The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

Mercifully, Lavastine said nothing after Alain stammered out an explanation of going out in the woods to search for Bliss and thinking he had seen the hound in the middle of a nettle patch. An ancient nun came from the convent to spread a soothing ointment over his skin, all the while clucking her tongue. But even she did not ask how a man fully dressed could have gotten welts and scratches on every part of his body.

Bliss did not return that evening, and Lavastine, at last, declared that they would have to travel on. In the morning, the count gave an offering of silver plate at the chapel. Alain knelt beside him and was blessed by the abbess, who sang the service in front of a carved wooden altar brimming with faithful dogs. Tallia prayed beside him, and with his skin still stinging and sore, he could smile calmly and speak softly. Temptation had poisoned him, but pain had scoured him clean.

When they set out on the road, five hounds padded alongside, and the shadow of the sixth in his heart.

6

“WHY do you call them fixed stars,” Sanglant asked, “if they always move? They rise like the sun and set like the sun. In winter different stars shine in the heavens than do in the spring or summer or autumn. So they must move or we would see the same ones all the time.”

“We call them fixed stars because they don’t move in relation to each other. The planets we call wandering stars because they move through the fixed stars along the ecliptic, along the path through the stars that we also call the world dragon that binds the heavens. Or the zodiac, because it’s a circle of living creatures set into the heavens.”

Sanglant was the kind of person who liked to touch. Right now he had an arm draped over her shoulders, and she loved its weight and warmth. After he had settled the horses for the night, he had searched her out and found her here where she had retreated to practice certain tricks Anne had taught her to control calling fire. But it was such a beautiful night that the stars had distracted her. The Queen stood at zenith, trailed by her Cup, Staff, and Sword. The Lion set west with the Dragon in pursuit, and the Serpent wound in sinuous splendor along the southern horizon while the Archer rose behind it with her bow nocked and ready. Of the planets only Mok was visible on its slow climb through the Lion toward the Dragon, which it would reach—she tried to calculate—in another month or two.

They had passed a tiny monastic estate a few hours ago but, as usual, had not stayed there for the night. Instead, as usual, they found more isolated accommodation. Behind them at the fringe of wood stood an old traveler’s hut built out of brick in the Dariyan style. It had fallen down in disrepair, but the masonry walls were still strong and half the roof remained. The door stood ajar because it was too warped to close. A single light burned within, the magelight of Sister Anne who was now mediating or at prayer.

Even after twelve days on the road, Liath could not easily call her “Mother.”

“Then if the stars are fixed, how do they move?” Sanglant demanded, laughing.

“It’s like a turning wheel. See.” She held up a hand, cupped it so the knuckles pointed up and the palm made a curve like a dome. He couldn’t see well on a night when there was no moon, but he had his own ways of seeing: he let his free hand explore the shape of hers by touch. Which was very distracting.

After a while he remembered that he had asked her a question. By this time they were lying down. “What’s like a turning wheel?”

“The heavens are.” He had one arm under her neck and she had to shift to get comfortable. “Imagine a wheel with many sparks fixed on it. Now curve that wheel into a dome and join the dome with another dome so that it becomes a sphere. Those sparks are fixed to the inner surface of the sphere, so they don’t move, but when the sphere moves, if it rotates in a uniform circular motion, then if you stand at the center of the sphere, the stars move because the sphere moves.”

“What are you standing on there in the center of your sphere?” He still seemed amused. The truth, as she had come to learn, was that he was curious but also skeptical and quick to get bored by such talk, and that sometimes irritated her.

“You’re standing on the earth, of course! The universe is a set of nested spheres, one inside the next with the earth at the center. Beyond the seventh sphere, which is the sphere of the fixed stars, lies the Chamber of Light—where our souls go after we die.”

“Has any scout walked up through these spheres and returned to report on what she saw?”

“A blasphemous thought.” Anne’s voice, cool and yet perhaps faintly amused, came out of the dark.

Liath sat up at once and moved slightly away from her husband.

Husband! The word still staggered her.

Yet something about Anne’s presence made her feel unclean for the physical feelings she had for Sanglant. It was frustrating to be newly wed while traveling with a woman who thought you ought to remain as pure as the angels, so frustrating that at times Liath toyed with heretical thoughts. God were male and female. Why should angels not be as well, and if they were, then where did infant angels come from? If God had joined in harmony to create the universe, why shouldn’t angels join as well? In which case, there ought to be no shame for humans to join so.

She could have asked Da. But she didn’t have the nerve to try out this argument in front of her mother.

Sanglant got to his feet to show respect. “Your knowledge is vast and impressive,” he said lightly. Anne didn’t daunt him. “But it makes no sense to me.”

“Nor should it. You have your place, Prince Sanglant, as we have ours. You need know only that God have created the universe we stand in. That which they wish to make known to you they will reveal to you, Liathano.” She turned away from him. “Come inside.”

Liath hesitated.

“Go on,” said Sanglant softly. “I must tend the dog.”

The old hut had a mosaic floor, river stones pieced cunningly together to make an image of partridges picking up seeds in a thicket. Magelight illuminated the floor, which was chipped and worn and, at the end where the roof no longer covered it, broken and coming to pieces. Anne sat on a canvas stool. A fire burned in a stone hearth, newly swept out, and their cook pot bubbled with a stew that smelled so good that Liath’s mouth watered. Along one wall, an insubstantial shape wavered, slipped like the antithesis of shadow toward the door, and vanished into the night. Anne frowned.

“They’re afraid of me.” Liath blurted it out, although she hadn’t meant to. Although it was the truth.

Anne regarded her evenly. “It is time to eat our supper.”

There were two bowls. Liath obediently dished out stew for Anne, then took some for herself and sat on a stack of bricks that served well enough as a bench. She blew on the broth to cool it. It had a savory odor, rabbit, leeks, herbs. They ate in silence, as always. It needed only a sister to read aloud from the Holy Verses for the atmosphere to match that of the convent.

When she was done, she went back to the cook pot to ladle out Sanglant’s portion.