The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“My wi—” He bit off the word, stabbed by the old shame. “Nay, I must be mistaken.”

“Here, I tell you what,” said Folquin hastily. “I’ll take your first hour of watch and you can go looking for her. Then you’ll know whether you’re mistaken.” He got a good spadeful of dirt and tossed it above the ditch. “I always hate it when I can’t stop thinking over something that might be, or might not have been. If only I hadn’t rolled a deuce!”

Alain had to laugh. “If only you hadn’t rolled at all.”

“Nay, leave off, I beg you,” cried Folquin, leaning on his shovel and grinning, “you won’t be lecturing me as Ingo did, will you?”

“Nay, not as Ingo did. In my very own way, I’m sure. Didn’t your own aunt weave that tunic for you?”

Folquin groaned, pounding his head against the shovel’s haft. “Ai, God! Have mercy! Ingo calling me a shameless gambler was bad enough. Now this! My poor aunt. How can I ever face her now? She’ll know how careless I was with the things she gifted me with.”

“And sweated over.”

Alain had discovered that Folquin’s adventurous heart concealed a very real devotion to his distant family, the same ones he’d abandoned for the life of a King’s Lion. He was always collecting pretty ribands and little luxurious household items, like a wooden sieve-spoon that was a copy of the silver and gold ones used by noble ladies in the great halls, for his younger sisters; he had friends enough among the Eagles that on occasion one of them would deliver a package made up of such items to his village, if they happened to pass that way.

Now as a bit of rain spattered over them, warm and refreshing, he saw that Folquin truly looked remorseful. “It’s true, isn’t it? I risked something that I’d no right to wager on, for it was like she gave me a piece of her heart when she gifted me with that tunic.”

“Here, now,” said Alain quickly, “you lost it to Dedi in third cohort, didn’t you? Maybe we can offer to take some of his duties in exchange. I don’t know what Ingo would say, for he’s enough responsibilities, but I wouldn’t mind taking a turn at Dedi’s privy digging for a night. If you and Stephen and Leo did as well, and explained the matter to Dedi, too, then why shouldn’t he be willing to return the tunic?”

Folquin straightened up and stared at him for a moment in the most uncomfortable way. He had curly hair, cropped short. He tugged on it now, a habitual gesture, before turning back to his digging. “I’d be grateful,” he said in a low voice. “And I meant what I said about you looking for that woman tonight, if you’ve a mind to. I’ll take your watch.”

By the time they had eaten their night’s meal, the day had passed into that long hazy twilight that in summer lingers on and on. For some reason it was a loud evening at the whores’ encampment, a straggle of tents, shelters, and awkward lean-tos made of canvas roped to trees that rose and fell each night as the army marched east. Perhaps the cooling rains had given a second wind to the cavalrymen. A bard played while three women danced for an appreciative audience. In the shadows, items changed hands, and hands sought under skirts for that which was hidden. The bounty in breasts was more evident than the bounty in almsgiving, for there were more beggars than usual, too, children with palsied hands, thin women in torn skirts and mended, filthy tunics, withered old men shoved out of the way by robust young lords who were seeking release from that boredom which is the burden of the well-fed. Alain had forgotten to set food aside as he sometimes did, and the sight of so much suffering chafed. But there was always suffering in the world. Rage and Sorrow padded beside him, and he never minded their presence. On a night like this, in such surroundings, it kept the peddlers and the whores away. He really didn’t want to have a woman leaning up against him, offering him the very thing Tallia had denied him for so long. Surely some good must come out of the promise he had kept to her; he had never done violence to the oath she had made, even if he couldn’t help but look on the women now and wonder what it would be like to take that which they offered more freely than Tallia had.

But all things came with a price.

Rage whined, slewing her head round as she caught a sound, or a scent, that he couldn’t yet hear. He didn’t see the one he was looking for. Surely he had only imagined her earlier.

He heard the noises coming from a dense thicket beyond a broad stream. At first he thought that frenzied grunting was a rootling pig. When he heard low, hard male laughter, he realized he was hearing a desperate and one-sided struggle. He didn’t hesitate, thought no more of getting his feet wet than of thrusting aside the leafy branches with his forearms and stumbling into a dome of low-hanging leaves and branches where two men hunkered over to watch a third wrestle on the ground with a woman in a dirty robe who was trying to scramble away. It was her, grunting hopelessly. It was them, laughing.

A moment later, he realized who she was.

Leaves dragged on his hair as he crashed forward. Under the dome of leaves, it was darker, as if a shroud had been drawn over the sun. Forest litter smothered the footfalls of his boots. The hounds pushed through the thicket behind him. The men turned.

“Ho! Dietrich, we have company!”

“Leave us be!” the one on the ground snarled.

One of his comrades, clearly drunk, giggled. “Nay, let him join in. If she won’t take coin then she’ll take what she gets, eh? More than enough for four.”

He didn’t try to fight them. They were three, and he only one, but he shoved through the dome of vegetation around them, getting his face and hands all scratched up, and grabbed hold of the woman’s wrist. Alain dragged her backward while she fought half against him and half against the man still groping for her thighs, his own tunic hiked up to his hips to expose a vast fleshy expanse. He had wits enough to pull her out into the woodland, not to the stream where her predicament would become a public scene to be laughed over.

The three men followed him, thrashing and swearing, and he shoved the young woman behind him and waited for them. They weren’t all taller than he was, but they had the muscular arms and proud faces of noble sons accustomed to privilege. They rushed him like three bulls, but he stood his ground and raised one hand, pitching his voice to carry. He knew how to do it now, because he had once been a lord mightier than they. And he had Rage and Sorrow at his side.

“How dare you molest this holy woman!”

The words brought them up short, or perhaps the hounds did, standing silent and massive with muzzles pulled back to reveal their teeth and their great bodies poised for attack.

“Look at the size of those dogs,” muttered the first. “Where’s my damned sword?” He had to grope a little—overcompensating for drink—but he found the hilt and drew the blade.

The second flexed his knuckles and then clenched his hands, grinning at the prospect of a fight. He cast around and found a stick, beat it twice on the ground to test its heft.

in straightened up and stared at him for a moment in the most uncomfortable way. He had curly hair, cropped short. He tugged on it now, a habitual gesture, before turning back to his digging. “I’d be grateful,” he said in a low voice. “And I meant what I said about you looking for that woman tonight, if you’ve a mind to. I’ll take your watch.”

By the time they had eaten their night’s meal, the day had passed into that long hazy twilight that in summer lingers on and on. For some reason it was a loud evening at the whores’ encampment, a straggle of tents, shelters, and awkward lean-tos made of canvas roped to trees that rose and fell each night as the army marched east. Perhaps the cooling rains had given a second wind to the cavalrymen. A bard played while three women danced for an appreciative audience. In the shadows, items changed hands, and hands sought under skirts for that which was hidden. The bounty in breasts was more evident than the bounty in almsgiving, for there were more beggars than usual, too, children with palsied hands, thin women in torn skirts and mended, filthy tunics, withered old men shoved out of the way by robust young lords who were seeking release from that boredom which is the burden of the well-fed. Alain had forgotten to set food aside as he sometimes did, and the sight of so much suffering chafed. But there was always suffering in the world. Rage and Sorrow padded beside him, and he never minded their presence. On a night like this, in such surroundings, it kept the peddlers and the whores away. He really didn’t want to have a woman leaning up against him, offering him the very thing Tallia had denied him for so long. Surely some good must come out of the promise he had kept to her; he had never done violence to the oath she had made, even if he couldn’t help but look on the women now and wonder what it would be like to take that which they offered more freely than Tallia had.

But all things came with a price.

Rage whined, slewing her head round as she caught a sound, or a scent, that he couldn’t yet hear. He didn’t see the one he was looking for. Surely he had only imagined her earlier.