Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

“What should I care about such an old history, and written about heathens, at that?” asked Sapientia.

He raised one eyebrow. “Your Highness. Surely you are aware that the Dariyans, who were said to be half of humankind and half of elvish kin, conquered and ruled the largest empire the world has ever known. Only in the myths and tales of the ancient Arethousans do we hear of older and greater empires, that of Saïs which was swallowed by the waves, or of the wise and ancient Gyptos peoples across the middle sea. After the destruction of the Dariyan Empire the many lands they had once held together in greatness became the haunts of savages, and uncivilized heathens fought over the spoils. It was only a hundred years ago that the great Salian Emperor Taillefer restored the empire, by the grace of Our Lord and Lady, God of Unities. He had himself crowned Holy Dariyan Emperor, but at his death his empire was lost to the feuding of his successors.”

Sapientia’s expression cleared, and she looked oddly thoughtful. “Father believes that it is the destiny of our family to restore the Holy Empire of Dariya.”

“And so your family shall,” murmured Hugh, “and be crowned in Darre before the skopos, as was Taillefer.”

Liath shivered. Was this why Hugh had tried to murder Theophanu? So Sapientia would have no rival for the imperial throne, not just for the throne of the kingdom of Wendar and Varre?

He cleared his throat, took a sip of wine, and began to read out loud in his beautiful, almost hypnotic voice. “‘The fact is that we can obtain only an impression of a whole from a part, and certainly neither a thorough knowledge or an accurate understanding. It is only by combining and comparing certain parts of the whole with one another and taking note of their resemblances and their differences that we shall arrive at a comprehensive view.’”

Was that what Da was doing all along in the first part of The Book of Secrets? In that first part he had written down so many snippets from so many different sources, compiling them so that he could better understand the knowledge hidden in the heavens. She yawned, feeling a sudden sense of numbing lassitude, then shook herself back awake.

“‘By what means and in what time the people we know now as the Dariyans first came to Aosta rests outside my consideration. Instead, I shall take as my starting point the first occasion on which the Dariyans left Aosta, crossing the sea to the island of Nakria.’”

Sapientia snored softly. She had fallen asleep, as had two of her servingwomen; her other servants, seated around her, also nodded off. Liath had a sudden desperate fear that if she did not get up and get outside this instant, she, too, would fall asleep.

The youngest cleric spoke up from the other end of the room. “I beg you, Father Hugh, read to us of the seige of Kartiako.”

The distraction gave her cover. She crept out the door but took a wrong turn and at once was confused. The Augensburg palace boasted two reception halls, a solarium, courtyards, barracks, guest rooms, chambers for the regnant and for the duke of Avaria, a safe room for the king’s treasury, and a dozen cottages for envoys and servants. All this was built out of timber felled from the surrounding forest. Only the bathing complex and the chapel were built of stone.

Liath had left her saddlebags in the barracks, but Sapientia held her on such a tight leash that she’d had no time to commit the palace layout to memory. She retraced her steps. In the hall, everyone was asleep—and Hugh was nowhere to be seen. Backing out of the room, she tried again to find the barracks by cutting through a side corridor, but it only let her out through a tiny fountain courtyard where an old gardener sat dozing in the cold air on the lip of a frost-encrusted fountain. No water ran.

The reception room opened before her. Frescoes gleamed on the walls, splashes of color in the dim chamber. Great wooden beams spanned the ceiling. A languor hung over the hall. Two servants, brooms in hand, snored on the steps that led up to the dais and the regnant’s throne, itself carved cunningly with lions as the four legs, the back as the wings of an eagle, and the arms as the sinuous necks and heads of dragons. A woman had fallen asleep by the hearth fire while mending a seat cover; she had pricked herself with her needle, and a tiny drop of blood welled on her skin.

Suddenly uneasy, Liath climbed spiraling wooden stairs to a long corridor. Built above the north block of buildings, the corridor was reserved for the king, his family, and his messengers; it provided a way for him to proceed from one quarter of the complex to another without walking through the common rooms below or setting foot in the muddy alleyways. She hurried down the narrow corridor, not wider than the width of her arms outstretched. Now she remembered; the barracks lay in the northeast corner of the palace complex.

She became consumed with the fear that something was following her. She felt breathing on her neck, spun around. The far end of the corridor, down which she had just come, lay blanketed in darkness except where spines of light shone through cracks in the wooden shutters. A footstep scraped on the stair.

“Liath,” he said, his voice muted by the distance and the narrow walls. “Why are you still awake?”

She bolted.

She ran down the length of the corridor, scrambled, half falling, down the other stairs, banging her knee, wrenching a finger as she gripped a smooth square railing and shoved herself forward. It was dark in the palace, all the shutters closed against winter’s chill. Most of the nobles were out on the hunt. In every room she came to, every corridor she escaped down, those who had stayed behind slept.

Even in the barracks the soldiers rested, snoring, on straw mattresses on the floor. Her friend Thiadbold and a comrade slumped in chairs over a dice game and cooling mugs of cider. Beyond them, a ladder led up to the attic loft where she and the other Eagles slept. But as cold seeped in through the timber walls and the single hearth fire burned low and flickered out, she could not bring herself to go up the ladder. Once she climbed that ladder, she would be trapped.

She ran to Thiadbold. His Lion’s tunic folded at odd angles, creased by the twist of his body in the chair and the way his right arm was flung back over the chair back. His head lolled to one side, mouth open. She shook him.

“Please, I beg you, comrade. Thiadbold! Wake up!”

“Nothing you do will wake them, Liath,” he said behind her. He stood in the doorway, perhaps twenty paces away. He held a lamp in one hand. Its soft light gilded him, as gold does a painting or the favor of the king does a virtuous man.

“I’m very angry with you, Liath,” he added kindly, without raising his voice. “You lied to me.” Indeed, he sounded more hurt than angry. “You said you knew nothing about sorcery, and yet …” He lifted his free hand in a gesture of puzzlement. “… what am I to think now? Arrows bursting into flame in mid-flight. You are not asleep with the others.”

“Why do you want to kill Theophanu?” she demanded.

“I don’t want to kill Theophanu,” he said, as if disappointed she would think he did. He took a step forward.

There was another door at the far end of the barracks. But if she ran out now, he would get the book. Surely the book was what he had wanted all along.

“Liath! Stop!”

She did not stop, but when she reached the ladder, she scrambled up it, panting, heart so frozen with fear that her chest felt as if it were in the grip of some great beast. Heaving herself up over the top, she turned on her knees, grabbed the legs of the ladder, and yanked up.

And was jerked forward almost falling back down through the opening as Hugh caught the ladder from below and dragged it back down.

“Don’t fight me, Liath. You know it makes me angry.”