Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

“Does she have the book?” he asked in a low voice as they crossed the courtyard. “Eagles are notoriously faithful each to the other. One would scarcely think common folk capable of such loyalty. But how can you trust her, a mere freewoman, and not trust me, Liath?”

She did not need to answer because Sapientia was already waiting, impatient to be out on the hunt. She busied herself with duties beneath an Eagle, for Sapientia had servants aplenty, but keeping busy kept her away from Hugh. At last they rode out, a great cavalcade of noble riders, their servants on foot, the hounds and their handlers, and the king’s foresters who lived year round in the tiny village beside the royal lodge. Amid the noise and shouting and hubbub, Liath noticed a sudden and disturbing detail: Theophanu had clasped her hip-length riding cloak with a gold panther brooch. No one else appeared to notice, not even Sapientia.

3

AT first, the forest around the lodge lay fairly open. Trees grew back at shoulder height where they had been cut for firewood for the king’s hearth; half-wild pigs raced away into the shelter of brush and young trees. But soon the foresters led them into the older, deeper, uncut woods. The hounds were released, and the hunt was on.

Their course led them down a ravine and up a steep slope where half the riders had to dismount and lead their horses. Burrs caught on their cloaks. A gap formed between a forward group of the hardiest—and most reckless—riders, and a more cautious group. The unmounted servants lagged behind. Liath could barely keep up with Sapientia, who even halfway through her pregnancy was determined to ride at the head of the host.

Oak and beech had lost most of their leaves, though a scattering of pale gold and dull red leaves still clung to the branches of the trees. Here and there evergreens stood in clumps, shafts of dense green. Ghosts of morning mist wove around the boles of trees and settled in hollows or near pools of standing water. A light rain fell intermittently.

The progress of the hunters sounded a steady din through the litter and deadwood on the forest floor. Breaking through a dense growth of bracken, they flushed a covey of partridges. The king’s huntsmen laid about themselves and clubbed some down, dragging the dogs still with the company out of reach of the birds. Ahead, braches belled.

“Deer!” cried a forester. The chase was on.

Now the forward group itself split into two groups, King Henry and the older nobles falling behind to leave pride of chase to the younger adults. Sapientia rode to the fore, Liath laboring after her on a gelding more hardy than agile. Lord Amalfred, Lady Brigida, young lords and ladies shouting and whooping in their excitement, all pressed forward. Theophanu came up beside Liath, face intent. The panther clasp sparked in a flash of sunlight through the branches. She glanced back over her shoulder and, reflexively, Liath did as well. Hugh was behind them, but his presence was curiously lost to Liath as if for once he was not aware of her at all. His head was bent over his saddle and his lips moved soundlessly. With his left hand he clasped a tiny gold reliquary hung on a golden chain around his neck.

Sapientia disappeared into bracken. Lord Amalfred’s horse shied back, refusing to cross through the heavy growth of fern, and he kicked it forward, angry.

“Your Highness!” A forester called out to Theophanu. “A path! This way!”

Faced with a wall of bracken or a clear, if narrow, path, Liath chose to ride after Theophanu, but the princess’ horse was superior to hers in these woods, fearless and surefooted. Theophanu forged ahead as if she meant to catch up and pass her royal sister. As if she meant to have for herself what her sister wanted to possess.

“Out of the way! Out of the way!” cried a man behind her, and Liath just got her gelding aside before a group of some dozen young nobles including Lord Amalfred pounded past on the track. “I see the deer!”

“A deer! A deer!” The others took up the cry.

Liath saw it, too, a handsome doe springing away before them, bolting through the trees. Amalfred and the others pulled up, taking aim.

Except it wasn’t a deer. It was Theophanu, riding farther ahead of them into trees still wreathed with morning mist. It was an illusion. The memory of Gent hit her so like a blow that her hands went lax on the reins and she gasped aloud. An illusion that only she could see through. Even Sanglant, who wanted to believe, had not dared to.

She screamed. “Halt! Don’t shoot!” She yelled as loudly as she was able. “Your Highness! Say something! Pull up your horse!”

Did her warning reach that far?

Theophanu slowed her horse and began to turn, as if she had heard….

“Ai, Lady!” cried one of the noblemen. “It’s slowed. Now’s your chance!” He turned to wave a new rider forward. “Princess Sapientia. Come forward.”

But Lord Amalfred had already drawn down. “This one is mine!”

“Stop!” cried Liath, but Hugh rode up beside her and set his hand on her arm. Her voice vanished.

Theophanu was still turned, raising a hand in acknowledgment; there was an instant when her face registered the tableau behind her. Her expression froze in horror.

Amalfred shot. Another lord shot. The arrows sped toward their target.

She would not be powerless this time! She wrenched her arm out of Hugh’s grasp. Please God let her bring fire through her eyes alone. Let the fire in the vision of the burning stone pass through her as through a doorway, as though a daimone of the fiery sphere above had reached down below the moon and pressed its blazing touch onto the speeding wood of the arrows.

Both arrows ignited in midair. Theophanu threw herself off her horse. The wailing and shouting that deafened Liath now was its own conflagration.

“My God, the princess!”

“A miracle! A miracle!”

“Lord Amalfred, what meant you by this?”

“But I saw a deer. These others—!”