King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

He grabbed her arm and hoisted her up and she stood, not fighting him. Tucked under his free arm, as if—like Da—he dared never leave it unattended, he carried The Book of Secrets.

“You look well enough,” he said brusquely. “We’re leaving.” He glanced disinterestedly at Hanna. “Girl, fetch whatever you mean to take with you and tell the Mistress that my plans have altered. We are leaving now. My wagon is packed and waiting at the church. Go.”

o;But Da wasn’t really a sorcerer. I mean, he had the knowledge, but nothing he ever did—”

Hanna looked at her strangely. “Of course he was! That’s why we were all so glad he put roots here and stayed each year, when we thought he meant to move on. You didn’t know? People don’t visit a sorcerer whose spells are useless. What about old Johan’s cow that wouldn’t calve until your Da wove a spell to open up its birth canal? What about that first spring, when the snow wouldn’t melt, and he called up rain? I could tell you twenty other stories. You really didn’t know?”

Liath sat stunned. All she could remember was the butterflies, fluttering and bright and then fading into the warm summer air like the phantoms they were, like the phantom his magic was, which had all faded and vanished after her mother died. “But—but did it ever do any good? A storm can come by itself, you know. The weather can change, even without tempestari to call it up.”

Hanna shrugged. “Who’s to know if it was prayer or magic or just good fortune? What about that wolf, then, the one that eluded everyone else until your Da trapped it in a cage woven of reeds? That must have been magic, for any wolf could have escaped such a delicate trap.”

Liath remembered the wolf. Da had been terrified, hearing reports that a wolf was lurking in the hills but not killing the sheep. He had trapped it, though he had let others kill it and had wept for days afterward. It had taken her three weeks of crying and pleading and arguing to get him to agree to stay in Heart’s Rest after the wolf.

Hanna was still talking. “Maybe he wasn’t a true sorcerer, like the devils who built the old Dariyan Empire, who built the wall south of here that stretches all the way from one sea to the other. It’s all fallen over now that there are no more sorcerers of that lineage to keep it standing.”

“I don’t think Da was that kind of sorcerer,” Liath said, more talking to herself than to Hanna. “Maybe he pretended to be, even tried to be, even once or twice succeeded. But it was my mother who was one. A real one. I remember that, if nothing else. She was murdered for it. I was only eight years old, but I do know that she had true sorcery, and that she worked …” Here she paused to glance around the room again, although nothing had changed. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “… old Dariyan magic.”

Hanna considered this revelation in silence. “The book—”

“It’s gone,” said Hanna. “Hugh came and took it. I couldn’t stop—”

“Of course you couldn’t stop him.” Liath was too numb to cry. “It’s a sorcerer’s book. It has so much knowledge Da collected over the years—” In his own writing. Lady, how she hated herself. She had betrayed Da by losing the book. “You don’t have to come. I should have told you sooner, about Da and the book, even before Ivar left. You might not want to stay with me, knowing the truth. You could have gone with Ivar—”

“As if I would have changed my mind! If Frater Hugh is truly going to be abbot, then he must know what he’s doing, taking you as his concubine.”

This, strangely, was easier ground “He says there are folk in the church who study magic. Da says Lady Sabella shelters heretics as well as sorcerers, to aid her against King Henry.”

“Well,” said Hanna, thinking it over, “better to be burned than married to young Johan. Lady Above! You need someone to shelter you from Frater Hugh. You’re still pale, but at least your appetite is good. Mother always says that so long as you’re hungry, then you’re not sick enough to die.”

Liath managed a chuckle.

Behind her, the door that led out front opened. Hanna stood up, lifting her chin defiantly. Liath stiffened. Why did he come every time she was beginning to feel free of him, of that interminable weight he laid on her? Was this his magic, to find and to know, to hunt and to devour? She wanted to crawl under the table, but she forced herself to sit without moving. She felt him, the heat of him, the simple physical presence, as he came up behind her. His hand touched her arm. She flinched.

He grabbed her arm and hoisted her up and she stood, not fighting him. Tucked under his free arm, as if—like Da—he dared never leave it unattended, he carried The Book of Secrets.

“You look well enough,” he said brusquely. “We’re leaving.” He glanced disinterestedly at Hanna. “Girl, fetch whatever you mean to take with you and tell the Mistress that my plans have altered. We are leaving now. My wagon is packed and waiting at the church. Go.”

Hanna gaped at him, then bolted for the door that led out back.

“We’re going,” he repeated.

There was a puzzling urgency about him she could not understand. Certainly there was no point in resisting. She had already lost everything. He led her to the door and thence outside. Hanna came running from around the inn.

“I’ll just collect my clothes and such,” she called, out of breath. “I’ll be there. Don’t leave without me!”

Hugh gestured impatiently and kept walking. Liath was already too out of breath even to beg him not to leave Hanna behind.

She struggled to keep up, but they had not gotten a quarter of the way to the church before she slumped, dragging on him. “I have to rest.”

“You’re gray,” he said, not with sympathy but as an observation. “I’ll carry you.”

“I just need time to rest.” Lady’s Blood! She didn’t want to be seen carried by him, like a shameless whore!

“We’ve no time.” He thrust the book into her hands and caught her around the back and under the legs and swung her up. Even with her weight in his arms, his pace did not slacken. Some other need drove him. She clutched the book against her chest, head swimming, so faint she feared she would drop it.

At the church the wagon did indeed sit outside, heavily laden, covered with a felted wool rug. Three men Liath vaguely recognized as Count Harl’s men-at-arms loitered by the church door, armed and outfitted for a long journey. Dorit stood, wringing her hands, by the cart horses, which Lars held by their harness.

Hugh dumped Liath unceremoniously into the back of the wagon, onto the featherbed. A fourth soldier appeared from the stables, leading the piebald mare and the bay gelding. Only the gelding was saddled. Hugh took the gelding’s reins and mounted.