Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“I know only what I have seen in a vision. Yet this same vision has been woven into a tapestry that hangs in Lavas hall.”

As Alain began speaking, Father Ortulfus broke off his prayer and, with the prior, strode to the bier in order to listen.

“Imagine, if you will, a boy born as the only child of a powerful count. He is raised with every expectation of becoming heir. Then his mother—after eighteen years of barrenness—becomes pregnant late in life. She dies in childbed. She will never know the truth: that she gave birth not to a second son, but to twins, girl and boy. In Varre, according to the old custom, girls take precedence over boys because only through the body of the woman is it sure that the line continues.”

Rage whined. Sorrow gave a faint growl that sounded almost like a groan.

“So comes Sister Clothilde, companion and ally to Biscop Tallia, to Lavas Holding. They are in need of a fitting bride for the last heir of the long-dead Taillefer, to set in train a defense against the coming cataclysm they alone perceive. It must not be any girl but one of highest birth. Like this one, descended herself from Taillefer.”

“They would be too closely related,” protested Sister Rosvita. “The church would never approve.”

“None of this was accomplished under the auspices of the church. To the elder Charles—now desperate—they give the hounds as surety for the exchange. He gives them the infant girl. His mother is dead. The midwife’s fate I do not know. It is as if the girl never existed, was never born. He becomes count, marries, sires an heir. His younger brother gives birth to children of his own, all unknowing.”

“You are saying,” said Mother Obligatia, “that I was that infant girl.”

The hounds squirmed over to her and licked her hands. They could have knocked her over with a single butt of one of those huge heads, but their touch was as gentle as that of mice.

“And that my granddaughter is therefore my heir. That Liath is heir to the county of Lavas.”

Wind gusted through the dark opening where the rose window had once shone. Every lamp flame shuddered. A cold breeze kissed Alain’s face, whispering around him. A tickle of cool air slipped in his ears and mouth and nose. For one instant, the essence that is the aether breathed through his limbs and his chest, embracing him, and then it poured away and into a different vessel.

Liath leaped to her feet as Sanglant’s eyes snapped open. They shone with sharp blue fire, easy to see in the gloomy light.

She shrieked with rage. “Go! Go! Get out of his body!” Alain stepped up beside her and stilled her with a hand on her arm.

“You are come back,” he said.

“I found what we spoke of,” said the daimone through Sanglant’s lips, in a voice that was like and yet utterly unlike Sanglant’s familiar and well loved voice. “I brought it back.”

“Then you have done as he would have done.”

The head nodded, an awkward movement learned rather than natural. “I have done as he would have done.”

“Go in peace,” said Alain.

The flame in those dead eyes wavered. The mouth moved, and after a moment sound came out. “Can I ever find him again?”

Alain touched his cheek to the cool wood of the staff. It was Adica he saw, walking the trail that leads to the land where the meadow flowers bloom. A place far away and long ago, lost to him. He looked up, into the eyes of the daimone.

“Sometimes we are forever separated from the one we love. But, in truth, I do not know what lies beyond the veil.”

“Then I will keep looking.”

A breath gasped out of those lips.

Liath groaned as the body went slack. She collapsed to the floor.

Now and again, silence is a caught breath, all creation suspended between one heartbeat and the next. No one spoke. No one moved. The lamps burned, but they could not obliterate the shadows.

“He is breathing,” said Countess Lavrentia, once known as Mother Obligatia.

Sanglant opened his eyes, dark with the look of his mother’s kin. He blinked, as if trying to focus, and he did so finally as Liath staggered to her feet and stared at him incredulously.

“Liath,” he said, and he reached for her hand.

XIV

THE CROWN