Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (44 page)

"Who are you, Fifth Son of the Fifth Litter?" He cannot see OldMother, but he feels the whisper of her dry breath on his lips, feels her weight, that which makes her formidable, that which reveals her as a child of earth. "By what name will we call you when we dance the measure of our tribe? When we sing of the life of the grass, which dies each winter, and the life of the void, with lives eternal?"

Long ago, months ago as the human kind measure the passing of days, he met the youngest WiseMother on the path to the fjall. There, she spoke to him: "Let be your guide that which appears first to your eyes."

He believed then that she meant the funeral he saw on his way down the valley, because it was the first event he witnessed after leaving her. But he dreams, and in his dreams he listens when Alain Henrisson speaks of his dreams. Like the serpents on the shields carried by his soldiers, he and Alain are interlocked, wound each into the other, with no ending and no beginning.

In a dream he heard Alain speak:
"It wasn't the funeral at all. It was his own hand."

His own hand.

Bloodheart did not trust his own strength, or his own cunning. In weakness, he sought the aid of magic. But magic is only bought for a price, and it is never something you can truly possess: That is the lesson he learned from his father. He knows better than to rely on magic.

He can rely only on himself, his own strength, his own cunning.

He bares his teeth, what the Soft Ones would call a smile. He holds up the hand with which he laid the offering on the palm of the youngest WiseMother. He cannot see it, even so close before his face; that is how dark it is. But he does not doubt that OldMother can see, for her sight is not like that of her children.

"Call me by this name:
Stronghand."

He hears her movement on the rock, as heavy as the groaning of the earth beneath the weight of mountains, "Let it be done. Let the WiseMothers speak of it, and let this name be known through all the fjalls."

"And farther," he murmurs. "Let it be known to the four corners of the earth."

Her reply, like the knife she wields, is sharp. "Their voices are heard farther away than you can know, my son. Now go. Stronghand will rise or fall through his own efforts."

Thus is he dismissed.

Where rock turns to beaten earth, he pauses, blinking, as the door appears before him out of nothing. Enough light trails in that he can turn and look over his shoulder. The chamber behind him, the long hall of stone and sod, lies empty. He sees no heavy chair, no sign of OldMother at all, only raked dirt, dim corners, and the rough topography of the stone walls.

Not even his footsteps mark the dirt.

Alain woke at dawn. In the distance he heard Lauds being sung, and as he lay in the bed with one hand outstretched onto the cold space where Tallia had not lain the night before, the voices celebrating Lauds finished, paused, and began the service of Prime for sunrise. Was that Tallia's voice among them? He could not make her out among so many. Of her, in this chamber, there was no trace.

He heaved himself out of the bed and staggered outside to find Lavastine already up. Geoffrey, looking bleary-eyed, gave orders to men-at-arms and servants. Lavastine talked with foresters brought in from the nearby lands which lay under the rule of the convent, and now glanced up. "You are awake, Alain. We'll go out again. He can't have vanished utterly."

They went out again, lines of men beating the undergrowth and walking in staggered groups so that every stretch of ground near the convent was covered. Alain was exhausted; he stumbled on fallen logs and upthrust roots, saw a heap of houndlike leaves that scattered every which way when he dug through it.

By midday they still had found no sign of Bliss.

Lavastine called them in for their meal, but Alain could not give up, not yet. He stayed out with a handful of servants, Sorrow, and Rage. They backtracked to the field where the geese had first set up the alarm, and he tried again to follow Bliss'

trail into the forest. The hounds were no help at all. They barked at every squirrel and bird that crossed their path, or gulped down beetles, or dug holes in the dirt.

At last, by midafternoon, he had mercy on his exhausted servingmen, and they trudged back to the guesthouse. He was so terribly tired, perhaps more from heart's pain than actual bodily exhaustion. What had Bliss gulped down, out there in the field yesterday? Why had he run off like that afterward? Why hadn't he returned?

Sorrow and Rage followed him back to the chamber set aside for Count Lavastine and his servants. Two servingmen crouched outside in the corridor, but they jumped up at once, seeing Alain, and let him in. In the small room he found Lavastine asleep on the bed. The shutters stood open to let in light and air, and the sunlight lay in a bright patch over the lower half of the bed so that the folds of the blanket had two tones. Lavastine's head lay in shadow still; his sandy-blond hair had slivers of white in it. His eyes were shut and he breathed evenly while Terror, Steadfast, and Fear lay on the flagstone floor around him, his faithful attendants. Terror snored lustily, sprawled on his side, while Steadfast dozed with her head cushioned by her paws. Fear kept watch.

Alain sat on the bed. Moved by impulse, he reached to brush hair out of Lavastine's eyes. Sun, wind, and age had taken their toll on the count, chapping his face and hands; tiny wrinkles perched at the corners of his eyes, little crow's-feet, but in many ways his face had remained smooth. Lavastine was a man who offered both smiles and frowns sparingly, and thus those expressions had not left their tracks on his face.

He was not a big man, like Prince Sanglant, but although he was slender and not particularly tall, he was made strong by the power of his will and mind. He was a man like most men, better than many: steady, practical, even-tempered, prudent and sharp. He was not formed for the strong emotions he had named his hounds after but rather for the day-to-day work of the world.

Alain smiled softly, flicking away a fly. Not old yet, not even as old as the king, still he was no longer young. He might be a grandfather soon.

Alain flushed, hot all through his face and elsewhere. Only the women and men of the church kept themselves pure like the angels. In that way they made of themselves vessels whose purity would bring them closer to the immaculate light of God.

But God had created desire so that humankind could grow and prosper. Hadn't the Lord and Lady conceived the Holy Word between them, by joining together in lawful congress? Wasn't the Earth and the entire universe Their creation? Was it wrong of him to delight in the world? To think of Tallia and of their joining in the marriage bed? To think of making Lavastine a grandfather? For Lavastine, a grandchild, heir to his heir, would be the triumph he desired most. Alain meant to give that to him.

Sorrow whined at his knee. He reached out and patted the hound, and Sorrow set his great muzzle on Alain's knee. It reminded him suddenly and blindingly of little Agnes, Bel's youngest, when she was just a little girl and would drape herself over Alain's leg for comfort on a winter's evening. How did Aunt Bel fare? Did Henri think of him at all? Did he still hate him?

Even now the memory of that last meeting with Henri was so painful that Alain could not bear to think on it for more than a moment. To be accused of lying, and for his own selfish gain! As well to have stabbed him in the heart as to have said that.

Terror grunted in sleep. Rage barked and set his paws on the sill, and like the claws of the Enemy's minions sorting through a troubled heart for weakness, a shudder ran through Alain, a sudden cold chill.

Something rustled in the bush outside the window.

He leaped up and bolted to the window, leaning out. Sorrow roused and followed him over. None of the hounds barked. Terror and Steadfast slept on. Lavastine stirred, snorted, and turned over.

It was only a bird, a spotted thrush that scolded Alain for disturbing it before it flew away with a berry in its beak. But he cold not stop shaking.

What was the curse of the nestbrother? Fifth Son had spoken of it in his dream, and the priest had sung of turning it onto another—
"Let this curse fall on the one whose hand commands the blade that pierced his heart."
Liath's arrow had killed Bloodheart. But Lavastine had led the army among whose number she rode.

Alain knelt beside the open window, head bent until it rested on his clasped hands. Terror snored peacefully on the flagstones and Lavastine on the bed. Steadfast and Fear had settled down by the door, heads on paws, eyes closed. Rage and Sorrow kept him company as he prayed.

A wind stirred the leaves in the bushes outside. A woman laughed. The hammer of a blacksmith rang distantly and, farther away yet, a horn shrilled. Against his chest, the Lady's rose throbbed like the echo of the blacksmith's hammer, the striking of his own heart.

It was only a heathen curse, after all. God were stronger than Eika magic, weren't they? If he prayed with a pure heart, then surely God would protect his father.

ALAIN
woke suddenly, startled by the wood thrush, who had come back for another berry. His neck ached, and he realized that he had fallen asleep where he knelt with his hands and head resting against the window ledge.

He stood, stretching. Sorrow watched him. Rage had padded over to the door and looked up expectantly. Lavastine still slept, and he didn't want to disturb him.

He opened the latch quietly—thankfully the good abbess' servants kept the mechanism well oiled—and stepped outside with Sorrow and Rage at his heels. When he eased into his own chamber, he saw, for a miracle, that Tallia had come back. She had fallen asleep draped over the bed, her hands curled into fists, head resting on her knuckles. Like him, she had been caught by sleep in the act of prayer.

Tenderly, he lifted her onto the bed and arranged her limbs so she could rest comfortably. She did not wake, only murmured in her sleep, shifted, and sighed. He lay on the bed beside her, head propped on a hand, elbow bent beneath, and studied her. Because he had dozed off, because he had been up half the night searching for Bliss, he was now too tired to remain awake but too wakeful to go to sleep. She was so pale, like finest linen. Her lips had the faintest pink tincture, as delicate as rosebuds.

A wooden cup had touched those lips. Was he to be less blessed than the humble cup? Surely he had as much right—the right of mutual obligation, the oath made by a wedded couple to be fruitful.

He leaned over her, felt her breath as a light brush on his cheek. Surely she must feel a stirring of desire. He need only coax it from her. She, like every other human soul on this earth, was not formed out of stone. There had to be answering fire within her.

He brushed his mouth over hers. She stirred slightly, as at the kiss of a butterfly, and that tiny movement brought her hip up against him. That touch alone, the feel of her body through the heavy cloth of her long tunic, the tilt of the bed under their weight that seemed to draw them together, all of this blinded him. He couldn't see, he could only feel. All the hours and days he had waited, the night's search for the missing hound, the utter obliteration of every sensation but that of desire, all of this consumed him.

He pressed against her, stroked her chin, bent to kiss her again, just to feel that touch, the pliant curve of her mouth. Her eyes opened, and she whimpered in fear. He jerked back.

"All night I prayed for a sign," she whispered, "so that God through my agency could reveal the truth of the Redemption to the abbess. And God answered me. Do you mean now to defile what has been made holy by God's touch?"

She opened her hands. The skin of her palms had begun weeping blood again.

He bolted. He no longer knew what he was doing, but he ran with Sorrow and Rage at his heels and confusion buzzing in his head like so many gnats. He reached the wood and still ran, floundering through clumps of undergrowth, running to no place, without reason.

He simply could not bear it any longer. He could not be patient. Was the flaw his, or hers? Did it even matter? He could not think of her, even with her wounded hands, without feeling the full flush of arousal. He would never escape it, and why should he? Didn't women and men partake of God's holy act of creation by making children in their turn?

He caught himself on a tree, leaned there, but the fit did not pass. He was sweating, hot, all on fire. He could not endure it any longer. He would go back and make her yield to him. Ai, God, but doing so would destroy any trust she had given him thus far.

He began to weep in frustration, and at the same time his body clutched the tree closer, thrusting his hips against it as if to make love with it. Appalled, he spun away.