Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (75 page)

But he was simply too tired to fight past Tallia's resistance. It was hard enough to get her to eat more than a crust of bread each day. It was hard enough to get up each morning himself and sit in the count's chair and ride the count's horse and speak with the count's voice; he kept expecting Lavastine to walk into the room, but Lavastine never did.

But as Aunt Bel would say: No use for the child to cry over what's been spilled; she's better off cleaning it up and getting on with it. Lavastine would have agreed with her. Alain shook himself, kissed the granite brow, and left.

Aunt Bel was much on his mind as he walked to Lavas Church with three clerics and two stewards in attendance, to oversee the work going on there. In the spring he and Tallia must go on progress through their lands, to show themselves, to receive oaths and give oaths in return. How would he be received at Aunt Bel's steading? With surprise? With the respect due his position? Or with scorn and anger? He could not bear to think of Henri; it still hurt too badly, even after all this time. It infuriated him that Henri, of all people, would believe that he could lie and cheat to gain advantage in his life. Maybe it would be better simply to ride on by and not see them, not now. He could wait. There was always another year.

But that was the coward's way.

The stone workers sat outside the church in the sun eating bread and cheese. Strangely, Tallia's attendants also waited outside the church, clustered like a flock of lost doves on the entry porch.

"My lord count." Lady Hathumod came forward hesitantly. She looked troubled. "Lady Tallia asked to be left in solitude to commune with God."

"So she shall be. I'll go in alone." He signaled his own attendants to wait outside, and the hounds flopped down at the threshold.

He hadn't seen her since yesterday and, pausing in the nave of the shadowy church, he didn't see her at first as his eyes adjusted. Light from the east-facing windows fell on the altar. Midway along the nave, the stone bier was rising slowly, dressed stone by dressed stone, to make a fitting resting place for Lavastine's corpse.

Her slight figure knelt on the steps before the altar, shoulders hunched and shaking. He walked forward so quietly that she didn't hear him, and as he came up beside her, he heard her grunting softly with pain.

"Tallia?" He gently touched her on the shoulder.

She cried out and jerked back from him. In that moment, he saw what she had been doing: scraping at the wounds on her palms and wrists with an old nail. Blood oozed from the jagged cuts. Pus inflamed the gash on the palm of her right hand. Seeing his horrified expression, she began to weep helplessly.

He did not know what to do, except to take the nail away from her.

Finally, he coaxed her back to their chamber. He settled her on their bed and chased away her servingwomen, even Hathumod. She only stopped weeping because she was too weak to cry for long. Her face was sunken, almost skeletal, her skin so translucent that the veins showed blue. She hadn't washed in a long time: he found dirt behind her ears and a collar of grime at her neck. Her feet were filthy, and her knees scabbed and scaly from all those hours of kneeling. Her wrists felt so thin he thought he might have been able to snap them in two were he angry enough.

But, strangely, he wasn't angry. He was just very tired.

"Tallia," he said finally in the tone Aunt Bel might have used after she'd sat up three nights running with a deathly ill child who, past the point of danger, had now begun to whine that she didn't like her gruel, "you are not well. You will remain in bed, and you will eat gruel and bread pudding every day, and greens and meat, until you are strong enough that you don't forget yourself in this way again."

She began to whimper. "But God must love me. God will only love me if I suffer as did Her beloved Son. It is through our suffering that we become close to God. Then I can become close to God, too. I wish you would let me build a chapel. Then God would love me more because I was so obedient."

"I love you, Tallia," he said, without passion. He felt astoundingly tired. The nail weighed in his hand as heavily as a grievous sin, and maybe it was. He did not wave it in her face, or accuse her. Maybe the first time
had
been a miracle.

But she was still going on about God's love and a shower of golden light and a pure vessel molded as Her Son's bride, who would be clothed with the odor of sanctity granted to all saints beloved of God when in fact—even in a chamber strewn with dried lavender and honeysuckle to sweeten the closed-in scent of winter and sachets of hyssop and mint to drive off fleas and vermin—he could smell her, an odor like milk gone sour.

"You haven't washed," he said. He rose, fetched cloth and pitcher, and sat beside her on the bed. He was too exhausted to coax her, but he knew what had to be done. "Give me your hands."

She complained in a weak voice as he washed her hands, her elbows, her neck and face, and her filthy feet and knees. Because he ignored her and simply did what needed to be done, she finally acquiesced to his attentions.

The water was brown when he finished. He turned the nail through his fingers, examining it, but it told him nothing except that blood stained its point. The nail could not speak. Then he looked at her to see that she was staring at the nail in her turn, eyes as wide as if she'd seen an adder resting in his hands. He sighed, pulled the pouch out from under his tunic, and drew out the rose. Its petals lay cool and sweet in his palm. A thorn pricked his finger and blood welled.

She whimpered, staring at him, or the rose, or the nail, or his blood, as if these were signs of the Enemy. Or perhaps she was just afraid he would betray her secret, and her sin.

"Lie still," he said firmly, and, amazingly, she lay still as he stroked the delicate petals along the ugly gashes on her palm, the stroke an hypnotic rhythm as he rocked
as they rock, riding heavily on the waves as they leave the still waters of the fjord behind and come into the sound. He stands in the stem of the ship, holding an empty wooden cup in one hand and a small chest in the other. The waters part before him, stream alongside to form a frothing wake behind. Heads bob in the surf, his ever-present companions.

With eleven ships he races south toward North Jatharin, because a messenger has come from Hakonin saying that their outlying lands have been attacked and halls burned by Eika gone raiding out of Jatharin. Many slaves have been taken, or killed, and worst of all, a nest of eggs was stolen. This insult must be avenged, and in a way, it is a kind of test. If he cannot protect those who are sworn to ally with him, then one by one his allies will sail away on dawn waters seeking a stronger ally. Seeking the one who has named himself Nokvi, Moerin's chief, friend to the Alban tree sorcerers.

He turns, finally, and beckons to the priest, who shuffles forward holding what looks like a spear completely wrapped in saffron-dyed cloth.

"You have returned from your journey," he says.

"Have I? Where do you think I have been?"

"North and east, south and west," he replies. "Above and below. These are all mysteries which only the wise can fathom."

"Who is wise, and who is foolish?" cackles the priest.

"We shall see," he answers. "What have you brought me?"

The priest chants nonsense in reply, as priests are wont to do. "Falcon flies, nightwing dies. Raven calls, ash tree falls. Yoke of gold, song of old. Serpent's skin, tooth within. Dragon's wing, wolf's heart-string. In flute's breath, magic's death. Where he stands, lives the land." As he chants, he unwraps the cloth to reveal a man-high half of painted wood adorned with feathers and bones, unnamable leathery scraps, the translucent skin of a snake, yellowing teeth strung on a wire, the hair of SwiftDaughters spun into chains of gold and silver, iron and tin, beads of amethyst and crystal dangling by tough red threads, and several bone flutes so cunningly drilled and hung that the breeze off the water moans through them.

"Did I not travel over sea and land, under the water and through mountains, above the moon and even to the fjall of the heavens, to find these things?" wheezes the priest. "Did I not bring you what I promised? "

Stronghand grasps the haft. It hums against his palm as though bees have made their hive inside the wood—and maybe they have, although he can see no opening. He examines it all around, and except for the humming that emanates from the half it appears to him as any standard that marks out one chieftain's followers from another's, little different from that he himself made when he triumphed at Rikin's fjord. It is only an object; it cannot speak to him to tell him the truth.

"This will protect me from magic?" he asks. "What of those who follow me?"

The priest rattles the pouch of bones at his skinny waist. With effort he focuses his cloudy eyes as if he is trying to see only in this world, not in the many worlds, as priests are rumored to do. He speaks in true words instead of riddles and questions. "I have labored many months to devise this working. I am wise in the threads that weave magic. This amulet is your banner. Bear it with you, and it will protect you and yours from magic as far as you can spread your arm of protection."

He smiles, holding out the cup in his other hand. "I have a strong hand. In it I can hold many. "

"What of our bargain?" wheedles the old one. "How will you give me freedom from the OldMothers?" He almost shivers with excitement. His skin is like a leathery old purse slipped loosely over scrawny bones. Stronghand wonders how old he really is. How many winters has he seen? How did he stretch the span of his years beyond that natural for a son of an OldMother's nest?

But he is resigned to never discovering the truth. Perhaps some truths are better left unspoken.

"It is easy enough to give freedom from the OldMothers," he replies.

He signals, and his warriors grab the priest's arms to restrain him as Stronghand flips open the chest. The scent of blood and power are strong, but he does not hesitate. He plunges his knife into the priest's pumping heart. The old creature thrashes, jerking, trying to call down a curse, but the amulet protects Stronghand and his followers from magic. Blood spurts freely from the priest's mouth, and Stronghand catches it in the cup.

Only in death is there freedom from the decrees of the WiseMothers, who, like the rock, live for uncounted generations. Their children are like the rain, touching rock briefly before they flow away into the river, into the fjord, into the sea.

As the cup fills to the brim and blood spills over the side, he sees the priest's spirit swirling in the greenish-copper liquid. He hears a disembodied howl: "No, no, no, I have been tricked!"

As the body ceases its thrashing, as the last blood pumps in sluggish jerks and slows to a trickle as the body sags, the priest's spirit reaches with threadlike mist fingers, trying to find a house for its dying spirit; but everyone there is protected by the amulet. It expands in widening circles, seeking, groping, and once it leaves the cup, he takes one swallow of the priest's blood and then passes it around to his soldiers, who each take one swallow. In this way the priest's essence will be diluted among the many, and his vengeful spirit cannot return.

Suddenly, the mistlike hands find the thread that links his body to that of his brother in blood, the one he sees in his dreams, and it races down that thread like a spark of fire as Stronghand takes the empty cup to the railing.

"Throw the body into the sea," he orders, and it is done. Merfolk surface to circle the sinking corpse. Behind him, the chest and its now desiccated heart are placed in a brazier. The smoke of their burning stings his nostrils. He leans on the railing and turns the wooden cup in his hand. The last drop of blood beads on the Up of the cup and falls. As the drop shatters in the waves, a last, faint howl of fury and defeat vibrates that thread that binds him to Alain Henrisson, and then it is empty. The priest's spirit has dissolved. Waves slap the ship. The oars are pulled in, and the sail is hoisted. Wind batters it; they come round, tacking.

From far away he hears a seagull's mournful cry. Surf pounds on unseen rocks.

Casually, he lets the cup roll off his fingers. It falls, hits water, and vanishes into the sea.

The nail rolled out of Alain's fingers and he jolted up, clutching the rose in his other hand.

"No, no, no, I have been tricked!"

Who had spoken? But there was no one in the chamber.

Tallia had fallen asleep.

He picked up the nail and hid it in the pouch, nestled together with the rose.

EVER since Rosvita had been given the
Vita
of St. Radegundis, she had had strange dreams. Voices whispered in her dreams in a language she could not quite understand. So many people were staring at her, and yet they weren't people at all, they were strangers who had once walked these roads and then vanished; they had been lost a long time ago, but they had left a message if only she could read it. But the words swam close and then skittered away until she could not tell where one left off and another began.