Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (59 page)

No casual observer could possibly have guessed that the count was anything but a late riser, sitting comfortably in his bed with a hand on the head of his favorite hound as he disposed of the business of the day before getting up to go hunting or hawking. No casual observer could possibly have guessed that the legs hidden under the blanket now felt like stone, and that the bed had already been reinforced once underneath to take the extra weight.

Was he terrified as the poison crept inexorably day by day up his body?"

"Be sure that the second best bedspread goes to your daughter, Mistress Dhuoda, for her dower. Of my second best tunics, be sure that one goes to the captain's window for her eldest son and the others to each of my loyal servingmen." The slightest of smiles graced his mouth as he nodded toward a rotund steward who waited at the foot of the bed. "Except for Christof, here, for I fear he would need two to cover him." There was a hearty laugh from everyone in the room, but Alain could see the tears in their eyes; in every eye, except for Lavastine's. "But there is a good piece of linen in the weaving house that should be ample for him, I trust."

A frater sat at the table, writing everything down as Lavastine went on. "Once the weaving house is done with the new tapestries for the hall, I wish the ones hanging there now to go to Bativia."

"But haven't you assigned that manor to your cousin's daughter?" asked Dhuoda from her seat beside the bed.

"To Lavrentia, yes, when she comes of age. I will not have it said that I left her with scraps. Those tapestries will do very nicely there. It's a small hall but well built and warm in the winter. Has there been any word from Geoffrey yet?"

"No, my lord count," said Dhuoda with a frown. She looked at the frater who had come in with Alain, but he only shrugged.

Lavastine followed the direction of her gaze rather more slowly, as if his neck was stiff and it was hard to move. He managed to lift his right arm to beckon Alain, but it clearly took some effort. "I want Lord Geoffrey's sworn word that he will support my son in every way he can once I am gone."

Several servants drew the Circle at their chests. Alain threw himself down beside the bed.

"You won't die, Father! See how slowly it grips you—you'll recover. I know you will!"

Lavastine struggled to get his arm up and with a grimace of satisfaction rested it on Alain's bowed head. Already it weighed far more than it ought to. "The poison creeps higher every day, son. I can only imagine the creature had expended most of its poison upon my faithful hounds and so had little enough for me. I suppose it is possible that the poison will only paralyze me, but I do not feel any such hope in my heart. Do not despair. I am at peace with God, and I have left precise instructions." He looked toward the table where the frater had paused in his writing, then back at Alain, his gaze cool and calm. "My wishes and commands are clear in this matter. You need only to prove your worthiness by producing an heir."

ALL the Ungrians smelled funny, but they looked powerful and warlike in their padded coats, fur capes, and tasseled caps as they assembled for the wedding feast in the great hall of the biscop of Handelburg's palace.

Prince Bayan was a man in his prime, stocky, sun-weathered, with a fair bit of silver in his black hair and a habit of twisting the drooping ends of his mustaches. He had brought his mother, but she remained concealed in a palanquin, hidden by walls of gold silk. Four male slaves—one with skin as black as pitch, one as ice-blond and fair as Hanna, one golden-skinned with strangely pulled eyes, and one who looked much like the Ungrian warriors surrounding them—braced the litter on their shoulders so that it never touched the ground. The feast had started at noon and yet by late afternoon not one platter of food had passed behind the concealing silks.

Princess Sapientia had made up her mind on the long trip to Handelburg to like her betrothed, but in truth he was an easy enough man to like.

"When Geza beloved of God is still the prince, not the king yet, then he fight the battle with the
majariki
—" He turned to his interpreter, a stout, middle-aged frater who had only one hand; where the other should be he had a stump ending at the wrist. "What they call in Wendish? Ah, the Arethousans. Yes?" He spun the tail of one of his mustaches between fingers greasy from eating meat. "Gold hats and much strong smell of perfume, the
majariki."

"Prince Geza defeated the Arethousans in battle?" Sapientia asked.

"So he become king of the Ungrians. He fight against his uncles, his mother's brothers you would say, who say they must be king, not he. They ride to
majariki
and promise no raids and bow to
majariki
God if
majariki
army fight on their side. But Prince Geza beloved of God win this battle and he is king."

"God do not favor those who pray to Them only for their own advantage," observed Biscop Alberada from her seat between Bayan and Sapientia. As Henry's illegitimate, and elder, half sister, she had taken the biscopric allotted her with a firm hand and always supported her brother here on the eastern fringe of his kingdom.

"Did you fight with him, too, against your uncles?" asked Sapientia, less concerned about spiritual matters than glorious stories of battle.

"They not my uncles," Bayan explained. "I am son of third wife of King Eddec, our father. I am still young in that day, sleep in my mother's tent."

A new course was brought, served by his warriors and certain clean-smelling clerics from the biscop's staff. Biscop Alberada presided over the carving of an impressive haunch of pork. As robust as her legitimate half brother in health, in looks she evidently resembled her mother, a Polenie noblewoman who had been taken captive in some nameless war and become Ar-nulf the Younger's first concubine before his marriage to Beren-garia of Varre.

After the meat was distributed, Alberada regarded Prince Bayan with a sour gaze. "I believed that the Ungrian people had ended their custom of a man marrying many wives when they accepted the Holy Word of the Unities. According to the Holy Word, one woman and one man shall cleave each to the other in harmony, and exclusivity, in imitation of God Our Mother and Father."

The biscop's speech had to be translated, and Bayan listened intently and then nodded enthusiastically. "This my brother proclaim when he take the circle of God. I follow his rule. I put aside my wives when I come to marry Princess Sapientia." He grinned at her. He had one tooth missing but otherwise a strong mouth, although his teeth were somewhat yellow, perhaps from the copious cups of steaming hot, pungently-scented, brown-colored brew that he downed after finishing each cup of wine set before him.

"You had other wives?" asked the biscop.

"All at once?" demanded Sapientia.

"Many clans wish alliance with house of Geza and send daughters as gift. Too many for him and his sons to marry, so some come to me because I am only king-brother alive. It make insult to send them back." Then he leaped up suddenly, lifting the cup he shared with Sapientia, and called out in his own language, gesturing with the cup. A young man outfitted in a gaudy tunic trimmed with gold braid jumped up, answered him, and drained his own cup of wine, then sat down. Bayan took his seat. "That one is younger brother of my second wife. She very angry to be turned away, but I give her much gold and let her marry prince of Oghirzo." He laughed. "I tell her he make better husband."

"You are not a good husband?" But Sapientia had a glint in her eye, and after a moment Hanna realized with some astonishment that Sapientia_was actually
jesting
with her betrothed. She would never have jested with Hugh.

Prince Bayan found the comment uproariously funny, and he leaped again to his feet, called every man in his retinue to stand, and led them in a toast to his bride. One table of men, still on their feet, sang a boisterous song while the rest kept time by pounding their cups on the tables. After this, Bayan declaimed in his own language a long and tedious paeon to his new bride, punctuated by the translation of the interpreter: "She is as beautiful as the best mare. As robust as the rabbits in wintertime. Her grip is as strong as an eagle's, her sight as keen as a hawk's, she is as fecund as the mice," and so on until Sapientia burst out laughing.

"Your Highness," whispered Hanna, bending low over her. "If you give offense—"

"You do not like my poem?" cried Bayan, plumping down in his chair. "It is my own words I craft, not speak another man's."

Sapientia choked on her laughter and turned red. "I am sure, Prince Bayan, that it is only the words your interpreter gives to those you crafted in your own language—"

"No, no!" he cried cheerfully. "Always I make these poems that others say is no good, not like the true poets. But I do not mind their laughter. These words is from my heart."

"Ai, God," said Alberada under her breath. "A bad poet. It is as well he is a good fighter, Your Highness."

But Sapientia was glowing. "You crafted that poem yourself, for me? Let us hear it again!"

He was happy to oblige, and this time was not interrupted by the princess' laughter. The poem had some kind of refrain, and each time it came around, the Ungrians would all jump to their feet, cry out a phrase with one voice, and drain their wine cups. While this went on interminably, Hanna ate the scraps off Sapientia's platter, shoved forgotten to one side. She was terribly hungry, although now and again Sapientia would offer her own cup to drink from. The hall stank of wine, and urine.

The poem was followed by a display of wrestling, clearly meant to inflame female desire because the young Ungrian warriors stripped down to less clothing than Hanna had ever seen on a grown man in such a public place, just breechclouts covering their groins, and then oiled their skin until they gleamed, all moist and slippery. Did the curtains of the palanquin part slightly? Did she see a hand, fingers studded with rings, part the silk, and a suggestion of movement behind, someone peeking out to observe?

She leaned down to speak into Sapientia's ear. "I wonder if you ought to offer to share food with Prince Bayan's mother, Your Highness. I haven't seen a single platter taken to her."

Sapientia seemed startled by this oversight. "Will your mother not take supper with us, Prince Bayan?"

He changed color, kissed the tips of the fingers of his right hand, and made to throw something invisible over his left shoulder. "Not proper." He glanced nervously toward the palanquin and the sheet of gold fabric that concealed the woman within. "My mother a powerful sorcerer, I think you name it, of the Kerayit peoples, very strong in magic they are. They are the enemies of the Ungrian people, that is why my father marry her. In our language we call her a
shaman.
For her it is not allowed to share meat with people not of her kin."

"But you and I are to be wed! That makes me kin to her."

He grinned. "Not wed until man and woman join in the bed. Yes?"

She flushed. "That is the custom in my land, yes."

"Has your mother accepted the Holy Word and the Circle of Unity?" asked the biscop tartly.

He blinked, surprised. "She a good Kerayit princess. Her gods will take her power if she do not to them give the sacrifice. That is why she cannot be seen in this company."

"A heathen," muttered Alberada. "But you worship at the altar of God, Prince Bayan."

"I am good worshiper," he agreed, glancing at the frater as if to be sure he had said the words correctly. The man leaned down and whispered into his ear, and Bayan nodded, then turned to the biscop and spoke again, more emphatically. "I follow the Holy Word of God in Unity."

As if these words gave a signal, men lit torches and set them into sconces along the walls. The biscop rose with regal grace; although not tall, she had a queenly breadth of figure. Like her illegitimate nephew, Sanglant, she wore the gold torque that marked her royal kinship, although, like him, she could not aspire to the throne—unless the rumor was true that Henry himself conspired to place his illegitimate son on the throne after him. Hanna was not a fool: she listened, and she observed. Why would Henry marry his daughter to a man who, although renowned as a strong fighter, was unlikely to command respect and loyalty in Wendar itself? Only Sapientia seemed unaware of the implications of her father's choice for her marriage partner. Face bright and eyes glittering, she rose to stand beside Alberada as the biscop called the company to order.

"As night falls over this hall, let God's will be worked in this matter."

There were the usual pledges, an exchange of marriage portions: a disputed border region made over to Prince Bayan, a tribe whose tribute would henceforth grace Wendish coffers instead of going to the Ungrian king, many precious vessels from King Henry of Salian and Aostan manufacture, and from the east two wagons heaped with gold that Bayan's men pulled into the hall. Hanna had never seen such an astounding display of pure gold, not even on Henry's progress. It gleamed with a muted, almost ominous presence, heaped up like so much casually discarded debris.