The Burning Stone

“She turned on him,” said Hanna in a low voice. “But perhaps he was a bad husband.”



“Hush, friend,” said Ingo suddenly. He rose, and she shifted to see a tall figure coming down the line of wagons with a shovel resting on his shoulder and two huge dogs walking at his heels. He stumbled to a halt just before them and almost tripped. The dogs sat down as polite as you please, without a noise. But she saw who they were now, and she couldn’t help rising to face them, though they made not one threatening sound or movement.



“I beg your pardon, Ingo,” said Alain. “I didn’t see you.” He saw Hanna, too, and offered a polite greeting. Obviously he didn’t know who she was, and she wasn’t about to remind him of Liath, whom he might associate with happier days. He gestured toward the wagon. “Are we moving out today? I didn’t hear any orders.”



“Nay, not today. It’s those kittens—”



“Ah.” He, too, seemed to know about the kittens. He knelt by the wheel, setting the shovel down, and examined the now-motionless heap of straw.



This close to the shovel, Hanna could smell the pungent aroma of the pits and see bits of dirt and stickier substances clinging to the spade’s edge. He had been on nightsoil duty, an odd chore for a man who had not ten days ago walked among the great princes of the realm. But if the labor annoyed him, she could see no trace of resentment on his face; he had an interesting profile, clean, a little sharp because of the cut of his nose. His dark hair was growing out raggedly and had been caught back with a leather string. At this moment, he stared so intently at the straw that she wondered if he had forgotten she and Ingo crouched beside him. Slowly he extended a hand; he made the slightest whistling noise under his breath, hardly a sound at all, but the straw wiggled and shuddered and a tiny pink nose peeped out, then a second, beside it.



His hand did not move, nor had he taken the sausage from Ingo. The gray kitten slipped out of the straw and tottered skittishly forward, sniffed his fingers, then with its little pink tongue began to lick. A second shadow, more motley than gray, staggered out beside the first, followed by a third.



Hanna was afraid to move. Ingo seemed frozen with amazement, sausage dangling limp from his fingers. The hounds watched, eerily silent. One settled down to lick a paw.



After the kittens had licked Alain’s fingers, he turned his hand over slowly and stroked them until tiny purrs rumbled. Still moving cautiously, he scooped them up against his chest, where they settled down, faces hidden.



“I’ll take them to Cook,” he murmured. “Maybe they’ll take some cream.” He gestured with a foot toward the shovel. “I’ll come back—”



“Nay, comrade,” said Ingo. “I’ll take the shovel to its place.”



“Thank you,” said Alain, and with his burden and his disquieting attendants, he walked on down the line of wagons and vanished into camp.



“Well,” said Hanna. “What do you make of that?”



“He’s a strange one, in truth,” said Ingo, staring after Alain with a pensive expression. “Not disrespectful or arrogant, considering what he was. Nor is he humble and groveling either. You’d think he’d always been a Lion, really. Yet when I saw him sit among the lords, I never doubted he belonged there. And those hounds. Fierce as lions ’round anyone else but him, and with him they might as well be lambs.”



“I thought the hounds belonged to the Lavas counts! Didn’t they stay with Lord Geoffrey?”



“Nay, they’re here in camp. I don’t know if they followed him or if Lord Geoffrey turned them out. Still, it’s very odd.”



She left him there, thinking it odd herself, but she was late, and Wolfhere was waiting out beyond the sentries where a campfire burned. He was just feeding it another log when he saw her and indicated that she should sit down opposite him.



“I had hoped Hathui could come as well, but she must stay beside the king.”



“He trusts and respects her.”



“As he should,” retorted Wolfhere, but then he smiled his wolf’s grin, sharp, deadly, and oddly reassuring. “I’ve a trick to teach you. We call it Eagle’s Sight. It’s a way of seeing long distances through fire.”



Hanna laughed at such an absurd claim.



“Yet you believe me, don’t you?” he observed. “With proper training, many Eagles can learn to see through fire any person we have observed closely enough that we can form their likeness in our minds. In time, you may learn to hear voices within the flames as well, but that won’t happen at first. And I must warn you that some people simply are blind. If that proves so for you, Hanna, then think no worse of yourself.”