Crown of Stars

by Kate Elliott

  “I must find the one I love. I must find the one called Sanglant. How can I reach him? He is close! The other one, the wolf, he is going there, to him.”

  “Only Lady Sabella can release us.”

  “Ah!” Heribert’s mouth opened as though he were surprised.

  A cold breeze snaked through Ivar’s hair. Heribert’s weight collapsed in his arms, and he fell backward.

  “God! God!” he cried, half caught and panicking before he twisted the man in his grasp and laid him down on the earth.

  “Ivar! We’ll pray in a moment!” That was Berthold, who turned back to the guards. “Nay, never mind him. He’s a frater, you know, a novice monk, and the fight today made him piss his pants. Any little thing sets him to shrieking!”

  They all laughed, but Ivar still held Brother Heribert’s cooling wrist in his own warm hand. Something was very wrong. His heart hammered, and he could not catch his breath, but after all, that pounding was only the sound of men still at work in the twilight as they readied their siege works.

  Unexpectedly, the steppe woman knelt beside him and bent over the limp body. She pressed her face up against that pale mouth; she sniffed at his eyes, his throat, and his loins. She placed one hand on his abdomen and another at his breastbone and for a while sat in perfect stillness and with eyes closed as the jawing of Lord Berthold and his new friends went on and on. So close, Ivar noticed her musky scent, which was not the complicated spice he associated with women.

  She opened her eyes and sat back. “He is dead.”

  Ivar choked. “Dead? Just like that?”

  “No breath. The spirit—what word, it was taught me by the old shaman of the wolf clan—no spirit animates this body. The spirit run away. Heri-bert is dead.”

  That wind came up again, curling around Ivar’s neck. The frater jerked, shuddered, and sat upright so quickly that his head slammed into Ivar’s chin.

  Ivar screamed. By the gate, Berthold and Jonas broke into loud gales of laughter, slapping each other on the back.

  Heribert shook his head, as a man shakes water out of his ears after swimming. “He said to wait here until he returns.”

  Berda scooted away and made signs, as against the evil eye. “Bad magic,” she breathed in her heavy voice. “This is very bad.”

  Ivar tasted blood on his tongue where he had bit himself. The cleric looked at him as if he smelled the iron tang of that blood, but turned away to search, in the corner, for the nest of dead mice.

  3

  THE road from Quedlinhame to Kassel was broad and smooth and in normal times it was heavily traveled. Hanna had ridden it several times, and she recognized any number of landmarks over the next days as they marched. What she did not see was any traffic on the road. In the summer, merchants and pilgrims at the least should have been traveling the Hellweg.

  So it was with some surprise that in the middle of one morning, after many days of travel through empty or abandoned lands, they spotted outriders down a long straight stretch, waiting for them.

  “Those are Saony scouts, Theophanu’s soldiers,” said Brother Fortunatus, who had eyesight as keen as an archer’s.

  The captain of their armed troop, riding beside him, agreed. “That’s Saony’s mark, all right. They’ve seen us.”

  He called out an alert to his men, and they slowed to a cautious walk as swords and spears were readied.

  The outriders proved equally cautious. Two turned and rode away at a gallop, vanishing into the forest shadow, while a single man rode toward them at a trot. He halted just out of arrow shot and under the overarching spread of an old oak whose stout branches sheltered half the road. A wise position, shielding him somewhat from loosed arrow or cast spear. Here, to the east of Kassel, the forest boasted ancient oak and holm amid thick underbrush, with only a few of the slender beech which dominated farther west.

  “To which regnant do you hold allegiance?” he called across the gap.

  Hanna looked at the cleric and the abbess who led them, and beyond them to Princess Sapientia, who was holding a green leaf in her hand and staring at its flicker as the wind tried to tug it out of her grasp. The Lions marched as the rear guard, protecting the wagons and Mother Obligatia; she couldn’t see them over the riders who formed the abbess’ guard and the dozen monastics who followed on mules.

  “Let me go,” she said. Before either woman could answer—indeed, in the last several days, they had barely spoken to each other—she rode away from her company and over to the scout, who waited for her with a look of relief.

  “I’m an Eagle,” she said, and he said, “So you are,” marking her badge and cloak.

  “I’m called Hanna.”

  “Peter, after the disciple,” he said as if it were all one name and commonly spoken that way.

  “Well met, then, Peter. You’re out of Saony.”

  “With Theophanu, duke of Saony,” he said. “Marching west.”

  “We are come from Quedlinhame, and from farther away yet than that, but it’s a complicated story.”

  “Those are the best kind, told in winter around the hearth fire.”

  “With all the wild beasts held at bay by stout doors.”

  A grin flickered. He nodded toward the distant company. “Those are church folk.”

  “Yes, all come to join King Sanglant at Kassel.”

  He nodded. “You’ll be meeting him with some difficulty, then. We are stuck here, just at the edge of the valley. Lady Sabella and Duke Conrad have set a siege around Kassel, and we must siege them in our turn and hope to coordinate our attack with those holed up inside the town.”

  “Where is the king? Wasn’t Duchess Liutgard with him?”

  “They are inside Kassel. With five hundred men.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’ve sent my scouts back to let our lady know your troop is coming, so we wouldn’t be surprised. You’ve a score or more fighting men there.”

  “And twoscore Lions, marching in the rear guard.”

  He gave her a heartfelt grin. “Well met, indeed, Eagle. I’ll lead your party in.”

  “Let me follow the other scouts,” she said, “and you return with our company.”

  He began to object, but she rode off quickly so she could not be stopped. She had to get to Theophanu first, before Mother Scholastica could drop this sword—called Sapientia—into Theophanu’s lap without warning. Hanna did not understand how the currents swirled in this river, but like all the rest of the old company come so far out of the south, she placed her faith in Sister Rosvita. It was obvious that Rosvita and Scholastica were at odds.

  The other riders had bolted so fast that she saw only their hoofprints, but no other sign. She rode through quiet forest, noises fading away around her, and wondered how far she had to go and where Duke Conrad and Lady Sabella’s scouts might roam. A few birds chirped; it was a relief to hear them. If there was game abroad, it was drowsing in the early afternoon warmth, such as it was. She had yet to be warm enough to take off her cloak, and she had begun to think she never would be. But it was warm enough that she pushed down her hood and let the cool breeze brush along her hair.

  She shivered, but not because of the wind. Something was watching. She felt the pressure of other eyes. Scanning the foliage, she saw nothing. But with a second look, she saw a flash of white. And there it was.

  A creature stared at her from the cover of a screen of high bushes. It had hair as pale white as her own, skin the color of iron and eyes as black as those of a crow, slick and sharp as it waited to scavenge.

  It saw her, seeing it. They shared that look, and she went cold and then hot. Fear choked her, and yet for some reason she kept to that steady walk as if to change pace would be to jolt her held breath into a scream.

  The road curved. She lost sight of the veil of leaves behind which it hid.

  Why did it not kill me?

  Losing her courage, she urged her mount into a gallop, easy to do, since the horse caught her fear and ran. After a
bit, when she still hadn’t caught up to the scouts, she thought of how the breeze was blowing out of the north, allowing it to smell her while she—and her horse—could not smell it. She knew what it was. She had seen its kind in her dreams.

  She rode another league at least through the empty forest, knowing that she neared the valley of Kassel because of the husbanding of trees, the coppices, and the clearings hewn where stands of big trees had been taken down. A pair of crab apple trees grew to either side of an old cottage, long since abandoned and with its roof fallen in. Noble white bloomed in patches where a meadow cut a furrow through the trees. Bluebells carpeted the forest off into the shadows.

  “Hey!”

  She rode up to a roadblock constructed out of lumber and the remains of a shattered wagon and a few extra broken wheels. A dozen stout milites stood on guard.

  “I’m an Eagle, riding in the regnant’s service,” she announced breathlessly, wondering if she had sucked in any air at all over the last part of the journey. She was dizzy. The soldiers guarding the road looked at her with surprise.

  “Where’s Peter and the rest of them?” they asked.

  “Peter’s escorting my company on the road. The others came before me. Didn’t they reach here?”

  They had not.

  “Oh, God.” The burning hit her stomach. Her hands shook. “There’s another scout out there, in the woods.”

  “What do you mean?” asked their spokesman, a husky blond fellow. “One of Conrad’s people, got around us to spy?”

  “Does Duke Conrad hire Eika among his army now?”

  “What are you talking about? Eika? You mean those ones we heard stories of, raiding along the northern coast?”

  “I saw one, as clear as I see you,” she said, seeing that he and his compatriots were skeptical, “about a league back.”

  The others grinned, thinking she was pulling their leg.

  “She saw it ‘bright as day,’” said one, “so that means she saw no thing.”

  But their leader frowned. He was young to be in charge, but he had a clever face and a suspicious gaze. “Either you mean it, or you’re having a game with us. Either way, I don’t like what I’m hearing.”

  “Take me to see Princess Theophanu, I pray you. You may have my weapons as surety. I am an Eagle riding in the regnant’s service. I have news for Princess Theophanu and King Sanglant that they must hear, and hear soon.”

  “You’ll not be riding through to Kassel today,” remarked the wit.

  His leader elbowed him. “Shut up! Well, then, give your weapons to me, and I’ll escort you back. Listen, you slow-witted hounds. I’d tell you to keep your wits about you, but I think you’ve none to gather. Be ready for anything. Expect the worst. Come on, Eagle.”

  The others hunkered down, glancing nervously along the road and into the forest; its vistas were wider here, as beech took hold. She led her horse around the barrier, handed sword and staff and bow to her escort, mounted, and followed him west along the road.

  “I’m called Johan,” he said after a while.

  “I’m Hanna,” she said and, without meaning to, she giggled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I joined the Eagles to get out of marrying a man named Johan, that’s all.”

  He considered her a moment, and offered her weapons back. “If I didn’t before, I believe you now,” he said cryptically.

  She nodded, and almost giggled again, strung so tight she knew she was about to laugh madly or burst into tears.

  Soon they reached a second barrier. She smelled smoke ahead and heard the thunk of ax blows and the ring of hammers. A short distance after, the camp came into view. Theophanu had taken the high ground just before the hills sloped abruptly down into the valley surrounding Kassel. There had once been a hamlet here, a dozen buildings strung along the road. Men dug ditches to break up gentle slopes where riders might strike. Fences made of sharpened poles snaked along the contours of the ground to create a barrier between storehouses. At the high point in the village, a group of people clustered by a narrow break in the trees that offered a view of the besieged town.

  Guards paced before the old longhouse that would once have housed the most well-to-do family. When Johan brought her to the door, these guards indicated the distant gathering. She dismounted and walked out to the promontory, with four soldiers as escort. Johan rode back to his post.

  Eagles rarely waited. When the nobles and captains saw her, they moved aside to let her approach Princess Theophanu. The princess wore over her tunic a tabard marked with the red eagle of Saony. Her hair was braided tightly and pinned up, and the cloak she wore, whipped by the wind up on this height, fluttered against her knees. Hanna had forgotten how tall Theophanu was, almost as tall as many of the men; she was her father’s daughter, well built and handsome.

  “An Eagle,” she said, looking Hanna over with narrowed eyes. “Who has sent you?”

  “Sister Rosvita, Your Highness.”

  Around her, folk murmured to hear the cleric named, but if Theophanu was surprised, she concealed her emotion. “She rode south with Henry long since, and was lost: It was said that she died in the city of Darre. Yet I see you reached the south, as I commanded you. How long ago was that? Two years? Three? Yet now you have returned to us.”

  “Would you have me speak to all those assembled here, or with more privacy, Your Highness?” Hanna asked.

  Theophanu smiled thinly. “Your news must be shocking. Best you speak before all assembled here. Have you a message for me?”

  “No, Your Highness. I must tell you what I know, and what I have seen, and what and who Rosvita brings with her, for that company rides several leagues behind me. It is a long tale to tell. First, I must tell you that not two leagues from this camp I glimpsed an Eika scout in the forest.”

  “Triple the guard,” said Theophanu to one of her captains. “Command all to arm. Get these trees down, as we spoke of Send two hundred men to escort Sister Rosvita’s party in to safety. As for the rest, let this company retire to the hall. It seems you have traveled a long way to reach us, and I expect you will welcome a place to sit and a flask of ale to drink.”

  The hall was crowded with crudely-built benches, by which means it had been turned into a meeting house and chapel. It was not long abandoned, or not abandoned at all; possibly the large family living here had simply been told to leave.

  Hanna was given a stool to sit on and wine to drink. Only after Hanna had slaked her thirst did the princess ask for silence. From outside, Hanna heard axes thwacking into wood.

  “Tell me first, and in a few words, what is most important. Then I’ll hear your tale at length.”

  “This, then, Your Highness. Sister Rosvita was taken prisoner in Darre because she witnessed the murder of Helmut Villam at the hand of Hugh of Austra.”

  “Ah!” Theophanu sighed, with a grimace, but waved her hand to show Hanna must go on.

  “I have heard the Eagle, Hathui, survived her journey and joined the company of Prince Sanglant.”

  “She did. So it happens that all she reported is true?”

  “Hathui would never lie.” But as she said the words, she remembered how she had doubted, and she was ashamed.

  “Henry trusted her above all others. Her, and Villam, and Sister Rosvita. Go on.”

  “When I reached Darre, I found King Henry altered. He was captive to his queen and to Hugh of Austra. Those among the schola loyal to Rosvita joined with me in fellowship. In the aftermath of a terrible earthquake, we helped Rosvita escape the dungeon. We fled north. Reaching the convent of St. Ekatarina, we took refuge, but we were pursued there by Lord Hugh. Then—” Long had they discussed this, but Rosvita had insisted on the truth. “Sister Rosvita and Mother Obligatia—she is the abbess who presided over St. Ekatarina—together they wove a crown. By this means we escaped. We came into the east, and found ourselves pursued by soldiers from the army of the skopos.”

  “Holy Mother Anne?”


  “Yes. These we fled, fearing for our lives—”

  Many around her broke into speech, hearing the skopos maligned in such a manner, but Theophanu hushed them sternly. “Nay, let the Eagle speak. These accusations we have heard before, from my brother Sanglant, from the Eagle Hathui, and from Duchess Liutgard and Duke Burchard. Holy Mother Anne was party to the plot by which King Henry was infested with a daimone, made into a puppet so those who controlled him could speak words through his mouth.” She said it so coolly—as if it were only an interesting story she related to entertain the crowd—that it was only as Hanna looked around at the people crowded into the hall and saw how their posture and their gestures and their expressions turned angry, that the Eagle knew Henry’s death was truly mourned. She dared hope that the indignity thrust on him would be avenged.

  “Go on, Hanna.” It was the first time the princess had used her name.

  “Yes, Your Highness. We fled the army of the skopos, because she had come into the east in order to weave a spell into the crowns, to set herself against the coming cataclysm. We escaped her, but were captured by Arethousans. For many months we lived as their prisoners. In time we were brought to the camp of certain Arethousan lords, Lady Eudokia and Lord Alexandros. They were marching in rebellion against their emperor. It was there, my lady, that we found your sister Sapientia.”

  “Alive?” The word was little more than a whisper.

  “Married to King Geza of Ungria, who was now their ally.”

  Theophanu laughed, then recovered so quickly that the lapse might never have happened. Around her, her company chattered, and the lady lifted a hand to ask them to quiet. “She has gone over to the enemy.”

  Hanna let them chew on this statement for a while, all talking at once. Such an interpretation discredited Sapientia. Best not to protest, or make excuses. Or remind them that Sanglant had abandoned his sister in the camp of a worse enemy, the Pechanek Quman. Even if he had not meant her to come to grief, his actions had ruined her. It would be best for Sanglant if his court did not know the entire truth.