Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars #2)

Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars #2) Page 15

“My mother had only boys,” retorted the Lion, “but we none of us gave her reason to be ashamed. Come now, give this loyal Eagle something to eat.”

Grudgingly, the woman did so, a fresh piece of pork spitted on a twig. The Lion handed her a round of flat bread, coarse flour mixed with a paste of dried berries, their usual rations when all else was gone. It was still warm from baking.

“Thank you,” she said, not quite knowing how to respond to his kindness except to identify herself. “I’m called Liath.”

“I’m known as Thiadbold. You’re the Eagle who rode in from Gent,” he added. “We remember you. Those of us who serve the king, and who don’t have noble kin—” Here he grinned. He had a shock of red hair and part of one ear missing, the lobe sliced cleanly off and healed now into a white dimple. “—must watch out for each other as we may. Will you drink with us?”

The camp of Lions, sited near the king’s tent, was much reduced. The first King Henry had commissioned ten centuries of Lions. In these days, at least five of those centuries served in the eastern marchlands, protecting market cities and key forts from the incursions of the barbarians. Two Lion banners flew at this camp, marking the two centuries who marched with the king. But even considering those men who stood watch at this hour, Liath could not imagine that more than sixty men out of two hundred had survived the final battle with Lady Sabella.

“I can’t,” she said with some regret. She was not used to sitting and chatting in the company of soldiers—or anyone else, for that matter. Even some of the other Eagles thought her aloof and had told her so, being by nature an independent group of souls who had no reluctance to speak their minds when in the company of their own kind. “I stand watch tonight.”

He nodded and let her go.

In the woods beyond she heard the bleating and lowing of livestock, kept well away from the tempting fields. Some soldiers, too, had been commandeered from those recalcitrant Varren lords who had fled home after Sabella’s defeat and hoped to avoid the king’s notice. These sat sullen in their own camps, watched by the king’s men. A few brace of young noble lordlings and a handful of their rashest sisters had come along as well, some as hostages, some for the hope of war and booty at Gent or farther east in the marchlands. At least some of these had gear and horses but, all in all, Henry’s army had lost much of its strength.

By the time she got back to the king’s tent, she had licked every last spot of grease off her fingers. The king had gone to his bed and his noble companions had retired to their own tents.

Hathui handed her a skin filled with ale. “You’ll want this,” she said. “If we don’t take this damned city by tomorrow, we’ll be forced to drink water. Now I’m to bed.” As the king’s favored Eagle, she slept just inside the entrance to his tent, along with his other personal servants.

Liath got the night watch because she could see so well in the dark, but she also liked it because it left her alone with her thoughts. Some nights, though, her thoughts were no fit companion.

Gent.

She could not bear to think of Gent and what had happened there. Sometimes, at night, she still dreamed of the Eika dogs. It was better to remain awake at night, if she could.

With the sky overcast, she could not observe the heavens. Instead, she walked through her city of memory. Only standing alone through the night, freed from Hugh and no longer under the eye of Wolfhere, dared she risk the intense concentration it took to order her city and remember.

The city stands on a hill that is also an island. Seven walls ring the city, each one pierced by a gate. At the height, on a plateau, stands the tower.

But on this journey into the city, she crosses under the threshold of the third gate, which is surmounted by the Cup of Boundless Waters. She enters the fourth house to the left, passing under an archway of horn.

Here resides her recollection of Artemisia’s Dreams, and here she walks into the first hall and enters the second chamber, first book, second chapter. Why do these dreams of the Eika dogs torment her? Do they mean something she ought to interpret, or are they just the memory of that awful last day in Gent?

But Artemisia gives her no respite, once she has read the various symbols installed in the little chamber, each one a trigger for some portion of the words written in the book.

“‘Let me tell you that if you want to make sense of your dream, it must be remembered from beginning to end, or you cannot interpret it. Only if you remember it completely, can you explore the point to which the vision leads.’”