Crown of Stars

by Kate Elliott

  “Ivar, son of Count Harl of the North Mark and Countess Herlinda.”

  “Yes. Lord Berthold, you travel with a strange and puzzling retinue. A banished Eagle, a Quman barbarian, this … female person, whose origins I cannot account for, a cleric, and Lord Ivar who was last known to be dead. I am wondering how so many people who might long have been thought to be dead are walking on Earth like so many spirits roaming restlessly abroad at the Hallowing Tide.”

  “We are not dead, my lord,” said Wolfhere. “I have news of your daughter, Lady Elene.”

  Like a hound catching a scent, Conrad went rigid. He dismounted, cast his reins to a groom, and trod right up to the Eagle until his height and breadth and stature overwhelmed the old man. The Eagle did not back down.

  “She is dead,” said Conrad. “So my mother promised me. Damn her.”

  “She is dead,” agreed Wolfhere in a calm voice. He stood in the most relaxed posture imaginable, although Conrad loomed over him. “But not through your mother’s agency. Duchess Meriam sheltered her from the backlash of the great weaving, and sent her home in my company. You may ask Lord Berthold, who will vouch that Elene came safely as far as Novomo, in Aosta. There, it is true, I failed her. It was Hugh of Austra who murdered her, when she was sleeping and helpless, and for no better reason than that he wanted no apprentice of Meriam’s to challenge his knowledge of the magical arts.”

  Conrad was silent and still for so long that Ivar began to think he had gone into a trance, lost to the world, as grieving folk sometimes did. One of the dogs whined, tail arching down and ears flat as it caught its master’s mood. Nearby, a man sawed at wood; a hammer pounded. Dirt cast from a shovel spattered on earth. A voice cursed, and a pair of men led a quartet of milk goats past on leashes, serenaded by goatish complaints. On their heels came another group of riders, who gave way as a silver-haired woman dismounted and strode over to Conrad.

  “What is this I hear? Prisoners? Who are these?” She saw the old Eagle, recognized him, and laughed. “My father’s faithful wolf, come back to bite—yet who means he to snap at? Is this Villam’s brat? I thought him dead and lost!” She looked at the others, but when she examined Ivar, he saw her frown and, with a shrug, dismiss him. Thank God she hadn’t recognized him!

  “Come inside.” Without further speech, Conrad plunged into his tent.

  Ivar was herded inside with the others but forced to stand to one side along the canvas wall with a line of armed men so close behind him that the hilt of a sword pressed into one buttock. Conrad’s tent was furnished with a pair of couches—difficult to transport—and a dozen chairs set on the ground scuffed to dirt. A girl sat on the single carpet, and its blue colors were far more brilliant than her scruffy clothing, which looked very like a servant’s calf-length linen smock covered by a milite’s well-worn tabard, belted but nevertheless so big on her that it hung in great awkward folds about her shoulders and hips. Seeing Lady Sabella, she rose and scuttled sideways to the chair where Conrad sat down. He noted her and put out an arm, and she melted into its shelter. From this fatherly refuge she stood as bravely as she could.

  “She is a weapon,” said Sabella.

  “So have you said a dozen times since she fell into our hands,” said Conrad easily, without shifting.

  “Liutgard will want her back. This is now her heir, since it appears that the elder girl really is dead.”

  Conrad’s right eye shuttered slightly, his mouth winced, and then he recovered. “I’ll not use Lady Ermengard as a pawn. I’ll assign men to escort her back to Autun for the time being. She can be fostered with Berry.”

  “You’re sentimental and a fool, Conrad. Once this girl is dead, Liutgard has no living heirs. Queen Conradina’s line will vanish once and for all time if Liutgard does not hereafter remarry and reproduce. Then Fesse is thrown into disorder.”

  That his tone remained calm made the duke seem suddenly quite dangerous. “I won’t allow this girl to be murdered. If I must, I’ll send her to Bederbor.”

  “Best not,” said Ivar, prodded by a sudden sympathy for the frightened girl. She could not be more than thirteen or fifteen. “The road west is no longer safe.”

  That got their attention, although he hadn’t meant to do so quite so dramatically.

  Sabella swung round to glare at him. He squirmed, but he dared not move. “What do you mean?” she demanded. Then she peered at him as if she were shortsighted. “Don’t I know you? You look familiar.”

  He saw by her expression that she could not place him. Conrad laughed.

  “Don’t you know this rufus bird? He flocked with that prettily plumaged creature you kept in your cage but which escaped you.”

  “Have done, Conrad! Do not mock me!”

  He grinned.

  A horn blared outside, and men shouted. Conrad jumped to his feet and set the girl aside as the entry was swept open and a captain strode in accompanied by a travel-worn scout. The man’s left arm was bandaged, and the bandage stained with dried blood.

  “My lord duke. My lady.” The scout knelt. “Riders coming out of the east. They fly the banner of Saony.”

  “Rotrudis is dead,” said Sabella.

  Conrad nodded. “These must be her daughters, riding in support of Sanglant.”

  The scout continued. “They are a half day—if not less—from Kassel. If they camp at dusk on the road, then they’ll reach here by midday tomorrow.”

  “What numbers?” asked Conrad.

  “I could gain no good estimate, my lord. I had no opportunity to get around their flank. The woodland road restricted my view. But a good number.”

  “‘A good number’ can signify a score, or two thousand,” said Sabella with a sneer. “Can you give no better idea than that?”

  “I beg your pardon, my lady. I sent other men into the woods to spy out their numbers, but none of them have returned. Lady Theophanu will have her own scouts.”

  “An unknown number bide inside Kassel,” said Conrad. “Our army caught between. Do we break the siege and retreat?”

  “No,” said Sabella, “we make our stand. We have good defenses. The north is impassable. The eastern hills are steep, and we control the ramp and, thus, the Hellweg. The south and west are ours. Our position is stronger than his.”

  He nodded. “It’s true, especially now that we’ve received word from Mother Scholastica that she will put no impediment in our path.”

  “Should we defeat Sanglant,” returned Sabella scornfully. “My aunt risks nothing.”

  “Perhaps not.” He laughed. “The well-being of the souls of every person living in Wendar and Varre must be her first concern. In this manner, the displeasure of the church aids our cause.”

  “Why does that amuse you, Conrad?”

  “Because my blessed mother began her life as an infidel.”

  “And departed it as a God-fearing woman of unimpeachable reputation.”

  “Well,” he said tightly, “let’s not speak of my mother. Our position is strong, and despite everything I must suppose we may even outnumber him.”

  “Think you so?”

  “If Sanglant does not trust Mother Scholastica, and I doubt he does, he will have left behind a contingent to support his claim where rivals may hope to discredit him at her court.”

  “Think you so?” asked Sabella.

  “I am sure of it. She is a strategist, just as I am. She’ll have made sure to let him know she can’t be trusted. In any case, he can’t have ridden so far and so quickly with a large army. And if he has marched all the way north from Aosta, and with soldiers who spent three years in the south with Henry, he’ll have lost many of his veterans—not just those who died, but those milites who demand to return home at once to care for their farms and estates.”

  “Then it seems our victory is assured.”

  “Perhaps not. Here, in Kassel, we will be forced to protect ourselves against a double siege. Because once this new force arrives, they will strike us behind while the
others attack from the front. Despite superior numbers, we’ll be hard-pressed to hold them off.”

  “Now you seem to be arguing that we cannot win.”

  “Not at all. Sanglant cannot hold forever. Once the nobles see him impotent in the face of opposition, their support will waver. They want no bastard to rule them. He’ll have to give up.”

  “Yes, that will work,” agreed Sabella. “Sanglant cannot defeat us once church and nobles both come over to our side.”

  “That’s right. In the end, he will lose.” Conrad nodded, then looked at Ivar. “What did you mean, that the road west is no longer safe? Do you mean Lord Wichman’s men, out harrying us in the north? We skirmished with them today, the bastards.”

  Wolfhere said nothing. Lord Berthold glanced at each of his attendants; no other words passed between them. It was a conspiracy of silence, an unspoken agreement to support Sanglant over the Varren usurpers.

  Ivar thought abruptly of Hanna. She would follow King Henry’s wishes, wouldn’t she?

  “That’s right,” he said. “That’s how we were caught, falling into the flanks of the melee.”

  “Three-score men will not harm us. I’m more worried about Sanglant’s reserve coming out of the east in unknown numbers. Here, now. Captain! Take these men away and place them under guard. Give them drink and food. Keep them safe.”

  Their guards escorted them past men busy hauling dirt and sawing wood and raising a hasty palisade along the encampment. Not one said a word more until they were prodded into an old byre standing in a farmstead now abandoned and in disrepair. They kicked aside the remains of filthy straw to find the good honest dirt beneath and, tucked away in one corner, a desiccated nest that was the last resting place of a family of dead mice, seven of them exactly, like their own sorry company. Bread, cheese, and ale were brought to the gate. Guardsmen paced outside, talking in low voices about what was known and what was only rumored. A man sang a hymn, joined by a second voice. It was getting dark, the light melting into the long summer twilight.

  “Here, Brother Heribert, you must eat.” Wolfhere guided the cleric through his meal patiently. A bite, chew, swallow. A sip of ale. A bite, chew, swallow. “You must keep up your strength.”

  “We are close now,” said the cleric. “Why do we not go on?”

  “We are prisoners, Brother. We are set in a cage, here.”

  “A cage,” the cleric repeated thoughtfully, or stupidly. Ivar could not tell which.

  He leaned to speak to Berthold. “What is wrong with him?”

  “Brother Heribert? He’s never been the same—well, so the others said who knew him—after we came out of the earth up in the Alfar Mountains. He was buried in a slide of earth, but we dug him out. He vanished from Novomo after Hugh of Austra murdered Lady Elene. I thought perhaps he had run off with Hugh the Bastard, but we found him much later, at St. Barnaria’s rest house, up on the pass as we crossed north. He was starving, for he never knew to eat, so I suppose some evil humor has disordered his mind. I wish I knew how he escaped, the night Hugh of Austra murdered Elene, and kidnapped the brat. But he won’t—or can’t—tell us.”

  Wolfhere squatted beside them, nodding toward the oblivious Heribert, who was now counting and recounting the dead mice. Jonas grabbed the nest out of his hands and tossed it into another corner. Heribert made no protest but merely turned his gaze to stare at the weathered and cracking boards, as if he could see the wind itself as it brushed through the gaps in the byre’s walls.

  “Poor creature,” the Eagle said. “He was a loyal companion to Sanglant.”

  “So are we, are we not?” Ivar hesitated and glanced around but none of their guards stood within earshot.

  “None of us said anything. Now Conrad and Sabella will not know until too late that the Eika are coming.”

  “They have scouts and spies and outriders, all on alert,” said Berthold. “Listen, Wolfhere. How can we get news of the Eika to Sanglant? Or to his reserve army? They will be walking into the Eika trap as well.”

  “If I had not lost my Eagle’s Sight… well, that is gone.”

  “There is one other thing.” Berthold pressed an open hand over his tunic, patted his chest. “The writ of excommunication I carry here. If it’s true that Mother Scholastica no longer supports Sanglant, then this will bolster Conrad and Sabella’s claim.”

  “By their words, it seems if they may already know.”

  “Yet if they don’t? What must we do, Wolfhere? Once they know, once the news gets out … maybe, after all, I should burn it!”

  “Rash words!”

  “Do you think that woman is the rightful skopos? That God have anointed her? I do not!”

  “I pray you, Lord Berthold! Do not imperil your soul!”

  “I don’t care! I know what she is, and I don’t care. I don’t fear her. I hate her! I hate all of them, all the Aostans who imprisoned us and let Elene die! Let them all rot! Let them all fall into the Pit!”

  “My lord Berthold! I pray you!”

  His attendants gathered around him to soothe him as he raved, speaking of the one called Elene, letting his grief and anger fall as tears. The cleric watched with an expression of dumb curiosity. The Eagle sighed. But Ivar rose, and paced, and halted at last before the Eagle.

  “You carry a writ of excommunication? From the skopos in Darre?”

  “A new skopos. The elder—Anne—she who came before—” A speck of dirt had gotten into Wolfhere’s eye and he had to cry a few tears and rub with a finger to pry it out. “Holy Mother Anne is dead. This new one was biscop of Mainni in the days before, called Antonia. She was sent south to stand trial before the skopos—that would be Holy Mother Clementia, in those days—on the charge of malefic sorcery.”

  “What does the writ say?”

  “All of Wendar and Varre will be placed under anathema if Sanglant is anointed and crowned as regnant.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he is a bastard,” said Wolfhere in a calm voice, “and because his mother’s people are heathens and savages, their blood not fit to rule a godly people like the Wendish. Because some say he killed Henry—that he is a patricide.”

  “Surely if Conrad and Sabella had this writ, they would want word of it to reach Sanglant? You heard what they said about Mother Scholastica. She has turned against the prince. If one of us was able to convince them to let us carry it there, then we could warn Sanglant about the Eika. Otherwise, you might as well burn it. Then no one will know.”

  “No use,” said Berthold wearily. “Other messengers will have been sent. Clerics. Presbyters. Soon the news will reach Mother Scholastica and all the biscops and church elders. Maybe you’re right, and it already has. It still seems to me that it’s best that Sanglant find out sooner rather than later. Even if it means he must give up the throne to Lady Sabella or Duke Conrad.”

  “He’ll have to give up the throne,” said Ivar. “He can’t be so stubborn as to cast the entire country into—”

  Wolfhere laughed in a way that made Ivar flinch. “A stubborner man I have never met.”

  “Either way,” persisted Ivar, “if he knows now, he’ll be able to offer Conrad and Sabella a truce, so together they can fight the Eika.”

  “Fairly spoken words,” agreed Wolfhere. “Let me scout, see what weaknesses this camp has.”

  “Do you mean to speak to Conrad and Sabella?” asked Berthold.

  “No. The rest of you stay here until I return. Be ready to move at the least signal. Fly east or north, if you must run. Do not let Conrad or Sabella intimidate you, should they happen to call for you before I am come back. If the Eika attack, seek Kassel’s walls and pray that friendly hands let you in.”

  Berthold nodded, but Ivar rose in protest.

  “At least one of us must come with you.”

  “None of you can walk out of here without being captured. Not as I can. Lord Berthold, I pray you. Let me take the writ. It is possible I will break through. I can deliver it to Sa
nglant.”

  “That will make him love you more!” said Berthold with a laugh as he drew a length of carefully wrapped cloth out of his tunic and gave it to Wolfhere.

  “Go to the gate and make some noise. Draw the attention of the guards, but not so much that they come inside. Sing, or joke with them. Ask for more ale.”

  “Jonas, with me,” said Berthold. “Odei, finish off the rest of that wine sack.”

  Odei grinned, and guzzled.

  They crowded up to the gate, hanging over the rail as Berthold called in a cheerful voice. “I beg you, friends! A little more wine, if you will! We’ve been walking days with nothing but stream water to drink, and you know what that does to a man! My companions are perishing of thirst. And if you have an accommodating woman in camp, we wouldn’t mind a taste of that sweet wine as well.”

  “Oh, God,” murmured Ivar, and just then he realized that Wolfhere was gone.

  “Are we all going now?” asked Brother Heribert, rising to his knees.

  Ivar dove forward and grasped the man before he could ruin their plan. “Nay, nay, Brother. Hold tight. We’re to hold tight here. That’s our work.”

  “Got a redheaded woman?” Jonas was asking, loud enough that any man within a hundred paces could hear him. “I hear they spit fire, hot in the bed, but I admit I’ve never tried one myself.”

  An older man’s voice answered, close at hand. “Look at your face, lad! I’d wager you’ve never bedded a lass in your short life!” He and his fellows chortled with laughter as Jonas protested heatedly.

  “But he is close. I must go with the other man, with the wolf. Why did he not wait for me?”

  Ivar tightened his hands over the cleric’s slender wrists. They were as small as a child’s. The man was so thin it was a miracle he could walk, and that weird, intense gaze gave Ivar the shudders. In the dusk, the cleric’s blue eyes seemed almost to burn on a wick flaring deep within.

  “If we go, we’ll be captured and put in a worse cage. We must wait here until it is our time to act. Lady Sabella is holding us prisoner.”

  “Who is Lady Sabella?”

  “She is the lady who spoke to us, and to Duke Conrad. The noblewoman. Henry’s half sister. She is Prince Sanglant’s enemy.”