Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

Without speaking, they waited until the company rode into sight with Falcon Mask in the lead, Anna behind leading the string of spare mounts, and Blessing on her own small mare. Buzzard Mask had fallen behind to become rear guard.

“Hai!” called Falcon Mask with a big grin. “We thought you’d outraced us, Bright One!”

“They’re too slow!” Blessing had no volume below a petulant shout. “I’m trying to teach them to ride faster. They’re so slow! How soon until we reach Papa?” She tilted her head back and sucked in a breath through her nose. “What’s that smell? Sharp, like magic.”

o;This belongs to you.” He held it out, arm trembling at its weight.

Ai, God, it was heavy. She set it across her thighs, settled her reins over her horse’s neck, and unfolded the oilcloth. Underneath, a round, spiky shape was tightly bundled in purple silk of the highest quality, so tightly woven she could scarcely perceive the weave.

“What is this?” she asked, knowing the question pointless as she pulled the layers free. Her horse flicked its ears when she gasped. Wolfhere said nothing.

Even in the shady woods, under a cloudy sky, without sunlight to brighten it, the crown gleamed. It was thickset and nothing delicate, a reminder of the burdens of empire that must crush down on the neck of the one who rules. A crown is a form of binding; that she knew. The crown of stars held seven points, each one set with a gem: a shining pearl, rich lapis lazuli, pale sapphire, carnelian, ruby, emerald, and banded orange-brown sardonyx. She almost laughed, seeing the pattern unfold. Even Emperor Taillefer had sought the secrets of the mathematici. His crown mirrored both the stone crowns which in ancient days had forged the great weaving, but also the fabled earthly palace of coils whose winding path echoed the ladder that climbs through the spheres: the Moon, Erekes, Somorhas, the Sun, Jedu, Mok, and Aturna.

“Why do you give it to me?” she said at last. “I am not Taillefer’s heir.”

“Are you not?”

Her anger sparked. “You know this better than I, since you were there when my mother was called and caged. I am the child of flame. Not Anne’s daughter.”

“Not Anne’s daughter,” he agreed, “but who is your father’s mother?”

She flashed a smile, meant unkindly, because she was really getting irritated now. Blessing would come, and she desired no conflict, not now, not when she had to get to Kassel to find Sanglant but also had to ride at this agonizingly slow pace in order to protect those she was responsible for.

“I don’t trust you, Wolfhere,” she said, as if that was his answer. “But in any case, I know who my father’s mother is. I have met her. A very aged lady, a holy woman.”

“The hand of the Lady has guided you,” he said with surprise. “How comes it you have met her?”

“That is a tale I’m not sure I wish to tell you, until you tell me how you are come here this night. And how you came into possession of this crown. And what is happening at Kassel.”

He was in a mood to duel. There was a demon in him tonight that made him more oblique and maddening than ever. “What of her mother, then? Who was your father’s mother’s mother?”

“I don’t know. Neither does she. She was a foundling, given into the church.”

He nodded, as the praeceptor does when the discipla gives the long awaited, and correct, answer. “Therefore. The crown belongs to you. Your right, to determine who will hold it, who wield it, and who wear it. And if you do not believe me, ask the hounds of Lavas.”

Always he had the means to confound her!

A high voice rose in the air, and faded. Liath turned as the sound of approaching riders caught her ear. She had not keen enough hearing to sort out numbers and speed, not as Sanglant could, but she had recognized that voice’s timbre immediately. She swung back. Wolfhere’s hands had tightened on his reins, and his chin lifted and eyes narrowed as he squinted west along the road.

“If you threaten my daughter,” she said in a low voice, “I will kill you. I have come through too much. My patience is all burned away.”

He bowed his head without answering; his right hand slid into his left sleeve and he sighed and rested his arm there, as if releasing Taillefer’s crown had taken all his strength. She turned her horses all the way around and moved a few paces back the way she had come to get the best vantage of the unwinding path. Wrapping up the crown, she stowed it in one of the saddlebags she had taken from Hersford half-filled with supplies. She refused to mention her encounter with Hugh until Wolfhere confessed the whole, and he seemed just as unwilling to speak.

Silence is a locked chest.

Without speaking, they waited until the company rode into sight with Falcon Mask in the lead, Anna behind leading the string of spare mounts, and Blessing on her own small mare. Buzzard Mask had fallen behind to become rear guard.

“Hai!” called Falcon Mask with a big grin. “We thought you’d outraced us, Bright One!”

“They’re too slow!” Blessing had no volume below a petulant shout. “I’m trying to teach them to ride faster. They’re so slow! How soon until we reach Papa?” She tilted her head back and sucked in a breath through her nose. “What’s that smell? Sharp, like magic.”

Anna sneezed.

Buzzard Mask trotted up, clinging to the saddle like a sack about to slide off. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” he cried as he jerked on the reins, but his horse had already decided to stop, with the others, and he did slide off, starting slow and then falling hard, unable to stop himself. “Ah!” His string of curses was powerful.

Anna dismounted and offered a hand, but he brushed off his legs, tugged with a look of disgust at the short tunic that Liath had insisted he wear over his otherwise naked torso, and offered Anna a grateful smile. He was young, like Falcon Mask, healthy and attractive because of his youth. Anna blushed and backed away. She gripped the dog-headed staff as if it were the only thing holding her upright.

Falcon Mask was rigid in the saddle, fixed at an awkward angle with one hand gripping the cantle behind her and the other holding the reins wrong. “I can’t get down!” A wild grin twisted her face; unlike her cousin, she was enjoying this knife edge between triumph and disaster.