Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

Then, after all, came the hugging and the weeping.

VI

NO GOING BACK

1

THEIR company set out at once for the convent.

“I rode from St. Valeria with a request for some laborers to come and rebuild the damaged wall,” explained Hanna. “We thought to let our party rest there a few days in peace while I rode here to ask for aid.”

“You managed the river crossing,” said the one called Wulf. He hadn’t been able to take his gaze off Hanna since she and Liath walked out of the byre. “Had you no guide? How high was the water running?”

As Hanna described her journey between convent and village—she had spent the night sleeping outdoors—Liath stared at her. It seemed she had walked into a dream, something hoped for so long that she could not believe it to be true. Had Sanglant stared at her in this manner when she had returned from the aether? Yet she felt less awkwardness with Hanna than she had at first with Sanglant. She felt, more than anything, relief, as though she had discovered that the hand she thought missing was, after all, still attached.

As Hanna finished talking, she glanced at Liath, grinned, and shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. I’ve thought of you so often over the years. I must still be dreaming. Sorgatani will be eager to see you!”

These astounding tidings must all be explained. As the two women chattered back and forth without pause the day seemed, as the poets said, to fly past. They marched along a grassy track barely more than a cow path footed in mud. The river still ran high—Hanna had managed the crossing because of the weight of her horse—and they strung a rope across for the Lions to grip so they would not get swept away in the current. After this, the way wound in rugged leaps and switchbacks up into steep, forested hills troubled by ancient ravines and fresh gullies. Now and again the woodsman exclaimed over a landslide that had obliterated a portion of the path, or a new waterfall pouring down through a cleft in a rocky outcropping. Trees had snapped and tumbled. It was, in truth, a miracle that Hanna had managed to get through at all, let alone with a horse.

“This is no ordinary steed,” she said, “but Lady Bertha’s own palfrey, a noble steed, impossibly brave and strong-hearted. She’s Wicked.”

“Then why are you riding her?”

Hanna chuckled. “That’s her name. The story goes that when Lady Bertha acquired her, the mare bit her. I don’t know if it’s true. She can jump, though, and she isn’t afraid of anything.”

“I pray you, Hanna, tell me again of what has transpired since the tempest last autumn. I cannot believe—Lady Bertha survived with some few others of those that accompanied me—and yet so close to home she is killed! Are you sure of what you saw?”

“I’ll tell you again,” said Hanna, soberly, not taking offense at the question as Liath had known she would not. “Ask me what questions you will. Maybe I’ll remember something I’ve forgot. It was a horrible night. Those arrows flying out of the darkness!” She shuddered. “Should another have spoken to me of it, I would not have believed him.”

She repeated the story. Hanna’s testimony was well observed and, as far as it was in her power given her place within the night’s events, related without too much emotion clouding her comments.

“Ashioi, then,” Liath agreed. “They have attacked in other places as well. How can they have come so far north?”

“On their own two feet, I suppose.”

“Well, then. Why?”

“To kill Wendish folk, I must guess. Or to kill Prince Sanglant. They called his name.”

“Some think they are allied with him, now that he is regnant. That he means to conquer Wendar and Varre and hand the kingdom over to his mother’s people.”

“You do not think so.”

Liath gave her a sidelong look and wondered if Hanna distrusted Sanglant. If Hanna distrusted her because of Sanglant. “I don’t believe it.”

When Hanna frowned, she looked years older. “I don’t know what to think. I fear those warriors with their poisoned darts more than I ever feared Bulkezu and his Quman.”

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t make Sanglant their ally. He would never betray his father’s memory.”

A stream had changed course in the last months and cut a gully across the path. They had to dismount. The Lions scrambled down and cut enough of a ramp into the sides with shovels that the horses could negotiate the obstacle. Pine whispered above. The forest cover made the path dim as they moved forward along higher ground.

Hanna lengthened her stride. Hurrying to catch up to her, Liath found they were walking out in front of the others, beyond earshot.

“What troubles you, Hanna? I see it in your face.”

Hanna looked back, looked ahead, even looked up at the canopy of green above them. The heady aroma of pitch caught in Liath’s throat; for such a long time she had smelled only mildewed leaf litter and the icy breath of unseasonable wintry winds.

“I admit, I’m still angry at Prince Sanglant for letting Bulkezu live when he should have executed him. I’m sorry to say so. It’s the truth. Whether it speaks good or ill of me, I don’t know.”