King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1)

King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1) Page 194

It made him sick, the feeling of her watchfulness.

He shut his eyes and turned his face against the safe, warm flank of Sorrow.

Later, when there was no more whispering, he slept.

2

THEY held council at dawn outside Antonia’s tent. “I still say the battle comes too soon,” protested Duke Rodulf. Obviously this argument had been raging for many days, and he was not quite yet resigned to losing it. “We risk everything by meeting Henry now.”

“Meeting Henry now is exactly what I planned for and wish for,” said Sabella. The odd thing about her voice, as monotone as it was, was the way its lack of emotion lent her an air of stubborn decisiveness. She was not a bright light or a leader of great radiance; she did not even have that brusque impatient authority by which Lavastine had (once) ruled his lands. Like a boulder rolling down a slope, she made no great claims, sparked no great fire, but simply crushed any obstacle in her path. “He has rushed to meet me. He has no great force with him today.”

“Yet according to our scouts he has a greater army than what we have gathered here.” Rodulf frowned and shook his head.

“Not as great a force as the one he will gather, given time to raise levies. Given time for his supporters to raise levies from their lands and march them across Wendar to Henry’s side. No, this is as small a force as Henry will ever wield in defense of his crown. And this time it will not be enough.”

“You are sure of this,” said Rodulf. Of all the various nobles and petty lords in attendance on Sabella, he was by now the only one who still questioned her. She endured his questioning, as she must: He was a duke, her equal in rank in all things except for the gold torque. But Rodulf’s mother’s mother had been a princess of Salia, so in this way he, too, came of noble lineage.

Alain stood behind Biscop Antonia, hiding among her clerics, and watched the council. By now Cleric Willibrod was not alone among the clerics in having a rash and unsightly sores on hands and lips, though he remained the only who picked nervously at them. Only Heribert, as fastidious as any man Alain had ever met, maintained his clean, unstained skin. But as chief among Antonia’s clerics, he kept himself above the actual work; he only supervised the care of the vestments, the making of amulets, the care for the sick in Antonia’s train, and the rest of the multitude of small tasks that accompanied attendance on a biscop.

“I am sure of this,” said Sabella. “Now is the time to act. Now is the time to fight.” She looked at Biscop Antonia; the biscop nodded, answering an unspoken question. Sometimes Alain wondered if Antonia controlled Sabella the way she controlled Lavastine, but even now he saw no sign of such a thing. Sabella and Antonia worked in concert. What grievances, in their inner hearts, drove them to these deeds he could not tell, though he wondered mightily. Sabella’s complaint was the more obvious. She believed she had been deprived of a throne which was rightfully hers. But had not God spoken, by default, when Sabella had ridden out on her heir’s progress and returned without having conceived a child? Henry, on his heir’s progress, had conceived a child, even if it was with as strange a mate as an Aoi woman. Why could Sabella not accept what fate—and God—had decreed for her?

No more than could I, he thought ruefully. Fate— and the God of Unities—had decreed he must enter the church as a novice, and yet here he was, marching to war, seeing more of the world than he had ever expected to, though this was exactly what he had dreamed about.

So did they all ready themselves. Duke Rodulf took himself off to his own troops, and Sabella waited for her horse to be brought to her. The army formed a great cavalcade as it rode east, crossing the El River at a shallow ford and marching up into the highlands. They now moved through the lands that owed allegiance to the duke of Fesse. They were in Wendar.

By bringing troops into lands outside Arconia, Sabella had now crossed the line past which there was no going back. Alain could not help but feel a thrill of excitement. The men he marched beside, the guards and clerics who protected Biscop Antonia and her “guests,”—Constance and Agius—felt it, too. They laughed and sang boisterously and made jokes among themselves, boasting about what they would do with the riches they intended to loot from the bodies of Henry’s soldiers: a spearhead, a good dagger, any kind of armor, shield or metal helmet or leather surcoat or, for a truly lucky man, a mail shirt or a sword.

No matter who won this battle, Alain realized, a great deal of wealth was about to change hands.

At midday the two armies met as if by design. They arrayed themselves on a broad field. Henry’s force took the better position. The field sloped gently upward toward steeper heights beyond, and Henry had ordered his forces so Sabella would have to attack up the hill at him.