Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (6 page)

Liath hesitated, shifting bow and quiver on her back. This knowledge was new. She and Da had traced out the stars, fixed and traveling, since she was old enough to point at the heavens. But only last month had he suddenly begun to teach her the secret lore of mages. Last month, on the feast day of St. Oya, saint of mysteries and secrets, he had remembered
—as if the turning wheel of the stars in the heavens and the progress of days on the Earth had taken a sudden, unexpected forward leap—that she would turn sixteen on the spring equinox, first day of the new year. St. Oya's Day was indeed an auspicious day for a girl to have her first woman's bleeding, and Da had taken her down to the inn for the traditional celebration.

Liath had enjoyed the feast and the songs, but she had felt no different except for the changes in her body. But ever since St. Oya's Day Da treated her differently: He made her read and recite and memorize at a furious pace, like heaping wood on a fire and expecting it to blaze brighter and hotter.

Yesterday, by the reckoning of days and years she had learned at Da's knee, had been the first day of the new year. She had turned sixteen. And this year when she and Da had gone to the village church for the celebration of Mariansmass
—the name the church gave to the day of the spring equinox—she had sung in the congregation
a
s a young woman, no longer as a girl at the children's benches.

"Liath?" Da waited.

She bit at her lip, wanting to get it perfect because she hated to disappoint him. She took a breath and spoke in the singsong voice she always used when she first memorized the words and sequences her father taught her.

"By this ladder the mage ascends: First to the rose, whose touch is healing. Then to the sword, which grants us strength. Third is the cup of boundless waters. , Fourth is the blacksmith's ring of fire. The throne of virtue follows fifth. Wisdom's scepter marks the sixth. At the highest rung seek the crown of stars, The song of power revealed."

"Very good, Liath. Tonight we'll continue our measurements of the ecliptic. Where is the astrolabe?"

The instrument dangled by its ring from her thumb. She lifted her arm out straight before her and sighted on the delicate cluster of stars called "the Crown," now descending into the west. It was so clear this night that perhaps she could see the seventh "jewel" in the crown of stars; usually only six were visible, but she had keen enough sight that she could sometimes make out the seventh. She was about to calculate the altitude and rotate the brass rete when a movement caught her eye. An owl took flight from a tree on the edge of the clearing. She followed the bird with her gaze, up, its wings pale against the night lit only by stars and a crescent moon. And there, low in the east
—

"Look, Da! No,
there.
In the Dragon. I've never seen that star before, and it's not one of the planets. All the other stars are in their rightful places."

He peered into the sky. His eyes were no longer as keen as hers, but after a moment he saw it: a star out of place in the constellation of the Dragon, Sixth House in
t
he Great Circle, the world dragon that bound the heavens. It was of middling brightness, although even as Liath stared she thought it grew brighter; the light it cast wavered as if it were throwing off sparks.

"Lady's Blood," Da swore. He shivered, although it was warm for a spring night. A white shape swooped past them. The owl struck not ten paces from them, and when it rose, it bore aloft a small, struggling shape in its claws. "So descends the greater upon the smaller. Let's go inside, daughter."

"But, Da, shouldn't we measure its position? Shouldn't we observe it? It must be a sign from the heavens. Perhaps it's an angel come down into the lower spheres!"

"No, child!" He pulled his cloak tight and turned his face deliberately away from the sky. His shoulders shook. "We must go in."

Clutching the astrolabe, she bit back a retort and followed him meekly inside their cottage. It was really too warm inside, with a fire still roaring in the hearth. But the fire always roared, and Da was often cold. She remembered being a little girl, when he could with a single gesture call butterflies of rainbow light into being for her to chase through the herb garden. All that
—if they were true memories and not illusions brought into being by her own desire—had died with her mother. All she had left were memories clouded by the years and by the endless miles they had journeyed, across the sea, over mountains, through new lands and strange towns. That, and a fire always burning in the hearth.

He barred the door behind them and suddenly bent over, racked by coughs. Recovering, he placed the book on the table and threw his cloak onto the bench. Went at once and poured himself ale.

"Da," she said, hating to see him this way, but he only took another draught. To her horror, his hands shook. "Da, sit down."

He sat. She set the astrolabe on the shelf, rested bow and quiver in the corner, and hung the partridges from
t
he rafters. Placing a log on the fire, she turned to watch her father. As she shifted, the plank floor creaked under her feet. It was such a bare room. She remembered richer, but that was long ago. Tapestries, carved benches, a real chair, a long hall, and wine served from a pitcher of glass. They had built this little cottage themselves, dug out the ground, driven posts in, sawed planks from felled logs and set that planking over the cellar, caulked the log walls with mud and straw. It was rough but serviceable. Besides the table and bench that doubled as their clothes chest, there was only her father's bed in the darkest corner and their one luxury
— a walnut shelf, the wood polished until it shone, its surface carved with a pattern of gripping beasts curling down the sides, their eyes painted red.

Da coughed again and fumbled to open the book, searching for something in the dense text written within. Moving to help him, she passed by the window. The shutters were still open, and through the thin skin tacked over the opening, rubbed so fine that it was translucent, she saw a dim light. It bobbed closer, following the well-worn path that descended to the village.

"Someone is coming," she said, going to the door.

"Don't open it!"

His voice cut her, and she flinched. "What is it? What's wrong?" She stared at him, frightened by his abrupt and manifest terror. "Was that new star an omen? Have you read of its coming? Does the book speak of it?" They never called it by its title. Some words, spoken aloud, called attention to themselves.

He slapped the book shut and clutched it against his chest. Jumping up, he grabbed his bow out of the corner, then, with book and bow, walked across to the window. Suddenly he relaxed, his expression clearing. "It's only Prater Hugh."

Now it was her turn to shudder. "Don't let him in, Da."

"Do not speak so harshly, child. Prater Hugh is a good man, sworn to Our Lady and Lord."

"Sworn to himself, you mean."
L
"Liath! How can you speak so? He only wants instruction. He is no less curious than are you yourself. Can you fault him for that?"

"Just give me the book, Da," she said more gently, to coax it from him. What she now knew of Hugh was too dangerous to tell Da.

But Da hesitated. Four other books sat on the shelf in the corner, each one precious: Polyxene's encyclopedic
History of Dariya, The Acts of St. Thecla,
Theophrastos of Eresos'
Inquiry into Plants,
the
Dreams
of Artemisia. But they did not contain forbidden knowledge, condemned by the church at the Council of Narvone one hundred years ago.

"But he might be one who could help us, Liath," he said, abruptly serious. "We have been running for so long. We need an ally, someone who could understand the great powers that weave their trap around us. Someone who could help us against them
—

She snatched the book out of his hands and scrambled up the ladder that led to the loft. From her shelter under the peaked roof she could see down into half the room and easily hear anything that went on below. She threw herself down on her straw mattress and pulled a blanket up over her. "Tell him I'm asleep."

Da muttered an inaudible reply, but she knew once she had made a decision, he would not gainsay it. He closed the shutters, replaced the bow in the corner, then opened the door and stood there, waiting for Fra-ter Hugh.

"Greetings, friend!" he called. His voice was almost cheerful, for he liked Hugh. "Have you come to watch this night with me?"

"Alas, no, friend Bernard. I was passing this way
—

/
was passing this way.
All lies, delivered in that honey-sweet voice.

"
—on my way to old Johannes' steading. I'm to perform last rites over his wife, may her soul rise in peace
to the Chamber above. Mistress Birta asked if I would deliver this letter to you."

"A letter!" Da's voice almost broke on the word. For eight years they had wandered. Never once had they met anyone Da knew from their former life. Never once had he received a letter or any other kind of communication. "Ai, Blessed Lady," he murmured hoarsely. "I have stayed too long in this place."

"I beg your pardon?" asked Father Hugh. The light of his lamp streamed in through the window, illuminating her father's figure in the threshold. "You look ill, my friend. May I help you?"

Da hesitated again, and she held her breath, but he glanced up toward the loft and then, slowly, shook his head. "There is nothing you can do. But I thank you." He reached out for the letter. Liath ran her fingers along the spine of the book, feeling the thick letters painted onto the leather binding.
The Book of Secrets.
Would Da invite Father Hugh inside? Da was so lonely, and he was afraid. "Will you sit with me for a while? It's a quiet night, and I fear it will prove to be a long one."

She eased backward into the deepest shadows of the loft. There was a long pause while Hugh considered. She could almost feel, like the presence of fire, his
desire
— his wish to enter, to coax Da into trusting him more and yet more until at last Da would trust him with everything. And then they would be lost.

"Alas, I have other duties this night," Hugh said at last. But he did not leave. Lamplight shifted, spilling in turn into each of the four corners of the room below, searching. "Your daughter is well, I trust?" How sweet his voice was.

"Well enough. I trust the Lady and Lord will watch over her, should anything happen to me."

Hugh gave a soft laugh under his breath, and Liath curled farther into the shadows, as if hiding could protect her. "I assure you They will, friend Bernard. I give you my word. You should rest. You look pale."

"Your concern heartens me, friend." Liath could see Da's little smile, the one he placated with. She knew it was not sincere
—not because of Hugh, but because of the letter, and the owl, and the
athar,
the strange new star shining in the heavens.

"Then a blessed evening to you, Bernard. I bid you farewell."

"Fare well."

So they parted. The lamp bobbed away, descending the path back toward the village, toward, perhaps, old Johannes' steading. Surely Prater Hugh would have no reason to lie about such a serious thing. But he was hardly "passing by."

"He is a kind man," said Da. "Come down, Liath."

"I won't," she said. "What if he's lurking out there?"

"Child!"

It had to be said, sooner or later, if not the whole truth. "He looks at me, Da. In such a way."

He hissed in a breath in anger. "Is my daughter so vain that she imagines a man heartsworn to the church desires her more than Our Lady?"

Ashamed, she hid her face in shadow although he could not see her. Was she so vain? No, she knew this was not vanity. Eight years of running had honed her instincts.

/
was passing this way.

Hugh stopped by the cottage often to sit and visit with Da; the two men discussed theology and the writings of the ancients and now, six months into their acquaintance, they had begun tentatively to discuss the hidden arts of sorcery
—purely as an intellectual exercise, of course.

Of course.

"Don't you see, Da?" she said, struggling to find words, to find a way to make him understand without telling him the thing that would ruin them, as it had in the city of Autun two years ago. "Hugh only wants your knowledge of sorcery. He doesn't want your friendship."

Hugh stopped by often, but now, since St. Oya's Day, he had also begun "passing by" when he
knew
Da was out on an errand or on a laboring job, though Da's health had taken a turn for the worse and he wasn't really strong enough for day labor. Liath would have gone, but as Da always said:
"Someone must stay with the book."
And he didn't want her out alone.

" was passing this way, Liath. Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are? You're a woman now. Your father must be thinking of what will become of you
—
and of all that he has taught you, and everything that you know of him and his travels and his past. I can protect you . . . and the book." And he had touched her on the lips as if to awaken the breath of life in her.

For a pious brother of the church to proposition an innocent girl not yet sixteen was obscene, of course. Only an idiot would have mistaken his tone and his expression; Liath had never much liked Hugh, but this had shocked and horrified her because Hugh had by this action betrayed Da's trust in him in a way Liath could never ever reveal.