The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Do you think she knows of the Seven Sleepers?” Hathui asked once she stood within the corona of the fountain’s noisy spray. “Or is in league with them?”

“I don’t know. The church condemned the mathematici a hundred years ago. I do not know if the Arethousan patriarch did the same. Perhaps Brother Breschius knows. I suppose it will be difficult to tease out the truth.”

“Do you think the asp was really poisonous?”

He laughed. “It seemed poisonous enough to me. Just as well I left my daughter back at the fort for safekeeping, since she would insist on handling the serpent herself. The question we must ask is whether it was magic, or herb-craft, that saved the eunuch. We cannot trust the Arethousans, nor should we try to bring them into affairs they are better left out of. If it’s true that my father wars against their agents and vassals in southern Aosta, then they will either seek to hinder us in order to harm him, or they will help us hoping to weaken him.”

“You would rather trust to barbarians and pagans, my lord prince? To these Kerayit that Brother Breschius speaks of?”

“They have less to gain whether we succeed or fail, do they not?”

“Yet how do we find them?”

“How do we find them?” he echoed. “Or am I simply a fool to think I can pit myself against Anne?”

“Someone must, my lord prince. Do not forget your father, the king.”

Here in the courtyard, open to the air, he heard noises from the town, a stallion’s defiant trumpeting, the rumble of cartwheels along cobbles, a man shouting.

He smiled grimly. “Nay, I do not forget him. Am I not his obedient son?”

“Alas, my lord prince, not always.”

He grinned as he looked up at her, delighted by her deadpan expression and the lift of her eyebrows. “It is no wonder that my father trusted you, Eagle.”

“Nor have I ever betrayed that trust. Nor do I mean to do so now.”

“Still, you sought me out.”

“Because I believe that you are the only one who can save King Henry—”

A shout disturbed the drowsy afternoon. Feet clattered on stone in counterpoint to cries and objections. He jumped to his feet and called out to the others just as the door into the suite was thrown open and a soldier thrust inside as if on the points of spears.

“My lord prince!” The man was too short of breath to croak out more than the title. “Prince Sanglant!”

“Here I am.” Sanglant strode into the shadow of the whitewashed porch. “What is it, Malbert?”

“Your Grace!” The eunuch Basil shoved past Malbert with a furious expression. His Wendish was startlingly fluent.

“This man invaded the sanctuary of the palace. He injured one of my—”

“I beg you, silence!”

The eunuch faltered, mouth working, face a study in contempt and insulted dignity. But he kept quiet.

“Malbert?”

The soldier still breathed hard. “My lord prince,” he gasped, fighting for air. “Your daughter—is missing.”

3

ZACHARIAS was too terrified to move as the stallion gathered itself to bolt. The groom edged down the gangplank. Wolfhere shoved at the backs of the sailors who, like the rest of the crowd, backed away fearfully to give the frightened horse room. Only Blessing stood her ground.

“Brother Lupus!” The cleric appeared out of the crowd and grasped Wolfhere by the shoulder. “I thought I might find you tracking Prince Sanglant as well. Come. We must hasten.”

“Now is not the time!” Wolfhere pulled free of the cleric, not difficult since he stood half a head taller and had the build of a man who has spent his life in the saddle, not in court.

“My God.” The other man looked beyond him as the sailors shrank away, leaving a gap between which one could see the tableau, stallion poised, girl motionless. “Is that the child, grown so large? I had thought her no more than three. Or is this another bastard child belonging to the prince?”