Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

Lavrentia’s face crumpled as she fought to restrain tears.

“Despair is a sin, Geoffrey,” said Constance, taking hold of his arm and drawing his hands down.

“Am I to rejoice instead?”

She caught his gaze and held it, and after a moment his wild look subsided to something more like shame. Ivar squeezed forward through the ranks to his friends, who were waiting beside the hearth. The messenger glanced their way, attracted by Ivar’s movement through the assembly, and dismissed them with a smirk.

“I would not have burdened you with my presence if I had known Sabella would threaten you in this particular way,” said Constance.

“She’s listening to Salian advisers!” Geoffrey seemed ready to laugh. “Salians are always murdering their children to clear their own path to the throne or to riches.”

“So the chronicles suggest,” agreed Constance in a mild tone that was meant to warn him, but Geoffrey was not able to listen.

“They might be dead already. Then nothing will be served by giving you up to her as well. Better stick with what we know is true. Or Sabella may be bluffing. She may not have the heart to kill two innocent children.”

“Do you think so?” asked Constance.

He swayed, jerking side to side as though tugged this way and that by a sharp pull on a rope. “I don’t know what to think! How can it have all gone wrong? I must go! I’ll exchange myself for them! Let her kill me if she wishes! I would welcome death!”

“Lord Geoffrey! For shame!”

He hid his face. His daughter sobbed into her hands, echoing her father. The company of retainers and servants stood in awful silence, and a few crept away like beaten dogs hoping not to be noticed. The messenger watched carefully, absorbing the scene into his memory so that, Ivar suppose, he might report Geoffrey’s weakness to Sabella.

“You must stay here in Lavas and guard your daughter and these lands, Geoffrey. Captain Ulric and his company will remain behind. Consider that this may be a feint to draw you out.”

“Why? Lavas County is nothing to Sabella, surely. She wants you because you represent Henry’s claim to sovereignty in Varre. Because you are the rightful duke of Arconia, after Sabella forfeited the title by her own rebellion. She is the traitor! I am not. I am not! Anyway, if you go to her, she will have no reason to give up my sons. Then she’ll have you back, to do with as she please—even to kill—and she’ll still hold my sons.”

“No child of Arnulf would dare kill her own sibling,” said Constance. “We are not Salians!”

“I must go, or I’ll be dishonored!”

“You must stay, and guard Lavas together with Captain Ulric. I’ll leave you a hostage in your turn—this messenger.”

The young man started and took a step back, looking around as for an escape route, but Ulric had already moved his men into position to block his retreat.

“I will take my trusted retainers.” She gestured toward her clerics.

“Then it is all for nothing,” moaned Geoffrey, “freeing you from Queen’s Grave. All this! It has all rotted in my hands!”

“We are not dead and defeated yet, Geoffrey!” She got hold of her walking stick and pushed to her feet, and her smile might have come because of the pain of rising or her annoyance at Geoffrey, or because Sabella’s messenger looked so flummoxed at being outflanked as he realized he was now a prisoner. “Trust in God. I do.”

“Truth rises with the phoenix,” muttered a voice in the crowd.

“So I have come to believe.”

Ulric met her by the door into the inner apartments.

“Your Grace. We know that bandits haunt the roads, and worse things, perhaps. Wolves. Shadows. I trust God, but I wish you will take armed men on the road to protect you.”

“Sabella has kindly sent an escort. I’ll return with them, all except for the messenger, who will remain here. Most of my schola are too frail to travel, and I trust you will see them well cared for here, Captain. But I think a few of my faithful clerics can accompany me!” She smiled at Ivar, Sigfrid, Ermanrich, and Hathumod. Her gaze lingered longest on Baldwin, whom she examined with a slight frown.

“They may even be able to bear weapons,” said Ulric with a look of disapproval, “although I don’t know how much good they’ll do you in a fight, Your Grace.”

“We’ve fought!” said Ivar. “We’ve ridden into battle with Prince Ekkehard.”

Ulric began to roll his eyes, but stopped himself with an inhalation and a sharp cough.

“My bold clerics!” she said, and somehow, from her lips, the statement did not sound mocking.