PROLOGUE (27 page)

The pale rose beacon of Aturna, the Magus, shone near the zenith in the constellation known as The Sisters, and Mok, planet of wisdom and bounty, made her stately way through The Lion. Beyond Aturna to the west, the jewel of seven stars clustered closely together and known as "the Crown" glittered so brightly he thought he could see the mysterious seventh sister among her six bolder siblings. Bow and Arrow, the arrow tipped with the bright blue brilliance of the star Seirios, pointed toward the Hunter with his belt of gems and his left shoulder tipped with red
— the star called Vulneris. But as Alain stared, recalling the knowledge taught him by his foster father, the stars faded with dawn. Soon the light of the rising sun would obliterate this sight, as Lavastine meant to obliterate the Eika camp.

Lavastine lifted a hand for silence. His men-at-arms quieted to gather around him. These were the cavalry, some twenty experienced men, the best of his fighters. The infantry was already in place. The scouts, by now, would be creeping down to the shoreline to do their duty.

Lavastine left nothing to chance, not when he could help it.

They started out slowly, each armed servant holding on to a horse's bridle and leading them across the rough ground. It grew lighter as they crossed down through forest, picked their way across a blackened field that had once been ripe oats, and came out on a sandy hill that overlooked sea and shore. There, on a rocky rise just above a river's mouth, Eika had built a winter camp.

The sea shone and glimmered in the east where the first line of light touched it, spreading over the waves. From the beach down by the river, as if it were an echo of the sun's light, fire sprang up among the ships "Forward," said Lavastine calmly. He was always calm.

Alain was sweating with excitement. Someday, perhaps, the bards would sing of this battle. He followed his father down, the other mounted soldiers ranged around them, protecting them. No nobleman sent his soldiers into battle alone; that would be dishonorable as well as disloyal. So must his son
—his bastard son, only recently proclaimed as
his legitimate heir
—be seen capable of riding to war and fighting in battle.

Lavastine glanced, just once, toward Alain, as if to say:
"Don't fail me."

An alarm shrieked
—the howling of dogs and the blast of a horn—from the Eika camp. Like hornets, Eika rushed from their shelters and out of their palisade to save their ships.

Archers hidden in the brush on the steep slopes of the ridge lit arrows from coals concealed in hollow tubes they had carried with them and began to shoot into the enclosure. The infantrymen, who had waded out along the shore, closed in on the surprised Eika from the river's mouth. And from behind, the claw that closed the pincer's mouth, rode Lavastine with his cavalry.

It took every ounce of skill Alain had to keep his horse running with the rest, to keep his balance, to simply stay with them and keep hold of his spear
—not be jounced off or have his attention wrenched away by a hundred distractions. The cloth shelters in the enclosure burned with a spitting, furious flame. The ships did not burn as brightly, but shapes swarmed over them, dousing the flames and howling their rage while the lightly armed scouts scuttled away to safety.

Then the cavalry hit the first rank of the Eika, those who had seen them coming and turned to fight. Alain rode right over one. He did not even tuck and thrust with his spear, did not even parry, just rode, hoping the horse knew what it was doing.
He
did not. He was dimly aware that beside him Lavastine thrust and stuck with his spear, striking home into an Eika chest, tugged, then gave up the spear and rode on. Soldiers pounded after them, leaving behind a mass of trampled Eika. Beyond, a larger clot of Eika struggled with the infantry. On foot the Eika had the advantage over the smaller, weaker men. With axes hacking and shields used like weapons, striking and punching, Eika clawed and fought their way through the foot soldiers. But even in the fury of battle some turned, alerted by the cries of their brothers and the pounding of hooves.

He was upon them. Skin of copper, of bronze, of gold or silver or iron, they resembled creatures poured out of metal into a human mold, and yet they were not human at all. One cut at him, its teeth gleaming sharply white, its hair the dead color of bleached bone. He parried with his spear, felt the ax blade cut and hang up in the leather-bound haft. He tugged, suddenly frantic, and the Eika dropped its shield and drew its knife. Horrified, Alain released his hold on the spear and, as the creature staggered back with its lips frozen in a ghastly grimace, he jerked his sword from its sheath, lifted it high
—

—and in that moment, with the Eika off-balance before him, with the skirmish swirling forward as other horsemen pressed Eika back and Lavastine shouted to urge them on, in that instant before his father looked around, before his father would see him frozen, a coward, he knew he could not do it.

He could not kill.

The Eika cast away ax and spear and leaped forward with its knife, a wicked obsidian blade. Alain tried to lift his short sword to parry, but he was paralyzed with that revelation.

He could not kill.

He was not worthy. He would never be a soldier. He had failed his father.

He was going to die.

The sun flashed fire in his eyes, blinding him. Or was it death that he did not yet feel, a knife buried in his eye or throat, that blinded him? He dropped his reins and instinctively held up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. A shadow swooped down over him. An iron-gray broadsword cut down across his sight. The Eika fell, cut down in mid-leap, and collapsed to the earth.

Alain gasped and groped for his reins before the horse could feel he had lost control; but this was a trained warhorse. It moved forward with the others. Who had come forward? Who had saved him?
Who had witnessed his cowardice?

He turned.
Her
gaze was at once distant and utterly piercing. The rose burned at his chest like a hot coal pressed against his skin.

She
spurred her horse forward, his horse responding not to his limp control but somehow to
hers,
though she did not touch it, though she did not hold its reins.

"Stay beside me," she said, whether words spoken through her lips or ringing in his mind he could not tell. /
am the Lady of Battles.
She had a terrible beauty, seared by hardship and agony and the wild madness of battle. She drove her white horse, and with him beside her, surged forward through the Eika, striking to each side, so smooth in her movements that he knew she had ridden to war for so many years that she no longer had to think in order to kill.

Beyond her rode Lavastine, face grim and focused on his task. He took no pleasure in battle; this was duty. He parried a blow and cut in his turn, striking down a silver-scaled Eika; in that instant, as the Eika fell before him, Lavastine looked right past the woman and with that glance marked Alain and went back to the fight.

Now the cavalry drove the Eika back into the waiting line of infantry. Crushed between foe and foe, the Eika fought with hopeless fury or struggled to run free. But Alain, with the Lady of Battles at his side, remained untouched. She struck down any of the savages who lunged at him or hacked at him with ax or spear. He managed to stay seated on his horse. On her other side, Lavastine fought with the same steady imperturbable calm.

Alain jerked his horse left to avoid trampling an infantrymen. The two lines had met at last. Lavastine peeled aside and with a shouted command led Alain and a dozen others down toward the shore. Some Eika ran flat out for the ships; others fought as the horsemen came up behind them. But the savages were broken now. Each one fought only for its own life, or for death. Down at the beach one ship was halfway into the water; Eika jostled each other for a place in its belly, grappling for oars, shoving it out into the current. The other two ships burned with an oily smoke that stung Alain's nostrils, bringing tears to his eyes and a cloudy haze over his vision.

"Rein in!" cried Lavastine.

Alain blinked back tears and passed a hand over his eyes.

"Well done," said the count.

Alain wiped tears from his checks and looked at his father with surprise.
Well done?
To whom was he speaking?

Soldiers circled them, weapons held at the ready. They waited on that verge where sandy soil turns into grassy beach and watched a single ship as it hove to into the cur
‍
rent, watched as oars beat the water and the ship was swept out to sea. A few arrows, shot harmlessly from the rocking belly of the boat, splashed in the shallows or skittered away into the reeds.

The Lady of Battles was gone. At his chest he felt only the cool, soft lump that was the little leather pouch.

The soldiers ranged 'round as they shook themselves free of the last eddies of skirmishing. A few Eika had plunged into the river to swim after the receding ship. Most lay dying on the ground. A few men were wounded, one or two with mortal wounds, but Lavastine's tactics had worked with that same blunt effectiveness with which Lavastine himself approached life.

"Well done, my son," repeated Lavastine. He lifted his sword; a viscous fluid the greenish-blue color of corroded copper stained the blade. With it held high, he addressed his soldiers, "My trusted companions, now you have seen this boy prove himself in battle."

One of the cavalrymen spoke. "I saw him strike down four with his own hand, my lord. He had the battle fury on him. He shone with it. I will follow Lord Alain gladly." To Alain's horror, he saw
respect
in the soldier's eyes.

As soon as this was spoken, others began to talk. Others, too, had seen a kind of unearthly glow around the lad.

"But I did nothing," he protested. "I was afraid. It was the hand of the Lady of Battles which protected me, which struck down those Eika."

As soon as the words passed his lips, he wished he had not spoken. They misunderstood him utterly.
They none of them had seen her.
They took his words as modesty, and as piety. They believed he had accomplished those deeds when in fact he had proved himself unworthy and only been saved by
her
intervention.

Some of the men drew the Circle at their breasts. Some murmured with awe and amazement. Others bowed their heads. Lavastine stared at him hard, and then, as if he could not help himself, he gave that grimace which to him was a smile.

"God in Unity have set Their Hand on you, my son," he said with pride. "You are meant to be a warrior."

LAVASTINE
and his retinue celebrated the Feast of St. Valentinus at the holding of Lord Geoffrey's wife, Lady Aldegund. All summer Lavastine had drilled Alain in the art of war and the rules of proper conduct, both of which were necessary
—more than necessary, given the particulars of Alain's birth—for Alain to impress those noble families and other stewards and servants who gave allegiance to the counts of Lavas. Wealth Alain would inherit from his father, but there were many other virtues he must display in abundance in order to rule as count after him. All of these virtues Lavastine had and to spare: shrewdness, military prowess, boldness, liberality, and a stubborn and dogged determination to defend his possessions and prerogatives.

"They are treating you well?" Lavastine asked that evening as they made ready for the feast, which would be held in the great hall.

"Yes, Father." Alain stood very still, admiring the fine brocade that trimmed Lavastine's indigo tunic while a servingman wrapped strips of linen around Alain's calves, binding his loose hosen tightly against his lower legs. A buckle worked of tiny panels of cloissonne interspersed with garnets mounted in gold cells clasped the narrow leather belt he wore to hike his tunic up around his knees; its richness still stunned him. The tunic itself, woven of wool, was dyed with woad to a rich afternoon blue. He recognized the color from cloth dyed and woven in Osna village by his Aunt Bel and old Mistress Garia, both of whom had daughters and distant kin and servantwomen trained in weaving.

But she's not my Aunt Bel, not any more. She's only the common woman who raised me.

So had Lavastine decreed. Alain had heard nothing from his old family since the count had sent a reward of sceattas to Bel and Henri, payment for the years they had fostered Alain. Had they forgotten him so quickly, not even to send word of how they and Stancy and Julien and little Agnes and the others fared?

This thought, and the traitorous wrench of sorrow it produced in his heart, he kept to himself.

All was ready at last; in the company of kin they need wear no weapons. The hounds had been penned outside, since it was not safe
—to the others—to bring them indoors in an unfamiliar hall. Alain followed Lavastine down the stairs from the loft where they, as honored guests, would sleep with their servants this night. Together, he and his father came into the long hall. Every tapestry in the holding had been aired and now hung to decorate the walls. Fire burned in the central hearth where six months ago Lavastine—under Biscop Antonia's spell—had set his hounds on his own kinsman, Geoffrey, and on Geoffrey's young wife.