Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (61 page)

Manfred knelt and pulled the remains of the dead Eagle's cloak across his slack and bloody face, concealing it. Wolfhere leaned forward across the body, lifting the badge. But Sanglant stepped in and set a hand between them.

"As the king's representative, it is my right," he said.

Wolfhere hesitated only a moment. What choice did he have? He relinquished the Eagle's badge to the prince. And Sanglant fastened it to Liath's tunic, his fingers at her throat. His lips were turned up slightly, but Liath could not be certain if the expression was meant to be a smile. She only knew that she was flushed. He kept his gaze where it belonged: on the sharp pin as he fastened it through the cloth of her tunic. But when he had finished, he did not immediately drop his hands away. He met her gaze and mouthed three words which, with his back to Wolfhere and Manfred and all the others drawn back or gone, only he and she knew:

"
'Make no marriage.'

Then he turned and walked away and soon was lost in the darkness beyond the torch-lit haze. She watched him go, then, self-consciously, dropped her gaze away. But it came to rest on the dead Eagle. She touched the badge at her throat. The metal was cold and still slick with the effluvia of his dying.

"Now you are truly an Eagle," said Wolfhere softly, not without triumph.

LIATH woke at dawn, stiff and shivering. It was colder than it had been the night before, and as she slipped her wool tunic on over her shift she noticed the light was of a different quality as well. Throwing her cloak over her shoulders, she went outside.

The clouds had blown off, and from the parapet she saw the glittering cold disk of the sun, bright but with the breath of old winter on it, a last reminder of snow and ice and the grip of cold weather. She stamped her feet .and rubbed her arms. She refused to let memories of Hugh spoil this day, her first as a true Eagle. She touched the brass badge at her throat. Surely this badge protected her from him. Surely not even a noblewoman's bastard like Hugh would attempt to make her break her oath that had now been given to the king's service. Or at least she told herself that. It was too clear and fine a morning to taint with fear.

The eastern shore was shrouded with fog that the sun had not yet burned off. She could not see the Eika camp and only the suggestion of earthworks, dark forms shouldering through the white blanket of fog. To the west she saw clouds. Licking a finger, she held it up. The wind was coming from the east; those western clouds, then, were those that had covered Gent last night. She smiled, slightly; Hathui would merely snort at this profound observation and point out that a child could have made it.

But thinking of Hathui made her think of Hanna. Where was Hanna now? Had she escaped the Eika? Had she found safety? Had they reached the king, and was he even now marching to raise the siege? She missed Hanna so badly. The bite of cold made it worse because cold wrenched her mind back to Hugh, to that night when she had chosen not to die, when the light had bobbed an erratic course out to her where she huddled in the pig shed only to reveal itself as Hugh, with a lantern. Hugh, who had taken her back inside
—

But there was no point dwelling on that.
"No point thinking only of what troublesyou,"
Da always said. But Da had been a master at ignoring the trouble that stalked him, whether it be debt or whatever had finally caught and killed him. She wiped away a tear with the back of a
king's dragon
hand, then clapped her hands together, rubbed them briskly, trying to warm them.

"Liath!"

She turned. Below, in the courtyard, Wolfhere waved at her. She climbed down the ladder and jogged over to him.

"I must prepare the body for burial," he said. "But in my surprise and haste last night forgot my flask in the cathedral crypt."

She nodded. "I'll fetch it for you." "Come back here after," he said. "We'll bury our comrade after Terce."

The
city was more restless than usual, this day, this early. People wandered the streets as if looking for lost relatives. The hammering of blacksmiths sounded a steady din from the armory, and a constant stream of men and women carried loads on their backs
—metals, leather, anything that could possibly be made into weapon or armor—down to the warehouses where the armories had been set up. There were, Liath noted, no children on the streets at all.
~~-

When she reached the cathedral, she heard the final psalm of the office of Prime.

" 'God, Our Lady and Lord, have spoken and have summoned the world from the rising to the setting sun.' ' She hurried up the steps and through the open doors. The cathedra] was packed: with refugees, with townspeople, with the Mayor and his entourage. At the front, in the place of honor, knelt Prince Sanglant, his blue-black hair and the wink of gold at his neck a beacon for her gaze. He wore mail and his fighting tunic, and fifty Dragons knelt with him, all arrayed for battle, helmets tucked under their arms. The biscop stood before her gold biscop's chair, set behind the Hearth; she raised her arms as she led the congregation in the final verses of the psalm.

'
'Our Lord is coming and will not keep silence: fire runs before him and wreathes him closely round.

Our Lady summons heaven on high and Earth to the judgment of the people.

Think well on this, you who forget God, or you will be torn in pieces and no one shall save you.' '

All were kneeling. Liath knelt in the side aisle, at the very back of the crowd, and spoke the final Kyria with the congregation.

Lord, have mercy. Lady, have mercy.

Then, in the hesitation as the final prayer died into the air and the congregation waited for the biscop to dismiss them, Liath stood and slipped along the wall to the shadowed corner of the vestibule where a heavy wooden door barred passage to the crypt. It creaked as she opened it. She glanced back, but the hum of the crowd, rising, stretching, waiting perhaps for a word from biscop or mayor about last night's message, covered the noise. She left the door ajar behind her.

A thin line of light marked the door as she descended, and at the first sharp comer it glanced off stone and illuminated a bead of water caught on a delicate spiderweb. Turning the corner, she lost sight of the door, though the suggestion of daylight still trailed after her. She went as silently as she could, not wishing to disturb the peace of the dead. She reached the bottom, foot slamming into level floor where she thought there was another step down, and paused to let her jolted shoulders recover.

Strange, that the light from above still gave a steady if faint radiance, just enough that she could see the shape of her hand if she held it up in front of her face. Last night
—but of course, last night it had already been dark when she and Wolfhere had descended; that was why it had been pitch-black. Abruptly, she heard a noise above, from the stairs. She froze, listening.

Footsteps descending. They were heavy and accompanied by a fine rattling and shaking, many small chains muffled in cloth. The pale ghosts of tombs watched from the gloom. She was, she discovered with surprise, not

afraid at all. Indeed, without knowing why, she was expecting him.

"Liath," he said. She could only see his shape, bulky in armor, only feel the air shifting as he stopped five steps above, his body blocking the narrow passage.

"You heard the door creak," she said, "even above the noise of the congregation."

"Below the noise of the congregation," he corrected. She felt that he smiled or perhaps only wished that he did. In any case, he walked down the rest of the stairs. He stumbled on the floor, not expecting it so soon, and swore. "Damn, it's dark down here. How can you see anything? What are you doing here?"

"Fetching something left behind."

"An answer worthy of Wolfhere. I am not your enemy, Liath."

"No," she said. Her voice shook. "I never thought you were."

Seeking, his hand found her shoulder; he was like a blind creature groping by sound. The crypt echoed strangely, and even the faint harmonics of his mail, rippling and clicking with his every least movement, got caught and distorted among the tombs and the vast breathless cavern, all air and stone.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Who are your kin?"

"I am the daughter of Anne and Bernard. I know nothing of my mother's lineage, save that she is of free birth. Wolfhere knew her. It's likely he knows things about her he has not chosen to tell me."

He chuckled, a soft sound on an exhalation of breath. "Wolfhere is not a man for sharing confidences. Or so my father claims. But I did not expect you would be given the same treatment as the rest of us."

His hand on her shoulder was terribly distracting, but neither did she want to move away from him. "Why? Why do you say that?"

"He favors you. Or I should say, he seems to be protecting you."

"Perhaps he is. I don't truly know."

"Ah. And your father's kin?"

"I know little about them, save that they came west and settled in Wendar during the reign of Taillefer. There is still a cousin who holds lands near Bodfeld, but I have never met her. One of her sons rides with the Dragons."

He removed his hand from her shoulder, and she was sorry to lose the contact. He shifted, restless, and she glimpsed in the half-darkness the shape of his head, tilted back, then cocked to one side, as if he was listening. She could only hear the weight of the stone above her, a heaviness more sound than feeling.

"Bodfeld," he murmured. "That would be Sturm. But he is trapped outside."

"I met him!" She thought back, recalling the Dragon who had led the company which had saved them from the first attack of the Eika. But all she had seen of that man were blue eyes, blond beard, and a grim expression. Much the same expression, she supposed by the tone of his voice, which Sanglant wore on his face right now.

"He is a good soldier."

This praise for her kinsman warmed her, though it was delivered bluntly and without any suggestion he meant it as flattery toward her.

"Why did you follow me?" she asked boldly.

Rather than answer, he sat on the last stair but one. It was an unexpected gesture and oddly moving; now, instead of towering above her, his head was level with her chest. He appeared less imposing. Perhaps that was his intent.

"A good lineage, if not of the first rank," he said. "Which may account for your lack of deference."

Stung and embarrassed, she flushed. "I beg your pardon,
my lord.
My Da always told me we came of a proud lineage and need bend our knee to none but the king."

He YaugYv&d soM^. Obviously Vie was not offended.

"You didn't answer my question. Why did you follow me?"

He shook his head, refusing to answer. Perhaps he did not truly know.

But she knew. She was not afraid of Sanglant. His reticence piqued her, irritated her. Surely the darkness, the stone, and the earth hid them from the sight of any who might be watching. Only the cold tombs gleamed with a faint phosphorescence, but the holy sisters and brothers of the church were used to sin, were they not? Did they not preach forgiveness? Was it not allowed, even once, to give in to the urging of your heart?

Liath had forgotten she had a heart. It hurt, like a wound salved with salt, to rediscover it now. Sanglant did not move. She could not make out his expression. Gold gleamed softly at his neck, the twisted braid of gold that was the emblem of his royal kinship. She could make out the outlines of the black dragon on his tabard, as if it had been stitched with thread spun of moonlight and dew-laden spider's silk.

Was it true he had no beard at all, like a woman? Impulsively, she raised a hand to touch his face. She almost flinched away, thinking of Hugh's unshaven face, but Sanglant's skin was nothing like: his was toughened by exposure to the weather, chafed by the chin strap of his helmet, and cool.

And beardless. He might have shaved an hour ago, his skin was so smooth.

Her heart was beating hard. Hugh's shade was furious, but he was far away at this moment, very far away.

"Sanglant," she whispered, wondering if she would have the courage to
—

To what?

He took her hand in his
—though his were encased in gloves sewn of soft leather—and drew it away from his face. "Down that road I dare not walk," he said quietly but firmly. He let her hand go.

Numb, she let it fall to her side.

"I beg your pardon," he added, as if he meant it.

Ai, Lady. She was annoyed and embarrassed and such a jumble of other emotions she could not disentangle them one from the other. Sanglant was a notorious womanizer; everyone said so. Why was he rejecting
her!

Sanglant shifted restlessly. This was her punishment. She could almost hear Hugh laughing, that soft arrogant sound.
You are mine, Liath. You aren't meant for anyone else.
Tears stung her eyes. This was her lesson: that she must remain locked within her tower. She must not
—could not—succumb to temptation. It would never be allowed. She was already hopelessly stained.

"I must go," he said abruptly. The hoarseness in his voice made her think, for a wild moment, that he was sorry to be leaving; but his voice always sounded like that. He stood, mail shifting. "We're preparing for a sally out of the walls if we see any sign of Count Hildegard or her people."