King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“Enough for a long siege?”

“Do you think the town will be besieged for that long? Surely Count Hildegard will lift the siege.” “If she can.”

The eating and drinking went on for what seemed to Liath an interminable time. An old man recited poetry in what he evidently conceived to be the style of the ancient Dariyans; Liath had read a copy of Virgilia’s Heleniad and cringed to hear him. But there were other poets who sang songs of their own devising that were more pleasing, songs about heroes of days gone by and episodes from the great epic, The Gold of the Hevelli. Musicians played on lyres and zithers. There was a juggler, and two girls who balanced and did tricks on a long rope held taut by two men.

But all in all, it was hot, smoky, noisy, and dull.

She excused herself, pleading a need for the privy. After she used it, she did not feel like venturing back inside. It had stopped raining, even cleared partially, so half the sky was stars. Liath clung to the shadows, breathing in the night air, the solitude; it was quiet except for the muted noise of the feast from the great hall and the distant tremor of drums. A quartet of women walked by, laughing merrily, headed for the kitchens, trays resting against their hips.

“A man’s a man because he grows a beard,” said one.

“But fraters and monks have no beards.”

“To make themselves more like women and thus more pleasing to Our Lady! They pledge their bodies and their honor to the church, by cutting off their beards. It is the mark of their service.”

“Is that what you say, then? A man’s no true man who has no beard and is not a churchman?”

“Well, my dear Fastrada,” said one who had been silent up until now, “that may well be true, but I speak truly when I say the prince is a man like any other. Or so it seemed to me.”

They all laughed heartily and demanded more details, which she refused to give them.

Liath slunk across the courtyard, praying she would not be noticed, and sneaked into the stables. No one had disturbed the empty stall; all was as she had left it. She went back outside.

The mayor’s palace stood on a rise near the eastern bank of the river, itself ringed by a smaller stockade of posts. Climbing the ladder that led to the small parapet, she found herself looking over the city of Gent, the eastern shoreline, and the dark line of the Veser River. The moon was almost at the quarter, waxing; it lent a pale glamour to the night. There were no guards. She supposed those who might once have stood watch here at the palace walls now were out on the city walls. East she saw the fires of the Eika camp stretching both north and south along the river as far as the eye could see. Gent was darker, only a faint gleam of light from the great hall and the distant bobbing torches that marked watchmen on their rounds in the city and guards posted along the city wall. Two dark lines, one east, one west, broke the line of the river: the two bridges that led to the broad island on which lay the city of Gent.

She was alone.

She stared up, thinking of Wolfhere’s words. The cluster of stars known as the Crown, toward which the constellation known as the Child reached, had passed out of the sky around the beginning of the year, at the spring equinox. The Lion was fading. Now the Dragon and the Serpent ruled the Houses of Night. The red planet—Jedu, the Angel of War—still shone in the house of the Archer, the bright quester. But soon—within seven days—red Jedu would pass into the house of the Unicorn: ambition joined to will. That foretold a time of advancement, when people with a strong will could take advantage of the power of their will and their clear sense of ambition to get ahead in the world.

Yet Da had always told her to be skeptical of those astrologia who claimed the ability to foretell the future from the movements and positions of the planets along the fixed sphere of the stars. There was a real power to be had in the knowledge of the heavens, but it was not this. She had long since memorized these teachings—though she did not have the ability to use them herself.

o;Will the prince be there?”

Wolfhere raised his eyebrows. “I suppose he will. Mayor Werner would not dare not to invite him, even if they do not get along. Sanglant is too much a lover of good food and drink to stay away.”

And it was good food, an astonishing feast for a city under siege: a side of beef braised with spices Liath had never tasted before; a pudding; apple tarts; two roasted pigs; white bread; and a great deal of wine. Liath followed Wolfhere’s lead and drank sparingly, cutting her wine with water. The prince sat at the other end of the table from her and matched Mayor Werner cup for cup.

Manfred looked disgusted.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered to him.

“Come winter townsfolk will starve for want of these scraps.”

It was the longest string of words she had ever heard him speak at one time. “Surely they have their own food stores”

“Enough for a long siege?”

“Do you think the town will be besieged for that long? Surely Count Hildegard will lift the siege.” “If she can.”

The eating and drinking went on for what seemed to Liath an interminable time. An old man recited poetry in what he evidently conceived to be the style of the ancient Dariyans; Liath had read a copy of Virgilia’s Heleniad and cringed to hear him. But there were other poets who sang songs of their own devising that were more pleasing, songs about heroes of days gone by and episodes from the great epic, The Gold of the Hevelli. Musicians played on lyres and zithers. There was a juggler, and two girls who balanced and did tricks on a long rope held taut by two men.

But all in all, it was hot, smoky, noisy, and dull.

She excused herself, pleading a need for the privy. After she used it, she did not feel like venturing back inside. It had stopped raining, even cleared partially, so half the sky was stars. Liath clung to the shadows, breathing in the night air, the solitude; it was quiet except for the muted noise of the feast from the great hall and the distant tremor of drums. A quartet of women walked by, laughing merrily, headed for the kitchens, trays resting against their hips.

“A man’s a man because he grows a beard,” said one.

“But fraters and monks have no beards.”