Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7) Page 246

And so on, and so forth, the unending turn of the wheel. Still, it could have been worse. Conrad’s daughter had changed her mind and cut all ties to Mathilda, who had only a scrap of land near Novomo left to call her queendom. The Ashioi had sent an envoy asking for a marriage alliance. Several trading guilds had established themselves along the Eika shores, and it seemed the Eika liked to trade as much as they liked to fight. Fearsome merfolk swam into ports asking after the health of brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and beloved partners they could certainly never have met or been in any way related to, especially considering that they seemed to have the memories of men who had been lost at sea, and yet in some places strange but lasting bonds were formed between fishermen and merchants and these savage water folk, each helping the others. A Quman muster pushing for an invasion into the marchlands had abruptly dissolved when a pair of griffins had carried away the most belligerent of the war leaders. The civil war in Salia—raging for over three decades—had at last died away, no doubt of exhaustion, and the constant debilitating flow of refugees into Varre had eased in recent years. Just last year, a peculiar party of envoys had arrived at Autun from a stunted, deformed folk calling themselves the Ancient Ones and claiming to be miners and scholars of natural history. Young Henry had come south from Rikin Fjord, and she thought he would be a steadying influence on the volatile Constance.

So, there was also a measure of peace to be found. They had survived the worst, surely. The cataclysm had hammered them forty years ago, and in many ways they were still recovering.

Her Dragon guard spread out along the spokes of the wheel, loitering, enjoying the sun, although the day was cold enough to turn hands white. Her Quman levy, refreshed every five years according to the pledge made by Gyasi forty years ago; her Eika nephews, as she called them, who were really grandsons and great grandsons out of Rikin Fjord; a few pale Albans; and one dark-haired Salavii man who had turned up one day holding a golden phoenix feather in his left hand and who had never left. Once, she had boasted a dozen bold Ashioi mask warriors in their number, but they had been recalled to their own country. Now, the remainder was strong Wendish and Varren soldiers, all wearing the sigil of the black dragon, her father’s mark.

The Quman in particular could never get enough of the stern-featured little statues of saints and angels that populated the garden, some freestanding and others half hidden in niches carved into the walls. What piqued their interest she had never understood, but they were at it again. They wandered in pairs to examine each sculpture, often kneeling beside one to point out particularities in its features. Four of them had gathered on the other side of the fountain to stare. She moved, curious to know what they were fascinated by, and found that after all another soul had come to seek peace in the garden. He was seated by himself on a bench, in the sun, with a book and several loose pages of vellum resting on his lap.

Everyone knew the old cleric was her favorite, and that he had been so for years. Despite his age, he retained his remarkable beauty, but what was most curious about him was his lack of vanity considering his exalted station on the queen’s progress. Some unkind gossips whispered that in truth he had no great intelligence and had gained his prominent position simply by virtue of his appearance, and wasn’t even canny enough to understand the nature of his power, yet even these skeptics had to admit that he wrote with an elegant hand, none better even in the schola of the skopos, where he had come from. He copied charters and diplomas and letters, and in this way had served her for decades until in the end he became one of the last of those who really remembered the year of the cataclysm. Many had been children at that time, as she had been, but a child’s memories are malleable and elusive.

She walked over and sat beside him on the bench. “What are you reading, Brother Baldwin?”

He had been studying a dormant rosebush with what was, in truth, a slightly vacant expression, but he smiled amiably and stroked the spine of the book.

“Just looking over what I wrote yesterday, Your Majesty.” He indicated the unbound vellum.

After a moment, she said, patiently, “And what was that?”

“What I promised to the Holy Mother—may she rest in peace. To continue the History of the Deeds of the Great Princes, and pass on my charge when it comes my time to rise beyond this world and ascend to the Chamber of Light. I fell behind because of the deal of business we got into this last summer.”

“Read to me.”

He picked up one of the sheets, studied its lovely curling script, frowned, and replaced it with another page. “I’ll start here,” he said.