Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

She could practically breathe in the ancient stones, the memory of the empire that had risen here centuries ago and then collapsed into ruins, devastated by the raids of the Bwrmen and their savage allies and by its own internal corruption. If she crossed under that archway, she could walk away into the city—except that she could not move.

“Where is the book?” her voice asked.

He glanced up, face lit by the simple question. “If you will.” He indicated the passageway. “I have my own suite of chambers in the skopos’ palace. All of the presbyters do, of course, except those who travel as ambassadors.” He did not stumble over his words. He was far too well educated, too composed, too experienced in a courtier’s smooth affability. “There’s also the library. Ai, God, Liath! You can’t believe the library here! So much that one could never hope to learn it all! Sometimes I just go down and sit there among the books, breathing in the weight of them. I wish I could just press them against my skin and let the voice of each writer melt into my body.”

Had it gotten hot suddenly? Fire burned in her cheeks.

“Do you know what I found there?” he asked, letting her precede him down a hall lined with thick curtains long enough to conceal oneself in. But before she could ask and he answer, a presbyter hurried up, a lean man with a cadaverous face. “I pray you, Your Honor. A delegation from the townsfolk has come. There’s trouble in the city again. You know how it is with these mercenaries that Ironhead has hired. They will harass the townspeople, but with the Holy Mother so ill there’s no one to mediate between them. Ironhead can’t be spoken to—”

“I’ll come.” Hugh turned to Liath. “One of my servants will show you to the library. I’ll come there once I’m free.” Again, he hesitated. “But only if—well, I’ll say no more. If it pleases you.”

Her voice answered. “I’ll wait for you there.”

Soon enough she stood again at the catalog, running her fingers over the vellum, scanning the titles. Commentary on the Dream of Cornelia by Eustacia. Artemisia’s Dreams. A copy of the Annals of Autun lay abandoned on the table next to her, a chronicle complete through the end of the reign of Arnulf the Younger and bound together with a full account of the moon’s phases and movements through the zodiac over a period of one hundred and sixty-eight years.

Her hands turned the pages idly as her mind tried to concentrate on the words. Taillefer’s youngest daughter, Gundara, married off to the Duc de Rossalia… but she kept looking toward the doors, wondering if that man walking in was Hugh, wondering if she could find Hugh in whatever hall or official chamber was set aside for such delicate negotiations as he was now conducting, an attempt to keep the peace in a troubled kingdom where conflict would only lead to the death of innocents.

Finally, she just gave in to that stifling grip that teased her mind and eddied through her body. She sat on a bench and let the weight of so many books caress her, breathing them in. Could all those words, written by so many scribes and scholars, drift through the air and into her pores, melding with her body, becoming one and always a part of her? It is always easier just to let go, to give in.

She dozed.

In her dreams, she walks in a daze through a rose mist, trying to find the path, but she is lost, forever lost, and she has to find the way upward but someone has hold of her, she is chained at the throat with a ribbon of silk that has slid down all the way through her entire body, and she can’t get away.

“Liath.”

She woke suddenly, heart hammering, flinching away from his hated touch. But as she sat up, feeling the ache in her back from the hard bench and a knot in her hip where the edge of the quiver had jammed into the bone, she saw Hugh, standing an arm’s length from her. The great domed chamber had gotten dim, as if the sun had set. Two servants stood behind Hugh carrying a lamp to light his way.

He smiled. “I thought I’d find you reading.”

“I fell asleep.” Irritation flashed, briefly felt, quickly swaddled and stilled.

“I beg your pardon. The negotiations went longer than I expected. Now I must beg your pardon again, for I’m expected at the feast. The king has a short temper, and it’s best if when he’s drinking there’s someone close by who can, as they say, temper his outbursts. If you’re hungry, you can take a meal in a private chamber.”

“Nay,” the voice said, “I’ll come with you.”

Did lust glint in his gaze? Desire, surely; he could not disguise that, although he frowned reticently enough. “If you wish for other clothing, something more suitable, I can see that it is provided.”

The touch of silk pooled along her skin like the caress of a hand. Memory flashed, sharp and bitter: his fingers in her hair.

“No,” she blurted out although another word rose like bile in her throat: Yes. “I’ll stay as I am.” The quiver settled comfortably against her back as she stood to face him. These paltry things that were hers—tunic and leggings, quiver and bow, the gold torque and lapis lazuli ring. She had to cling to them, although she didn’t know why. He nodded thoughtfully, intrigued by something—her paltry belongings, or her stumbling words. He wore his presbyter’s robes again, a fall of pale silk, not a stark white but gently shaded with the tone of ivory, like the moon’s gleam.

“You’re beautiful,” she said, the words just popping out. But it was true, after all. Wasn’t it? Some things were true whether you wanted them to be or not.

He flushed, turning aside so that she could see only his profile. “Liath,” he said, faltering, a man in the grip of strong emotion. What he wanted to say next would not come out. He was ashamed or bashful, startled or modest; impossible to tell. Finally he shook his head as if to shake it off. “The king waits. I must go.” He extended a hand to her, thought better of it, and pulled it back as a fist to his body.

They went, walking side by side but an arm’s length apart.

The king’s feasting hall was twice the size of any she’d seen before. It was built all of stone, and in the ancient Dariyan style, or perhaps it was an ancient hall still in good enough condition to be used for state occasions. Tapestries and curtains covered the walls, making it gold and red, all ablaze, the colors of fire.

She remembered fire. None burned here. Except for the lamps, she had not seen flame at all, not a single fire or hearth. But of course it was warmer in Aosta, all year round. Perhaps they didn’t need so many fires. It still seemed strange.

The king sat at the high table, up on a dais, with his best companions surrounding him and Hugh at his right hand. John Ironhead, king of Aosta, had the loudest laugh, and the bluntest voice, and the coarsest eyes, of any man there. He wore an iron crown, perhaps in mockery of his position, knowing as everyone did how he’d come by it—with the sword, not through blood right. Perhaps he wore it to remind people of his power. He had captured Queen Adelheid’s treasure, and the one who held the royal treasure had enough gold to do as he wished.

“He’d have preferred to capture Queen Adelheid’s other treasure,” said the man Liath sat beside at table. He snickered. “But he couldn’t lay his hands on her. That’s why he wears the iron crown. He doesn’t possess the royal crowns or seals. She got away with them.”

“How can he rule here, if he possesses none of the seals of regnancy?” asked Liath. Hugh sat at her left, and this Aostan duke to her right.

The Aostan duke snorted. “He has two thousand Arethousan and Nakrian mercenaries in the city, and fifty noble children as hostages.” He gestured toward a lower table where children of varying ages sat in anxious silence as they ate the food brought to them. One among them, a light-haired girl no more than thirteen, was brought forward to sit at Ironhead’s left hand. The king plied her with wine, fondling her shoulder, and she had a glazed look on her face as she slid helplessly toward hysteria. She was in his power, and she knew it, and he, knowing it as well, savored it.