Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4) Page 364

“I pray you, Prince Sanglant,” she added after she had translated the captain’s words, “you know the Ungrians as well as any man, so they say. Are they men of honor? He’s offered to take me back to his home, but he already has a wife and I’m only a common woman, not the sort a man like him would marry. He says he’ll care for me and any children I have by him, as if they were legitimate. Do you think that’s true?”

“Ungria is a long walk from the marchlands. Once you’ve gone there, you’ll likely never see your old home again.”

She spat on the ground, anger strong in her eyes. Her captain grinned, quickly hiding his amusement at her fierce demeanor. Or perhaps he was only nervous that Sanglant had somehow insulted her, leaving him caught between avenging the insult and angering a prince, or losing his honor by doing nothing. She was canny enough to observe his discomfort and spoke a few quick words to him before returning her attention to Sanglant. “I’ve nothing to return to, back in my old home. But I won’t doom myself and any children I might have to poverty or slavery.”

“No man or woman knows what lies in the future. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. But even Prince Bayan had more than one wife before he married my sister, and all of his children are considered legitimate, with a right to share in his wealth. Even if it’s true your captain can only have one wife who is recognized by the church, I suppose he still prefers the old ways. If he doesn’t beat you now, then he’s scarcely likely to beat you once he returns to Ungria. I see no reason why you would suffer for living there, except that it’s a foreign land and like any foreign land a hard place to raise Wendish children.”

“You’re a bastard, too, aren’t you?” She toyed with one end of her girdle, wrapped tightly around her waist. Handsomely embroidered and finished with gold thread, it was a rich garment for a woman of her station. “What do I care if my children are halfbreeds and more Ungrian than Wendish as long as they have a better station in life? Why shouldn’t my sons hope to ride in a lord’s war band, and my daughters to guard the keys to a chest of treasure that they can administer and dispense? In the village I grew up in, not one family owned a horse. Now I ride instead of walking!”

Her words struck him powerfully. He had hoped for so little all his life, raised to be captain of the King’s Dragons, raised to serve Wendar and the regnant, nothing more. But he didn’t want to walk that path any longer. He no longer had the stomach for it. He had a child to consider.

“Go to Ungria,” he said softly, “and I pray that God go with you.”

Inside the chapel, Bayan’s body lay in state before the Lady’s Hearth. His mother lay outside the city’s walls, hidden in her wagon, guarded by her slaves and by a contingent of Ungrian troops. Rumor had it that her attendants had asked for a barrel of honey in which to preserve her body.

Brother Breschius lay prone before the shrouded corpse, still weeping, heartbroken at the loss of his lord. Sapientia fell to her knees beside him. She had to be held up by two of her attendants, and a third woman threw a light shawl over her head to hide her face from the clerics and mourners assembled in the church.

But Sanglant had cried all his tears at dusk, when he had ridden in through Osterburg’s gate beside Bayan’s limp body, thrown over a horse. He caught Heribert’s eye, and the cleric squeezed through the crowd and hurried over to him.

“What have you heard?” asked Sanglant in a low voice.

“Little enough. They’re still too grief-stricken to think beyond Bayan’s death. He was a good man.”

“True-spoken words.” He considered his weeping sister and her dead husband, illuminated by the gleam of lamps. A mural, obscured by the shadow of night and the shifting oil flames, washed the wall behind the Hearth: the martyrdom of St. Justinian, who had chosen death over marriage to a heathen queen. “Sapientia could become duchess of Saony.”

“An odd choice of words, my lord prince. I’m not certain I understood correctly what you just said.”

“Nay, you heard well enough, Heribert, but never mind. Stay a while longer, if you please. I’ve set the fox among the hens up in my aunt’s chamber. I’m sure they’ll be speaking of it here soon enough, and I’d like to know what they’re saying.”

Heribert’s smile was mocking. “A rough attempt at intrigue, my lord prince, but it will serve as a beginning.”

“Darre wasn’t built in a day.” He laughed, choked it back as the people nearest him turned around to stare, wondering who would be so crass as to disturb mourners in such a manner. Luckily, Sapientia had not heard him. “Where did I hear that line? I’ll be turning into a cleric soon.”