Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (31 page)

"No more than they'll call me one." She let go of Hanna's hand and wrung her own together, suddenly nervous. "Listen, Hanna. You'd better know now, before we're in Firsebarg. Da
—

"Liath. Everyone knows your Da was a sorcerer. A fallen monastic, too, but one lapse, one child, isn't enough to get a man thrown out of the monastery. There must have been something else as well, disobedience, defiance, something more, like studying the forbidden arts. Deacon Fortensia has told us as many stories as I have fingers and toes about monks and nuns reading forbidden books in the scriptorium and falling into love with the dark arts. But your Da never did anything the least bit harmful, not like old Martha who tried throwing hexes on people who offended her, after she got proud about old Prater Robert sleeping with her. But she stopped that, once it was made plain to her that no one

here would tolerate such things. But your Da was generous. What's the harm in magic if it's a helpful thing? So says the deacon."

"But Da wasn't really a sorcerer. I mean, he had the knowledge, but nothing he ever did
—"

Hanna looked at her strangely. "Of course he was! That's why we were all so glad he put roots here and stayed each year, when we thought he meant to move on. You didn't know? People don't visit a sorcerer whose spells are useless. What about old Johan's cow that wouldn't calve until your Da wove a spell to open up its birth canal? What about that first spring, when the snow wouldn't melt, and he called up rain? I could tell you twenty other stories. You really didn't know?"

Liath sat stunned. All she could remember was the butterflies, fluttering and bright and then fading into the warm summer air like the phantoms they were, like the phantom his magic was, which had all faded and vanished after her mother died. "But
—but did it ever do any good? A storm can come by itself, you know. The weather can change, even without tempestari to call it up."

Hanna shrugged. "Who's to know if it was prayer or magic or just good fortune? What about that wolf, then, the one that eluded everyone else until your Da trapped it in a cage woven of reeds? That must have been magic, for any wolf could have escaped such a delicate trap."

Liath remembered the wolf. Da had been terrified, hearing reports that a wolf was lurking in the hills but not killing the sheep. He
had
trapped it, though he had let others kill it and had wept for days afterward. It had taken her three weeks of crying and pleading and arguing to get him to agree to stay in Heart's Rest after the wolf.

Hanna was still talking. "Maybe he wasn't a true sorcerer, like the devils who built the old Dariyan Empire, who built the wall south of here that stretches all the way from one sea to the other. It's all fallen over now that there are no more sorcerers of that lineage to keep it standing."

"I don't think Da was
that
kind of sorcerer," Liath said, more talking to herself than to Hanna. "Maybe he pretended to be, even tried to be, even once or twice succeeded. But it was my mother who
was
one. A real one. I remember that, if nothing else. She was murdered for it. I was only eight years old, but I do know that she had true sorcery, and that she worked . .." Here she paused to glance around the room again, although nothing had changed. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ". . . old Dariyan magic."

Hanna considered this revelation in silence.

"The book
—

"It's gone," said Hanna. "Hugh came and took it. I couldn't stop
—"

"Of course you couldn't stop him." Liath was too numb to cry. "It's a sorcerer's book. It has so much knowledge Da collected over the years
—" In his own writing. Lady, how she hated herself. She had betrayed Da by losing the book. "You don't have to come. I should have told you sooner, about Da and the book, even before Ivar left. You might not want to stay with me, knowing the truth. You could have gone with Ivar—

"As if I would have changed my mind! If Prater Hugh is truly going to be abbot, then he must know what he's doing, taking you as his concubine."

This, strangely, was easier ground "He says there are folk in the church who study magic. Da says Lady Sabella shelters heretics as well as sorcerers, to aid her against King Henry."

"Well," said Hanna, thinking it over, "better to be burned than married to young Johan. Lady Above!
You
need someone to shelter you from Prater Hugh. You're still pale, but at least your appetite is good. Mother always says that so long as you're hungry, then you're not sick enough to die."

Liath managed a chuckle.

Behind her, the door that led out front opened. Hanna stood up, lifting her chin defiantly. Liath stiffened. Why did he come every time she was beginning to feel free of

him, of that interminable weight he laid on her? Was this his magic, to find and to know, to hunt and to devour? She wanted to crawl under the table, but she forced herself to sit without moving. She felt him, the heat of him, the simple physical presence, as he came up behind her. His hand touched her arm. She flinched.

He grabbed her arm and hoisted her up and she stood, not fighting him. Tucked under his free arm, as if
—like Da—he dared never leave it unattended, he carried
The Book of Secrets.

"You look well enough," he said brusquely. "We're leaving." He glanced disinterestedly at Hanna. "Girl, fetch whatever you mean to take with you and tell the Mistress that my plans have altered. We are leaving now. My wagon is packed and waiting at the church. Go."

Hanna gaped at him, then bolted for the door that led out back.

"We're going," he repeated.

There was a puzzling urgency about him she could not understand. Certainly there was no point in resisting. She had already lost everything. He led her to the door and thence outside. Hanna came running from around the inn.

"I'll just collect my clothes and such," she called, out of breath. "I'll be there. Don't leave without me!"

Hugh gestured impatiently and kept walking. Liath was already too out of breath even to beg him not to leave Hanna behind.

She struggled to keep up, but they had not gotten a quarter of the way to the church before she slumped, dragging on him. "I have to rest."

"You're gray," he said, not with sympathy but as an observation. "I'll carry you."

"I just need time to rest." Lady's Blood! She didn't want to be seen carried by him, like a shameless whore!

"We've no time." He thrust the book into her hands and caught her around the back and under the legs and swung her up. Even with her weight in his arms, his pace did not slacken. Some other need drove him. She clutched the book against her chest, head swimming, so faint she feared she would drop it.

At the church the wagon did indeed sit outside, heavily laden, covered with a felted wool rug. Three men Liath vaguely recognized as Count Harl's men-at-arms loitered by the church door, armed and outfitted for a long journey. Dorit stood, wringing her hands, by the cart horses, which Lars held by their harness.

Hugh dumped Liath unceremoniously into the back of the wagon, onto the featherbed. A fourth soldier appeared from the stables, leading the piebald mare and the bay gelding. Only the gelding was saddled. Hugh took the gelding's reins and mounted.

"Where is that girl?" he demanded. "We can't wait. If we don't see her by the inn, Dorit, and she comes here, tell her to follow us down the south road. If she hurries, she'll catch us before nightfall."

"But you can't leave her," Liath cried, roused out of her stupor. "You promised me!"

"We can't wait."

"There she is!" called Dorit. Hanna came running along the road, a leather sack thrown over her back.

Hugh urged his gelding forward. A soldier leaped up into the wagon, and Lars jumped back as the cart horses started forward. The wagon jolted under Liath and began to roll. The three other soldiers, one still leading the mare, fell in behind. They eyed Liath and her single possession
—the old leather book—surreptitiously but otherwise kept silent. Their path met Hanna's, and she swung in beside the wagon.

"You'll walk," said Hugh from the front. Then added, as if an afterthought, "but you may rest the sack in with the rest."

Hanna tossed her sack into the back beside Liath and trudged alongside.

"What happened?" Hanna asked in an undertone. "He looks in a passion."

"I don't know. But he gave me the book, Hanna."

Hanna said nothing, and by that Liath realized the bitter truth. Hugh let her hold the book because he knew he could take it back any time he wanted. Behind them, the church receded. Dorit and Lars stood by the great front doors, watching the party head away back into the village, to the road that led south. They traveled in silence until, reaching sight of the village and the inn, Hugh cursed suddenly.

Liath raised herself up and looked around.

Four riders
—an unusual sight on any day—waited in front of the inn. She recognized Marshal Liudolf. The other three wore the scarlet-trimmed cloaks and brass badges embossed with an eagle that marked riders in service to the king: the King's Eagles. Two were young, one man and one woman. The eldest was a grizzled, weather-beaten man who looked strangely familiar, but she could not place him.

"That's the traveler who rode through last autumn," said Hanna in a whisper. "He asked about you, Liath."

"Keep moving." Hugh's order was sharp.

"Prater Hugh!" Marshal Liudolf raised a hand. "If you will, a word."

Liath could see by the set of Hugh's back that he wanted to ignore this summons. That he wanted to keep riding. But he reined the bay aside. The soldier driving the wagon pulled the horses up. Mistress Birta emerged from the inn and stopped next to the door, watchful, silent.

"As you see, Marshal," said Hugh, "we are just setting out. It is a long journey south, ten or twenty days, depending on the rains, and we have little enough daylight for traveling this early in the year."

"I won't delay you long, Prater. These riders of the King's Eagles approached me yesterday, looking for healthy young persons who might be suitable for service as messengers for the King." Then, oddly, Marshal Liudolf stopped and looked questioningly, almost obediently, at the elder rider.

"I am Wolfhere," said the older man. He had deep-set eyes under silver brows; his hair was almost all silver, with a trace of ancient brown. "You must understand that with the increase in Eika raids, and rumors of trouble in Varre with Lady Sabella, we are in need of young persons suitable to ride messages for the Eagles."

Hugh held the gelding on an uncomfortably tight rein. "I am sure you are. I believe Count Harl has two younger children he might be persuaded to part with."

"We are not looking for children of the nobility," said Wolfhere smoothly, "as you know, Prater Hugh, since you were educated in the king's schola. Indeed, I have always heard it said you were one of their finest students."

"I learned all they had to teach me. You, of course, would not have had the opportunity for such an education. I don't recall your parents' names, or their kin."

Wolfhere merely smiled. "None of the Eagles come from the king's schola. But neither are we looking for landbred children who are unsuitable for this responsibility. I understand that you have recently acquired a young woman who might be of interest to us." He said this without glancing at Liath, although surely he knew she was the young woman he was talking about.

"I paid her father's debt. I am not interested in selling her." Hugh's tone was cold and flat.

"But my dear frater," said Wolfhere, smiling suddenly much like his namesake might bare its teeth in a wolfish grin, "I bear the King's seal. Marshal Liudolf tells me you paid two nomias for her. I have the gold. I want her. You may protest this action, of course, but you must do that in front of King Henry. Until such time as King Henry renders a judgment, it is my right to demand her presence in the king's service."

It was so quiet Liath could hear the soft wind rustling in the trees and the stamp of the old plough horse in the inn stables. Sunlight painted the road the yellow of light clay. The marshal's horse flattened an ear. From out back came the sound of Karl, singing off-key as he worked.

Hugh sat, stiff with fury, on his bay. The old man still did not look at her, but the younger Eagles did. They looked very tall, seated upon their horses, the woman in particular. She had a bold face, and a bolder nose
—a hawk's nose, they called it here—and a bright and open gaze. She studied Liath with an interest piqued with skepticism. Her companion looked coolly curious. Their cloaks draped across their horse's backs, revealing a fur lining within. They shifted, glancing at the old man, and their eagle badges winked in the sunlight.

Finally Hugh spoke. "I believe the young person's consent is required."

Unruffled, Wolfhere inclined his head. "That is true."

Hugh dismounted and tossed the reins to a waiting man-at-arms. He walked back to the wagon. Liath wanted to shrink away into nothing, but there was nowhere to run. Hanna hesitated, then moved away to make room for him. He leaned in and pried one of Liath's hands free of the book, clasped it in his, his grasp painfully tight.