The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Blessed Mother!” he whispered, staring as the fire shifted and changed.

He crept forward and stared into the whip of flames. It was like looking through an insubstantial archway of fire into another world.

A figure, tall, broad-shouldered but thin at the ribs, shed its clothing and dove into the streaming currents of a river. He was, manifestly, male. That he would willingly enter water meant he was no kin of the Quman tribe, and although the flicker of fire gave Zacharias no clear picture of the figure’s features, the man somewhat resembled his Aoi mistress. But his clothing, lying in a careless heap on the shore, betrayed his origins: It was what civilized men wore, the rich clothing of a lord. A moment later six men scurried down to the river’s bank as if on his trail. Bearded and armed, they wore tabards marked with a black lion: Wendish solders, serving the regnant. And if that was so, then who was the man who had gone into the water, and why were they following him?

The Aoi woman whispered a word, “Sawn-glawnt.” The fire whuffed out. She rose and lifted her staff, a stout ebony length of wood scored with white marks along its length, and measured the staff against the stars above.

Then she grunted, satisfied, gestured to him, and Zacharias had to unhobble the horse and mount quickly. She strode out of the stone circle, heading north, and as soon as they were clear of the stones, she broke into a steady lope which he had perforce to follow along at a jarring trot.

In this way they ran through half the night. She never let up. He wanted finally to tell her that his rump was sore, or that the horse needed a rest, but in truth woman and horse seemed equally hardy creatures. He was the weak one, so he refused to complain. The moon crested above and began to sink westward. Light spilled along the landscape, a low rise and fall of grassland broken here and there by a stream or a copse of trees, roots sunk into a swale. Grass sighed in the middle night wind, a breath of summer’s heat from the east. He could almost smell the campfires of the Pechanek tribe on that wind, the sting of fermented mare’s milk, the damp weight of felt being prepared, the rich flavor of a greasy stew made of fat and sheep guts, the spice of kilkim tea that had been traded across the deep grass where griffins and Bwrmen roamed, all the way from the empire of the Katai peoples whose impenetrable borders it was said were guarded by rank upon rank of golden dragons.

Suddenly, the woman slowed to a walk and approached a hollow of ragged trees, stopping just beyond their edge. “We need a fire,” she said, then crouched to dig a fire circle.

Zacharias groaned as he dismounted. His rump ached miserably. Just inside the ring of trees he paused to urinate. Ai, God, it still hurt to do so; perhaps it would always hurt. But he still had his tongue, and he meant to keep it. So much tree litter covered the ground that it took him little time to gather enough for a fire. He dumped it beside the pit she had dug into the earth, then turned to the horse. “Can we bide here long enough to cook these grouse?” he asked.

“Sawn-glawnt.” Her voice rang clear in the silence.

He spun in time to see in the archway of fire the same man, now fully clothed and cast out on the ground in an attitude of sleep while the six Lions stood back in the gloom, standing watch around him. Then the archway unfolded and vanished into the ordinary lick of flames.

His mistress stood, lifted her staff again, and again measured it against the stars. Her smile came brief, fierce, and sharp. “Co-yoi-tohn,” she said, pointing northwest.

“You’re looking for him,” said Zacharias suddenly.

From behind, a panther coughed and then, more distantly, wings whirred.

Zacharias yelped, drew his knife and peered eastward, but saw nothing—no winged riders among the silver-painted grass. The woman cast a glance over her shoulder. She scented the wind, then shrugged her pack down from her shoulders, pulled out a hard, round cake, and sat to eat. She offered none to him. Zacharias sharpened a stick and spitted the grouse, careful to make sure the viscera he had cleaned out and stuffed back in did not fall out of the cavity. He was too hungry to wait long. He offered the first grouse to her; she sniffed, made a face that actually made him laugh out loud.

Then he caught himself, cringing, but she took no offense. She tore off a strip of meat, fingered it, touched it to her lips, licked it, chewed a corner, grunted with surprise, and finished it off, then extended a hand imperiously for more. He was starving, and he ate every bit of his own grouse even though it made his belly ache. She went so far as to crack the bones and suck the marrow out.

But when they were done, they did not rest. She rose, licked her fingers a final time, kicked dirt over the fire, and indicated the direction she had earlier pointed out.

“Co-yoi-tohn,” she repeated. “What you would call, west of northwest.”

“But where are we going?” he asked. “Who was the man we saw in the fire?”

She only shrugged. Light tinged the east, the first herald of dawn. “Now we begin the hunt.”

3

SURELY, wicked souls consigned to the pit could not have spent an evening’s span of hours in more torment than did Alain at his wedding feast.

The merriment he could stomach, barely, but the constant laughing toasts and crude jokes made him want to curl up and shrink away, and he was acutely conscious of Tallia beside him so still and withdrawn that he felt like a monster for wanting so badly what she clearly feared.

But surely, when all was quiet and they were alone, he could persuade her to trust him. Surely, if he could gentle the ferocious Lavas hounds and win the trust of Liath, he could coax love from Tallia.

She had on a blue linen gown fantastically embroidered with gems and the springing roes that signified her Varren ancestry. A slim silver coronet topped her brow, Henry’s only concession to her royal kinship except of course for the delicate twist of gold braid that circled her neck. She wore her wheat-colored hair braided and pinned up at the back of her head; the style made her slim neck seem both more frail and more graceful. Wanting simply to touch it, to feel the pulse beating at her throat, made him ache in a peculiarly uncomfortable spot and even when he had to go pee he dared not stand to leave the table for fear of calling attention to himself in a most embarrassing way.

He and Tallia shared a platter. He tried hard not to dip the elaborate sleeves of his tunic into the sauces that accompanied each course of the meal. Tallia did not eat more than a crust of bread and drink two sips of wine, but he was ravenous and though he feared it made him look gross and slovenly in her eyes, he could not help but eat heartily until a new toast would remind him—like a kick in the head from a panicked cow—that later this night he would at long last meet his heart’s desire on the wedding bed, where nothing more could come between them. Then he would be so stricken with nausea that he was sorry he had eaten anything.

Likewise, he gulped down wine one moment out of sheer nerves only to refuse the cup the next when with sick fear he recalled jokes he had heard at his Aunt Bel’s table about bridegrooms who had drunk themselves into such a sodden fog that they could not perform their husbandly duty.

Lavastine spoke little and then only to respond laconically to congratulations thrown his way. He needed to say nothing; this triumph had cost him plenty in the lives of his men, but he had gained a nobly-connected bride for his heir together with a seat, by virtue of her lineage, among the great princes of the realm.

Certain distractions gnawed at the edges of the feast: Liath returned, and Prince Sanglant made such a spectacle of himself that Alain was briefly diverted from his fear that Tallia would faint dead away at the high table; the tumblers caught Tallia’s attention with their tricks, and for a happy if short span of time he got her to smile at him as he admired—not her, never her, let him show no interest in her or she would retreat as totally in spirit as a turtle pulls into its shell—but rather the lively cartwheelers and rope-balancers, thin girls of about Tallia’s age who had a kind of hard beauty to their faces composed of equal parts skill and coarse living.

o;Sawn-glawnt.” Her voice rang clear in the silence.

He spun in time to see in the archway of fire the same man, now fully clothed and cast out on the ground in an attitude of sleep while the six Lions stood back in the gloom, standing watch around him. Then the archway unfolded and vanished into the ordinary lick of flames.