King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“A merchant, my lord. His sister Bel is a freeholder of some distinction in Osna village.”

“Yes. Near where the monastery was burned last year. What does Henry the merchant say about your parentage, Alain?”

r his own revenge on Sabella.

Alain sighed. It was all too deep and convoluted for him to make sense of.

“Come inside,” said Lavastine, as much order as request, and yet Lavastine’s attention toward him was perhaps the greatest mystery of all. Alain followed the count inside. He was half a head taller than Lavastine but never felt he towered above him, so intense was Lavastine’s presence. Truly, the sorcery Antonia had laid upon Lavastine had been powerful in order to overcome that commanding disposition.

Lavastine sat in a camp chair that one of his servants brought to him. “Sit,” he commanded Alain, sounding irritated that Alain had not sat down immediately.

“But, my lord—” began Alain, while around them the count’s captain and servants stared. They were just as amazed as he was that the count wished a common boy to be seated beside him as though they were kin.

“Sit!”

Alain sat.

Lavastine called for wine, two cups, and then dismissed everyone but Alain. When the flap closed behind the last retreating servant, a gloom pervaded the tent chamber. Thin shafts of light lanced through gaps in the tent walls. Illuminating a line of carpet, the hilt of a sword, the ear of a hound. The hounds panted merrily. Sorrow rolled onto his back and scratched himself along the spine of the carpet. Rage growled and snapped at Fear, who had crept too close to Alain.

“Alain Henrisson,” said the count. “That is what you call yourself?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“You saved my life and my honor on the field of battle.”

Alain did not know what to say, so he merely bowed his head.

“I did not intend to support Sabella. Nor, for that matter, did I intend to support King Henry. My lands are my concern, as are the safety and well-being of the people who live there. That is all. I never wanted to be dragged into these conspiracies. But you could not have known this. Why did you act as you did?”

“B—because … I …”

“Go on! You must have had a reason.”

Seeing that even in this friendly mood Lavastine was irritated by delay, Alain spoke as quickly as he could, hoping it made sense. “I—I saw that Biscop Antonia wasn’t—she had Lackling murdered. She was going to murder the Eika prince you took prisoner, but he—he got away. Then she killed Lackling and I couldn’t trust her—”

“Hold, hold, boy. Who is this Lackling?”

“One of the stableboys, my lord.”

Lavastine shook his head slightly. The name meant nothing to him. “She had him murdered? Why was this not brought to my attention?”

“She brought strange creatures, my lord, to the ruins, and then you changed. You were—”

“Under a compulsion, yes.” He made what was almost a spitting motion, as if the word, passing his lips, was distasteful to him. “I suppose Biscop Antonia would have denied everything and set her word against yours. Go on.”

“Well, then, my lord, it just seemed wrong. The battle seemed wrong, that Sabella should win by treachery and sorcery and that poor imprisoned creature—”

“The Eika prince? But he escaped.”

“No. I meant the guivre.”

“The guivre!” Lavastine barked a laugh. “I have no compassion for such a beast as that.” He set a hand on the head of the hound that sat at his feet; actually, the hound sat half on his boots. This one had white in its muzzle, a sign of age, and Alain recognized it as Terror. The hound lifted its head to get a scratch from Lavastine’s fingers.

“No, my lord,” replied Alain, because it seemed expected of him. But he had compassion for the beast, horrible though it was; it had suffered, too, and he had killed it as much to put it out of its misery as to save Agius. “And Frater Agius—”

“Yes,” said Lavastine curtly. “Frater Agius saved the king at the cost of his own life. And you, what reward would you have for saving my life?”

“I?”