The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Come forward.” Cleric Monica spoke in a low voice. The clerics worked in silence, and only the distant bleat of a goat and an occasional shout from one of the children penetrated the room, and yet there lay between them all a companionable air as if this hush reflected labor done willingly together, with one heart and one striving. Two letters and several parchment documents lay at Monica’s right hand. “Here is a letter for Sister Rosvita from Mother Rothgard at St. Valeria Convent. Here are four royal capitularies completed by the clerics at the king’s order. To King Henry relate this message: the schola will leave Weraushausen in two days’ time and travel south to meet him at Thersa, as His Majesty commands. Do you understand the whole?”

“Yes.”

“Now.” Cleric Monica beckoned to a tiny deacon almost as old as Monica herself. Liath towered over the old woman. “Deacon Ansfrida.”

Deacon Ansfrida had a lisp which, combined with the hauteur of a noblewoman, gave her an air of slightly ridiculous abstraction. “There has been a new road built through the forest. If you follow it, it should save you four days of riding time toward Thersa.”

“Is it safe to ride through the forest?”

Neither churchwoman appeared surprised by the question. The forests lay outside the grasp of the church; they were wild lands still. “I have heard no reports that the levy set to do the work met with any difficulty. Since the Eika came last year, we have been peculiarly untroubled by bandits.”

“What of other creatures?”

Cleric Monica gave a little breath, a voiced “ah” that trailed away to blend with the shuffling of feet and the scratch of pens. But the deacon gave Liath a strange look. “Certainly one must watch out for wolves,” replied Ansfrida. “Is that what you mean?”

Better, Liath realized, to have asked the forests that question and not good women of the church. “Yes, that’s what I mean,” she said quickly.

“You may wait outside,” said Cleric Monica crisply. “A servant will bring you a horse.”

Thus dismissed, Liath retreated, relieved to get out from under Monica’s searching eye. Beyond the palace she found a log bench to sit on. Here she waited again. The palace lay enclosed by berms of more recent construction; in one place where ditch and earth wall stood now, she could see the remains of an old building that had been torn up and dug through when the fortification was put in. The palace loomed before her. With windows set high in its walls and six towers hugging the semicircular side like sentries, it appeared from the outside more like a fort than a palace. A jumble of outbuildings lay scattered within the protecting berms. A woman stood outside the cookhouse, searing a side of beef over a smoking pit. A servant boy slept half hidden in the grass.

Without the king in residence, Weraushausen was a peaceful place. From the chapel, she heard a single female voice raised in prayer for the service of Sext, and in distant fields men sang in robust chorus as they worked under the hot sun. Crickets buzzed. Beyond the river lay the great green shoulder of the untamed forest; a buzzard—scarcely more than a black speck—soared along its outermost fringe.

What would it be like to live in such peace?

She flipped open her saddlebags. The letters were sealed with wax and stamped with tiny figures. She recognized the seal from St. Valeria Convent at once by the miniature orrery, symbol of St. Valeria’s victory in the city of Saïs when she confounded the pagan astrologers. Liath dared not open the letter, of course. Did it contain news of Princess Theophanu? Had she recovered from her illness, or did this letter bring news of her death? Was Mother Rothgard writing to warn Sister Rosvita that a sorcerer walked veiled in the king’s progress? Would Rosvita suspect Liath? Or would she suspect Hugh?

o;I’m a prisoner here, you know,” the girl added without heat. She had the rounded profile of youth, blurred still by baby-fat and the promise of later growth, but a distinctly self-aware expression for all that. No more than nine or ten, she already understood the intricate dance of court intrigue. With a sigh, the child released Liath’s hand and turned half away. “I still miss Berthold,” she murmured. “He was the only one who paid attention to me.”

“Who is Berthold?” asked Liath, intrigued by the yearning in the girl’s voice.

But the girl only glanced at her, as if surprised—as Hugh would say—to hear a dog speak.

A cleric hurried up the central colonnade and beckoned to Liath; she followed her into the palace. In a spacious wood-paneled chamber Cleric Monica sat at one end of a long table otherwise inhabited by clerics only half awake, writing with careful strokes or yawning while a scant breeze stirred the air. The shutters had been taken down. Through the windows Liath could see a corral for horses and beyond that the berm of earth that was part of the fortifications. Wildflowers bloomed along the berm, purple and pale yellow. Goats grazed on the steep slope.