Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“Nay. I think my father meant the margrave’s ring to pass to me.” When Berthold grinned at the old Eagle, Ivar sulked, wishing the youth liked him better. His cheerful nature and bold determination gave him the charisma usually only found in an older man. Yet Berthold ought to have passed as many years on Earth as Ivar had; it was only magic that had stolen so much time from both of them.

“Here, now,” said the sergeant in charge of the men who had captured them. “Be quiet. Begging your pardon, my lord.”

Men turned to stare as their bedraggled company crossed fields and were herded into the outer reaches of the encampment. Two tents rose above the rest. One was striped red and gold and flew the banner of Arconia’s guivre, while the other boasted pure gold cloth blazoned all around its sides with the stallion of Wayland, bold and strong. To the ground before these tents they were brought, and made to wait in the lengthening shadows while the sergeant went inside and came out again.

“My lord duke is out hunting,” he said. In the distance they heard a chorus of cheers, and he looked up and in that instant his face opened to reveal all the loyalty and love he gave to his duke. “Well, here he comes. Get down now.”

Berthold did not kneel, and so none of the others did, not even Ivar.

The procession arrived, two-score men in mail and helmets, with swords and spears tucked and ready.

“We gave that bastard a scare!” said the dark man Ivar recognized as the duke. He was laughing until he saw the prisoners, shorn of their weapons and strange to look on.

“Good God!” He tossed his helm to one of his attendants, swung down, and crossed to stand before the prisoners, surveying them with a sly smile. A trio of whippets loped up to lick his hands. “Good lord! You are Villam’s son, the one that was lost. Can it be? What sorcery has restored you to the land of the living?”

“I was never dead,” said Berthold stoutly. “In truth, Cousin, I think I might have slept under a stone crown for many years. What sorcery bound me I cannot say. This man, Lord Jonas, is the only one who survived of the six who accompanied me. I pray you, do you mean to make me your prisoner in this rough way? Surely we are kinsman!”

Conrad laughed. “Come inside, then, Cousin! I’ll have drink and food brought. If you’ve been asleep for years, you must have developed a powerful thirst! Yet these others …” He stared for the longest time at Berda, shook his head, squinted at Odei, noted Brother Heribert, nodded at Wolfhere with the casual mark of a man acknowledging a servant he recognizes, and finally settled on Ivar. “Pull off that hood.”

Grimly, Ivar obeyed.

“Ah, indeed, the rufus boy from the North Mark. You keep flitting in and out of my path. What is your name again?”

“Ivar, son of Count Harl of the North Mark and Countess Herlinda.”

“Yes. Lord Berthold, you travel with a strange and puzzling retinue. A banished Eagle, a Quman barbarian, this … female person, whose origins I cannot account for, a cleric, and Lord Ivar who was last known to be dead. I am wondering how so many people who might long have been thought to be dead are walking on Earth like so many spirits roaming restlessly abroad at the Hallowing Tide.”

“We are not dead, my lord,” said Wolfhere. “I have news of your daughter, Lady Elene.”

Like a hound catching a scent, Conrad went rigid. He dismounted, cast his reins to a groom, and trod right up to the Eagle until his height and breadth and stature overwhelmed the old man. The Eagle did not back down.

“She is dead,” said Conrad. “So my mother promised me. Damn her.”

“She is dead,” agreed Wolfhere in a calm voice. He stood in the most relaxed posture imaginable, although Conrad loomed over him. “But not through your mother’s agency. Duchess Meriam sheltered her from the backlash of the great weaving, and sent her home in my company. You may ask Lord Berthold, who will vouch that Elene came safely as far as Novomo, in Aosta. There, it is true, I failed her. It was Hugh of Austra who murdered her, when she was sleeping and helpless, and for no better reason than that he wanted no apprentice of Meriam’s to challenge his knowledge of the magical arts.”

Conrad was silent and still for so long that Ivar began to think he had gone into a trance, lost to the world, as grieving folk sometimes did. One of the dogs whined, tail arching down and ears flat as it caught its master’s mood. Nearby, a man sawed at wood; a hammer pounded. Dirt cast from a shovel spattered on earth. A voice cursed, and a pair of men led a quartet of milk goats past on leashes, serenaded by goatish complaints. On their heels came another group of riders, who gave way as a silver-haired woman dismounted and strode over to Conrad.

“What is this I hear? Prisoners? Who are these?” She saw the old Eagle, recognized him, and laughed. “My father’s faithful wolf, come back to bite—yet who means he to snap at? Is this Villam’s brat? I thought him dead and lost!” She looked at the others, but when she examined Ivar, he saw her frown and, with a shrug, dismiss him. Thank God she hadn’t recognized him!

“Come inside.” Without further speech, Conrad plunged into his tent.

Ivar was herded inside with the others but forced to stand to one side along the canvas wall with a line of armed men so close behind him that the hilt of a sword pressed into one buttock. Conrad’s tent was furnished with a pair of couches—difficult to transport—and a dozen chairs set on the ground scuffed to dirt. A girl sat on the single carpet, and its blue colors were far more brilliant than her scruffy clothing, which looked very like a servant’s calf-length linen smock covered by a milite’s well-worn tabard, belted but nevertheless so big on her that it hung in great awkward folds about her shoulders and hips. Seeing Lady Sabella, she rose and scuttled sideways to the chair where Conrad sat down. He noted her and put out an arm, and she melted into its shelter. From this fatherly refuge she stood as bravely as she could.

“She is a weapon,” said Sabella.

“So have you said a dozen times since she fell into our hands,” said Conrad easily, without shifting.

“Liutgard will want her back. This is now her heir, since it appears that the elder girl really is dead.”

Conrad’s right eye shuttered slightly, his mouth winced, and then he recovered. “I’ll not use Lady Ermengard as a pawn. I’ll assign men to escort her back to Autun for the time being. She can be fostered with Berry.”

“You’re sentimental and a fool, Conrad. Once this girl is dead, Liutgard has no living heirs. Queen Conradina’s line will vanish once and for all time if Liutgard does not hereafter remarry and reproduce. Then Fesse is thrown into disorder.”

That his tone remained calm made the duke seem suddenly quite dangerous. “I won’t allow this girl to be murdered. If I must, I’ll send her to Bederbor.”

“Best not,” said Ivar, prodded by a sudden sympathy for the frightened girl. She could not be more than thirteen or fifteen. “The road west is no longer safe.”

That got their attention, although he hadn’t meant to do so quite so dramatically.