Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (65 page)

His flush had subsided, and for the first time she really looked at him as a woman looks at a man. The ghost of his younger self still lived in his lineaments. Once he had been a young and handsome man, a bold frater walking east to convert the heathens. It was easy to imagine a Kerayit princess taking a fancy to such an exotic young man.

"And are puras set free," she asked, "once their mistress no longer needs them?"

"Nay," he said softly. "No shaman willingly gives up her pura."

Had she misunderstood? "I beg your pardon, Brother. I thought by your words and expression that perhaps you had once been— Now she was too embarrassed to go on. "I did not mean to wrong you. I can see you serve God faithfully."

"You have not wronged me, Daughter." He touched her fleetingly on the elbow. "She did not willingly give me up. She died. I was blamed for it because I was teaching her the magic of writing. It was her aunt, a queen of her people, who cut off my hand. Later, Prince Bayan came to hear of my captivity because that queen was his wife's aunt's cousin, and he asked for me as a present. That is how I came into his service. God forgave me for my disobedience, for the truth is I loved Sorgatani freely and would have remained in her service for the rest of my life. But it was not to be." He smiled wryly, without anger. "So now I serve God's agent, who is Prince Bayan, whatever his other faults. Do not think ill of him, child. He has a good heart."

Hanna laughed, at first, because she hadn't been scared or felt at all in danger in the predawn chill when Bayan had accosted her. But then she sobered. Liath had suffered terribly, pursued by Hugh. Hanna did not relish spending her nights fending off the attentions of a prince far more powerful than she would ever be, and especially not when she remained so very far from the king who was her only protection. Prince Bayan wouldn't be blamed for the seduction of an Eagle;
she
would be, and lose her position in the bargain. And she wanted to remain an Eagle. Maybe that, more than anything, made it hard for her to understand Liath's choice. How could Liath walk away from the life offered those who swore the Eagle's oath to their regnant? Hanna could no longer imagine being anything other than an Eagle. It was as if she had been one person before Wolfhere arrived in Heart's Rest that fateful date and another person after, as if she had simply been waiting her whole life up until then for him to offer her an Eagle's badge and cloak.

"I'm an Eagle," she said out loud. "And I want to remain one. Advise me, Brother. Will it happen again?"

He could only frown. "I don't know."

Bayan and Sapientia emerged just before midday looking well satisfied. Brother Breschius led a prayer service for the living and a mass for the dead. A war council was called, and the disposition of forces discussed, what signs seen where of activity beyond the border, where the Quman had last attacked, and how big a force might be lurking, waiting for opportunity. The sentries reported that they had killed half a dozen lurking Quman warriors in the night. Lady Udalfreda confided that at least ten hamlets out beyond her town of Festberg had been burned and refugees fled to the safety of her walls. Other Wendish lords and captains gave similar reports, and the Ungrians had other news as well, tribes driven southwest by drought or fighting, raids along the border with the Arethousan Empire, certain portents seen in the midwinter sacrifice that presaged disaster.

Sapientia called Hanna forward. "There has been much rumor of a large force of Quman moving in these marchlands, and now we have confirmation that it is so. But we do not have the forces to withstand an invasion, should it come. You, my faithful Eagle, must return to my father, King Henry, and report our situation. I beg him to send troops to strengthen the frontier, or else it is likely we will be overwhelmed."

Prince Bayan watched Sapientia proudly, as any praeceptor regards with pride his pupil as she makes her first steps by herself. But he also glanced now and again at Hanna, and once he winked.

"Eagle, I would speak in your ears a private message." Hanna had to lean forward to hear the princess, who dropped her voice to a murmur. "I like you, Hanna. You have served me faithfully and well. But I remember what happened with that witch who seduced Father Hugh. You knew her, and maybe she made some of her glamour rub off on you, even though I'm sure you would never try such witcheries yourself. You must go. When you return, my husband will have forgotten all about this morning."

Yet Hanna wasn't so sure.

The truth was, she wasn't sorry to be going. Yes, he was an attractive man, charming and good-hearted. No doubt he was a pleasant companion in bed. But she would never forget the cold, casual way in which he had tortured that Quman prisoner and then, afterward, casually mentioned that IreM-knpwn all along that the man wouldn't tell them anything. What was the point, then, except that he hated the Quman? He was getting his revenge for the death of his son, one man at a time.

At dawn the next day she took her leave of the princess and said farewell to Brother Breschius, who blessed her and said a prayer for a good journey on her behalf. She hesitated beside the Kerayit wagon, but she had seen no sign of the shaman and her young apprentice since the night of the battle. Even now, the door remained closed. Did the bead curtains sway, parting slightly so someone inside could look out? Maybe they did. She raised a hand in greeting, and farewell, just in case.

Then she rode west, with the rising sun at her back. It was a good day to be riding, crisp, clear, and pleasantly chill. As she left the camp behind, she began to sing, and her escort joined in with her in good harmony.

"/
will lift up my eyes to see the hills, for Their help shall come to me from that place. Help comes from the Lord and the Lady They who made Heaven and Earth. The Lord shall preserve us from all evil. The Lady shall preserve our souls."

But she couldn't help thinking of the Kerayit princess. Had it been a dream?

The wasp sting burned in her heart.

IN the evening, Alain left the chapel in the pause between Vespers and Compline to walk through the silence until he reached the great hall. Sorrow and Rage padded after him. At the other end of the hall, two servants swept rushes out the door. They jabbed their brooms at the ground outside, shaking off straw, and because they had their backs to the hall they did not see! him but spoke together in low voices as they shut the doors behind them on the bitter gloom of an autumn twilight.

Some light was left him, as little as the hope left him. The hall had been set in order, tables and benches lined up neatly, but nevertheless he banged his shins on a bench and bruised his hip on the corner of a table before he stumbled on the first step of the small dais behind the high table. He hit his knee on the second step and cursed under his breath. Sorrow whined. He groped, found one leg of the count's chair, and hauled himselfj up, then just stood there feeling the solid square corners under his hands, the scrollwork along the back, the arms carved like the massive smooth backs of hounds, each ending in a snarling face.

Not even rats stirred in the hall. He heard the whisper

Compline, muted by distance, stone walls, and the ripening comprehension of the Lavas clerics.

This morning, for the first time, Lavastine had not been able to be sat up in his bed. His body was now too heavy to move. Prayers and physic, all to no avail.

For the first time, Alain sat in the count's chair.

The hall lay shrouded by twilight, but it was easier to test this seat in private, without the stares and bows, the expectations and petitions, that would greet him later when everyone assembled to see him take the seat of power. This way he could get used to it slowly—if he could ever get used to it.

He started up guiltily out of the chair as a procession entered the hall: Tallia with several attendants. They lit her by torchlight so she could cross to his side unmolested by benches and table corners.

"You didn't stay for Compline." She had certain secretive habits left over from her childhood, and now, touching the count's chair, she leaned closer to him in the manner of a thief planning mischief with an accomplice. "I prayed for this...for God to strike him dead as an unbeliever. You see, don't you, that it is best this way? God answered my prayers in this way because She wishes me to build a chapel in Her honor." She faltered, pressed a hand over his as if to seal his approval.

Alain could only stare. Behind, a servingman hurried into the hall.

"My lord Alain!" The servant was weeping. "He's very bad, my lord. You must come quickly."

Alain left Tallia to the ministrations of her fluttering attendants. He took the steps two at a time. A servant held the door open as he strode into the chamber where Lavastine lay in his curtained bed as still as stone. Fear kept watch at his bedside.

Alain knelt at his side and took hold of one of the count's hands: it had the grain of pale granite. It stirred only because Alain lifted it. Lavastine's eyes moved; his lips parted. That he still breathed Alain knew because he still lived: His chest gave no telltale rise and fall, God's breath lifting and descending to feed his soul.

A musky odor permeated the room, fleeting, gone. He looked up to see Sorrow, Rage, and Fear cluster around Terror, who lay at the foot of Lavastine's bed.

Lavastine murmured words. His voice was almost inaudible, a thin wheeze, but Alain had spent many hours beside him these past fifteen days, and he could still understand his few, labored words.
"Most faithful."

It struck Alain as sharply as any blow had ever shuddered his shield in battle: Terror was dead, had died in the last hour, passed beyond mortal existence. That was why the others sniffed at him, seeking the smell of their father-cousin and not finding it. His spirit had fled. Ai, God! Lavastine's would soon follow.

He pressed a hand to the count's throat, but there was no warmth, no pulse.

"Alain."
By some astounding force of will he still lived, although he was by now completely paralyzed.
"Heir."

"Father. I'm here." It tore his heart in two to watch Lavastine's suffering, although in truth it wasn't clear he was in any pain. His brow remained as unlined as ever, even as it took on that grainy, stonelike cast, as if he were transmuting into an effigy carved from rock.

But Lavastine was nothing if not stubborn, and determined. Had he had more expression left him, he would have frowned. One eyebrow twitched. His lips quirked ever so slightly.
"Must. Have. Heir."

From the chapel in the room below, the clerics began to sing a hymn from the Holy Verses: "A remnant restored in an age of peace."

"On that day, say God, We will destroy all your horses among you and break apart all your chariots. We will raze the cities of your land and tear down your fortresses. We will ruin all your sorcerers, and no more augeres shall walk among you to part the veil that allows them to see into the future. We will throw down all the works made by your own hands. In anger and fury will We take vengeance on all nations who disobey Us."

Alain was weeping, He could not bear to let Lavastine go in hopelessness. "She's pregnant," he whispered, too softly for anyone else to hear. Hearing himself speak, he said it again more boldly. "Tallia is pregnant."

Was that a stirring in Lavastine's face, the breath of an expression across skin made marble by poison? Was that a swallow at his throat, a spark of joy in his eye? A smile on his lips?

Surely God would forgive Alain the lie. He only meant it to make his father happy, in his last hour.

"We're to have a child, Father," he continued. It got easier as each word slipped out. "There will be an heir, just as you decreed."

"Children of Sais, you shall shepherd your foes with the sword, the sacred pillars shall be raised from their ruins, and all who hate you shall be destroyed."

A breath escaped Lavastine, a last shaping of words.
"Done. Well. My. Son."
As Alain watched, his eyes began to glaze over, a stippling, granules speckling the white of his eye as his iris turned to sapphire. After the long struggle, it was all going so quickly now, but perhaps his soul had been tethered to faithful Terror, and with Terror gone, he sped, too, on the final journey. Perhaps he had only waited for news of this.

Silence reigned.

Alain wept bitterly. His tears soaked the coverlet and ran like rain off stone down Lavastine's arm. The hounds growled softly but did not interfere as several servingmen came forward, and the steward pressed a finger against the count's cold lips.

"God have mercy," the steward said softly. "He is gone."

Alain leaped up and grabbed a candle, held it before Lavastine's lips. The flame stirred, the merest flicker.

"He still lives!" he cried. A servant took the candle from him gently. He flung himself down beside the bed, still weeping, still gripping the cold hand, and prayed with all his heart in it and his own hands wet with tears. "I pray You, God. Spare my father's life. Heal him, and I will serve You."