Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

The petals burned on his palm. Quickly he replaced it in the pouch. Then, trembling slightly, he took another log and set it on the hot coals. It smoldered, caught, and blazed, flames dancing along its length.

She wiped her nose again with the back of a hand and looked up at him. She reached, hesitated, then laid a hand on his arm. The touch was so light it might not have been there at all, and yet in that simple act Alain understood that, as with the hounds, he had won her trust forever.

5

HE crept back upstairs when the first stirrings of dawn reached him. She had fallen asleep hours ago. Yet he could not bear to leave and instead had sat watch over her and the fire for the rest of the night.

Upstairs, his father was awake and waiting for him.

“Alain.” He nudged Terror out of his way and swung his legs out of bed, rose, stretched, and then turned to examine his son with a frown. “Open the shutters.”

Alain obeyed. The sting of cold air chased along his skin like so many gnats.

“Close it again,” said Lavastine after examining him. “Have we not spoken of this? You of all people must be more careful than most.”

“Careful of what?”

“I hope you are not about to say you went out to the pits to relieve yourself when we have a perfectly good chamber pot here, and a servant to carry it away in the morning?” Alain flushed, having finally realized where his father thought he had been for most of the night. “Where have you been?”

“Down in the hall, talking with—”

“Talking with?”

“That’s all!”

“Perhaps it isn’t fair to expect so much from you. It’s a rare man who in his youth can resist a fair morsel set before him. Had God wanted us to remain as pure as the angels, They could have molded us differently, I suppose.”

“But I didn’t—”

“Is it the Eagle? You know they swear oaths. They aren’t allowed congress of that nature with any but their own kind, on pain of being thrown out of their Order. But you’re a good-looking boy, and fair spoken, and she’s a long way from the king. We each of us have our weaknesses.”

“But we didn’t—!”

“So it was the Eagle.”

“I talked to her. You know I’ve always told the truth, Father! I heard her crying and I went to see—I comforted her, that’s all. Can’t you send another messenger in her place?”

“Why shouldn’t she return to court? That is her duty.”

“She has an enemy at court.”

“An Eagle has an enemy at court? Why should anyone at court even notice such an Eagle, unless she has brought the king’s displeasure down on herself?”

“It isn’t that at all. There’s a nobleman at court, an abbot, who wants to force her to become his concubine.”

“Indeed.” Lavastine walked over to the shutters and opened them again, framing himself in the full blast of cold air. He stared outside, examining some sight in the courtyard below. No one could ever doubt Lavastine ruled here. He did not have the height or bulk of King Henry or of his own cousin Geoffrey, but even standing in his bare feet, dressed only in a linen undershift as a robe against the chill, he had authority, that absolute assurance that all he surveyed lay under his command. Some gray colored his sand-pale hair; no longer a young man, neither was he old in the way of men entering their decline. Alain wished he could feel so sure of himself, could in the simple act of opening a shutter proclaim his fitness to stand in his ordained place in the world. Aunt Bel had that assurance; so had his foster father, Henri. “Perhaps it’s even understandable, if the nobleman is insistent enough. If she becomes his concubine, she’ll lose her position as an Eagle. Then, should he tire of her, she would have no recourse except to return to her kin—if they would take her in.”

“She has no kin.”

“Then it is doubly wise of her to resist such an arrangement. I admire her pragmatism. She is better off in the Eagles.” He shut and latched one shutter, leaving a draft of cold air to spill into the room while he called over Terror, Ardent, Fear, and Bliss and leashed them to a ring set into the wall. “But I remain puzzled. Why did she confide in you?”

Alain hesitated. For an instant, he wanted to say, “Because she’s a wild creature, like the hounds, and she trusts me,” but the notion was so outrageous that he knew he could speak no such thing aloud. “I don’t know.”

Lavastine had marked the hesitation. “If you have conceived some fondness for the Eagle … you understand why nothing must happen, Alain. You of all people must be more careful—”

As he hadn’t been when the servingwoman at Lady Aldegund’s manor had accosted him. Only the savagery of the hounds had saved him from giving in to base desire! Hadn’t he learned anything from that? “I wouldn’t—if I’m to marry Lady Tallia—” But this was too much. He sat down heavily on the bench and buried his face in Sorrow’s flank. The thick smell of dog drove all impure thoughts out of his mind—or most of them, anyway, though he could not banish the image of Tallia. And why should such thoughts be impure? Wasn’t it true that desire came from the Lady and Lord, that They had granted it to humankind so that woman and man could create children between them?

“What wouldn’t you do since you’re to marry Tallia?” asked Lavastine, sounding more curious than anything.