King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

His tone changed, and his eyes, so hard, were riveted on her. “Liath. From now on you will ride out with me. You can ride, can you not?”

She nodded mutely.

“Then come.”

“But it’s so cold out there.”

“You will come. Now.”

She rose and went.

5

WITHOUT even looking up at Hanna, without acknowledging her, Liath stood. She walked down the chapel aisle as stiffly as if strings moved her limbs for her, walked past Hugh and out into the church.

In the instant after she passed out of sight, Hugh looked right at Hanna, really seeing her. He studied her as if trying to decide if she posed a threat to them. Then, with an unconscious, deprecatory toss of his fine head, he dismissed her from his mind and turned to follow Liath out.

“You fool,” said Hanna under her breath, watching his form fade into the unlit gloom of the church. And yet, how could she look upon him and then turn without loathing to meet young Johan, with his pox-marked face and dirty fingernails and heavy, deliberate speech, on the marriage bed?

“You fool,” she said again, just to make sure she understood perfectly well what she was. Satisfied, she knelt on the padded cushion where Liath had knelt, warmed by the brazier. And she thought, long and hard, about what she had just seen.

When she left the church, she did not set off for the inn but rather on the long walk to Count Harl’s holding. Possibly, just possibly, she could talk her way in to see Ivar where his father was holding him in isolation until the spring journey to Quedlinhame. She knew a hundred ways to coerce him—however bitter he might be, for everyone knew now that the southern girl was the frater’s concubine—into taking a message with him when he went south.

That man, passing through town three months before, had worn no clothing, no badge, that might identify him. But late that night as she stoked the fire, she had watched him writing on parchment. A letter, perhaps, although he was clearly not a churchman; he had a beard. What kind of soldier knew how to write?

She had edged closer, trying to get a look, and by chance and luck had seen him inscribe a symbol at the bottom of the parchment. She could not read, of course, but an innkeeper’s daughter recognized many symbols. This symbol she knew well, although they saw it rarely enough as far north as Heart’s Rest.

It was the badge of the King’s Eagles.

V

THE INNER HEART

1

“FOR it is said, in the Holy Book,” preached Frater Agius, “that our suffering is the penance we endure for our sins.”

And it was true, reflected Alain as he stood for the final prayer. He had never been as happy, and yet as utterly miserable, as these last two seasons: autumn passing into winter and now, with the thaw approaching, winter promising to circle round, as all of life passed time and again along the Circle of Unity, into spring. He was learning the craft of the man-at-arms, like the warriors in old tales, just as he had been promised in the vision on Dragonback Ridge and just as he had always hoped he might. Yet, because of the hounds, because he had in his heart turned away from service to the Lord and Lady as he had been sworn by his father to give, he was shunned by every man and woman in the holding except for Lackling.

“Give the blessing,” spoke the congregation as one.

Agius lifted his hands toward the heavens. He had a strong voice, one suited to the long sermons with which he edified the congregation of Lavas Holding now that Deacon Waldrada was so sick with the lungfever she could not speak above a whisper.

“May the blessed Daisan, who now resides in the bosom of Our Mother, have mercy upon us and save us. May St. Cecilia, whose day this is, and St. Lavrentius, whose bones sanctify this church, and all of the saints, and our mother among the saints, Clementia, second of that name, skopos in Darre, intercede for us with the Mother and Father of Life, for They are gracious and loveth humankind. Amen.”

Alain waited with the rest of the retainers while Count Lavastine and his kinsfolk left the church. He touched Lackling’s elbow, but the boy stared at the great church window, colored red and gold and azure and emerald green, his head skewed oddly to one side so he looked more like a goblin’s child than a young man born of a human mother. But he had, always, a fey, misshapen look about him. The rest of the congregation filed out. Alain tugged harder on Lackling’s arm, and suddenly the other boy started, glancing wildly around, and fumbled at his belt. He drew out a dirty piece of cloth, unwrapped it to reveal a lump of crumbling cheese and an onion. Eagerly he pressed past Alain and walked with his rolling limp toward the vestibule and the doors.

Alain hurried after him. “Lackling,” he called after him, trying to whisper. “You may not. It is forbidden.” “My friend.”

Alain turned. Frater Agius regarded him from the altar. Agius’ bright gaze made him nervous, and it seemed to Alain that since the episode with the hounds the frater’s bright gaze was turned his way far too often. He ducked his head in answer.

“Chatelaine Dhuoda tells me you were destined for the church.”

“Yes, Brother.” He kept his gaze lowered. “I was meant to enter the monastery at Dragon’s Tail.”

“A King’s monastery, was it not?”

“Yes, Brother.”