Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

“Up in the ring of stones, I should think,” said Sister Amabilia. “And poor Villam lost his son in a ring of stones.”

“He did?” demanded Brother Constantine. “I never heard that story.”

“That was before you came to us,” said Amabilia sweetly, never loath to remind the solemn young man that he was not only young but the son of a Varren lady sympathetic to Sabella. “Young Berthold was a fine young man, a true scholar, I think, though it’s a shame he was being kept out of the church so that he could be married.”

“But what happened to him?”

Brother Fortunatus wheeled around, excited by the prospect of gossip. “He took a group of his retainers up to explore the ring of stones above the monastery of Hersfeld …” He paused, relishing Constantine’s wide-eyed stare, and dropped his voice to a dramatic whisper. “… and they were never seen again.”

“Hush!” said Rosvita, surprised at her own snappishness. “Berthold was a good boy. It isn’t right to make a game of his loss and his father’s grief. Come now.” She saw Hugh seat himself on an old wall somewhat away from everyone else and open his book. “You may look around, as you wish. Brother Constantine, you may wish to discover if there are any Dariyan inscriptions on the stones and whether you can read them. Do not approach the king unless he requests your company.” Together with Villam, the king had vanished into the circle of stones, a half dozen Lions and his favorite Eagle hard on his heels. “Go on.” They scattered like bees out to search for honey. Rosvita composed herself, then strolled casually across the ruins, picking her way over fallen stone and mounds of earth, until she reached Hugh.

“Father Hugh.” She greeted him as she seated herself on a smooth stretch of wall. “You must be pleased at your mother’s loyalty, sending her physician so far away from her lands in order to attend Princess Sapientia.”

As he turned to smile at her, he gently closed the book; she gained only a glimpse of a bold hand scrawled in uneven columns down the page. “Indeed, Sister. But I believe my mother intends to return to the king’s progress as soon as she has completed her business in Austra.”

“Ah, yes, her marriage. Have you had any recent news?” Since any recent news would have spread to her clerics the instant it came in, this was pure gambit, and she knew it. Perhaps he did as well, but he was hard for her to read, never being anything less than polite and well-mannered.

“None, alas. But perhaps,” and now he smiled with a sudden and winning shrewdness, “Brother Fortunatus has heard that which we are not yet privy to.”

That made her laugh. Hugh had much the look of his father about him. The Alban slave Margrave Judith kept as concubine had still been a fixture at court when Rosvita arrived in the last years of King Arnulf. No young woman, even one pledged to the church, could have failed to notice him, although upon closer examination he had proved to be stupid and vain. But in the end he had died in a hunting accident and the boy child who had come some years previously of this begetting had been given to the church. Hugh did not have the sheer breathtaking beauty of his father, but he was handsome enough that it was no wonder Sapientia had seduced him. If, indeed, the seduction had been one-sided, which Rosvita doubted. For all his arrogance, Hugh had always been noted as a dutiful son to his mother; by becoming Sapientia’s favorite and adviser, he enhanced his mother’s strength among the great princes of the realm.

“It is a fine day, is it not, Father Hugh?” She lifted her face to the sun.

“I am only sorry the king should find sadness on such a favored day.” He indicated the ring of stones above. Henry and Villam could be seen moving slowly among the stones. Henry had an old rag pressed to his face, dabbing now and again at his eyes.

“He must lay the prince to rest in his own heart,” she said, forgetting her own purpose for a moment, “before the prince can go to his rest above.” She gestured toward the sky.

“Can he?” asked Hugh suddenly. “He is half of elvish kin, and it is said they wander as dark shades on this earth after they die.”

“Only God can answer that question. You and Sanglant were of an age, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, the words clipped short.

“But you attended the king’s schola, and he did not.”

Hugh looked away, up toward the stones. He was tall, though not as tall as Sanglant had been, and fair-haired where Sanglant had been dark. As a churchman he went beardless, and in this way he might be said to resemble the dead prince; in all other ways they were utterly unlike. Indeed, Rosvita knew very well that Sanglant had been a favorite at court in his youth; Hugh, while tolerated, envied, and sometimes grudgingly admired, had never inspired liking—not until now. “There is no virtue in speaking unkindly of the dead,” he said at last. His hand shifted on the book he held, bringing it back to her notice.

“True words, Father Hugh,” she said, seeing her opening. “What book is that you carry?”

He blinked. Then he glanced at the book, tucked his fingers more tightly around its cracked leather binding, and returned his gaze to her. “It is a book I have been studying for some time.”

“How curious. I could swear that I saw that book before Princess Sapientia returned to the king’s progress. Before you came back to us with her. Yes.” She pretended to consider, then carefully looked away, surveying the ruins and the fine view of trees and stream and distant village as if the book was of only passing interest. After a while of basking in pleasant silence in the spring sun, as if she had just that instant recalled their conversation, she turned back to him. “I must be mistaken. I saw a book like to this in the possession of one of the Eagles. What was her name? These Eagles all run one into the next.”

He raised his eyes to look at her but said nothing. She found a cluster of white flowers growing out from a crevice within the stones that was filled in with dirt. Plucking them, she pressed the rustic bouquet to her nose.

“Liath,” he said finally, so baldly that she was startled, and showed it.

“Ah, yes, Liath,” she managed, lowering the flowers. “A curious name, Arethousan in origin, I believe.” He did not reply. “Didn’t you serve as frater in the north, Father Hugh?”

“I did indeed, in that region called Heart’s Rest, just south of the emporia of Freelas.”

“Now there is a strange coincidence. The Eagle, Liath, and her comrade, Hanna—who is now Sapientia’s Eagle—both came from Heart’s Rest.”

“That is where you come from as well, is it not, Sister?”

“So it is.”

“You are the second child of Count Harl, I believe.”