Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“What can I do? How have you eaten and drunk?”

Sorgatani gestured toward the window set into the door. It was shuttered with a square of wood that could be slid open and closed, and screened with strands of beads that formed a concealing curtain. The aroma in the closed wagon was heavy with sweat and mildew. Hanna opened the shutter, and the rising breeze jangled the lengths of beads.

“Help me to go there,” said the shaman. “I want to see where I have come.”

“Rest a moment,” said Hanna. “Let me straighten up. How did you get that sling on your arm?”

“He entered when the wagon was set upright. I feared for him, but, after all, his magic was stronger than mine.”

“Who came?”

“I don’t know his name. He was attended by a pair of black hounds. He cared for my wounds. My hip is badly bruised. My arm—up at the shoulder—broken. He told me I would heal. He told me that the Holy One—my teacher—Li’at’dano—has passed on beyond this life.”

She said the words without tears. They were a statement. A burden.

Smoke coiled around the center pole, which stood straight and true despite the crash. Hanna shivered as cold air winged around her. A sense of being watched prickled along her back. She turned to see the owl perched on the saddle tree. It had not been there a moment before.

“So you see,” said Sorgatani. Her headdress was heaped at the other end of the couch, and her hair was tangled. An ivory comb lay on the bed, black strands of hair wrapping the teeth, but she hadn’t gotten far in her combing. Maybe it hurt too much. “The owl’s coming is a sign that I must return to my people. This is the shaman’s messenger. Mine, now.”

“Yours?”

“I am the Holy One’s heir. The owl came to me last night and led me along the flower trail that leads to the other side. There I met the Holy One. She is dead, as he said she was. I had hoped … to stay a while … here with those who understand me.” She clenched her jaw at a pain, and smiled wanly.

When Hanna sat beside her, Sorgatani grasped Hanna’s forearm with her good hand. “I must return to my people. I cannot stay here. Will you come with me, Hanna?”

Tears rose. “I cannot.”

She sighed as if this was the answer she expected. “Must I go alone, then?” She laughed softly, but the sound conveyed only grief. “You were to bring me a pura, Hanna. Breschius served me, and for that I honor him, but he was old. Anyway, a man can only be pura to one woman in his life. Like Liath and her Sanglant.”

“He would not take kindly to the comparison,” said Hanna with a chuckle that spilled to tears, quickly shed and quickly dried. “I have not done well by you, Sorgatani.”

“No. You are my luck. It matters only that you exist.”

“Ivar! What are you doing here? Don’t you know that wagon is haunted?”

The well-modulated voice, a youthful and melodic tenor, pierced easily the veil of beads. Sorgatani sat up, tugging on Hanna’s arm.

“Let me see,” she said.

Outside, the two young men fell into a fevered and rather disjointed conversation that seemed mostly to consist of Ivar stammering out the story of his ride to Kassel and the battle while the other one kept interrupting him with questions that never quite made sense.

“… we ran to get away from the skirmish but were overtaken in the woods by Duke Conrad’s men—”

“Why would horsemen be attacking the woods?”

Sorgatani moved slowly but with determination, favoring one leg. She leaned on Hanna and tweaked aside a few strands of beads, allowing her to look out without others looking in upon her. Hanna saw Ivar at once, pulling at his hair as he did when he was nervous and upset and frustrated. An astonishingly pretty young man had hold of Ivar’s elbow in a possessive way that forced a slow simmer of jealousy to boil up in her heart. How could anyone be that good-looking? It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. Angels might look so, with their perfect features and their sunlit hair aglow.

“Look there!” murmured Sorgatani huskily, perhaps because standing hurt her. “Now that’s a handsome stallion!”

He’s mine, she almost blurted, but of course Sorgatani wasn’t referring to Ivar. No woman would call Ivar a handsome stallion when he was standing next to that creature, even though Ivar was the most beautiful man in the world to her eyes even if she knew very well that he really wasn’t.

She blushed and turned her attention to Baldwin, who was now gesticulating wildly as he related some tale to Ivar that Ivar did not, in fact, appear very interested in hearing. Ivar kept staring at the wagon, shifting his feet, and tugging on his hair. He was standing off at an angle and had not noticed the shift in the concealing beads.

Well. It was no surprise that Sorgatani would notice Lord Baldwin. True enough, he was breathtaking of feature, but it seemed to her as she watched him talking that there was something a little vacant about that pretty face.

“Is he crippled or injured in some way?” Sorgatani asked breathlessly. “Has he been wounded? Ah, look! His hand has been cut off. Just like Breschius! Maybe it’s a sign.” Leaning on Hanna, she tightened her fingers as folk do when they grasp the rope that will save them from drowning. “What do you think?”

Sorgatani wasn’t looking at Baldwin and Ivar. She was looking beyond them where the fading light poured its golden aura over a portion of the fountain and the paved pathway. A pair of sturdy lay brothers was carrying a man on a litter out of the monks’ quarters. They cut along one of the diagonal paths, bringing them close by the wagon. They were on their way, perhaps, to the infirmary. They weren’t in any hurry. The presence of the foreign wagon seemed of no interest to them at all, nor did they show much interest in their patient. They kept pausing between strides to look toward the church, although it wasn’t clear what they hoped to see there.