Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

“But what could we bring it?” Matthias asked. “We have nothing—” Then he halted and Anna saw by his crafty look that he had thought of something. He reached into his boot and drew out the prize of their extensive collection of knives, secreted here and there about their bodies. This one, looted from the corpse of a stout man richly dressed in the kind of clothes only a wealthy merchant or a noble could afford, had a good blade and a finely wrought hilt molded in the shape of a dragon’s head, studded with emeralds for eyes. By this measure Anna saw Matthias trusted Otto fully; the knife was too valuable to show to anyone who might covet it and easily take it by force from a lad and his young sister.

me again the next night, and the next, and the next after that, bringing them pittances of food but enough to stave off starvation. Ale he brought also and once wine in a flagon, for there was little water to be found in and about the tanning pits and all of it foul-tasting.

He quickly discovered that Matthias had more knowledge of the tannery and its workings than any of the slaves set to work here; in three months’ apprenticeship, Matthias had learned the rudiments of currying and tanning, enough to know what went on at each station and with each tool. The boy he treated politely, even kindly, but it was Anna he truly doted on. She sat on his lap and he stroked her hair and once or twice forgot himself and called her “Mariya.”

No one disturbed the hides in their loft. Otto explained that he was in charge of overseeing them, and no slave had time to look into another’s business. After several more nights passed, he began bringing more food.

“The Eika have increased our rations. They brought in more slaves to work the bakeries, but also, my boy, what you have told me and I have told the others is helping us work. They are pleased with us, so they feed us better.” The moon was full, now, and Anna could see his expression, which was, as always, grim. “No good fortune for those taken to the smithies, or so I hear. As many are dragged out dead as walk in alive. Beasts!” He hid his eyes behind a hand, but she could see the anguished line of his mouth. “Soon the hides will be dry and they will be carted off, and then there will be no place for you to hide.”

“They’ll hang up more hides, won’t they?” asked Anna.

“Ah, child.” He pulled her tight against his chest. “That they will, but I can’t hide you here forever. I’ve asked here and there, but I don’t know how to get you out of the city, except—”

“Except what?” demanded Matthias, for he, too, Anna knew, had been talking to her about any possible way for them to escape from the city. Perhaps they could have done it during the spring, had they not been so frightened, but they had been frightened, and the dogs had roamed the city every night. Now, with slaves in the city and all the gates watched—or so he assumed—it would be even harder to escape.

“I don’t know. It’s just a story, and I don’t know whether to believe it.” But he clutched Anna, his lips touching her hair, a father’s kiss. “I’ve heard some say there’s a creature, a daimone, held prisoner in the cathedral. They say the Eika enchanter lured it from the heavens above where such creatures live and imprisoned it in a solid body like to our own. He keeps it chained to his throne.”

Anna shuddered, but she felt safe on Otto’s lap; he was holding her so securely.

“I am thinking,” continued the man slowly, “that the magi say daimones know secrets hidden from human ken. If it is true the saint beloved of this city saved the children, if it is true she led them by hidden ways out from the cathedral to safety, then might not this daimone know of that hidden way? For can daimones not see into both the past and the future, farther than mortal eyes can see? If you offer the creature some gift, and if it hates the Eika as much as we do, might it not tell you of this secret way? It is a small chance, surely, but I can think of no other. The gates are guarded day and night and the dogs roam the streets.” He shuddered, as they all shuddered, at the thought of the dogs. “You are children. The saint will smile on you as she did on the others.”

“You will come, too, won’t you, Papa Otto?” Anna rested her head on his chest.

He wept, but silently, tears streaming down his face. “I dare not,” he said. “I dare not attempt it.”

“You could escape with us,” said Matthias. “God will show you mercy for your kindness to us, who are no kin of yours.”

“God might, but the Eika will not. You don’t know them. They’re savages, but they’re as cunning as weasels. They mark each slave, and if one slave goes missing, then others get staked out in front of the dogs and the dogs let loose on them. That way if any slave tries to escape, he knows what will happen to those left behind. I will not cause the death of those I work beside. I could do nothing to save my family. I will not save myself and by so doing kill these others who are as innocent as my dear children. But you two might escape, if you can find and speak to this daimone.”

“But what could we bring it?” Matthias asked. “We have nothing—” Then he halted and Anna saw by his crafty look that he had thought of something. He reached into his boot and drew out the prize of their extensive collection of knives, secreted here and there about their bodies. This one, looted from the corpse of a stout man richly dressed in the kind of clothes only a wealthy merchant or a noble could afford, had a good blade and a finely wrought hilt molded in the shape of a dragon’s head, studded with emeralds for eyes. By this measure Anna saw Matthias trusted Otto fully; the knife was too valuable to show to anyone who might covet it and easily take it by force from a lad and his young sister.

Otto’s eyes widened, for even by the moonlight the knife’s quality was evident. “That is a handsome piece,” he said. “And a worthy gift, if you can get so far.”

“But how will we get into the cathedral?” asked Matthias. “The Eika chieftain lives there, doesn’t he? Does he ever come out?”

The slow quiet brush of summer’s wind, the night breeze off the river, stirred Otto’s hair as he considered. Anna smelled on its wings the distant tang of iron and the forge, a bare taste under the stench of the tanning pits so near at hand. The man sighed at last, coming to some conclusion.

“It is time to trust others. This information I cannot gain on my own. Let us pray, children, to Our Lady and Lord. Let us pray that we weak mortal folk can join together against our heathen enemies, for now we must trust to others who are no kin of ours except that we are humankind standing together against the savages.”

With this he left them.

The next night he brought a woman, stooped, scarred, and weary. She stared for a long time at the children and said at last, “It is a miracle they could have survived the slaughter. It is a sign from St. Kristine.” She went away again, and he gave them their nightly ration of food.

The next night he brought a young man who had broad shoulders but such a weight on them that he looked as bent with age as a man twice his years. But seeing the children, he lifted up and became a man proud of his youth and strength again. “We’ll show those damned savages,” he said in a low voice. “We’ll never let them have these. We’ll beat them in this. That will lend us strength in the days ahead.”

The next night Otto brought a robust woman who still wore her deacon’s robes though they were now stained, torn, and dirty. But she nodded, seeing the children—not surprised, for surely she had by now heard tell of them. She bent her head over clasped hands.

“Let us pray,” she murmured.

It had been a long time since Anna had prayed. She had forgotten the responses, but she traced around the smooth wood of her Circle of Unity carefully with a finger as the deacon murmured the holy words of God, for that was the prayer she knew best. Otto watched her, as he always watched her: with tears in his eyes.

“This is a sign from God,” the deacon said after her prayer. “So will They judge our worthiness to escape this blight, if we can save these children who are no kin of ours and yet are indeed our children, given into our hands, just as all who live within the Circle of Unity are the children of Our Lady and Lord.”

Otto nodded solemnly.

The deacon rested a hand on Matthias’ shoulder, as if giving a blessing. “Those who get water from the river and bring it here have spoken now with those who get water for the smithies, and of those in the smithies some carry weapons to the cathedral, where the chieftain sits in his chair and oversees all. Other slaves who sweep and clean the cathedral meet at times with those who carry weapons from the smithies, and this information they have given us.”

She paused at a noise, but it was only the wind banging a loose shutter. “The chieftain leaves the cathedral four times each day to take his dogs to the necessarium—”