Crown of Stars Read online

  Her shriek cut through the rumbling. “Ai! Ai! God save us!”

  Lady Sabella turned to stare at her daughter. Conrad lifted his head in surprise. Tallia had pushed herself up on one elbow. With her other hand she pointed, forefinger extended, arm trembling. Her face was white, and her eyes flared in horror.

  “A ghost!” she cried hoarsely. “A spirit, sent by the Enemy to haunt me!” She pointed at Alain, where he stood in the crowd. “Begone! Begone! You have no power over me!”

  Conrad wiped away tears with the back of a hand. “What are you babbling about?”

  Lady Sabella had seen, and understood. “What is this?” she asked as she smiled. Alain didn’t like that smile, but he did not fear it. “Come forward. I recognize you. Lavastine’s by-blow who tried to steal the county from Lord Geoffrey.”

  With the hounds at his heels, Alain walked forward. Folk shoved each other to get out of the way.

  He did not kneel. “My lady,” he said. “My lord duke.” And, last, although the words came harder than he thought they would: “My lady Tallia.”

  She screamed, covered her eyes with her arm, and collapsed onto the pillows as in a faint. The litter rocked, and the servingmen carrying it lurched a few steps to steady themselves. In all that crowd, no one spoke. Silence weighed over the mute effigy of Taillefer. Silence lofted into the dome as if to strike the heavens themselves dumb. “Yet here you are,” added Sabella, “and I admit I’m interested to know where you came from and why you are here.”

  This close to the nurse, he saw the bluish-white features of a baby peeping out from under the linen wrappings. So still, without expression or any least sign of animation. Sorrow barked, and the nurse shrieked and skittered back, slamming into the tomb. She lost her grip on the infant. It tumbled out of her arms.

  He lunged forward and

  On the shore of Rikin Fjord the good, strong folk of Rikin Tribe wait to greet him. Here are Eika warriors grown too slow to sail the seas and fight in foreign lands but strong enough, still, to build and labor and fight in defense of their home. Here are the home troops, doing their duty to protect the fjord until they are given a chance to sail. Here are Deacon Ursuline’s flock looking healthy and eager, crowding forward as they would never have done in the days when they were kept penned and mute.

  “What have you brought us, Mother?” they call when they see the deacon.

  “What gifts will enrich us, Deacon?” they ask her. “You must see what we have built in your absence!”

  “Ask your lord what he has brought with him to enrich the tribe,” she tells them, and they see him and fall silent, heads bowed respectfully. They fear him, too, but fear is no longer the only spear that drives them.

  “The riches of Alba belong to us,” he tells them. “Silver brooches and spoons. Tin. Iron ingots. Shields. Swords. Glass beakers and jars and drinking horns. Wool cloth. Ivory arm rings. Amber and crystal beads. And more besides. Let the cargo be brought ashore and into the hall.”

  He looks out onto the waters, but the surface lies still. The fight that exploded so suddenly has vanished into the depths and he still cannot explain it. Truth to tell, he hesitates before he disembarks, recalling that moment when he saw Nokvi in the flat face of the merman who attacked him. Nokvi is dead, devoured by his allies—some of whom are not, after all, his allies any longer. Or perhaps some of the merfolk were never his allies at all.

  He comes ashore. First Son bears his standard behind him. His counselors move in a group, whispering among themselves.

  The SwiftDaughters stand in their ranks by OldMother’s hall. They wait, so beautiful in their sharp metallic hues: copper, silver, gold, iron. Snow lines the valley, a white tracery among the fields and rocks. Small ones race down from the main hall, shouting and laughing, and they tumble into place before him, some of them on two legs and some on four, nipping and snapping and pinching and shoving. They are born with the instinct to struggle and compete. Yet he notices that there are fewer four legs and more two legs than is usual among the litters.

  Sensing his interest, they fall together into their packs and become silent. Watching him.

  They are half his size but growing fast. In another year they will be full grown and in a year or two after that they will be what humankind would call adults: as smart and fast and strong as they will ever be, the new generation of Eika warriors. He has himself, after all, only lived through ten or twelve winters since he hatched from the nests. Their life is short, but after all, a short life is all most creatures on Earth can expect.

  “Answer me,” he says to them sharply. “Brute strength and bright baubles will not give you victory.”

  At first they answer with silence. The old, fading warriors and younger home troops and the human tribe look on. This is the first time the sire has met the hatchlings.

  One among them speaks up boldly. “Then what?”

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “I am First Son of the Third Litter.”

  He nods.

  “First,” he says, “observe. After this, learn. And when this is done, think. These are the three legs on which we stand.”

  “We only have two legs,” says First Son of the Third Litter. A different small one snickers.

  “What is your name?” he asks the snickerer.

  The small one flinches Never a good sign. But after all, not all these will survive, nor should they. Some will never grow beyond a reliance on brute strength and swift running. It is those who observe, learn, and think who will thrive. Who will rule.

  “Third Son of the Sixth Litter,” says the snickerer. “There are four legs also. Three is between two and four, but there is no creature with three legs.”

  “Is there not?” He frowns at the hatchlings, yet after all they are a handsome looking group, not the biggest he has ever seen, but he does not have girth and breadth to give them. He has given them something more valuable. “The third leg is your brother. Two legs only, if you stand by yourself. But if you stand with others, then you cannot easily be knocked down.”

  caught the corner of a linen band as the tiny body struck the floor. Cloth pooled around it in loops and heaps. He swooped down and grasped at it with a gasp of dismay.

  It gurgled. Its lips smacked and pumped. It squawked out a feeble wail, then hiccuped.

  Would it name itself? First Son? Fourth Child? Nay, it was a helpless human infant, doomed to many years of childhood, not ready to run and fight within a pair or three years after its birth. It was so tiny and feeble! No wonder the Eika thought that humankind were soft.

  The nurse ripped the baby out of Alain’s hands, pulled down the front of her bodice, and put the baby to her breast. It rooted for a moment, then got hold and sucked.

  Such an uproar ensued that he had to grab the collars of the hounds and hold them to stop them from biting as folk swarmed, yelled, cried, gesticulated. The crowd surged in and out, right and left, until Sabella’s ringing voice brought order and soldiers herded companions, attendants, and courtiers out.

  “This way,” said Captain Lukas, appearing at his side as if he had never left. “Come now, I pray you.” He said the words urgently. His frown had a storm cloud’s menace. Alain went along because it was easier to and because the sight of that infant’s face troubled him. So quiescent. It had seemed to hit the ground so hard, but that was God’s mercy, surely: some substance had clogged its breathing and the shock had jarred it loose. Newborns were such fragile creatures. Weiwara’s twins—how could he forget them? The smaller one had been born, likewise, too weak to draw breath on its own. What had happened to that baby? Had it survived the great weaving or been consumed by the tempest? Had Adica known the spell would doom those she loved? Had she gone forward despite that knowledge?

  He would never know.

  “Wait here,” said the captain, opening a door. Alain went gratefully into a dim room and sank down onto a bench. The tears caught him by surprise. He missed Adica so badly. The hounds lic
ked him, leaned on him, pawed at him, and at length lay down on his feet being too big to settle in his lap as they wished to do. At length he calmed, lifted his head, and measured his surroundings.

  This chamber housed a noble’s luxurious furnishings: a fine burnished table and benches; two silk-covered couches for reclining and conversation; a backless chair that could be folded up and easily carried; tapestries on the walls; and a cold hearth. It was too dim to see the scenes woven in the tapestries. A single candle burned, fastened into a brass holder fixed onto the left of a sloped writing desk. Someone had abandoned a sheet of parchment, half inscribed with words he had lost the knack of reading. There he saw regnant, a word he knew because it also appeared in the Holy Verses. Below that he recognized “a strong driving wind” like to that mentioned in the story of the Pentekoste, and then a series of sevens: seven towns, seven days, seven portions of grain, seven nobles whose names he laboriously puzzled out. They were all Salian or western border lords, it seemed: Guy, Laurant, Amalfred, Gaius, Mainer, Baldricus, Ernalda. The page bore no illumination. It was written in plain ink in the common script used by Lavastine’s clerics when they wrote up contracts and cartularies. The inkwell had been stoppered. Untrimmed quills lay in a box resting on the level top of the desk beside a closed book. All the shutters were closed. The chamber had the moldy smell of a room that hasn’t been aired out all winter.

  With some effort he pulled his feet out from under the hounds, which had the guile to rest heavily by not resisting him. A side door opened when he turned the handle. He stepped out onto a walk along the battlement wall. It was raining, cold, and miserable, an unrelentingly gray day. The clouds hung lower than ever. The main part of the town could not be seen from here. The river ran at the base of the bluff. There seemed no obvious exit from this narrow stone court, only a pair of low doors in the wall that most likely concealed a necessarium.

  He turned back to enter just as the hounds rose, stiff-legged and ears flat. First, two stewards entered and took down the two shutters. After them came a brace of guardsmen, then Captain Lukas, and finally Lady Sabella. She sat on one of the couches and examined Alain for a while without speaking. In this light, he saw that the tapestries depicted the famous battle of the Nysa River in which young King Louis, the last independent king of Varre, had met his death.

  “They say,” remarked Sabella into the silence, “that no one knew whose hand struck the blow that killed Louis the Fair. In Wendar it is said he was killed by an Eika prince. But in Varre, it is said he was killed by a traitor in thrall to the Wendish king, who wanted all for himself.”

  “I’ve heard that tale. I grew up by Osna Sound.”

  “Within the lands overseen by the count of Lavas.”

  “Yes.”

  Her stare was meant to intimidate, but he accepted it placidly. The hounds grumbled very soft growls whenever she looked their way. Outside, rain hissed on the stones.

  “Why have you come here? What do you want?”

  “I have promised to discover the true heir to the county of Lavas.”

  “Ah.” She smiled without showing her teeth. “You have heard that Lord Geoffrey betrayed me.”

  Rage yipped as the door opened and half a dozen people flooded in, led by Conrad the Black. His presence filled the room. He was laughing.

  “Squalling like a rooster!” he was saying to one of his companions. “Good God! What can she have been thinking, to believe the little lad was dead just like that?”

  “I hope you slapped some sense into her,” said Lady Sabella.

  Conrad looked at her with disgust, perhaps with loathing, and flung himself onto the other couch. He noted Alain standing with his back to the cold hearth, and then the hounds in shadow to either side. “Look at you!” he said in the tone of a man who loves and understands dogs. “What handsome creatures you are!”

  Sorrow’s tail thumped once. Rage’s ears lifted, but neither hound moved one paw.

  “He is the one,” said Sabella to Conrad as though Alain could not hear them. “Lavastine’s bastard.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently, still admiring the hounds. “What matter to us?”

  “Lord Geoffrey matters to us.”

  “Ah! What benefit to us?”

  “Geoffrey has betrayed us. He is sheltering Constance. There are rumors of unrest and discontent in his county in recent years. This one might provide the excuse we need.”

  “I see. We ride to Lavas to restore Lavastine’s rightful heir, the man he himself proclaimed as his successor but whom Henry deposed. Tallia will protest. She was weeping and moaning and in a mad rant when I just left her.”

  Sabella shrugged. “That makes no difference. She is shed of the child now. You can put her back in Bederbor, the sooner the better for my peace of mind.”

  He grunted. “Your distaste for her does you no credit.”

  “You like her?”

  He shrugged. “I accept what is necessary. But my children will not grow up to become like her! I hope you will treat the little lad better, or I will have to take him away.”

  “Do not insult me, Conrad.” Her hand tightened on a pillow, but she kept her tone cordial. “Or threaten me. Where are your daughters?”

  “Admiring their new brother, since they will soon be leaving him. I admit, I have set them to guard him. I do not trust Tallia’s ravings. She says he is tainted, polluted.” He jerked his chin up to indicate Alain. “This one—what is your name?”

  “I am called Alain.”

  “He touched the little fellow, in the chapel. Didn’t you see it?”

  “I saw it,” said Sabella. “Tallia is insane, Conrad.”

  “Certainly she is weak-minded. So.” He nodded at Alain. “That child might have been yours.” He seemed about to say more but did not. He had an easy presence, dominating the room without needing to intimidate, as Sabella did. He studied Alain a while longer, and Alain watched him calmly in return. At last he grunted under his breath and nodded.

  “You want Lavas County back, do you?”

  “I am not the heir.”

  “That need not trouble us. We can set you in the count’s seat easily enough.”

  “Why would you do so? I have no retinue and no army to support you.”

  “I want a loyal man in Lavas County,” said Sabella.

  “Rumor is the strong driving wind that rattles the branches,” added Conrad. “They say civil war has broken Salia into a dozen warring factions. They say Henry and his favored child Sanglant have returned from Aosta and even now march on Varre to reclaim us.”

  “Is it true you reject the Wendish regnant? Although you are both descendants of that line?”

  “We are descendants of the Varren royal line,” said Sabella sharply. “This is our land to rule.”

  “And rule wisely, I trust,” said Alain. “The tempest still rages. The storm is not yet passed.”

  “What babbling is this?” demanded Conrad, laughing. “I feel I am in the presence of a wise and mysterious oracle!”

  “Last autumn a great storm passed over the land. You may believe that you survived the worst, but the worst is yet to come. Have any planted, although the season is late? Or does frost still kill seedlings every night? Have you seen the sun? When will the cloud cover lift? What are you doing to prepare, if the weather does not change?”

  “Why would the weather not change?” asked Sabella. “Summer will come soon. We have stores to last a while—and more to be gained if our current venture prospers.”

  Conrad whistled softly, trying to lure the hounds, and although they whined a little and thumped their tails, they looked at Alain and, without receiving permission, refused to move. The duke sat back, letting them be.

  “These are not unreasonable concerns,” Conrad said in the mildest voice Alain had heard from him. “As in battle, even the best laid plans may be overturned. One must expect a flanking attack, or disaster. And act so as to overcome it.” He nodded at Alain. “That
is why we need Lavas County. That is how you can help us.”

  “Geoffrey has not ruled in a manner pleasing to me,” said Sabella. “Lavas needs a stronger hand.”

  “What do you say, Lord Alain?” asked Conrad genially. “Are you interested? We can help each other.”

  “It’s not why I came here.”

  “Nor need it have been,” replied Conrad with that same hearty camaraderie. “Let it be a windfall. You have acted boldly. Boldness can expect reward.”

  “He’ll need a wife,” said Sabella, shifting her pieces on the board. “We can find someone suitable. Duchess Yolanda has a daughter. You yourself, Conrad, have a daughter almost of marriageable age.”

  There was a great deal in this vein Alain could hear without comment or reaction, but the sight of Tallia had singed him. He winced, thinking of her, of the baby she had given Conrad but denied him and by so doing denied Lavastine. That was the one thing that was hardest to forgive. The one thing that he had tried to conceal with a lie. He had failed Lavastine.

  Briefly, the idea teased and flattered him: he might marry again, be count again, and fulfill his promise to the man he had called “Father.”

  “Or my granddaughter,” added Sabella, as if the thought had just that moment occurred to her. “Berengaria is—what? Four or five? She could be betrothed now, and married later, when she’s older. In another ten years she’ll be old enough to bear children. It would repay him for the loss of Tallia.”

  “Is it not incest to marry a man to the daughter of a woman he once had to wife?” asked Conrad.

  “Tallia claimed an annulment. They did not consummate the marriage.”

  He had to shut his eyes, but if he breathed, if he thought of Adica, these words had no power to burn him.

  “That’s so! In that case, it doesn’t count as a marriage. Yes, it might serve. Berry will need a good marriage. She’ll need a consort strong enough to support her regnancy. One whose power and lands give him respect in his own right.”

  Marry Tallia’s daughter. Rule Varre as her consort. And perhaps rule Wendar as well.