Elliott, Kate - Crown of Stars 1 (69 page)

"But I am not afraid, Constance. I am not afraid to proclaim the truth. Did the blessed Daisan not say: 'Be assured I am with you always, to the end of time?' Did the Mother of Life not give her only Son for the forgiveness of our sins?"

Constance sighed. "Ai, Agius, this is heresy indeed. How can you speak these words? It is a serious charge, to be brought before the presbyter who watches over the order of fraters. Is this what you want? To be condemned as a heretic?"

"It is better to speak the truth and die than to keep silence and live."

"You are bitter, Agius. You were not like this before."

With an abrupt movement, he buried his head against her chest. He spoke, his voice muffled further by the cloth of her robes. "Forgive me, Constance. I did it to save the life of my niece, for the love that lived between her father and myself."

"You have always loved too deeply, Agius." She sighed, her breath catching in her throat. "You know I forgive you. How can I not? You are first in my heart, after my pledge to Our Lady and Lord."

"Yet you did not protest. You did not rebel, when your brother gave you to the church."

"I know my duty," she said softly, stroking his hair.

Agius was, Alain realized, weeping quietly. Constance wept as well, and Alain felt that by licking his tongue into the air he could taste the amalgamation of I their tears, each into the other. Perhaps Agius did love too deeply. But was it not written that the blessed Daisan loved the world and all the people on it? Was love not the chief blessing granted to human beings by the mercy and grace of Our Lady and Lord?

Alain could feel their closeness, could taste the heat of their bodies, pressed against each other
—and he felt envy. What would it be like to love a woman that much? So much that, if those hints Agius gave were true, he had turned away from the world when it came about that he could not marry her and instead devoted himself to the church as a humble frater, far below his rightful station in life? Would any woman ever weep for Alain? Press herself close against him?

Ai, it was true, that old saying. Envy is the shadow of the
guivre,
the wings of death. Alain knew shame, for he desired what was not his to have. He had been marked twice, once by the church and once by the Lady of Battles, whose rose he bore.

But he could not help but think of nights in the longhouse when as a child he lay awake, listening, hearing the soft sounds from other beds, Stancy and her husband, Aunt Bel and Uncle Ado, before Ado died. Of all the adults Alain knew, only his father Henri and those pledged to the church did not engage in such congress. Agius and Constance engaged in nothing now more intimate than an embrace, and yet there was so much more between them that it flared like a bright light, like the heat of coals in the brazier.

There was another brazier in the tent, this one placed beside the bed where Antonia slept. Alain glanced that way reflexively, trying not to move or betray that he was awake. But he gasped, more of a grunt, then bit his lip. He did not breathe for the space of five heartbeats.

Antonia's eyes were open. He caught the glint of dim light against them, eyes glittering in night. Constance and Agius were too caught up in themselves to notice. But he did.

She watched, silent. She appeared to him like a huge yawning maw, sucking in life and air. She watched, he felt, not because she had her own yearnings or because she wanted to spy and thus gain information, but because she was greedy, because like a cat laps up cream or a griffin suckles the blood of its mother, she wanted as rnuch as she could take from them. As if she intended to gather to herself and hoard all that intensity of emotion.

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.

JL XT.C JL 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 tor 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 j 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 j 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 j had now crossed the line past which there was no going back. Alain could not help but feel a thrill of excitement, j The men he marched beside, the guards and clerics who
'
protected Biscop Antonia and her "guests,"
—Constance j and Agius—felt it, too. They laughed and sang boister-i ously 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 j 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 I 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.

But she seemed unperturbed.

"Hai!" she said fiercely and triumphantly to Duke Rodulf, who had dropped back from his mounted soldiers to consult with her. "Look you, at the banners of Henry's forces, and tell me what you see."

From this place in Antonia's retinue, which marched always at the side of Sabella, Alain surveyed Henry's army. It seemed vast, unnumberable; he had never seen so many people gathered into one place at one time. He could not even count that high, though he heard Cleric Heribert whisper to Antonia:

"Something less than eight hundred men, and perhaps a third of them mounted."

Alain recognized the dragon of Saony, but the men assembled under the banner of Saony's duke were no more in number than those who rode in Count Lavastine's retinue. The eagle of Fesse flew over a more formidable band of soldiers, many of these mounted. One group of these mounted soldiers was massed tightly around a figure wearing a surcoat of white and gold, royal colors; this person must be Duchess Liutgard. A banner also flew for Avaria, and though Alain glanced to where Agius stood meekly beside Constance, he did not think Agius was paying any particular attention to the banner of his father's dukedom
or
to that of the woman his brother had married in his stead. Agius was praying. Constance stood calmly, hand raised almost to her throat but resting lightly on her chest, and her lips moved as she spoke
—seemingly to herself—the names of the lords and counts and dukes who rode in Henry's host.

In the center a huge bold banner of red silk fluttered in the stiff spring breeze. Three animals, stitched in gold thread, were displayed in a column on the banner: an eagle, a dragon, and a lion, the signs of Henry's authority. Even from this distance Alain thought he recognized the king himself, surrounded by a richly arrayed group of retainers.

The king wore a crested iron helm and mail sleeves, and his chest was protected by a metal breastplate over a mail shirt. He wore also, on his legs, mail to protect his thighs and iron greaves on his calves; indeed, many of the mounted soldiers in his retinue wore such greaves, a sign of their wealth and station. In his left hand the king held a lance, in his right hand nothing, so that he might better grasp his sword when it was needed. The shield
iv/\lt
ELLIOTT hanging from his saddle was of iron, without device or color.

Like the other common soldiers, Alain did not even have a metal helmet much less armor this elaborate. He could only imagine how many sceattas such equipment would cost. Not even Duke Rodulf wore such impressive armor, though certainly he was heavily protected.

It was a formidable army. Only two ducal banners waved in Sabella's forces: the
guivre
of Arconia and the stallion of Varingia, but both she and Rodulf had fielded many men, though not as many were mounted or armed as well as Henry's men. It seemed a desperate gamble.

"Conrad the Black has not chosen to appear on the field," said Rodulf to Sabella, squinting at the line of banners and soldiers on the slope above them.

"Conrad plays his own game," said Sabella. "If he will not support me, then I am just as happy that he chooses not to support Henry either. But don't you see, Rodulf? Don't you see what is lacking, there?" She gestured broadly, her arm taking in the entire line of Henry's army and the banners displayed. "There is no Dragon banner. The red dragon of Saony I see, but there is no black dragon. Henry's best fighters are not with him on the field!"

Rodulf whistled breath out between his lips. "So are they not. I no longer despair, Sabella."

"Nor should you ever have despaired. Do you wear your amulet, Rodulf?" "I do, but
—"

"That is all that matters. Return to your men." "Where
are
the Dragons, then? Surely Prince San-giant has not turned agamst Yus Miner
? never heard before that the boy had the least drop of rebellious blood in him." He laughed, a little nervous still but obviously resolved to see this fight through to the end. " often wish my own children were so obedient."

"Surely you heard me mention that my informants said the Dragons had ridden north, well out of the way, to fight Eika raiders?"

"Ah, of course. Strike at the sheep while the watchdog is out hunting the wolf, eh?" He grimaced, more by way of a grin than a frown. "If the Dragons stood beside Henry on this day, I would judge it wiser to ask forgiveness than to light. But
—"

"But they do not. And now you do not need to make that choice. Go, then." She made a sign to one of her men-at-arms. He had been expecting the signal, because he turned and rode back toward the train.

Rodulf reined his horse away and with his attendants rode back to his soldiers, who held the right flank opposite the banner of Fesse. Lavastine and a motley assortment of lordlings as well as levies taken from monastery lands made up the left flank, facing the lion of Avaria and the small contingent that had marched long days from Saony
—or perhaps, Alain supposed, there had not been time for a contingent to come all the way from Saony. Perhaps the banner of Saony rode over those folk who had been in attendance on Henry already. Perhaps they flew the banner more to show Saony's loyalty than to boast of their force of numbers.