The Burning Stone

Page 30

“She will come to me eventually,” he whispered hoarsely.
Villam smiled. “There speaks a young man touched by the barb young men feel most keenly. You must be patient in your turn, Your Majesty. He has endured much.”
The king frowned at his son but, as the clerics gathered in the manor hall behind them raised their voices in the opening verses of Prime, his expression lost some of its utter gloom.
“She’s a handsome enough young woman,” continued Villam, almost coaxingly. “It would do him good to recover his interest in women.”
“What is it you mean, son,” asked the king, “by the taint of the Enemy? By a ‘dead hand’?”
Suddenly, as if alerted by a noise only he could hear, Sanglant bolted to his feet and yanked up the stake that held the dogs. With them yammering and dragging at the chains, he made for the horses watched over by a nervous groom. The horses shied away from the frenzied approach of the pack, and the prince had to beat the dogs back with his fists to make them stop lunging for the underbellies of the horses. With growls and whines they obeyed him, and he swung onto a horse and with the dogs’ leashes still in his grip and a square pouch slung over his shoulder, he rode away toward the river.
The king looked toward Hathui. She nodded, as at a spoken command, and commandeered a horse to make haste after Sanglant. With barely audible groans, the four soldiers followed her.
“I despair of him,” muttered Henry.
“Let him recover,” advised Villam. “Then give him the Dragons again. Battle will restore his wits.”
But Henry only frowned. “Ungria’s king has sent an envoy. He offers his younger brother as a bridegroom for Sapientia.”
Rosvita regarded him with surprise. “I thought you favored the suit of the Salian, Prince Guillaime. Or the son of the Polenie king.”
“Savages!” murmured Villam, who had fought against the Polenie before their conversation to the faith of the Unities. “You’d do better to marry her to young Rodulf of Varingia, and seal his sister the duke’s loyalty in that way. Sapientia will need the loyalty of Duchess Yolande of Varingia when she comes to the throne.”
“He’s always been an obedient son,” said Henry, still staring in the direction his son had ridden. “But I must set the foundation on stone, not sand.”
Villam glanced at Rosvita and raised his eyebrows as if to question her. What on earth was the king speaking about? She could only shrug.
In the forecourt in front of the manor house where they had stayed the night, the servants were already loading wagons, beating feather beds, hauling the king’s treasure chests out under guard. Rosvita watched as young Brother Constantine hurried out, bent over a loose bundle of pens and ink bottles; because he wasn’t looking where he was going, he slammed into a servant, dropped a stoppered bottle and then, bending to retrieve it, several quills as well.
Rosvita smiled. “Your Majesty. If I may go to my clerics and make ready?”
Henry nodded absently. As she moved off, he called her name. “I thank you, good friend,” he said with a sudden, brilliant smile, and she could only incline her head, staggered as always by the force of his approval.
Rosvita reached young Constantine in time to help him pick up the last goose quill. A moment later she heard a hail. Brother Fortunatus and Sister Amabilia had appeared on the steps, blinking sleepily, and now they swung around to look as a rider came into view.
“Where is the king?” the man called. Rosvita stepped forward to take his message. “Nay, I bring no message,” the rider continued politely. “I ride as herald for Margrave Judith. She has returned to the king’s progress with her bridegroom. She escorts Lady Tallia to the king.”
“Her bridegroom!” said Fortunatus just as Amabilia exclaimed: “God Above! What has the girl done to get herself thrown out of Quedlinhame so quickly?”
A new set of riders clattered into view, and the clerics stared expectantly, but it was only an annoyed Prince Sanglant with his escort of Hathui and the four guardsmen made anxious by the Eika dogs. Servants scattered, running for safety. The dogs erupted into a frenzy of barking, and a moment later Count Lavastine and his hounds spilled into the courtyard. The noise became so deafening that Rosvita covered her ears.
Sanglant leaped down off his horse and yanked his dogs down, but they kept struggling up to bolt for the black hounds, who wisely kept their distance without stinting in threatening growls and ear-splitting barks even as the count called them to heel.
Then Lavastine’s heir came out of the hall. Lord Alain knelt beside the hounds and spoke a few words to them, and at once they ceased barking and sat, tongues lolling, with patient vigilance.