Crown of Stars (Page 229)

Anna caught the attention of one of the guardsmen, Sibold, the man with the torn throat who spoke now in a hoarse croak that would always remind her of Prince Sanglant’s injured voice. “Is it true that Princess Theophanu will marry an—an Eika prince?” she whispered.

Sibold had always been a lively, bold man more likely to leap than to look, but his face was pale, he was exhausted, worn right through with grief. “So it is,” he said curtly, then shook his head and turned away.

She sat cross-legged beside the girl’s pallet, stroking that black hair, too restless to sleep as night came on. With her other hand she traced, over and over, the carved dogs’ heads on the staff. Something about the polish and smoothness of the wood comforted her.

From outside, a dog gave a low, whuffing bark, as a man might gently call for attention from a dozing merchant. Voices murmured from the porch. The door opened, and a man walked into the room. She recognized him, although he did not walk with his two massive black hounds in attendance, not in here.

He looked first at Blessing. The princess slept with an arm flung out and her legs tangled in a blanket. He knelt beside her, touched a hand to the girl’s cheek, listened, sighed. Then he looked up at Anna. Tipped his head sideways, eyes narrowing.

“I know you,” he said softly. “You were at Gent.”

Choked, she could only nod. But as her hand tightened over the staff, she found her voice.

“You gave your Holy Circle to an Eika prince” she said.

He smiled, eyes crinkling with surprise. “So I did.”

“I-I saw it. Him. He was in the cathedral at Gent. He let Matthias and me escape. He let us go. He could have killed us. Any of the others would have. But he let us go.”

The young man’s eyes were dark. Like the guivre, his gaze pinned her, as though he would dig all the way down until she had no secrets left. She clutched the staff and, drawn by the movement, he looked beyond her, and saw it.

He gasped. A slap across the face might have struck him, because he recoiled, eyes widened and head thrown back.

Yet the sting, however sharp, was brief.

He coughed, wiped his brow, touched his throat. From outside, a dog barked interrogatively.

“I pray you,” he said, voice a bit ragged, “where did you get that staff?”

Must she tell him? He stared at it possessively, and she wrapped both hands around the haft and drew it awkwardly against her body. Words stuck in her throat, but she knew she must speak. She must not remain silent.

“I-I-Lady Liathano gave it to me.”

“How came she by it? Do you know?”

“I-I-we didn’t have it before. In Ashioi country. She found it up at the crown, the one up here, where we walked through from the south. I heard her telling—as we walked down here—she found it by the hermit’s hut. She said—she said—” The words seemed so ridiculous she was afraid to utter them, but he looked at her so steadily that she stumbled on. “She said a—a lion dropped it at her feet.” She braced herself for his scorn, for laughter, for anger.

He sat back on his haunches. He let out all his breath, and passed a hand over his hair. “No. No.” And then, reluctantly, but as if he could not stop himself from saying it, he said, “It was mine, once.”

Almost, she sobbed.

He flicked moisture from beneath an eye. “Might I just—just—” Reaching, he hesitated.

At length, rigid with fear of losing the staff, she released it into his hands. He traced the carved heads, the length of the shaft, the cut where the wood had been hacked. He shut his eyes, and after a moment opened them. Blessing snorted softly in her sleep and turned over, but did not wake.

“Let it be passed on to the one who needs it most,” he said, giving it back to her.

She was ashamed at how she grabbed it from him, but he only smiled gently. He rose, took a step away, paused to turn back.

“You are not the only survivor from Gent who walks in royal circles this day, now that I think on it. Lord Stronghand’s council includes a man who was once from Gent, called Otto. ‘Papa Otto,’ I heard the others calling him. He’s in Kassel with the rest of Stronghand’s army.”

Then he left.

She stared at the closed door as the lamps hissed. Papa Otto! If Princess Blessing was to be the heir, and Princess Theophanu and this Lord Stronghand were to rule, and Papa Otto stood in Lord Stronghand’s council, then surely she and Papa Otto could be together somehow, sometimes.

Leaping up, she ran after him. He was still on the porch, talking in a low voice to Captain Fulk, whose eyes were red from weeping.