Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (55 page)

"Alain?" Lavastine forced his horse into the brush. "What is going on?"

Alain dropped the sword into the forest litter, caught Steadfast by her collar, and dragged her back. Blood swelled from her right forepaw and even as she licked it, whimpering, the wound began to swell strangely.

"We must get her back home. I fear—" He broke off and glanced up at the servingmen, who had clustered around and all gawped at him. He gestured as Lavastine would, and the servants moved away. Alain continued in a low voice. "I saw it again, the size of a rat but without any color at all. I even thought Bliss had simply eaten it, taken it into himself to save you, but I must have been wrong. Ai, Lord! It's the dead hand of Bloodheart, the creature Prince Sanglant spoke of. It's followed us this far."

Lavastine considered him in silence, then shifted his gaze to Steadfast. A leaf spun on the wind and settled to earth. "Put her over my saddle. It would be prudent to return now and let the others hunt as they will."

There were many things Alain wanted to say on the ride back, but he could not make them into sentences that made sense. It was a long, quiet ride with Steadfast draped awkwardly over the neck of the nervous horse, but Lavastine kept a firm hand on the rein and the other on the hound's back. At the stables, they handed over the horses to Master Rodlin and Lavastine himself lugged the hound up to his chamber, leaving Alain to venture into the hall where the women had settled for the day.

They had taken over the upper half of the hall, and he paused by the door, hesitant to enter, as he watched them laughing and talking. Even Tallia engaged in the debate with an eagerness she rarely displayed for Alain. Set in the pride of place, as befit her birth, she shared a couch with the stout, handsome young woman who called her "cousin."

Duchess Yolande made him nervous. Halfway through her second pregnancy, she was far enough along that she didn't care to go hunting, and if she did not go hunting, then no other woman in her train would go either. But neither were any men welcome to spend the day with the ladies, whom she had organized into a symposium in the Dariyan style, with couches and wine and certain intellectual questions to be debated.

"The Dariyan physician Galene clearly states that males are like deformed creatures," she was saying now. "But I suppose it is not their fault that they are the product of weaker, more sickly seed. That is why they cannot develop wombs, as females can."

"But She who is Mother to us all chose to voice the divine word through the lips of a man," objected Tallia.

"A man gave voice," corrected the duchess, "but a woman witnessed. It was the holy Thecla's testimony which gave rise to the church."

"Even so," insisted Tallia, "men can also aspire to become like angels."

"Who are formed in the shape of women."

"Better to say that women are formed in the shape of angels," corrected the duchess' deacon, who seemed by turns to rein the young duchess back and then egg her on.

"But we are all of us capable of being like the angels in purity of purpose and the sincerity of our prayer, if nothing else." Tallia remained stubborn on this point.

"Your beliefs, my lady, are well meant," chided the deacon but in the most delicate manner possible, "but the church explicitly condemned as heresy the wrongful notion of the sacrifice and redemption at the Council of Addai. You must pray for God's intervention in this matter."

"And so I have!" retorted Tallia defiantly.

"Nay, let Lady Tallia speak as she wishes. I am most intrigued by God our Mother and Her only Son."

"My lady—!"

"I will listen to such tidings if I wish! Do not silence her." A servingwoman bent to whisper in the duchess' ear and she looked toward the door. "Ah!" she cried with a smile that made Alain want to bolt outside. "Here is Lord Alain." She rubbed her belly reflexively and then gestured for him to sit between her and Tallia on the couch. Compared to Tallia, she looked vast and ruddy, the kind of woman who would produce many healthy babies and live to see her grandchildren. "Alas that I did not negotiate with your father for your hand before you were stolen away by my dear cousin."

"My lady," remonstrated the deacon, "think of your husband, so recently lost to you."

"Ah, poor Hanfred! I am truly sorry an Eika spear got him through the guts. But you will admit, cousin, that your husband is far more pleasant to look upon than my old Hanfred ever was, may his soul rest in peace in the Chamber of Light."

"Is he?" asked Tallia, staring at Alain as if she had never seen him before.

"You pray too much, cousin! Come now, sit here beside us." Alain did not budge from his station by the door. That she was rather free with her hands, knowing him a married man and therefore in her words "ripe for the sampling," made him even less inclined to sit within her reach.

"I beg your pardon, I must attend my father. I only came toi pay my respects. Some portion of the party has ridden on, and I doubt they will return before nightfall."

"Lord Amalfred among them, I trust?" Yolande had a hearty! laugh. The riches heaped on the platter she shared with Tallia would have fed the entire flock of starving souls they had stum-: bled across earlier. Alain wondered with sudden violent loathing | how much of that food would be thrown to the pigs, although certainly the pigs, too, were deserving of food. "I would be sorry I to hear he had returned early. He's hoping I'll marry him, and| I confess that hearing that he shot an arrow at our dear cousin j Theophanu thinking she was a deer
inclines me to think
well of j him, but dear God he is such a bore."

"Why
have
you come back early?" asked Tallia suddenly, as if accusing Alain of ruining her day by thrusting so indelicately into the pleasant female companionship she was now enjoying. "Steadfast was injured."

She lost interest at once. No longer terrified of the hounds, still, she did not care for them at all. She dismissed him with a wave of the hand mimicked from Duchess Yolande, and that stung him, to be treated like a servant; but she wore the gold torque of royal kinship and the Lavas counts did not. She might be his wife, but Duchess Yolande had not journeyed this far to see the count of Lavas but rather the woman who was the granddaughter in the direct female line of the last Varren queen.

That was the game being played here today, and he was not part of it. He was a man, and according to Duchess Yolande men were suited for the hunt, not the hall. While men might excel on the field of battle, the true dance of power took place where alliances were sealed, rebels brought to justice, and gifts exchanged.

Upstairs, Lavastine sat on his bed and stroked Steadfast's head where she lay, breathing heavily, on the coverlet beside him.

"But
her father
was duke before her," said Alain, sitting on the other side of Steadfast.

Lavastine glanced up. "You have fled the redoubtable duchess, I see. Well, her mother is of Karronish kin, and it is well known that they do not let men rule there unless no daughter, sister, or niece can be found to take up the staff. Her father Rodulf had the duchy because he had no sisters, and he devoted himself to the battlefield and let his wife administer his holdings as well as her own. She was a difficult woman. No doubt he was happier in the field."

"But it's true, isn't it, that the ancient physicians wrote that male seed was weaker and that females are formed more like to the angels than are males?"

"That is what the learned deacons report. If you and Tallia have a daughter, I will be well pleased."

"Ai, God," whispered Alain. Steadfast lay still, eyes open and fixed on Lavastine as he curled his fingers around her fears and stroked them softly. Her right paw was hot and swollen and had an odd, grainy texture rather like stone at the very tip. "Just like Ardent."

Lavastine grunted. "If it is true that some creature stalks us, then we must post more guards and sentries. But if we do so, then Duchess Yolande may feel we do not trust her, and she may take offense."

"Why has she come?"

"Her father followed Sabella, and he was not bespelled as I was. Sabella still lives—

"As a prisoner in the care of Biscop Constance, in Autun."

"But nevertheless alive. And Tallia is her daughter, of age, and married—so she will in time produce an heir."

Alain found a burr in Steadfast's coat and busied himself worrying it free.

"But I don't believe she plots treason. I think she is merely paying court. Prudence dictates that she ought to. Henry is not overly pleased with his three legitimate children. Tallia has as much right to the throne as any of them do."

Suddenly the only noise Alain heard was the pounding of his heart and the slow wheeze of Steadfast, drawing in a labored breath and letting it out again. "The
throne?"

"You must be ready for anything." Lavastine stroked Steadfast's head. His frown was fleeting but more frightening because of that. "This wound is exactly like the one inflicted on Ardent. Three incidents, taken together, suggest a pattern, and while Prince Sanglant acted strangely after his rescue, still, we all heard rumors about Bloodheart's enchantments. There is also the testimony of your dreams. Dreams are often false, but I think yours are true visions. It is better to assume we are threatened by a curse than to do nothing."

Ai, God. It was like the battle of Gent all over again; watching your faithful retainers fall one by one as they protected you. It made Alain sick at heart to see the hounds suffer so. "The deacon must bless this hall, and place an amulet over every threshold."

"I dislike resorting to sorcery. Yet...Send a mage to kill a mage. We must speak to the deacon about this matter, and send word to Biscop Thierra. She may have certain clerics among her schola who can drive out demons and other creatures molded in the fires of the Abyss."

"What about guards?"

"It would be wise, I suppose. But we are better protected by the hounds."

"They always know," said Alain. "They can smell it."

"You must not go out alone, Alain.
You
must be careful."

"It's not stalking me—

"How can we know? Curses are driven by hate, not intelligence. I will not risk you, Son. We must behave as if any person who marched to Gent is under attack." He sighed suddenly and reached to tweak Alain's sleeve straight. "You will need another cloak. Here, now, open the shutters. Give her some light. Perhaps if we soak the wound, and draw out the poison— But in the end it mattered not. It took her six days to die.

RAIN
poured down in torrents. It had been days since they had seen the sky or even the steep ridges around them as they struggled through the Julier Pass on their way to Aosta. The road had washed into mud, and Rosvita had given up riding on her mule and now, like every other soul in Princess Theophanu's army, she picked her way along the path one foothold at a time.

"Beware!" The shout startled her.

Ahead, the horrible ripping sound of sliding rock made her stop dead. She clutched the reins of her mule and muttered a prayer. Arms waving, Brother Fortunatus slipped from the path in a cascade of mud and gravel.

"Brother!" she cried, but she had learned not to move. She had seen a pack mule and drover lost that way, walking where the ground had just poured over the path. But God were merciful this day. Fortunatus fetched up a man's height below them, and once the mud had stopped moving, the men-at-arms threw down ropes to drag him up. He had lost his mule the day before when it had gone over the cliff, caught in yet another avalanche of mud and shale.

"I hear we're almost at the top!" Fortunatus cried cheerfully after he had caught his breath. "It certainly looks farther down to the rocks than it did yesterday!" He was coated with mud, but then, they all were.

"But isn't it easier to climb up than to climb down?" wailed poor Constantine, who looked truly frightened, more like a little boy than a young man. "We'll never live to get there!"

"Hush, now, Brother," said Rosvita. "We must go on and trust that God will see us through safely." She gave Fortunatus a hand and helped him struggle to his feet, no easy task on a path washed slick with endless rain. But at least it hadn't starting snowing.

"We ought to have waited in Bregez," cried Constantine, "and crossed next summer!"

Fortunatus snorted. "With a royal bride and all of Aosta within our grasp! You can be sure that the Aostan lords won't bide their time through winter and spring."

Rosvita set a hand on Constantine's shoulder. He was trembling. "We have come this far, Brother, and it is only the first week of autumn. We've just had ill fortune with this rain. There is nothing we can do but go on." Were those tears in his eyes or was it only the rain?