Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

The lamps swayed. One of the lamps blew out abruptly, with a mocking hwa of air, like a blown breath, and an instant later a second flame shuddered and then was extinguished. All was still.

If not quiet. Everyone began whispering at once.

“I pray you,” said Henry in a voice so stretched that it seemed ready to break.

They gave him silence.

“You do not go with him,” observed Henry to Alia. She stood by the door that led into the gardens.

She smiled, not a reassuring expression. Lifting a hand, she murmured something under her breath and gestured. At once, the two doused lamps caught flame. As the folk in the room started nervously at this display of magic, she smiled again in that collected way a cat preens itself after catching a particularly fat and juicy mouse.

“He is young and hot-tempered. What I am not understanding is why you are not listening to me, Henri. Is so much knowledge lost to humankind that you refuse to believe me? Do you truly not remember what happened in the long-ago days? I come as—what would you say?—walking as an emissary, from my people to yours. To tell you that many of us are wanting peace, and not wanting war.”

“Where are your people? Where have they been hiding?”

She gave a sharp exhalation of disappointment. “I am offering you an alliance now, when you are in a position of strength. Many among our council argued against this, but because I gave of my essence to make the child, I was choosing to come now and they could not be stopping me. I was choosing to give you this chance.” She walked to the door and paused by the threshold. “But when I appear before you next, Henri, you will be weak.”

She walked out of the chamber. No one tried to stop her.

There came then a long silence. Fortunatus brushed a hand against Rosvita’s elbow. From somewhere beyond the garden, she heard a woman’s laugh, incongruous because of its careless pleasure. The lamplit glow made the chamber like the work of an ancient sculptor, every statue wrought in wood or ivory at the artisan’s pleasure:

There sat the regnant with his dark eyes raging in a face as still as untouched water. There stood the queen whose high color could be seen in the golden light of burning lamps. The old lord rubs habitually at the empty sleeve of his tunic, as though at any moment a breath of sorcery will fill it again with his lost arm. The princess has turned away, ivory face in profile, jewels glittering at her neck, and a hand on the shoulder of one of her ladies, caught in the act of whispering a confidence.

The King’s Eagle had folded her arms across her chest and she seemed thoughtful more than shocked, as was every other soul. As were they all, all but Henry, whose anger had congealed into the cold fury of a winter’s storm. St. Thecla went her rounds on the tapestries, caught forever in the cycle of her life and martyrdom, an ever-present reminder of the glory of the Word. Villam coughed.

The king rose. He glanced at his Eagle and made a small but significant gesture. The Eagle nodded as easily as if he had spoken out loud, then left the chamber on an unknown errand.

“I will to my bed.” Henry took two strides toward one of the inner doors before he paused and turned back toward Adelheid, but the young queen did not move immediately to follow him.

“Do you believe it to be an impossible story, Sister Rosvita?” she asked.

At first, Rosvita thought she had forgotten how to talk. Her thoughts scattered wildly before she herded them in. “I would need more evidence. Truly, it is hard to believe.”

“That does not mean it cannot be true.” Adelheid glanced toward the garden. The cool wind of an autumn night curled into the room, making Rosvita shudder. What if it brought another daimone? “We have seen strange sights, Sister Rosvita. How is this any stranger than what we have ourselves witnessed?” She beckoned to her ladies and followed Henry into the far chamber.

“You have won Queen Adelheid’s loyalty,” said Theophanu to Rosvita. “But at what cost? And for what purpose?”

“Your Highness!”

Theophanu did not answer. She retreated with her ladies into the chamber where they had been playing chess, and where beds and pallets were now being set up for their comfort.

How had it come to this?

“Do not trouble yourself, Sister,” whispered Fortunatus at her back. “I do not think Princess Theophanu’s anger at you will last forever. She suffers from the worm of jealousy. It has always gnawed at her.”

“What do you mean, Brother?”

“Do you not think so?” he replied, surprised at her reaction. “Nay, perhaps I am wrong. Certainly you are wiser than I am, Sister.”

Servants and guards dispersed to their places, but Villam lingered and, at last, came forward, indicating that he wished to speak to Rosvita in complete privacy. Fortunatus moved away discreetly to oversee the night’s preparations.

“Do you believe their story?” Villam asked her. The lamplight scoured the wrinkles from his face so that he resembled more than ever his younger self, hale and vigorous and handsome enough to attract a woman’s gaze for more reason than his title and his estates. Hadn’t she looked at him so, when she had been a very young woman come to court for the first time and dazzled by its splendors? In her life, few men had tempted her in this manner, for God had always kept a steadying hand on her passions, and Villam respected God, and the church, and a firm ‘No.’ They had shared a mutual respect for many years.

“I cannot dismiss it out of hand, Villam. Yet it seems too impossible to believe outright.”

“You are not one to take fancies lightly, Sister, nor do you succumb to any least rumor. What will you advise the king?”

“I will advise the king not to act rashly,” she said with a bitter laugh. “Villam, is it possible you can go now and speak to Prince Sanglant?”