Crown Of Stars - Child Of Flame Part 6

"I'll take one with thanks. If you'll give me your name, I'll see that it's brought to the king's attention."

The sergeant chuckled while his men looked at each other in disbelief." You're as sure of yourself as the rooster that crows at dawn, eh? Well, then, when you take supper with the king, tell him that Sergeant Cobbo of Longbrook did you a favor." He slapped his thigh, amused at his joke." Go on, then. Matto, be sure you escort them all the way to Captain Fulk, and give him over to none other. The captain will know what to do with them if they've lied to us."

Matto was a talkative soul. Sanglant found it easy to draw him out. They rode on through the orchard and pa.s.sed into another tangle of forest, where Jerna took advantage of the dappled light to drop down from the trees and coil around Blessing's swaddling bands. He could sense her cool touch on his neck and even see the pale s.h.i.+mmer of her movement out of the corner of his eye, but Matto, like most of humankind, seemed oblivious to her. He chattered on as Sanglant fed him questions. His mother was a steward at a royal estate. His father had died in the wars many years ago, and his mother had married another man. Matto seemed young because he was young. He and his stepfather hadn't gotten along, and he'd left for the king's service as soon as he turned fifteen.

"I've been with the king's court for fully six months now," he confided." They put me to work as a stable hand at first, but even Sergeant Cobbo says I've got a knack for weapons, so I was promoted to sentry duty three months ago." He glanced back toward Sanglant's mother, perhaps hoping she'd be impressed by his quick rise, but nothing about humankind interested her, as Sanglant had discovered.

"You've got a hankering to see battle, haven't you, lad?" Sanglant felt immeasurably ancient riding alongside this enthusiastic youth, although in truth he wasn't even old enough to be the lad's father.

Matto sized him up." You've seen battle, haven't you?" "So I have."

"I guess you were part of the group that went south to Aosta with Princess Theophanu. It was a miracle that Captain Fulk kept as much of his company together as he did, wasn't it? What a disaster!"

"Truly." Sanglant changed the subject before Matto discovered that he hadn't the least idea what disaster had befallen Theo-phanu's expedition in Aosta." Why so wide a sentry net?"

Matto puffed up considerably, proud to know something his companion did not." The court attracts pet.i.tioners, and pet.i.tioners attract bandits."

"Aren't these Duke Conrad's lands? I'd have thought he'd have put a stop to banditry."

"So he might, if he were here. He hasn't even come to the king's feast and celebration! The Eagle sent to his fortress at Bederbor said he wasn't in residence. No one knows where he's gone!"

What was Conrad up to? No doubt the duke was capable of almost anything. But he could hardly ask this lad that kind of question. They came to a stream and slowed for their mounts to pick their way across. Where a beech tree swept low over pooling water, he let Resuelto drink while he waited for his mother. Although she had the pony for a mount, she refused to ride. Still, she caught up quickly enough; she was the strongest walker he'd ever met. The goat balked at the water's edge, and his mother dragged it across the rocky shallows impatiently. She had formidable arms, tightly muscled. With the sleeves of Liath's tunic rolled up, the tattooed red snake that ran from the back of her hands up her arms seemed to stretch and shudder as she hauled the goat up the far bank. Matto stared at her. Sanglant couldn't tell if the boy had been afflicted with the infatuation that strikes youth as suddenly as lightning, or if he had suddenly realized how truly strange she was.

"What's your name?" Matto blurted suddenly.

She looked up at him, and he blanched and stammered an apology, although it wasn't clear what he was apologizing for. Her reply was cool and clear." You will call me 'Alia.'"

Sanglant laughed curtly before reining Resuelto around and starting down the road again. 'Alia' meant 'other' in Dariyan.

Alia walked up beside him. The goat had decided to cooperate and now followed meekly behind the pony, with Matto bringing up the rear." Why are you not telling those soldiers who you are," she asked in a low voice, her accent heavy and her words a little halting, "and demanding a full escort and the honor you deserve?"

"Since they don't know me, they would never believe I am a prince of the realm. In truth, without a retinue, I'm not really a n.o.bleman at all, am I? Just a landless and kinless wanderer, come to pet.i.tion the king." He hadn't realized how bitter he was, nor did he know who he was angriest at: fate, his father, or the woman walking beside him who had abandoned him years ago. Blessing stirred on his back and cooed, babbling meaningless syllables, attuned to his tone." Hush, sweetheart," he murmured. Resuelto snorted.

"Look!" cried Matto. The road was wide enough that he trotted past them easily. He had a hand at his belt, where hung a knife, a leather pouch, and a small polished ram's horn.

Up ahead where the ground dipped into a shrubby hollow, the stream looped back and crossed the road again. In the middle of the ford stood a hag, bent over a staff. Strips of shredded cloth concealed her head and shoulders. The ragged ends of her threadbare robe floated in the current, wrapping around her calves.

"A coin or crust of bread for an old woman whose husband and son fight in the east with Her Royal Highness Princess Sapientia?" she croaked.

Matto had already begun to dismount, fumbling at the pouch he wore at his belt. Perhaps he was a kindhearted lad, or perhaps he was only eager to impress Alia.

But despite its high-pitched tone, the hag's voice was certainly not that of a woman. This was one thing in which Sanglant considered himself an expert. He reined in. A moment later, from the dense thicket that grew up from the opposite bank, he heard rustling.

The arrow hit Sanglant in the shoulder, rocking him-back. The point embedded in his chain mail just as a second arrow followed the first from a shadowed thicket. He jerked sideways as Jerna uncoiled and with her aery being blew the arrow off course. It fluttered harmlessly into the branches of a tree.

Alia already had her bow free and an arrow notched. She hissed, then shot, and there came a yelp of pain from the thicket.

The hag hooked Matto's leg and dumped the youth backward into the water. The quick motion revealed the burly shoulders of a man hidden beneath the rags. With a loud cry, the robber brought the staff down on Matto's unprotected head and pummeled him. The boy could only cower with arms raised to fend off blows.

More arrows flew. Jerna became wind, and two arrows stopped dead in midair before Resuelto's neck even as Sanglant spurred the gelding forward. The horse went eagerly into battle. He knew what to expect and, like his master, had been trained for this life. Leaping the brook, Sanglant struck to his left, severing the hand of the first bandit before the man could let another blow fall on Matto. Alia's second arrow took the "hag" in the back as he turned to run.

Men screamed the alert from their hiding place, but Sanglant had already plunged forward into the thicket, cras.h.i.+ng through the foliage into a clear hollow where a knot of men, armed variously with staves, knives, an ax, and a single bow, stood ready. Easily his sword cleaved through branch, haft, and flesh. The bowman drew for a final shot as Sanglant closed on him.

Jerna leaped forward as on a gust. The arrow rocked sideways just as the bowman let it fly. The bow, too, spun from the bandit's grasp, and he grabbed for it frantically, caught the arrow point on his foot, and stumbled backward into a thick growth of sedge and fern.

Was that a voice, thin and weak, crying for mercy? Surely it was only the whine of a gnat. Sanglant brought his sword down, and the man fell, his skull split like a melon.

From the road he heard another shriek of pain, followed by a frantic rustling, growing ever more distant, that told of one nay, two survivors who would be running for some time.

A horn blatted weakly, nearby, and after a pause sounded again with more strength.

Blessing whimpered. Her voice brought him cras.h.i.+ng back to himself. Amazed, he stared at the corpses: six men as ragged as paupers and as poorly armed as common laborers in want of a hire. He hadn't realized there were so many. He hadn't thought at all, just killed. One man still thrashed and moaned, but his wound was deep, having been cut through shoulder and lung, and blood bubbled up on his lips. After dismounting, Sanglant mercifully cut his throat.

Matto hobbled through the gap in the thicket made by Resuelto's pa.s.sage and staggered to a stop, staring." By our Lord!" he swore. The horn dangled from its strap around one wrist.

"Your arm is broken," said Sanglant. He left the corpses and led Resuelto out to the road. The pony stood with legs splayed to resist the tugging of the tethered goat, who was trying to get to water. Alia had vanished. He heard her whistling tunelessly and saw the flash of her movement on the other side of the road, where another group of the bandits had been hiding behind a s.h.i.+eld of slender beech trees. Her shadowed figure bent over a sprawled body. She o tugged and with a grunt hopped backward with arrow in hand. To her left, another archer had been hiding right up against the trunk of a tree. His body was actually pinned to the tree by an arrow embedded in his throat. Blood had spilled down the trunk. That was the uncanniest sight of all: The obsidian point of the arrow was sticking out from the back of the man's neck, while the fletchings were embedded in the tree itself, as if a hole had opened in the tree to allow the arrow to pa.s.s through and then closed back up around the shaft at the instant the point found its mark.

Matto stumbled back to the path, still cradling his broken arm in his other hand. He was trying valiantly not to sob out loud." Let me see that," said Sanglant.

The youth came as trusting as a lamb. He sat down where Sanglant indicated, braced against a log, while the prince undid the boy's belt and gathered the other things he'd need: moss, a pair of stout sticks. He crouched beside the boy and finge, id around the red lump swelling halfway along the forearm while Matto hissed hard through his teeth and tears started up in his eyes. It seemed to be a clean fracture, nothing shattered or snapped. The arm lay straight, and no bone had broken through the skin.

"No shame in crying, lad. You'll get worse if you stay with Henry's army."

"I want to stay with you, if you'll let me serve you," whispered the lad with that awful glow of admiration in his eyes, augmented by the glistening tears." I want to learn to fight the way you do." Perhaps he tightened his hand too hard on the injured arm. Matto cried out, reeling. Alia appeared suddenly and gripped the lad's shoulders to keep him still as Sanglant cradled the lump with moss and used the belt to bind the sticks along the forearm and hand. When he finished, he got the boy to drink, then rose and walked to the middle of the road where he threw back his head, listening. The bandits were all dead, or fled. A jay shrieked. The first carrion crow settled on a branch a stone's throw away. In the distance, he heard the ring of harness as hors.e.m.e.n approached.

Alia came up beside him." Who's that coming? Do we leave the boy?"

"Nay, it'll be his company, the ones we just pa.s.sed. The horn alerted them. We'll wait." He undid the sling that bound his daughter to his back, and swung her around to hold to his chest, careful that her cheeks took no harm from the mail. Jerna played in the breeze above the baby's head, carefree now that danger was past. Blessing babbled sweetly, smiling as soon as she saw her father's face.

"Da da," she said." Da da."

Ai, G.o.d, she was growing so swiftly. No more than five months of age, she looked as big as a yearling and just yesterday at the fireside she had taken a few tottering steps on her own.

"How did that arrow go through the tree?" he asked casually as he smiled into his daughter's blue-fire eyes.

His mother shrugged." Trees are not solid, Son. Nothing is. We are all lattices made up of the elements of air and fire and wind and water as well as earth. I blew a spell down the wind with the arrow, to part the lattices within the tree, so that the arrow might strike where least expected."

She walked over to the tree and leaned against it. She seemed to whisper to it, as to a lover. His vision got a little hazy then, like looking through water. With a jerk, Alia pulled the arrow free of the wood. The body sagged to the ground. Blood gushed and pooled on fern. The crow cawed jubilantly, and two more flapped down beside it on the branch.

Sergeant Cobbo arrived with his men. They exclaimed over the carnage and congratulated Sanglant heartily as Matto stammered out an incoherent account of the skirmish.

"I can see Captain Fulk was sorry to have left you behind," said the sergeant with a great deal more respect than he'd shown before.

But Sanglant could only regard the dead men with distaste and pity. In truth, he despised berserkers, the ones who let the beast of blood-fury consume them in battle. He prided himself on his calm and steadiness. He had always kept his wits about him, instead of throwing them to the winds. It was one of the reasons his soldiers respected, admired, and followed him: Even in the worst situations, and there had been many, he had never lost control of himself in battle.

But Bloodheart and Gent had left their mark on him. He thought he had freed himself of Bloodheart's chains, but the ghost of them lingered, a second self that had settled down inside him and twisted into another form. He was so angry sometimes that he felt the beast gnawing down there, but whether it was anger that woke and troubled the beast, or the beast that fed his anger, he didn't know. Fate had betrayed him: his own mother had used and discarded him, his father had cherished him but only as long as it served his purpose. He had sworn enemies he'd never heard tell of, who hated him because of his blood and who would have watched his beloved daughter starve to death without lifting a finger to help. Liath had been torn from him, and despite Alia's explanation that the creatures who had kidnapped her had been daimones, fire elementals, he didn't actually know what had happened to her or whether she was alive or dead.

Still cradling Blessing, he watched as Sergeant Cobbo's men stripped the bandits of their belongings and clothes, such as they were, and dug a shallow grave. They came to the bowman finally, and he heard their exclamations over the power of the blow that had smashed the dead man's head in. They glanced his way at intervals with a kind of sunstruck awe, although thank the Lord they had not been stricken with the babbling reverence with which Matto now regarded him.

They hadn't heard the bowman begging for mercy as he had scrambled away. He hadn't heard it either, not really. He hadn't been listening because he'd simply been furious enough to kill anything that stood in his path or threatened Blessing. It was only afterward that he realized what he'd heard. And now it was too late.

Maybe the pity he felt wasn't truly for these poor, dead wretches. They would have killed him, after all. The Lord and Lady alone knew what they would have done to Blessing, had she fallen into their hands. Maybe the pity he felt was for that weak, unheeded voice in his own soul, the one that, before, might have listened and might have heard. The one that might have stayed his hand and let mercy, not rage, rule him.

With a grunt of displeasure, he acknowledged the men's fawning comments as they came back to the road. Alia was ready to leave. The sergeant helped Matto onto his mare while Sanglant kissed Blessing and settled her on his back again.

"I think that'll have taken care of the bandits," said Sergeant Cobbo with a smirk. He had taken the severed hand of the ringleader, the one who'd dressed as a hag, to bring as proof of the victory." Don't you want anything? You have first choice of the booty."

"No.". Perhaps it was his expression, or his tone, but in any case although they all fell in as escort around him, not one, not even Matto, addressed a single question to him as they rode on. The silence suited him very well.

The next line of sentries lay within sight of Angenheim Palace. Sergeant Cobbo did all the talking and got them through the sentry ring quickly enough. Two of the soldiers on this sentry duty recognized him: He could tell by their startled expressions, like men who've seen a bear walk in dressed in a man's clothing. But their company rode on before either soldier could say anything.

So many pet.i.tioners had come in the hope of being brought before the king or one of his stewards that the fields around Angenheim swarmed with them. The fetid odor of sweat, excrement, and rotting food hung heavily over the fields. Common folk hurriedly got out of the way as Cobbo pressed his detachment through the crowd of onlookers.

Like most of the royal palaces, Angenheim had fortifications, although it wasn't as well situated as the palace at Werlida had been, placed as it was on a bluff above a river's bend. Angenheim boasted earthen ramparts and a double ring of wooden palisades surrounding the low hill on which the palace complex lay.

The court spilled out beyond the fortifications and into the fields where the pet.i.tioners had set up tents and shelters. Pasture had been ground into dirt and mud. Fires burned. Peddlers called out their wares; beggars coughed as they held out their begging bowls. Pit houses, dug out in a previous generation, had been cleaned out and inhabited by various wagoners and other servants who needed a place to stay while the king remained in residence. A small monastic estate lay beyond the fortified palace, but it, too, seemed to have been swamped by the influx of visitors. Sanglant had a moment to pity the brothers who were no doubt overwhelmed by the burden of providing hospitality to the king and his ma.s.sive court. Then the party came to the final gate.

As luck would have it, Captain Fulk himself had been given gate duty this late afternoon. He stepped forward and called Cobbo to a halt, exchanged a few jocular complaints with him, and, in mid-sentence, saw Sanglant.

His face paled. He dropped to his knees, as though felled. In the wake of that movement, the five soldiers with him knelt as well. All of them were men who had pledged loyalty to Sanglant on that fateful night fourteen months ago when he and Liath had fled the king's progress.

"You've returned to us, Your Highness." Fulk began to weep with joy.

Sanglant dismounted and indicated that the soldiers should stand." I have not forgotten your loyalty to me, Captain Fulk." He could remember as clearly as yesterday the name and home village of each of the men kneeling before him, which they had confided to him on that dark night: Anshelm, Everwin, Wracwulf, Sibold, and Malbert. He offered Resuelto's reins to Fulk." I would ask you now to see to my horse. The lad there needs tending by a healer."

"Of course, Your Highness!" They leaped up eagerly while Sergeant Cobbo and his men gaped, and Matto looked ready to fall off his horse either from pain or exhilaration. Cobbo asked a question of someone in the gathering crowd, and a servingwoman said scornfully, "Don't you know who that is, Cobbo? For shame!"

"Where is my father?" Sanglant asked his captain, ignoring the spate of talk his arrival had unleashed.

"Why, at the wedding feast, of course, Your Highness. Let me take you there, I beg you." Fulk gave the reins to Sibold and only then saw Alia and, a moment later, the baby strapped to Sanglant's back.

"I thank you." Sanglant was suddenly apprehensive, but he had to go on." I wish to see him right away."

It took a moment for Fulk to shake free of amazement and curiosity. With a self-conscious cough and a good soldier's obedience, he led Sanglant to the great hall which lay in the center of the palace complex. A steady stream of servants laden with trays of meat and flagons of wine hurried in and out of the hall, pa.s.sing through the throng of hangers-on and hopeful entertainers and pet.i.tioners who crowded around the doors.

They parted like soft b.u.t.ter under a knife at the sight of Fulk, Sanglant, and Alia. For some reason, Alia was still leading the pony and goat. If she was as nervous as Sanglant had suddenly be come, she betrayed nothing of it in her expression or posture. If anything, she looked remarkably grim. Her cold expression emphasized the inhumanity of her features.

He strode in through the doors into the shadow of the hall, hot with feasting and overflowing with a lively and boisterous crowd. The hall stank of humanity. He had spent more of his life on campaign than in court, out in the open air, and he had forgotten what five hundred bodies pressed together and all eating and farting and belching and p.i.s.sing smelled like.

Angenheim's hall had the breadth and height of a cathedral. Unshuttered windows set into the upper walls at the far end allowed light to spill over the king's table, where Henry, laughing at the antics of a trio of jugglers, shared a cup of wine with a pretty young woman who looked a few years younger than Sanglant. She wore a crown. A banner hung on the wall beside that of Wendar: the sun of Aosta." Whose wedding feast?" he demanded of Fulk, but he could not be heard above the noise of the feasting.

He strode forward through the ranks of trestle tables with Fulk at his back. Whippets slunk away from him. Servants leaped aside, and then cried out, seeing Alia behind him. Ladies and lords, seated at table, were struck dumb at his pa.s.sage, or perhaps Alia had cast a spell on them that stole their voices. What couldn't she do, who could cause an arrow to pierce the wood of a tree? Silence spread in their wake.

An open s.p.a.ce had been cleared in front of the king's table to give the entertainers room to perform their tricks as well as a s.p.a.ce where those pet.i.tioners lucky enough to have gotten this far could kneel while they waited for the king's notice. The pet.i.tioners crouching along the edge of that empty s.p.a.ce did not notice him because they were so intent on the king. Sanglant got a good look at the king for the first time, his view blocked only by the antics of the jugglers. Henry looked remarkably hearty, even a little flushed, as the young n.o.blewoman laughed while gold and silver b.a.l.l.s flashed in the air between the three jugglers. Sanglant used his boots to discreetly nudge a raggedly-dressed man out of his way. The man glanced up, startled, and scuttled to one side, causing a cascade as all the pet.i.tioners scrambled for new places. Princess Theophanu, seated at the king's right hand, noticed the movement and tracked it back to its source. Her expression did not change, although it may have whitened a little, and her hands tightened on the cup she was in the act of lifting to her lips. The cleric standing behind her chair staggered backward, as if he had been kicked in the back of the knees.

A path opened through the throng, blocked only by the jugglers, who remained intent on the b.a.l.l.s tossed between them. Sanglant ducked under the flying path of one s.h.i.+ny ball, caught another in his right hand, and was through their net just as Fulk swore under his breath. A ball hit the captain on the shoulder, fell, and shattered on a circle of ground swept clean of rushes that the jugglers had marked out for their tricks. The pony, hauled in this far and perhaps lulled by the stink and the carpet of rushes and tansy laid down on the floor into thinking it had come into a stable, chose this moment to urinate, loud and long.

Henry rose with easy grace. At that moment, as Henry looked him over, Sanglant realized that his father had noticed him as soon as he had entered the hall. As might a captain laying a counter ambush against bandits hiding in the forest, the king had simply chosen to pretend otherwise.

"Prince Sanglant," he said with a cool formality that tore at Sanglant's heart." You have not yet met my wife, Queen Adel-heid."

Obviously, Henry was still furious at his disobedient son, since this was the very woman whom his father had so desperately wanted him to marry. She was pretty, certainly, but more importantly she had that energy about her that is common to women who find pleasure in the bed. No doubt that, together with the Aostan crown she wore, accounted for the becoming blush in his father's cheeks and the smile that hovered on his lips as he regarded his disgraced son, come limping back scarcely better than a beggar.

Who was laying an ambush for whom?

Adelheid had the audacity, and the rank, to look him over as she would a stallion." Handsome enough," she said clearly, as if he had caught them in the middle of a conversation, "but I have no reason to regret my choice. You've proved your fitness as regnant many times over, Henry."

Henry laughed. Made bold by the king's reaction, some among the audience felt free to chuckle nervously or snicker in response, by which time certain men had made their way through the crowd to throw themselves at Sanglant's feet.

"Your Highness!"

"Prince Sanglant!"

He recognized Fulk's men, who had evidently been serving at table or standing guard throughout the hall. Heribert arrived, pressing through the knot of pet.i.tioners who were crowded closest to the king's table, and knelt before him, grasping Sanglant's hand and kissing it.

"Sanglant!" he said triumphantly, as out of breath as if he'd been running." My lord prince! I feared-"

"Nay, friend," said Sanglant, "never fear. I pray you, rise and stand beside me."

"So I will," said the young cleric, though he wobbled a little as he got to his feet.

"Who are these, who have come forward?" asked Henry." Does Brother Heribert not serve Theophanu?"

Theophanu still clutched her cup. Old Helmut Villam, seated beside her, leaned to whisper to her, but she was obviously not listening to him. She merely nodded, once, curtly, to Sanglant, before setting down the wine cup.

"This is my retinue, Your Majesty," said Sanglant at last." These are men who have pledged loyalty to me."

"Don't I feed them?" asked Henry sweetly." I didn't know you had the lands and wherewithal to maintain a retinue, Son. Certainly you scorned those that I meant to honor you with. I don't even see a gold torque at your throat to mark you as my son."

But Sanglant had his own weapons, and he knew how to counterattack. He stepped aside to reveal his mother.

She stood in a spray of light cast from the high windows. The light made bronze of her hair, burnished and finely-woven into a tight braid as thick as her wrist. She had rolled down the sleeves of Liath's tunic and belted it in the usual manner around her hips, although even with a length of material caught up under the belt the embroidered hem still lapped her ankles. Yet despite the unexceptionable appearance of the clothing, she blazed with strangeness, as alien as a sleek leopard glimpsed running with thundering aurochs.

She said nothing. She didn't have to.

"Alia!" Henry paled noticeably, but he had been king for too many years not to know when to retreat. The mask of stone crashed down over his expression, freezing the merriment in the hall as thoroughly as any magic could have. The goat baaed, followed by complete silence. No one seemed to notice the flutter of wind moving through the robes and cloaks of the seated n.o.bles as Jerna explored the hall.

Finally, Alia spoke." I come back, Henri," she said, p.r.o.nouncing his name in the Salian way, "but I am not believing that you cared for the child as you promised to me you would."

TWISTING THE.

THE seeds of conflict bloomed at such odd times that it was often easy to forget that they had been sown long before, not risen spontaneously out of fallow ground. Rosvita of North Mark had been a cleric and adviser at court for twenty years. She knew when to step back and let matters take their course, and when to intervene before a crisis got out of hand.

Although King Henry now stood, the rest of the a.s.sembly still sat in astonished, or antic.i.p.atory, silence, staring at the confrontation unfolding before them. Even wily old Helmut Villam, seated to her left at the king's table, seemed stunned into immobility, mouth parted and fingers tightly gripping the stem of the wine cup he shared with Princess Theophanu, which the princess had just set down.

Rosvita gestured to Brother Fortunatus to pull back her chair so that she, too, could rise. He hurried forward at once. Although like everyone else in the hall he could scarcely keep his gaze from the father, mother, and child whose battle was about to play out on this public stage, he had also been trained by Rosvita herself. There were many traits she could tolerate in the clerics who served her, but to be un.o.bservant was not one of them.