The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“You are very forgiving.”

“No. I am patient. She grows quickly, your daughter. Soon enough she will become a woman, and she will desire men herself.”

“Oh, God,” he groaned.

“Then you will be jealous,” she said with a chuckle, “because you will no longer be first in her heart. She will be torn between father and lover. If she is wise and fortunate, she will choose to follow her own destiny in the end, not that of a man.”

“I am chastened,” he replied, clapping a hand over his heart. “Now I realize that you have not given that gown a second thought, although its fate has been nagging at me all day. What are you thinking of, then?”

She smiled, stretching. The single lamp gave off enough light for him to admire the mole on her left hip, the curve of her buttocks, and a glimpse of rosy nipple as she shifted. With an exaggerated sigh, drawn out and almost musical, she rolled up onto her side. He felt the familiar stirring, heat suffusing his skin.

He had met the persuasive widow last autumn, when they had finally arrived at King Geza’s court in Erztegom. She had propositioned him within a week of their first encounter, but it wasn’t until the winter, when they were confined by a succession of blizzards within the town walls, that he had finally allowed her to seduce him. The arrangement had lasted through the spring.

o;You have the army and the leadership, my lord prince,” continued Hathui. “Turn your army home.”

“I cannot.”

“You can! Henry left Wendar in a time of trial. If he had stayed in Wendar, he would not have become bewitched. He ought to have stayed in Wendar and not ridden off to Aosta in search of a crown. And neither should you!”

“I am not riding to Aosta in search of a crown.” Anna heard the edge creep into the prince’s voice that meant the Eagle’s words had angered him, but perhaps the Eagle did not care, or did not know him well enough, to heed the warning.

“But you are riding east, in search of other tokens of power. Some have named you as a rebel against your father. I see for myself that you have usurped your sister’s command of this army.”

Silence, cold and deadly.

Yet wasn’t it true? Even though nobody said so?

A sharp snap caused everyone to jump, but it was only Wolfhere treading on a twig carried up to the room in the crowd. Lord Wichman chuckled, looking at Sapientia to see what she would do, thus challenged. Lady Bertha folded her arms across her chest, her smile thin and wicked.

Sapientia stared up at her elder brother, waiting. In a strange way, thought Anna, Prince Bayan had trained her to listen to him and wait for his approval before acting or reacting. Now she looked to Sanglant in the same way. Over the last three years she had been broken of the habit of leading.

“I have done what I must.” The hoarse scrape of his voice lent a note of urgency and passion to his words; but then, he always sounded like that. “I have never rebelled against my father. Nor will I. But the war is not won yet. Adelheid and her supporters have traded in the king for a pawn who speaks with the king’s voice but without Henry’s will. Who will act as regnant now? I say, the one who can save him by acting against Anne and her sorcerers.”

Heribert cleared his throat and spoke diffidently. “Do not forget that Anne sits on the skopos’ throne. She is no mere ‘Sister.’ She is Holy Mother over us all. To go against her, my lord prince, you must war against the church itself.”

“Even those who call themselves holy may be agents of the Enemy,” murmured Wolfhere.

“As you well know,” replied Sanglant with a mordant laugh, moving restlessly toward the table. “Is there wine?”

“Return to Wendar, my lord prince,” said Hathui stubbornly. “Raise an army, and ride to Aosta to save the king. I beg you.”

He allowed Heribert to pour him a full cup of wine, which he drained. “No.” He set down the cup so hard that the base rang hollowly on the wooden table. “I ride east, to hunt griffins.”

3

AFTER the conference with the king’s Eagle, Sanglant made his way to the privacy of Lady Ilona’s bedchamber. Her four attendants slept soundly on pallets lined up along the far wall, and Ilona lay naked on her stomach among the tangled bedclothes. Smiling slightly, she watched him as he stripped, then raised an eyebrow when he went to the unshuttered window instead of coming immediately to her bed.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

Sanglant lingered by the window, staring east, yet all he saw was stars and campfires and, beyond them, unknown country lost in darkness. The moon had not yet risen. The night was mild, the breeze a caress against his skin. “That my daughter is impossible.”

“She is only jealous. She wants you to herself. She does not like this attention you pay to a woman. It was only one gown. I have others.”

“You are very forgiving.”

“No. I am patient. She grows quickly, your daughter. Soon enough she will become a woman, and she will desire men herself.”

“Oh, God,” he groaned.