The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Do you think so? I know better.” He was bigger and stronger, and he was shaking with fury and helplessness as he hauled Baldwin backward.

“We’ll look more suspicious if we run away!”

At the threshold, the people who hadn’t found room inside pushed forward, trying to see what had caused the commotion, and those disturbed by Sigfrid’s outburst or by the squeeze inside pressed outward. Ivar followed their tidal flow, two steps forward, one back, two forward, until they came out into a drizzle and the finger-numbing chill of a mid-autumn day.

Baldwin pouted all the way down the hill. But for once Ivar wasn’t minded to give in to his pretty sulk. The only thing worse than abandoning Sigfrid was to be caught themselves. Mother Scholastica would not be merciful.

They stumbled down the road churned muddy by the crowd, slipped more than once until their leggings and sleeves and hands dripped mud. They had nothing to wash with, and so huddled in the loft while mud caked and dried, then crumbled with each least movement. Baldwin sulked with the only blanket wrapped around him. Ivar paced because he could not sleep, and it was too cold to be still.

Why had Sigfrid done it? Had he bided his time all this while only to burst like an overfull winesack at the sight of so many willing ears? Would he, Ivar, have done anything as courageous—and so blindly stupid? Was he brave enough to act on what he believed, to preach, as Tallia had, as Sigfrid had, and accept the consequences?

It was an ugly truth, but it had to be faced: He was nothing but a cold, miserable sinner.

“Oh, Ivar,” said Baldwin. “I’m so cold, and I love you so much. I know you’re just shy because you’ve never—”

“I have so!” he retorted, face scalding. “That’s how my father always celebrated his children’s fifteenth birthday. He sent me a servingwoman—”

“To make a man of you? It’s not the same. You were just using her the way Judith used me. You’ve never done it just for yourself and the one you were with. That’s different.”

“I did after that, when I—” When I thought about Liath. And she had thrown him away.

“Just doing it once won’t matter. You’ll like it. You’ll see. And you’ll be a lot warmer.”

It really didn’t matter, did it? That it did matter was the lie he’d been telling himself all along: look what had happened to Sigfrid. At least Baldwin cared for him, in a way Liath never had. He dropped down beside Baldwin and, cautiously, nervously, touched him above the heart. Baldwin responded with a sudden, shy smile, the touch of a hand on his thigh, sweet breath at his ear.

And then, after all, it proved easier to live only in sensation.

In the morning, Milo arrived out of breath, nose bright red from the cold. “Go out of town now,” he said, “and wait on the road to Gent.”

Beyond the gates they walked a while to warm themselves; as the traffic along the road began to pick up, Ivar got nervous. He used a stick to beat out a hiding place within the prickly branches of an overgrown hedge. There, with the blanket wrapped round them, they waited.

“We could have done something for Sigfrid,” muttered Baldwin.

“Just like you could have done something when Margrave Judith came to fetch you? We’re powerless against them. Or do you want to go back to your wife? It was certainly warmer with her!”

Baldwin only grunted.

Wagons passed, then a peddler on foot and, later in the morning, clots of pilgrims dressed in rags, weeping and wailing the name of Queen Mathilda. No doubt word had already been sent to King Henry, by horse, but these humble pilgrims would spread the news among the common people in return for a bit of bread and a loft to sleep in.

Something stirred in Ivar’s gut, a feeling, an idea—or maybe just hunger.

“Look!” Baldwin jumped up, got his hair caught in the hedge, and swore as the branches yanked him to a halt. By the time Ivar had freed him, Prince Ekkehard’s cavalcade had come up beside them.

“How did you get so muddy?” said the prince with a frown for Baldwin.

“We had to walk here, my lord prince. What news of our friends?”

Prince Ekkehard had a habit of blinking two or three times before he replied, as if it took him that long to register words. He was all sun and light when happy but as sullen as a rainy day when annoyed. Right now he glowered. “It is no easy thing to question my aunt, I’ll tell you that. That comrade of yours is quite mad, and disrespectful, too. Imagine treating my grandmother’s memory in such a way! I didn’t like him, and my aunt said there’s some terrible punishment in store for him, so it’s no use to pine over him. He’s lost to us.”

“But you promised—”

“Enough! There’s nothing I can do.” Then he grinned. “But I got in a good kick to my awful cousin, Reginar. I told my aunt that the abbacy of Firsebarg has come free now that Lord Hugh is being sent to the skopos for punishment, so she’s sending him there. He was so grateful that he promised to do me a favor, so I told him there was a novice there called Ermanrich whom I’d seen in a vision, and that I wanted him to come to Gent to serve me.” His young attendants giggled. “Come now, fair Baldwin.” He turned coaxing, seeing that Baldwin still pouted. “I did what I could.”

“You could have got Sigfrid as well.”

“There’s nothing I could do against my aunt when she was in such a rage! He’ll deserve whatever punishment she metes out. What a terrible thing—” The young prince faltered, seeing Baldwin’s expression. “But I did everything else just as you wished, Baldwin. You do love me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” said Baldwin reflexively, then muttered, “as long as you keep me away from Margrave Judith.” Ivar kicked him, and he startled like a deer seeking cover. “I am grateful, my lord prince.”