Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

“I will find her.”

Zacharias considered the words, and the tone, and finally nodded. “May I travel with you, then, my lord?”

Oddly, the question irritated Sanglant. “Why do you seek her?”

. “So that she may explain to me these calculations. She, too, seeks an understanding of the architecture of the universe, just as I do. She must know something of the secret language of the stars—”

“Enough.” The man spoke so like Liath that Sanglant could not bear to hear more of it. Ai, God, it reminded him of the conversation he had overheard between Liath and Sister Venia: Hugh could read, could navigate the night sky, could plot the course of the moon; Hugh had a passion for knowledge, and Sanglant did not. Would Liath like Zacharias’ company better than his? She lived at times so much in her mind that he wondered if she ever noticed that with each step her feet touched the ground. Maybe her feet no longer touched Earth at all, not now. Perhaps all the secrets of the stars had been revealed to her on some distant sphere, and she need never return to the Earth he understood and lived on.

Heribert coughed slightly, and Sanglant realized that every man there was waiting for him. “You may travel with us, Brother, as long as you abide by my orders and make no trouble.”

“I have a wretched tongue, Your Highness,” said the frater, “and it has gotten me into trouble before.” He spoke bitterly, and made a kind of gesture with his hand, toward his hips, quickly cut off, as though he hadn’t meant to make any such gesture at all.

“A little honest gossip is common to men accustomed to the soldiering life, Brother, but I don’t tolerate lies or betrayal. Nor do I punish men for speaking the truth.”

“Then you are an unusual prince, my lord.”

“So he is,” interposed Fulk. The good captain regarded the dirty frater with suspicion. “You’ll do your share of the camp work, I trust?”

“I’m humbly born, Captain,” retorted the frater tartly. “I do not fear hard work, and have done my share, and more than my share, in the past. I survived seven years as a slave among the Quman.”

The soldiers murmured on hearing this boast.

“Is that so?” demanded Sanglant. “What tribe took you as a slave, and what was their chieftain’s name?”

The frater’s grin had the beauty of a hawk’s flight, swiftly seen and swiftly vanished. “I walked into the east to bring the light of God to their lost souls. But the Kirakit tribe, whose mark is the curve of an antelope’s horn, scorned me. They traded me to the Pechanek tribe as part of a marriage agreement. You can see it on my back, if you will: the rake of a snow leopard’s claw, to mark me as the slave of their begh Bulkezu.”

“Bulkezu,” echoed Sanglant.

Zacharias shuddered. Even spoken so softly, and at such a distance, names had power.

Sanglant touched his throat, felt the scar of the wound that ought to have killed him, but had not. “I fought against him once, and neither of us won in that encounter.” He smiled grimly. “I will take you gladly, Brother, for it seems to me that a man who can survive seven years as a slave of the Quman will not falter easily.”

o;Then she is the one I seek!” cried the frater triumphantly. He extended a hand, trembling a little, wanting the scrap back.

With some reluctance, Sanglant handed it over. “You saw what became of her, surely. She was stolen by fire daimones.”

The soldiers had heard the story before, but they murmured among themselves, hearing the words spoken so baldly. At times, it amazed Sanglant that they rode with him despite his defiance of his father and regnant, despite the reputation of his wife, who had been excommunicated by a church council for the crime of sorcery and had vanished under mysterious circumstances from Earth itself. Despite the inhuman daimone who attended him as nursemaid to his daughter.

“Ah.” Zacharias considered the goats, who had resolved their dispute by pulling to the limits of their ropes where they had found satisfaction in a bramble. His profile seemed vaguely familiar to Sanglant, but he couldn’t place him. Had he seen him before? He did not think so, yet something about the man rang a resonance in his heart. The frater had a bold nose, a hawk’s nose, as some would have been wont to say, and a vaguely womanlike jawline, more full than sharp. He had the thinness of a man who has eaten poorly for a long time, and a shock of dark hair tied back at his neck. Like a good churchman, he had no beard. But his gaze was clear and unafraid. “Do you believe she is lost to you, Your Highness?”