Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (101 page)

He ran a hand over poor Terror's stone flanks where the old hound lay in death at Lavastine's feet. The curse had marbled as the old hound stiffened and died, so that he looked hewn of a dark stone stippled with white. Lavastine lay peacefully, with Steadfast guarding his head and Terror his feet. The shame of this day did not touch him, for certainly he had atoned for his sins; his soul had ascended to the Chamber of Light. Alain had to believe that.

Beside him, Sorrow stood stiffly, growling, but made no move to plunge forward. Alain clambered to his feet and combed back his hair with a hand.

But he stood alone in the church, just as he had stood alone in the hall.

Then he saw her back by the door, peering nervously out from behind the first square column. "Come forward. The hounds won't hurt you."

Lady Hathumod moved with the hesitancy of a fawn approaching tame lions, innocent enough to trust and yet held back by an ancient caution.

"Have you brought word from her?" he asked eagerly.

She halted three paces from him, head bowed modestly, fleshy hands clasped in an attitude of prayer. "Nay, my lord. She refuses to see you. She refuses to send you a message."

"Then I will go to her! It isn't right that Duchess Yolande keep us apart in this way."

Boldly, she stepped forward to lay a hand on his forearm as if she meant to hold him in his place. Then, as quickly, she jerked back. Her cheeks flushed a bright red. She still wouldn't look him in the eye. "Nay, my lord, please do not do so. You will only humiliate yourself."

"How can I possibly bring on myself any greater humiliation than was heaped on me yesterday?" Bitterness rose in his throat, bile burning up from his stomach. "Tallia trusts me. She only need see that I haven't blamed her for what happened. It isn't her fault that Duchess Yolande dragged her away. I'm sure she didn't want to go, not truly."

"I pray you, my lord." She seemed almost to weep out the words as she clutched her hands together so tightly that her knuckles were white and the tips of her fingers red. "Do not blame Duchess Yolande. No matter what you say, Lady Tallia will not see you. So you must either be seen begging outside her door like a vagrant or breaking into her private chambers like a common thief."

"Since most of the nobles here think I am no better than a whore's son, how will it harm me—?" Knowing it was excessive, he broke off. He simply could not believe that Tallia had abandoned him so callously.

"I pray you, my lord," she said in her soft voice. "Do not waste yourself suffering over that woman, for she is not worthy of you."

Amazed, he watched as tears slipped down her cheeks. "What do you mean?"

"Tallia is the flawed vessel. She is how God has tested our faith, for truth was given to her, but it cracked her."

He was too stunned to reply. How had she concealed this disrespect for her mistress all these months? He had never guessed that Hathumod was anything but an obedient companion, willingly accepting banishment from Quedlinhame in order to remain with her beloved lady.

"I know, my lord, that you do not believe the true word as revealed to us by Brother Agius, to whom God granted the glory of martyrdom. Yet who am I to question God's design? I, too, am only God's vessel."

"Surely the Lady sent you to stand beside Tallia. She needs someone to take care of her."

Her mouth, tightening, gave away the depth of her disgust. "She turned her back on the one who loved her selflessly. I am leaving her service, my lord."

"But where will you go? Back to your family?"

"Nay, they sent me to the cloister because they have too many daughters and not enough land to divide between them. They do not want me back."

"Then where? You can't just strike out on your own. A mendicant's life cannot be for you, Lady Hathumod." He gestured toward her clothing, a good linen gown embroidered with cavorting rabbits; she was almost rabbitlike herself, with a soft round face, someone you wanted to pet rather than kick. She wore bright red cloth slippers, the kind of courtly, delicate shoes that would wear out after a day of walking. Her hands bore no calluses. Her skin was still as soft as a rose petal. "Will you go back to Quedlinhame?"

He recognized the stubborn set of her shoulders. "They won't have me back. It matters not where I go, my lord. I will trust in God's wisdom." Finally, she gained the courage to look him in the eye, and he was startled by her quiet yet passionate certitude. "But I know what I have seen here. I saw what happened with the loaves among the poor. If it is God's will to hide Her servants among us, then I will keep silence."

Then, astoundingly, she knelt before him and kissed his hand as a lady would that of her regnant.

"Nay, you must not!" he cried, embarrassed by this act of devotion. He lifted her gently to her feet, but could say no more, because the king's Eagle came in then, looking for him, and called him to court.

And in the end, when they had all assembled, Alain watched as the Tallia who would not speak to him nor even look at him, the only woman he had ever truly loved, came before her uncle the king.

"Can you swear before this court and by the name of Our Lord and Lady that the marriage was never consummated?"

"Yes," she said, and it seemed to him that she was glad to say it, that she positively rejoiced in that one word that shamed him and ruined him.

A nobleman laughed, a snorting chuckle. Henry looked up from his study of his niece, and it became so quiet that Alain could hear Rage's toenails clicking on the floor as she shifted her head on her paws. Someone nearby had farted ripely. A bee buzzed outside one of the open shutters, and from the distant fields he heard a hoe picking at dirt, someone chopping as if they were bothered and angry.

"By the oath you swore in front of witnesses on your marriage night, you have the right to support him as his kinswoman," continued Henry, almost suggestively. "Will you speak on his behalf?"

"I am not his wife," said Tallia, and the gleam of triumph colored her thin face. "If it was not consummated, then the marriage never took place."

The faintest scent of a fading dog rose drifted to him, vanished, and he became aware of his own rose hanging against his heart, as heavy as a lump of worthless iron slag. The point of the old nail had shifted, driven against his breastbone as if striking for the heart.

It was her betrayal that hurt the most.

Henry sat back with an obvious sigh. "So be it," he said, sounding more than a little displeased. "No woman or man can rule without kin to support them. Because this man Alain has no kin to support him, I have no choice but to rule in Lord Geoffrey's favor. His daughter, Lavrentia, I name as count of Lavas, to be guided under her father's regency until she comes of age at fifteen."

After that it was all meaningless noise.

And yet, hadn't the judgment been passed a year or more ago? Hadn't his foster father Henri accused him of everything Geoffrey had, excepting sorcery?

Henri's own words had condemned him.
"You don't think I'm Lavastine's son,"
Alain had cried. Henri hadn't hesitated:
"Nay, and why should I?"

Ai, God, and without Tallia, would he have had the heart for it anyway, reigning as count for years and years, alone as Lavastine had been? No wonder Lavastine had fastened on to the unknown fatherless boy. He had been desperate and lonely. What a fool Lavastine had been! Would he have proved any better, any less foolish, any less desperate after years of lonely rule? Nay, it was all for the best that it end this way. He could have expected nothing else.

But then he shook himself, knowing this for the sin of despair. He would not dishonor Lavastine's memory by giving in to self-pity.

In this way he came to himself as the shouting and stamping feet subsided and Geoffrey leaped to his feet in triumph and anger.

"I beg you, Your Majesty! You must punish him for his presumption. Let the church take him to trial for sorcery!" He had to wipe his mouth because he was spitting, so eager was he to get the words out.

Rage and Sorrow rose, stiff-legged, more threatening in silence than a pack of barking dogs. One of Geoffrey's kinsmen grabbed Geoffrey's arm and yanked him back.

Henry rose and rapped his scepter on the floor three times, and anyone sitting quickly stood. "Nay!" cried Henry, staring Geoffrey down until the poor man hit his knees on his chair and sat down hard, then leaped up, fearful of insulting the king. "Your zealotry does you no honor. I see no sorcery involved in this case, only the error of a man heartfelt on finding a beloved son who had been lost to him."

Even Geoffrey was wise enough to let it go. He stepped back, he bowed his head humbly, and took his little daughter—the new count—in his arms, the symbol of his victory.

Henry turned to regard Alain. Did he look aggrieved? Had his voice caught on that mention of lost sons? Alain was too numb to care.

"You have served God and this throne faithfully, Alain. I offer you this choice, that you walk away from Lavas Holding now and never return to any lands under its watch on pain of death, or that you accept a position in my Lions, fitting to your birth, and serve me."

That fast, he had tumbled down Fortune's wheel. It was simply too stunning to grasp. But he had to act. He had to think. He struggled to clear away enough fog so as not to make a fool of himself. God help him, he would not disgrace Lavastine by making a fool of himself in front of Geoffrey and his smirking family!

But of course, Henry knew what he was about. There wasn't a choice, not really. Had he ever had any place to go except to return in shame to Bel's steading, which he could not do anyway because Osna was under Lavas protection?

He came forward and knelt as, from his seat among the nobles, he had once watched Eagles kneel before the king, as servants had once knelt before him, although those days seemed impossibly long ago. The rose seemed to have sprouted thorns of ice, pricking his heart until he thought he must bleed in torrents all over the floor. He would perhaps have fallen over from the pain, but Rage and Sorrow paced forward and sat on either side of him, their big bodies pressing warmly against his trembling one.

King Henry did not step back, nor did they growl at him.

"I will serve you as you command, Your Majesty," said Alain.

PRINCE Ekkehard saw the gold feather lying on the road and, after one of his grooms fetched it for him, he held it up in his cousin's face.

"Have you ever seen anything like this? I think it's pure gold! What luck that I saw it first!"

"Get that thing out of my face, I pray you," said Wichman, shoving Ekkehard's arm back. "It smells."

"It does not!" cried Ekkehard, holding it to his nose and taking a big whiff. At once he began coughing, and Wichman's companions all laughed. Wichman took advantage of Ekkehard's coughing to snatch the feather from his younger cousin's hand, and by the set of his mouth and the frown made by his eyes, Ivar could tell he was intrigued.

"That's mine!" objected Ekkehard as the fit passed.

"So it is, little Cousin, but right now I'm having a look." Wichman handed it to one of his companions and quickly it was passed around among the older horsemen as Ekkehard fumed.

Wichman and his fighting men were not unlike a gang of bandits, Ivar reflected. Ermanrich had taken to calling them Lord Reckless and his noble companions Thoughtless, Careless, Heedless, Senseless, Mindless, Wordless, Useless, the three Thundering brothers, the six Drunken cousins, and of course the infamous Thruster, who had once been discovered doing unspeakable things to a ewe. Sigfrid did not approve of this levity, but he always ended up laughing anyway because Ermanrich had such a wicked ability to mimic.

"It's gold," said Thruster wisely as he twirled it, "and God damn it but I'd like to see those acrobat girls perform dressed in nothing but a skirt of these. I know what I'd do with'em then!" Known otherwise as Lord Eddo, he was the most single-minded person Ivar had ever met.

"Can't be gold," said Thoughtless who, like all the rest of Wichman's cronies, was a fat-headed, bored young nobleman from somewhere in Saony. "Ain't any birds made of gold."

"Is too gold," said Useless, snatching it from his hand. " Tis-n't a bird feather at all. It's a Quman feather. They have wings, too, you know."

"I've never seen anything like it," said Wichman, which ended the matter. "But I'd like to see what bird it comes from. Here, Father Ekkehard." He handed it back with a smirk. "Perhaps you educated churchmen can make more sense of it. Oh, God!" The groan came from him quite unexpectedly, and everyone started round to stare. He slapped his own forehead. "I forgot all my clerics at Gent!"