Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (17 page)

"Nothing! "
Liath retorted, furious on his behalf that he could be judged and found wanting in such a crass material manner, then faltered. Hathui spoke truth in the only way that mattered outside the spiritual walls of the church. "But I don't care," she murmured stubbornly, and in response heard only Hathui's gusting sigh.

In a way, it was a relief to find the stables tenanted by dozing Lions, a few Eagles, and by Wolfhere sitting outside on a log with a lantern burning at his feet while he ate supper. He looked mightily irritated but mercifully said nothing, only touched Hathui's shoulder by way of greeting and whispered something into her ear which Liath could not hear. But she didn't have Sanglant's unnaturally acute hearing.

"Go to sleep, Liath," he said stiffly once he deigned to acknowledge her. He was still angry. "We'll speak in the morning."

Shouts rang out from the distant hall, followed by laughter and a burst of song.

"They're carrying bride and groom to their wedding bed," said Hathui.

"Bride and groom?" asked Liath, startled. "Who is wed this night?"
She
could have been wed this night, by the law of consent. But it
had
happened too fast. She had to catch her breath before she took the irrevocable step.

Hathui laughed but Wolfhere only grunted, still annoyed. "I like this not," he muttered.

"That there's a wedding?" she asked, still confused.

"That you were blind to it and everything else going on hereabouts," he retorted. "Go on, Hathui. The king will be looking for you."

She nodded and left, her proud figure fading into the gloom.

Liath did not like to be alone with Wolfhere. He had a way of looking at her, mild but with a grim glint deep in his eyes, that made her horribly uncomfortable.

"I beg you, Liath," he said, his voice made harsh by an emotion she could not identify, "don't be tempted by him."

Torches flared distantly and pipes skirled as drums took up a brisk four-square rhythm. Dancing had begun out in the yard. No doubt the celebration would last all night. Wolfhere scuffed at the dirt and took a sip of ale, then held out the cup as a peace offering.

"Hugh will ask the king to give me back to him," she said abruptly.

Wolfhere raised an eyebrow, surprised. "So he will, I suppose. He threatened as much in Heart's Rest the day I freed you from him."

"The king hates you, Wolfhere. Why?"

The smile that quirked up his mouth was touched with an irony that made his expression look strangely comforting and, even, trustworthy: A man who faces his own faults so openly surely cannot mean to harm others for the sake of his own vanity or greed.

"Why?" he echoed her. "Why, indeed. It's an old story and one I thought had been put to rest. But so it has not proved."

Still she did not take the cup from him. "It has to do with Sanglant."

"Everything has to do with Sanglant," said Wolfhere cryptically, and would say no more.

I HE day passed in quiet solitude. A heavy mist bound the circle of stones, cutting them off from the world beyond. The Aoi woman meditated, seated cross-legged on the ground, her eyes closed,
her
body as still as if no soul inhabited it. Once, Zacharias would have prayed, but he no longer had anyone to pray to. For part of the day he dozed; later, he plucked and gutted the two ) grouse the Aoi woman had shot at dawn.

It had been a great honor for his kinfolk when he, a freeholder's son, had been ordained as a frater in the church by reason of his true singing voice, his clever tongue, and his excellent j memory for scripture. But none of these were qualities the Quman respected in a man. They had cut so much from him that he could scarcely recall the man he had once been, proud and determined and eager to walk alone into the land of the savages | to bring them into the Light of the Unities. It had all seemed | so clear, then. He had had many names: son, nephew, brother.
Brother Zacharias,
a title his mother had repeated with pride. His younger sister had admired him. Would she admire him now?

At twilight the mist cleared off, and he walked nervously to the edge of the stone circle, but saw nothing, no one, no sign of Bulkezu or his riders on the grass or along the horizon.

"We need a fire."

He started, surprised and startled by her voice, but she had already turned away to rummage in one of her strange five-fingered pouches. He checked the horse's hobble, then descended the hill to the stream that ran along the low ground. With the moon to light him, he found it easy enough to pick up sticks. The night was alive with animals, and each least rustle in the undergrowth made him snap around in fear that one of Bulkezu's warriors waited to capture him and drag him back to slavery.

It seemed mere breaths ago that he had heard Bulkezu's howl. The sound of it still echoed in his ears, but slowly the gurgle of the stream and the sighing of wind through reeds and undergrowth smeared the memory into silence.

He sloshed in the stream, testing reed grass with his fingers until he found stalks to twist together into rope as his grandmother had taught him. But he was still skittish, and he made such a hasty job of it that no sooner had he returned to the stone circle than the reed rope splayed and unraveled, spilling sticks everywhere.

The Aoi woman merely glanced at him, then indicated where to pile the wood.

"I will be worthy of you," he whispered. If she heard him, she made no answer.

She crouched on her haunches to build the fire, sparked flint until wood lit. As she spoke lilting words, odd swirls of light fled through the leaping fire, twining and unraveling to make patterns within. Reflexively, Zacharias began to trace the Circle at his chest, the sign to avert witchcraft. But he stopped himself. If the old gods had been good enough for his grandmother, they would be good enough for him. The old gods had protected his grandmother; she had lived to an incredible age, and she had outlived all but two of her twelve children. Her luck had always held.

And anyway, if the Aoi woman meant to harm him with witchcraft, then there was nothing he could do about it now.

"Blessed Mother!" he whispered, staring as the fire shifted and changed.

He crept forward and stared into the whip of flames. It was like looking through an insubstantial archway of fire into another world.

A figure, tall, broad-shouldered but thin at the ribs, shed its clothing and dove into the streaming currents of a river. He was, manifestly, male. That he would willingly enter water meant he was no kin of the Quman tribe, and although the flicker of fire gave Zacharias no clear picture of the figure's features, the man somewhat resembled his Aoi mistress. But his clothing, lying in a careless heap on the shore, betrayed his origins: It was what civilized men wore, the rich clothing of a lord. A moment later six men scurried down to the river's bank as if on his trail. Bearded and armed, they wore tabards marked with a black lion: Wendish solders, serving the regnant. And if that was so, then who was the man who had gone into the water, and why were they following him?

The Aoi woman whispered a word,
"Sawnglawnt."
The fire whuffed out. She rose and lifted her staff, a stout ebony length of wood scored with white marks along its length, and measured the staff against the stars above.

Then she grunted, satisfied, gestured to him, and Zacharias had to unhobble the horse and mount quickly. She strode out of the stone circle, heading north, and as soon as they were clear of the stones, she broke into a steady lope which he had perforce to follow along at a jarring trot.

In this way they ran through half the night. She never let up. He wanted finally to tell her that his rump was sore, or that the horse needed a rest, but in truth woman and horse seemed equally hardy creatures. He was the weak one, so he refused to complain. The moon crested above and began to sink westward. Light spilled along the landscape, a low rise and fall of grassland broken here and there by a stream or a copse of trees, roots sunk into a swale. Grass sighed in the middle night wind, a breath of summer's heat from the east. He could almost smell the campfires of the Pechanek tribe on that wind, the sting of fermented mare's milk, the damp weight of felt being prepared, the rich flavor of a greasy stew made of fat and sheep guts, the spice of
kilkim
tea that had been traded across the deep grass where griffins and Bwrmen roamed, all the way from the empire of the Katai peoples whose impenetrable borders it was said were guarded by rank upon rank of golden dragons.

Suddenly, the woman slowed to a walk and approached a hollow of ragged trees, stopping just beyond their edge. "We need a fire," she said, then crouched to dig a fire circle.

Zacharias groaned as he dismounted. His rump ached miserably. Just inside the ring of trees he paused to urinate. Ai, God, it still hurt to do so; perhaps it would always hurt. But he still had his tongue, and he meant to keep it. So much tree litter covered the ground that it took him little time to gather enough for a fire. He dumped it beside the pit she had dug into the earth, then turned to the horse. "Can we bide here long enough to cook these grouse?" he asked.

"Sawnglawnt."
Her voice rang clear in the silence.

He spun in time to see in the archway of fire the same man, now fully clothed and cast out on the ground in an attitude of sleep while the six Lions stood back in the gloom, standing watch around him. Then the archway unfolded and vanished into the ordinary lick of flames.

His mistress stood, lifted her staff again, and again measured it against the stars. Her smile came brief, fierce, and sharp.
"Co-yoi-tohn,"
she said, pointing northwest.

"You're looking for him," said Zacharias suddenly.

From behind, a panther coughed and then, more distantly, wings whirred.

Zacharias yelped, drew his knife and peered eastward, but saw nothing—no winged riders among the silver-painted grass. The woman cast a glance over her shoulder. She scented the wind, then shrugged her pack down from her shoulders, pulled out a hard, round cake, and sat to eat. She offered none to him. Zacharias sharpened a stick and spitted the grouse, careful to make sure the viscera he had cleaned out and stuffed back in did not fall out of the cavity. He was too hungry to wait long. He offered the first grouse to her; she sniffed, made a face that actually made him laugh out loud.

Then he caught himself, cringing, but she took no offense. She tore off a strip of meat, fingered it, touched it to her lips, licked it, chewed a corner, grunted with surprise, and finished it off, then extended a hand imperiously for more. He was starving, and he ate every bit of his own grouse even though it made his belly ache. She went so far as to crack the bones and suck the marrow out.

But when they were done, they did not rest. She rose, licked her fingers a final time, kicked dirt over the fire, and indicated the direction she had earlier pointed out.

"Co-yoi-tohn,"
she repeated. "What you would call, west of northwest."

"But where are we going?" he asked. "Who was the man we saw in the fire?"

She only shrugged. Light tinged the east, the first herald of dawn. "Now we begin the hunt."

S U RJEJLY, wicked souls consigned to the pit could not have spent an evening's span of hours in more torment than did Alain at his wedding feast.

The merriment he could stomach, barely, but the constant laughing toasts and crude jokes made him want to curl up and shrink away, and he was acutely conscious of Tallia beside him so still and withdrawn that he felt like a monster for wanting so badly what she clearly feared.

But surely, when all was quiet and they were alone, he could persuade her to trust him. Surely, if he could gentle the ferocious Lavas hounds and win the trust of Liath, he could coax love from Tallia.

She had on a blue linen gown fantastically embroidered with gems and the springing roes that signified her Varren ancestry. A slim silver coronet topped her brow, Henry's only concession to her royal kinship except of course for the delicate twist of gold braid that circled her neck. She wore her wheat-colored hair braided and pinned up at the back of her head; the style made her slim neck seem both more frail and more graceful. Wanting simply to touch it, to feel the pulse beating at her throat, made him ache in a peculiarly uncomfortable spot and even when he had to go pee he dared not stand to leave the table for fear of calling attention to himself in a most embarrassing way.

He and Tallia shared a platter. He tried hard not to dip the elaborate sleeves of his tunic into the sauces that accompanied each course of the meal. Tallia did not eat more than a crust of bread and drink two sips of wine, but he was ravenous and though he feared it made him look gross and slovenly in her eyes, he could not help but eat heartily until a new toast would remind him—like a kick in the head from a panicked cow—that later this night he would at long last meet his heart's desire on the wedding bed, where nothing more could come between them. Then he would be so stricken with nausea that he was sorry he had eaten anything.