The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

enix flies, as bright as fire. Or is it a phoenix at all but rather a woman with wings of flame? Delirium makes the woman-figure appear with a familiar face. Is that Liath, come back to haunt her? Is she an angel now, flying in the vault of heaven, all ablaze? As the creature rises, she lifts the slender figure of a man and two great hounds with her. But their weight is too great and with a cry of anguish and frustration the Liath-angel loses her grip on them and they fall away, lost as the fog of dreams rolls across the sky to conceal them.

Hanna falls with them.

“How is she?”

“She’s delirious most of the time, Your Highness.”

“Will she live?”

“So we must pray, Your Highness.”

II

THE ACHE OF AN OLD WOUND

1

“HANNA?”

Someone held a light close to her face. Squeezing her eyes shut, she turned away from the harsh glare.

“Hanna.” More insistently.

She smelled horse on his tunic. A breeze tickled her ear, and she cracked open one eye and realized that it was not lamplight but sunlight that lit the chamber. She lay in a neatly appointed chamber with a second rope-frame bed opposite hers, a table and bench, a chest for clothing, and several basins set here and there about the room, five on the floor and two small copper ones on the table. Through open shutters she glimpsed an apple tree in bloom.

Ingo knelt beside her bed. “Hanna?”

She grunted, reaching out to grasp his shoulder, not sure if he were real or another vivid dream like the ones that plagued her. Even moving her arm took an effort. She was terribly weak, but she could breathe without pain. “You’re really here,” she said, mildly surprised that her voice worked.

“Aye, indeed, lass,” he replied with a crooked grin. He wiped a tear from his cheek. “I’ve been here many a day over the winter, but you didn’t know it. We’ve all watched over you. I thank God that you look likely to live.”

“Ah.” All she remembered was the dreaming, although she knew that long stretches had passed in which she was intermittently aware of the struggle it took to draw a single breath, of fever and chills washing through her as though she were racked by a tidal flow.

“Listen, Hanna.” He took hold of her hand. “We’re leaving Gent. Princess Theophanu is marching with her retinue to Osterburg. Duchess Rotrudis has died at last. The princess must go there swiftly to make sure the old duchess’ heirs don’t tear Saony into pieces.”

“Yes.” She had a vague recollection that Prince Sanglant had given her a message to take to his sister, and an even mistier memory that she had, perhaps, delivered it.

“We leave after Sext. Today.”

Her head throbbed with the effort of thinking. “How long?”

“A week or more—”

“She’s asking how long she’s been sick,” said a second voice from the door.

“Folquin?”

He hurried in to kneel beside her, and suddenly Leo and Stephen pressed into the room as well.

“Captain said that until she’s stronger—” began Stephen hesitantly.

“She might as well know from us.” Folquin’s shoulders were so broad that they blocked her view out the open window. He bent close to her, setting a huge hand on her shoulder as gently as if she were a newborn baby. She didn’t remember them all being so large and so very robust. “You’ve been sick with the lung fever all winter. You almost died. It’s spring. Mariansmass has come and gone. It will be Avril soon.”

Her mouth was so dry that her tongue felt swollen. Still, she managed to smile despite cracked lips. The passing of seasons meant little to her. It was just nice to see their familiar faces, but exhaustion already had its grip on her again. She wanted to sleep. Yet would she be abandoned once they left? Ingo and the others had rescued her from Bulkezu, after all.

“Who will look after me?”

“There’s a good woman here, by name of Frederun. She’s been nursing you all winter. She’s head of the servants’ hall here at the palace. Princess Theophanu thinks well enough of you to leave her good companion, Lady Leoba, as lady over Gent. You’ll travel to Osterburg once you’re strong enough to ride. We’ll see you soon, friend.”