PROLOGUE (38 page)

Lavastine began to look interested. A good husbandman, he was wealthy in large part because of his careful stewardship of his lands and possessions. "One ship cannot sail to three places."

Aunt Bel smiled. "We are building a second ship this winter. My third son Bruno we have apprenticed to Gilles Fisher, a local man who builds most of the ships hereabouts. In return the shipbuilder will aid my brother with those parts of the ship Henri does not know the secrets of." Lavastine surveyed the work that continued on the mast. Henri, sweating even in the chill, seemed oblivious to the visit of the great lord. "But is it not also true, as my clerics have read to me from the commentaries on the Holy Verses, that 'the farmer must save some of the grain when he makes bread, else there will be nothing for sowing'?"

" 'And in the days to come not pride nor greed will fill his stomach,' " finished the cleric. She was a young woman, not much older than Alain himself, with crooked teeth, a pockmarked face, and a cheerful expression. "Your attention to the words of Our Lady and Lord marks you with favor, my lord."

"Indeed," said Lavastine. "So have They shown me Their favor." He glanced at Alain. Bel, miraculously, appeared not to notice the aside. She moved away toward the other workshop, which was attached by a covered causeway to the main house.

"Three ships we may hope for in time, my lord," she said, "but for now the seaways north are closed to us by the Eika. As you say, we must move slowly as we expand lest we overreach. In this room my daughters and I weave. In time we'll expand to four looms. In time we hope also to hire more laborers and expand the farm as well. We have betrothed my daughter Agnes to a merchant's son in Medemelacha. He's an experienced sailor. In time he'll take over the third boat, should Our Lord and Lady shower their favor upon our enterprise."

"But Agnes is too young to be married!" said Alain, shocked.

Lavastine swatted away a fly and stepped back from the door into the weaving shop, held open by the cleric so that he could look inside. "How old is this daughter?"

"She is twelve, my lord. Her betrothed will come to live with us next year, but they won't wed until she is fifteen or sixteen. If you will come this way." It began to irritate Alain that she addressed all her conversation to Count Lavastine and none to
him,
as if
he
were a stranger. Yet certain small expressions familiar to him came and went on her face like so many private signals to him alone of her thoughts and of unspoken comments too personal to share with someone who did not know her intimately, the arched eyebrow that betrayed amusement, the dimple that hid annoyance, the pursed lips with which she swallowed any sign of satisfaction she considered unseemly. "We have bought more cows and will export cheese as well. We hope, in time, to bring a blacksmith here. As you can see, we have hired the Osna smith to come in twice a week and do work for us." They crossed into the house itself, the long hall busy with women and girls setting out cups and bringing in platters of food from the cookhouse. Beside the threshold Alain saw an unpainted wooden shield, a helmet, and a spear. "We are are sending my eldest son Julien to the new duchess of Varingia as a man-at-arms, because we can afford to outfit him now."

They had promised
him
to the church when he had wanted nothing more than to be a soldier! Stung with jealousy, he flushed in shame
—but no one remarked on it. No one even paid attention to him. Of course it would be different for Julien. Julien was Aunt Bel's legitimate child, her eldest son, and of course she would want to give him such an opportunity now that they had the means. They had done their best by him; it wasn't their fault they hadn't known who he really was . . . was it?

Aunt Bel went on, discussing various potential marriage alliances for her children and relations. To Alain's consternation and utter confoundment, Count Lavastine appeared to relish these discussions; he asked questions and gave advice. Indeed, he treated Aunt Bel with the same distant familiarity as he did his own chatelaine, Dhuoda, a woman whose ability to run his household he respected enough to leave her alone to do her job.

"
—and now that we have more business, we have brought in Sister Corinthia of Salia to write and read letters and do our accounts. We also hope to put Julien's daughter, Blanche, into the church with a dowry. Sister Corinthia will teach her so that she isn't unlettered when she goes."

Julien's daughter, the baby, was illegitimate, although Ju-lien and his sweetheart had proclaimed publicly their intent to marry before the young woman's death in childbed.

"You have done well," said Count Lavastine. He was
— perhaps—impressed. Alain was vastly irritated. He felt
used,
as if his family had only wanted him for what they could get from him, the count's generous reward for his fosterage.

Aunt Bel glanced at Alain, then away. Her features were stern now. "It is nothing we looked for or expected, my lord," she said as if she had heard Alain's thoughts spoken out loud. Perhaps she had, seeing his expression. She knew him that well. He was ashamed. "But is it not said in the Holy Verses that 'you shall eat the fruit of your own labors'?"

' 'You shall be happy and you shall prosper,' " quoted the young cleric, evidently eager to show off her knowledge of the Holy Verses, " 'and your daughters shall be like the fruitful vines and your sons like the rich stands of wheat. For the hearth-holder who lights each day a candle from the hearth in memory of the Chamber of Light, this shall be the blessing in store for her: She may share the prosperity of Sai's all the days of her life and live to see her children's children!' "

"Please, my lord count." Aunt Bel gestured to the single chair at the table. Everyone else would sit on benches. "If you will be seated." Now she turned to Alain as well and made the same respectful gesture. "And you, my lord."

"Aunt Bel," he began, hating this formality.

"No, my lord." He knew better than to argue with
her.
"You're a count's son now and must be treated as one. 'God maketh poor and maketh rich; They bringeth low and lifteth up.''

"So said the prophet Hannah," added the cleric.

Aunt Bel turned back to Lavastine. "I will send one of my children to bring your company in to table, my lord."

"I'll go," said Alain, though it was not his place. He should not offer, not without asking his father's permission. But he knew, suddenly, that he would have no opportunity to speak to Henri, that Henri would not eat with them. None of the family would eat with them; they would serve their guests. That was all.

The soldiers began to stamp in, a flurry of activity by the door.

Lavastine said, "Alain!"

Alain made his escape.

Outside, Julien and Henri were still working on the mast. When Henri saw Alain coming, he straightened and waved Julien away. Then he bent back to his task.

Alain halted beside the older man. Out here, outside the confines of Osna village, it smelled different. There the ever-present smell of drying fish and salted fish and smoked fish pervaded streets and common and even the Ladysday service. In the longhouse, fish and smoke and sweat and the dust of stones and wet wool and drying herbs and sour milk and rancid oil and candlewax all blended into a rich, familiar aroma. At the manor house there was no such ripe blend, for here there was room to store foodstuffs in the shed beside the cookhouse, to grind stone in a separate workshop, to weave in a room set aside for that purpose. Although perhaps thirty people lived on this farm, they were not crowded together except on winter nights when they would all sleep in the main hall.

He smelled the sea foam and heard the cries of gulls. The animal sheds stank, of course, but the smell of earth and wind and the late chill of autumn dying into winter overrode anything else, made all else into a fragrant herbal, the scent of life. The smell of land and opportunity, even though it was only an old steward's house from the time of the Emperor Taillefer.

"You've done well with the payment Count Lavastine gave you," said Alain, not meaning to say anything of the kind.

Henri smoothed the sides of the log into an even curve. "As have you," he said without looking up from the steady rhythm of his work. The words, spoken so bluntly, cut into Alain's heart.

"I didn't ask for this!"

"How then did it come about?"

"You don't think /
—!" His voice gave out as he struggled with indignation.

"What am I to think? I promised the deacon at Lavas Holding to put you in the monastery when you came to your majority at sixteen, and she did not say me 'nay.' Had she known who you were, do you think she would have offered you up so easily?"

"She didn't know Count Lavastine wouldn't marry again! She couldn't have known that seventeen years ago. You think I somehow cozened him, cheated him, made up a story
—! Just to get out of the church!"

"What am I to think?" asked Henri. He had not once raised his voice. "You made it clear enough you didn't want to enter the church, though the promise was made at the same time you were given into the Circle as a newborn babe."

"Made by others," retorted Alain furiously. "I couldn't even speak. I was a baby."

"And then," Henri went on as quietly, "after the monastery burned, you went to serve a year at Lavas Holding and we hear nothing more of you until this
payment
comes, and you are suddenly named heir to the count. I counseled Bel to send it back."

"To send the payment back!" Henri might as well slap him in the face as say such words. "You would have sent it
back?"
His voice broke like a stripling's.

" 'Accursed thirst for gold, to what fell crimes dost thou not force men's hearts?' The cleric, a fine educated woman I can tell you and a very Godly one as well, has been reciting to us the lay of Helen, which they call the
Heleniad.
Those words I took to my heart and I said them to Bel."

"You don't think Aunt Bel is greedy!"

"Nay," admitted Henri. "Nor has she acted in any way except for the family. Indeed, we will be the better for her stewardship. But we should never have accepted that which came to us through false pretenses. The Lord and Lady do not smile on those who lie to advance themselves."

Now he had said it baldly. Alain was stunned. When he spoke, all his hard loud words had vanished and he could only whisper. "You don't think I'm Lavastine's son."

"Nay," said Henri as calmly as if he had been asked to predict the next day's weather. But for the first time he stopped from his work and straightened, scraper dangling from one hand, to inspect Alain. His quiet gaze was devastating. "And why should I?"

Rage and Sorrow barked and whined where they stood tugging at their leashes, which were staked to the ground. Furious, Alain spun and ran, too angry to think, too angry to do anything but jerk the stake out of the ground and pull the leashes free.

"Go!" he shouted, and they leaped forward, growling, toward the man who had made their master so angry.

Lavastine appeared, crossing the threshold of the house. "Alain!" he shouted.

Rage and Sorrow ran flat out and bounded over grass and shavings while Henri stood and stared them down, although Alain saw him shaking, scraper raised as if to protect himself. Nothing would protect him from the hounds. Nothing except the voice of an heir of Lavas.

"Halt!" Alain cried, and the hounds, an arm's length from Henri, stopped dead. "Heel." He whistled. They growled once, longingly, at the other man, then, obedient, they slewed their great heads round and trotted back to Alain. Shaking, his hands trembling so hard he could scarcely hold the leashes, he staked them back down.

By that time Lavastine had reached him. "What means this?" The count glanced toward Henri, who had not gone back to his work but stood slackly by the mast and who, as a tree leans under the wind, moved now to rest a hand and then his weight on the log, bent over like an old, old man.

"N-nothing," whispered Alain. He wanted to weep. He dared not.

"Indeed," said Lavastine. "If it is nothing, you must come inside. You should not have run out in that way. It is a great honor to this family that we eat at their table and allow them to serve us." He signed to one of his servingmen. "Get my cup."

Alain followed him inside. He could not look to his right or left. He could not look at all, not to meet anyone's eyes. Lavastine took from the hand of his servingman his fine walnut cup which he used when he traveled. Four golden rivers had been carved into the wood, and the fine grain was polished until it gleamed. This cup he graciously gave to Aunt Bel, who had Stancy fill it with wine and returned it to him to drink first. Only after the count had drunk from it did she agree to sit at his right and take food herself, though the rest of her family served.