Crown of Stars

Page 247

“No,” she said, curious now, and anyway she had always been goaded by a bit of a nasty temper. “Read that one you were first looking at.”
He sighed as he looked at her with those remarkable blue eyes.
“Go on!” She had ruled for many years and was no longer accustomed to being denied. Maybe she had never been so accustomed. Everyone knew she had been a brat as a child.
He hesitated, touched a finger to the first word, and began to read, more haltingly than one might expect given the fluid beauty of his script.
“At that time reavers were laying waste to the Osna coast. Although he was full seventy years of age, he took his sword and led his milites to drive off the invaders. No weapon touched him, but the exertion brought him low. He was carried to Lavas Holding, and there after resting a while he rose again, gave alms to the poor, and sat down joyfully to table. Afterward, he became feverish and tired. He bent his head forward as if he were already dead, but he was able to ask for the holy sacrament, the kiss of the phoenix. After this, his breath left his body, and with great tranquillity he released his spirit to ascend to the Chamber of Light. They carried him from that place and laid him in the church beside the bier of Lavastine the Younger. Even though it was then late, they announced his death to all the people.
“Much praise was spoken of his great deeds, how he had cast the Eika out of Gent, scattered the Quman horde at Osterburg, led the ascent out of Aosta after the cataclysm, and erected churches and established monasteries and convents in the name of the Holy Mother and her Son.
“In the night, with the count still at her vigil within, the church burned down, leaving only the stone bier of the younger Lavastine untouched among the ruins. Those who witnessed the conflagration reported that a phoenix rose out of the flames, but others said it was a dragon, and some said an angel.
“The county passed to Lavrentia the Younger, daughter of Count Liathano and Prince Sanglant. Lavrentia was married to Druthmar, son of Waltharia Villam.”
The fountain spilled its angels’ tears. Geese flew honking overhead, migrating south for the winter. The Dragons paced, out of boredom or to keep the chill out of their limbs, and she supposed she ought to feel the cold more deeply, but she did not. These days, she was often flushed with warmth.
“There’s yet more on the page,” she said, prodded by a need to twist the knife. “Read that.”
He was the calm beyond the storm. No matter how sharp her tongue, he remained unmoved. Or possibly he just missed all those jabs. He smiled sweetly, the very image of the ornament of wisdom, and continued more easily.
“There is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed, nothing secret that shall not be made known.
“In the year 778, after two years of losing most of their crops and brought close to starvation, the people of Osterburg were visited by a bountiful harvest.
“Refugees fleeing the fighting east of Machteburg, where the Quman vanguard had attacked, arrived safely across the river, losing not one soul to battle or flood. They were attended through the wilderness and across the ford by a pair of black hounds.
“A pack of wolves terrorized the king’s road in the Bretwald but were driven off by a lone traveler and his dogs.
“The angel of plague rode into the valley of the Alse River. She carried a sword, and where she knocked upon a door with so many raps, then so many people inside would fall ill and die. But where the road took its turning into the next valley, she was met upon the way by a wanderer, who had blocked the road. Therefore the other valleys were spared, and the angel passed beyond the veil and troubled them no more that season. It is said of the traveler that he walked into the valley of the Alse River to bring aid to the afflicted, and was not seen again.”
“What are these you write of?” she asked.
“This is a change wrought by the hand of the Highest,” he read. “I keep a record, as I was commanded to do by Biscop Constance, of blessed memory.”
He leaned forward so suddenly that she, trained for battle, shifted her feet under her for the leap, and every Dragon within sight changed stance and came to the alert, the movement rippling out through the ranks. She caught herself as he probed among the thorns and the last, withered leaves of the rosebush.
“Look, here.” A pale bud pushed up out of last year’s growth.
She lifted a hand, and the Dragons relaxed.
“Here’s another,” he said, tracing it with a scribe’s precise and practiced touch. “And here. Can roses bloom in winter?”
She thought of Fulk, and bowed her head.