King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

She held her six-month-old infant in her arms, the child who it had been suggested might become heir to the childless Lavastine. One older woman, weeping, stepped out beside her, as if to throw herself before her lady, to save her from Lavastine’s sword or the hounds’ bloody fangs.

Alain grabbed tails and flanks, but still they slipped out and charged. They meant to kill her. They would kill her, if no one acted, and likely tear the infant child to pieces.

So he laid about him with the butt of his spear, without thought to the consequences. And he cried out sharply as he beat them back.

“Sit! Down! You will obey me, you beasts! Sit!” Terror had actually reached the lady’s skirts before Alain hit the hound so hard alongside the head that the animal was stunned. But the rest, finally, sat, though they growled menacingly, eyes fixed on the huddled mass of Lady Aldegund’s household.

Lavastine did not sheathe his sword. “You will pledge your loyalty to Lady Sabella’s cause, or you will leave,” he said.

Aldegund gasped aloud. She looked about to faint, but when her faithful kinswoman touched her on the elbow, she steadied herself. “That is impossible,” she said proudly. “My kin traces its allegiance back to the first King Henry, when Queen Conradina passed over her brother Eberhard in favor of naming Henry, then Duke of Saony, as her heir. Though I married into a Varrish family, I will not betray the faith my kin have held in their hearts for so many generations.”

How much it cost her to say this Alain could not imagine. He no longer knew what Lavastine would do. Surely she could not know either and she with a babe in her arms and two young stepchildren to protect. And of course she could not know, not yet, what had happened to her husband.

Lavastine remained unmoved by this brave statement. He said, in that flat voice: “You will give me the children as surety for your good behavior. Then you will leave this place with your retinue and return to your mother’s lands.”

“These are my mother’s lands!” Aldegund protested. “They were given to me upon my marriage! You cannot take them!”

“Can you prevent me? These lands now serve Lady Sabella’s cause. I will set a chatelaine over them until such time as you choose the wiser course and support Sabella, or until Sabella herself appoints a new lady to administer them.” He gestured, and his men—rather hesitantly but without any appearance of moving to contravene his orders—came forward, rounding up the children.

Alain had finished tying the hounds together on a long leash. They nipped and snarled at each other, but they no longer resisted him. Only Rage and Sorrow did he trust enough to leave off the leash. They sat by the stairs like sentries, watching.

Aldegund clutched the infant against her breast. “This one I will not give up!” she exclaimed. “I am still nursing her. It is an offense against Our Lady to take children unwillingly from their mothers!”

“Leave her the infant at least, Count Lavastine,” Alain muttered. He could not know whether the count had heard him.

But Lavastine blinked. His pale hard gaze faltered. He batted at his face, as if to brush away a fly. “Just the elder children,” he said, sounding uncertain, almost bewildered. But the moment was brief.

Aldegund’s mouth trembled but she did not give way to tears. Lord Geoffrey’s two children by his first wife were taken away. Lavastine sheathed his sword and glanced at Alain, marking him with some confusion. Then he shook his head and stiffened, losing all expression. He snapped his fingers and the hounds, swarming together because they were tied to the leash, approached him, licking his fingers and fawning at his boots. He took the leash, turned, and with no further speech to anyone left the great hall.

They celebrated the Feast of St. Sormas at the holding, but it was a somber feast. Only Lavastine and his men-at-arms ate at the banquet tables, served grudgingly but without protest by the servants of Geoffrey and Aldegund. Geoffrey was confined to the tower cell and Aldegund and her retinue to the loft upstairs.

In the morning Lavastine allowed the women to leave with only enough food for the fiveday’s journey east into Wendish lands, where lay the estate of Lady Alberga, young Aldegund’s mother. It was a pathetic procession that set out—Aldegund, the infant, and her two kinswomen, as well as the wet nurse and only two serving-women. How could anyone be expected to know she was a lady, with such a paltry retinue? Aldegund was not even allowed to keep her own horses but had to ride on the back of a donkey.

Geoffrey was not well enough to travel; the wounds he had sustained from the hounds were bad, although likely not mortal. He was left in the care of frater, with orders that he vacate the holding as soon as he could travel.

Lavastine appointed a chatelain from among his own serving-men, a man born of free parents who had placed himself in the count’s service in hopes of gaining something more than the youngest son’s share of his parents’ farmstead. If Sabella’s rebellion turned out to her advantage, this man might well find himself steward of a good holding. If it did not …

But as Alain watched wagons of provisions trundling out of the holding—vegetables and legumes taken from the storerooms, shields, good spearheads and strong wooden shafts, a few swords, old helmets and new, cloth for tunics and tabards, milled grain, leather, and five small coffers filled with the silver and gold that constituted both Geoffrey’s movable wealth, brought to the marriage as his groom’s gift, and Aldegund’s portion of her family’s wealth—he saw how Sabella improved her chances of winning the throne by this victory.

They marched south through the borderlands that had once separated Wendar and Varre and which were still lands that had as many hands in one pot as the other. At two holdings they found enthusiastic support, and Lavastine took on twenty-four more men as soldiers, though they marched under their own captains.

But over the next ten days they took over three holdings whose noble lords and ladies professed loyalty to King Henry. Not one of these holdings, after they saw Lavastine’s retinue and heard his blunt speech, resisted. All of them kept their lives but lost fully half of their movable goods. Lavastine’s supply train grew longer and longer, and the five coffers of silver and gold and gems grew to nine.

Soon they reached lands loyal to the duke of Varingia, and they turned westward, back into Varre, to find and join Sabella’s army.

“So were Lady Sabella’s followers stripped of their lands and wealth after her rebellion failed eight years ago,” said Master Rodlin one night when he came back from tending to the horses. He was obviously deeply troubled; otherwise he rarely spoke to Alain and certainly not to confide in him.

Alain had fed and watered the hounds and tied them under a wagon for the night. There they lay, five of the eight who remained—Fear, Bliss, Ardent, Steadfast, and Good Cheer, their eyes open and unwinking, staring at him and at the snapping fire. Now that Joy was dead, old Terror slept in Lavastine’s tent, and Alain let Rage and Sorrow run unleashed beside him because he could now trust them to do as he wished and leave people alone.

Alain wanted to speak. He wanted to say, “Is it any fairer when Henry’s supporters are divested of lands or riches that have been held in their family for generations?”

But he did not speak. He dared not. They would think he sympathized with King Henry.

He did not. He knew nothing of Henry except the name, not truly. Nor did he sympathize with Sabella. How could he, knowing what he did of Biscop Antonia’s actions and Sabella’s willing complicity in them?

He had a great deal of time to think, and think he did. Of course foremost in his heart was God, Our Lady and Lord, and after them his own kin, his father Henri and Aunt Bel and his cousins. But he had left his family far behind, in distance if not in his heart.

avastine blinked. His pale hard gaze faltered. He batted at his face, as if to brush away a fly. “Just the elder children,” he said, sounding uncertain, almost bewildered. But the moment was brief.