King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1)

King's Dragon (Crown of Stars #1) Page 91

The rain, and Hanna’s warmth, lulled her to sleep.

VII

LEAVETAKING

1

ALAIN never found Lackling’s body, although for days after, when he got a chance and deemed it safe, he went up and searched through the ruins for any sign of newly turned earth.

But he did not truly expect to find anything. The morning after that horrible night, by design he strayed past Lady Sabella’s livestock train out beyond the palisade and took up a station where he might observe the shrouded cage and its mysterious occupant. With his oddly keen hearing, which he still had not grown used to, he overheard the keepers of the shrouded cage speaking among themselves.

“Not much meat left on the carcass but, aye, that will satisfy the beast for now, thank the Lady.”

He only stopped looking after Lady Sabella’s entourage packed up and left, a grand procession winding its way southwest on the road that led toward the lands controlled by the duke of Varingia. That night, Lavastine called all his people together into the great hall and stood before them. Chatelaine Dhuoda and the clerics waited behind him, but to Alain’s eyes they looked as mystified as the rest.

Lavastine looked pale and listless. He stood without moving for a long time, staring into the air as if he saw something there none of the others could see. It was so unlike him, a man made decisive by long habit and a tendency to impatience, that Alain felt a sick sour feeling growing in his stomach—a feeling of dread. The hounds whined, crouching at their master’s feet. Rage and Sorrow, as was their wont, sat panting and watching at Alain’s heels; they remained, since the night of the sacrifice, remarkably subdued.

This, too, was marked. Most everyone in Lavas Holding now treated Alain with a skittish deference tinged with disgust, like a man who is afraid to spit on a leprous beggar lest he turn out to be a saint in disguise.

“We will leave,” said Lavastine suddenly. “We will arm ourselves with weapons and supplies and leave on St. Isidora’s Day. We will celebrate the Feast of St. Sormas at the hall of Lady Aldegund, wife to my cousin Lord Geoffrey. There they will be given a choice: join Sabella’s rebellion, or lose their lands.”

Everyone spoke at once, a rushing murmur.

“But that’s barely twenty days!” exclaimed Cook indignantly. “To outfit all that, and do the spring sowing? There won’t be time to do either right.”

Others agreed, but Lavastine only stood and stared and eventually all the folk quieted, waiting for him to go on.

“After that,” continued Lavastine in that same monotone voice, as if he had heard no objections, “we will ride on and join up with Lady Sabella and her army. We ride against Henry, unlawful king of Wendar and Varre.” He lifted a hand imperiously. “So do I speak. Let none question me.”

At first Alain could only sit stunned. Cook was right, of course; she usually was. It was a mistake to march out before the spring sowing had been completed. But after a time, like a puppy worrying at his boot, a kind of terrible helpless anger began to gnaw at him. He slipped a hand inside the slit neck of his outer tunic and felt down the leather string until he touched the rose. Its petals brushed his skin, and which was warmer, skin or rose petals, he could not tell.

Lavastine was leading his people to war.

But somehow this didn’t seem right.

As soon as he could, Alain excused himself from the hall. He made his way to the chapel, ordered Rage and Sorrow to sit, and there he waited by the light of the seven candles that illuminated the Hearth. As he expected, Agius soon arrived to pray. He knelt awkwardly, because Sorrow’s bite still hampered his movement.

“Frater,” said Alain softly. “Do you think it is sorcery?”

Agius made an impatient gesture. He knelt on the bare stone, but he did not rest forehead on clasped hands as he usually did. For once he was preoccupied by the events of the world. “The count might well have deemed this the wiser course. I cannot say.”

“But what do you think?” Alain demanded. “He never showed Lady Sabella such favor when she was here. He avoided all her questions. He made no commitments. And we can’t just plow half the spring fields and leave the autumn-sown wheat and all of that work to—” He broke off. He had been about to say, “to Lackling and the others who aren’t fit for war.” But the words choked in his throat.

Startled by Alain’s vehemence, Agius looked up at him. The frater was revealed, by candlelight, as a younger man than he usually appeared. The candle flame softened his harsh features, and the lines that scored his face blended with shadow to form a smoother profile. They were the lines, Alain realized, of a man who is never at ease with himself. He was probably not much older than Bel’s eldest daughter, Stancy, who had celebrated twenty-five or so Penitires.