King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

Werner could not bring himself to give the order until he had been helped to the safety of the palisade wall, out of reach of the ravening hordes should they decide to swarm inside. But once on the parapet, he could be seen by the crowd beyond. Liath climbed up after him and saw people below. They were, indeed, country folk and poor people, frightened, thin, and desperate—the same sort of people she had pressed through yesterday. Seeing the mayor above they began to call out, some with anger, some pleading, some cursing. One man lifted a tiny child above his head as if willing the mayor—whose round red face clearly betrayed that he never wanted for food—to see the hunger on the child’s face. A few had staves or scythes, and these shook them angrily while Werner tried to shout out a few conciliatory phrases but got nowhere; nor could he be heard above their noise.

The gates opened. Sanglant walked out, spear in his left hand, right hand raised, open, and empty. He had no escort. Suddenly nervous, Liath got out her bow, nocked an arrow, and drew down on the prince so she could get the first shot in if anyone assaulted him.

He glanced up as if he had heard the creak of the string rubbing against the bronze caps as she drew it back. He smiled—his charming smile—up at her, as if her protection amused or flattered him, and for an instant she forgot where she was and what she was doing there. Then he looked away, out into the crowd, and lifted his spear. The people moved restlessly, their attention shifting suddenly from the mayor to Sanglant. He waded out into their midst, obviously unafraid; he was easy to follow because he was half a head taller than the tallest person there. They parted to let him through, and at some point he found a box or a block of stone to stand on and with this platform he held the spear up over his head and with his right hand gestured for silence.

To Liath’s amazement, the crowd quieted.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” murmured Werner, and then, suddenly, realizing Sanglant was not about to be set upon and rent limb from body by the mob, he stopped muttering.

“You must pick three of your number,” said Sanglant without preamble, “and they will be brought before the mayor to speak your grievances. Choose them quickly and do not argue. The rest of you must go to your homes or to wherever you are staying. I will request that the biscop mediate.” He paused.

His voice sounded so hoarse Liath was astonished it carried so well, but his voice always sounded like that. He shifted, and the sunlight caught on his gold torque, winking. Liath lowered her bow. She could not concentrate, not looking at him. Did not the ancients write that desire was a curse? She found that her hands were shaking, and she let the arrow go slack. The prince was in no danger.

Although perhaps she was.

“Let me tell you,” he went on, “that Gent is a city under siege. The enemy who waits outside the walls is more implacable than your hunger, for there are stores enough in this city if they are rationed fairly but there is no mercy in his heart, if he even has one. We cannot fight among ourselves, for that way lies death for everyone. You are within your rights to demand food if your children are hungry, but none can expect feasts—”

“The mayor feasts every night!” cried a woman in a shrill but carrying voice. She wore deacon’s robes.

“Then you, good deacon, may come before him and tell him what you think of that. You are the first. Let two more be chosen.”

His brisk command stilled the crowd. Already the people on the fringes were drifting away. After a brief flurry of talk, two men came forward with the deacon, and they followed Sanglant inside. Liath recognized one as the artisan who had aided her in the marketplace. The gates closed behind them; only then did Werner venture down from the parapet. Once brought inside the great hall, the three commoners appeared subdued, perhaps cowed by the mayor or—more likely—by Sanglant’s imposing presence.

“Eagle,” said Werner, “you will find and bring the biscop to me. Beg her to attend me, that is.”

Sanglant moved, and almost Liath thought he was going to offer to escort her. But he did not. Instead, with a sigh, he went to sit in the chair beside Werner.

Ai, fool! She cursed herself as she hurried away. The gates were opened to let her out, and this time the folk dispersing from the square parted to let her through as she jogged from palace to cathedral. Maybe Da had been right; he usually was. “Are you so vain?” he had asked her. But he had been speaking of Hugh, and she had been right about Hugh. Da had not understood what Hugh truly wanted.

But she did not want to think of Hugh now. She never wanted to think of Hugh again.

Gent’s biscop was a woman who wasted little time; Liath was sent back with a message that Werner could expect her within the hour and that a solution to this difficulty would be found before nightfall or else she would impose one.

When Liath returned to the hall, the deacon and artisan had, evidently, spoken already. Now the third representative, an elderly man in the good linen tunic of a person of wealth, regaled the mayor at length about the positions of the stars in the heavens and the fate they foretold for Gent in general and the mayor in particular. Werner listened with such rapt attention that he did not acknowledge—or perhaps he did not notice—Liath’s return.

“For in the writings of the church mothers, and in the calculations of the Babaharshan mathematici,” intoned the man in that sonorous voice only the truly self-important can manage, “it is written that the passage of Mok into the sign of the Healer, the eleventh House in the lesser Circle, the world dragon that binds the heavens, betokens a period of healing and hope whose emanative rays are only intensified by the passage of Jedu, the fierce, the Angel of War, into the same sign, as will happen very soon, very soon indeed, for fierce Jedu soon will move out of the Unicorn and into the Healer. So should you take heart that the heavens grant us hope at this dark hour, and you should be generous in relieving the burdens of those of us trapped inside your fair city.”

“Oh, spare us this nonsense,” muttered Liath under her breath. She regretted saying it at once. She had forgotten how well Sanglant could hear.

Sanglant glanced at her but said nothing.

“Say on,” said Werner to the man, who continued, oblivious to everything except Werner’s rapt attention.

“Yes, the heavens give us hope. You must not expect disaster for no comet has flamed in the sky and only such glowing swords portend ruin. Therefore, we may all feast and celebrate for our rescue is at hand—” Werner was, indeed, beginning to look more cheerful. “—and if gold is laid out in a pattern known only to me, then I can read by various diverse and secret means the exact hour and day of our liberation!”

“Ah,” sighed Werner ecstatically.

Ai, Lady! This man would do more harm than good. But Eagles had no opinions. Princes might, however. She had to risk it. “He’s a fraud,” she muttered under her breath.

At once, Sanglant lifted a hand for silence. “Where did you learn this knowledge of the heavens?” he asked the old man. “How can you assure us this is true?”

The man clapped hand to chest. “Noble prince, you honor me with your notice. I was trained at the Academy of Diotima in Darre, under the shadow of the skopos’ palace itself. In the Academy we learned the secrets of the heavens from the writings of the ancients and also how to foretell the fates of man and the world from the movements of the stars.”

“For a price,” said Liath. “Usually in gold.”

Then was aghast she had spoken out loud. But how could she help it? In all their wandering, Da had never passed himself off as an astrologus or haruspex—one of those men or women who claimed to be able to divine the fate of “kings and other folk.” Frauds, all of them, Da claimed, though he was learned enough that he could have made a decent living for them both had he been willing to do so. But Da respected the knowledge he had and, perhaps, feared it as well. It was nothing to trifle with. It burned in her heart that the knowledge he had paid for so dearly should be treated as merely another form of commerce—a lucrative trade visited upon the ignorant and gullible—by such people as this charlatan.

The old man frowned imperiously at her. “Mine is a proud trade, and though some in the church have frowned upon it, it has not been condemned—”