Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“I pray that which you cherish be restored to you,” said Alain, unexpectedly moved by the display.

“Do you so? She is dead. I was warned it would be so, and I feel it in my heart. How, then, can she be restored to me? Even a miracle cannot bring her home.”

“Who is she?” he asked again.

Conrad rose. He wore a light cloak against the cool evening. Its hem slid down to lap at his hips, and he moved away, answering only when he had gone several paces out, and even then casting the words over his shoulder as though they were a dart meant to wound. “My eldest child. My own beloved daughter. My chosen heir, who will not now sit in my place when the time comes. Henry had that advantage over me, did he not? I feel inclined to spoil his wishes.”

“Who could have taken this beloved child from you?”

“My mother. To whom I owe my life.”

Alain bowed his head.

Sorrow growled, and Rage lifted her ears. A familiar figure walked toward them, accompanied by a trio of young men whose handsome faces were illuminated by the lit lamps they carried.

“Here you are, Conrad.” Despite her age, Sabella moved as easily as a much younger woman. She marked Alain, seated, and Conrad, standing, and the hounds with their alert if not quite threatening posture on either side of Alain. “I wondered where you had gone. Is there anything I should know?”

A suspicious woman will see intrigue flowing on all sides. No doubt the duchess of Arconia drank deeply at that river.

“You know everything I know,” said Conrad, wiping his face before turning to face her.

She snorted. “I doubt it. Had you kept no secrets from me, I would not respect you.”

Conrad gestured toward Alain. “As for this one, you know what I know. He makes no claims, no demands, no refusals.”

“None, but for grain. What do you make of that?”

“I judge him too subtle to measure.”

“A common man pretending to an eminence he does not deserve?”

“Think you so?”

“He does not appear so to me,” she admitted. “No common-born man speaks to Arnulf’s heir with such words and such boldness. What have you to say to this, Lord Alain?”

“Nothing.”

She had a twisted kind of grimace that posed as a smile. If she had ever known happiness, it was by now buried under a mountain of worldly cynicism that must make her dangerous because of the weight on her heart. “It is my experience that people do want things, and want them more the closer they are to grasping them. Are you a spy, sent to ferret out our secrets?”

“I am not.”

“Yet here you are. Well. Lavas may be yours again, and more besides. Men are all the same. Easily teased to attention by a glimpse of treasure. Is that not so, Conrad?”

“So the church teaches,” he said without looking at her, as if the shadows of the forest hid something he needed to see. “There’s something out there,” he said in a changed voice.

A sentry called out a challenge just as he spoke. A second call alerted the camp, but as the soldiers jumped to their feet and servants hustled to the safety of the wagons, pale figures wandered out of woods with hands extended, murmuring the familiar refrain.

“I pray you, noble one. Have you food?”

“Just a corner of bread for my child, I pray you.”

“God’s mercy, help us. Any that you can spare.”

“Beggars!” said Sabella, retreating. “Captain! Chase them off.”

Alain walked after her. “Surely you can spare your leavings for these poor creatures. They are harmless, and suffering.”

“Chase them off!” she ordered.