The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Well,” he said, reading reluctance in her otherwise placid expression, “now is not the time. Still, there remains the matter of Sanglant. Both Villam and Judith have ridden east to rally their marchlanders against the Quman threat. If there is war in the east and war coming in Aosta, then certainly we must hope to convince Sanglant to return to court.” This comment scarcely caused a ripple, given the swells that had passed through the crowd before. Henry turned to regard Rosvita with his most compelling gaze. “But I can make no decision without consulting the best of my counselors. What do you advise, Sister? How am I to respond to Adelheid’s proposal?”

Curiously, it was Hathui, standing behind the king’s chair, who lifted her chin to show support, or to suggest an answer. The hall lay as silent as any hall could be with fully three or four hundred people crammed inside, all sweating and struggling to get close enough to hear what would come next.

In that silence of coughs and shifting feet, a distantly shouted question floating in from outdoors, and the whine of some poor dog crushed in the crowd, Rosvita remembered Theophanu’s words at the convent of St. Ekatarina, the ones the princess had spoken when she thought Rosvita was still asleep: “What good is my high birth if our lord father marries again and sires younger children whom he loves more and sets above me? Why should I serve them, when I came before them? Is that not why the angels rebelled?”

Rosvita was fond of Theophanu, truly. She had sympathy for the difficult position that Theophanu had, all these years, handled with dignity and calm. She even admired Theophanu’s cool loyalty to her elder brother, Sanglant, and the constant, uncomplaining service she had given her father.

But Rosvita was Henry’s loyal servant first and foremost—after God, of course. Henry would always come first in her heart, and as his trusted counselor she had also to take into account what would benefit the kingdom as well the man himself. She stepped forward to offer him the ivory comb.

“You are still young, Your Majesty.” She needed to say nothing more. Like her, he was not more than forty-three years old.

He smiled brilliantly, and indeed he looked five years younger in that moment, as if Adelheid had brought in her train a spell of youth which she now spun over him. He brought the comb to his lips and kissed it gently, then turned over Adelheid’s hand and placed the comb in it, folding her fingers over it and sealing her grasp with his own hand, cupped over hers. She sat back with a sharp, satisfied, and vehement smile.

“Send ahead to Angenheim,” said Henry to his stewards and to every soul waiting in the hall. “Tell them to make ready for a wedding feast fitting for the marriage of a queen to a king!”

6

ZACHARIAS woke at sunrise. He ached all over from sleeping all night. Kansi-a-lari sat cross-legged in the shallow pit, arms raised to greet the sun. She was singing in her own language, and when she had finished, she bent to bathe her face in the pool of still water that had collected in the shallow pit over the night. With beads of water slipping down her chin, she swung to look at him.

“Now we descend,” she said.

“Will we cross the sea flat again?” he asked, shuddering. This time they might not be so lucky. This time the tide might come in while they walked, vulnerable, over the sands, and sweep them away.

She smiled enigmatically and indicated the water, as if suggesting he, too, bathe his face in preparation for the ordeal ahead. “The cosmos is like wood much eaten by insects. It is riddled with holes and passages through which people can travel. Some holes are natural. Some are built with magic in long-ago times. That is why we come to churendo, the palace of coils. Here the three worlds meet. Here we can descend the spiral path and the gate will open to that place where now he is hidden.”

“Your son,” murmured Zacharias. She didn’t look old enough to have an adult son, and yet she didn’t look young either. She said nothing, only waited, and at last he crawled forward cautiously and dipped fingers in the pool of water. It was cool and, when he splashed it on his face, it stung, a little briny. But it seemed harmless enough.

He had saved out water for the horse, and he let it take the precious liquid out of his cupped hands as Kansi-a-lari readied her pack and pouch, straightened her skin skirt, and hoisted her spear. It was a cool morning, without the bite of winter. Fog bound them on all sides; he couldn’t see the distant shore nor could he see the sea at the base of the island, although he heard it as a steady sigh and murmur.

“Is it really spring?” he asked. “Could we have traveled so far in one night?”

She examined him in silence, then untied one of the ribbons fastened just below the obsidian point of her spear and trailed it like a snake across the surface of the brackish pool. “We are the—what do you call them? To move the boat, what you use to pull at the waves?”

“Oars?”

“We are the oars. We stir the waves of the deep pool, like so.” She drew the ribbon along the surface in a circle that crossed its starting point, became another circle, and wound back to the beginning. “We have far to travel on the coils of air and earth.” The ribbon dripped as she lifted it from the water. “In the palace of coils you can leave behind where you are doubting in your heart.” She let the ribbon fall back into the pool and it lay there on the surface, twining slowly to an unseen current. She tapped her breastbone. “Throw where you are doubting into the pool. Then it will stay here while you descend.”

He had so many doubts, but none of them were things he could hold in his hand. And yet hadn’t his grandmother always said that a wildflower was a good enough sacrifice to the old gods as long as it was given with a true heart? He had seen strange things. Maybe it was time to throw his doubts away.

He reached for the leather thong inside his robe and pulled out the wooden Circle of Unity which his father had carved for him long ago. Pulling it off, he held it out. “I have seen many things I never knew existed. I will walk the path of truth, not blind tradition. I will keep my eyes open.”

He dropped the Circle into the pool. It vanished with a plop, and as the waters closed over it, it dragged down the ribbon with it until both disappeared. The pool lay smooth and still, but he could see nothing below the surface.

osvita was Henry’s loyal servant first and foremost—after God, of course. Henry would always come first in her heart, and as his trusted counselor she had also to take into account what would benefit the kingdom as well the man himself. She stepped forward to offer him the ivory comb.

“You are still young, Your Majesty.” She needed to say nothing more. Like her, he was not more than forty-three years old.

He smiled brilliantly, and indeed he looked five years younger in that moment, as if Adelheid had brought in her train a spell of youth which she now spun over him. He brought the comb to his lips and kissed it gently, then turned over Adelheid’s hand and placed the comb in it, folding her fingers over it and sealing her grasp with his own hand, cupped over hers. She sat back with a sharp, satisfied, and vehement smile.

“Send ahead to Angenheim,” said Henry to his stewards and to every soul waiting in the hall. “Tell them to make ready for a wedding feast fitting for the marriage of a queen to a king!”

6

ZACHARIAS woke at sunrise. He ached all over from sleeping all night. Kansi-a-lari sat cross-legged in the shallow pit, arms raised to greet the sun. She was singing in her own language, and when she had finished, she bent to bathe her face in the pool of still water that had collected in the shallow pit over the night. With beads of water slipping down her chin, she swung to look at him.

“Now we descend,” she said.

“Will we cross the sea flat again?” he asked, shuddering. This time they might not be so lucky. This time the tide might come in while they walked, vulnerable, over the sands, and sweep them away.