Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (34 page)

"Spoken like Wolfhere!"

"Like Wolfhere, indeed!" Hanna waited to one side while Liath used the privies, but she started up again as soon as Liath rejoined her. "Wolfhere became an Eagle during King Arnulf's reign. Everyone knows he was one of Arnulf's favorites. Then Henry took the throne, and dismissed Wolfhere from court—but he could not dismiss him from the Eagles! That is the measure of an Eagle's security."

"Such as any of us have security," murmured Liath, remembering bones scoured clean on a roadside. She scrambled up the rampart to view the surrounding countryside. Up here the evening wind blew fresh into her face. Below the bluff, the river wound away into darkening forest. Fields patched the nearer ground in narrow strips of lush growth: beans, vetch, and barley. Small figures walked in a village that seemed only a stone's throw from her position, although she knew it lay much farther away. The morning thunderclouds had long since vanished into the northeast, and the sky was clear with the moon already risen halfway to the zenith. The sun had set, but its glow colored the western sky. Brilliant Somorhas rode low on the horizon; the sky was still too bright to see any but the brightest stars in summer's sky: the Queen's sky.

"Would I be a queen?" she murmured, and was then so appalled at the thought of presiding over a court—a pit of intrigue, indeed!—that she shuddered.

"Are you cold?" Hanna draped a companionable arm over her shoulders. A roar of laughter erupted from the great hall, i which lay hidden behind them by chapel tower and stables.

"It's only because he can't rule," said Liath suddenly. "If he'd had any ambition to be king after his father, I couldn't have endured that!"

Hanna laughed sharply. "If he'd had any ambition to be king, he'd never have married
you!
He'd have married a noblewoman whose kin will support him."

"I deserved that, I suppose!"

"Maybe he's right." Hanna's expression drew taut in an expression of wonder and worry. "You aren't what you seem, Liath. Maybe he's wiser than the rest of us. They say Aoi blood tunes you to magic just as a poet tunes his lyre before he sings, knowing what sounds sweetest."

"Is that what they say?"

"Some at court say that Prince Sanglant grew so strange under Eika captivity because the enchantments polluted his mind. That's why—" She broke off, then smiled apologetically. "That's why he acts like a dog. The dogs became part of him, or he of the dogs, like a spell bound into his body by the Eika chieftain."

It arrived noiselessly and settled down on a ragged outcropping of rock. At first, Hanna didn't notice it, but Liath saw the owl immediately.

She gently shook off Hanna's arm and took a cautious step forward, then knelt. "Who are you?" she asked of the owl. It blinked huge golden eyes but did not move.

"Liath," whispered Hanna. "Why are you talking to an owl?"

"It isn't an ordinary owl." She kept her gaze fixed on the bird. It had ear tufts and a coat of mottled feathers, streaked with white at the breast. It was the largest owl she had ever seen—she who had spent many a night in silent contemplation of the stars and thus with her keen night vision seen the animals that woke and fed in the night. "Who are you?"

Its hoot echoed like a warning, "Who? Who?" and then it launched itself up from the rock and glided away.

"Eagle! I did not expect you to be gone for so long." Princess Sapientia appeared with a handful of servingwomen, having just come from the privies.

"Your Highness!" Hanna's expression betrayed her surprise no less than did her voice.

"Has she bewitched you* too?" demanded Sapientia as Hanna knelt before her. Liath hesitated, then felt it prudent to kneel in her turn. "Made proud by my brother's attention!"

"I beg your pardon, Your Highness, for being so long away from you," replied Hanna in a calm voice. "We knew each other before we became Eagles. We are almost like kin—

"But you are not kin."

"No—"

"You are a good, honest freewoman, Hanna. What she is no one here yet knows." She beckoned to a pair of guards who had remained respectfully behind. "Bring her."

"I must return—!" Liath began.

"You must come with me." Sapientia's eyes gleamed with triumph. "You will not have your way so easily with the rest of us, Eagle!"

"Sanglant." But the wind blew her voice out into the gulf of air beyond the ramparts, where the bluff tumbled down and down to the land below. To fight would only cause more of a scene, as well as make her life immeasurably harder, so she went, and then was sorry she had done so when Sapientia returned directly to the hall. It was swarming with as many of the court who could crowd in, and the rest of their retainers and servants sat at trestle tables outside. With Duke Conrad and Margrave Judith and various local ladies who had ridden in to offer gifts before the king and share in his generosity in return, the king's progress had blossomed into a field crowded with life, hundreds of folk crammed together all eager to enjoy the night no matter what form their entertainment took. And when Sapientia led her into the great hall, so stuffed with people that it seemed to bulge at the seams, she would have sworn that every gaze turned to scrutinize her. Nausea swept her, washed down by the brash of Hanna's arm or her elbow, her last—and briefest—reassurance.

They had all been drinking, of course; it was a feast, and wine flowed freely. But the king rose, seeing her, and she knew at once—because she had known the signs intimately in Da's face—that he had been drinking hard to drown anger in his heart.

But he was still the king in dignity and voice.

"Has my son's mistress come to pay her respects?" he asked, gesturing toward her to make sure any soul in court who had not yet noticed her would notice her now.

"Or has she simply tired of her new conquest?" drawled Margrave Judith, "and thrown him aside as she did my son once she had polluted him with her magics?" Her glare was as frightening as that of a guivre, turning Liath to stone. Hugh did not appear to her among the sea of faces, all of them staring, but she was sure
he
was behind this humiliation.

"That is not for us to judge, but rather a matter for the church." Yes, Henry was drunk, but coldly angry beneath and able to control himself in his cups far better than Da had ever been able to. But Da had been nothing but a disgraced frater. Henry was king. "Seat her beside me," he continued with that iron gaze, edged like a sword. "Let the royal mistress be given honor as she deserves, who graces my son's bed." He knew what he was doing. "But not dressed like that! Not dressed like a common Eagle! Has my son not gifted you with clothing fit for your rank?"

He did not mean her to reply; he only meant to remind her of his power, as if she had ever forgotten it.

Theophanu rose from her seat to the left of her father. A servingwoman hurried forward, and the princess whispered in her ear before turning back to the king. "Your Majesty, I have reason to be beholden to this woman. Let me clothe her in a fitting manner."

The blow came from an unexpected source. Henry hesitated, but that hesitation gave Theophanu time to gesture peremptorily. Liath slipped out from the circle of Sapientia's retainers and into the cool but not unfriendly clime of Theophanu's followers.

They led her away to a room tucked under the eaves in the hall, and here the first servingwoman arrived out of breath with her arms draped with cloth. She shook out the bundle to display a fine linen undertunic and an indigo silk overdress embroidered with tiny gold eight-pointed stars. The cloth rippled like a glimpse of the night sky, pure and mysterious.

"I've never worn anything so fine!" Liath whispered in awe, but they dressed her ruthlessly, measured her frame—as tall as the princess but more slender—and belted the overdress with a simple chain of gold links. They announced themselves satisfied with the condition of her hair but wove a golden net of delicate knotwork studded with pearls around the crown of her head as ornament.

"Lord have mercy," they murmured, surveying her. "It's no wonder the prince took a fancy to this one."

They led her back out into the hall. If she had thought herself fallen into the pit of misery before, it was nothing to what happened now: Even Henry, caught in mid-sentence as he addressed Sapientia, fell silent when he saw her. They all fell silent, every soul in the hall. A moment later when Theophanu rose to relinquish her own seat beside the king, they all broke into voice at once.

"No dogs set over her to guard her?" Conrad's battle-trained voice carried easily over the throng. "I'd not leave such a precious treasure unattended."

She felt a blush flow like fire through her cheeks and down all her limbs, then furiously wished it cool for fear of causing an untimely and horrible conflagration. The king had a very odd look in his eye, and he offered her his own cup to drink from. She dared not refuse. The wine hit her throat with a rich bouquet and glowed in her stomach. She had to share the king's platter—an honor of such distinction that it branded her forever among the folk present here tonight. She would never be anonymous again, not on the king's progress. And the worst of it was that his fingers kept touching and tangling with hers in the dish so that despite the wonderful aroma and flavor of the food, she could scarcely get it down her throat which stayed parched no matter how much wine she drank.

Hathui slipped into the hall and stood in disapproving attendance behind the king's chair. Hanna, trapped in Sapientia's service, could only throw her despairing glances, helpless to help her. All other faces blurred together.

Young men wrestled before the king and threw her tokens in competition for her favor, and she had to give a kiss to the winner—a brawny lad whose breath smelled of onions. Jugglers and tumblers entertained, and she had to shower them with silver sceattas brought to her by the stewards. She had to pass judgment on the poets who came forward in the hope of gaining the fancy—and the favor—of the king, and the king demurred on all counts to her judgment. He sat with heavy-lidded eyes and watched her when he was not watching his court. His limbs brushed hers at intervals, but surely that was accident because they sat so close together. The sick feeling that afflicted her heart would not go away.

"How can you honor her, Your Majesty," said Judith finally, pushed to the edge of her patience, "when my son lies in a fever

in his chamber, sweating away the pollution she brought onto him?"

Henry turned in his chair to regard the margrave. "I will act as is fitting, considering the accusations brought before me this day. I have already convened a council of biscops, to be held at Matthiasmass in Autun. There your son and this woman will be brought before those most fit to judge in such matters." His gaze lit on Liath again, and he toasted her with wine. "Yet as my dear cousin Conrad has so wisely warned me, I dare not let such a treasure go unguarded. She will remain by my side until then—"

"By
your
side, cousin?" shouted Conrad, then roared with laughter. "Will that be after the prince tires of her, or before? But I am much struck by her beauty, too. I am not ashamed to state here in front of witnesses that no matter how many royal beds she graces, I will gladly take her off your hands when you are through."

When Henry laughed, other noblemen took up the jest, took up wagers: How many months until Sanglant tired of her—or the king—or then Conrad? Who would have her next?

Ai, God. She was desperately ashamed to be made mock of in this fashion. Better to be spinning above the Abyss waiting for God to blow her into the pit then suffer this any longer!

To her left, Princess Theophanu sat as still as stone. Beyond Theophanu, Helmut Villam frowned at the assembly and did not join in the jesting. But Henry had a grim smile of perverse satisfaction on his face even as he watched her with that terrible glint of wine-inflamed desire on his face. She recognized it now. Hugh had looked at her so on certain winter nights in Heart's Rest; what always followed was never pleasant, at least not for her.

"You see by this spectacle, my friends," said Judith in a voice that carried to the four corners of the hall, "that she has now bewitched even our good king. What more proof do you need that she has stained her hands with malevolent sorcery?"

Ai, Lady! At long last he appeared at the door with twilight at his back, alone, without retinue, although thank God he had taken pains to make his clothing look neat. Perhaps the soldiers had done it for him. Master Hosel's belt looked perfectly in place with his rich tunic and hose. The salamanders worked into the leather almost seemed to slide and shine in the torchlight.

He strode forward down the ranks of tables and without a word or any least gesture of acknowledgment halted with arrogant grace before the king's table. There, he held out his hand. She staggered to her feet, but the king caught her by the wrist.