The Burning Stone
“Strong words,” said Henry. His niece Tallia shifted in her seat as if his voice had startled her, but she did not look up from her study of her knees. She had a pale face, pale hair, and pale hands, was almost colorless, quite in contrast to the plump young noblewoman who stood in attendance on her with her hands folded quietly before her and her serious gaze flicking now and again toward Alain.
“What about this boy, Lackling?” asked Henry. “You seem sure he was Count Lavastine’s bastard. Could he touch the hounds?”
“Why, bless you, Your Majesty,” she said with a chuckle, “he hadn’t enough wits to try, nor would anyone let him. He was misshapen in the body, poor lad, as sweet a soul as you might wish, but he was simple in the head.”
“I pray you, Your Majesty, have I your permission to speak?” said Alain. His voice warmed Hanna; she had never heard him speak before, but there was nothing nasty or irate in his tone, nothing to trouble one’s heart or scrape raw one’s soul. Henry nodded. “The hounds never troubled Lackling.”
“What are you saying? I don’t understand your meaning.” Henry sat back in his chair, hands curling over the dragon armrests. Their carved tongues licked out between his fingers, and he rubbed them absently as he listened.
“Everyone but you,” retorted Geoffrey. His face went from red to white in an instant, the complexion of a sinning man, or a fearful one. “Because you’re an agent of the Enemy. You used sorcery to enslave them, just as you used sorcery to bind my cousin to your will. We’ve all heard the story that the elder Count Charles Lavastine was accused of having made a pact with the Enemy to get those hounds. Why would any man want them? We’ve all seen and heard how vicious they are. They can only be creatures of the Enemy, and if they obey you, it must be because you are a servant of the Enemy as well!”
“This is a grave accusation, Lord Geoffrey, not only against Alain but against Count Lavastine, his father the younger Charles, and his grandfather Charles Lavastine as well. Do you mean to imply that all of them were in league with the Enemy?”
At once the young noblewoman and an older man who resembled her leaned over to whisper furiously to Geoffrey while he by turns looked irate and mortified. The child on the woman’s lap fussed and was given a fig to chew on to keep it quiet.
The crowd had begun talking and there was a buzz of anger below it, like bees smoked out of their hive, but Hanna couldn’t tell who the anger was directed against. Alain did not move except to pat the head of one of the hounds. Tallia glanced at her uncle. She seemed to have eyes for no one but Henry, and even so her gaze was more like that of a rabbit eyeing the hawk that would like to eat it than that of a trusting niece. Hadn’t she married Lord Alain last summer? Of course she had! Why wasn’t she sitting beside him, then?
“Then do you lay a claim against the elder Charles Lavastine and his conduct?”
“No one knows what he got in return for the hounds, but it brought ill luck into his house. The story goes that his own mother died in childbed the day he got the hounds. He himself never had but one child although he married four different women, and his son had only the one living child although his wife was brought to bed ten or twelve times. My cousin Lavastine had only the one child, and not only were she and her mother murdered by these same hounds, but it was rumored that the girl wasn’t his get at all, that his wife had committed adultery. Two times more he made ready to marry, and both those women died under unnatural circumstances. And last, that same ill luck brought this liar to Lavas Holding, this man who tempted my cousin and bewitched him. And killed him, too, so I hear. Everyone agrees it was sorcery that killed him, some foul creature of the Enemy. Even those who will speak no ill of this bastard acknowledge that my cousin died in an unnatural way. It’s true, isn’t it?” he demanded at last, for the first time glaring belligerently at Alain.