The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

o;And whore and be drunk every night and never pray and do nothing but please myself? That’s hardly God’s work!”

Baldwin picked a spray of wilted parsley, chewed on it, then spat it out. “How can we know what God’s work is? I just do what I’m told.”

“You don’t! You ran away from Margrave Judith.”

“I had to,” said Baldwin solemnly. “God made me. God whispered to me that Margrave Judith sent her last husband into a battle where she knew he’d be killed, because she wanted to marry me. God warned me that she’d do the same to me in four or five years, when a younger, handsomer boy came along.”

Ivar regarded Baldwin in the fine light of a pleasant winter’s morning. “Baldwin, there isn’t a handsomer man than you, not in this entire kingdom.”

“She might still get tired of me. She might sell me to the Arethousans, and they’d cut off my cock. They like eunuchs there. That’s what Father Hugh told me. Anyway, I don’t like her and I never will. I don’t want to be married to a woman like that. She treated me like a horse! Just something she would use and then keep around until she needed it again!”

“Is there a woman you would like to be married to?”

Baldwin considered this for a long time. “One who treated me well,” he said finally. “But meanwhile, I’m free of her. If I had to be Prince Ekkehard’s whore before and his flattering courtier now, so be it. If I have to embrace his leftover whores because he thinks that’s funny, so be it. I don’t mind, as long as they don’t smell. Why should I mind it?”

“Because it’s boring.”

“Boring!” Baldwin’s perfect features registered astonishment. “A woman or two every night, or a friend, if you wish that instead. Hunting almost every day. Good food and the best wine. Singing and dancing and wrestling. Acrobats to entertain you in every way. Poets singing tales of ancient battles. How can that be boring?”

“Ai, God!” The notion, once conceived, took root fiercely in Ivar’s heart. “But it’s just the same thing over and over again. In the end, you’ve nothing.”

“The same thing! You can’t tell me you weren’t as amazed as the rest of us by those acrobat women and what they could do. Lord Wichman would have made them stay a month if he could have.”

“But they didn’t stay a month, did they? None of them wanted to.” Ivar recalled the acrobats vividly. The lithe, half-naked girls who had done rope tricks were zealously guarded by the men of the troupe, even to the point of offending an amorous Ekkehard, but two of the older women had performed in other, quite astonishing, ways for the men. But the troupe had left as soon as their pockets were filled with coin and gifts. “They didn’t like us. No more than you liked being Margrave Judith’s husband. Animals eat and drink and hunt and rut, Baldwin! How are we different from the beasts, as we are now?”

Baldwin blinked at him. A sudden burst of color and noise erupted from the dormitory hall as Ekkehard and his companions emerged into the cloister, laughing and chattering. The few monks who still labored under Brother Humilicus’ rule scurried away into the church, which was the only place Ekkehard never profaned with whores.

“Come!” the young prince ordered. “Baldwin! We go to hunt!”

Baldwin grabbed Ivar by the wrist. “You’ve got to humor him,” he muttered, “or he won’t protect us!” He tugged Ivar along in the prince’s wake, and Ivar let himself be led: After all, there was nothing else to do. At the monastery gate they were met by Ekkehard’s cousin, Lord Wichman, who paced with furious energy. Looking up, he saw Ekkehard.

“You’re late abed, little Cousin!” he cried. “We should have been out an hour ago. I won’t wait for you again!” It had taken Wichman months to recover from the wounds he had received at the battle for Gent last summer, and he still limped, but he was otherwise hale and restless and, as Count Harl often said of such restless young men, ripe for trouble. He had made himself de facto lord of Gent in the absence of any other claimants, and he ruled by turns leniently and intemperately. He laughed now. “And I won’t have to! I’ve received news that there have been Quman raids in the East. My companions and I are going to ride east to fight the barbarians!”

“I’ll go with you!” cried Ekkehard.

“You’ve no experience fighting. You’ll just slow us down and get in the way.”

Ekkehard had a pretty face and a mulish way of thrusting out lips and chin when he was crossed. “How can I get experience fighting if no one will let me ride into the field?”

“You’re an abbot now.” Wichman laughed again, not particularly kindly. Ivar didn’t think Wichman liked his young cousin; he tolerated him because he was bored. “You have spiritual fields to tend.”

Ekkehard did not back down easily. “But just yesterday you got a message from Duchess Rotrudis that you were to return to Osterburg to get married. What about that?”

“I burned the message.” Wichman shrugged. “I’ll tell my mother I never received it.”

“I won’t tell her that,” said Ekkehard slyly. “I’ll write to her myself and tell her all about your disobedience.”

Wichman scratched his beard, shifting off his bad leg. “Very well. But it’s your head that’ll hang from a Quman belt, not mine, Cousin.” He didn’t say the words fondly. “You and your companions can ride with me, but I warn you, you must abide by my command. I won’t have you getting the rest of us killed because you’re foolish.”

Ekkehard thought about this, but he wasn’t stupid. “Very well,” he agreed. “Now can we go to hunt?”

One of Wichman’s companions stepped up and whispered in the lord’s ear. “Ah.” He beckoned. A ragged-looking person was brought forward from the rear of his troop. “I’ve a gift for you, a fish my guards netted at the gates last night. He demanded to be let in, said he’d come all the way from Firsebarg in Varre at your express order. But it’s just another monk, and a fat one, at that. I don’t think your lemans will think much of him.” Then Wichman laughed with a sharp grin. “He’s not pretty like the other ones.”

And there he was, looking tired but still stout and untroubled. His bare feet were a mass of sores, and his hair was ragged and grown long, but he was happy to see them.

“Ermanrich!” Baldwin pounded Ermanrich on the back and then led him before Prince Ekkehard, who allowed Ermanrich to kiss his hand and then dismissed him. He was of no further interest.

“Come, Baldwin,” said the prince. “I got you what you wanted. Now we’ll go hunt.”