a young woman riding through the streets of Kassel clothed only

in her hair
—or in this case, in a gauzy linen undershift, some attention being shown to modesty—while the townsfolk closed their shutters and pretended not to watch her go by. After this procession everyone trooped out of doors and drank themselves sick. Rosvita was not sure exactly what had happened in the original story to force the poor woman to ride out in such a humiliating way, only that St. Mikhel was by a miracle supposed to have clothed the hapless virgin in a light so blinding it protected her from the stares of the heathen and the ungodly.

"It is said," said Princess Theophanu, coming up beside Rosvita to stand in a splash of sunlight, "that this stronghold was built on the ruins of a Dariyan fortress which was itself built on the ruins of an older palace whose great stones were set in place by the daimones of the upper air." She indicated the huge lintel.

"Like the stone circles," said Rosvita, thinking of young Berthold. "Though some say they were set there by giants." That was what Helmut Villam had said, that day when they had explored the old fallen stone circle and Berthold had still walked alive in the light of day. Ai, Lady, this sorrow she must bear with her. But she could not allow it to drag her down. "Come," she said, turning to Theophanu. "We will read from the book I was given by the hermit, Brother Fidelis. In this way we may reflect upon the life of a holy woman while we wait to hear from King Henry."

She turned back into the hall, where light and shadow played among the thick wood pillars and in the eaves far above. No fire burned in the hearth this day; it was warm enough that only cooking fires in the kitchen house needed to be lit. Servants dressed in tabards sewn with the gold lion of Fesse lingered nervously beside the side doors. One brought wine forward, but she gestured for him to take it away. She was not thirsty.

Young Ekkehard had fallen asleep on a bench. His gentle face and sweet profile reminded her bitterly of Berthold Villam, who was lost to them now. Ekkehard

was a good boy, if a little too fond of carousing late into the night and singing with the bards who traveled from one great court to the next.

"It is just as well," said Theophanu, coming up beside Rosvita.

"What is just as well?"

Theophanu nodded toward her younger brother. Of all Henry's children, Ekkehard looked the most like his father: golden-brown hair, round face, and a slightly arched, strong nose. At thirteen, he was lanky and tall and a bit clumsy except when he was playing the lute, but so
—it was said—had Henry been at that age before he grew into the broad and powerful stature of his adult years. "It is just as well," said Theophanu, "that Ekkehard loves music and the pleasures of the feast more than he does the promise of power."

Rosvita did not quite know what to make of this bald statement.

Theophanu turned her dark eyes on Rosvita. "Is that not the source of Sabella's rebellion? That she is not content administering her husband's dukedom? That she wants more?"

"Is greed not the source of many sins?" asked Rosvita.

Theophanu smiled innocently. "So does the church teach, good sister."

Theophanu was old enough to have her own retinue, and yet her father kept her close by his side, just as he kept Sapientia beside him rather than giving her a title and lands to administer. Did Theophanu chafe at this treatment? Rosvita could not tell. Was she angry that her sister had been allowed to accompany Henry to meet Sabella on the field and been given her own command? That she had been left behind when truly she was larger and stronger and more fit physically for the exertions of battle? Theophanu's expression and her inner thoughts on these matters remained unreadable.

Rosvita unwrapped the old parchment codex from the linen cover in which she had swaddled it and turned carefully to the first page. Brother Fidelis' calligraphy was delicate yet firm, betraying the lines of an older age in the loops and swirls of the occasional fillips of ornamentation he had allowed himself as he wrote. A Salkian hand, Rosvita thought; she had examined many manuscripts and books over the years and come to recognize various quirks and telltale signs of specific scribes or of habits learned in certain monastic schools. She touched the yellowing page with reverence, feeling the lines of ink beneath her fingers like the whisper of Fidelis' voice, coming to her as from down a long tunnel, through the veil of years.

Theophanu sat beside her and waited, hands clasped patiently in her lap. Rosvita read aloud.

' The Lord and Lady confer glory and greatness on women through strength of mind. Faith makes them strong, and in these earthly vessels, heavenly treasure is hid. One of this company is Radegundis, she whose earthly life I, Fidelis, humblest and least worthy, now attempt to celebrate so that all may hear of her deeds and sing praise in her glorious memory. The world divides those whom no space parted once. So ends the Prologue.' '

Rosvita sighed, hearing Fidelis in these words as if his voice echoed through the ink to touch her ears. She went on. " 'So begins the Life. The most blessed Radegundis was of the highest earthly rank
—

Ekkehard snorted and woke up suddenly, tumbling off the bench onto carpets carefully laid there by his servants. At that same moment, one of Theophanu's servingwomen appeared in the doorway. "An Eagle!" she cried. "An Eagle comes." Rosvita closed the book with trembling hands and wrapped it in linen. Then she clutched it to her breast and rose, hands still shaking, and hurried over to the great doors. Theophanu came with her, but the king's daughter was completely calm. Ekkehard was talking excitedly behind them, and his servants swarmed around him, helping him up. The chatelaine and other servants of
king's dragon
the duchess of Fesse crowded behind Rosvita and the princess.

The Eagle was Hathui, the young woman Henry had honored by taking her into his personal retinue. She handed off her horse to a groom and walked forward to kneel before Theophanu.

"Your Highness, Princess Theophanu," she said, lifting her eyes to look upon Theophanu's face. She had the rare ability to be proud without being impudent. "King Henry sends word that his sister Sabella refuses any terms of parley, and that battle will be joined." "What of the course of that battle?" asked Theophanu. "I do not know. I rode quickly, and without looking back, as is my duty."

"Bring her mead," said Theophanu. She stared off across the town. Kassel was laid out as a square with two broad avenues set perpendicular to each other, dividing it into four even quarters. An old wall surrounded it, the last obvious remains besides the baths that this had once been a Dariyan town in the days of the old empire. The town had probably been larger then, and certainly more densely populated. There was room now within the old walls for a few fields
—mostly vegetables and one impressive stand of fruit trees as well as some common pasture for cows—between the last line of houses and the town gates. Outside the wall lay fields, rye and barley because of the soil of this country, the red clay of the highlands.

Where had all those people gone, and what had become of their descendants? Had they fled back to Aosta, to the city of Darre out of which the empire had grown? Had they died in the wars and plagues and famines that had devastated and ultimately destroyed the old empire? Had they simply vanished and never returned, like poor Berthold?