Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (42 page)

"I do not know," said Rosvita, but in her heart she feared the worst.

THEY
came upon the first signs of habitation in midmorning: a hunter's trap, a lean-to built of branches with a roof woven out of vines, and a ten-day-old campfire. At midday they found the first dead body at the edge of a clearing newly hacked from beech forest. It was a male dressed in Wendish clothing. His head was cut off at the neck.

"Quman raiders." Zacharias knelt beside the bloody corpse, touched his wooden Circle, and began reflexively to speak the prayer for the dead. But he broke off. They were just words, weren't they? They didn't mean anything. "We should bury it," he added, looking up in time to see his companion pick up the ax that had fallen from the dead man's hands. She studied it, grunted, and tied it to the horse, then strode on. He scrambled up, grabbed the horse's reins, and hurried after her. "Shouldn't we bury it?" he demanded, panting, as he came up beside her.

She shrugged. "His people will find him."

"But his spirit will roam if we don't lay it to rest properly. That's what my grandmother always said." Yet she had been a pagan, and the church of the Unities had put an end to the old ways.

"Human spirits haven't the strength to harm me. How can we bury them all?"

"All?"

"Don't you smell the smoke?" she asked, surprised.

He smelled nothing. Not then. Not yet. They walked on through beech forest, following a trail. A day ago they had reached hill country, leaving the grasslands behind, and although he had felt the anger of his Quman master like a spear point pressing against his shoulder blades, they had seen no sign of Quman. He began to believe he had truly escaped them.

When they came to the village, he knew that, again, he was mistaken.

The stench of burning hung over the tiny village like a shroud. The half-built palisade had given little protection to the brave souls who had sought to cut farmland out of the eastern wilderness. The huts still smoldered. A dog lay covered with flies. Some of the corpses had heads. The rest did not.

"They're riding before us." Fear curdled in his gut.

She merely shook her spear. The jingling bell died away into the silence but not before he heard a scuff from the shell of one of the scorched longhouses. "Some remain."

"Quman?" His voice caught on the word and splintered. He knew in an instant he would start to weep.

"Nay, the horsefolk are gone. We go as well."

"Shouldn't we give them a decent burial?"

"It will take too long. Stay if you must. They belong to your kin, not mine." But she didn't leave immediately. A row of open-sided sheds had been left untouched. Their roofs sheltered craftsmen's tools and paraphernalia: a woodworker and a stone knapper had once worked here, together with a leatherworker. Cured skins lay draped over crude sawhorses next to a dozen or more skins strung on frames to cure. She hefted tools, tested their balance, took a few, but it was the leather she found most interesting. She rolled it in her fingers, spat on it, tested its strength over her knee. Finally she took three skins and rolled them up, then scavenged in the half-burned bakehouse and returned with several blackened loaves and two leather bottles filled with cider. He stared, as stunned as an idiot. Wasn't it wrong to take what wasn't theirs? Yet the dead had no need of food. She tied skins, tools, and provisions on behind the horse's saddle without a word, then turned and raised her spear as her gaze fastened on something behind him.

That noise wasn't the wind. It was whispering.

He turned.

"Prater!" Four women, two adolescent boys, and an old man crowded together at the door of the burned longhouse. About a half dozen children huddled behind them. One woman held a baby in her arms. "Ai, God! Good frater! God have sent you to us in our time of need!" A woman stepped forward, arms outstretched as for a blessing. "We thought you was the raiders, come back. That woman with you—" She broke off as her gaze took in the terrible scene, a dozen men of various ages, one young and one very old woman lying dead on bloody ground. "She wears their coat."

"She's not Quman." He was amazed at how hoarse his voice sounded. The words still did not come easily, and this village woman spoke with a thick dialect, a migrant from a different region than his own kinfolk.

"Thank God you are come to us, frater," she went on, taking another step closer. "You can pray with us. You can tell us what to do." The youngest of the women had begun to sob, and half the children followed suit. "We ran with the children, but the others had to stand behind to stop the raiders from coming after us. Ai, God! What did we do to bring God's wrath down on us in this way?"

"Come," said the Aoi woman. "We go." She pulled the reins out of his hand and started walking.

The old man fell to his knees. "You have come in answer to our prayer!" he wheezed. "It has been many seasons since a holy deacon sang prayers in our presence. We begged for God to give us a sign, when we hid from the raiders in the forest."

"Did they come today?" asked Zacharias nervously.

"Nay," replied the woman. "It were yesterday afternoon, late. We didn't dare come back till this morning."

"Then they're not too close, surely," said Zacharias, but the Aoi woman did not look back or wait for him. He gripped his walking staff higher, took a step. The younger women began wailing like ghosts cursed to wander aimlessly after death. He hesitated even as the sorceress crossed behind the palisade and vanished from his sight, moving ever westward. "I can't help you," he said at last.

"But you're a churchman," cried the woman. "Surely you will stay long enough to say the blessing over these brave dead ones so their souls can ascend to God!"

"God have forsaken us." How he hated them at that moment for their weeping and for the way they looked at him for salvation. He couldn't even save himself. "Pray to the old ones, as your grandmothers did. Maybe then your luck will return."

He turned his back on them and followed his mistress. Their cries and weeping followed him for a long time in the quiet forest, even after he could no longer hear them.

THREE
days after the Eagle had delivered his message, Lavastine's party reached the convent of St. Genovefa. Some playful soul had carved the gates into the shape of two great dogs, and this same spirit pervaded the guesthouses as well where every mantle and beam seemed to hold its share of dog faces or dogs cavorting or at the hunt or resting quietly as if in expectation of the martyred saint's imminent return to care for her beloved comrades. The abbess sent her own servants to wait on the count and his heir and cousin, and after they were settled invited them to dine.

The abbess was startlingly young, scarcely older than Tallia. Second daughter of an ancient and noble house, Mother Armentaria had been invested into the church as abbess at age twelve. Her mother's great-aunt had founded the convent and been its first Mother, and a woman of that family had always served as abbess. She had the habit of command, and the institution over which she reigned was a prosperous one. In sweet, haunting voices, her nuns sang praises to the Lady which the young abbess had herself composed in praise of God in Unity.

"Holy Mother, you who have brought life,Blessed Thecla, you who have witnessed death,In this female form God have brought us the highest blessing,Let us praise you and rejoice in you."

But she was still eager for news of the world.

"I heard that the king of Salia has offered one of his sons as consort and husband for Princess Sapientia. Will King Henry take this alliance? Some of the lands under my rule lie in the borderlands between Varre and Salia, and there has been trouble there, with Salian lords claiming the rights to those lands although I have charters that prove them mine. Such a marriage might bring these troubles to an end."

"It is possible that the king will look east for such an alliance," said Lavastine. "Report has it that the barbarians have increased their raids in the marchlands."

"He has two daughters," observed the abbess. "And two sons, even if one is a bastard. He may make as many alliances as he wishes, up to four, to benefit those of us who serve him."

"Do you not serve God?" Tallia asked sharply.

Mother Armentaria's reply was sharper still. "Will you not pray with us this night at Vigils, my lady Tallia? Then you may judge for yourself how we honor God."

"I will pray gladly, and with a full heart, and for the entire night. And there is more, that you may wish to hear."

Lavastine looked at her in surprise, but he could not object. Nor could Alain. When they left the table, Tallia escaped him, again, as she always seemed to be escaping him: into prayer. He could not follow her into the cloister reserved for women.

Lavastine took him into the garden out of earshot of Lord Geoffrey and the rest. The hounds followed meekly. Under the shade of an apple tree, he set a hand on Alain's shoulder and regarded him sternly. "Is she pregnant yet? I fear that only a child will cure her of these ravings."

"N-nay, Father. Not yet. She is so—" He stammered out syllables that even he could not understand.

"A stubborn nut to crack, so the wits would have it. But fruitful within that hard shell."

Alain began to stammer out an apology.

"Nay, Son, you have done as well as any man. She only begins to trust you, and I fear that she takes after her noble mother in having a stubborn nature and after her noble father in being simple in the mind."

Alain didn't know how to reply. "Surely it's her holiness, not her simplicity, that makes her what she is." Fear padded away from them down a lush row of greens, turnips, and radishes not yet harvested. A bee wandered among roses. Sorrow and Rage had gone over to sniff at comfrey. Steadfast licked Alain's hand. The bell rang to summon the nuns to Vespers.

"If it were holiness, then why would she cling to this heresy?" objected Lavastine. "And if her words held any danger to those of the faith, then Mother Scholastica would not have released her out into the world. Or they would have threatened her with excommunication. But they do not fear these delirious speeches she gives. Therefore we have no reason to fear them either."

"But she is so set on it. I don't know what to do!"

"She clings to it because it gives her comfort. As she comes to rely on you, she will come to you for comfort. You must win her trust as a mason builds a keep: one stone at a time. The more careful your work, the stronger the foundation and walls. A few months more will make little difference except to harm your alliance with her if you move too hastily and set her against you. You can breed many children whether you start having them in ten months or twenty."

In the field beyond the garden, geese began squabbling. Bliss stood suddenly, watchful, and padded over to the archway that opened onto the field. The geese had foraged so diligently before; now they hissed and honked—as Aunt Bel would say—as if they meant to frighten off the Enemy. "But what of the curse that Prince Sanglant sent warning of?"

Lavastine whistled Terror over and stroked his ears. "Bloodheart is dead. If his dead hand still holds a weapon, then we must be ready to meet it." He smiled grimly. "And we must trust in God's mercy."

The hounds went mad. Fear bolted toward the archway, barking furiously. Bliss had already vanished out onto the field. Geese scattered. Sorrow and Rage bounded away through the garden, leaves flattening under their heavy stride. Steadfast gripped Alain's hand in her mouth and dragged him after her. Only Terror stood his ground, hackles up, growling fiercely as he stuck beside the count.

Alain ran to the arch. Out in the field the hounds converged,then Rage split off, cutting sideways, and Sorrow leaped the other way. Their barking came fast and furious. Was that a flash of white along the ground? Sunset bled fire along clouds that had streamed out to cover the western sky. In the east, a few stars winked into view between a patchwork of clouds. From the church, he heard the first high voices raised to God. Vespers had begun.

"Lay down beside me, O Lord, sleep beside me.

Protect me from all harm.

Let my Mother watch over me and sing me to my sweet rest as You watch over Your children.

Lord, have mercy. Lady, have mercy."

Bliss bowled over, tumbling, righted himself, and began to dig. Dirt sprayed out behind his forepaws. Steadfast, Fear, Sorrow, and Rage converged on him and soon they dug furiously and with a hellish cacophony of barking.

"What means this?" asked Lavastine, coming up behind Alain, but Terror was already there, biting down on the count's wrist and trying to tug him back into the garden.