The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Stop him!” barked Marcus. “Wolfhere! For God’s sake, go after her!”

The servant raised his staff as Zacharias grabbed the rungs.

A blow smashed into the back of his head.

Then, nothing.

VI

A PROPOSAL

1

“MY daughter is out of control! How can it be that she escaped your care and was almost kidnapped?”

Anna knelt with her back to Prince Sanglant, trembling, waiting for the switch to fall on her shoulders. He was in a rage like none she had ever seen. Matto had got twenty strokes, and Thiemo had demanded that he receive the same number even though as a noble lord he did not have to be humbled in such a way. She would have lost respect for him if he hadn’t shared the punishment. Both she and Thiemo knew who was truly to blame.

Now it was her turn.

“It was my fault, my lord prince,” she said through her tears. “I did not keep her at my side. She asked leave to go dice with the soldiers, but I didn’t go with her. That was when she ran away. She must have crept out through the drainage ditch.”

She had been crying all day, first in anger because of the terrible fight that morning between Matto and Thiemo, then with fear when she had discovered Blessing missing, and later out of relief when the girl had returned late in the day with an unexpected retinue in tow. Now, at last, she wept silently, in terror. Better to crumble to dust than endure the prince’s fury.

“And to add to the injury, this insult! Have you corrupted my daughter with these whispers about the phoenix?”

At least the whole troop wasn’t looking on, only Captain Fulk, Sergeant Cobbo, Brother Breschius, and the Eagle, her face drawn and serious. In the distance she heard Blessing shrieking with thwarted anger. Sanglant had ordered the girl shut up in one of the little cells. Maybe he was ready to whip his daughter, too. Maybe he was going there next, once he had finished with her.

The heat made the earthen walls and the dusty ground bake. The sun’s glare on her face made her squint. Sweat trickled down her spine.

“Is it true?” he roared.

The switch whistled past her back. The tip stung a shoulder blade as it whipped past, barely touching her. She burst into tears, shaking hysterically.

“I crave your pardon, my lord prince. But the words I spoke are only the truth.” Flinging herself forward onto the ground, she pressed her face into the dirt.

He cursed so furiously that she imagined him transforming from man into rabid dog, back into a beast like the ragged, stinking daimone she had once thought him when she had seen him years ago as a captive in the cathedral of Gent.

“My lord prince,” said Brother Breschius in the mildest of voices, “she is only a girl, barely a woman. What purpose does it serve to terrorize her in this way?”

She sobbed helplessly as the prince slapped the switch into the ground, once, twice, thrice, to emphasize his words. Dirt sprayed up with each bite, spitting into her face.

“My daughter is a willful. Spoiled. Impossible. Brat! Now it transpires that she is soaked in heresy as well. And has the nerve to tell her own father that I am damned!”

“It cannot have helped to find her surrounded by a brace of slaves who worship her as the magician who freed them,” said Breschius. “It must be a frightening sight, my lord prince, to see your daughter growing into her heritage.”

Sometimes silence was worse than shouting.

All she saw were his boots, six steps, a sharp turn, and six steps back, turn again. Only a very, very angry man paced like that, each step clipped and short. Anger flooded out of him until she thought she would drown. Sobs shook her entire body no matter how much she tried to hold them in.

Fully a woman now, in the old tradition. Oh, God, why had she done it?

Now Matto and Thiemo hated each other, and she had selfishly and stupidly and dishonorably neglected her duty to Blessing. What did people do who were turned out in the midst of a foreign country with no kinfolk to aid them? Didn’t she deserve to be sold as a slave or murdered by beggars for her shoes?

“What of your brother, Eagle?” the prince demanded harshly, still pacing.

“I beg your pardon, my lord prince. My own sorrow clouds my mind. Did Zacharias choose to stay with the traitors rather than follow her to freedom? I pray it is not so. Yet if he wanted to follow but could not, then he may now be a prisoner. Or dead.”

“I should not have let Wolfhere and Brother Zacharias go into town, my lord prince,” said Captain Fulk. “I should have known that Princess Blessing would try to follow them. I should not have let Wolfhere go unattended….”