Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (10 page)

"Why would the count keep such vicious hounds?" asked Alain, but Rodlin was already walking away, intent on more important duties than chatting with a motherless stableboy.

Lackling, crumbs still in hand, came back inside, looking disconsolate. Alain sneezed and wiped the dust of hay from his lips. "I don't suppose you know about the hounds," said Alain.

"Moewr," said Lackling. "Hroensgueh lakalig." Alain smiled sadly at the halfwit. Wasn't it only self-pity to feel sorry for himself when faced with this half-grown manboy no longer a child and yet incapable of becoming a true man? In Osna village he had been Bel's nephew, and that counted for a great deal. Here he was just a village boy from the outlying lands who didn't know swordcraft and had nothing further to recommend him and no kin to come to his aid. So they made him a stableboy and ordered him to shovel manure. But he had his wits and his strength and a whole body.

"Come," he said to Lackling. He took the halfwit by the elbow and led him outside where dusk shaded the stone tower in a wreath of shadow and the last glint of sun sparked off the banner riding above the palisade gate: two black hounds on a silver field, the badge of the counts of Lavas. "Open your hand. Here, I'll cup
y
our hands in mine. Now we must just stand still enough. . . ."

So they stood as dusk lowered down and the beasts thumped and rustled in the stables and the outer court quieted as day passed. A sparrow came, flitting out of the twilight, and perched on Alain's forefingers where they peeped out from underneath Lackling's smaller hands. It took a crumb. Lackling crowed with delight and the bird fluttered away.

"Hush," said Alain. "You must remain quiet." They waited again, and soon another sparrow came, and a third, and ate all the crumbs off Lackling's hands while the halfwit wept silently with joy.

Master Rodlin proved indifferent to Alain as long as the boy did as he was told. In fact, that first month while Sergeant Fell prepared his new soldiers to march out, everyone proved indifferent to Alain. He watched while the other boys got into feuds that escalated to fistfights and once to a knifing. He stared, shamed and yet shamefully curious, while the young men-at-arms flirted with the servant girls and slipped away with them to a dark corner of the loft. He studied the more experienced men as they readied their weapons and honed their fighting skills.

On St. Kristine's Day, she who was the holy martyr of the city of Gent, a woman cloaked and badged as a King's Eagle rode in to deliver a message to the count. That night at supper in the hall, sitting at the lower tables, Alain watched in astonishment as the Eagle's conversation with Chatelaine Dhuoda, at the upper table, degenerated into an argument.

"This is not a
request,"
said the Eagle with obvious indignation. "King Henry expects Count Lavastine to attend his progress. Are you telling me that the count refuses?"

"I am telling you," said Dhuoda calmly, "that I will send a message to the count with Sergeant Fell and his company when they march out in two days' time. When
C
ount Lavastine returns at the end of the summer, I am sure he will act as soon as he is able."

"If you send this sergeant and his company back with me, it would go a good way toward convincing King Henry of the count's loyalty."

"Only the count can make that decision." Dhuoda gestured for more ale to be brought. Alain recognized by now that wine was reserved for the most favored visitors, which this King's Eagle clearly was not. "The Eika burned a monastery and two villages already this spring. The count needs every able man in his county to strike back and protect his lands. But of course I will include all that you have said in the message my clerics write to him."

But it was clear to everyone present, and especially to the Eagle, that although Dhuoda's answers were perfectly legitimate, they were also evasive.

The Eagle left the next day, still looking angry. And the day after that Sergeant Fell and his company marched out. The remaining horses and cattle
—except for a few workhorses, the donkeys, one old warhorse, and a lame cow who still gave milk—were taken out to the summer pastures. Most of the village worked out in the fields, labored in their vegetable gardens, or gathered fruit in the forest beyond the cultivated land. The few servants left in the holding went about their business with an efficiency that left them plenty of time to drink and dice in the long pleasant evenings.

No one bothered Alain; no one noticed him to make sure he did his work. Every night, lying beside Lackling in the loft above the stables, he would touch the wooden Circle of Unity Aunt Bel had given him and then draw out the string from which hung the rose and finger the soft petals. The vision he had seen from Dragonback Ridge above Osna Sound seemed so distant now. He would have thought it an illusion, born of storm and sorrow, except that the blood-red rose he wore as a necklace beneath his shirt had not withered or died.

In the holding, a quiet month passed. Trained by a navigator, Alain watched the skies when it was clear; the moon waned and waxed to full and began to wane again. Lackling showed him where all the best berry bushes ripened, in bright clearings hidden away in the forest. He found a path leading farther up into the hills, but the boy became frightened and dragged him away from it.

Alain asked Master Rodlin if he knew of any old toils in the forest, and the stable master merely said that an old ruin lay up in the hills beyond and that more than one foolish boy had broken leg or arm climbing on crumbling walls. Like the kennels, it was something even a halfwit avoided.

Now that most of the stable animals were gone, Alain was given whatever odds and ends of the worst work were left, whatever task no one else wanted to do. He spent more and more time leaning on a shovel inside the empty stables and staring at nothing. That moment up on Dragonback Ridge when the Lady of Battles had invested him with her terrible sword seemed like wishful dreaming now. How could he have been chosen for a special trial? Unless digging out the latrines was one.

"Oooo. There he is," said a female voice. This declaration was followed by a giggling.

Alain whirled around. Two of the kitchen girls stood at the stable doors, thrown open to admit more air. Light streamed in around them, showering their disheveled hair in dust motes. Hay drifted down from the loft to settle in the empty buckets they carried. One of the girls sneezed. The other giggled again.

Alain blushed, but he marched forward resolutely nonetheless, heading out through the door. He refused to be cowed by a pair of serving girls no older than he was, girls who would never have looked at him twice if there had been more single men than old Raimond and witless Lackling about.

The blue-eyed girl dipped her shoulders as he passed, enough that her shift slipped down to reveal a tantalizing expanse of flesh. He stumbled on even ground.

"Isn't your name Alain?" asked Blue-Eyes. They only meant to tease him. He knew that. And yet, he could not help but stop. "Yes." He knew he was still blushing.

"Have you heard about the ruins up behind on the hill?" asked Blue-Eyes as she straightened up. Her friend, whose eyes were a nondescript hazel, giggled again, then covered her mouth with a hand to hide her crooked teeth.

"I've heard of it," said Alain cautiously.

"Withi, you daren't do it," said the friend in a choked voice.

Blue-Eyes cast her a scornful glance. "I'm not the one who won't dare." She looked back at Alain. "Where do you come from?"

"Osna village," he said proudly, but they looked blankly at him, never having heard of such a place. "It's called Dragonback, too, for the great ridge
—"

For some reason this sent both girls into wild laughter, as if he had said something indecent.

"Dragonback, is it now?" asked Blue-Eyes finally. She was the prettier of the two, although she had an open sore on one lip and her hair was more grime than color. "I'll be walking up to the ruins at sunset, this evening. They say at Midsummer's Eve the ghosts of daimones walk abroad!" She blinked those blue eyes at Alain and put her hands on her hips, thrusting them provocatively forward. He knew he was flushing again, however hard he tried not to. Withi was one of the girls the men-at-arms took up into the hayloft. She had never had time for
him
before today.

He took in a breath. "Deacon Waldrada at last week's sermon said it wasn't devils or daimones who built those ruins. She said it was the people of the old Dariyan Empire built them, long ago, even before Taillefer was emperor over all these lands. That it was men, like us. Or maybe elves."

"Oooo. What a fine learned young man we have here. What was your father? The abbot of "Dragonback"
A
bbey, making dragonback with a sweet innocent village lass?" She laughed, and Crooked Teeth laughed, too.

"My father's a merchant, and a good, decent man! He served the old count in his time. And the brothers of Dragon's Tail Monastery are dead, killed in an Eika raid this spring. The Lady scorns those who laugh at the misfortune of others!"

"Huh!" said Crooked Teeth disdainfully. "You sound like a cleric yourself. Think you're too good for us, don't you? I'm leaving, Withi." She swung her buckets out with a nourish and departed in the direction of the well.

Withi lingered. "I'm still going up there." She followed her companion but paused and looked back over her shoulder with a grin. "If you're not too scared, you could meet me there. I might just show you something you haven't seen before." Then, to Crooked Teeth: "Wait for me!"

Digging out the latrines was such filthy work that he was relieved when Master Rodlin called him in. Sergeant Fell had brought a company of soldiers back to the fortress and Alain helped unload their wagon. Then he washed his face and hands and rinsed down his boots before going to supper.

Chatelaine Dhuoda had ridden east to escort Lavastine's cousin's wife to Lavas Holding for the remainder of her pregnancy. Because of the summer heat and the absence of lord and lady in the hall, Cook had set up two trestle tables out behind the kitchens. The party of young soldiers took up all of one table, where they boasted of their great exploits and ate their supper of wheat bread and pease porridge and roasted fish and berries with equal gusto. Sergeant Fell sat at their head, tolerant of their high spirits.

Lackling sat alone at the end of the other table, which was set beside the first. If the soldiers hadn't been too busy flirting with Withi and Crooked Teeth and a black-haired woman, they would likely have chased him off. Alain sat down beside the halfwit and was rewarded
king's dragon
with a smile and one of the boy's incomprehensible phrases as greeting.

"So," said Sergeant Fell, continuing his news. He had a dramatic facial scar on his left cheek that had not been there when he and the others marched out. "Then the count tells us we're to be riding east to join up with the king's progress
—

"Nay," exclaimed Cook. "Say it's not so! Count Lavastine has decided to swear loyalty to Henry?"

Alain caught in his breath. He set his spoon down, porridge only half eaten, to listen more closely.

"I think not," said the sergeant. "I think he only wanted to beg aid from Henry, because these raids have been so bad. But it never came to that. For then a lad rode in from the west, saying the Eika have raided
again."

Cook rubbed her chin. "But they've burned both monasteries along the coast, we heard. There's nothing else rich enough along there to tempt them, I'd thought."

"Not only along the coast, but if they was to sail in along the River Mese, they'd come up past St. Synodios' Monastery which was richly endowed by the count's grandfather and indeed all the way to this very holding."

"When I was a lad," said old Raimond in his querulous voice, "we followed the laws set down by the church. Our faith was enough to keep those barbarians away from Varre." He clapped his tin mug down on the table for emphasis. "Before Henry took the throne as wasn't his to take. When was a boy, Eika raided all the way west and south to Salia, and laid it waste, we heard. We even got Salians come up hereabouts, running from them." Raimond was so old that he was bald and his beard was mostly stray wisps of curling hair. "That was when Taillefer's last daughter was still alive. Biscop she might be, but neither her prayers nor the Salian king's soldiers would drive the Eika off. Had to pay them, in the end." He clucked, pleased at this manifestation of the Lord and Lady's dislike of the Salians. "Those were hard times, I don't mind saying."
O
ne of the young soldiers laughed. "How would you have known about goings-on in Salia when you've never set foot outside of Lavas Holding?" He snorted, pleased with his retort, and called for more ale.

Sergeant Fell swatted him in the head. "None of your impudence, Heric! You give the old man respect, you hear? If you live so long, I'll be amazed!" The other soldiers chuckled. "My old uncle said the same thing, that the Salian king had to pay the Eika to leave and that they left only after they'd plundered the countryside. Well, then, Cook, I don't know what is meant to be done about Lady Sabella and her banner, or the king's progress. I do know that we've been sent by the count's order to ask Biscop Thierra to offer up church's gold, for we've need of more weapons and more supplies. There are too many Eika and too many raids this year. Count Lavastine must have aid."