Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

She favored him with a sudden smile, and its power—its approval—struck him as if he had been granted a glimpse of the Chamber of Light in all its brilliance through a crack in the gates. “That is the first time in this interview you have spoken of her need and not your own. She serves as a King’s Eagle, and I have heard no complaint of her service there. It will continue. Now.” He bowed his head over clasped hands, was allowed to kiss her opal ring, and backed out of the room, stumbling down backward over the doorstep.

Master Pursed-Lips waited outside, as glowering as any looming storm cloud. Mercifully, he withheld the willow switch.

“You may be certain,” said the schoolmaster in his disagreeable voice, “that you and your fellows, whose connivance in this matter has been duly noted, will be confined in the novitiary for the remainder of the king’s visit, and closely guarded thereafter. Take no notion in your mind to escape and run after them. We have dealt with these kinds of things before.”

Spoken ominously, the schoolmaster’s threats proved true. The king’s progress left the next day and although the other novices got to leave the barracks and line the road to lend pomp and dignity to the departure of king and court, Ivar, Baldwin, Ermanrich, and Sigfrid were left behind. They waited out the dreary interlude in the courtyard, taking turns with their knives at the fence.

”She’s really in love with you?” demanded Baldwin.

“Why should that surprise you? Am I that ugly?” Ivar wanted to slug his friend.

Baldwin looked him over consideringly, then shrugged. “No.”

“But if she’s an Eagle,” pointed out Ermanrich, “then she can’t be of noble birth. Why would your father ever allow you to marry a common-born woman?”

“But her father was in the church, and educated,” Ivar protested. “He must have come out of a noble lineage!” Thinking about it only made it worse, but he couldn’t help thinking. Mother Scholastica had promised to send a message to his father. He would have to be patient—and Liath had promised to wait.

Sigfrid had been given his turn with Baldwin’s knife and he was trying to wiggle the little gap into a wider gap, something they could actually see through. Now he glanced over his shoulder toward the empty courtyard, then leaned forward to the others. “While I was waiting for my lesson,” he said in a low voice, “I heard that Lady Sabella’s daughter is going to be held here until King Henry decides to marry her off or let her become a novice.”

“Ah,” said Baldwin. “The young Lady Tallia. I met her once.”

Ermanrich snorted.

“Oh!” said Sigfrid in the tone of man who has opened the door only to find a snake in his room. “I didn’t think it would work.”

“Hush,” said Baldwin. “Move this way, Ermanrich. Ivar, get on your knees as if you’re praying. Move over here.”

Sigfrid had accomplished the deed. Pressure had forced one thin plank to slide behind another, and now they had a gap through which they could see a thin strip of the other side of the courtyard.

Baldwin hunkered down and flattened his face against the fence. He gasped and jerked back. “There’s someone there!” he hissed. “A novice!”

“Does she have warts?” asked Ermanrich.

“Be serious!” Baldwin stuck his right eye against the gap again, closing his left and squinching up his face to see better. After a pause, he backed away and spoke in a whisper. “She’s kneeling just opposite us. I think it’s Lady Tallia!”

Ermanrich whistled under his breath.

Even Ivar was impressed. “Let me look,” he demanded. Baldwin scooted back and Ivar pressed his face up against the fence. The wood scraped his skin. Ermanrich’s breath blew against his neck as if, with enough force of will, the other boy could see through Ivar’s eyes.

She had thrown back her hood and he recognized her at once: the wheat-haired girl who had carried the banner of Arconia—her father’s duchy—at the forefront of the procession the day King Henry had arrived at Quedlinhame. Only three days ago! How much had happened since then.

She prayed, thin hands clasped before her breast, pale lips touching her knuckles. Then, abruptly, her eyes opened and she looked straight at him. She had the palest blue eyes, like a many-times-washed indigo tunic bled so fine that only the memory of blue remained in the threads.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

Ivar jerked back from the fence.

“She said something!” exclaimed Ermanrich. He stuck his face up against the fence. “Are you Lady Tallia?” he whispered.

Baldwin pulled Ermanrich back from the wall and wedged himself in as Ermanrich made a grunt of protest.

“You must not look upon me,” she said in that same quiet voice, as soft as the wind brushing Ivar’s hair. His hood had fallen back, and he hastily jerked it up over his head, looking guiltily back toward the barracks. The layservant left to watch over them was not in sight. “It is not seemly for you to stare so,” she continued. In the silence of the courtyard they could hear her words clearly. She hesitated, then went on. “But that we have stumbled upon this opportunity to converse—that, surely, is God’s doing, is it not?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Baldwin blithely, although, obedient to her wish, he had now drawn back from the gap in the fence. “Are you to be a nun?”

Sigfrid made a choked noise in his throat and immediately assumed a position of prayer. The layservant had walked back into view, a surly, stout man no doubt angered at having to watch over four disobedient novices rather than the colorful departure of king and court. All four boys hunkered down in attitudes of contrite prayer.

From the shelter of the colonnade, the layservant could not hear Tallia’s faint voice, but the four boys could. “It is my most devout wish to become a nun. Unless I can be a deacon, but they will not let me out into the world except to marry me to some grasping nobleman.”