Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (22 page)

Once they got to run ahead as beaters when Count Lavastine and Lord Geoffrey and the other lords went hunting with their falcons, though Alain had to run alongside the hounds to keep them from mischief with the riders. In the forest out past the old ruins the hounds ran a boar to ground, and Lord Geoffrey's young son, born to his first wife, was granted the killing blow.

For one hour each day Alain sat with Frater Agius and laboriously relearned his letters and learned to recite by memory passages from the holy book. In the evenings he sat in the hall and ate and drank. He secretly slipped Lackling bits of fish, and he listened as poets sang, as musicians played, and watched as mimes entertained the count and his kin and guests with their dumb show.

After all that he would slip outside to his pallet in the stockade and huddle under the good wool blanket Aunt Bel had sent to him via a peddler in the autumn. Only in the kennels, alone with the hounds, could he be at peace
—with the hounds, and with the Eika prince bound in his cage. The creature had weathered the winter's cold without any sign that it disturbed his equanimity.

The Eika prince fascinated Alain. He was a beast, a savage creature who had almost ripped out the throat of one of the handlers who had come too near him at suppertime that first week of his captivity. The man had not died, but he had lost his ability to speak. The prince seemed to respect only the hounds, whom he surely recognized as like himself in their blunt fury.

It had become Alain's task to feed him, once at noontide, once at evening bell. With the hounds as his snarling escort, Alain would bring a bowl of meat and gruel (the only food the Eika would eat), loosen one of his hands, and step back out of reach while he ate.

That was the curious thing. The prince had the most fastidious habits, both in eating and in caring for his person. He did not tear into his food, although with such small portions as Count Lavastine spared him, he must be hungry all the time. Rather, he ate daintily, with better manners than many of the nobles who sat at Count Lavastine's table. If he must relieve himself (and he did this much less often, Alain judged, than any human person had to), he did so always in the same corner of the cage, as far as he could get in his chains. Alain took pity on him finally and cleaned out that corner every Jedday, since none of the other men would go near the cage. The prince watched him but never, even when a hand was loosened so that he could eat, tried to attack him. Perhaps it
was
only that Alain went everywhere inside the stockade with his retinue of hounds, who were certainly as fearsome and dangerous as the clawed, copper-scaled prince.

Perhaps, as he once overheard Master Rodlin mutter, the Eika devil knew by instinct a child spawned by an inhuman father. But Rodlin treated Alain fairly and never once hit him as he did Lackling or the other boys and young men who served under him if they made a mistake or did not do their chores quickly enough. But how could he be the child born of the mating of a human woman and the shade of an elvish prince at Midsummer's Eve if he was actually the bastard son of Count Lavastine, gotten on a serving girl?

The Eika prince, like a penitent, endured his captivity without complaint through the cold winter and the slow turning of the year.

The Feast of St. Herodia came and passed, and Mariansmass loomed, the first day of spring, the beginning of the new year, which by the reckoning Prater Agius taught him would be the seven hundred and twenty-eighth year since the Proclamation of the Divine Logos, the Holy Word, by the blessed Daisan, also known as the Proclaimer.

A stranger rode into the castle and was escorted to Count Lavastine's private study, emerging two hours later and riding straight-away south, on a fresh horse. The whispers started.

"Is it true? The Lady Sabella will come here?"

"Does the count mean to join her rebellion? To swear himself to her as his liege?"

"Will we go to war against the king?"

"Not
our
king. Henry is not rightfully king of Varre, only of Wendar. His grandfather stole the throne of Varre away for his own children."

Alain worked up his courage, and on St. Rosine's Day, a week before Mariansmass, he asked Frater Agius two questions.

"I beg your pardon, Brother, but am I to return to my village when my year is up?"

"Your year?" Agius was distracted. He was fingering the Holy Book but not looking at its pages.

"My year of service. In a fortnight it will be St. Eusebe's Day."

Agius frowned. "If you wish to return, you must speak with Chatelaine Dhuoda. That is her province, not mine. Certainly such a decision would lie as well in your aunt's hand. But I do not think that Count Lavastine can spare any of his men-at-arms this year."

"I don't wish to go back, not yet," said Alain hastily, fearing he would be misunderstood. He
did
want to stay; he wasn't ready to return to Osna village yet. And yet, was it not disloyal to his father and aunt to stay here so long when they could be using his labor at home? But they would only find some other monastery to send him to.

Agius watched him curiously. Alain recalled his other question. "Is it true Lady Sabella is coming here?"

"It is true," said Agius.

"But we haven't prepared
—!" He choked back the rest of the sentence. Agius was too preoccupied, taking out his knife and trimming the wick on his lamp, to even have heard Alain's words. And no wonder. Lady's Blood! A princess of the royal house of Wendar and Varre was coming,
here,
to Lavas Castle.

That evening in the hall Count Lavastine rose and addressed his household. His speech was short and direct.

"I have received a message from Her Most Excellent Highness Sabella, daughter of the younger Arnulf, king of Wendar, and of Queen Berengaria of Varre, whose names we remember in our prayers. She bids us greeting and will arrive in Lavas with her husband, Prince Berengar of Varre, and her daughter Tallia, and her retinue, in ten days' time."

Cook was furious, in private. "Ten days! I will have to send you boys out to fetch every pig and sheep from the villages nearby. We'll need at least five hundred. Where shall I get enough wine and ale at this time of year, I ask you? And grain. Chickens! Five wagon loads of turnips, if there are even any left in the cellars. I ask you!"

Chatelaine Dhuoda and her stewards swept the countryside, working frantically for ten days, and brought in all the provender Cook would need as well as additional servingmen and women. Alain worked from dawn to dusk, hauling, fetching, building temporary shelters. There was no time to train at arms; there were no lessons with Frater Agius. Oddly enough, he found he missed the latter as much as the former.

The church bell rang at dawn on Penitire, calling the faithful to the day of penitence. Alain rose, fed the hounds, and allowed himself a handful of fresh rainwater out of the water barrel to wet his throat. From the stockade he could see the road that wound down the valley to Lavas town and the church. Already he saw

I people, some shuffling forward on their knees, others bent double, the rest with hands clasped across chests, moving toward the church. There Prater Agius would lead the morning service because Deacon Waldrada was still too ill to preach.

Like the stable hands and stock-keepers, he had to care for his charges before he could pray. So had the blessed Daisan wept and prayed and suffered remorse for the sins of the faithful, whose shepherd he was, before he could himself find release from the Earth and pass up through the seven spheres to the heart of the Lord and Lady.

Someone was watching. Alain turned. The Eika prince stared at him. His hair, as white as bone, marked a pale line against the dark slatted walls of the cage. Did he ever sleep? Alain was beginning to believe he did not.

Master Rodlin had left no directions about the prince. All fasted on Penitire. But wasn't the Eika prince pledged to false gods? Alain decided it would be more merciful to feed him. So he brought the portion allocated to the prince, and while the prince ate, Alain spoke in a calm voice
—not wanting to startle him—about the blessed Daisan and the Holy Circle of Unity. After all, the light of the faithful could be brought to all creatures. Had not the goblin kin of the Harenz Mountains been brought to the faith by the exertions of St. Martin and his sister, the holy martyr St. Placidana?

"On this day we remember our sins," he said. In the cool, quiet dawn, his voice sounded strange, disembodied, as if someone else was speaking. He heard, like a counterpoint to his speech, the low growls of the hounds as they crunched on bones. The prince ate noiselessly. "And then, for seven days we pray and fast just as the blessed Daisan did at the church Hearth in Sai's, the blessed city. These seven days we call the Ekstasis. In his rapture, as he prayed, seeking redemption for all who might come into the Light of the Circle of Unity drawn by Our Lord and Lady, his soul ascended through the seven spheres until at last, on the morning of the seventh day, it came to the Chamber of Light. And the Lord and Lady in their mercy conveyed him directly to heaven. It is written in the
Acts of St. Thecla,
the Witnesser, that the church was entirely illuminated with the light of God's mercy, so brilliant that she was blinded for seven times seven days thereafter. But the blessed Daisan was gone, taken up unto the Chamber of Light. On that day, which we know as the Translatus, there is feasting and rejoicing, for so may we all find mercy in the grace of Our Lord and Lady."

Like the hounds, the prince seemed to prefer his meat raw, and he ate every bit of it, including the bones. Now he lifted his head and his narrow tongue licked the air. This close, he had the sheen of a snake's skin, a mellow reddish-brown. He smelled not humanlike, sweat and skin, but like a musty cave, entombed, dry stone.

And he spoke. "Halane."

Alain started back two steps, he was so surprised. Then he jumped forward and chained the prince's hand back with the other.

"Halane," said the Eika, slit eyes fixed on Alain. Bound now, he could only move his chin, up and over. His voice had the smooth tone of a flute.

He's trying to point at me,
Alain thought. And shuddered.
Halane.

"My name is Alain," he said, hesitantly, not sure if he was interpreting the Eika's intent correctly. "I am Alain, son of Henri. Do you have a name?" He copied the gesture the creature had made. "Do you have a name?"

It bared its teeth, but Alain could not tell if, like a hound, the grimace was meant to scare or if it was trying to smile. "Henry. King."

Alain gulped down an exclamation. "King Henry rules in Wendar and Varre. What is your name? Who rules in the lands where you come from?"

"Bloodheart. King of shipmen. I also son. Son of Bloodheart."

Son of the Eika king! Was that truly what the prince was saying? And hard against his astonishment, a wild bubble of laughter tried to escape: The Eika prince thought that he, Alain, was the son of King Henry!

All at once, before Alain could reply, the hounds left off worrying at the bones and ran to the stockade gate. The Eika prince threw his head back and as one with the hounds howled piercingly. Alain clapped his hands over his ears and jumped out of the cage, slamming the door shut and chaining it closed. Such noise! The hounds yammered and howled like wild things. He ran to the ladder, climbed it, and from its height saw what the others had smelled and heard.

There, coming down the road, was the most glorious procession he had ever seen. About fifty riders were surrounded by a great mass of servants and other foot attendants. Banners and pennons rose in the breeze, lit by the sun as it flooded the valley with light. Carts and wagons followed behind, most of them painted in bright colors, and at the very end came the stock-handlers and the extra horses and some few beasts of other description, including a great shrouded cage.

Alain flung himself over the stockade, lowered, and dropped to the ground. He ran. In all his life he had never seen or expected to see anything like this: the retinue of a great prince. He made it to the castle gates in time to fall in behind a smaller procession made up of Count Lavastine, who was dressed in a plain tunic and hosen
—without ornament—as was fitting for Penitire, and his household. He and his retinue approached, on foot, the great cavalcade of Lady Sabella and met with them before the church, where a crowd had gathered.

Alain gaped at the fine ladies and lords and their splendid horses. All of them wore gold threaded in their tunics and gowns; there was even a biscop among them, her white robes adorned with gold piping and her donkey fitted with a handsome saddle worked with beads and silver. But the most marvelous among them all was Lady
Sabella.

Alain recognized her at once since she wore a gold coronet on her brow and a magnificent golden torque around her neck. She wore a tunic thickly threaded with gold, a belt studded with gems, and gold bindings on her legs. At her belt she wore a sword which boasted a hilt inlaid with gold. That she wore a sword was strange but not unheard of for a woman, but Alain shivered, seeing it, wondering what the count's reaction would be. A woman of Lady Sabella's high rank only wore a sword if she meant to lead an army in her own person rather than through the agency of a kinsman. She had a strong face, and she wore her hair plaited back, dressed with gold and silver ribbons but uncovered, like a soldier's. All at once she reminded him of the Lady of Battles, whom he had seen in that vision almost one year ago.