The Burning Stone

by Kate Elliott

  “What do you mean, with no attendants?”

  “He was in a foul temper, Your Majesty, after he went to the stables, and he was not inclined to answer our questions. And he took the … dogs … with him, and a spare mount.”

  “No one thought to ride after him?”

  “I pray you, Eagle,” said Alain, cutting in now that all others had fallen silent. “Do you know where I might find Prince Sanglant?”

  The Eagle looked at him strangely, but she inclined her head. “He rode out alone, my lord, in great haste, as if a madness convulsed him.” She seemed about to say more, then did not.

  “Two men rode after him, at a discreet distance,” replied the steward who had by now gone red in the face from the heat of the king’s anger.

  The king grunted. “The southern road,” he said furiously. “That is where you’ll find him. It takes no scouts to tell me that.” His gaze swept the forecourt, dismissing daughter and noble attendants until it came to rest on his favored Eagle. Her, he beckoned to. “Send a dozen riders to track him down. But discreetly, as you say. That would be best.”

  The Eagle retired graciously, but with haste, toward the stables. The cleric led the two dust-covered riders away as they questioned her about the accommodations that would be available—and Alain suddenly realized that they were not the king’s riders but one man and one woman, each wearing the badge of a hawk. Father Hugh had a pleasant smile on his face, and he swung back beside Princess Sapientia and spoke to her in a low voice as they rode away.

  Helmut Villam came out to stand beside the king, who lingered, slapping a dog leash trimmed with brass against his palm. Henry beckoned to Alain. “So, young Alain, you seek my son as well.”

  “So I do, Your Majesty. I saw him earlier this morning. He was agitated, and he spoke of some kind of curse, a trap laid by Bloodheart against any person who sought to kill him.”

  “Bloodheart! Yet he’s dead and safely gone.” But abruptly he looked hopeful. “Do you think Sanglant might have ridden north toward Gent?”

  Any man would have been tempted to coax the king into a better humor, but Alain saw no point in lying. “Nay, Your Majesty. I think he rode after the Eagle, as you said before.”

  Henry’s expression clouded.

  “You should have offered her as a concubine to him,” said Villam in the tone of a man who has seen the storm coming for hours and is disgusted because his companion refused to take shelter before the rains hit.

  “I did! But I don’t trust Wolfhere. She’s his discipla. I’m sure it’s a plot.”

  Villam grunted. “Perhaps. But Wolfhere seemed eager enough to remove her from court. On this matter I do not think that your wish and his are far apart.”

  “That may be,” admitted the king in a grudging tone. “What am I to do? If I make Sapientia margrave of Eastfall, then she’ll be out of the way, but if I cannot make Sanglant cooperate, see the wisdom of marrying onto the Aostan throne, then what do I do with him?”

  “Do not despair yet. I have said before and I say it again: Encourage him in his suit. No lord or lady will follow him if he does not …” He hesitated.

  “Speak your mind, Villam! If you do not, then who will?”

  Villam’s sigh had as much meaning as any hundred words. “He is half a dog. That everyone whispers it doesn’t make it less true. He must become a man again and, as the philosopher says, young people are at first likely to fall in love with one particular beautiful person and only later observe that the beauty exhibited in one body is one and the same as in any other.”

  Henry laughed. “How long did it take you to come to this conclusion, my good friend?”

  Villam chuckled. “I am not given up on my study yet. Let the young man make his. He will become more tractable after. Right now he is like to a dog who has sniffed a bitch in heat—he is all madness for her and can’t control himself.”

  Alain blushed furiously, and suddenly the king smiled, looking right at him. “Go on, son,” he said genially. “I saw Tallia enter the chapel earlier. That’s where you’ll find her.”

  Alain said the correct polite leave-takings, and retreated. The chapel doors yawned invitingly. Inside, he would find Tallia. But the thought of her only made him blush the harder.

  She reached the threshold before him, escorted by Lavastine, who smiled to see him coming. Tallia shrank away from Rage and Sorrow, and Alain took her aside, away from the hounds.

  “Will you ride out?” he asked, eager to make her happy.

  “Nay,” she said faintly. She looked unwell, quite tired and drawn.

  “Then we will sit quietly together.”

  “Alain.” Lavastine nodded toward the king. “I have already made known my intention to leave tomorrow. It is long past time we return to Lavas.”

  Tallia had the look of a cornered deer.

  “We’ll rest this evening,” said Alain. “You needn’t attend the feast if you’re unwell.”

  “Yes,” she murmured so quietly that he could barely hear her.

  He glanced at Lavastine, who gave a bare nod of approval and then went to instruct his servants about the packing. They retired to their chamber, where she prayed for such a long time that Alain, kneeling beside her bodily but not truly in spirit, had finally to stand up because his knees hurt. He ordered a platter of food brought in, but although it was now twilight and she had fasted all day, she ate only some gruel and two crusts of bread. He felt like a glutton beside her.

  “What is it like in Lavas?” she asked fearfully. “I’ll be at your mercy.”

  “Of course you won’t be at my mercy!” How could she think of him in such an unflattering light? “You are the daughter of Duke Berengar and Duchess Sabella. How can you imagine that I or anyone could take advantage of you when you are born into the royal kin?”

  “I am merely a Lion in the king’s chess game, a pawn, nothing more than that,” she said bitterly. “As are you, only you do not see it.”

  “We aren’t pawns! God have given us free will.”

  “That is not what I meant,” she said with such a sigh that he thought her in pain. “It is the world I wish to be free of. I want only to devote my life to our Holy Mother, who is God, and to pledge myself as a bridge to the blessed Daisan and in this way live a pure life of holy good deeds as did St. Radegundis.”

  “She married and bore a child,” he said with sudden anger, stung by her words.

  “She was pregnant when Emperor Taillefer died. No one knows what happened to the child. I asked Sister Rosvita, and she says the matter is not mentioned again in the Vita. If our Holy Mother had intended St. Radegundis for earthly glory and a wealth of children, She would have showered her with these riches, since it is easily within Her power to grant something so trivial. She had greater plans for Radegundis, who made of herself a holy vessel for this purpose.”

  “A child doesn’t just vanish!” retorted Alain, who could just imagine what his Aunt Bel—not his aunt any longer—would say to the notion of children and prosperity being trivial things in the eyes of the Lord and Lady, through Whose agency all that is bountiful arises.

  Tallia laughed, sounding for a moment so heartless that he wondered if he knew her at all. “What do you think would happen to a newborn child of a dead emperor whose last wife has no kin to protect her from the vultures who have flocked to feed on the corpse? I believe Our Lady was merciful, and that the child was born dead.”

  “That isn’t mercy!”

  But she only bowed her head and turned away from him to kneel again by the bed, hands clasped atop the beautifully embroidered bedspread, forehead resting on her hands as she murmured a prayer. He signed for the servants to leave.

  “Tallia—” he began, when they were alone.

  She raised her eyes to him reproachfully.

  “Tallia.” But her fawnlike eyes, the slender tower of her neck, the beat of her pulse at her throat—all this enflamed him. He had to pace to the window, leaning out to get any
least draft of cooling air on his face. He had only to be patient, to coax her.

  When at last he turned back, she had fallen asleep, slumped over the bed. She looked so frail that he couldn’t bring himself to disturb her but instead gently lifted her onto the bed. Her eyelids fluttered, but she did not wake. He wanted to lie beside her, to keep that contact between them, but it felt somehow obscene because she was so limp, so resistless—as if he had unnatural feelings toward a corpse. He shuddered and eased off the bed.

  Restless, he paced a while longer. He sent a servant to inquire after Prince Sanglant, but the prince had not returned to the palace, nor had those sent out to look for him.

  Much later he heard the six hounds, confined to Lavastine’s chamber, welcome the count with whines and whimpers as he came in from the night’s feasting. He kept listening, expecting to hear a seventh familiar voice, but it never came: Ardent was truly gone.

  2

  WITH two horses, changing off, he made good time, and the dogs never seemed to tire. There was only one road to follow until the village of Ferse, nestled in the heel of a portion of land protected by the confluence of two rivers. There he questioned the ferryman about two Eagles who had passed earlier in the day: They had continued south into the forest rather than splitting off on the east-west path. Several startled farmers walking home from their fields along the roadside confirmed that they had seen Eagles riding past.

  Neat strips of cultivated fields became scattered woods and pastureland, then forest swallowed everything but the cut of the road. Beneath the trees, summer’s evening light filtered into a haze of fading color. The wind blew in his favor: He heard them before he saw them, two riders and two spare horses.

  Wolfhere turned first to see who approached from behind. Sanglant heard the old Eagle swear under his breath, and he smiled with grim satisfaction. Then Liath turned to look over her shoulder. She reined in her horse at once, forcing Wolfhere to pull up as well.

  “We have farther to go this night if we mean to sleep in the way station that lies ahead,” warned Wolfhere.

  Liath did not reply, did not need to; Sanglant knew how a woman’s body spoke, how her expression betrayed her desire. She tried to master her expression, to give nothing away, but her entire face had lit and a grin kept tugging at her mouth. He knew then that he could succeed if only he behaved as a man, not a dog.

  Wolfhere minced no words. “This is madness. Liath, we must ride on.”

  “No. I will hear what Sanglant has to say.”

  “You know what I have to say.” Sanglant dismounted, staked down the dogs, then crossed to her and offered to take her reins as would a groom. She gave them to him, but did not dismount.

  “You are not thinking this through, Liath,” continued Wolfhere furiously. “You will lose the protection of the Eagles, which is all that saved you from Hugh first at Heart’s Rest and this very morning at the king’s court. All this to go to a man who has nothing, not land, not arms, no retinue, no control over his own destiny because he has no inheritance from his mother—”

  “Save my blood,” said Sanglant softly, and was happy to see Wolfhere glance angrily at him and then away.

  “—and you will live at his mercy. Without the protection of the Eagles or any other kin he is the only protection you will have against those like Hugh who seek to enslave you. And that protection will be offered to you only for as long as he desires you.”

  “Marriage is a holy sacrament,” observed Sanglant, “and not to be split asunder on a whim.”

  “Marriage?” exclaimed Wolfhere, and for the breath of an instant, Sanglant had the satisfaction of seeing him look panicked. But Wolfhere was too old and wily to remain so for long. He recovered as quickly as an experienced soldier who has lost his footing in the midst of battle: with an aggressive stab. “Mind you, Liath, King Henry’s displeasure is not a thing to be undertaken lightly. He will refuse to recognize the marriage. He has passed judgment: that you serve in his Eagles or return to Hugh. Will he rule differently if you return claiming marriage to his favored son? Or will he wish to be rid of you? And if so, where can you flee, neither of you with kin to support you? Your mother is waiting for you, Liath.”

  Sanglant recognized danger instantly. “Your mother?”

  “I’ve given up more than you know, Wolfhere,” retorted Liath. “If I go to my mother, then I must leave the Eagles in any case. Why would Henry not object then? Only because he would not know and thus could not return me to Hugh? Is my reunion with my mother to be based on deceit? Why should I trust you?”

  “Why should you trust Sanglant?” Wolfhere demanded.

  But she only laughed, and her laughter made his heart sing with joy, although the words that came next were bitter and angry. “Because he’s no more capable of lying than are those dogs. Even Da lied to me. You lied to me, Wolfhere, and I wonder if my mother lied as well. If she had made any kind of effort to find us, wouldn’t he still be alive?”

  A whiff of smoke rose on the breeze, some distant sparking fire that faded as Liath stared Wolfhere down, her expression as fierce as the king’s when he allowed himself to succumb to one of his famous wraths. But a kind of unearthly fire shone from her, something he could almost smell more than see, an uncanny, pure scent. Sanglant took hold of one of her wrists, and she, startled, glanced at him, then sighed. That scent burned in her, almost a living creature in its own right. Her skin seemed to steam with her anger.

  Made humble before it, Wolfhere said only: “She must teach you, Liath. You know by now that you desperately need teaching.”

  There was the danger. He saw the shadow of it flicker over her expression: she needed something he could not give her, and Wolfhere would use that need to sway her. But Sanglant had no intention of losing her again. “Wherever you need to go,” he said, “I will take you there.”

  “What if your father objects?” Liath asked. “What if he won’t give you horses, or arms, or an escort?”

  He laughed recklessly. “I don’t know. What does it matter what might happen—only what can, now, this night.”

  “Bred and trained for war,” muttered Wolfhere, “with no thought beyond the current battle.”

  She had a sharp flush on her cheeks and looked away from both of them, but he knew what she was thinking of. He found it hard not to think of it himself. He released her wrist abruptly. Suddenly his grasp on her seemed too much like Bloodheart’s iron collar, a means to force her to do what he wanted her to do rather than to let her make the choice. “It is true I have nothing to offer you by way of estates or income as part of the marriage agreement. It is true that my father will object. But he may also see reason when presented with a vow witnessed, legal, and binding. I am not the only man available to marry Princess Adelheid. Let my father object first, then we will see. We may both be set upon by bandits and killed before we can get back to Werlida to receive the king’s judgment! And I have other resources.”

  “Such as?” asked Wolfhere, not without sarcasm.

  “Where is my mother now, Wolfhere?” asked Liath, cutting him off.

  But he remained stubbornly silent.

  “You won’t tell me,” she said harshly.

  “I can’t speak freely now.”

  “Because of Sanglant?” She looked astounded.

  “We are not always alone,” said Wolfhere cryptically, and as if in answer an owl suddenly glided into view. It came to rest quite boldly on an outstretched branch that jutted out over the road a few paces beyond Wolfhere’s horse. Could it be the same owl that had led her to the burning stone? It was certainly as large. Its sudden arrival set the dogs to yammering until the creature noiselessly launched itself into the air and vanished into the darkening forest. The trees and undergrowth turned to blue-gray as the late summer evening faded toward night.

  When Wolfhere spoke again, it was with suppressed anger and a fierce intensity. “You must accept, Liath, that we are caught in greater currents than you understand—and
until you do understand more fully, I must be circumspect.”

  “Why does King Henry hate you?” she asked. He betrayed himself by glancing at Sanglant, and that caused her to look at him as well. “Do you know?” she asked, amazed.

  “Of course I know.” The old story had long since ceased to stir in him anything more than a faint amusement. “He tried to drown me when I was an infant.”

  “Is that true?” she demanded of Wolfhere.

  He merely nodded. He could no longer disguise his anger—the annoyance of a man whose quiet plans are rarely thwarted.

  “Alas that he didn’t succeed,” added Sanglant, now beginning to be truly amused at Wolfhere’s sullen silence. “Then I wouldn’t have had to suffer through so many of his later attempts to convince me that I was part of a terrible plot contrived by my mother and her kin. ‘Who knows what will happen when the crown of stars crowns the heavens?’ If only I had known, perhaps I might not have been abandoned by my mother, her unwanted child. At least my father cared for me.”

  “And will he care for you still, my lord prince,” asked Wolfhere in a harsh voice, “when you return with a bride not of his choosing?”

  Sanglant’s smile now was grim and sure, his voice steady. “I have other resources because I have made my reputation as a warrior. There are many princes in this world who would be happy to have me fight at their side, even at the risk of King Henry’s displeasure. I am no longer dragon—or pawn—to be used in your chess games, Wolfhere, nor in my father’s. I have left the board, and I will make my way with his blessing … or without it. So do I swear.”

  Wolfhere did not reply. Nor did Liath—or at least, not in words. Instead, she unpinned her Eagle’s cloak and rolled it up, then unclasped her Eagle’s badge and fastened it to the cloak.