Crown of Stars (Page 239)

“I saw new fields cleared.”

“We’ve absorbed many new settlers, and we feed a hundred milites as well, courtesy of the queen regnant. You’ll have to ask Sanglant about the ploughs. What luck with the Eagle’s Council?”

“Sending the Eagles through crowns? Not many favor it. Not more than one or two, I admit. It’s too much. They fear it.”

“Let it be, for now. The queen and king will come to see its utility, once enough have the skills.”

They talked of a hundred things and of nothing as Hanna bathed and Liath sat on a stool beside her. Much later, after she was clean and dry, they returned to the tower.

Count Lavrentia was awake, propped up on pillows, attending to the business of the county with the prince and a chatelaine seated beside her. The count and her grandson-in-law were a good match, and it was well he had an administrator’s bent of mind, since Liath was distracted and soon after Hanna’s long recital slipped out of the room with a pair of her companions: the Ashioi woman and a man Hanna recognized as an archer who had long fought beside the prince.

At length, disputes were resolved, capitularies sealed, a bull requested for breeding by a nearby manor, a pair of merchants out of Medemelacha interviewed and given the right to set up trading houses at Osna Sound, tithing for St. Thierry’s Convent, some question about building, and a report from the Osna shore about five boats that had put in to the ruined monastery and departed again, none knowing who these folk were or where they had come from or what they were looking for. Everyone was anxious about plague, having heard rumors of sickness along the Salian border and in parts of Wayland and Varingia.

“You are weary, Grandmother.” Sanglant dismissed the stewards, and bent to kiss the old woman on either cheek. “Rest. I’ll go make sure she doesn’t fall into a well.”

She chuckled, but it was true she was pale and trembling with fatigue, although she had been awake no more than three hours. “Pray the child takes after you, Son,” she said to him affectionately.

The hounds whipped their tails hopefully as the prince went to the door, and she released them to seethe after him.

Outside, the afternoon had drawn long shadows over the open courts. The exposed rafters of the new building formed hatch-mark shadows on the dirt. The squat spire of the old church could be seen over the palisade. Hammers rang from the outer town. Nearby, two men were sawing planks out of logs. The kitchens boiled with activity, and the smell of chickens roasting on a spit gave the air a rich savor.

Sanglant had a long stride, but Hanna kept up with him. He whistled a merry tune—actually, now that she recognized it, she recalled its bawdy words. Although he was stopped five times so his opinion might be solicited on some matter or other, he remained fixed to his path with a pleasant determination that soon led them out beyond both old berm and new stockade and onto a path that led up a steep hill. A shout came from behind, and they paused to see a soldier toiling up the slope behind them. Sanglant brushed hair out of his eyes, surveying the wide and open valley that held Lavas Holding. Folk had turned toward home, coming in from the fields and orchards and woodland stretched out on all sides.

“Is it well with you, my lord prince?” she asked quietly, not sure if he would deign to answer.

At first he looked startled. Then he laughed. “God have granted me what I most wished for. How can it not be well?”

“It seemed …” He was a generous man, warm spirited and charming, easy to confide in and trust. He looked and acted content, but a man might hide his inner heart behind a mask of outer seeming. “It might be said that you lost a great deal, my lord prince.”

A crown. A spell woven into the flesh that made you invulnerable.

She did not say these things out loud.

“I lost nothing that I regret losing.” He smiled, looking not at her but at Lavas Holding. “A grant of land, Liath as my wife, and peace. You can be sure I’ll hold tight to them. No onion I, Hanna. I am as you see me.”

“My lord!” The soldier had the ragged voice of a man who has had his throat damaged in battle, and never healed. “They promised me that I could go first, and now Lewenhardt has gotten the jump on me! Damn him to the Pit!”

“So he may well fall into the Pit this very night. God Above! Will you two never be content?” He spoke cheerfully; he was amused.

“I was promised!” said the soldier stubbornly.

“Come, then,” he said. “Best if we hurry.”

It was a fair long walk curving up along the hill and into the woods behind, much cut back now, the path beaten into a broad path where two wagons might roll abreast.