Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

It was cold, that night, but the fire burned steadily. Fir needles rained down on her at erratic intervals. Though she slept fitfully, this rough shelter with fir needles sticking through her cloak and the breath of winter wind chafing her neck and chilling her fingers was far better than any fine, warm, elegant chamber shared with Hugh. If winter harmed her, it would not be because it wished to but because of its indifference to her fate. Somehow, that vast and incomprehensible indifference comforted her. The stars wheeled on their round whether she died or lived, suffered or laughed. Against the eternity of the celestial sphere and the great harmony sung in the heavens, she was the merest flash, so brief in its passing that perhaps the daimones coursing in the aether above could no more comprehend her existence than she could comprehend theirs. After all those years running with Da, after what she had endured with Hugh, it was a great relief to be unworthy of notice.

Yet she was still not free. She so desperately needed a preceptor—a teacher.

Could Wolfhere see her through the fire? Was Hanna well? Coals glowed, and it was the work of a moment to feed sticks to the fire. Flames leaped up, bright yellow, and she pulled out the gold feather.

“Hanna,” she whispered as she spun the feather’s tip between thumb and forefinger, spinning the faint breath of air stirred by that turning into the licking flames of fire and twisting out of those flames a gateway through which she could see….

Sapientia sits restless in a chair, obviously unwell. Of all her attendants the only one whom she tolerates for more than a moment is Hanna, who speaks soothingly to her and gets her to drink from a silver cup. Of Hugh there is no sign.

The feather brushes Liath’s palm, and fire snaps and wavers. Now she sees a dim loft carpeted with straw. A man stirs, and in his unquiet sleep she recognizes him. It is Wolfhere. He murmurs a name in his dream and, that suddenly, as if a voice called to him, he wakes, opening his eyes.

“Your Highness.”

Liath’s sight blurs and sharpens, and she sees a pallet on which a woman lies in a desperate fever, clothes soaked in sweat. She is no longer in the loft. Here a trio of women stand over the patient, tending her. By their clothing Liath recognizes them as a servingwoman, an elderly nun, and the Mother Abbess of a convent.

“Your Highness? It is I, Mother Rothgard. Can you hear me?”

Mother Rothgard wrings out a cloth and turns the sufferer over to press the damp cloth to her forehead. As the lax face rolls into view, Liath recognizes Princess Theophanu, but so changed, all vitality burned out of her, leached away by fever. Mother Rothgard frowns and speaks to the servingwoman, who hurries out. She unfastens the princess’ tunic and eases it open to examine the young woman’s chest: Beads of sweat pearl on her nipples; moisture runs down the slope of her shoulder to vanish into her armpits. The thunder of Theophanu’s heartbeat, frantic, irregular, seems to resound in the small chamber. She wears two necklaces; one is a gold Circle of Unity, and the other—a panther brooch hung from a silver chain.

This brooch Mother Rothgard lays in her palm and examines. Turning it over with a finger, she traces writing too faint for Liath to see. The abbess has a clever face made stern by perpetual frowning.

“Sorcery,” she says to her attendant. “Sister Anne, fetch me the altar copy of the Holy Verses, and the basket of herbs sanctified under the Hearth. Speak of this to no one. If this ligatura comes from the court—even if Princess Theophanu survives—we cannot know who are our allies and who our enemies. This bespeaks an educated hand.”

Mother Rothgard speaks a blessing and Theophanu grunts, and the vision smears into the dull glow of fading coals.

The rain had slowed to a shushing patter, and as Liath replaced the gold feather against her chest and clasped her knees for warmth, the twilight faded into the chill expectation of dawn.

Sorcery. How powerful had Hugh become? Was she herself no longer immune to his magic? Had she ever been?

With this disquieting thought like a burden weighing on her, she saddled her horse and made ready to leave. As she took its reins to lead it out from under the shelter of the overhang, a stabbing pain burned at her breast. She pressed a hand to the pain … where the gold Aoi feather lay between tunic and skin.

In that pause, standing motionless and still half-hidden by the hanging evergreen branches, she heard a twig snap. Mounting, she drew her bow and an arrow out of its quiver. She laid the bow across her thighs and started west on the forest road, one hand on the bow, one on the reins.

A covey of partridges took wing, a sudden flurry, startled out of their hiding place. She stared into the undergrowth but saw nothing. But the crawling sensation grew: Someone—or something—watched her from the shelter of the trees.

She urged her horse forward as fast as she dared. With the next town so far ahead, she couldn’t risk exhausting her horse, and anyway the road was cut here and there with gashes, holes of a size to trap a horse’s hoof. Nothing appeared on the forest road behind her, nothing ahead. In the forest, all she saw was a tangle of trees and little sprays of snow where wind rattled branches.

Abruptly, dim figures appeared in the shadows of the forest, darting around the trees like wolves following a scent.

A whoosh like the hiss of angry breath brushed her ear, and she jerked to one side. Her horse faltered. An arrow buried itself into the trunk of a nearby tree. As delicate as a needle, it had no fletching. Pale winter light glinted off its silver shaft. Then, in the space of time it takes to blink, it dissolved into mist and vanished.

The scream came out of nowhere and seemingly from all directions: a ululating tremor, more war cry than cry for help. It shuddered through the trees like the coursing of a wild wind.

Maybe sometimes it was better to run than to stand and fight.

Galloping down the forest road, she hit the opening in the trees before she was aware that trees had been hacked back from either side of a wide stream. At the ford, a dilapidated bridge crossed the sluggish waters.

A party of men blocked the bridge and its approach. They raised their weapons when they saw her. She pulled up her horse and while it minced nervously under her, she glanced behind, then ahead, not sure what threatened her most. The men looked ill kempt, as desperate as bandits— which they surely were. Most of them wore only rags wrapped around their feet. A few wore scraps of armor, padded coats sewn with squares of leather. Only the leader had a helmet, a boiled and molded leather cap tied under his scraggly beard. But they stood in front of her, surly and looking prepared to run; they were tangible, real. She had no idea what had let loose with that scream.

“I am a King’s Eagle! I ride on the king’s business. Let me pass.”

By now they had guessed that she rode alone.

“Wendar’s king,” said the foremost, spitting on the ground. “You’re in Varre now. He’s no king of ours.”

“Henry is king over Varre.”

“Henry is the usurper. We’re loyal to Duchess Sabella.”