Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

From her station on the steps below the Hearth, Rosvita surveyed the assembled courtfolk, brethren, and local nobles come from their estates to watch the ceremony and to feast after with the king and his retinue. She sought in their faces some clue to their state of mind. Few of the nobles here would harbor any sympathy for the recently imprisoned Sabella. But in other duchies the king’s position was not so strong. That was why he had to travel constantly across his kingdom: so that his people could see him; so that his nobles would be reminded in ceremonies like this one that he was king and therefore had authority to rule; and so that Henry, appearing before them, could demand troops and supplies for his wars—in this case, for an assault on Gent.

later that same day, these thoughts came back to Rosvita as she knelt with the congregation in the Quedlinhame town church. Thunder rumbled in the distance as Mother Scholastica intoned the final words of her homily.

“The Lady does not give out her blessing freely. This is God’s way of teaching a lesson to humankind. Although the gift of bearing children is certainly a blessing, the means by which we mortals can in some measure know immortality, all earthly beings are tainted with the infinitesimal grains of the primordial darkness that mixed by chance with the pure elements of light, wind, fire, and water. That intermingling brought about the creation of the world. And those of us who live in the world are thereby stained with darkness. Only through the blessed Daisan’s teaching, only through the blinding glory of the Chamber of Light, can we cleanse ourselves and attain a place at Our Lord’s and Lady’s side. So ends the teaching.”

The brethren—monks and nuns from Quedlinhame—sang the Te Deam, the hymn to God’s glory. Their voices blended with the fine precision of a choir used to singing in concord. With this music as accompaniment, King Henry entered the church in formal procession.

Rosvita stifled a yawn. It was so very muggy for this late in the year, and she was not as young as she once had been. It was no longer easy to stand—or kneel—through an entire service. For how many years had she traveled with the king’s progress? How often had she seen the banners representing the six duchies carried in and displayed, symbol of the king’s earthly power? How many times had she watched the ceremonial anointing, robing, and crowning of the king on feast days? Yet even now as King Henry ascended the steps that led to the altar stone and Hearth, the familiar quaver of awe caught in her throat.

Bareheaded but clad in a robe woven of cloth-of-gold, his shoes detailed in gold braid, King Henry knelt before his sister, Mother Scholastica, offering himself before the Lady’s Hearth. Every soul knelt with the king. The abbess combed his newly cut hair with an ivory comb encrusted with gold and tiny gems. She anointed him with oil, on the right ear, from the forehead to the left ear, and on the crown of his head.

“May Our Lord and Lady crown you with the crown of glory, may They anoint you with the oil of Their favor,” she said.

Assisted by certain local nobles singled out for this honor, she placed the robe of state over his shoulders; trimmed with ermine, woven of the finest white wool, the cloak bore the emblems of each duchy embroidered across its expanse: a dragon for Saony, an eagle for Fesse, a lion for Avaria, a stallion for Wayland, a hawk for Varingia—and a guivre for Arconia.

“The borders of this cloak trailing on the ground,” the abbess continued, “shall remind you that you are to be zealous in the faith and to keep peace.”

Rosvita shuddered, thinking of the guivre—the terrible basilisk-like creature—whose presence had almost won the Battle of Kassel for Sabella.

But Sabella had not won. A monk and a boy had killed the guivre, surely a sign of God’s displeasure at Sabella’s attempt to usurp her half brother’s power. Henry’s luck—the luck of the rightful king—had held true.

Now Mother Scholastica handed Henry the royal scepter, a tall staff carved out of ebony wood and studded with jewels, its head carved into the shape of a dragon’s head with ruby eyes gleaming.

“Receive this staff of virtue. May you rule wisely and well.”

On this staff the king leaned as Mother Scholastica crowned him in the sight of all the folk who were present.

“Crown him, God, with justice, glory, honor, and strong deeds.”

A great sigh swept through the crowd, mingled awe and pleasure at the rare sight of their king crowned and robed in the sight of God and his countryfolk.

From the gathered host a single voice cried out: “May the King live forever!” Other voices from the crowd answered the first with the same words until the acclamation was a roar of approval.

From her station on the steps below the Hearth, Rosvita surveyed the assembled courtfolk, brethren, and local nobles come from their estates to watch the ceremony and to feast after with the king and his retinue. She sought in their faces some clue to their state of mind. Few of the nobles here would harbor any sympathy for the recently imprisoned Sabella. But in other duchies the king’s position was not so strong. That was why he had to travel constantly across his kingdom: so that his people could see him; so that his nobles would be reminded in ceremonies like this one that he was king and therefore had authority to rule; and so that Henry, appearing before them, could demand troops and supplies for his wars—in this case, for an assault on Gent.

The boom of thunder rolled, shaking glass windows and causing one child in the back of the nave to start crying.

What did the thunder portend? Those called fulgutari claimed they could divine the future by observing the sound and appearance of storms and the direction of thunder and lightning. This display now, with great booms of thunder rattling the church and lightning scoring bright flashes against the lowering sky of late afternoon, seemed to underscore Henry’s power, as if God in Their Unity reminded the assembled people that he had received God’s grace.

But perhaps it portended other things. Divination by thunder was condemned by the church as were all forms of divination, for women and men must trust to God and not seek knowledge of what is to come. It was sacriligious even to think of heathen practices.

Rain lashed the windows. The side doors were opened to allow the poor to process through in an orderly line. None complained that, waiting outside, they had gotten soaked through. They waited gratefully for this chance to be blessed and touched by King Henry himself, for was it not true that the anointed king’s touch might bring healing?

Rosvita yawned again. She ought to be watching the holy blessings, but she had seen this same scene, albeit rarely with the dramatic background of thunder and lightning, so many times before on the endless itinerant progress of the king. Could the heathens foretell the future from the sounds and directions of thunder? Surely not. Only angels and the daimones of the upper air could see into the future, and back into the past, for they did not live in Time in the same way humans did. But, alas, she could never help thinking of such things, sacrilegious though they might be. She would be damned by her curiosity; Mother Otta of Korvei Convent had told her that so many times, although not without a smile.

Thunder rumbled off into the northwest, and the rain slackened as the last of the poor and sick shuffled past King Henry for the ritual blessing. The nobles shifted restlessly—as restless as the weather or as their fears that Henry would demand large levies from them in the coming season of war.

At last the final hymn was sung. A happy babble of voices filled the church as the king led the procession out of the church. In the royal hall, the Feast of All Saints would be celebrated. Rosvita followed the king together with the rest of his retinue, nobles and townsfolk crowded behind, all eager to partake in some way of the meal, even if it was simply bread handed out from the doors. Her stomach, like a distant failing echo of the thunder, rumbled softly, and she chuckled.

In the morning, still driven by nagging thoughts of thunder and portents, she availed herself of Quedlinhame’s excellent library. She ought to be working on her History of the Wendish People, but she knew from long experience that until this nibbling curiosity was satisfied, she would be able to think of nothing else.

Rosvita turned first to Isidora of Seviya’s great encyclopedia, the Etymologies, which contained descriptions of various forms of sorcery and magic. But Isidora’s book had only a passing reference to the fulgutari.

Dissatisfied, Rosvita replaced the volume in its cabinet and latched the door. The library had long since outgrown its original chamber and now several smaller rooms contained the overflow books. She stood in one of these chambers now; the Etymologies had been consigned here not because the work was unimportant—far from it—but because, Rosvita thought uncharitably, Quedlinhame’s librarian was incompetent and disorganized. There was no logical order to the placement of the books, and in order to find which cabinet any book might reside in, one had to consult the catalog—which sat on a lectern in the central library hall. Rosvita sighed. In wrath, remember mercy. No doubt her own faults were greater than those of the librarian.

As she crossed back through the warren of dark rooms, she saw a cloaked figure standing in the pale light afforded by a slit of a window high in one stone wall: one of the King’s Eagles.

She paused in shadow and stared—not at the young woman, for this Eagle was instantly recognizable for her height and coloring, but at what she was doing. Clerics took little notice of Eagles, who were recruited from the children of stewards, freeholders, artisans, or merchants. Clerics wrote the letters and capitularies and cartularies which were handed over, sealed, to the king’s messengers. Eagles carried those messages; they did not read them.