PROLOGUE (29 page)

"Taillefer is the fount of all grace and honor. His achievements have made him famous throughout the four quarters of the earth. He is generous, prudent, just, pious, affable, handsome, outstanding at arms, wise in conciliation, compassionate to the poor, and gentle with the weak. Never before did there speak such an eloquent lecturer; the sweetness of his words surpasses those of Marcia Tul-lia, the orator of ancient Dariya. He alone has penetrated the hidden paths of knowledge and understood all its mysteries, for to him God revealed the secrets of the universe. He has discovered every secret of the mathematici and the secret hidden words and the ways of the stars in their courses and the means by which their powers may be drawn down into the hands of humankind. No navigator has studied the heavens with greater keenness."

After the soup came apple tarts, pears steeped in honey, and a custard. The creamy mixture of milk, honey, and eggs melted on Alain's lips like nectar, and he thought that perhaps he could endure another entire poem cataloging the dead emperor's virtues if only he could make room in his belly for several more helpings of custard. Mostly, however, he wanted to go to sleep. It was well into night now; candles and torches burned, illuminating the feast and the faces of women and men eating and drinking their fill, passing cups from mouth to mouth, sharing bites of apple tart, getting up to stretch their limbs. A constant stream of people went to and from the forecourt, so sodden with wine that they had to relieve themselves. Some of the soldiers, made restless by the long court poem, called for a stanza from the
Gold of the Hevelli.
Instead, the learned poet launched into a long digression
—evidently part of the poem—in which Taillefer oversaw the construction of a new palace at the city of Autun, where he had most often lingered with his court. His workers labored eagerly, raising straight columns and a high citadel, digging into the earth to find hot springs for the baths the emperor loved; the most favored workers built a church fit for a hallowed king. "They labor as do the bees in summer"—at which point the poet went into a second long digression, this one on the nature of bees.

It was time to go outside. Alain excused himself and left the hall. As he came out into the cold autumn night, he sucked in a deep breath of clean air. Inside, smoke from hearth and torches had wreathed the air with a heavy perfume; he was dizzy from it and from the wine. Aunt Bel had never served such wine at her table! Or such a plethora of dishes, each one as exotic as if it had been itself carted to this land from the fabled East. But he was becoming accustomed to feasts.

Feeling suddenly guilty for his good fortune, he walked farther out into the night and relieved himself against a tree. The chill air had the effect of sharpening his senses, and he heard the crack of a branch under a foot and the long scrape of cloth pulled across twigs before he saw the shadow slip toward him. He hastily tied his hosen and stepped back, then let out a breath; it was only one of the servingwomen who had lost her way or also come out to relieve herself.

"My lord Alain," she said. She stumbled and gave a little cry. He started forward and put out an arm to catch her. She pressed herself against him. She had firm breasts and a provocative swell of belly and hip beneath her long gown. "It's a cold night. The hayloft is much warmer than it is out here."

He was suddenly much warmer than he had any right to be on such a cold night. Somehow, her moist lips nuzzled his neck; her breath smelled of sweet custard. Somehow, her hand slipped around the curve of his buttocks.

"My
—my father expects me inside."

"Inside you shall be, my lord, if you wish it."

The sudden heat that transfixed his body scared him, and yet, the more she stroked his body, the more he felt it. He fumbled at her shoulders as she maneuvered him back, pinning him up against the tree.

"You're very handsome," she murmured.

"Am I?" he asked, surprised. No woman except the bored Withi had ever shown interest in him before he became Lavastine's heir. But the thought vanished as does mist under the sun when she kissed him, moving her body against his and taking hold of his hands, guiding them.

If this was the fire of lust, then it was no wonder people succumbed to it. But, kissing her, he made the servingwoman in his mind into an image of Tallia, and the thought of kissing
her,
of being free to do so, of meeting her in the marriage bed . . .

"Ah!" sighed the woman. "That's better. Not as inexperienced as you look, my lord." She deftly slid her hands along his belt and unfastened the buckle. "I've a brother who will be ready for service next spring. He's a good strong boy." The belt, and extra length of tunic held up by it, slipped down to around his knees. "He'd make a fine man-at-arms."

At this moment, she could have asked for anything and he would have given it to her. She took his hands and helped them slide her own tunic up, to her knees, to her thighs, baring pale legs, to her hips . . .

From the kennels erupted a sudden uproar of barking and maddened howls and men's shouts, punctuated by a scream. Alain knew those howls: Lavastine's hounds.
His
hounds.

"I beg you," he said, so out of breath he might as well have been running. He tried to slide out away from her, caught his back on a branch that stabbed in just below his shoulder blade. He stumbled, took a step, tripped over his not-quite-fastened belt, and fell hard to his knees. The jolt brought tears to his eyes. His skin was on fire.

"My lord Alain!" She came to his rescue, helping him up, fumbling with the belt. "I don't mean
—I'm sorry—but the hounds— Her face was a flash of pale skin and dark eyes in the light of a thin crescent moon. "Of course you must go." She had remembered the hounds, and what he was. Now she was frightened of
him,
she who had held all the power moments before.

He hastily tucked his tunic in over his belt so he wouldn't trip on its length, then ran for the kennels, which lay out behind the great hall in the lee of the stables.

The hounds had gone mad, ravaging a man who lay like a rag doll in their midst. Alain waded in and dragged them off the poor man, who by now bled from a score of bites and ragged tears.

"Back! Back!" Made strong by anger and fear and the still coursing memory of the servingwoman's caresses, Alain hoisted the man up and hauled him out of the kennel, kicked Terror back, scolded Rage and Sorrow, who slunk together to a corner and hunkered down as if ashamed of themselves. As they should be! One of the handlers slammed the gate shut behind him. He let the man down onto the ground and examined his legs and arms, which had taken the worst of it from the hounds. The man writhed on the ground, moaning and crying and begging for mercy. It was one of Lord Geoffrey's men. "How did this happen?" he demanded, looking up at the others, a ring of Lavastine's soldiers who were obviously drunk.

"He said such things, my lord," said one, young enough and drunk enough to be brash. "He said things about
you,
my lord, but he never saw you in the battle against the Eika. He never saw you kill the
guivre
and save Count Lavastine's life. He had no right to say such things and he wouldn't believe us, what we said, so it came to
—

Those weren't shadows on the soldiers' faces, but bruises. "It came to a fight?"

"Yes, my lord."

"How did he get into the kennel? Ai, by our Lord! You." He gestured to one of the handlers. "Run and get the herb-woman who lives here. There is such a one, surely? Ask at the stable." The handler obeyed, dashing off.

The soldiers did not answer at once. But he could guess how it had all happened. While he allowed himself to be seduced, this other game had unfolded here. Even now, watching the man weeping with pain before him, watching as blood pooled on the ground, running his hands over the man's skin to find the gaping wounds, he knew this man could die. If he did not succumb to loss of blood or the simple trauma, he might well die later of infection.

"Ai, Lady!" He hated himself at that moment. Slowly the encounter by the tree unwrapped itself from the heat of lust and he saw it more clearly. Perhaps the woman really had thought him handsome. Certainly, he had found her desirable. But she would never have thrown herself against him if he hadn't been Lavastine's heir. She had
wanted
something from him
—a position for her brother in his retinue. This coin she had to offer in trade. Had he been simple Alain, foster son of Henri the merchant, he would have had nothing to give her in return. She would not have looked twice at him, just as the girls at Lavas Holding had never looked twice at him before this summer except that one time, on a dare. And this summer, under stern orders given by the count himself to Cook who had delivered those orders to all the servingwomen in Lavas Holding, none had dared approach him for fear of the count's wrath. The man who had made a bastard intended that illegitimate son to make none of his own.

"My lord, I beg you, forgive us." The three soldiers knelt before him. The stench of mead on their breath was almost enough to stagger Alain where he crouched beside the ravaged man. "But he made such claims! He said any boy could claim to be a bastard, that any noble lord might tumble a woman or two and think nothing of it
—" As he had been about to do, without thinking at all! "—and so we said we'd see how well
he
did, claiming to be Lavastine's heir."

Alain let out a breath. "So you threw him into the kennel."

They didn't answer, nor did they need to. Men from the stables came running up, and there was shoving and angry words. The man on the ground ceased his muttering and lapsed into quiet. "You've killed him!"

"Bastard lovers! Our lord Geoffrey is a true nobleman!" "You wouldn't know a noble lord if he bit you in the
— "Quiet!" cried Alain, standing. He set a hand on the gate and shook it, and that shut every one of them up and brought Rage and Sorrow to the gate, panting to be let out. He opened it, chased the others back, and let Rage emerge. Sorrow whined at being left behind and thumped his tail against wood, barking once.

"Take this man and give him care. All who witnessed, come with me. This will be settled."

They followed like sheep, the handlers
—some Lavastine's, some Geoffrey's—the three soldiers, and a pair of Geoffrey's men-at-arms who had been comrades to the injured man and who now admitted to having goaded him on. Except for the handlers, they were all drunk. Rage herded them to the doors which led into the hall. Alain stepped across the threshold and was assaulted at once with a haze of smoke. The annoying buzz of whispering voices made an undertone beneath the ringing tenor of the poet. Lady and Lord Above! The poet was
still
going on. It was no wonder the Salian king had thrown him out to make his fortune elsewhere.

"In the woods every manner of wild beast makes its lair. Through these glades the admirable hero, Taillefer, would often go hunting and give chase with hounds and spears and arrows. At the very dawn of day, when the sun first rises to spread its light upon the fields and the great city, a band of nobles waits at the threshold of the emperor's bedchamber, and with them wait the emperor's noble daughters. A clamor arises in the city, a roar lifts into the air, horse neighs to horse, and hound strains at its leash. At length all set out. The young men carry the thick hunting spears with sharp iron points, and the women carry linen nets fastened with square mesh. A throng encircles the emperor, and he and his daughters lead their black hounds with leashes round their necks, and in their excitement the hounds snap at any person who comes near them except for their master and his children, for even the dogs in their dumb loyalty bow before such bright nobility...
"

The poet was last to see and last
—
finally
—to stop talking.

Lavastine rose from behind the long table at the far end of the hall. "What does this mean, Alain?"

Alain walked forward with Rage padding obediently at his side. Every soul in the hall shrank back from the hound who panted with mouth open, revealing her teeth. "There has been a fight outside. One of Lord Geoffrey's men-at-arms was thrown into the kennel and badly torn. He may yet die."

Geoffrey leaped to his feet. A moment later, Lady Aldegund rose together with her uncle. At a sign from her, Geoffrey sat down; the uncle did not. The girl set a hand briefly on his hand as if to remind herself that she had the weight of his arm to back her up.

"How did this happen?" she asked.

"I believe," replied Alain calmly, "that they had all drunk too much."

"It is
my
man who may die!" exploded Lord Geoffrey, jumping again to his feet.

"Sit down, cousin," said Lavastine in a cool voice. Geoffrey sat. Aldegund and her uncle did not.

"If he dies," said Aldegund, "there will be a price to pay."

"And so shall those men responsible pay it," said Alain, halting just before the table like a supplicant. Except that, with Rage at his side and, indeed, a growing anger in his heart, he did not feel one bit as if he had to beg anyone's pardon. "They will pay the proper fine to the man himself if he is crippled or to the man's kin if he dies. But the man, or his kin, must also pay a fine."