In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“See here,” he would say, where spars had lodged in the gapped teeth of the ruined palisade. “A wave caused this. Yet inland the pattern of disturbance suggested a wind out of the east southeast. There must have been two storms of destruction, one after the next. As ripples run in ponds, the second following the first.”

The town had not been large, and the shattered remains of pilings suggested it had once boasted a wharf. Farther up the strand, fish had rotted, their bones strewn like twigs along the shore. The sea lapped the strand placidly. John tried fishing but had no luck. Blessing tried to run away and after had a rope tied to her waist and had to follow along behind Frigo like a dog on a lead. He was neither cruel nor kind to her but dispassionately amused. Hugh rarely looked at the girl at all, and when he did, he would frown and set his lips in an expression Anna could not interpret. A man might look so at a two-headed calf, or at the child sprung from the union of his bitterest rival and the woman he desired most in the world but could never have.

“Should we camp in the town, my lord?” asked Captain Frigo.

“What do the men say?” Hugh asked him. “I think the shelter will do us some good, but if they prefer a more open site, if they fear plague, that is as well with me.”

Frigo nodded, scratching his beard. “They’re muttering that it’s well enough to walk a town like this in daylight, when night might bring ghosts, and devils carrying sickness. I think otherwise. There’s no sign of dogs or corpses. Deserted as we are here, it’s best to have a defensible position. They’ll see the wisdom of staying within walls if anything attacks us by night. Wolves or bandits. Those other things.”

“Wisely spoken, Captain. Set up camp.”

John and Theodore found a campsite that suited the nervous men. They planted their backs against the broken wall of a merchant’s compound with a long storehouse along one side and a stable along another. The courtyard gave them space to set up a couple of lean-tos for shelter without having to camp right within the ruins where scorpions might scuttle and ghosts poke their knuckles into a man’s ribs while he slept.

Scarred John unfolded a leather-and-wood tripod stool. Lord Hugh unrolled a map on top of the small traveling chest. He pinned the corners with an oil lamp, a heavy silver chain mounded up over a silver Circle of Unity, his knife, and his left hand. He studied the map, twisting a wick between thumb and middle finger but not yet lighting it.

ia hid her irritation. It was good to see Adelheid so lively, even if it was for a distasteful cause. “Surely you cannot mean to go through with this, Your Majesty?”

“What choice have I?”

“But your own daughter!”

“What choice have I?”

It had come to this. Hugh had come to them, and Adelheid had foolishly driven him off. Now his power was lost forever, and in addition they had lost two excellent hostages.

Worse, he had stolen Heribert, that faithless whore. But she could not let Adelheid know how cruelly this blow struck at her heart. She could never show weakness. She must forget Heribert, consider him dead, slice the cord herself. She should have severed the tie the day he ran away at Sanglant’s order. In this matter, Hugh was blameless. It was Sanglant who had corrupted Heribert.

And in any case, once the searchers found him and returned him to Novomo, she could devise a suitable punishment.

“Holy Mother? Is there aught that ails you?”

“Nay, nothing. I am only reflecting that you are right. What choice have we?”

But after all, Hugh was the treacherous one, doubly so, with plans afoot she could not fathom.

Knowing that they must appear in greatest state before the arriving delegation so that no one would suspect their weakness, Antonia went to the chest sealed with sorcery to fetch Taillefer’s magnificent crown of empire to place upon Adelheid’s brow.

The amulet was sealed properly; yet after all when she opened the chest, she found an empty silk wrapping. Hugh had stolen it, no doubt to crown Sanglant’s daughter as a puppet queen. And now it was lost in the woods, on the back of a panicked horse.

She could only rage while her servants cowered.

2

IN the afternoon of the third day, Lord Hugh and his party came down out of the hilly country closer to the sea’s shore and found an abandoned town that looked as if it had been swept clean by a towering wave. Cautiously, John scouted in through the broken gates and afterward they all followed him. They found the bones of a dog scattered beneath a fallen beam in a ruined house but no sign of recent life. A stream spilled seaward, overflowing its banks where it met the wide waters. Its water had a brackish, oily taste, but they drank anyway and filled up their leather bladders so they wouldn’t have to break open their spare cask of ale.

Lord Hugh prowled the town, seeking signs.

“See here,” he would say, where spars had lodged in the gapped teeth of the ruined palisade. “A wave caused this. Yet inland the pattern of disturbance suggested a wind out of the east southeast. There must have been two storms of destruction, one after the next. As ripples run in ponds, the second following the first.”

The town had not been large, and the shattered remains of pilings suggested it had once boasted a wharf. Farther up the strand, fish had rotted, their bones strewn like twigs along the shore. The sea lapped the strand placidly. John tried fishing but had no luck. Blessing tried to run away and after had a rope tied to her waist and had to follow along behind Frigo like a dog on a lead. He was neither cruel nor kind to her but dispassionately amused. Hugh rarely looked at the girl at all, and when he did, he would frown and set his lips in an expression Anna could not interpret. A man might look so at a two-headed calf, or at the child sprung from the union of his bitterest rival and the woman he desired most in the world but could never have.

“Should we camp in the town, my lord?” asked Captain Frigo.

“What do the men say?” Hugh asked him. “I think the shelter will do us some good, but if they prefer a more open site, if they fear plague, that is as well with me.”

Frigo nodded, scratching his beard. “They’re muttering that it’s well enough to walk a town like this in daylight, when night might bring ghosts, and devils carrying sickness. I think otherwise. There’s no sign of dogs or corpses. Deserted as we are here, it’s best to have a defensible position. They’ll see the wisdom of staying within walls if anything attacks us by night. Wolves or bandits. Those other things.”

“Wisely spoken, Captain. Set up camp.”