King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

Rosvita began to move forward, to lead Sapientia away before she did something foolish, but Judith forestalled her. “Let me,” said the margrave. “I will see she is outfitted and sent properly on her way.”

“Thank you,” murmured Rosvita.

The margrave led Sapientia from the room. The servants hovered nervously, but Henry did not move. He had done what was necessary. He had done what should have been done months ago, but she was not about to tell him that now. Sanglant was a brave man and a good soul—half human though it was—but he was not meant to be king. She sighed, heartfelt. The servants brought water and cloth to bathe the king’s face.

Theophanu glanced toward Rosvita and asked a question with her expression. Rosvita shook her head. Better to take the living children away so as not to remind him of the dead one. With a slight nod, Theophanu led Ekkehard out of the chamber.

Henry did not respond, not when his servants offered him wine, not when they bathed his face. He was as stone, lost to the world. Together with the Eagle, Rosvita stood vigil beside him long into the dark night.

9

ALAIN could not sleep. The bed he had been given was too soft and too warm and too comfortable. He just could not sleep. The hounds snored softly. Count Lavastine snored, too, in a hushed counterpoint to the hounds. Unlike most noblemen, Lavastine did not sleep in a room with his servants; no one dared sleep within range of the unchained hounds. Perhaps it was the very lack of bodies that made Alain keep starting awake. He had never slept so privately before. In Aunt Bel’s longhouse here were full thirty people sleeping at night, and in the stables—

Not my Aunt Bel any longer.

He sat bolt upright for perhaps the tenth time, and Sorrow woke and whined softly, seeking his hand and licking it.

Lavastine’s heir. This in his wildest dreams he had never imagined. He knew at that moment he would sleep no more this night, so he rose and dressed quietly and slipped outside, Sorrow at his heels. Rage slept peacefully and did not stir.

Outside, a servant woke instantly. “My lord, may I escort you?”

How quickly they changed their treatment of him. But he was Lavastine’s heir now, sealed by the king’s own words. He would control their fates and their families in ten or twenty years. He knew better, from serving in a lord’s household, than to try to go anywhere alone. It would never be allowed.

“Is there a chapel nearby?” he asked. “I wish to pray.”

One of the biscop’s clerics was found and Alain was escorted to a tiny chapel whose Hearth bore a fine jeweled reliquary box sitting in muted splendor on the polished wood of the altar. The chapel was not empty. A servant girl knelt on the stone before the Hearth, polishing the pavement with her own skirts.

In the next instant, just before she looked up, like a mouse caught in the act of nibbling at the cheese, he recognized her.

“My lady!” he said, aghast to find Tallia on her knees on the stone wiping the flagstone with her fine silk skirts. Her hands were red, rubbed almost raw by the unaccustomed work.

She stared at him, eyes wide and frightened. “I pray you,” she said in a whisper, “do not send me away. Let me unburden myself before Our Lady in this fashion, by the work of my hands, though it is unworthy of Her regard.”

“But surely you do not wish to ruin that fine cloth?” Alain could just imagine what Aunt Bel would say if she saw silk of that quality being used to sweep floors, however holy.

“The riches of Earth are as dust to the glory of the heavens and the Chamber of Light. So did Frater Agius preach.”

“You heard Agius preach?”

“Did you not hear him as well?” she asked timidly. She came forward, still on her knees, and clasped Alain’s hands in hers, almost in supplication. “You were his companion. He saw that you were of noble birth before any other did, is that not true? Was his vision not a gift to him from the Lady Herself? Did he not preach the true Word of the blessed Daisan’s sacrifice and redemption?”

“That is heresy,” Alain whispered, glancing around, but they remained alone in the chapel. Sorrow sat panting by the door, and no man dared enter because of him.

“It is not heresy,” she finished, her pale face taking color as she took heart from whatever memory she had of Agius’ preaching. “You must acknowledge it. You heard him. You must know it is the truth.”

“I—” It made him deeply uncomfortable to have a princess who wore the gold torque marking her royal kinship kneeling in front of him—and speaking of heresy, in a biscop’s palace. “You must rise, Princess.” He tried to tug her to her feet, but she was either stronger than she looked or holding fast to her purpose. Her hands were warm on his, warming his, and he looked into her face and did not understand what he saw there.

“I pray King Henry will put me in the church,” she said, staring up at Alain.

Or marry her to me. The thought popped unbidden into Alain’s mind. He was so stricken by it that he let go of her hands and sat down on the nearest bench. Ai, blessed Lord and Lady. He was a lord, now, heir to the count of Lavas. He could think about marriage.

“Then, when I am made deacon, I will preach,” she said in a fierce whisper. “I will preach the Holy Word Agius taught me, though the skopos calls it heresy. If they condemn me for it, then I will be a martyr, as he was, and ascend to the Chamber of Light where the saints and the martyrs live in the blazing light of Our Lady’s gaze and Her Son’s sweet glory.”

Alain almost laughed, not at her but at the strange path that had brought him here to this chapel on this night.

Serve me, the Lady of Battles had said, and she had given to him a blood-red rose as her token, as the sign of her favor. He had served, as well as he was able. He had ridden to war. He had broken the compulsion laid by sorcery on Lavastine, and he had killed the guivre, though only because of Agius’ sacrifice. He had tried always to do what was right, though sometimes he had failed. He had not saved Lackling, but he had saved the Eika prince, although perhaps the life of the savage had not been worth the life of the poor simple boy. But it was not his place to judge the worth of their souls.

And Alain knew that although he had been raised from freeholder’s son to count’s heir, a huge leap in the world of men, such fortune could only have come about because of the presence of divine favor.