Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (46 page)

The cleric left. Alain knelt outside, miserable and frightened, while the tent came down and was packed into a wagon. Sorrow refused to budge from his side. No one spoke to him, only glanced at him sidelong, but two guards remained at his side.

Just as all was ready, the nobles mounting their fine horses, a commotion eddied through their ranks. A black shape darted tree from behind a line of wagons and Rage bounded over to him, taking up her station beside Sorrow. No one tried to stop her. Her presence heartened him as nothing else could, As the company started forward, two men-at-arms shoved him forward. He walked. What else could he do? Not knowing what to expect was, perhaps, the worst of it. Would he be punished? Executed? Fed to the
guivrel
He could not imagine what Biscop Antonia meant to do with him.

They marched all that day at a steady pace, stopping at midday to water the horses. They marched through hill country, mostly farm and pasture land with stands of forest topping the hilltops and long rides. It was easy country to move through, shallow fords, good grazing for the livestock that traveled with them, not a trace of any force loyal to King Henry.

But in the late afternoon the hills rolled into a long downslope that looked over the valley of the River Rhowne. From here, blurred by afternoon haze, Alain saw the stone tower of the cathedral of Autun, so far away it looked like a mason's tiny model. They had come to the border of the lands controlled by the Duke of Varingia; beyond lay the heart of the old kingdom of Varre, known as the duchy of Arconia. And beyond the duchy of Arconia lay Wendar.

Army and train came to a halt and began to settle in for the night. Alain was directed by his guards to enter the tent. There, at the biscop's order, he sat on a stool. The hounds followed him quietly and draped themselves over his feet.

She put him under the supervision of one of her clerics, a young man with pale blue eyes whom she named as Willibrod. Red lesions encrusted the cleric's hands and neck. While he sat, he shaved wood into holy Circles of Unity and carved letters into the backs of those Circles. Oddly enough, he also bound strands of hair and bits of leaves and some other thing, plucked from what looked like the fletchings for an arrow, onto the backs of these Circles and then strung each one on a leather cord, to make a necklace.

"You are a cleric in training?" asked young Cleric Willibrod. "You are clean-shaven, as befits a churchman."

Alain blushed, easy to see on his fair skin. It still embarrassed him horribly that he could grow nothing more manly than a bit of pale down on his chin. He had not shaved, and yet this cleric, who sat next to him, could not tell whether he was unshaven or clean-shaven.

"I was promised to the monastery," he stammered out finally, "but I serve Count Lavastine now as a man-at-arms."

The cleric shrugged. "It is not unknown for monk or cleric to serve in a lord's army, for is it not sung that while Our Lady tends the Hearth, Our Lord wields the Sword?"

Biscop Antonia came in. Servants surrounded her, bringing a pitcher of water and a fine brass basin and soft white linen so she might refresh her face and hands. Others brushed dust and travel dirt off her vestments while a woman braided Antonia's long silver hair, draping a shawl of white linen over the biscop's head when she was through. Atop the shawl two clerics placed her hat
—her mitre—the mark of her rank as bis-cop. Tall, pointed both at the front and at the back, the mitre was made of a stiff white cloth and trimmed with thickly embroidered gold ribbons. Two white and gold tassels hung from the back of the hat all the way to her feet.

A cleric handed Antonia her crosier and she turned, surveying her retinue with a kindly smile on her face as if to show her gratitude for their service. Her gaze came to rest on Alain. He bowed his head swiftly, mortified he had been caught staring at her and her ablutions. So he did not see her expression, only heard her voice when she spoke.

"There is another I requested be brought to me many days ago. He has not yet arrived?"

"Not yet, Your Grace."

"I hope he can be with us by Compline." She spoke mildly, even hopefully, but Alain now recognized the undercurrent that eddied around her. For all that her aspect was kind and her voice gentle, she did not allow her will to be disobeyed. Clerics scurried away; others took their place, and as a united party they processed out so the biscop could lead the service of Vespers, the evensong.

Cleric Willibrod, left in charge, allowed Alain to kneel and pray as Vespers was sung in another part of the camp. During the final psalm, two soldiers appeared at the open tent entrance. With them, as if he were under arrest, came Prater Agius. His brown robes looked travel-stained and rumpled, and he was limping. Alain was so surprised he jumped to his feet in mid-phrase.

Agius shook free of the guards. He knelt at once to finish the last lines of the psalm, and Alain, shamed by the frater's piety, copied him.

"I thought you had stayed behind at Lavas town," whispered Alain after the last
Alleluia
was sung. "I thought you did not intend to ride with Count Lavastine."

"I did not." Agius rose, glared at the guards, and limped over to wash his face out of the same fine brass basin used by the biscop. Alain was both astounded and entranced by this show of worldly vanity and arrogance on the part of Agius. The frater wiped his face and hands dry with the same soft white linen the biscop had used. "It is not my part in life to involve myself with the worldly disputes that tempt those who have been seduced by the glamour of earthly power and pleasures."

"Then why are you here?" Alain demanded.

"I was summoned against my will."

Agius promptly sat down in the cushioned chair which even an ignorant lad like Alain, unaccustomed to the ways of the nobility, could see was reserved for the biscop. This act of flagrant defiance set Alain shaking. The hounds, catching his mood, stirred restlessly, thumping their tails on the ground and lifting their heads to watch intently.

"I beg your pardon, Brother," said Willibrod nervously. He began picking at the scabs on his skin. "That is Biscop Antonia's chair. It is not fitting for a lowly brother to sit
—

Agius glared the poor cleric into silence.

Through the entryway, Alain saw torches flickering. Biscop Antonia had returned.

it fitting," asked Biscop Antonia in her mild voice after the outraged gasps of her servants had quieted, "that a simple frater of the church presume to sit in the seat of one whose elevation was ordained by the hand of the skopos herself?"

"Our Lady has already judged my heart and found it wanting. It is Her mercy and Her forgiveness I strive to be worthy of. Not yours." Certainly Agius was furious, to speak so.

"You are angry, child. Is this the heart you display to Our Lady and Lord?"

The frater did not seem in the least moved by the biscop's soft words. "She knows what is in my heart." He stood up, no longer looking like a lowly churchman brought before a high-ranking biscop but rather like a nobleman made angry by a retainer's presumption.
"You
do not."

A shocked murmuring rose from the crowd of servants; Antonia stilled it with a gesture. "Who speaks now, Frater Agius? The humble frater?" Her voice grew suddenly hard and accusing. "Or the proud son?"

king's dragon
He actually winced, though he did not back down. "I will do penance for my pride. What do you want of me, Your Grace? Why have you had me brought here? I serve the world no longer."

"But you live in the world nevertheless. We cannot escape the world, Frater Agius, though we strive to do so. Even you have not yet learned to submit your will to that of Our Lady and Lord. Some part of your heart still lives in your old station, where you are accustomed to having your own way." "Our Lady will judge me," he repeated stubbornly.

"What do you want of me?"

If there had been any tiny line of harshness in her face, it dissolved now into a sweet smile made the more reassuring by her round, pink-cheeked face and her twinkling blue eyes. "To visit with your niece, of course."

"My
niece\"
He almost roared the word. "She is being fostered by the Biscop of Autun." Her placid countenance remained unmoved by his anger. "Did you know that?" "Of course I knew!" "It was by your suggestion, was it not?" He glared, refusing to answer. "You will remain here for the time being." "Do you mean to make me a hostage?" She signed. At once her servants and retainers left the tent until only she, Alain, the hounds, and Agius remained. She glanced once at the hounds and evidently decided she was safe with them
—or with Alain, who controlled them. "I mean to make you a weapon."

"I am no longer a weapon to be used in worldly pursuits, Biscop Antonia. When I pledged myself to the church, I pledged myself to no longer care for the things of this world."

She smiled gently. "We shall see." She nodded serenely at Alain and left the tent.

Agius followed her, but his way was blocked by guards. For a moment, Alain thought Agius meant to

push past them, to force a confrontation. Abruptly he dropped to his knees to pray, wincing when his wounded leg
—obviously not yet healed although it had been almost two months since Sorrow's bite—took his weight. It took Alain some time to distinguish words out of the mumbled flow of syllables.

"I am an unworthy son, Oh, Lady, please make me worthy of Your Mercy. Please judge me not harshly, Lady. Please grant Your Forgiveness to this sinner. Ai, Lady. Please grant me the serenity to accept humility and vanquish pride."

He went on in this way without seeming inclined to stop. Hearing voices raised outside in the short service of Compline, for sunset, Alain knelt and joined in the prayer.

Biscop Antonia did not return after the service was completed. Presumably she went to feast. Cleric Willibrod brought bread and cheese and wine for Alain and Agius; then he, together with several of the other clerics, went back to making necklaces. The frater touched nothing although, in the end, Alain got him to swallow a few sips of wine.

Antonia returned later and went to her bed, her servants and clerics sleeping on pallets around her. Alain slept miserably, huddled on the ground with the two hounds pressed up against him. Questions nagged him through his restless sleep. What did Agius' niece have to do with Lady Sabella's revolt? Agius was, after all, only a simple frater
—although a simple frater would never dare seat himself in the chair reserved for a holy biscop.

Every time Alain woke, he heard Agius, still whispering his prayers.

In the morning, Alain was allowed out under guard to let the hounds run. As he returned, he saw a retinue approaching, many finely dressed men and women in rich tunics hung with gold and silver chains. He hurried inside to Agius.

"The biscop and many others are approaching!" he hissed. "Noble folk are with her."

Agius rose, a bit shakily, but he straightened and faced the entrance proudly
—not at all like a humble frater. Alain knelt, hounds on either side of him; he could not stand before such noble lords and ladies.
He
was only a simple merchant's son.

The light from outside was dazzling but not as dazzling as the rich clothing of Lady Sabella and the portly man who attended her: Rodulf, Duke of Varingia. Contrasted to their elegant clothing, studded with jewels and trimmed with gold and silver ribbons, and the handsome display of gold in chains and coronets and rings, Biscop Antonia's vestments, merely sewn with gold thread, appeared modest.

Rodulf barked out a laugh and addressed Biscop Antonia. "Blessed Lord! I would not have recognized the child, dressed in such rags, had you not warned me, Your Grace." He stumped forward on thick legs. Broad-shouldered and heavy, he had the red cheeks of a man who eats heartily and never wants for food. Clapping Frater Agius on the shoulder, he shook him with evident good cheer. "What is this, lad? Some disgrace? Ai, I heard your father and mother were in a red rage when you turned your back on marriage to enter the church. But I thought you'd surely be a presbyter, sent down to that damned hot city of Darre to stand attendance on the skopos. What is this?" He grasped a handful of the old robe in one fleshy hand and tugged on it so hard Alain cringed, hoping the cloth would not tear.

"I serve Our Lady," said Agius stiffly. "I never intended otherwise." He made no obeisance toward Rodulf nor toward Lady Sabella, who stood quietly behind, looking stern and thoughtful.

"But you have come to aid our cousin," said Rodulf, indicating Sabella.

"I have not."

Alain dared not stir by one finger's-breadth for fear of the outburst that would certainly come next.

Sabella appeared unflustered. She stepped forward. "You will serve our needs nevertheless, Agius," she said in her flat voice. "I do not have time to spare for a siege of Autun, and Biscop Constance will not give the city over to me willingly, nor can I march forward with Autun's militia and resources
—and hostility—at my back. In return for the safe passage of your niece, you will bring me the Biscop of Autun as a hostage by whatever means you must use."

This threat, if threat it was, did not sway Agius. He looked, if anything, more confident now. "If you do not have support enough to march against King Henry, then perhaps you would do better to retire to your own lands and administer them in a manner more fitting than this."