King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

He grunted, looking satisfied, and gave the bow back to Liath. He said nothing about the carvings.

Mistress Gisela emerged from the longhouse. Her court—the womenfolk of her holding—trailed after her. Liath had seen men and boys and other women at work in the village and fields surrounding Steleshame when they had ridden in that morning. Gisela was a stout woman with the bold gleam of authority in her blue eyes. She was holding a spoon still wet with broth. The smell made Liath’s mouth water. Behind her, half grown girls dropped spindles down, then pulled them up again, spinning thread from flax.

“I hope, Master Wolfhere,” said Gisela sternly, “that you do not intend to have sport within these walls. Sword practice I do not frown on, but archery belongs outside. My chickens and these children are very valuable to me.”

“I beg your pardon, Mistress,” said Wolfhere. He gestured toward the bow and case. “Do you recall when this came to Steleshame?”

She frowned. “I haven’t seen it before, but you’d best ask the blacksmith. He knows more of which weapons come in and which go out.”

limped back to the wall, nudging chickens out of her way with her feet, handed the sword to Hanna, and drew the bow out of the bowcase. Hand on the grip, she turned the bow slowly, examining it, then pulled it close. She could discern three layers, a wood core with two strips of horn glued to the belly and sinew layered along the back. The back had been painted crimson; many fine lines and cracks disturbed the sheen of paint. The tips of the bow wore bronze caps, molded into the shape of griffins’ heads. These beaks, a thin gash, held either end of the bow string. The bow looked sound.

Nestled in the bowcase she found a silk bowstring. She licked her fingers, then pulled the string through them to smooth down any frayed ends. Finally she braced the bow between right knee and left thigh and, with a grunt, strung it.

She tested the draw by sighting toward the palisade gate. And saw suddenly, on the inside, that the innermost layer of horn was carved all along its length with tiny salamanders twined together like interlinking rings, their eyes flecked with blue paint. Woven into them were ancient letters. She read them falling like the flow of water down the belly of the bow:

I am called Seeker of Hearts.

Hathui had gone over to the water trough to sluice water down her hair and face. Dripping, she returned and motioned Hanna to go do the same, but stopped to examine the bow as Liath lowered it.

“That’s a Quman bowcase,” said Hathui, not admiringly. “I recognize its type. We took enough of them off dead Quman soldiers. Then we’d scrape them free of the taint of their heathen hands, all that ugly decoration. The bow must be of their make as well. Their bows were shorter than ours and curved backwards. But they were deadly all the same. And their arrows poisoned, like as not. Savages!” She spit on the ground.

Certainly they resembled old Dariyan letters, but these letters were altered in subtle ways from the letters carved into stone in the old fort or scratched into the hilt of her new sword, from the letters written in old crumbling scrolls she had seen in the scriptoria of monasteries where she and Da had taken shelter as they traveled.

Seeker of Hearts. The words came to Liath’s lips, but she could not speak them out loud. No one else seemed to have noticed the strange delicate carvings. The back of the bow was unmarked except for the paint; only on the inner curve, facing the archer, did the bow speak. So did Liath also keep silence. For as Da always said: “Words spoken rashly can be used as weapons against you,” and also, many times, “Keep silence, Liath! To speak out loud your secrets is like to a merchant opening a chest of jewels to every passerby on the road and thereby announcing his wealth to bandits.”

Like The Book of Secrets. She did not glance toward the stables, where their riding gear was stowed. Surely Wolfhere suspected she carried the book with her; he had seen Hanna with it. He had never mentioned it, never asked any questions about it, and to Liath, this in itself was suspicious.

“Where did it come from?” she asked, indicating the bow.

“I haven’t seen this bow before,” said Wolfhere, “but it has been five years since I’ve ridden through Steleshame.”

“I was here two years ago,” said Hathui. “I remember nothing like. Manfred?”

He shook his head and extended a hand to take the bow. Liath hesitated an instant, then forced herself to give it to him. He turned it this way and that, examining it, took an arrow from his own quiver, and sent a shot at the palisade. The dull thunk of the arrow burying itself in a log sent the chickens scattering and set the dogs to barking and the children to shrieking.

He grunted, looking satisfied, and gave the bow back to Liath. He said nothing about the carvings.

Mistress Gisela emerged from the longhouse. Her court—the womenfolk of her holding—trailed after her. Liath had seen men and boys and other women at work in the village and fields surrounding Steleshame when they had ridden in that morning. Gisela was a stout woman with the bold gleam of authority in her blue eyes. She was holding a spoon still wet with broth. The smell made Liath’s mouth water. Behind her, half grown girls dropped spindles down, then pulled them up again, spinning thread from flax.

“I hope, Master Wolfhere,” said Gisela sternly, “that you do not intend to have sport within these walls. Sword practice I do not frown on, but archery belongs outside. My chickens and these children are very valuable to me.”

“I beg your pardon, Mistress,” said Wolfhere. He gestured toward the bow and case. “Do you recall when this came to Steleshame?”

She frowned. “I haven’t seen it before, but you’d best ask the blacksmith. He knows more of which weapons come in and which go out.”

That Steleshame had its own blacksmith was a mark of the prestige granted it by the king’s protection. But the blacksmith, a short, burly man stained almost as dark as Liath by years of working in fire and ash, did not recognize the bow or the case, nor did he recall when or how the weapon had come to Steleshame. Indeed, no one did, and Gisela soon chased the children back to their chores and the women back to their weaving and spinning.

She presided over the midday meal of roasted chickens, leeks, bread, cheese, honeyed mead, and apples. When the meal was finished and all had toasted St. Bonfilia, whose day this was, Gisela allowed her niece, a handsome young woman with pale blonde hair, to bring forward the two new cloaks.

“Spun last winter,” she said, “of Andallan wool from the Pyrani Mountains. The wool from that region is particularly strong and warm. My cousin’s husband brought me four bags of it from Medemelacha.”

“Medemelacha is a long way from here,” said Wolfhere.

“He travels by ship every other year,” explained Gisela, not without pride. “We have a prosperous holding, enough to feed the king should his progress ever ride this way!”

“Be careful what you wish for,” muttered Hanna. “I can only imagine what it must take to feed all the people who travel with the king.”

“It has been six years since the king visited Gent,” said Wolfhere calmly, not seeming to scorn Mistress Gisela’s boast. “And with the current troubles we have heard of, perhaps you will get your wish.”