The Burning Stone

  Tallia wept over the holy relic and kissed the petals of the jeweled rose. She gave the reliquary into the keeping of Hathumod, the young woman who had come with her from Quedlinhame. Lavastine gave Alain an approving nod, but her reaction troubled Alain. He had meant the jeweled rose to represent the Rose of Healing—the healing grace granted every soul by God’s mercy—but now he feared she saw it only as the symbol of her heretical belief, the rose that bloomed out of the blood of the blessed Daisan.

  But when she thanked him so earnestly and with her eyes so untroubled by any memory of their awkward night together, hope surged again in his heart—and not least an uncomfortable tingling elsewhere. He need only be patient.

  The crowd began to disperse. The king’s steward announced that Henry would hold audience in the great open yard after the service of Terce. Lavastine ducked inside his chamber, and quickly Alain followed him with Tallia drawn along behind as if she wanted only to stay beside him—or did not know where else to go.

  Ardent still lay on the bed, whimpering softly. Alain went over to soothe her. Under his hands, she quieted. Lavastine had drawn Tallia over to the window and was laboriously attempting to converse with her. Alain caught the eye of a steward.

  “Christof, an Eagle arrived at the palace last night, one called Liathano. Send for her to attend me.”

  The steward concealed his astonishment poorly. He was a jovial fellow, and too late Alain recalled that he was also a terrible gossip. “I know the one you speak of, my lord,” he replied obediently, but not without a glance at Count Lavastine. He went out.

  When he returned, he brought Liath with him. As soon as she crossed the threshold, the hounds began to whimper and growl, scrambling back to cluster around Lavastine like terrified pups. Ardent tried to shove her head under Alain’s thigh.

  “Peace!” said Lavastine sternly. They hunkered down nervously at his feet. “Alain?”

  “Your Highness,” said Liath, seeing Tallia. Although she was obviously surprised, she did not stumble over the formalities. “My lord count. Lord Alain, I have come as you requested.”

  “Alain?” repeated Lavastine. He stood with one hand on Terror’s head, but his intent gaze never left Liath. “What means this?”

  Alain could not rise because of Ardent, and in any case he was lord and she a mere Eagle, not a person he could meet publicly on an equal standing whatever private confidences they had once shared. For an instant he didn’t know how to answer because he saw Tallia’s expression: Was Tallia jealous? Or did he only hope she would be?

  “I am reminded of this Eagle’s service to us at Gent,” he said finally, and firmly, because everyone was watching him expectantly, “and I am minded to gift her with some token as a reward for her efforts there.”

  Lavastine took a step forward and stopped short as Terror nipped at him, took his master’s hand in that great jaw, and growled softly while trying to tug Lavastine back. The count shook his hand free impatiently. “Resolve,” he muttered under his breath, so softly that maybe only Alain heard him, and he continued to stare at Liath as a man stares at that woman with whom he discovers some deep kinship of blood, or spirit.

  “Resuelto,” he repeated, looking now at his servants.

  “The gray gelding?” they repeated, dumbfounded that a lord would blithely give away his second best warhorse to a common Eagle.

  “And the saddle and bridle from Asselda,” he added. “Rope. And saddlebags. And the good leather belt crafted by Master Hosel, the one inscribed with salamanders so that as the Holy Verses say, ‘if you walk through fire, the flame shall not consume you.’”

  “I would give her a token as well,” said Alain hastily to divert attention from the count, who seemed inclined to arm her as he would a relative. “A quiver of arrows and—” What he wanted to say to her, to ask, he could not communicate in front of such an audience. His gaze lit on one of his rings, a gold band set with a brilliantly blue stone. He pulled it off. “Let this ring of lapis lazuli protect you from evil,” he said, giving it to her. “Know that you can find refuge here if you need it.”

  “I thank you, my lord count. Lord Alain.” But her gaze was more eloquent. He read gratitude in her expression, and yet he saw that she was still frightened, apprehensive of some event she feared would come to pass. Was Lord Hugh still stalking her? He had no way of asking, and even as he paused, a steward came in from outside.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord count,” the man said to Lavastine. “An Eagle stands outside with an urgent summons for her comrade—from the king.”

  One look she gave to Alain, nothing more. Then she was gone. As she left the chamber, the hounds rose unsteadily and shook themselves.

  “My lord count, I have come as you requested.” The king’s stablemaster appeared at the threshold and Lavastine gave him permission to enter, although the man glanced nervously at the hounds. Still subdued, they growled softly and let him be.

  The stablemaster examined Ardent, stroked his beard and looked puzzled. Neither adders nor any poisonous snakes were commonly found in this district, he explained, but he sent men at once to beat the bushes around the complex and to warn the king.

  “Come, Son.” Lavastine gave Ardent a pat on the head and rose to collect gloves and spear. “We must attend the king.” Alain hesitated. “I will do what I can to help the girl,” added Lavastine softly.

  “Then I pray you, Father, let me stay with Ardent.”

  Lavastine glanced at Tallia, who still stood by the window, nodded curtly, and left.

  “She’s a strange-looking woman,” said Tallia. “I remember seeing her before, when we rode to Quedlinhame.”

  “She fought with us at Gent.”

  “Then she was given a handsome reward by you and your father. People will speak of your generosity, and you will be known as a Godly man.”

  So was he reproved however gently for that brief desire that envy would prick her until she bled and, bleeding from jealousy, fell into his arms. He would have to win her over in a nobler manner than this. Ardent burrowed her head more deeply into Alain’s lap and whimpered, and he stroked her ears and scratched her head, giving her such comfort as he could, knowing that his presence itself was comfort to her.

  “Poor suffering soul,” murmured Tallia. “I will pray to God for healing.” She knelt, bent her head, and lapsed at once into a melisma of prayer.

  Several young nobles stuck their heads inside the chamber to check on the progress of the hound. They all had their own dearly-loved hounds, and Alain could not help but be touched by their concern. But though they urged Alain to join them in their hunt for snakes, he would not. He could not bear to leave Ardent’s side all through that long, hazy morning as she struggled to breathe and by degrees her leg turned, seemingly, into stone.

  4

  SANGLANT woke stiff and sore somewhat after dawn. After twenty-nine days sleeping in the second finest bed on the king’s progress, his limbs had grown used to comfort. Now, rising from the ground, he ached everywhere, but he didn’t mind it. The pain of freedom is never as harsh as that of slavery.

  “My lord prince!” said one of the Lions in an urgent whisper.

  He heard them coming down the narrow footpath that led from the bluff’s height far above to the river’s shore below: the king and a small entourage.

  “Prince Sanglant.” The Lion had a shock of red hair and part of one ear missing, the lobe sliced cleanly off and healed into a white dimple. “If we may—your clothing—”

  Only now did he glance at himself to see in what disarray he stood; tunic skewed around his body and stained with dirt; sandals scuffed; leggings half unwound on his right calf; his belt lying like a sleeping snake, all curves and loops, on the ground by his feet. Two of the Lions ventured forward—he smelled their caution—and tidied him up so that by the time his father appeared, skirting an old fall of rocks that had half obliterated the last bend in the footpath, he looked presentable.

  Henry shaded h
is eyes against the rising sun. “Sanglant.” Sanglant knelt obediently. Henry’s hand, coming to rest on his hair, had uncomfortable weight. “You did not come in last night.”

  “I slept outside.”

  Henry removed his hand. Sanglant looked up in time to see the king gesture to the others and, together, entourage and Lions moved away until they waited out of earshot. “We must talk, Son, before I hold my morning’s audience. Walk with me.”

  Sanglant rose. Though he was half a head taller than the king, he never felt he dwarfed him; Henry used his power too well.

  “You are restless,” observed Henry as they strolled down along the river, away from his entourage, which consisted of the six Lions who had guarded Sanglant through the night, four servingmen, Margrave Villam, and Sister Rosvita. “You heard the news brought last night, that both regnants in Aosta are dead. There is a single heir, the Princess Adelheid.”

  Sanglant shrugged. He had not heard the news; once Liath had entered the hall, everything else had become a roar of meaningless chatter. She had a distinct way of walking, that of a person who has covered many leagues on her feet and found no weariness from walking as would a man or woman used to riding. The quiver rode easily on her back; she was used to its weight, and confident with it. Her braid had a distracting habit of swaying as she walked, drawing the eye down her back to the swell of her hips. She had looked at him over her shoulder. And then, when he had followed her outside, she had kissed him despite his confused confession that would have made another woman scorn him. Surely that kiss—however greatly it had disturbed him bodily—revealed the wish of her heart.

  “Sanglant! You are not listening.”

  It took him a moment to remember where he was. He bent, scooped up a long branch, and commenced snapping it in half, and the halves in half again. It was the only way he could keep his attention from wandering back to her.

  “You will lead an army to Aosta. There, you will place Lady Adelheid on the queen regnant’s throne, and you will marry her. Once that is accomplished, and with my power behind you, the Aostan princes will not contest your election as king regnant. You will reign beside Adelheid, as her equal. No one can doubt your worthiness for the Aostan throne, since it is as often claimed by force as by inheritance. That is what the Aostan princes prefer, to keep their regnants weak and dependent on their power as queenmakers. Once you have established yourself in Aosta, with a royal wife and a child to prove your fertility, then it is only a small step for me to name you as my heir here in Wendar and Varre as well. Who will contest us then, if the prize is the restoration of the Holy Dariyan Empire? The Empire lies within our grasp at last. With you on the Aostan throne, I can march south and have myself crowned as emperor and you as my successor and heir.”

  The branch lay in pieces at his feet. An osprey soared above, heading upriver. The river flowed steadily along behind him; he could almost hear each least grain of dirt being spun off from the shoreline and washed away downstream, caught up in an irresistible current that would drag it all the way to the sea. He was suddenly tired. Henry, like the river, was an unstoppable force.

  “Liath,” he whispered. It was the only word he knew how to say.

  Henry grunted in the way of a man prepared for the blow that strikes him. “As Villam warned me,” he muttered. “I swear that Wolfhere sent her to plague me and ruin you.”

  Henry regarded the river with a frown, and Sanglant watched him, caught up without meaning to be in that strong attraction that a regnant must necessarily wind around himself, like a cloak. A regnant is no regnant without it. Henry had a strong profile, most often stern, with the dignity appropriate to the responsibility God had given him. He had as much silver as brown in his hair now, and a neat beard laced with white. Sanglant touched his own—beardless—chin, but the movement brought Henry’s attention back to him.

  “Very well.” Henry could not conceal his annoyance, but he attempted to. “Take her as a concubine, if you must. You won’t be the first man—or woman—to keep a concubine. The Emperor Taillefer was known to keep concubines while between wives. But—”

  “I don’t want to marry Princess Adelheid. I intend to marry Liath.”

  Henry laughed as if Sanglant had made a jest. “A common-born woman?”

  “Her father’s kin have estates at Bodfeld.”

  “Bodfeld?” Henry had a capacious memory; he exercised it now. “The lady of Bodfeld sends only twenty milites when called to service. Such a family can scarcely expect a match with a man of your position, and it isn’t clear if the girl is of legitimate birth.”

  “All the better,” said Sanglant sarcastically, “for one such as me. Why do you refuse to understand? I don’t want to be king with princes all biting at my heels and waiting for me to go down so they can rip out my throat. I endured that for a year. I want a grant of land, Liath as my wife, and peace.”

  “Peace! What man or woman of royal blood can expect peace with the Eika plaguing our northern shores and Quman raids in the east? Since when have the princes of the realm allowed us to luxuriate in peace? Even the lowliest lady with her small estate and dozen servants must contend against bandits and the depredations of her ambitious neighbors. If we live our lives according to the teaching of the blessed Daisan, then we can expect peace when our souls ascend to the Chamber of Light. Not before.”

  Henry paced to the river’s edge, where water swirled over a nest of rocks the size of eggs. Picking one up, he flung it with some impatience into the center of the current. It vanished into the slate-gray waters with a plop. He heaved a sigh; from this angle Sanglant could not see his face, only the tense set of his shoulders. He wore this morning a linen tunic of intense blue, its neck and sleeves and hem embroidered with gold lions curling around eight-pointed purple starbursts, the sigil in needlework of his wedding to quiet, cunning, luxury-loving Sophia, dead these three years.

  “You have not yet recovered from your captivity,” the king said finally, addressing the streaming waters. “When you do, you will regret these rash words and see the wisdom of my plan. Sapientia is brave and willing, but she was not gifted by God with the mantle of queenship. Theophanu—perhaps—if she lives—” Here he faltered, one hand clenching. “She has a cool nature, not one to inspire soldiers to follow her into the thick of battle. And Ekkehard—” The shake of his shoulders was dismissive. “Too young, untried, and foolish. He belongs in the church so that he can sing praises to God with that beautiful voice. That leaves you.” Now he turned. “You wear the mantle, Sanglant. You have always worn it. They follow you into battle. They trust and admire you. You must be king after me.”

  “I don’t want to be king. Or heir. Or emperor. Is there some other way to state it so you understand?”

  The red tinge to Henry’s cheeks betrayed that one of his famous rages was descending, but Sanglant surveyed the king dispassionately. Rage never frightened him in others, only in himself. Ai, Lady, but the revelation hit hard enough: Henry could do nothing to harm him, nothing worse than what Bloodheart had already done. By making Sanglant his prisoner, Bloodheart had freed him from the chains that bound him to his father’s will.

  “You will do as I tell you!”

  “No.”

  Now, at last, Henry looked surprised—so surprised, indeed, that for an instant he forgot to be furious. For an instant. A moment later the mask of stone crashed down, freezing his face, and the father intent on his son’s rising fortune vanished to be replaced by the visage of the king whose subjects have unexpectedly cried rebellion. “If I disinherit you, you will have nothing, not even the sword you wear. Not even a horse to ride. Not even the clothes on your back.”

  “Did I have any of those things before? The only thing a man can truly claim as his own is the inheritance he receives from his mother.”

  “She abandoned you.” Henry touched his own chest at the heart. Sanglant knew what lay there, tucked away between tunic and breast: a yellowing scrap of bloodied cloth, the only e
arthly remains of his mother, who had left him, and Henry, and human lands long ago. “She abandoned you with nothing.”

  “Except her curse upon me,” hissed Sanglant.

  “She was not meant to live upon this earth,” said Henry, voice ragged with old grief.

  They looked at each other, then: the two who had been left behind. Sanglant sank down abruptly to his knees before his father, and Henry came forward to rest a hand—that careless, most affectionate gesture—on his son’s black hair.

  “Ai, Lady,” Sanglant whispered, “I’m tired of fighting. I just want to rest.”

  Henry said nothing for a while, but his hand stroked Sanglant’s hair gently. Wind made ripples in the water, tiny scalloped waves that shivered in the sunlight and vanished. Henry’s entourage stood out of human earshot, but in the eddy of silence that lapped around the king’s affection and forgiveness, Sanglant could hear them speaking to each other as they watched the scene.

  “I still think it unwise.” That was Sister Rosvita.

  “Perhaps.” That was Villam. “But I think it wise to strike for Aosta when they are weakest, and there is no question but that the prince can lead such a campaign. What comes of it in the end once Aosta is in our hands and Henry crowned emperor … well, we cannot see into the future, so we must struggle forward blindly. We must not undercut the support the other princes and nobles will give Sanglant while they do not yet know Henry’s full intentions.”

  “Did you hear about the adder?” This voice belonged to one of Henry’s stewards who stood somewhat away from Villam and Rosvita; Sanglant recognized the voice but not the name.