Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“I hope not.”

This was no white-hot anger, no blast of fear, to create a wildfire. It was a bigger fire than she had intended, scorching six trees altogether, but with some effort she managed to pinch off its edges so it would burn itself out. The sentry had taken only a slight wound, quickly bandaged. The men settled down as the captain set out a double guard for the rest of the night.

Even so, Liath could not sleep. Only when the fire had died completely did she lie down, and even then whenever she closed her eyes she saw burning men, their flesh melting off their bodies.

Is this why Da had sealed her off from her own magic? Had he only been trying to protect her from herself? But this question struck her as impossibly naive. Da’s motives could not be so easily divined, nor were they simple. Da was not stupid, even if he hadn’t had the strength of will necessary to combat Anne.

Without the stars to mark the passing of time, the night dragged on as if forever, but at length the air lightened and a bird chirped. The sound made her jump. A bird! She rose, unsteady on weary legs, and listened hard and peered into the surrounding foliage, but she did not see it or hear that call again.

5

THE outpost had a name, Freeburg, and a population of some four-score wary persons housed in an impressive walled holding consisting of five thatched longhouses, a dozen or so smaller buildings and, remarkably, the blunt spire of a tiny chapel. One lonely cottager lived outside the walls, just where the path emerged from the forest, but it wasn’t clear if this spry old fellow had chosen his exile or lived close by the protecting palisade on sufferance. He watched their company march past without saying a word and turned back to clearing his garden. Six beehives lay within his fence.

The gates lay open. Folk worked in the fields and women washed clothes in the sparkling river. Meat dried under fenced-in shelters, ready to be brought in and cured. The ring of a blacksmith’s hammer surprised them; smiths, like gold, were usually found in more exalted settlements.

Folk paused to watch them. A dozen young men stood along the palisade rampart armed with bows.

“They’re not trusting,” murmured Liath to Thiadbold, but he only nodded thoughtfully and led the Lions right into what might be a trap, crossing over the ditch and through the open gate. The Lions halted inside the gate, in an open area with enough space for arms practice, or a market, or foot races. Soon they were surrounded. The council of elders met them.

“We heard news of you along the road,” said their spokesman, a genial man with silver hair, silver beard, and a twisted smile from a palsy afflicting the left side of his face. He looked otherwise hale. “I’m called Master Helmand.”

“I’m called Captain Thiadbold. We’re on the regnant’s business—my Lions and these three Eagles—on our way to St. Valeria’s. If we might bide one night within your walls, we’d be grateful. We were attacked by bandits last night. One of our men got hurt, but we drove them off.”

“Where was that?” asked Master Helmand as the folk around him whispered and nodded.

“There’s a stone circle. That’s where we camped last night.”

“Old ghosts walk there. No one goes willingly to that place.”

It was clear to Liath that the man thought them fools for having camped on haunted ground, but the confession seemed to peel off a layer of suspicion from his scrutiny. After all, how badly can fools threaten an armed village?

“You know the convent?” she asked him. “We had hoped to ask for a guide to show us the way.”

“Oh, yes. They come twice a year to trade with us and sing a mass and read the prayers for the dead.”

Liath gestured toward the chapel, seen now to be so small that no more than twenty folk could crowd into its nave. “You have a chapel, I see.”

“Yet no deacon.” He hesitated, glanced at the other elders, and went on as they fluttered their hands and nodded their heads eagerly. “Perhaps you’d take a request to the regnant, Eagle. We’ll host you gladly, though we haven’t much in our stores after this long winter and no good spring. We’re beholden to the regnant here, as you know. Freeholders. We have a charter!”

“Have you?” Liath asked with interest. “When was it written?”

He cleared his throat. Everyone looked embarrassed. “Well, then, in the time of the old Henry, father to the first Arnulf, long since. We only hear it read aloud but twice the year at spring and fall, and this year at springtide none came from the convent to us.”

“Did they not?” Liath looked at Thiadbold. He shrugged. “Have any gone to see if there is trouble there?”

“The river flooded. The ford hasn’t been passable for months. There’s no other way through.”

“Is there no hope of us winning through?”

He beckoned to a man standing up on the walls. This one came down, and it appeared he was a hunter and tracker for the holding, one who ranged wide.

“I’m called Wulf,” the man said by way of introduction after Helmand had explained the situation. He looked to be about Thiadbold’s age, somewhere between late twenties and middle thirties, dark-featured, wiry, tough, with handsome eyes and a warp to his chin from an old injury. “I was up that way ten days ago. It might be better now. We can try.”

“We must try,” said Liath to him before turning to the elders. “We’ll be grateful for your hospitality. I can read that charter for you, if you’ve a wish to hear it.”

Oh, they did.

An entire ceremony had collected around the twice-yearly reading of their charter in the same way flotsam collects around a boulder rising from the sandy seashore. A table and chair were carried out into the open air and a cloth thrown over the table. Every household brought cups and drink and set them on the common table. Last, a pale horn was produced from a locked chest. Its call rang four times, once at each corner of the stockade, before they put it away. Lanterns were lit as the inhabitants gathered, stationing themselves in a tidy semicircle, children at the front, adults behind. All remained standing as Master Helmand emerged from the largest longhouse with a small cedar chest in his hands. He set it on the table, opened it reverently, and uncovered folded parchment. This he opened on the table, one hand pinning down the top and the other the bottom. Lanterns were set on either side, although there was still enough light for Liath, at least, to read the bold letters.