Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

“We wintered at Gent.” That hoarse scrape in his voice gave his words a nostalgic tone but in truth, his voice always sounded like that. “There was a woman there, a servant in the palace. Frederun. She wept when I left.”

“Thinking already of the gifts she would no longer get from you.”

“No. She was genuinely sorry to see me go.”

“So will I be, Sanglant.” She spoke the words teasingly, but he did not respond in kind.

“That’s not what I meant. It didn’t seem right somehow, to use her that way. It seemed as though I’d offered her something she desperately wanted and then snatched it out of her hands.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Waltharia impatiently. “I am a woman, just as she is. You know well enough what appeal you have to us, or at least you once knew it well enough to encourage our sighs and offers, and I know you have never suffered a lack of interest on our part. She was lucky you paid her any attention at all.”

“Was she?” he murmured, but Waltharia either did not hear or did not reply. Sanglant sighed sharply. Blessing gave a snorting sigh as if in answer and rolled away, flinging an arm out as she shifted. She had grown into a remarkably unquiet sleeper.

Lying still, Anna risked opening one eye.

Sanglant still sat on the bed, looking intent but rather rumpled, as though he’d already taken a few rolls in the hay. He fingered his hair, playing with the tips, needing something to do with his restless hands.

“Where is my schola?” he asked at last.

“They were given my leave to sleep by the hearth in the hall this night.”

At last he rose, walking to the window, leaning out to stare into the night just as Waltharia had done before him. His embroidered tunic showed off the breadth of his shoulders and the tapering line of his torso and hips. Anna was old enough now to note that men were good-looking. Sometimes she peeked at Matto, watching the changes overcome his youthful body, but she had never precisely thought of the prince himself in those terms. He was too old, and too high above her. The night breeze breathed in his hair, stirring black strands along his neck.

“It would be treason to rise against my father,” he said to the night sky.

“Walburg is a stout fortress, Your Highness. I do not doubt I can bide here safely, despite war and famine. But my people will not do as well, and if they suffer, then what kind of steward am I? Will there be anything left for my children, and my children’s children, to rule? I cannot take that chance.”

“I am not ready to take so bold a step.”

“Do not wait too long, Prince Sanglant.” Her voice roughened, and not only from passion. “Your child is precious, but children are easily lost in times like these.” He turned back, startled, to regard her. Tears shone in her eyes. “Our daughter was but two years of age when she died.”

“I was never told. She was to be placed in a convent. That’s all I heard. My father made it clear that was to be the end of it, as far as I was concerned.”

“And so it was the end of it,” she said bitterly. “Is the church not the proper place for an illegitimate child? When a stallion is brought in to breed a mare, isn’t he returned afterward to his master?”

“What happened?”

Anna feared to breathe, seeing how still the prince stood and knowing how well he could hear.

After a moment, Waltharia continued. “Bandits fell upon the party that was escorting her to the cloister at Warteshausen. I had them hunted down and hanged, and let their corpses rot to nothing on the walls. But that did not bring back the child.” She smiled bravely, wiped her face, and downed another cup of cider. “There,” she finished, setting down the cup. It rang lightly on wood. “I had done grieving, until you reminded me. It happened four years past, not yesterday. I lost my second son to fever two winters ago, and I pray to God every dawn and every night that I shall not lose the other three.” Anger made her tears wither and dry, a heat that wicked them away. “I will not risk Villam lands and all that my father has left in my care so that Henry may run to Aosta seeking an illusory crown among foreigners.”

“You risk Henry’s wrath if you counsel rebellion. You could lose everything, even your life.”

The fever had passed, leaving her calm again, the kind of woman who rarely lost control and then only when she really, really wanted to and was prepared for the consequences. She displayed the gold torque again, tracing the curve of the braid sensuously with her finger. Sanglant, shuddering, shut his eyes. His hands, lying open against the stone ledge, curled into fists.

She smiled as at a challenge offered and accepted. “We march lords must be prepared for anything.”

He stirred at the window, opening his eyes. “Is that an invitation, or a proposal?”

“It’s whatever you take it to be. Will you wear the gold torque, my lord prince?”

5

THE Eika fleet sailed out of Rikin Sound before a fair wind, two hundred and twenty-three longships and forty-six knarrs, the big-bellied cargo ships that plied the northern seas. Behind them came eight ships of various size and shape, captained by human allies. These were mostly young men from the merchant colonies that now paid tribute to Stronghand, restless youths eager to make a fortune looting Alba’s rich towns and heathen temples.

At first the weather favored them, but they had no sooner seen the shorebirds flying overhead, they had no sooner heard the first shout from the foremost ships, sighting the green hills of Alba, than a gale blew up from the southwest and scattered the fleet north and east.

Stronghand ordered his men to shorten their sails and they rode out the storm with ease, but it took six days for their merfolk allies to track down the scattered ships and escort them back to a rendezvous at the Cackling Skerries off the rugged northeastern coast of Alba, far from the southern lands where lay the most prosperous towns, fields, and temples.