King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“Count Harl has granted Ivar permission to take Hanna south with his party, to Quedlinhame,” Liath said. Her voice was a little hoarse; she didn’t know why. She hardly knew she was speaking at all.

“Hanna? Ah, is that the girl’s name? Well, I will be abbot, Liath, and in a few more years I will be elevated to the rank of presbyter and gain the ear of the skopos herself. I can offer her better prospects than a common monk can. If you want her, I see no difficulty arranging the matter with her parents. Do you want her?”

Why not give in to the inevitable? If she had only managed Da’s affairs better. If she had only insisted he live more frugally. If she had not begged him last spring to let them stay just one more summer in Heart’s Rest.

What good did it do to fight this incessant struggle, when she could not possibly hope to win? She could not go on and on and on and on. And if Hanna was with her, surely everything else would not be so bad? She could study, and learn, and divine the secrets of the stars and perhaps far more besides. Perhaps she would discover the mystery of the rose burned into wood. That would be her consolation.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice emerged thickly. “I would like Hanna to come with us.”

“Where is the book, Liath?” His expression did not alter.

“The book.”

“The book,” he echoed. “The book, Liath. Tell me where the book is, and I will allow you to bring the girl with us.”

She closed her eyes. He touched her, drawing his fingers delicately around her collarbone, tracing her slave’s collar—no actual substance, not iron or wood or any element one could touch, but just as binding.

He had won. He knew it, and so did she.

She did not open her eyes. “Under slats, beneath the pigs’ trough, in the inn stables.”

He bent to kiss her lightly on the forehead. “I will arrange for the girl to accompany us. We leave in ten days.”

She heard the latch lift and then Hugh’s voice as he spoke to Mistress Birta, drawing her away down the stairs to the common room below. Ten days.

She covered her face with her hands and lay there, despairing.

2

THE days dragged by for Liath, one long day after the next. It took her far longer to recover her strength than even Mistress Birta had expected. At first she slept most of the time, an aching, fitful sleep made worse by the uncomfortable straw ticking of Hanna’s bed. Even getting up to relieve herself in the bucket by the door exhausted her.

By the time ten days had passed, she could negotiate the stairs once a day. She was sitting slumped on a bench downstairs at midday, waiting for the Mistress to bring her a meal, when Hanna came in from the yard.

Hanna’s face was red from the sun, but her eyes were red from tears, and she wiped her nose with the back of a hand, sniffing as if she had caught a cold. She sank down on the bench next to Liath, looking no less dispirited. “Ivar left this morning. I ran down when I heard, but he’d already gone. He didn’t even leave a message for me.”

Bitter shame wormed its way into Liath’s heart. “Mine is the fault. I’m sorry. He needed you. I shouldn’t have begged you to stay with me. He never wanted to be forced into the church. He wanted to ride in the Dragons. And he could have, if it wasn’t for me.”

“Ai, Mother of Life, spare us this!” exclaimed Hanna, letting out an exasperated sigh. “You’re as bad as he is. Of course he’ll be fine. Count Harl sent two servants with him, so he’ll have familiar faces with him at Quedlinhame. And if it’s true that King Henry stops there each spring, then he’ll be able to see his sister Rosvita, too. She’s a cleric in the king’s schola. So between her position and the gift Count Harl is making to the monastery, I’m sure Ivar will be treated very well. Probably better than his own father treated him, for there’s only the one child younger than him, and she’s the apple of her father’s eye. With the help of his sister Rosvita, Ivar might even come to King Henry’s notice. Don’t you think?”

Liath was able to emerge far enough out of her own misery to recognize that underneath Hanna’s practical assessment of Ivar’s situation lay a real misery of her own. “Yes,” she said, because it seemed to be the reassurance that Hanna wanted, “I’m sure he will. They’ll educate him.” She paused and took one of Hanna’s hands in her own. “Hanna.” She glanced around the empty room, listened, but they were alone. “I know you can tally well enough, but I’ll teach you to read and write. You’ll need to know, if you wish to rise to the position of chatelaine.”

Like an echo, Hanna looked around the room also, then toward the door that led out to the yard and the cookhouse. It sat ajar, and through it they heard Mistress Birta ordering Karl to run eggs down to old Johan’s cottage to trade for herbs. “But I’ve no church training. If I know how to read and write, won’t people call me a witch or a sorcerer?”

“No more than they’ll call me one.” She let go of Hanna’s hand and wrung her own together, suddenly nervous. “Listen, Hanna. You’d better know now, before we’re in Firsebarg. Da—”

“Liath. Everyone knows your Da was a sorcerer. A fallen monastic, too, but one lapse, one child, isn’t enough to get a man thrown out of the monastery. There must have been something else as well, disobedience, defiance, something more, like studying the forbidden arts. Deacon Fortensia has told us as many stories as I have fingers and toes about monks and nuns reading forbidden books in the scriptorium and falling into love with the dark arts. But your Da never did anything the least bit harmful, not like old Martha who tried throwing hexes on people who offended her, after she got proud about old Frater Robert sleeping with her. But she stopped that, once it was made plain to her that no one here would tolerate such things. But your Da was generous. What’s the harm in magic if it’s a helpful thing? So says the deacon.”

good did it do to fight this incessant struggle, when she could not possibly hope to win? She could not go on and on and on and on. And if Hanna was with her, surely everything else would not be so bad? She could study, and learn, and divine the secrets of the stars and perhaps far more besides. Perhaps she would discover the mystery of the rose burned into wood. That would be her consolation.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice emerged thickly. “I would like Hanna to come with us.”

“Where is the book, Liath?” His expression did not alter.

“The book.”

“The book,” he echoed. “The book, Liath. Tell me where the book is, and I will allow you to bring the girl with us.”

She closed her eyes. He touched her, drawing his fingers delicately around her collarbone, tracing her slave’s collar—no actual substance, not iron or wood or any element one could touch, but just as binding.