Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (12 page)

"I despair of him," muttered Henry.

"Let him recover," advised Villam. "Then give him the Dragons again. Battle will restore his wits."

But Henry only frowned. "Ungria's king has sent an envoy. He offers his younger brother as a bridegroom for Sapientia."

Rosvita regarded him with surprise. "I thought you favored the suit of the Salian, Prince Guillaime. Or the son of the Polenie king."

"Savages!" murmured Villam, who had fought against the Polenie before their conversation to the faith of the Unities. "You'd do better to marry her to young Rodulf of Varingia, and seal his sister the duke's loyalty in that way. Sapientia will need the loyalty of Duchess Yolande of Varingia when she comes to the throne."

"He's always been an obedient son," said Henry, still staring in the direction his son had ridden. "But I must set the foundation on stone, not sand."

Villam glanced at Rosvita and raised his eyebrows as if to question her. What on earth was the king speaking about? She could only shrug.

In the forecourt in front of the manor house where they had stayed the night, the servants were already loading wagons, beating feather beds, hauling the king's treasure chests out under guard. Rosvita watched as young Brother Constantine hurried out, bent over a loose bundle of pens and ink bottles; because he wasn't looking where he was going, he slammed into a servant, dropped a stoppered bottle and then, bending to retrieve it, several quills as well.

Rosvita smiled. "Your Majesty. If I may go to my clerics and make ready?"

Henry nodded absently. As she moved off, he called her name. "I thank you, good friend," he said with a sudden, brilliant smile, and she could only incline her head, staggered as always by the force of his approval.

Rosvita reached young Constantine in time to help him pick up the last goose quill. A moment later she heard a hail. Brother Fortunatus and Sister Amabilia had appeared on the steps, blinking sleepily, and now they swung around to look as a rider came into view.

• "Where is the king?" the man called. Rosvita stepped forward to take his message. "Nay, I bring no message," the rider continued politely. "I ride as herald for Margrave Judith. She has returned to the king's progress with her bridegroom. She escorts Lady Tallia to the king."

"Her bridegroom!" said Fortunatus just as Amabilia exclaimed: "God Above! What has the girl done to get herself thrown out of Quedlinhame so quickly?"

A new set of riders clattered into view, and the clerics stared expectantly, but it was only an annoyed Prince Sanglant with his escort of Hathui and the four guardsmen made anxious by the Eika dogs. Servants scattered, running for safety. The dogs erupted into a frenzy of barking, and a moment later Count Lavastine and his hounds spilled into the courtyard. The noise became so deafening that Rosvita covered her ears.

Sanglant leaped down off his horse and yanked his dogs down, but they kept struggling up to bolt for the black hounds, who wisely kept their distance without stinting in threatening growls and ear-splitting barks even as the count called them to heel.

Then Lavastine's heir came out of the hall. Lord Alain knelt beside the hounds and spoke a few words to them, and at once they ceased barking and sat, tongues lolling, with patient vigilance.

Sanglant was still cursing his dogs, who barked and lunged and snapped at their rivals. His right hand dripped blood where the chain, dragged through his grip, had scraped the skin raw. Alain approached him cautiously, knelt with extended hand, and reached out to touch the nearest Eika dog.

Rosvita shut her eyes as Amabilia gasped and Fortunatus swore under his breath. Constantine whimpered in fright. Then Rosvita cursed herself for cowardice and opened her eyes just as an uncanny silence fell upon the scene.

Alain had laid a hand gently on the head of the biggest and ugliest of the Eika dogs. It sat meekly, trembling beneath his touch. The other two hunkered down. Gobs of saliva dribbled down their muzzles to stain the dirt at his feet.

"Peace," he said to them. "Poor troubled souls."

He stood up. Sanglant regarded the young man with astonishment. Count Lavastine's expression was so blank Rosvita could not read it.

A moment more they all stood so. Then raised voices drifted out to them from the hall behind. Sanglant grimaced and hastily dragged his dogs away just as Sapientia and Father Hugh emerged from the hall. An attendant carried infant Hippolyte, and the baby crowed and burbled as Hugh smiled at her and tickled her under her fat chin.

But Sapientia was staring around the courtyard, mouth pinched down. "Did we miss something?" she demanded as Sanglant vanished behind the stable. Hathui nodded curtly at Rosvita and left to find the king. Servants emerged cautiously from their bolt-holes and resumed their labors, and the messenger crept out from the safety of the stables and knelt before Father Hugh.

"My lord. Your mother rides not an hour behind me on the road."

Father Hugh turned his smile from baby to messenger. "Ah, you are the younger son of old Tortua, the crofter over by Lerchewald. You're much grown since I left Austra. You are wed now?"

"Nay, my lord. The farm has gone to my elder sisters and there was nothing left for me, so I came into your good mother's service."

"Indeed," said Hugh with a gentle smile but a glint like the spark of fire in his eye, "that is often the fate of sons. Here." He took a pouch from one of his attendants and gave a handful of silver coins to the young man. "For your dowry."

The messenger flushed scarlet. "My lord Hugh!" He kissed Hugh's hand. Hugh said a blessing over him and sent him off to find something to eat. As Count Lavastine came forward to pay his respects to Princess Sapientia, Hugh's gaze roved the courtyard and came to rest, briefly, on Rosvita.

She nodded at him, to acknowledge him, although they did not stand close enough to speak. His eyes had a fever in them, as of a man caught at the beginning of the onslaught of an all-encompassing illness. He frowned at her, recalled himself, and offered a pleasant smile instead, then turned away.

Did he suspect that she was the one who had stolen
The Book of Secrets
from him? And if he did, what action would he take against her?

IT was well past dawn, but the procession was not yet ready to leave. Loaded wagons jostled past crates of chickens; a file of soldiers stood at their ease beside the wagons which carried the king's treasure. As a mark of favor, the king had chosen to wait for Margrave Judith's party to arrive so that they could travel together to Werlida. Alain stood restlessly beside Lavastine, who himself waited on the king. The sun's glare made him wince as he squinted northeast, trying to make out the approaching party. It was so hard to wait.

Lord Geoffrey had caroused late the night before, and he finally emerged from the house rubbing his eyes, looking rather the worse for wear. "Cousin!" he said to Lavastine by way of greeting. He nodded at Alain, nothing more. "Is it true that Margrave Judith will arrive today?"

Lavastine's frown was comprehensive as he studied Geoffrey. "Had you risen earlier, you would know the whole."

"And missed the wrestling?" Geoffrey laughed heartily, and Alain flushed. A group of women who were no better than whores had come from the nearby town of Fuldas yesterday to entertain the king's court.

"I would not have called it wrestling," replied Lavastine. "Indeed, if you recall, their antics were so outrageous that in the end the king asked them to leave the hall."

"Yet he did not forbid any of us to follow after them. The king does not begrudge the young their diversions."

"The young will behave foolishly, as is their wont. But you are married, cousin."

"And glad of it! So could you be married again, cousin, if you took a wife."

Lavastine pressed his lips together so tightly that his skin went white at the corners of his mouth. He called Terror over to him, and Geoffrey fidgeted nervously, but the old hound merely snarled at him and then sat down to get his ears stroked. "I will not marry again. Alain will sire the next heir to Lavas county."

Geoffrey's smile in reply was as tight, and he did not look at Alain at all. But Alain knew he was thinking of his eldest and so far only child, Lavrentia, whom he had once believed would inherit the county of Lavas.

"Geoffrey!" cried one of the young lords from among a pack of them gathered by the stables. "You missed the best of it last night! Come, we'll tell you!"

Geoffrey excused himself and hurried over to them, stopping only to pay his respects to King Henry, who greeted him cheerfully enough.

Alain stared and stared "Look!" he cried, pointing to a haze of dust along the river.

"It was a terrible risk, Alain," said Lavastine suddenly. "What were you thinking to approach Prince Sanglant's dogs in that way?"

"Poor creatures. But I wasn't scared of them. That's why they didn't hurt me. If the prince would not treat them so brutally, they might have better natures." Then he flushed, aghast at his own harsh words.

"Eika dogs do not have 'better natures.' Prince Sanglant has shown great mercy toward them. I would have had them killed outright. That they didn't injure you is beyond my understanding, Son. You will not go near them again."

"Yes, Father," he said obediently. Then: "I see them!"

Margrave Judith's procession came into view on the road. Her banner, a panther leaping upon an antelope, flew beside a banner marked with the Arconian guivre set between three springing roes, two above and one below, the sigil of the old royal house of Varre. Lavastine hissed in breath between his teeth and with a smile of triumph turned to Alain.

"Make ready, my child. What we have worked for will come to pass at Werlida."

Suddenly, senses made sharp by anticipation, Alan could smell the harvest of summer's growth, hear chickens scratching on wood, the piping call of a bullfinch, and the purl of the distant river. Far away, clouds gathered on the horizon, a dull gray that promised rain. Ardent yawned, a gape-toothed swallowing of air, and flopped down beside Bliss. Alain smelled ripe cheese and the last faint perfume of frankincense used in the morning service.

"Tallia," he said softly, trying her name on his lips, but his throat clotted with emotion, and he could only stare as Margrave Judith's party approached in all their glory—a sight that two years ago would have left him speechless at the splendor of their passing but which now had become commonplace. Father Hugh walked forward to kiss his mother's hand; then Judith dismounted in her turn to greet King Henry.

Alain searched, but he could not see Tallia although he knew she must be among the group of women concealed by hoods and shawls.

Sister Rosvita and her clerics stood a few paces from him, and Alain heard their whispered comments.

"God Above! He has the face of an angel!"

"Sister Amabilia," replied Rosvita sternly. "Do not stare so. It is unseemly."

" 'A lily among thorns is my sweet flower among men,' " quoted the youngest of them, not without a quaver of awe in his voice.

"Brother Constantine and I are for once in agreement," muttered Amabilia.

"Where does she find these succulent young morsels?" asked the fourth.

"Brother Fortunatus!" Rosvita scolded. Then, on a gasp, she spoke again. "Ivar! What means this?"

"God help us," murmured Lavastine in a tone of astonishment. Alain tore his gaze away from his search for Tallia to see a blindingly handsome young man brought forward to be presented to the king. With him, like an attendant, walked another young man whose curling red-gold hair strayed out from the otherwise modest cowl of his novice's hood. Rosvita moved forward to intercept the young men, but before she could reach them through the crowd, King Henry signaled for the march to begin. At once the courtyard fell into such a clamor and with so much dust hazing the scene that Alain had everything he could do to keep the hounds and himself next to his father.

With Margrave Judith now in the procession, Count Lavastine and Alain were relegated to the second rank behind Henry, Helmut Villam, Judith, Hugh, and Princess Sapientia. But Alain did not mind; he kept craning his neck around to try to get a glimpse of Tallia, but her group was lost to his gaze in the crowd behind.

It took until the afternoon to reach Werlida, a magnificent palace set on a bluff overlooking a broad bend in the river. They wound up a road from the river bottom and past a berm and a palisade wall into the lower enclosure. Here most of the wagons rumbled to a halt, scattering out among a village made up of sunken pit-houses for quartering servants and craftsmen, four large weaving halls, and a half dozen timber-post graneries. Alain caught the dusty scent of old grain stored in sacks and pots, then they moved out of range, upward through gateways with no less than three ramparts with ditches cut away on their outer slopes. From the height of the upper enclosure, he saw the river at the steep base of the bluff below. It curved around on three sides. Fields lay scattered among copses of woodland, and beyond them spread forest.