Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 3 (79 page)

"Your Majesty." He did not precisely incline his head, but he had mastered the art of shifting his shoulders to show respect: as proud as a nobleman, he was not too proud to acknowledge her greater rank. "We had crossed St. Vitale's Pass and were riding south to Darre when we were accosted on the road by Lord John's soldiers and brought against our will to this encampment. We still wish to ride on to Darre. That is our only goal."

"Then why did Ironhead send you up here, if you are his prisoner? What of the other people in your party?"

"Alas. Lord John is an ambitious man, Your Majesty. I will tell you truthfully that he was suspicious of our reasons for traveling. He suggested that we must be agents of King Henry of Wendar. ,He believes that we have messages for the skopos from King Henry regarding the fate of Aosta. He was blunt, Your Majesty." He paused as Adelheid laughed. "He said that were
he
Henry, he would send a message to the skopos offering protection and gold if she were to support him as king of Aosta." "Is that the message that you and your company are bringing to Darre?" asked Adelheid sharply.

"Nay, Your Majesty. I have been accused of sorcery, and I am being sent before the skopos to be judged." How easily the words came out of his mouth, so easily that for an instant it was impossible to believe that he had been anything but falsely accused. "Lord John sent me to persuade you to surrender in return for letting my party go. That is all."

"Or in return for letting you go free, so that you can escape the skopos' judgment!"

The cloth blindfold did not conceal his beautiful mouth. He smiled now, not quite enough to reveal the chipped tooth. "I do not intend to persuade you to surrender, Your Majesty. I intend to reveal to you how you can make your escape. After that, I will convince Lord John to release me and my party so that we can continue on to Darre."

Adelheid laughed delightedly, and Rosvita realized that she was enjoying the match, like two swordsmen playing at an absurd battle. "What loyalty do you have for me and my followers?"

"I have no loyalty toward you, Your Majesty, although I hope you will not take offense from my plain speaking. I am a loyal subject of King Henry. If Lord John captures you, he will force you to marry him and use that claim to establish himself as king of Aosta. King Henry has ambitions in Aosta as well."

"Does he?" asked Adelheid coyly. "I am not altogether sure what it is that Henry wants in Aosta." She glanced at Theophanu but did not address her directly. Theophanu sat unknowable in her silence.

Hugh seemed caught by surprise. "King Henry sent a force south to find you, Your Majesty, but perhaps you did not meet them. That would account for this terrible situation you now find yourself in. Therefore I beg you, Your Majesty, let me act as King Henry's ambassador: he seeks to aid you, who are the rightful queen of Aosta. He will aid you with an army, if need be."

"Yet I have heard he seeks to marry me to his bastard son, Sanglant, whom h§, intends to become king beside me."

There it was: a change in his expression as startling as a peal of distant thundeivripping away the calm of a hazy summer day. Then it was gonej "Why give to the son what the father deserves?" / I

"Do you think Henry wishes to marry me?" asked Adelheid.

"He would be a fool to turn away from a woman of your rank and quality, Kiut^Iajesty."

Theophanu came alive as a painted figure might stir, cracking its shell of paint, to walk out into the room. "My father's wishes cannot be known to you! He hopes that Sanglant will marry Adelheid."

"Your Highness!" He was startled. He shifted, marking her place. "I did not know— This blinding cloth has disoriented me, or surely I would have been aware of your presence—

"And changed your tale?" demanded Theophanu. "But I am here, and I have listened. How do you intend to aid Ironhead in his plans?"

But he was more in control than she was. "No man can serve two masters. To aid Ironhead for my own gain would be to betray King Henry." He had the elegant speech of a courtier, graceful and pleasing, but for the first time Rosvita heard a different timbre ring underneath that elegant tone, one as unyielding as granite. "I have done things I am not now proud of, I have been made to see how shamefully petty ambition can ruin a man of promise. But I have never acted in any way against my regnant." He almost seemed to be daring Theophanu to suggest otherwise, but she did not reply.

"I wish to hear Lord Hugh's proposal," said Adelheid.

"Is the Mother of this convent here?" asked Hugh. "Her permission must be gained, for what I propose might not meet with her approval."

Theophanu's grunt was itself a comment. "I am here, Son," said Mother Obligatia. "Speak freely before me."

"There is a crown of stones atop this rock. It is possible to travel long distances quickly through gateways created by the architecture of these stone circles."

"To travel?" demanded Adelheid, then laughed as at a particularly fine joke. "You must explain yourself, Lord Hugh. I do not understand you."

"When we travel by ship, Your Majesty, we make landfall not at any cliff or coastline but at harbors suited to putting ashore. Think of the stone crowns as harbors, and the road traversed between each crown not as land or sea but as the aether, the element of the seven spheres, all that lies above the moon."

"How can this be possible?" cried Adelheid. "Isn't it blasphemy to suggest that we can travel the aether while we are living? Only the souls of the dead ascend through the seven spheres when they journey toward the Chamber of Light."

Hugh turned his head toward Mother Obligatia; despite his protestations about the blindfold, he could distinguish where each of the speakers sat. "Even the wall paintings in the guest chapel reveal the real purpose of the stone crowns. I cannot say if there are other paintings hidden away within this convent which reveal other secrets. But the painting I saw confirms that the ancient Aoi knew how to use the stone circles. Perhaps they even built them, for in the old stories they are portrayed as great magi."

"Can this be true, Mother?" asked Theophanu in a low voice. "Surely this is only the raving of a deluded mind. You don't believe him? Do you?"

Mother Obligatia was silent for a long time. Then she said only, "Go on, Lord Hugh."

He inclined his head to show respect and obedience. "Yesterday at dusk I observed strange lights emanating from the summit of the hill. I heard horrible screams. I even smelled a strange scent like that of lightning that has just struck, and I wondered. Can it be some creature resides there, guarding the crown? I have seen other crowns, but they are not so haunted, not any that I saw or heard tell of."

"Indeed, Son, you have guessed correctly. A daimone is trapped within the crown, by what agency I do not know."

"How long has it been trapped there?"

"Our records always speak of it dwelling there. St. Ekatarina founded this convent over four hundred years ago. So if it is possible to travel through the crowns, and I admit I am not sure I can believe such an incredible claim, then in any case ours is closed to such traffic because of the daimone which haunts it. It will kill anyone who comes too close."

He knelt with head bowed for a long time, and Rosvita watched those watching him. Adelheid leaned toward him as toward a tawny leopard that she wanted to stroke and yet remained unsure whether it might bite off her hand. Theophanu's gaze was fixed on Hugh as if he were a snake about to strike. Mother Obligatia merely watched him.

At last he .lifted his head and spoke. "What if I can bind that daimone, and free you from its shadow on this convent? Then Queen Adelheid, Princess/Theophanu, and their followers can escape through the crown/ and Ironhead can do nothing to stop them."

Adelheid sat back, face shining as if she had discovered that the leopard was vicious after all, and was pleased to have such a wild creature in her menagerie. "And you would come with us, leaving your party in Ironhead's hands?"

"Nay, I would remain behind. I will not abandon my escort. They are good men, and do not deserve such a fate."

"If you succeed at this plan, Ironhead will murder you for betraying him. You have met him. How can you believe otherwise?"

"I recognize the kind of man he is. My mother is the same. I know how to handle Lord John."

"Surely, Cousin, you would not put your life in this man's hands," said Theophanu with soft fury. "How can we agree to be aided by the very sorcery for which he was condemned by the church? He himself admits that he was sent to be judged by the skopos for his crimes! How can we trust him? He could as easily send us into the crown to be killed by this creature—!"

The soldiers and courtiers all began to talk at once, a disturbed buzz that Captain Fulk did nothing to silence. Adelheid's noble companions afflicted the queen with a flood of questions while Theophanu's stouter companions were quieter but no less agitated as they whispered to each other, pulling on sleeves and pointing and gesturing. Hugh did nothing but listen, and Rosvita was abruptly afraid to breathe, as if he could hear the distinct quality of her breathing and by that means identify her. Had he known Theophanu was there all along? Was he only playing with them? Yet the annoying suspicion plagued her that in speaking of his loyalty to King Henry, he was speaking truth.

The servants huddled in the darkness caught the fever, and soon the noise lifted until it echoed in the cavern.

Mother Obligatia rapped her walking stick three times on the floor, and there was a sudden numbing silence punctuated by two coughs and a sneeze. "That is enough," she said without raising her voice. "We have heard what Lord Hugh proposes. Captain Fulk, escort Lord Hugh back to the guest hall, where he will await our decision."

Captain Fulk gestured to the escort. Hugh rose gracefully, as acquiescent as a tamed fawn.

"I pray you, Mother, let his blindfold be taken off before he goes," said Adelheid. "I would like to see if he is as handsome as everyone says."

Mother Obligatia merely turned her walking stick in her hands.

"In the convent of St. Radegundis, we worshiped at mass on either side of a screen that ran down the center of the nave so that we could not look one upon the other, female upon male. For as St. Radegundis herself was recorded as saying, 'The Enemy knows many ways by which to tempt women and men away from their holy path.' I have held to that rule here, and I do not let my nuns look upon men once they make their oaths as novices. But I know that custom is different in Wendar, and that clerics of both sexes mingle freely in God's work."

"I am no nun in any case, and not desirous of becoming one," said Adelheid.

"Even if that were the only way to save yourself from becoming Ironhead's bride?"

The question slipped out with deceptive smoothness. Theophanu's eyes widened, and she looked abruptly thoughtful. But Adelheid flung her head back, laughing, as if passion and price were things to be rejoiced in and embraced, the soul of her existence. "I will be queen in my own right, or dead, Mother. You know I mean no disrespect to the church."

"So you-will," agreed Obligatia, and Rosvita could not interpret the emotion in her voice. "Very well. Let him be unmasked for a moment."

At Adelheid's order, a lamp was lit. As Captain Fulk untied the cloth, Rosvita scuttled backward to hide herself in the shadows behind Theophanu's chair, and as Theophanu's remaining ladies shifted forward to see better, she was further hidden by their skirts. She could not see, only hear, as Hugh spoke in a gracious and amiable tone.

"Your Majesty," he said. "Your Highness. Mother."

Rosvita imagined him punctuating the greetings with an elegant bow, suitable to the humble yet melodious tone.

"Handsome enough," said Adelheid while her companions whispered and giggled among themselves, "but one young pretty husband/was enough for me! He was always at the poor servant girls, arid I've always wondered if it was one of them who pushed hum down the stairs the night he died, Lady forgive him for his faults." /

"The, Lady and Lord kiiow our faults well," said Mother Obligatia, "and They are merciful. Captain, blindfold him and return him to thevgjjgst halL/then come back here."

It was done?~HTrgh was led away.

Rosvita slipped back to Theophanu's side. No one had time to comment on her odd behavior since Adelheid stood immediately to address abbess and princess.

"I say we chance it."

"We can't trust him!" cried Theophanu. "He'll drive us into the crown and let this terrible creature murder us all. Then Ironhead will be rid of us."

"Ironhead needs me! I am the last surviving member of the royal house of Aosta. Our kin has ruled here for fifty years. He can legitimately claim the throne only through me."