Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

She fought him anyway, but though she was physically strong, he had the advantage, braced on the floor. It was a losing battle. It had always been a losing battle. And once he fought the legs back into their braces and settled his full weight on the bottom rung, it made no difference. The opening was too small for her to cast the ladder off and drop it away.

She scrambled back, scraping palms against the rough-hewn plank floors, rising and bumping her head against the low pitch of the ceiling. Her feet got tangled in gear, but she knew her own gear, knew it as well as the feel of Da’s hand holding hers when she woke at night from a bad dream. She grabbed the leather saddlebags, draped them over a shoulder. Her quiver caught on a beam above, and she stumbled.

eception 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.”

She fought him anyway, but though she was physically strong, he had the advantage, braced on the floor. It was a losing battle. It had always been a losing battle. And once he fought the legs back into their braces and settled his full weight on the bottom rung, it made no difference. The opening was too small for her to cast the ladder off and drop it away.

She scrambled back, scraping palms against the rough-hewn plank floors, rising and bumping her head against the low pitch of the ceiling. Her feet got tangled in gear, but she knew her own gear, knew it as well as the feel of Da’s hand holding hers when she woke at night from a bad dream. She grabbed the leather saddlebags, draped them over a shoulder. Her quiver caught on a beam above, and she stumbled.

“Liath.” He had no lamp, but she needed no lamp to see his shadow emerge into the loft and swing onto the floor.

Bent over, breathing in gasps more like whimpers, she drew her short sword.

“Now we shall have this out. And you will put away your sword, my beauty.” He walked forward two steps, one hand held out. “I have no doubt you can thrust that blade through me, but what will you tell them when they find me dead? You will be condemned for murder, and executed. Is that what you want? Give me the sword, Liath.”

“I’ll tell them you used sorcery to spell everyone to sleep and then tried to rape me.”

He laughed. “Why would anyone believe you? Can you imagine such a story coming to my mother’s ears and what she would say about it? A mere Eagle accusing a margrave’s son?”

Theophanu would believe her, but Theophanu had charged her to keep silence on the matter of sorcery. Theophanu had her own plans and, to a royal princess, an Eagle was simply another servant.

“I am right, as you know,” he added, his tone coaxing. “Put down the sword.”

“Get away from me,” she whispered. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”