Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

He sobered. “He’s a fine commander. The best, after his father the king.”

She wanted to talk about Hanna, but Theucinda still stood there. She had turned her back to them and was staring east into the haze.

“Why are you out here, Thiadbold? Is this your watch?”

He indicated Theucinda with his chin, then gestured toward the old tower where Theophanu had taken up residence. Sanglant had placed Theucinda in Theophanu’s custody. The girl had a mouselike exterior, petite, fine-boned, with a delicate prettiness that could easily attract the notice of a stubborn, spoiled, and disaffected youth like Ekkehard. She had not wailed and wept when Sanglant’s hunting party had caught up with her and Ekkehard outside Walburg. It was difficult to tell if she had wanted to be caught, or if she saw that weeping would do her no good and so did not indulge herself. In either case, her lack of tears made her interesting.

Thiadbold waited.

“I pray you, Lady Theucinda,” said Liath. “Do you come here often, so early in the morning?”

The girl looked at her as if deciding whether she wanted to speak. At last she shrugged one shoulder. “At times. We have only been here seven days. They watch me.” She glanced at Thiadbold, not meeting his gaze. “They think I’ll run again,” she said bitterly.

“Will you?”

“Where would I run? Gerberga won’t have me back, and Ekkehard is gone with her. Even so, with no retinue I could never hope to ride all the way to Austra to find him. Therefore, why should I try?” She shrugged again.

“I would have done it,” said Liath. “And farther yet.”

“So you say! If all the stories I hear of you are correct, then you are nothing except a frater’s by-blow, or else you are an emperor’s lost heir. You are the king’s concubine, or his queen. You are an excommunicated sorcerer, or else you were touched by the hand of a holy saint. You can cause the heavens to burn, or men’s hearts to be swayed by lust for you. A simple Eagle, or a soulless daimone. How easily it comes to you to say such words! Why do you think it should be so simple for me?”

The bitter words took Liath aback. Thiadbold coughed and looked away, as if he wished he had not heard.

“Forgive me!” the girl whispered. Tears brimmed. Her mouth trembled, and she clutched the railing as if she expected to be blown off the ramparts in a gust of furious wind. “Don’t burn me!”

Liath felt sick. That look of terror was its own judgment.

“Don’t fear me,” she said raggedly. “I do not mean to hurt any person.”

“I’ll go now, Captain,” said the girl in a choked voice. She swept up her skirts in one hand and clambered down the ladder.

It took all Liath’s courage to look Thiadbold in the eye. Would he reject her as well?

His gaze remained steady. He brushed a finger along the dimpled scar where he had lost part of an ear. “You fought with us. We Lions don’t forget our friends.”

“I thank you.” It was difficult to get the words out without bursting into tears.

He nodded gravely, and left to follow Lady Theucinda.

Liath rested her elbows on the railing and studied the beauty of the land and the hazy pearllike glamour of the early morning light. Maybe the clouds had lightened. Maybe the sun would break through soon. But her pleasure in the day had vanished.

How could Sanglant ever hope to make her his queen when such rumors spun through his own retinue? Especially when many, even most, were true. And did she really care? She had no wish to be queen, to be saddled with the burdens, duties, obligations, and intrigues that any consort must shoulder. Yet to be his concubine, to share him with another woman—because the regnant must wed—was unbearable. To leave him was unthinkable.

What a fool Theucinda was! That girl could never understand that it had been easy to leave the Eagles and ride away with Sanglant, back when Sanglant had been nothing more than captain of the King’s Dragons.

“I will not be defeated by this,” she said, and she listened, hoping the wind had an answer for her, but naturally it did not.

IV

FOOL’S ERRAND

1

WHERE they first caught sight of the cathedral tower the road bent through the remains of an old oak wood, now eaten in from all sides by clearing and felling.

“God spare us!” Atto exclaimed. “Mara! Look!”

She stopped obediently and lifted her head. Midway through pregnancy, she was also weary and dirty. “Are we there yet?” she asked as she squinted into the distance.