Crown of Stars

by Kate Elliott

  They waited, braced for the worst, but no attack resumed. It was as if the world had died beyond the walls’ barrier, as if every living thing had died and maybe even the forest and the land vanished into the pit so they were surrounded only by an infinite black yawning nothingness.

  “Hanna?”

  “Eh! What?”

  “You were whimpering, Hanna.” That was Folquin’s familiar, pleasant voice. She recognized it now.

  “My head hurts.”

  He grunted his assent. He was crouched behind her, with Leo and Stephen close behind him.

  “Think they’re still waiting out there, Ingo?” Folquin asked.

  “I’m not betting otherwise. Are you?”

  “Well, I’d not volunteer to be the first to walk out past those torches, if that’s what you’re asking. But Leo will gladly take that stroll, will you not, Leo?”

  “After I piss on your grave,” said Leo amiably.

  “Who’s dead?” asked Hanna.

  “No one you knew,” said Ingo. “But anyway, there is one we called Corvus for his black hair.” He pointed to the closest body. It was too dark to see the corpse’s face; he was only the anonymous dead, unknown and now unknowable except as a name and a few anecdotes. “There’s poor Ermo who had a girl he wished to marry back home. There, his cousin Arno, who was not quick in his wits but could split a cord of wood faster than any man I’ve seen.”

  The old, sick choking swelled in her throat, and she knew she was about to weep. She rose, instead. “I’d best see to the captain.”

  “Hurt?” asked Ingo, voice dropping into a register of dread.

  “Is the captain dead?” whispered Folquin, laying a hand on her shoulder more for his own comfort than hers, she guessed.

  “Let me go see,” she said, “though I fear it.”

  Leo cursed under his breath. Stephen caught in his breath in a sucking sound, between clenched teeth. Folquin released her. Ingo rose with her.

  “Let me know,” he said quietly. “I’m next to be captain, as I’m most senior of those left. Better if he lives, to my way of thinking.”

  “And for the rest of us, not wanting to dance to Ingo’s tune,” said Folquin, trying a joke, but it fell flat.

  She loped back to the hall, pausing at the steps that led to the raised porch. Beyond the wall she heard the wind sough through the trees, picking up again. The flavor of the night with its taste of dying smoke and scent of lush damp green growing things had shifted imperceptibly to something familiar and seemingly safe, almost like an ordinary night.

  From inside, a man screamed in raw agony. She cringed away, then caught herself before she bolted. She stood there, gasping, as the cry cut off—as sharp as a sword’s cut. Voices murmured. She smelled a horrible stench. Caught there, she wept freely until Sergeant Aronvald emerged from the hall, found her, and clapped her roughly on the shoulder.

  “There, now, Eagle! Stop that! You’re yet living. I lost another man.”

  Four in all.

  “Is the captain—?”

  He shrugged. “That nun is not one I’d want to cross. Whew! She burned the stump to stop the bleeding.” He swayed a little. “Thought I would faint, but she never wavered.” Abruptly, he stumbled sideways and vomited and, in between heaves, waved a hand at Hanna as if he wanted her to go.

  Cautiously, she went inside to discover a dead man, a living one who had been wounded in the leg but not yet convulsed into death, and an unconscious Thiadbold with Acella kneeling beside him. Acello held the stump, which was all raw and singed and stinking, but was lecturing to a pair of younger nuns, one of whom looked interested and the other of whom looked like she was ready to follow Aronvald’s example. All of Rosvita’s young clerics except Gerwita had fled into the shadows. Hilaria sat at Thiadbold’s head, holding his shoulders in case he moved. She had, evidently, helped Aronvald hold him down.

  “It is the minions of the Enemy who kill,” Sister Acella was explaining to her charges. “They can’t be seen by mortal eyes. They inflame the humors that balance the body. Fire chases them out and will staunch the flow of blood, which would also kill him. We’ll need salves to further staunch the bleeding, to ease the burn, and to lessen the inflammation. If we can hold the Enemy at bay, the captain may yet survive. I’ll need dead nettle. Sister Hilaria, will you help me?”

  All at once, the four nuns rose and walked away to the other end of the hall, where a single lamp burned. Above, noise thumped along the roof beam; someone had gotten up on the roof and was probing for hot spots. There was a leak down where Mother Obligatia lay. Hanna saw someone moving there, pacing back and forth. After a moment she recognized Sapientia’s posture and form.

  “Sister Acella knows a great deal about healing,” said Gerwita in a small voice. “Do you think, when it is safe, that I might come study with her, Sister Rosvita?”

  Rosvita smiled at the young woman, patting her hand gently. “Surely you may, child, when it is safe.”

  Hanna knelt beside Thiadbold and took his hand in hers. He still lived. His hand was warm. His fingers twitched, and she looked up to see his eyes open and fixed on her.

  “Attack?” he said.

  “Quiet for now,” she answered.

  Rosvita got up and, holding Gerwita’s hand, moved away.

  “You’d best sleep … while have chance.”

  She smiled at him. “I can’t sleep now. You’re the one must sleep.”

  He made a kind of grin although it was more a grimace. “Can’t. Hurts too much. God!” His eyes hooded as he gathered strength, then opened again, so fixed on her that at once she knew what was coming and what Rosvita had seen that had caused her to slip away. Dying men said things they might otherwise keep secret.

  “Have you given any thought… to what you will do … when you leave the Eagles?” He had a hard time talking, but he was determined. “Thought… of marriage?”

  She pitied him and hated herself, and pitied herself and hated him, all in the space of a breath. She could not lie, yet dared not sadden him, not if he had a chance of living. Mostly, she expected he would die, yet even so she could not lie to him in his last moments, and anyway, what if Sister Acella had certain magical healing arts and he lived and she was faced with a promise she could not honor? Best to speak what was true, even if it was only part of the truth.

  “I am already promised. If I were not, I would be thinking about you a great deal, Thiadbold. You’re a good man.”

  He smiled, although he was in so much pain that his jaw was clenched and his neck as tight as rope pulled to the breaking point.

  She bent and kissed him on the lips. To her surprise, she found it true as she tasted the sweat and sweetness of his mouth; she did find him attractive. On another day, in another place, she might have chosen him.

  He slipped away into sleep, of a kind. She waited for a long while, and after a longer while she wondered if he had died from the poison.

  Sister Acella eased down beside her. “If he lives out the week it is likely he’ll survive the wound. As for the others—six were struck, and four died at once. Some poison, it is agreed.”

  “Deadly,” murmured Hanna, who was still holding onto Thiadbold’s grimy hand. “Yet why did he and that other one not die?”

  “Surely the arrows that struck them were not poisoned.”

  “Then did he lose that hand for nothing?”

  “Ah.” The nun had a way of smiling that suggested an old and deep conspiracy. “By cutting the first wound away from the rest of the body, Sergeant Aronvald saved his life—if that arrow was poisoned. So, you see, we will never know. Are they gone?”

  Hanna startled, lost in contemplating Thiadbold’s curly beard, neatly trimmed and rather handsome and noble looking, now that she thought on it. “Are who gone?”

  “Those who attacked us with poisoned arrows,” replied the nun dryly.

  She laid her hand on his chest, to feel his breathing, then rose. “Best to see, although I’ve
heard no alarms.” Ill at ease, she left.

  Outside, the night remained silent but for the wind and the occasional restless whicker from one of the horses, under the control of half a dozen men. Those horses were precious, having survived a terrible journey. She saw Wicked standing among them, recognizing the mare’s sleek contours.

  Ingo stood at the gate with Folquin, Leo, and Stephen on watch to either side. Half the men were down, trying to sleep right up against the shelter of the wall. The weaving shed still smoked, but all the fires had gone out. It had stopped raining but still smelled of rain. The three dead men were gone.

  “The captain still lives,” she said to Ingo. “The nun says if he survives the week then he’ll likely survive.”

  He sighed.

  She said, “Let me stand a turn on watch, I pray you. I can’t sleep. Better I look, in case there is something to be seen of the Kerayit shaman. Or had you heard that tale?”

  He had. “Down,” he said sharply to the others. “Hanna will stand sentry for a while.”

  The wall had a ledge built into it two thirds of the way up, alongside the gate, where a watcher could sit almost at her ease and keep an eye on the valley and on the cleft where the ravine gave way to open ground. From here also she could see the forested eastern stretch of the valley to which Sorgatani had been exiled. Hanna settled herself on slickly wet stone and surveyed the dark vista.

  Of the four torches burning earlier three had gone out. The fourth burned fitfully atop a post. She saw the curve of a helmet at the edge of its aura, but after looking again that way, and a third time, realized that no man inhabited that helm. It had been propped there to draw arrow shot.

  Was it a lie to tell half a truth? Was it right to spare a dying man another sorrow? Or had she only spoken that way to Thiadbold to spare herself the awkwardness?

  I am already promised—to the Eagles.

  Yet after all, alone on this wall, she knew she had not lied. What she had said, discounting the Eagles, was true enough, only she had not known it or had not admitted it to herself. Tears dried on her cheeks and still a few more slid from her eyes, a ceaseless trickling waterfall fed by sorrow and loss. Was this what it meant to have a broken heart? After all, her heart had promised itself what it would never have. Thiadbold would be a good man for a husband, but it would never be fair to him.

  Yet why not? She could come to love him well enough. Love wasn’t everything. In a marriage, it counted less than so many other qualities: respect, liking, trustworthiness, hard work, steadfastness, honor, alliance between families. Or she could stay in the Eagles, like Hathui, always and forever, because she loved being an Eagle even after all this, even after everything. Here she felt at home, standing watch in the middle of the wilderness with enemies all around and a few stout friends at her back, all in service to the regnant. Here she felt a measure of peace, perched on the wall with the damp air and the spattering of rain and the night wind breathing on her. Not knowing what the next day would bring and aching with the misery of wondering what has happened to the ones she loves.

  Her family, mother and father, brothers, selfish sister.

  Sorgatani. Liath.

  Ivar.

  With a groan, the weaving shed collapsed. Ash and smoke cast a pale cloud into the air, visible against the darker night. She followed its thread up, and up, and caught her breath as she craned back to stare at the heavens.

  For the first time in months, stars shone where that brief storm had torn the clouds into rags. So it remained all night, just a few stars shifting as they passed across the zenith. At dawn, the red rim of the sun rose over the trees so bright and glaring that everyone came running outside to stare and rejoice despite their losses, and laughed and cried as the haze bled back over the heavens, covering the rift.

  She saw no sign of anyone out in the trees.

  “I must go look,” she said to Ingo, who had remained below her, watchful but silent, all that time.

  “I think it’s a bad idea.”

  “I can’t abandon Sorgatani.”

  “If all that’s said is true, then she’s in no danger. And can protect the frater who bides with her, as well. Say.” He slanted a look at her, speculating. “A few have said he’s her lover.”

  “He is not. For many years he served Prince Bayan, who was later Princess Sapientia’s husband.”

  “Here, now.” He reached up to help her clamber down, and Stephen climbed up past her to take her place, but Ingo kept his big hand on her upper arm and bent close, drawing her away to speak privately with her. He smelled of smoke—no doubt they all did—but he had a slight minty smell to him, as though he’d been chewing leaves.

  “What?” she asked him, taken aback by his size and strength.

  “Is it true? None of us have seen, but all speak of it. That Princess Sapientia lives?”

  “She does.”

  “You’ve traveled with her all this time? Tell me the tale, Hanna, I pray you. We must know.”

  She hesitated, and he frowned.

  “Sanglant is a strong ruler,” he said, more quietly still, so close that he could have kissed her, but his interest in her had always been that of an older brother. “When he came to Osterburg, we were heartened for the first time since King Henry departed for Aosta. I pray you, Hanna, what does the princess intend? Will she challenge him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He sighed, shoulders sagging, glancing away and making a face.

  “She is ill, Ingo. Listen closely. In the days I have traveled with her—months now—I have not heard her speak. She suffers some disease of the mind. She’s little better than a simpleton, although I have no right to say such a thing of a royal princess.”

  “Best to say it if it is true! Sanglant is regnant, and the army loves him, and we’ll follow him, but there are those who mutter he is not the rightful heir. What will those noble folk do when Sapientia returns?”

  “How can we know?”

  “Who will you serve, Hanna, if you must choose?”

  “Are you saying there may be civil war between them? The princess cannot feed herself, much less lead an army.”

  “An army can be led in her name.”

  “Who would do so? Her sister?”

  “Nay, not Princess Theophanu, unless she plays a deeper game than we ever glimpsed. We bided in Osterburg for some two years or more, building walls and chasing down bandits. She’s a faithful steward. King Sanglant named her duke of Saony, and she accepted.”

  “Then who?”

  He shrugged. “Only wondering, that’s all.”

  “Best I go and find Liath, if you wish to keep Prince Sanglant happy.”

  He considered this, still frowning.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “It would be easier for him were he to marry a proper queen, which he will not. Still, the captain knows her of old and speaks no ill of her, although some say she is a sorcerer and has used ill-starred magic to bind the regnant to her.”

  She shook off his hand. “I know her of old, too. I’ll hear no ill words spoken of her. She is not what you say she is. Who has whispered these things? Who?”

  He held up both hands as a shield against her anger. “Here, now. I’m only repeating whispers. She’s good to look on, as any man will tell you.”

  Hanna snorted. “There is more to her than whether men think her attractive!”

  “Thiadbold swears she can hold her own in a fight. That she saved the life of a Lion, in his old cohort, a few year back. We saw it ourselves, just a few days back.” He would not look at her. Somehow, the words embarrassed him. “She called flame right out from the treetops. It’s said she can burn a man alive, if she wishes.”

  Hanna said nothing.

  “Doesn’t that scare you?” He still would not look at her, and the sight of this big, strong man with a queasy look made her want for nothing more than to get away from him.

  “I am not afraid of Liath,” she retor
ted. “Nor should you be.”

  “Burned alive,” he repeated. “What matter my weapons and armor then?”

  “Best, in that case, that the regnant keep her tied to his bed,” she said sarcastically, but he nodded in all seriousness.

  “Perhaps so. Good strategy on the part of King Sanglant.”

  In his eyes, evidently, Sanglant could do no wrong. Strange that he never mentioned that Sanglant had used his own sister as a hostage and later abandoned her with his enemies. That Sanglant had kept Bulkezu alive. That Sanglant had marched against his own father.

  Yet what choice had the prince had? Henry had been possessed by a daimone. Sanglant had saved his father, or come as close as anyone could. The Lions had told her the tale of the battle under the wings of the storm, which had been told to them by the soldiers who had survived, those who had witnessed, those who had returned from Aosta and the death of their emperor and their hopes for empire.

  All this she could now put together, the last story she needed to understand the events of those days when she and the others had been prisoners of the Arethousans.

  “Well, then,” said Ingo uneasily, “I’ll get the lads started on that wall again. How many do you want to come with you?”

  “None. If the enemy waits, it’s best if only I die.”

  “Nay,” he said irritably, “I can’t send you out alone—”

  “Hey!” Stephen shouted from the wall and a moment later a second sentry, posted farther down, called out as well. “It’s a man—he seems unarmed, coming out of the trees—he’s got only one hand…”

  “Let me see.” Ingo laced his fingers under her boots to give her a boost up. “That’s Brother Breschius. Open the gate.”

  She met him just beyond the ditch. He grasped her hand as she came up beside him. He had tears in his eyes.