The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“No matter.” Alain took Steadfast’s paw into his hand to examine it. A bramble thorn had bitten deep into the flesh, and he gentled her with his tone and then got hold of the thorn and pulled it out. She whimpered, then set to work licking again.

A flash of dead white out in the streaming flow of the river distracted him. Downstream, a fish appeared, belly up. Dead. Then a second, a third, and a fourth appeared farther downstream yet, dead white bellies turned up to sun and air, gleaming corpses drawn seaward by the current. Beyond that he could make out only light on the water.

Rage growled.

“My lord.” The servant had brought his horse.

But he walked back instead, to keep an eye on Steadfast. The thorn had done no lasting damage. Soon she was loping along with the others in perfect good humor, biting and nipping at her cousins in play. Alain would have laughed to see them; it was, after all, a pleasant and carefree day.

But when, across the river, he saw the fishermen trudging home with their baskets full of plump fish, the image of the dead fish caught in the current flashed into his mind’s eye and filled him with a troubling foreboding—only he did not know why.

4

THE quiet that pervaded the inner court of the palace of Weraushausen had such a soothing effect, combined with the heat of the sun, that Liath drowsed on the stone bench where she waited even though she wasn’t tired. Fears and hopes mingled to become a tangled dream: Da’s murder, Hugh, the curse of fire, Hanna’s loyalty and love, Ivar’s pledge, the shades of dead elves, Lord Alain and the friendship he had offered her, the death of Bloodheart, Sister Rosvita and The Book of Secrets, daimones hunting her and, more vivid than all the others, the tangible memory of Sanglant’s hair caught in her fingers there by the stream where he had scoured away the filth of his captivity.

She started up, heart pounding; she was hot, embarrassed, dismayed, and breathless with hope all at once.

She could not bear to think of him because she wanted only to think of him. A bee droned past. The gardener who weeded in the herb garden had moved to another row. No one had come to summon her. She did not know how much longer she would have to wait.

She walked to the well with its shingled roof and whitewashed stone rim. The draft of air rising from the depths smelled of fresh water and damp stone. The deacon who cared for the chapel here had told her that a spring fed the wells; before the coming of the Daisanite fraters to these lands a hundred years ago its source had rested hidden in rocks and been worshiped as a goddess by the heathen tribes. Now a stone cistern contained it safely beneath the palace.

Was that the glint of water in the depths? if she looked hard enough with her salamander eyes, would she see in that mirror the face of the man she would marry, as old herbwomen claimed? Or was that only pagan superstition, as the church mothers wrote?

She drew back, suddenly afraid to see anything, and stepped out from the shadow of the little roof into the blast of the noonday sun.

“I will never love any man but him.” Was it that pledge which had bound her four days ago in the circle of stones where she’d crossed through an unseen gateway and ridden into unknown lands? Had she really been foolish enough to turn away from the learning offered to her by the old sorcerer?

She shaded her eyes from the sun and sat again on the bench. It had heavy feet fashioned in the likeness of a lion’s paws, carved of a reddish-tinged marble. That same marble had been used for the pillars lining the inner court.

Because the king was not now in residence at Weraushausen, a mere Eagle like herself could sit in the court usually reserved for the king rather than stand attendance upon him. It was so quiet that she could believe for this while in the peace that God are said to grant to the tranquil soul—not that such peace was ever likely to be granted to her.

A sudden scream tore the silence, followed by laughter and the pounding of running feet.

“Nay, children. Walk with dignity. Slow down!”

The children of the king’s schola had arrived to take their midday exercise, some more sedately than others. Liath watched as they tumbled out into the sunlight. She envied these children their freedom to study, their knowledge of their kin, and their future position in the king’s court. One boy climbed a plinth and swung, dangling, from the legs of the old statue set there, an ancient Dariyan general.

“Lord Adelfred! Come down off there. I beg you!”

“There’s the Eagle,” said the boy, jumping down. “Why couldn’t we hear her report about the battle at Gent?”

Next to the statue stood Ekkehard, the king’s youngest child. He resembled his father although he had the slenderness of youth. At this moment, he wore a sullen expression as if it were as fine an adornment as his rich clothing and gem-studded rings, in sharp contrast to the austere expression of the stone soldier. “I asked if I could ride back with her, to my father,” he said, “but it wasn’t allowed.”

“We must be going back to the king’s court soon,” retorted the other boy, looking alarmed. By the slight burr in the way he pronounced his Wendish, Liath guessed he was from Avaria, perhaps one of Duke Burchard’s many nephews. “King Henry can’t mean to leave us here forever! I’m to get my retinue next year and ride east to fight the Quman!”

“It won’t matter, forever,” muttered Prince Ekkehard. He had a sweet voice; Liath had heard him sing quite beautifully last night. In daylight, without a lute in his hand, he merely looked restless and ill-tempered. “Soon I’ll be fifteen and have my own retinue, too, and then I won’t be treated like a child. Then I can do what I want.”

“Eagle.”

Liath started to her feet and turned, expecting to see a cleric come to escort her to Cleric Monica. But she saw only the top of a black-haired head.

“Do you know who I am?” asked the child. For an instant it was like staring into a mirror and seeing a small shadow of herself, although they looked nothing alike except in complexion.

“You are Duke Conrad’s daughter,” said Liath.

The girl took hold of Liath’s wrist and turned over the Eagle’s hand to see the lighter skin of the palm. “I’ve never seen anyone but my father, my avia—my grandmother, that is—and my sister and myself with such skin. I did see a slave once, in the retinue of a presbyter. They said she had been born in the land of the Gyptos, but she was dark as pitch. Where do your kinfolk come from?”

“From Darre,” said Liath, amused by her blithe arrogance.