King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

“You’re new to the Eagles?”

She nodded. She didn’t quite trust him: He was a good-looking young man, and the few good-looking men in Heart’s Rest—like her brother Thancmar—were, in her experience, full of themselves.

He opened the door, grinned at his companion guard, and followed her outside. “Where are you barracked tonight?” he asked. He did have a pleasant smile, and a pleasing face, and very nice shoulders, but Hanna loathed men who were full of their own self-importance. All, except Hugh. She shoved that thought away.

“With the Eagles, I expect,” she said coldly. “Wherever they sleep.”

He considered. In the torch-lit entryway, he did not appear downcast or offended by her rejection. In fact, she was not entirely sure he had taken her words as rejection. “Well, if we’ll not be barracked together,” he said quickly, glancing behind him. “I’m on duty, so I haven’t time to talk. You were at Gent. Did you see the Dragons there?”

“We saw one company of them, but I never got inside the city. We turned back, Hathui and I.”

“Was there a woman with them, do you know?”

“A woman? With the Dragons? Not that I noticed.”

“Ai.” He grimaced, disappointed. Had he a sweetheart among the Dragons? Having misjudged him, she suddenly found him rather attractive. “My sister rides with the Dragons.”

“Your sister?”

He laughed outright. “You’re thinking a common-born lad like me has no business having a sister in the Dragons.”

Since she was thinking so, she did not deny it.

“It’s true most of them are nobleborn, bastards usually, or younger sons without a bequest to get them into the church. But my sister never wanted anything except to fight. She dedicated herself to St. Andrea very young, before even her first bleeding, and couldn’t be swayed. She joined the Lions, bludgeoned her way into them, more like. I followed after her.”

Hanna remembered how her young brother Karl had looked at her the day she rode away from the Heart’s Rest as a newly-hatched Eagle. Had this young man watched his sister ride away so? Had he followed her, years later, because of that admiration?

“She distinguished herself,” the Lion continued, eager to talk about his sister in front of a new audience. “Saved the Dragon banner, she did. Some say she saved the prince’s life, although others say no man or woman can do that. That he’s under a geas, spoken on him when he was an infant by his mother, that he can’t be killed by mortal hands or some such kind of thing. Ai, well. I say she saved his life.”

“I didn’t see her,” repeated Hanna, sorry she hadn’t. “What’s her name?”

“Adela.” He touched a hand to his chest and gave a little bow, a courtly gesture no doubt picked up from watching the noble lords. When he smiled, he had a dimple. “And I’m called Karl.”

She laughed. “Why, so is my brother called Karl. I’m Hanna.”

“Ai, Lady. That’s a bad omen—that you might think of me as a brother.” And, that suddenly, he had remembered it was night, and he was young, and she was— well, pretty, perhaps, but at the least desirable and a new face among so many familiar old ones. She flushed and was angry at herself for doing so.

“And what does your sister say? About the prince?” she said, to say something.

He grunted. “Nothing but praise, which is tiresome in a woman when she’s speaking of a man. She’s as loyal as a dog to him. They all are, the Dragons. I don’t see it myself.” He ran two fingers down to a point at his chin, along his fine light beard, musingly. “How can you call him truly a man when he can’t grow a beard?”

Since Hanna did not know the answer to this question, she wisely said nothing.

The door into the guest house opened. “Hai! Karl! You’ve had enough time.” His companion blinked into the night, saw their figures, and beckoned. “Come on. Back inside. You’ll get nothing from an Eagle, you know how they are.”

Karl blew her a kiss and went back to his post.

“Lord, have mercy,” she muttered and hurried back to the chamber where the king held court. But Henry had gone to bed, or so Hathui told her.

“Where do we sleep?”

“You haven’t been propositioned yet?” asked Hathui and laughed when Hanna betrayed herself by blushing. But the older woman sobered quickly enough. “Attend to my words, Hanna. There is one thing that will get a woman thrown out of the Eagles, and that is if she can no longer ride because she carries a child. ‘Make no marriage unless to another Eagle who has sworn the same oaths as you.’”

“That’s a harsh precept.”

“Our service is harsh. Many of us die serving the king. I’m not saying you must never love a man, or bed one, even, but do not make that choice lightly and never when it is only for a night’s pleasure. There are those—old men and women mostly—who know the use of certain herbs and oils—”

“But that’s magic,” Hanna whispered. “And heathen magic, at that.”