Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (11 page)

This rebuke had no effect on Margrave Judith's good cheer. " 'But my vineyard is mine to give,' " she retorted to hearty laughter, and then signaled to her waiting attendants. "Come. Now we shall retire."

"What?" exclaimed her companion with drunken joviality. "So soon after fetching him from the monastery? You raise horses aplenty in the east. Surely you know you break them in a bit at a time. You don't just throw a saddle on them and ride them the first time you put a harness on them."

"I have been patient," said Judith with a pleasant smile, but there was iron in her tone. She gestured to Baldwin to rise, and Ivar hastily followed him, since poor Baldwin had now gone as white as a burial shroud.

In the bustle as they retreated from the hall Ivar found himself cornered by Judith's noble companion, who was so flushed with drink that her hands had no more discretion than her wine-loosened tongue. "Do you have those freckles everywhere?" she demanded, and with a hand on his thigh seemed likely to pull up his robe to find out.

"Nay, Adelinde." Judith put herself between the woman and Ivar. "This boy is sworn to the church. He's not even allowed to speak to women. I have pledged to see him safely to the monastery of St. Walaricus the Martyr. And that means safe in
all
parts." Her glance touched Ivar, but in her case it was her disinterest in him that was tangible. He could have been a chair she moved aside. "Go on, boy. Attend my bridegroom to his night's rest."

A chamber had been set aside for the margrave and her attendants. Several pallets had been s'et to one side on the floor; the bed, wide and soft, had a curtain hung about it like a shield. A breath of wind through open shutters stirred the curtain. Outside, twilight bled a buttery light into the room.

Baldwin was shaking as Ivar helped him out of his sandals and leggings and fine tunic, leaving him in his undertunic. He washed his face and hands and then went to kneel beside the bed in an attitude of devout prayer, as blank of expression as a handsome marble statue.

Judith arrived, flushed and full of energy. She was a good-sized woman, tall, stout, and strong. Baldwin was scarcely taller and, having all the slenderness of youth, seemed swallowed by her robust presence.

At a signal from one of the servants, Ivar left Baldwin and retreated to a corner. At the table, one of Judith's clerics chanted words over a strip of linen marked with letters—something in Dariyan that Ivar couldn't make out, although it had the cadence of one of those homely spells used by parish deacons to drive out pests or heal the sick. The cleric soaked the linen in vinegar and then wrapped it up around a pebble. Now Ivar turned away modestly while Judith's attendants flocked around her, undressing her. There was much giggling and whispering. A servingwoman drew the curtains shut. The other servants settled down on pallets or on the floor, but Ivar couldn't sleep. Facing the corner, he sank down to bruised knees, clenched his eyes shut, and clasped his hands tightly in prayer.

Even with his eyes squeezed shut, he couldn't help but hear. The good margrave seemed to take an unconscionably long time about her task.

His own body stirred in response to what he heard: a slip of cloth as bodies rolled, a grunt, a stifled chuckle, a sudden surprised gasp; a sigh. Ai, Lady protect him. He could imagine the man rousing, the woman opening, and whether his thoughts dwelt longest with bridegroom or bride he could not—must not—think on. His prayers fled from him like startled hares. He was sweating although it was not a particularly hot night.

A few short gasps which he recognized as Baldwin—and it was finally over.

He had held himself so tensely that to move made his muscles groan. Grimacing, he eased down onto the carpet that covered the wood floor, the only pallet granted him, and at last, wrung out by the ordeal, dozed off, only to be awakened much later in the night by the same thing.

When they had finished once again, he could finally sleep, but he was haunted by terrible dreams. Surely the Enemy had sent a hundred grasping, pinching, teasing minions to taunt him with visions of Liath warm, willing, and close against him.

In the morning only formalities remained. Judith presented her new husband with a traditional morning gift to celebrate the consummation of the marriage: a fine sword set in a jeweled scabbard; a silk tunic from Arethousa; a small ivory chest containing jeweled brooches and rings; and twelve
nomias,
gold coins minted in the Arethousan Empire. It was a handsome and impressive gift.

Baldwin's old uncle had brought a trifle for Baldwin to present to her in his turn, a gold bauble with bells hidden inside that tinkled when it was rolled along the floor.

The marriage-price paid by Judith to his parents was more substantial but none of it movable wealth: He now could lay claim to several rich estates in Austra and Olsatia. That had all been agreed upon five years before, and it was only a formality to read the charters now.

They left the estate late in the morning. Judith rode ahead with her attendants, leaving Ivar to keep pace beside Baldwin. The new bridegroom had a flush in his cheeks and a bit of pale fuzz along his jaw; he was a man now and was expected to grow a beard.

Ivar reached over to tap his leg, and Baldwin flinched as if any least touch startled him. "Are you well?" whispered Ivar. "You look as if you've taken a fever."

"I didn't know." His eyes had a feverish gleam and his gaze on Ivar had such intensity that all at once those thoughts which had tormented Ivar's waking prayers and restless sleep last night shuddered back into life and danced through his body. Both young men looked away, at once, and when Ivar looked up again it was to see Baldwin staring now at Lady Tallia with her pale face and frail profile. His lips were slightly swollen, and his eyes were wide.

"I didn't know," he repeated, as at a revelation, but of what he hadn't known then and did know now he spoke no further word. Ivar was left to ride in discomforting silence beside him.

WHEN Rosvita slept with the
Vita
of St. Radegundis tucked against her, the bequest given to her by the dying Brother Fidelis, she always had strange dreams. Voices whispered in her dreams in a language she could not quite understand. Creatures j fluttered at the edge of her mind's vision as at the forest's verge, trying to catch her attention, then bolting as woodland animals did when they caught the scent of a predator.

A golden wheel flashed in harsh sunlight, turning. Young Berthold slept peacefully in a stone cavern, surrounded by six attendants. A blizzard tore at mountain peaks, and in the wings of a storm danced moon-pale daimones, formed out of the substance of the aetherical winds. A lion stalked a cold hillside of rock, and on the plain of dying grass below this escarpment black hounds coursed after their prey, an eight-pointed stag, while a great party of riders clothed in garments as brilliant as gems followed on their trail.

"Sister Rosvita!" I

A hand descended on her shoulder and she woke, dragged out of the dream by the urgent summons of the waking world. She grunted and sat up, blinking.

"I beg you. Sister Rosvita." Nerves made young Constantine's voice squeak like a boy's. "The king wishes you to attend him. A steward is here to escort you."

"I beg you, Brother, recall your modesty."

He murmured apologies and turned his back as she slipped out from under the blanket and pulled on cleric's robes over her undertunic. Sister Amabilia snored pleasingly in the bed; Rosvita envied the young woman her ability to sleep through anything. She considered the
Vita
and on impulse picked it up.

The king was out behind the stables, fully dressed as if he had never lain down to sleep the night before. He stood with one foot braced on a stump and a hand braced on that leg as if to give him a place to grip patience as he watched his son pace back and forth, back and forth, along the ground in a curving line that would soon wear itself visibly into the grass. For an instant Rosvita thought the prince was on a leash, but it was only that the pattern of his restless pacing marked the same ground over and over: as if he still paced in a semicircle at the limit of chains. Yet he had been freed from the chains of his captivity to Bloodheart over twenty days ago.

Dogs growled as Rosvita approached, making her neck prickle. Horrible beasts, they had huge fangs coated with saliva, and eyes that sparked fire. Their iron-gray coats lay like a sheen of metal over thin flanks. They lunged, were brought up short by chains, and contented themselves with barking and slobbering.

Seeing Rosvita, Henry gestured toward his son. "He has taken a mad plan into his head to ride out after one of my Eagles, without even an escort. Your advice, good Sister, will surely make him see reason where Villam and I cannot."

Sanglant stopped pacing and stood alertly as if listening—to her, or to the birds singing their morning lauds. Was it true, as Brother Fidelis had said over a year ago, that the birds sang of this child born of the mingling of human and Aoi blood? Could the prince actually understand the language of the birds? Or was he listening for something else?

"Let me go, Your Majesty," said Sanglant harshly. "Call off your dogs."

The soldiers glanced toward the staked-down Eika dogs, who growled and yipped, sensing their disquiet. Henry looked toward Rosvita, expecting her to speak.

Quickly she collected her thoughts. "What troubles you, Your Highness? Where is it you wish to go?"

"She should have been back by now. I have been patient. But there are things stalking her." He cast his head back to scent. "I can smell them. There is something else, something I don't understand— What if she's met with disaster on the road? I must find her!"

That he did not bolt for freedom was due only to the presence of his father. Henry would not have been king had he not had a gaze as sharp as lightning and a force of will as strong as any ten men. That will set to bear on the prince was all that kept Sanglant from bolting.

"How will you find this Eagle you seek?" Rosvita continued. "There are many roads."

"But I smell death—! And the taint of the Enemy." He shook himself all over, barked out something more like a howl of frustration than a curse, and suddenly collapsed to his knees. "Ai, Lady, I feel a dead hand reaching out to poison her."

"As well chain him up like the dogs," muttered the king, "as get sense out of him. No one must see him like this."

"Your Highness." Rosvita knew how to soothe distraught men. As eldest daughter in her father's hall, that duty had fallen to her more than once as a child when rage overtook Count Harl. She had soothed Henry many times. She went forward now and cautiously but firmly laid a hand on the prince's shoulder. His whole body shook under her touch. "Would it not be better to remain with the king's progress than to risk missing her on the road? The Eagle you seek will return to the king. If you go hunting for her, how can you hope to find her when so much land lies between?"

He had a hand over his eyes and was, she now realized, weeping silently. But tears, at least, were a man's reaction, not a dog's. Emboldened by this small success, she went on. "We move again today, Your Highness. At Werlida they have stores enough to feed us all for a week or more. How many roads lead to Werlida? You could ride for months and miss her on the road. Only be patient."

"Child," said Villam gently, "all Eagles return to the king in time. If you wait with the king, then she will come to us eventually."

"She will come to
me
eventually," he whispered hoarsely.

Villam smiled. "There speaks a young man touched by the barb young men feel most keenly. You must be patient in your turn, Your Majesty. He has endured much."

The king frowned at his son but, as the clerics gathered in the manor hall behind them raised their voices in the opening verses of Prime, his expression lost some of its utter gloom.

"She's a handsome enough young woman," continued Villam, almost coaxingly. "It would do him good to recover his interest in women."

"What is it you mean, son," asked the king, "by the taint of the Enemy? By a 'dead hand'?"

Suddenly, as if alerted by a noise only he could hear, Sanglant bolted to his feet and yanked up the stake that held the dogs. With them yammering and dragging at the chains, he made for the horses watched over by a nervous groom. The horses shied away from the frenzied approach of the pack, and the prince had to beat the dogs back with his fists to make them stop lunging for the underbellies of the horses. With growls and whines they obeyed him, and he swung onto a horse and with the dogs' leashes still in his grip and a square pouch slung over his shoulder, he rode away toward the river.

The king looked toward Hathui. She nodded, as at a spoken command, and commandeered a horse to make haste after Sanglant. With barely audible groans, the four soldiers followed her.