Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

Ivar heard the king’s progress before he saw it. He heard a muttering as of many feet and hooves and rolling wheels, felt the subtle vibration as a tremor rising up through the soles of his feet. He heard them singing, many voices raised in a joyful psalm. The strength of their combined voices, the sheer power of it, made him shiver with joy; not even a full prayer service and the chanting and singing of the monks and nuns in unison at Quedlinhame made him feel this sudden pull to be torn away from his own person and become some other one, one who could join in the concordia, the power that attended upon the king’s presence.

I sing of loyalty and justice.

I will raise this psalm to Thee, Our Lord and Lady Who are God in Unity.

I will follow a wise and blameless course whatever may befall me.

I will go about my house in purity of heart.

I will set before myself no sordid aim.

I will hate disloyalty.

I will silence those who spread tales behind men’s backs.

I will not sit at table with those who are proud and pompous.

I will choose the most loyal for my companions; my servants shall be folk whose lives are blameless. Morning after morning I will put all wicked men to silence

and I will rejoice in all on God’s earth which is good.

The schoolmaster always enjoined his pupils to keep their heads bowed and their eyes toward the ground, for in this way they made themselves smaller and indicated their insignificance. But as the cavalcade drew near enough that he could hear the small noises of a hundred or more souls in movement, Ivar could not help himself. He had to look.

Ermanrich stirred beside him, and Baldwin drew in a sharp, surprised breath. Only Sigfrid kept his head dutifully bowed.

A King’s Eagle rode in front, as herald. She wore the scarlet-trimmed cape and the brass badge of an Eagle, and she stared straight ahead at the road before her; she had a hard, interesting face, broad shoulders, and the look of a person sure of her position and name in the world. In her right hand she held a staff, its haft wedged against her boot. The king’s banner draped from the staff, curling down to hide the hand itself, for there was no wind to lift the banner.

Behind her rode six young nobles honored this day with a position at the head of the procession. They, too, carried pennants, one for each of the duchies under Henry’s rule: Saony, Fesse, Avaria, Varingia, Arconia, and Wayland. Ivar guessed the four boys and two girls to be about the same age as himself; the girl holding the standard of Arconia had hair as pale as wheat and fingers so delicate that he wondered how she had the strength to grip the banner pole. He wondered whose child she was. If only he had been sent to court, instead of to Quedlinhame, then he might have ridden proudly at the front of such an adventus—an arrival—as this! His gaze skipped back to the riders who followed directly behind the pennants.

In this group of nobles, each one attired magnificently in fine embroidered and trimmed linen tunics, in fine leather riding boots, with handsome fur-trimmed capes or richly colored wool cloaks thrown over all, the eye still leaped immediately to King Henry. Ivar had never seen him before, yet he knew instantly that the middle-aged man riding in the center was the king though he wore no crown. He needed no crown. The weight of his authority was like a mantle cast over his shoulders. He wore clothing no plainer and no richer than the others, one prince among many, but the leather belt that girdled his waist, embossed with the symbols of each of the six duchies that made up the kingdom of Wendar and Varre, and the many small and subtle gestures of the others as they deferred to him, proclaimed him prima inter pares, first among equals. From the back of a handsome bay mare, he surveyed the hooded monks and nuns, most of whom still stared fixedly at the ground, with stern approval for their humility.

Just as he passed the ranks of the novices, his eye caught Ivar’s gaze. One royal eyebrow arched, intrigued or censorious. Ivar blushed and dropped his gaze.

He saw booted feet march by, heard the renewed voices of many men lifted in song: The King’s Lions had been granted the honor of marching directly behind the king. They halted suddenly and their song cut off, to be replaced by the stillness of a fine autumn day, the creak of leather, the restlessness of horses farther down the line, the barking of a dog.

Ermanrich shifted next to Ivar and whispered to Baldwin. “If only I were closer.”

Startled, Ivar glanced up at the same time as did Sigfrid. Their view was partly blocked by the ranks of Lions, sturdy men clothed in fighting gear and gold tabards marked by a black lion, but beyond the milites—the fighting men—and the nobles, the king had ridden forward with only the Eagle in attendance to greet Mother Scholastica.

She was also mounted, as befit a woman of royal birth come to greet her brother; she rode on a mule whose coat was so polished a gray as to be almost white. In her dark blue robes, adorned only with the gold Circle of Unity hanging at her chest, with her hair drawn back under a white scarf and her face guileless and calm, she appeared every bit as regal as her elder brother. Of course it was not fitting that a woman of her ecclesiastic rank dismount to greet anyone except the skopos, but neither could the king dismount to greet her. So the king had ridden forward on his mare to meet her, and now, with the two animals side by side, the royal siblings leaned across the gap and gave each other the kiss of family, once to each cheek, as greeting.

“And if,” continued Ermanrich in that whisper, “you took Master Pursed-Lips’ willow switch—”

Baldwin started to snicker.

“—and gave a quick twitch of it to the mare’s hindquarters, what do you think would happen?”

Sigfrid snorted and clapped a hand over his mouth. Ivar was so aghast at Ermanrich’s imagining either Mother Scholastica or the king made ridiculous by a bolting horse that he started to giggle.

That same willow switch lashed hard against his rump and he yelped. Then Ermanrich gulped down a yelp as he, too, was disciplined.

“Keep silence,” hissed the schoolmaster, stationing himself behind the four boys. He did not, of course, switch either Baldwin or Sigfrid, and poor Sigfrid looked horrifically guilty, for had he not responded by laughing at Ermanrich’s jest? Ivar bit his lip as he blinked back tears; his buttocks stung. Ermanrich had his usual sly grin on his face. He had unknowable reserves and rarely showed any visible sign of feeling pain. The schoolmaster cleared his throat and Ivar hastily looked down just as the king and his sister parted, her mule being brought around by a servant so abbess and king could lead the procession up to the monastery together.

On past Ivar’s station marched the Lions, then the rest of the train, a stamp of feet and hooves and rumble of wagons. Beyond, toward town, people shouted and cried out praise to the king.

Ivar’s rump still smarted. He could practically feel the schoolmaster’s breath on his neck, but the schoolmaster had moved on. A sudden feeling like the whisper of elfshot made his neck prickle. He glanced up, or he would have missed her.

“Liath!” He almost fell forward. The three other boys jerked their heads up and stared. Baldwin whistled under his breath.