Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (4 page)

They trudged the rest of the long walk in silence. Alain measured it reflexively by the offices which would soon circumscribe his day. It took from Nones to Vespers to walk up and over Dragonback Ridge, down the long slope to the dragon's head where lay the prosperous village of Osna. Fittingly it began to rain, a dreary mist that settled in around them. By the time the little party reached the longhouse of his Aunt Bel, he was soaked.

Chatelaine Dhuoda was expected, of course. She arrived once a year to exact the portion due to Count Lavastine from the village. Usually the young people who had spent the previous year in the count's service returned with her. Over time St. Eusebe's Day had become the traditional day for a young person to embark on an apprenticeship or to bring a fosterling home. But this year Dhuoda was alone except for her retinue.

Alain stood by the hearth, drying his clothes by the heat of the fire, and watched the greeting ceremony at one end of the hall. At the other end of the hall, his siblings and cousins and the servants of his aunt's household laid the table on which they would serve a feast. Under the shadowed eaves on either side of the long hall the youngest children sat on chests or huddled on beds, keeping out from underfoot.

The baby began to cry. He walked over to the cradle and picked it up, and it stilled at once, sucking a finger and staring with now perfect equanimity at the scene. Motherless, this child, as he was; its mother had died birthing it, but there was no doubt that his cousin Julien was the father since Julien and the young woman had declared before the village deacon their intention to wed. Because Aunt Bel's daughter Stancy was nursing a child and had milk to spare, Bel had fostered the baby in her house.

When it came time to serve, Alain handed the baby over to one of his young cousins to hold. It was a mark of Chatelaine Dhuoda's importance that Aunt Bel, one of the richest persons in the village, had her own kin rather than her servants serve the table at which Dhuoda now sat. Alain poured ale and so he was able to hear much of the conversation that went on between the chatelaine and the merchants and householders who were important enough to be seated at table with Count Lavastine's representative.

"Count Lavastine has been forced to keep for an extra year of service all of your young people whom you sent to us last year," Dhuoda explained calmly, although most of the townsfolk regarded her with ill-disguised annoyance.

"I expect my son's help in the harvest this year!" protested one; and another: "My daughter's skill at weaving is sorely missed in
my
household, mark you, and we are well into negotiations for her betrothal."

"These are troubled times. There have been raids along the coast. We need everyone who is already at Lavas Holding. More men-at-arms are needed. The cloister at Comeng was burned
—" Here the chatelaine paused to survey the various expressions of distress on her listeners' faces. "Yes, alas, the raiders grow more bold. They are a terrible threat to all of us who live near the sea." She beckoned to Alain. "More ale." As he poured, she turned to Aunt Bel. "A likely-looking lad. Is he one of yours?"

"He is my nephew," said Aunt Bel coolly. "His father promised him to the monastery. He enters the novitiate on St. Eusebe's Day."

"I am surprised that you would enrich the King's monastery with such a well-grown lad."

"The church serves Our Lord and Lady. What goes on in the world concerns them not at all," retorted Aunt Bel.

Dhuoda smiled gently, but Alain, backing away,
t
hought her expression haughty. "What goes on in the world concerns them as much as it concerns any of us, Mistress. But never mind. That oath, once taken, I will not attempt to break."

The conversation traveled on to kinder subjects, last fall's harvest, the newly minted sceattas bearing the impressi n of the hated King Henry, trade from the southern port of Medemelacha, rumors of tempestari
— weather sorcerers—causing hail and ice storms along the border between Wendar and Varre.

Alain stood in the shadows and listened as the evening wore on, coming out into the light of the lanterns posted around the long table only to pour ale into empty cups. Dhuoda's deacon was, by chance, a woman of great learning and had a particular interest in old tales. To Alain's surprise she agreed to recite a poem.

In those days when the Lost Ones held sway When these lands lay under the hand Of the people born of angels and human women, Out of their people came one who ruled As emperor of men and elvish kind both.

These skills he had, that he could bind And he could weave, and out of the stars draw down to him the song of power.

These arts we call by the name of sorcery.

He was taught them by his mother.

In those days out of the north In the.
bright spring
there
came a dragon,
To all the lands bordering the sea it laid waste.

But the emperor came himself to fight it, and though it wounded him unto death, in the end with his last strength he cast a great spell and turned the creature into stone. And here it lay, the ridge that bounded Osna Sound, known to all as the Dragonback.

Alain watched them: the arrogant chatelaine, her attendants, the learned deacon and the young frater, who, a man, was sworn to the order of wandering priests rather than to a monastery where a man would be interred for his entire life within the walls of a single cloister. If only
he
could travel, even if just once, to Lavas Holding, as his father had before him. If only he could pledge service for a single year to the count. His father had gone there seventeen years ago and served the elder Count Lavastine for one year, as was customary, but he had returned home with an infant in his arms and a sorrow in his heart. He had never married, to his elder sister's dismay, but had turned his heart to the sea and now was gone more than he was home.

Bel had raised the child, since hers was a generous heart and the child was healthy and strong.

What was it like, the place where he had been born? His mother had died three days after bearing him, or so his father had always claimed, but perhaps someone there remembered her.

Alain blinked back tears. He would never know. Tomorrow, on St. Eusebe's Eve, he would leave to pass the night in vigil outside the gates of the monastery, as was customary for conversi, those who wished to convert to the service of Our Lord and Lady as adults or young persons just come to adulthood.

The next day he would swear his oath and be lost inside the monastery walls. Forever.

"What is it, Alain?" asked his cousin Stancy, coming to stand beside him. She touched his cheek with her fingers. "Weep if you must, but go with a good heart, Think of what great good your prayers will bring to your kin. Think even that you will learn to write and read, and perhaps you will come to be as learned as the deacon there. Then you can travel to many far places
—

"But only in my mind," he said bitterly.

"Ai, my little one, I know your heart. But this is the burden that has been given to you to bear. You may as well bear it gladly." She was right, of course. She kissed

him affectionately and went off to the back of the hall to fetch more oil for the lanterns.

Eusebe' s Eve dawned clear and fine. The netting shed doors creaked lazily all morning in a soft spring breeze. Red streamers painted with the Circle of Unity snapped and fluttered from every eave in the houses set around the village common.

Every person in the village came to the common to watch Chatelaine Dhuoda collect taxes. Vats of honey. Ambers of ale, both clear and dark. A cow or five wethers. Geese. Cheese. Fodder. Smoked salmon and eels. Aunt Bel had fine brooches brought from the south by Alain's father to pay in lieu of oil and ale. One farmer signed his son into service to the count for five years so that he would not have to turn over his two best milking cows. Another couple had a slave, a young girl brought north from Salia, whom they could no longer feed. Dhuoda looked her over, pronounced her fit enough, and took her as payment. Old Mistress Garia, who had five adult daughters who were all as accomplished at weaving as she was, presented, as usual, lengths of finely-woven cloth which Dhuoda received with evident pleasure. A few paid in coin, and only a very few were marked delinquent since Osna was a wealthy place and the townsfolk here were, Alain knew by his father's reports, prosperous.

This went on all morning and past midday, when folk from outlying farms arrived to pay their respects and deliver their rents or taxes. In the late afternoon Alain took his leave. He knelt before his aunt and said the traditional words: "It is customary for a conversus to stand vigil at the gates, Aunt,
t
o prove his desire to enter into the service of Our Lord and Lady."

"Go with my blessing, child, and with the blessing of your father." She kissed him on the head.

He rose and made his good-byes to the rest of the family. Three of Aunt Bel's children were now adults with children of their own, so there were many farewells. Last of all, he gave the baby a kiss, hugged his aunt a final time and, with a shake of his shoulders, set off.

By now the wind had picked up. The netting shed doors banged restlessly against the hex poles. A misting rain began to fall. Glancing behind, he saw Chatelaine Dhuoda hastily moving her table into one of the houses that bordered the common, to do the rest of her business under shelter.

The rain began to fall in earnest as he passed through the livestock fence that bordered the village and set a steady pace for the three hours' walk back to the monastery.

The wind increased as he climbed the path that led up the ridge. Dirt churned into mud and stuck to his soft leather shoes, seeping through the stitches. His small pack scarcely gave him enough ballast as he reached the dragon's back height and headed out into the full force of the wind. Now he was alone, only the wide swell of the bay, choppy and white-frothed, below him. The high forest hills stretched out behind. Both the village and the monastery were hidden by the ridge's convoluted path along the middle rim of the bay.

Alain had to lean forward into the wind to make headway. He wondered briefly about the ship he had seen yesterday. Was it caught outside the shelter of the bay, or had it put into one of the many island coves to wait out the storm? He turned his face into the wind and looked seaward. He gasped. Amazement stopped him in his tracks.

The storm was coming in, fast. He had never seen such a storm as this.

Half the bay was gone, obliterated from view. A flat
b
ank of mist scudded toward him, pursued by a dense curtain of dark cloud that engulfed everything in its
path. In
moments he was surrounded, fogged in. He could not see three strides before or behind himself. He hunkered down before the first fierce gusts hit, turned his back on the bay, and bent his head.

The wind roared as if the dragon beneath this petrified dragon's back had come to life. Even crouched, he fell forward to his knees from the force of it. Roiling black clouds girdled him. Bitter, hard rain drenched him, hammering in sheets. Between one breath and the next he was soaked to the skin.

This was not natural rain.

Even as he thought it, the pounding rain ceased entirely, although the wind did not slacken. Surely this was the punishment sent on him for betraying, in his heart, the pledge given in his name to the service of Our Lord and Lady. Or else it was a trial.

He struggled to his feet and turned again into the gale. Despite everything, despite his own desire, he
would
reach the monastery. He would not shame his father and aunt. The wind tore at his hair, stinging his eyes. His lips, wet half with salt spray and half with cold rain, parched in the harsh current of air that whirlpooled around him.

The fog lightened. An eerie light glowed down the straight road that led along the dragon's back height. An unearthly presence, it grew closer, and broader, dispelling the fog as it went . . . but only around itself. He saw with a strange kind of distant tunneling sight that the storm closed back around once the light passed. He smelled spring blossoms and the fresh blood of slaughter.

A rider approached. Armed in bright mail, it guided its horse forward at a sedate walk, untroubled by the raging wind. Alain thought about running, but it was so brief a thought that it was ripped away on the air almost as quickly as it formed. Because he had to stare.
T
he horse was beautiful, as white as untouched snow, almost blinding, and the woman
—

He could not have moved even if he had tried. She reined her warhorse in beside him. She was a woman of middle age, scarred on the face and hands, her boots muddied and scuffed, her coat of mail patched here and there with gleaming new rings of iron. Her long sword, sheathed
in
leather, swayed in front of him. A battered, round shield hung by her knee, tied to the saddle. She shifted in the saddle to examine him. They stood in dead calm. Three strides beyond the storm raged around them.

Her gaze was at once distant and utterly piercing. If her eyes had color, he could not make it out. They seemed as black as a curse to him. He stared up at her, and a cold fear gripped his heart.

"What must I pay you, to ride to war?" she asked. Her lips moved with the words, but her voice, low and deep as the church bell, rang in his head with echoes scattering off it.