The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

In that instant, he hated Geoffrey for impoverishing him. It had been within his power, before, to aid the poor and the helpless. Now he had little enough himself, and he felt helpless. “On the nights when I haven’t duties in camp I’ll do what I can to help you, bring in firewood, hunt a little. Gather berries when they’re ripe.”

Someone had bitten the whore’s lower lip, and the wound hadn’t yet healed. She played at the wound with her tongue as she eyed him with professional interest. “You’re a good-looking lad, and well spoken. I’ve a young cousin at my old village of Felsinhame. She’s looking for a husband. She’d not mind one who was away for months at a time, if he was a good lad otherwise.” Seeing something in his expression, she hurried on. “She’s not like me, a horrible sinner, an old slut.” She said the word harshly, and for an instant he glimpsed an angry memory deep within her, rooted in her face. “She’s not like me. She’s a good girl.”

“I’m not looking for a wife,” he said softly as, behind him, Hathumod whimpered and finally began to cry.

“Did you find her?” Folquin asked when, at midnight, Alain arrived at his sentry post somewhat farther downstream on the same brook that he had splashed over to rescue Lady Hathumod.

t possible that she loved him in the same hopeless way that he loved Tallia? Or was she merely clinging to someone familiar in a world that must seem strange to her, severed from the noble way of life she had become accustomed to? Either way, he owed her gentleness.

He helped her rise and walked with her back into camp. She showed him the tent where she slept. They had to wait there a few moments until a blowsy woman emerged and, behind her, a Lion from the third cohort who was straightening his tunic, a man Alain vaguely recognized but didn’t know. He greeted Alain without embarrassment and walked away, whistling. The whore took a swig of cider and looked Alain over.

She wasn’t a pretty woman, but she had the knack of letting the neck of her shift hang low over her breasts, and she knew how to set hand to hip and jut out her leg just so, to suggest goods for sale in the market.

Was this how his mother had looked? Or had she still retained some flower of innocence blooming somehow in the mire of her life? Henri had always said she was beautiful. How would his mother have looked had she lived on, with all the beauty hardened out of her like sap squeezed from a young tree? Was beauty doomed to wither where its goodness was not nurtured? Could beauty only arise out of innocence and purity? Or was it a quality entirely unrelated to anything but the accident of its presence in the world?

“I pray you,” he said to the whore. “I just saved Sister Hathumod from being raped. They’d dragged her into the bushes—”

“That would be Lord Dietrich,” said the whore, looking Hathumod over with a resigned sigh, probing at her ribs and abdomen while Hathumod stood with head bowed. The young novice was ashamed, or humiliated, or uncaring; he couldn’t tell which. “He’s gone through every woman in the train, and he’s looking for fresher prey.”

“Is there anything that can be done to protect her?”

She had a smile no more scornful than that of those hard-eyed noblewomen who oversaw extensive estates and flogged their servants when they were angry. “From the lords?” She laughed. “You Lions are more honest than them. We’re lucky if they give us food after they’ve taken what they want.” With a practiced touch, she hooked fingers up between Hathumod’s thighs and felt at her groin. Alain looked away quickly, ashamed on Hathumod’s behalf, but Hathumod only gasped, shuddering, hands hiding her face. She didn’t even protest. The whore sniffed her fingers, then shook her head as she addressed Alain. “No harm done, this time. But there’s not much we can do for her, friend. She’s a bit touched in the head, thinks she’s a noble lady’s get, and while I grant you she’s well spoken, I don’t see any retinue following at her heels. She hasn’t a clue how to take care of herself. She brings us nothing to eat for she’s no way of getting food and no possessions to trade. We’ve been feeding her in exchange for her preaching, for truly she’s got no other skills. She can’t even mend a tear in a skirt.”

He knew a bargainer when he saw one. He had watched Aunt Bel haggle on market day many times. “I’ll see what extra food I can bring. But I’ve no coin. I’m new to the Lions, and we’re only paid in coin twice a year.”

“Umm,” she said, looking him over again in a considering way. “New to the Lions, indeed. You’ve got nice shoulders, my friend. But nice shoulders don’t make dinner.”

In that instant, he hated Geoffrey for impoverishing him. It had been within his power, before, to aid the poor and the helpless. Now he had little enough himself, and he felt helpless. “On the nights when I haven’t duties in camp I’ll do what I can to help you, bring in firewood, hunt a little. Gather berries when they’re ripe.”

Someone had bitten the whore’s lower lip, and the wound hadn’t yet healed. She played at the wound with her tongue as she eyed him with professional interest. “You’re a good-looking lad, and well spoken. I’ve a young cousin at my old village of Felsinhame. She’s looking for a husband. She’d not mind one who was away for months at a time, if he was a good lad otherwise.” Seeing something in his expression, she hurried on. “She’s not like me, a horrible sinner, an old slut.” She said the word harshly, and for an instant he glimpsed an angry memory deep within her, rooted in her face. “She’s not like me. She’s a good girl.”

“I’m not looking for a wife,” he said softly as, behind him, Hathumod whimpered and finally began to cry.

“Did you find her?” Folquin asked when, at midnight, Alain arrived at his sentry post somewhat farther downstream on the same brook that he had splashed over to rescue Lady Hathumod.

“Ai, God, so I did,” said Alain, feeling so weary that he wanted to lie down and let the grass grow over him so that he wouldn’t have to care what happened to poor Hathumod and all the other suffering, lost souls. Yet someone had to care. “She’s—” But Hathumod’s secrets weren’t his to divulge. “She shouldn’t be here.”

“Nor should any of them be here,” said Folquin. “I knew a boy once, my mother’s cousin’s cousin’s son. He was just too pretty, that boy, and he found out that there were those men who would give him anything they had if he’d act the girl for them. So maybe he liked getting it or maybe he liked getting the trinkets or maybe he just liked jerking them on that rope. I’ll never know. He got killed in a knife fight, poor stupid boy.” He went off then, to get his rest.

Alain stroked Sorrow’s ears absently. They’d been on the march for ten days and had camped this night somewhere in Fesse or Saony, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t know the lay of the land here. Captain Thiadbold, Ingo, and the older Lions in first cohort had marched this way before; they recognized the landmarks and the estates, the names of villages and the courses of rivers. They’d crossed one ford that had once been a ferry crossing, and been forced to detour around a second ford that was now a high-cut, eroded bank too steep to pull the wagons up. Summer woodland made their march pleasant, delightfully uneventful except for the usual injuries: a foot run over by a wheel, a man kicked in the thigh by a horse, two fistfights, and one knifing over a village woman. Here in central Wendar, King Henry’s reign was marked by tranquillity and enough to eat.

But he was not tranquil as he stood watch on the verge of the silent woodland, a tangle of young trees at the edge and older ones farther in, massive and brooding with only stars to light them, an ancient forest not yet fallen before the axes of humankind. They had passed a village earlier in the day, but now only the straight track led before them, striking straight as an arrow’s flight into the forest. Here and there on the track stones showed through, scoured with lichen, dark with moss, an old line of march built by another people. Had Dariyan generals once marched their armies through this forest?

He stood on that track now, stones felt as an unyielding surface under the soles of his sandals. A few steps in front of him the half-concealed track crossed the stream at an old ford. He heard it more than saw it in the darkness where the water sang over the stones. Such a crossing point made a good sentry post, so Ingo had theorized.

Frogs chorused and fell silent. A single splash spread ripples of sound into the night, then stilled. Off to his right he saw the figure of another sentry pacing nervously at the edge of a particularly aggressive stand of oak that thrust out into the meadow in which they’d set up camp. He recognized the stout shoulders of Leo, Folquin’s tent-mate. A twig snapped. An owl hooted. The stars blazed, a multitude of glorious lights. He sensed nothing unusual in the night, although a wind was coming up from the southeast. This past day they had marched through open woodland and meadows. Now dense forest lay ahead, a good long day of it, so Ingo said, before they came to the Veser River Valley and its string of forts and fortified towns and villages. East past the Veser there would be more forts and more fortifications, built in the reign of King Arnulf the Elder as protection against the depredations of the Rederii and Helvitii tribesmen who, until twenty years ago, had raided every winter. Now they were Daisanites and quiet plowmen, working in peace side by side with their Wendish overlords. But in recent years, according to the nightly gossip at the campfires, Quman tribesmen had raided far into the interior of Saony, lightning bolts that struck, sizzled, and vanished. Farther east, past the Oder River, their group would enter the marchlands and from that point on they would always have to be on their guard.

War. Was this war different in kind than the terrible duel between Henry and Sabella, brother against sister? Would it be easier to fight an enemy who was so unlike and so savage? Yet even against the inhuman Eika, he had learned that he could not kill.

He had been too stunned to remember that fact the day he had lost Lavas County and taken service in the king’s Lions.

What would the Lions do when they found out he couldn’t fight?

What would he do if the Lady of Battles had forsaken him?

Rage whined, nosing his fingers, and he chuckled a little under his breath. What did it matter? He would march into battle at the side of the others, because that was the loyalty they owed each to the other and to the king. If he died, then at least he would be at peace, and if he lived, he would be no worse off than he was now.

o;Ai, God, so I did,” said Alain, feeling so weary that he wanted to lie down and let the grass grow over him so that he wouldn’t have to care what happened to poor Hathumod and all the other suffering, lost souls. Yet someone had to care. “She’s—” But Hathumod’s secrets weren’t his to divulge. “She shouldn’t be here.”