King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

Like a rabbit frozen in the sight of a wolf, she stared at the ring. Outside, the rain slacked off, fading to intermittent drips.

“Had I found you sooner,” he added sternly, “then perhaps your father would not now be dead.” He lifted a hand, and she flinched away from him. “Ai, Lady!” he swore under his breath. “Now listen you to me, young woman. Listen and heed me well. I will not compel you to enter the king’s service as an Eagle. You are free, whatever you choose next, and you may go your own way if you so choose.”

“Where else can I go?” she asked bitterly, “but back to Hugh? And I’ll never go back to him.”

“I will not compel you,” he repeated. “But neither will I take you into the Eagles unless you trust me with your full name and lineage. Which will it be?” He took the ring out of her hand and weighed it, such a light thing as it was, in his palm. “To ride with the Eagles, you must give your trust wholly to your comrades. Otherwise it is worth nothing. If you do not trust me in this small a thing, then you are too dangerous, to weak a link, for us to trust you in our turn.”

“Names are not small things.”

“That is true.” He bent his head, acknowledging her point. “That is why we ask for them.”

“Why did you free me?”

“Because I knew Anne.” She started. It was so strange, almost frightening, to hear that name from any voice except her father’s. Wolfhere smiled wryly. “I knew you as well, when you were still a babe.” “I don’t remember you!”

“Nevertheless,” he replied, as calm as ever, “Anne asked me to watch over you, should anything ever happen to her.”

She wanted to trust him, but after Hugh she dared not trust anyone. As he studied her, looking more patient than amused, she studied him in return. Advanced in age he certainly was, but vigorous still and with the natural authority that comes to any man who has lived long years and survived hardship. An old scar traced a line down his neck, missing the throat vein by a finger’s-breadth. He sat with the steady imperturbability of a man equally used to the councils of kings and the gossip of farmers in a local inn. It would be so easy to just give in to his request, but that was not what he asked of her. What he asked was infinitely harder.

Maybe, just maybe, it was safe to open the first, the lowest, gate in the city of memory. Maybe she could learn to trust him, to trust the other Eagles, as comrades. Her hands shook as she took the ring out of his open palm. “Liathano is my true name,” she said, her voice scarcely more than a murmur. “I am the daughter of Anne and Bernard. I know nothing more of my lineage.”

So was it done. She was shaking so hard she could barely slip the ring onto her finger, the seal of their bargain. He stood up at once, and though he was not a particularly tall man, he was, without question, imposing. “Welcome, Liath,” he said somberly, “into the Eagles. You will find your service hard, but I do not think you will ever regret choosing it. When I return from Freelas, we ride south.”

So he left her. “We ride south.” This morning, those words had filled her with despair. Now those same words held all the world of possibility in them.

She lay down, but although she was still exhausted, she could not sleep. The straw ticking stuck her in new places every time she shifted on the pallet. The rain had started to pound again, a new shower, and the damp air brought the scent of mold creeping out from the wood. She sneezed.

A scratch came at the door and Hanna peeked in. She, too, wore a ring, symbol of her new status. “I thought you would want to know,” she whispered, sitting on the bed next to Liath, “that it’s back in the hiding place. You’re free, Liath.”

Free.

Liath was too tired to reply, so she simply laid her head against Hanna’s arm.

Where was Hugh now? Getting farther away with each step, please the Lady. And yet was Wolfhere any better or just another one who wanted to imprison her in a cage of his own making? How had he known her mother? Had he known Anne was a sorcerer? Why had he sought and how had he found Liath over such a long trail, pursued for so many years? Why had Da never spoken of such a man, and why did she herself not remember him, from those old dim memories of the fine cottage and the bright garden?

Yet what was it Da always said? “No use regretting that you’re going to get wet, Liath, once you’ve closed the door behind you on a rainy day.”

The rain, and Hanna’s warmth, lulled her to sleep.

VII

LEAVETAKING

1

ALAIN never found Lackling’s body, although for days after, when he got a chance and deemed it safe, he went up and searched through the ruins for any sign of newly turned earth.

But he did not truly expect to find anything. The morning after that horrible night, by design he strayed past Lady Sabella’s livestock train out beyond the palisade and took up a station where he might observe the shrouded cage and its mysterious occupant. With his oddly keen hearing, which he still had not grown used to, he overheard the keepers of the shrouded cage speaking among themselves.

“Not much meat left on the carcass but, aye, that will satisfy the beast for now, thank the Lady.”

He only stopped looking after Lady Sabella’s entourage packed up and left, a grand procession winding its way southwest on the road that led toward the lands controlled by the duke of Varingia. That night, Lavastine called all his people together into the great hall and stood before them. Chatelaine Dhuoda and the clerics waited behind him, but to Alain’s eyes they looked as mystified as the rest.

Lavastine looked pale and listless. He stood without moving for a long time, staring into the air as if he saw something there none of the others could see. It was so unlike him, a man made decisive by long habit and a tendency to impatience, that Alain felt a sick sour feeling growing in his stomach—a feeling of dread. The hounds whined, crouching at their master’s feet. Rage and Sorrow, as was their wont, sat panting and watching at Alain’s heels; they remained, since the night of the sacrifice, remarkably subdued.

This, too, was marked. Most everyone in Lavas Holding now treated Alain with a skittish deference tinged with disgust, like a man who is afraid to spit on a leprous beggar lest he turn out to be a saint in disguise.

“We will leave,” said Lavastine suddenly. “We will arm ourselves with weapons and supplies and leave on St. Isidora’s Day. We will celebrate the Feast of St. Sormas at the hall of Lady Aldegund, wife to my cousin Lord Geoffrey. There they will be given a choice: join Sabella’s rebellion, or lose their lands.”