King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“You will ride.” He mounted and waited there, the reins of his gelding tight in his hands, until she at last lifted a hand and he pulled her up behind him.

The ride back was long, and it was silent.

But he was warm.

That night winter blew in in earnest. It was cold, bitter cold. She could not sleep. She shuddered, there with the pigs, and rose in the middle of the night and stamped her feet, up and down, up and down, until daylight. She was so tired while she did her work that day that once he came upon her dozing on her feet. Or perhaps twice. Her shoulders and head were so bruised from his beatings that one more made no difference.

Clouds came the next night and with them snow. That eased things a little, for though it was damper it was slightly warmer. But all the next week, with snow still blanketing the ground, it was clear. So cold it was, all day. With every scrap of clothing she possessed, still she shivered all day. By evening she was numb with cold. She ached with it. She tried to move constantly, though she was exhausted, even when she was in the kitchen, shifting, stamping, trying to get warmth past the surface and down into her bones. She would never be warm again. It was a constant pain consuming her, the coldness.

telaine ushered them into Harl’s private chamber. The old count was still in bed, covers heaped around him. A tonsured and clean-shaven cleric wrote to his dictation onto parchment. Ai, the room was so very warm. Liath inched toward the hearth. Hugh grabbed her and jerked her back to stand beside him in a cold eddy of air.

“Count Harl,” he said curtly. He offered Harl only a stiff nod. It was a remarkable piece of arrogance, and if Liath hadn’t hated him so much she would have admired his astounding vanity: that he, a mere bastard, considered a legitimate count his social inferior. But his mother was a margrave, a prince of the realm, and his family far more powerful than Harl’s. “This stripling of yours has just attempted to steal my slave.”

Liath risked a glance toward Ivar, who stood by the door. His face was bright red, and a few tears streaked his face. It wasn’t fair that he be humbled so for trying to help her. Yet she dared not speak.

Harl rubbed at his grizzled beard and considered Hugh with obvious dislike. In the silence, a man marked on the cheek with the brand of the unfree came in to pour fresh coals into the brazier. Liath’s gaze flinched away from him. Harl ignored the slave and turned his gaze to his son. “Is it true, Ivar?”

“I’ve some silver saved, not enough yet, but … but others have offered to help me make the price. To buy out her debt price.”

“She is not for sale,” said Hugh smoothly. “Nor will there be any manumission but the one written by my own hand.”

“You have not answered my question, Ivar.”

Ivar glanced, searingly, toward Liath, then bowed his head. “Yes, my lord.”

Harl sighed and looked back at Hugh. “What do you want?”

“I want nothing except your promise it will not happen again.”

Hope flared. Could it be possible that Hugh actually feared that Ivar might find a way to free her? Everyone knew Count Harl disliked the frater.

“Very well,” said Harl. He looked as if he were contemplating maggots in his meat. “It will not happen again.”

“How can you assure me?” demanded Hugh.

Count Harl had much the same coloring as his son: Liath watched a flush spread across his lined skin. “Are you doubting my word?” he asked softly. The tone in his voice made her shiver. To gain this man’s dislike was one thing; to gain his enmity, something else.

Hugh smiled, his ugliest, most insincere smile, made the worse because it affected his beauty not at all. “Certainly not, Count Harl. I would never question your honor. But your son is young and impulsive. And my property is quite valuable to me.”

For the first time, Harl looked straight at Liath, so hard a gaze that she had no choice but to meet his eyes. He was appraising her—teeth, face, build, youth, strength—and whether he thought her worth unlikely or obvious she could not tell from his expression. At last he looked back at Hugh.

“You may rest easy, Frater. Your property will remain safe from my son. There is a monastery in Quedlinhame where my first wife gave birth safely in a storm, many years ago now. I have wished for these many years to endow them with some manner of thanksgiving. I intend to send Ivar south to be invested as a monk there. He will trouble you no longer.”

Liath gasped. Ivar went white. Hugh’s lips moved, not into a smile but into an expression so deeply satisfied it was almost obscene.

“Now get out,” said Harl brusquely. “If you please. I’ve work to do. Ivar! You will remain with me.”

Ivar cast her a last, despairing glance as Hugh shepherded her out in front of him. A man-at-arms escorted them down the hill to the palisade wall, where Hugh’s gelding waited, tended by a stableboy.

“You’ll ride with me,” said Hugh.

“I’d rather walk.”

He struck her, hard, and only by instinct did she duck away quickly enough that the blow glanced off the side of her head.

“You will ride.” He mounted and waited there, the reins of his gelding tight in his hands, until she at last lifted a hand and he pulled her up behind him.

The ride back was long, and it was silent.