The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

Baldwin got a strong grip on his arm and yanked him to his feet as the other young novices stumbled up to show respect to Brother Humilicus, their senior in every way.

Including piety.

Prince Ekkehard sprawled on his bed, staring sulkily at Brother Humilicus but not bothering to rise. His bed was set somewhat apart from the others and, as was usual for him, he had two girls with him, one on either side. Milo lay curled like a dog at the foot of the bed, snoring loudly. One of the girls dressed hastily as Brother Humilicus stared at her with disgust. The other, Ekkehard’s favorite, was a pretty, dark-haired woman at least five years older than the prince. Her slender body already showed signs of pregnancy. Carrying a royal bastard had made her proud, and she took her cue from the prince: She stretched insolently, displaying swollen breasts and belly.

“You have missed morning prayers, Father.” Brother Humilicus felt obliged to say this every morning.

“So I have. Here, Milo.” He nudged Milo with a foot, and the boy snorted awake. “Get me my hunting clothes. Dear Brother Humilicus, please see that the horses are ready. Will my cousin Lord Wichman be coming with us?”

“As you wish, Father,” replied Brother Humilicus tonelessly. He withdrew without further comment.

Ivar pulled on his tunic, stumbled outside, and washed his face in the cistern. Although winter’s chill stung the air, no ice had formed over the water. In the last month or so snow had dusted the ground two or three times and melted off, and it had rained a few times, nothing more. As he stood breathing in the cold air, the ache in his stomach subsided, but nothing could ease the ache in his heart. He didn’t want to be here in Gent; he didn’t want to go back to Heart’s Rest or Quedlinhame, and he couldn’t anyway. There was no reason to be anywhere. He had had a good life before Liath. He had been happy then, almost. It was all her fault.

“Maybe she did witch you,” said Baldwin, coming up behind him and resting a hand companionably on his shoulder.

Ivar began to weep, hated himself for weeping, and got angry instead. “What was the point of seeing the miracle at Quedlinhame? Why would God torment us with seeing Her handiwork so close up, and then abandon us?”

Baldwin shrugged, found a ceramic pot on the ground, and used it to sluice water through his hair. When he straightened, he set the pot down and wiped water from his eyes and lips. A bead dripped from his nose. “God never abandoned us. The miracle is still with us in our hearts, if we let it be. Maybe Liath was really an agent of the Enemy, like they said at the council. The biscops and presbyters wouldn’t condemn her for no reason, would they? Maybe she shot a poisoned arrow into your heart, Ivar, and that’s why you’re so sad and angry all the time. Prince Ekkehard has noticed it. He’s not sure he wants you among his companions if you won’t drink and laugh and sing with the rest of us.”

“And whore and be drunk every night and never pray and do nothing but please myself? That’s hardly God’s work!”

Baldwin picked a spray of wilted parsley, chewed on it, then spat it out. “How can we know what God’s work is? I just do what I’m told.”

“You don’t! You ran away from Margrave Judith.”

“I had to,” said Baldwin solemnly. “God made me. God whispered to me that Margrave Judith sent her last husband into a battle where she knew he’d be killed, because she wanted to marry me. God warned me that she’d do the same to me in four or five years, when a younger, handsomer boy came along.”

Ivar regarded Baldwin in the fine light of a pleasant winter’s morning. “Baldwin, there isn’t a handsomer man than you, not in this entire kingdom.”

“She might still get tired of me. She might sell me to the Arethousans, and they’d cut off my cock. They like eunuchs there. That’s what Father Hugh told me. Anyway, I don’t like her and I never will. I don’t want to be married to a woman like that. She treated me like a horse! Just something she would use and then keep around until she needed it again!”

“Is there a woman you would like to be married to?”

Baldwin considered this for a long time. “One who treated me well,” he said finally. “But meanwhile, I’m free of her. If I had to be Prince Ekkehard’s whore before and his flattering courtier now, so be it. If I have to embrace his leftover whores because he thinks that’s funny, so be it. I don’t mind, as long as they don’t smell. Why should I mind it?”

“Because it’s boring.”

“Boring!” Baldwin’s perfect features registered astonishment. “A woman or two every night, or a friend, if you wish that instead. Hunting almost every day. Good food and the best wine. Singing and dancing and wrestling. Acrobats to entertain you in every way. Poets singing tales of ancient battles. How can that be boring?”

“Ai, God!” The notion, once conceived, took root fiercely in Ivar’s heart. “But it’s just the same thing over and over again. In the end, you’ve nothing.”

“The same thing! You can’t tell me you weren’t as amazed as the rest of us by those acrobat women and what they could do. Lord Wichman would have made them stay a month if he could have.”

“But they didn’t stay a month, did they? None of them wanted to.” Ivar recalled the acrobats vividly. The lithe, half-naked girls who had done rope tricks were zealously guarded by the men of the troupe, even to the point of offending an amorous Ekkehard, but two of the older women had performed in other, quite astonishing, ways for the men. But the troupe had left as soon as their pockets were filled with coin and gifts. “They didn’t like us. No more than you liked being Margrave Judith’s husband. Animals eat and drink and hunt and rut, Baldwin! How are we different from the beasts, as we are now?”

Baldwin blinked at him. A sudden burst of color and noise erupted from the dormitory hall as Ekkehard and his companions emerged into the cloister, laughing and chattering. The few monks who still labored under Brother Humilicus’ rule scurried away into the church, which was the only place Ekkehard never profaned with whores.

“Come!” the young prince ordered. “Baldwin! We go to hunt!”

Baldwin grabbed Ivar by the wrist. “You’ve got to humor him,” he muttered, “or he won’t protect us!” He tugged Ivar along in the prince’s wake, and Ivar let himself be led: After all, there was nothing else to do. At the monastery gate they were met by Ekkehard’s cousin, Lord Wichman, who paced with furious energy. Looking up, he saw Ekkehard.

“You’re late abed, little Cousin!” he cried. “We should have been out an hour ago. I won’t wait for you again!” It had taken Wichman months to recover from the wounds he had received at the battle for Gent last summer, and he still limped, but he was otherwise hale and restless and, as Count Harl often said of such restless young men, ripe for trouble. He had made himself de facto lord of Gent in the absence of any other claimants, and he ruled by turns leniently and intemperately. He laughed now. “And I won’t have to! I’ve received news that there have been Quman raids in the East. My companions and I are going to ride east to fight the barbarians!”

“I’ll go with you!” cried Ekkehard.

“You’ve no experience fighting. You’ll just slow us down and get in the way.”

Ekkehard had a pretty face and a mulish way of thrusting out lips and chin when he was crossed. “How can I get experience fighting if no one will let me ride into the field?”