King's Dragon (Crown of Stars 1)

Without thinking, she reached—and plucked from the dead ashes of the fire a gold feather.

6

HENRY held court in the great hall of the biscop’s palace in Autun, his three children sitting on his right side, his sister Constance and other trusted counselors on his left. Earlier, in the cathedral, Biscop Constance—restored to her position—had celebrated Luciasmass, one of the four-quarters masses of the year. Rosvita knew that the mathematici gave these other names, the spring and fall equinoxes and the summer and winter solstices, but she preferred to think of them as the masses celebrating the blessed Daisan’s four missionary disciples, those who carried the Holy Word to the four quarters of the Earth: Marian, Lucia, Matthias, and Candlemass, known to the old pagans as Dhearc, the dark night of the sun. This last was the feast of St. Peter the Disciple, burned alive as a sacrifice to the fire god of the Jinna when he would not recant his faith in the God of Unities.

After mass, Henry and his court had returned to the great hall where feasting would continue late into the night, for this was midsummer and the sun stayed long in the sky, celebrating the triumph of the Divine Logos, the Holy Word, and the promise it offered of the Chamber of Light.

fts a hand. Liath recognizes him; he has come to be familiar to her, but he frightens her, not because he looks threatening but because he is so utterly inhuman, so unlike Da or any of the other people she knows, those few she has come to care for, even unlike Hugh, who is an abomination but a fully human one. He is Aoi, one of the Lost Ones, old, surely—such is the authority of his bearing—although he looks neither young nor old by any sign she knows how to read. He has the look of Sanglant about him. That frightens her, too, that seeing this strangely clad male reminds her bitterly of Sanglant, whom she wishes only to forget. Never to forget.

“Who are you?” he asks with simple curiosity, neither angry nor frightened, not like her. “Who are you who watches through the fire? Where have you found this gateway? How have you brought it to life?” Across his bare thighs rest the strands of flax he is twining into rope, a longer length each time she sees him through the fire. But the rope grows slowly, a finger’s-breadth, a hand’s-breadth, while days pass for her as she and Wolfhere ride south and west, seeking King Henry.

She cannot answer him. She cannot speak through flame. She fears her voice will echo down unknown passageways and through vast hidden halls, that wind and fire will carry it to the ears of those who are listening for her, seeking her.

The sorcerer—for he must be such, to have knowledge and vision together—plucks a gold feather from the sheath that encases his right forearm and tosses it into the flames.

Liath started up, scrambling back as the fire flared up and then, abruptly, died down. She blinked back tears, streaming from smoke, and wiped her nose. Her face was hot. Behind her, the door slammed open and Wolfhere walked in from dark night outside.

She sat in the middle of a small guest house—such as the abbot granted to Eagles, not the best of his accommodations but not the worst either—at the Monastery of Hersford. The fire snapped and burned merrily, innocent of any sorcery. She might have dreamed … but it was no dream. When she dreamed, she dreamed of the Eika dogs.

“What did you find out?” she asked.

Wolfhere coughed and wiped his hands together, dusting something off them. “Henry and the court celebrated the Feast of St. Susannah here, but they were called away west. According to Father Bardo, Sabella raised an army and Henry had to ride west to meet her, before she entered Wendar. She removed Biscop Constance from the biscop’s chair at Autun and set another woman there as biscop in her place. And took Constance prisoner, as well.”

Liath set her elbow on her knee and her head on a hand. She was very tired, now, and did not much care for the troubles and intrigues of the noble lords. “Sabella would have done better to send her army against Bloodheart,” she muttered.

“Well,” said Wolfhere, “the great princes most often think of their own advantage, not that of others. Father Bardo does not know what happened to the king, or if it came to battle. Come now, we’ll sleep and ride out at dawn.”

She dreaded sleeping, but in the end her exhaustion drew her down, and down, and down…

… into the crypt at Gent, where corpses lay strewn among the pale tombs of the holy dead and the dogs fed so voraciously she could hear the cracking of bones…

She started awake in a cold sweat, heart racing. Ai, Lady! How much more of this must she suffer? Wolfhere slept on the other side of the fire, which lay in cold ashes, as cold as her heart. Only one wink of heat remained, a flash of gold among the gray.

Without thinking, she reached—and plucked from the dead ashes of the fire a gold feather.

6

HENRY held court in the great hall of the biscop’s palace in Autun, his three children sitting on his right side, his sister Constance and other trusted counselors on his left. Earlier, in the cathedral, Biscop Constance—restored to her position—had celebrated Luciasmass, one of the four-quarters masses of the year. Rosvita knew that the mathematici gave these other names, the spring and fall equinoxes and the summer and winter solstices, but she preferred to think of them as the masses celebrating the blessed Daisan’s four missionary disciples, those who carried the Holy Word to the four quarters of the Earth: Marian, Lucia, Matthias, and Candlemass, known to the old pagans as Dhearc, the dark night of the sun. This last was the feast of St. Peter the Disciple, burned alive as a sacrifice to the fire god of the Jinna when he would not recant his faith in the God of Unities.

After mass, Henry and his court had returned to the great hall where feasting would continue late into the night, for this was midsummer and the sun stayed long in the sky, celebrating the triumph of the Divine Logos, the Holy Word, and the promise it offered of the Chamber of Light.

But Henry had business to conduct. He sat beside his sister and gathered his folk together. They waited in orderly lines, crowding in from outside, more even than the people who had marched with him, for many of the more prosperous natives of Autun had also come to see the king and pledge their loyalty.

On this occasion, Henry wore his cloth-of-gold robes of state, and in his left hand he held his scepter, symbol of the king’s justice, and on his right hand he wore the gold ring of sovereignty. On his silvering hair rested the heavy crown, studded with jewels. Biscop Constance blessed him and anointed him with oil blessed by the skopos herself and scented with attar of roses.

Thus was he confirmed in the eyes of his court and of the people of Autun as their king, chosen and approved by the divine wisdom of Our Lord and Lady.

“Let justice be served,” said Henry to the multitudes. He called before him the heirs of Duke Rodulf.

Rosvita felt some sympathy for the young man who came forward, his retainers cowering like frightened dogs at his heels. He had none of Rodulf’s bluff authority and was in any case barely past his majority. The duke had probably brought the boy along to get his first taste of war, only to have the poor child be forced to witness his father’s death.

“Who are you?” Henry demanded, although he knew perfectly well who the young man was.

“I am Rodulf, son of Rodulf and Ida.” The boy’s color was high, and his hands trembled, but he did not disgrace himself.

“Do you speak for the heir of Varingia?”

“I—I speak for my elder sister, Yolande, who was named heir by my father five years ago.”