The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Well,” continued Henry, “I will have the letters read to me, and I wish to speak with this Sister Anne.” He caught sight of Sanglant, still kneeling with mute obstinacy, and frowned. “You will return to your chamber, and you may come before me again when you are ready to beg my forgiveness.”

It was a dismissal. Liath rose. She desperately wanted to rub her aching knees, but dared not. Sanglant hesitated. Was it rebellion? Had he not heard? Henry granted with annoyance, and then the prince rose, glanced once at Liath, once toward his sisters—

o;Well,” said Villam with a snort of laughter, “I fear me, my good friend Henry, that I see nothing here I have not seen a hundred times before. They are young and they are handsome and they are hungry for that with which the body feeds them.”

“Is it only the young who think in this way, my good friend Helmut?” asked Henry with a laugh. “So be it. If there is threat in her beyond the sorcery her father evidently taught her and that others seek to exploit by gaining control of her, I do not see it. But.”

But.

The word cut like a blade.

“I will not tolerate my son’s disobedience. Naked he came into the world, and I clothed him. He walked, until I gave him a horse to ride. My captains trained him, and he bore the arms I gifted him with. All that he has came from me, and in his arrogance he has forgotten that.”

“I have not forgotten it.” Sanglant said it hoarsely, as if the knowledge pained him—but his voice always sounded like that.

“You no longer wear the iron collar set upon you by Bloodheart. Where is the gold torque that marks you as blood of my blood, descendant of the royal line of Wendar and Varre?”

“I will not wear it.” At his most stubborn, with high cheekbones in relief, the un-Wendish slant of his nose, the way he held his jaw taut, he was very much the arrogant prince, one born out of an exotic line.

“You defy me.” Henry’s tone made the statement into a question. She heard it as a warning.

Surely Sanglant understood that it was pointless to set himself against the king? They could not win against the king, who had all the power where they had none.

“I am no longer a King’s Dragon.”

“Then give me the belt of honor which I myself fastened on you when you were fifteen. Give me the sword that I myself gave into your hands after Gent.”

Villam gasped. Even Sapientia looked up, tears streaking her face. Liath’s throat burned with the bile of defeat. But Sanglant looked grimly satisfied as he lay belt, sheath, and sword at the king’s feet.

“You are what I make you.” Henry’s words rang like a hammer on iron. “You will do as I tell you. I am not unsympathetic to the needs of the flesh, which are manifold. Therefore, keep this woman as your concubine, if you will, but since she, my servant, has not received my permission to wed, then her consent even before witnesses is not valid. I will equip an army, and arm you for this duty, and you will lead this army south to Aosta. When you have restored Princess Adelheid to her throne, you will marry her. I think you will find a queen’s bed more satisfying than that of a magus’ get—no matter how handsome she may be.”

“But what about me, Father?” demanded Sapientia, whose tears had dried suddenly.

“You I will invest as Margrave of Eastfall, so that you may learn to rule yourself.”

She flushed, stung as by a slap in the face, but she did not protest.

“And what of me, Father?” asked Theophanu more quietly. “What of Duke Conrad’s suit?”

Henry snorted. “I do not trust Conrad, and I will not send one of my most valuable treasures into the treasure-house of a man who may harbor his own ambitions.”

“But, Father—”

“No.” He cut her off, and she was far too cool to show any emotion, whether relief or anger or despair. “In any case, the church will rule that you are too closely related, with a common ancestor in the—” He gestured toward Rosvita.

“In the seventh degree, if we calculate by the old imperial method. In the fourth degree, if we calculate by the method outlined in an encyclical circulated under the holy rule of our Holy Mother Honoria, who reigned at the Hearth before Clementia, she who is now skopos in Darre.”

“No marriage may be consummated within the fifth degree of relation,” said Henry, with satisfaction. “Conrad will not get a bride from my house.” The door opened, and Hathui returned, making her bow, but she had hardly gotten inside the door when Henry addressed her: “Eagle, tell Duke Conrad that I will hold audience with him. Now. As for Father Hugh—well—”

“Send him to the skopos,” hissed Sapienta. “I will see him condemned!” Then she burst into noisy sobs.

“Well,” continued Henry, “I will have the letters read to me, and I wish to speak with this Sister Anne.” He caught sight of Sanglant, still kneeling with mute obstinacy, and frowned. “You will return to your chamber, and you may come before me again when you are ready to beg my forgiveness.”

It was a dismissal. Liath rose. She desperately wanted to rub her aching knees, but dared not. Sanglant hesitated. Was it rebellion? Had he not heard? Henry granted with annoyance, and then the prince rose, glanced once at Liath, once toward his sisters—

“Come,” said Villam, not without sympathy. “It is time for you to go.”

When they returned to the chamber set aside for Sanglant’s use and the door shut behind them, she simply walked into his arms and stood there for a long while, not wanting to move. He was solid and strong, and she felt as if she could pour all her anger and fire and fear into the cool endless depths of him without ever filling him up. He seemed content simply to stand there, rocking slightly side to side: he was never completely at rest. But she was at rest here, with him—even in such disgrace. She had lived on the fringe of society for so long, she and Da, that she could scarcely feel she had lost something precious to her.