Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (45 page)

Beyond, the sea surges below a distant headland, soughing up more softly along the strand where the clean wooden boats lie beached. They smell of seawater and barnacles and the good strong scent of oak flavored with ash and willow.

Shouting and crashing come from the wood beyond. He darts back into a thicket. Some of the soft ones, the humans, are running; their terror and pain are sweet on his tongue, tasted from the air. But he lets them pass. Two are children, carried by a strong mother whose tears smell like the salt of the sea. He senses a new weakness in himself, brought on by his contact with Halane, Son of Henri. He thinks of OldMother, who is already beginning the slow trek up the fjall where she will take her place with the WiseMothers. She speaks of the soft mothers with scorn because they cannot bear litters with the strength and numbers of the RockChildren. But Halane had a mother such as this. He lets them run by untouched before he crawls out from the thicket and starts his descent toward his cousins.

Will these cousins greet him with peace in their hearts ? Or will they set their dogs on him?

He shrugs off these doubts. OldMother's scent is strong on him. She promised him much before her joints began to stiffen and she passed the knife of decision to the new YoungMother. Even if these warriors are not true cousins, they will not harm one who bears this sign of favor. Nor will any dogs, of any pack, eat one who has been marked by the scent of an OldMother.

Still, though, he carries his new weakness with him as he descends through the forest. The weakness rests within him, but he also conceives of the wooden circle which hangs at his chest as the physical sign of that weakness, a tangible reminder. Other humans flee past, but he avoids them. This new weakness has taught him a lesson: The soft ones are not true people, of course, but they are a kind of people. People can talk. It is the lesson the WiseMothers teach. It is what they whispered to him when he was a half-grown pup and dared venture up the mountainside to the sacred place tended by the SwiftDaughters to see whether the WiseMothers would speak to him or else kill him for his presumption.

"The knife and the tongue are equally strong weapons."

The WiseMothers had spoken twice, and he had always remembered.

"Face your weakness and it can become your strength."

He steps out of the wood and into a landscape torn by wind and sea spray. The soft ones' houses are all burning now. The scent of fire mingles with the pungent smell of sea and sand and shore. The dogs bark, smelling him. Alerted, a Watcher sees him and whistles to question him. He whistles back, sees the sign given for free passage. With new confidence, he strides down to the sea.

Alain woke, cold and shivering, on the ground. He did not stir. The horrible images of his dream swelled in his mind. He still smelled the sea, and the fire burning. He still heard the screams of children and the grunts of men falling beneath the spears and axes of Eika savages. He still saw the monstrous dogs, their hollow bellies and tireless rage, their yellow eyes shooting off sparks. Always they panted, tongues hanging out, saliva
—or worse things—dribbling down their fangs.

He shuddered and shifted. Rage and Sorrow pressed against him on either side. Their solid presence made him feel safe.

Unlike the foot soldiers who marched in Lavastine's train, he now had a decent bed to lie on: the carpet that was always thrown down in front of the entrance to Count Lavastine's tent. Every night after watering and feeding the other hounds and sending them in to sleep beside their master, Alain bedded down here. Though it was absurd
—he had a spear and a knife and was barely trained in either—he thought of himself as protecting the count despite the fact that two guards stood watch at all times. But no one had demanded he move. Most likely no one dared to, not when he moved with hounds always at his side and Count Lavastine remained oblivious to all but his goal of aiding Lady Sabella.

Rage whimpered and stirred in her sleep. Sorrow was the quieter sleeper, but he would wake instantly if Alain moved. And now, of course, thinking of this, Alain simply had to get up.

Yesterday Count Lavastine and his army had caught up with Lady Sabella. The impressive retinue Alain had first seen at Lavas holding almost two months ago was now a formidable army. Rodulf, Duke of Varingia, and a number of counts and lords had joined with Sabella. Lavastine's arrival with one hundred and twenty more fighting men had been a convenient excuse for celebration. The feasting had lasted long into the night, and Alain had drunk more than he should of the ale passed around to the common soldiers. Indeed, his mouth was dry and sour-tasting, and he had a headache. And he really, really had to urinate.

One of the guards was asleep. The other yawned, disinterested, as Alain got to his feet. Sorrow woke at once as Alain ventured into the sparse cover of wood that lay twenty paces behind the camp. The hound followed, whining softly.

Alain relieved himself. The moon had already set, but a thin line of red rimmed the eastern sky. From the far side of camp he heard the sound, muted by distance, of clerics and fraters singing the service of Lauds, first light. As he turned to move out of the trees, Sorrow closed his jaws over Alain's wrist and tugged. Alain tripped over undergrowth.

"What's that?" A harsh whisper sounded from deeper in the wood.

Sorrow leaned so hard on Alain that the young man fell to hands and knees. Now he was partially screened by low bushes. He peered out through their branches to see two figures carrying between them a bulky weight. They had stopped to rest. "Hush," said the other.

Alain was silent. Sorrow was silent. The two mysterious men were silent. The clerics and fraters sang, distant voices blending in the chill air as the sky faded from black to gray.

"Nothing," said one of the men. "We'd best hurry before camp wakes." He hoisted the
thing
they carried up higher against his chest and they moved away through the curve of the wood toward the eastern end of camp.

They were carrying a body.

Alain's heart went cold. Sorrow licked his hand. Together they crept after them, Alain keeping one hand on the nape of the hound's neck. To reassure himself, he slipped a hand inside his tunic to touch the rose, still alive, still in bloom. The prick of its thorns gave him courage.

He could not tell if the body was man or woman, alive or dead. They carried it all the way round to the outskirts of Lady Sabella's encampment, where the kitchen tent was set up, and then even past that and past the livestock, to where a shrouded cage rested fifty paces away from any tent or fire. A man, face hooded, arms bound in heavy leather wrappings, met them.

They spoke in low voices. At first Alain could not hear; no
man
would have been able to. But an Eika . . .

Alain strained, stilling himself until he heard Sorrow's soft panting, heard each individual voice, some true, some off, as the clerics sang the final cadences of Lauds. He heard the scraping of claws against wood, the clack of twigs in the dawn breeze, heard even the loam as it crushed down beneath his fingers.

". . . will have no questions being asked."

"Brought him from the estate by Autun. Them are the Biscop of Autun's lands, and so they be the false king's lands. So does Biscop Antonia say, that false king's men are fair game."

The keeper grunted. "As long as we get no trouble of it. You must have walked all day, then, from the lands outlying Autun. Is he still alive?"

"Seems to be breathing. I gave him the drink, just as much as you said. Hasn't woken or eyes fluttered once. What's it for? Make him taste better?"

The keeper's voice radiated his distaste. "No need to make him suffer more."

"You feel mercy for the false king's man?"

"I do my job. Now stand back."

"We can't watch?"

The keeper snorted. "Watch all you wish. You'll regret it."

Some tone in his voice made the other two back away. But Alain knew suddenly he could not stand by, not this time.

He jumped up. Sorrow nipped at his backside but missed, and Alain crashed out of the undergrowth. "Stop!" he cried.

The two men grabbed him at once and wrenched his arms behind his back. He struggled briefly, but together they were much stronger than he was alone. A thud sounded, inside the cage, as if something had thrown itself against the slats.

"We could throw this one in," said one of the men. "He's fresher and younger."

Sorrow bounded, growling, out of the trees. The two men instantly let go of Alain and backed off, drawing long knives.

"That's one of Count Lavastine's hounds," said the keeper nervously. "Do naught to harm it."

Sorrow sat himself down, leaning against Alain's legs. "Don't do it," pleaded Alain. "It isn't merciful. It isn't right."

This close, Alain saw the keeper had but a stump of one hand; his face was scored with old deep gashes on forehead and jaw, one of which had torn out his right eye, now healed as a mass of white scar tissue. A bronze Circle of Unity hung at his chest. "It must be fed, boy. Fed with fresh blood. Or do you volunteer to throw yourself in?"

Alain shuddered. But the memory of Lackling's terrified mewling and sobbing was still strong in him.
His
fault.
His
to atone. He thought suddenly of Prater Agius and his dangerous, heretical words: that the blessed Daisan offered himself as a sacrifice in order to redeem us from our sins; that by sacrifice we make ourselves worthy. Driven by this memory, by the intensity which pervaded Agius's speech and prayer, Alain took a step toward the cage.

Sorrow butted Alain so hard from behind he fell onto his knees. Sorrow got a good grip on his arm, tight enough that his teeth pressed painfully into flesh but not so hard that they drew blood. The two men sidled closer, knives up. Sorrow growled but did not let go.

"There's one as disagrees with you," said the keeper with rough amusement. He bent to the body that lay limp at his feet, hooked his elbows underneath the sleeping man's armpits. Despite his lost hand, the keeper was a strong man; he dragged the body easily to the cage, fussed with some kind of attachment, and rolled up a small barred door not more than the breadth of a big man's shoulders in both height and width.

"Let me go!" said Alain fiercely. Heedless of the pain, he wrenched his arm out of Sorrow's grip and flung himself forward. He would stop this murder. He must.

The keeper jerked up his head and then, the movement an extension of his surprise, yanked the shroud half off the cage, revealing
—

The two men behind Alain cried out in fear before their exclamations froze in their throats. , The great eye slewed round
—for it had only one eye; the other was a mass of putrefaction, worms writhing in infected flesh, maggots crawling out from the pus to wriggle down its beaklike snout. Its gaze struck him like the sword of God.

He could not move.

But he could stare, throat choked with horror. With pity.

It was a sickly creature, however monstrous its appearance. Like a huge bird, it had two taloned feet and two wings, molting now. Feathers and waste littered the cage's floor. Like a dragon, it had a sinuous tail and a featherless head, scaled to an iron gleam, but with a yellowish-green cast beneath, the sign of a creature that is no longer healthy. It heaved its great body awkwardly across the cage toward its meal.

The keeper began to shove the body in, but suddenly the body shuddered and a tiny gasp escaped the unconscious man, the gasp of a man coming awake out of
—or
into
—a nightmare. The huge foot scraped at the body, sunk its talons into flesh, and yanked it inside the cage.

Mercifully, the keeper threw the shroud back over the bars. Alain heard a muffled moan and then the sounds of an animal feeding voraciously. The grip of the
guivre's
eye let him go. He fell forward, shivering convulsively, and began to weep. But he still did not move, though now he could. What he had seen was too horrible.

The keeper closed the tiny door and chained it shut. He peered at Alain with his one good eye. "You'd best go with them, lad. Biscop will want to see you."

Biscop Antonia. It was she, of course, who was behind all this. Prater Agius had refused to confront her in the ruins that night or in Lavas holding on the following day. Now, it seemed, Alain would have no choice but to do so
—or else, with Sorrow, fight a foolish skirmish he could not win.

The knowledge left him with a sudden feeling of peace as he was led away, Sorrow padding obediently at his heels.

That feeling of peace, of resignation to God's will, seeped away as he waited in the antechamber of the tent while outside the biscop led the service of Prime, the celebration of sunrise and a new day. All the noble ladies and lords stood in attendance.

But when Biscop Antonia returned, still resplendent in her white vestments trimmed with gold, her biscop's staff held confidently in her right hand, and listened to the whispered explanation of one of her clerics, she merely said:

"This one again? Brother Heribert, take a message to Count Lavastine that the boy will march with my retinue for the time being. Lavastine will make no objection."