Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (10 page)

"What do you remember?" he asked softly. She could barely find her voice. "Everything burst into flame, the cottage, all the plants in the courtyard, the stables and the weaving house, all the other buildings..." She shut her eyes, and there in the forest clearing with the whispering of the night woodland pressing in on her she dredged into the depths of that old painful memory. "And the benches. The stone benches.
Even the stone burned.
That's when we ran. Da grabbed the book and we ran. And he said, " 'They've killed Anne and taken her gift to use as their own.' "

She had to stop because her throat was thick with grief, and with more questions than she knew how to ask. Opening her eyes, she stared up at a sky now so brilliant with stars that it seemed a thousand burning jewels had been casually strewn across the heavens. A streak of light blazed and vanished: a falling star. Was it an angel cast to earth by God's hand, sent to aid the prayers of the faithful, as the church mothers wrote? Or was it the track of one of those aetherical creatures born out of pure fire who, diving like a falcon, plunged from the Sun's sphere to those nesting below?

Wolfhere said nothing. The fire popped loudly and spit a red coal onto the end of her cloak. She shook it off and then sank forward to rest elbows on knees and stare into the fire. A long while passed in silence as the yellow flames flickered and died down into sullen coals. Wolfhere seemed to have fallen asleep.

He had looked for her, but he had not been able to see her through fire. Was Da's spell still hiding her? She had felt the presence of others looking for her, had felt the wind of their stalking, the blind grasp of their seeking hands. She had
seen
the glass-winged daimone. She had seen the creatures that stalked with a voice of bells and left flesh stripped to bone in their wake. Were they still out there? Could she, like a mouse, scuttle into places forbidden to her and spy them out?

She made of the coals a gateway and peered into its depths. If only she could recall her mother clearly enough in her mind's eye, then surely she could vision her through fire, actually
see
her again. But as the fire flared under the weight of her stare, she was suddenly seized by a foreboding of doom as real as a hand touching her shoulder—as Hugh's hand had imprisoned her, binding her to his will.

The fire leaped with sudden strength as if it were an unnatural being blooming into existence, wings unfurling into a sheet of fire, eyes like the strike of lightning, the breath of the fiery Sun coalesced into mind and will. Its voice rolled with the searing blaze of flame.

"Child."

She shrieked out loud and scrambled backward, so terrified that she couldn't gulp down the sobs that burst from her chest.

Wolfhere started up. The fire winked out, that fast, to become ashes and one last spark of heat, a dying cinder, gone. "Liath!"

She jumped up and ran out to the half-built palisade, logs felled and sharpened and driven into a ditch to make a barrier against the beasts of the forest. She leaned against one of the stout posts. With the bark peeled off oak lay smooth against her shoulder and cheek; the foresters had done their work well, tc the post did not shift beneath her weight.

shadow fluttered past, then vanished
^h
y!" she whispered to the silent witness of stars and nigh to and the many busy animals about the.r nocturnal labors. "Sanglant."

TVAR had never prayed so much in his life, not even in his first year as a novice at Quedlinhame. His knees ached constantly. But Baldwin had taken it into his head that if he prayed enough he could protect himself from his bride's attentions: He hoped that even a powerful margrave would be loath to disturb a young man at prayer, no matter how long she had been waiting to get her hands on him.

So it proved for the first five days after they left Quedlinhame. But Ivar had ears, and he had grown up with sisters. Margrave Judith wasn't so old that her holy courses had ceased. He even caught a glimpse of a stained cloth laid reverently on a blazing hearth fire.

Women were specially holy at their bleeding time, not to be corrupted by base desire. Even a noblewoman such as Judith followed the wisdom of the church mothers in such matters. Ivar suspected that all Baldwin's praying was a pretty show that counted for very little except to whet his bride's appetite; sometimes while praying, Ivar glanced sidelong at the margrave watching Baldwin, who did indeed pray beautifully.

"You oughtn't to pray unless you pray from your heart," said Ivar. "It's a sin."

It was late afternoon on yet another day of travel, west, toward the king. Ivar rode a donkey, as was fitting for a novice, but Baldwin had been given a proud black gelding to ride. No doubt Margrave Judith could not resist the chance to display two handsome creatures together.

Right now, however, Baldwin came as close to scowling as he ever could. "You scold like Master Pursed-Lips. I
am
praying from my heart! You don't imagine I want to marry her, do you?"

"As if you have a choice."

"If the marriage is not consummated, then it is no marriage."

Ivar sighed. "She's no worse than any other woman. You'll have fine clothes to wear, excellent armor, and a good iron sword. You'll have the Quman barbarians to fight in the march country. It won't be so bad."

"I don't like her," said Baldwin in the tone of a child who has never before had to accept anything he didn't like. "I don't
want
to be married to her." He cast a glance forward where Lady Tallia rode beside Margrave Judith. "I'd even rather marry—".

"She isn't to be married!" hissed Ivar in a low voice, suddenly angry. "Not by anyone! God has chosen her to be Her handmaiden, to be the uncorrupted bride of Her Son, the blessed Daisan, as all nuns ought to pledge themselves to be."

"Why can't I be chosen?" murmured Baldwin plaintively.

"Because you're a man. Women serve God by tending Her hearth, for they are made in God's image and it is their duty to administer to all that She creates."

"If you preach a heresy," whispered Baldwin, "then the church will punish you."

"Martyrdom isn't punishment! The heathen Dariyans rewarded the blessed Daisan by flaying him alive and cutting out his heart. But God gave him life again, just as martyrs live again in the Chamber of Light."

Baldwin flicked a fly away from his face as he considered the women riding at the front of the procession. "Do you suppose Margrave Judith will be lifted up to the Chamber of Light when she dies, or will she be flung into the Abyss?"

At the vanguard rode some twenty guardsmen, soldiers fitted out in tabards sewn with a leaping panther. After them came Margrave Judith herself. She had a proud carriage, silvering hair, and a handsome profile marked in particular by a strong nose; she wore a tunic of the richest purple, a hue Ivar had never seen before and marveled at now, embroidered so cunningly with falcons stooping upon fleeing hares and panthers springing upon unsuspecting deer that at odd moments he thought he had glimpsed a real scene, not one caught by silk thread on linen. Riding beside the margrave, Tallia looked frail with her head bowed humbly and her shoulders curved as though under a great weight; she still dressed as simply as a novice, in a coarse robe with a shawl draped modestly over her head. Other attendants surrounded them, laughing and joking. Judith preferred women as companions; of the nobles, clerics, stewards, servants, grooms, carters, and humble slaves who attended her, almost all were female, with the exception of most of her soldiers and two elderly fraters who had served her mother before her. She rode at the head of a magnificent procession. Of the entourages Ivar had seen, only the king's had been larger.

"Why would such a powerful noble be flung into the pit?" Ivar replied finally. "Except that she is in error about the Holy Word and the truth of the blessed Daisan's death and life. But that is the fault of the church, which denies the truth to those eager to hear the Holy Word. I suppose Margrave Judith will endow a convent at her death and the nuns there will pray for her soul every day. So why shouldn't she ascend to the Chamber of Light, with so many nuns praying so devoutly for the care of her soul once she is dead?"

Baldwin sighed expansively. "Then why should I bother to be good, if it only means that I'll endure for eternity next to her in the Chamber of Light after I'm dead?"

"Baldwin! Didn't you listen at all to the lessons?" Ivar realized at that moment that Baldwin's rapt attentive gaze, so often turned on Master Pursed-Lips, Brother Methodius, and their other teachers, might have all this time concealed his complete mental absence from their lessons. "In the Chamber of Light all of our earthly desires will be washed away in the glory of God's gaze."

At that instant the margrave chanced to look back toward them. The gleam in her eyes caused poor Baldwin to look startied and abruptly shy, but unfortunately Baldwin's modesty only highlighted the length of his eyelashes, the curve of his rosy cheeks, and the blush of his lips. The margrave smiled and returned her attention to her companions, who laughed uproariously at some comment she now made. Like a cat, she gained great pleasure in toying with the plump mouse she had snared.

Ivar shuddered. "But there's nothing you can do anyway," he said to Baldwin.

"That doesn't mean I have to like it." A half-gulped-down sob choked out of Baldwin's throat and was stifled. "At least you're with me, Ivar." He reached out and clasped Ivar's hand tightly, almost crushing Ivar's knuckles with the desperate strength of his grip.

"For now."

"I'll beg her to keep you by me," said Baldwin fiercely, releasing Ivar's hand. "You can be my attendant. Promise me you'll stay with me, Ivar." He turned the full force of those beautiful eyes on Ivar. Ivar flushed, felt the heat of it suffuse his face; that blush satisfied Baldwin, who first smiled softly at him and then glanced nervously toward the woman who now controlled his fate.

That evening Ivar was allowed to pour wine at the margrave's table. They had stopped for the night at a monastic estate, and Judith had commanded a fine feast. The margrave was in high spirits; the food was plentiful, the jesting so pointed that Baldwin could not take his gaze off the wooden trencher he shared with his bride. A poet who traveled with them performed "The Best of Songs," appropriate for a wedding night.

"Bring me into your chamber, O queen.

I have eaten my bread and honey.

have drunk my wine.

Eat, friends, and drink, until you are drunk with love."

One of Judith's noble companions was questioning the elderly uncle, brother to Baldwin's mother, whose presence had been necessary to pry Baldwin loose from the monastery: The old man had explained to Mother Scholastica in a quavering voice that the betrothal between Judith and Baldwin had been formally confirmed by oaths when Baldwin was thirteen; thus the covenant superceded Baldwin's personal oath to the monastery.

Now drunk, the uncle confided in Lady Adelinde. "But the margrave was still married then, when she saw the lad. Ai, well, if her husband hadn't died fighting the Quman, no doubt she would have set him aside in Baldwin's favor. He was of a good family but nothing as well-favored as the boy."

Adelinde only smiled. "And when Judith sees a man she wants, she will have him despite what the church says about cleaving only to one spouse. No doubt it was a good match for the family."

"Yes, indeed," he agreed enthusiastically. "My sister saw how much she wanted the boy, so she drove a hard bargain and was able to expand her own holdings with several good estates."

Ai, God! Sold like a young bull at market. Ivar gulped the dregs of wine from the cup he was taking to refill. The wine burned his throat; his head was already swimming.

"She'll marry him tonight," said the old uncle, nodding toward the bridal pair. Judith kept a firm hand on the wine cup she and Baldwin shared, making sure he did not drink too much, but she did not fawn over him or pay him an unseemly amount of attention. "And a biscop will sing a blessing over the marriage when we reach the king."

"Come, my beloved, let us go early to the vineyards. Let us see if the vine has budded or its blossom opened."

"You see, Adelinde," said the margrave, calling Lady Adelinde's attention away from Baldwin's aged relative. "No flower should be plucked before it blooms, or we will never see it in its full flowering." She indicated Baldwin who by this time was pink with embarrassment; yet like a flower under the hot gaze of the sun—and the abrupt attention of all the folk privileged to sit at the table with Margrave Judith—he did not wilt but rather flourished. But she had already turned her gaze elsewhere; she had a sudden and uncomfortable glint in her eyes. "Is that not so, Lady Tallia?"

The young woman did not look up. She had not even eaten the bread off her plate, and at once Ivar felt guilty for having eaten and drunk so lustily. Her face was as pale as a dusting of snow on spring fields, her voice so soft that he could scarcely hear her reply. " 'If a woman were to offer for love the whole wealth of her house, it would be utterly scorned.' "