King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1)

King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1) Page 207

“An Eagle!” she cried. “An Eagle comes.”

Rosvita closed the book with trembling hands and wrapped it in linen. Then she clutched it to her breast and rose, hands still shaking, and hurried over to the great doors. Theophanu came with her, but the king’s daughter was completely calm. Ekkehard was talking excitedly behind them, and his servants swarmed around him, helping him up. The chatelaine and other servants of the duchess of Fesse crowded behind Rosvita and the princess.

The Eagle was Hathui, the young woman Henry had honored by taking her into his personal retinue. She handed off her horse to a groom and walked forward to kneel before Theophanu.

“Your Highness, Princess Theophanu,” she said, lifting her eyes to look upon Theophanu’s face. She had the rare ability to be proud without being impudent. “King Henry sends word that his sister Sabella refuses any terms of parley, and that battle will be joined.”

“What of the course of that battle?” asked Theophanu.

“I do not know. I rode quickly, and without looking back, as is my duty.”

“Bring her mead,” said Theophanu. She stared off across the town. Kassel was laid out as a square with two broad avenues set perpendicular to each other, dividing it into four even quarters. An old wall surrounded it, the last obvious remains besides the baths that this had once been a Dariyan town in the days of the old empire. The town had probably been larger then, and certainly more densely populated. There was room now within the old walls for a few fields—mostly vegetables and one impressive stand of fruit trees as well as some common pasture for cows—between the last line of houses and the town gates. Outside the wall lay fields, rye and barley because of the soil of this country, the red clay of the highlands.

Where had all those people gone, and what had become of their descendants? Had they fled back to Aosta, to the city of Darre out of which the empire had grown? Had they died in the wars and plagues and famines that had devastated and ultimately destroyed the old empire? Had they simply vanished and never returned, like poor Berthold?

Rosvita could not help but wonder. “Knowledge tempted me too much,” Brother Fidelis had said. At times like this, she knew she also was too curious. Henry might be dead and all he had worked for overthrown. Or he might have committed the terrible crime of slaying his own kin, the very crime that—some chroniclers wrote—had brought about the fall of the Dariyan Empire. And here she stood, wondering about the history of the town of Kassel when the peace and stability of the kingdom was at stake!

“Come,” she said to Theophanu, “let us sit down again and wait.”

Theophanu, barely, shook her head. “It is time to saddle our horses,” she said quietly. “And to gather together healers. Either we will ride to the battle to give aid to the wounded, or we will ride away.”

“Away?”

Theophanu turned now, her dark lashes framing eyes as startlingly large as those of queens in ancient mosaics. She looked entirely too composed. “If Sabella wins, then Ekkehard and I must remain out of her hands at any cost. We must be prepared to ride to my Aunt Scholastica at Quedlinhame.”

Rosvita placed a hand on her chest and bowed slightly, showing her respect for the young princess. Of course Theophanu was right. She had learned politics at her mother’s knee, and her mother Sophia had learned politics in the court of Arethousa, where intrigue ran in webs as convoluted and dangerous as those in any court in the world of humankind.

This, then, was the choice Henry had to make, because it was long past time for him to send one of his daughters on her heir’s progress. He had to choose between Sapientia, the daughter who was bold and open and yet too often did not show good judgment, and the cool, inscrutable Theophanu, who had fine political instincts but none of that vital charismatic charm that marked a sovereign as the chosen of God. One was too trusting; the other, no one trusted. No wonder Henry dreamed of placing his bastard son Sanglant on the throne.

2

FROM frater to deacon.

“Get me a horse!”

The woman who made this demand of Hanna had the imperious tone of a noblewoman though she wore simple deacon’s robes and her braided hair had not even a shawl to cover it. But there was nothing Hanna could do. She had no horse, having lost it to the desperate frater.

“Begging your pardon, Deacon,” she said, hefting her spear just in case the woman meant to attempt an escape while Princess Sapientia’s soldiers fought off the new attack, “but all who are in this train are now in the custody of King Henry.”

To her surprise, the deacon laughed. “Of course, child. Do you not know me?”