The Burning Stone

“Where did you come by the horse?” he asked finally. “He’s very fine. It seems to me I’ve seen him before.”



“Count Lavastine gave Resuelto to me as a reward for my service to him at Gent. And all the gear, too.”



It stirred, then, a spark of jealousy—quickly extinguished. She wasn’t riding with Count Lavastine. She was riding with him.



“Will King Henry be very angry?” she asked in a tremulous voice.



“Yes. He wants me to ride south to Aosta to place Princess Adelheid on the Aostan throne, marry her, and name myself as king regnant. Then he can march south, have the skopos crown him emperor, and name me as his heir and successor because of the legitimacy conferred upon me by my title as king.”



Her reply came more as a kind of stifled grunt than anything. They rode out into a clearing, vanguard of the open land that lay before them, and here he could see her expression clearly in the muted light of late evening. “But then, if you marry me—”



He reined in and she had to halt. “Let us speak of this once and not again,” he said, impatient not truly with her but with the arguments he knew would come once they returned to the king’s progress. “As Bloodheart’s prisoner I saw what it meant to be a king. This, my retinue—” He gestured toward the dogs who were by now well trained enough that they didn’t try to rip out the horses’ underbellies. “—would have torn out my throat any time I showed weakness. So would the great princes do to my father, were he to show weakness. Imagine how they would lie in wait for me, because I am a bastard and only half of human kin. For one year I lived that way trapped in the cathedral in Gent. I will not live so again. I do not want to be king or emperor. But if you cannot believe me, Liath, then return to Wolfhere. Or break with the king and offer your service to Count Lavastine, who obviously values you. I will not have this conversation over and over if you in your heart doubt my intention.”



She said nothing at first. Finally, she nudged her horse forward and commenced riding north along the road. He followed her. His heart pounded fiercely and a wave of dizziness swept through him so powerfully that he clutched the saddle to keep his seat. The pounding in his ears swelled until he started up, realizing he heard hoofbeats ahead.



“Pull up,” he said curtly, and she did so.



“What is it?” But then she, too, heard. A moment later they saw riders.



Two men reined in, looking relieved. “My lord prince!” Their horses were in a bad state; they-had not thought to take remounts.



“We’ll return to the village,” said Sanglant to them, “where we’ll rest for the night. Then we’ll rejoin the king.”



They nodded, not asking questions.



The sun had finally set, and they pressed forward through the moon-fed twilight, walking the horses in part to spare the blown mounts of their escort and in part because of the dim light. He had nothing to say to Liath, not with the two servingmen so close behind them. He did not really know what to say in any case. What point was there in saying anything? The decision had been made. There was, thank God, nothing left to discuss.



She rode with a straight back and a proud, confident carriage. Did she have second thoughts as she rode beside him? He could not tell by her expression, half hidden by the deepening twilight. She seemed resolute, with her chin tilted back.



A single lantern burned at the gate to Ferse, like a star fallen to earth—the only light besides that glistening down upon them from the heavens. Clouds had smothered the southern sky, blowing a brisk wind before it: a coming storm.



He let one of the servingmen pound at the closed gate while he tried not to think of what lay ahead: a cold supper, and a bed. Certainly a few women had approached him in the last month—some, he suspected, at the instigation of Helmut Villam, who seemed to believe that every ill that assailed the male body could be cured by the vigorous application of sex—but he had not touched even one. He was afraid that he would make a fool of himself.



Now, as the gate creaked open and they were admitted within the palisade by a suitably overawed young man acting as watchman, he was sorry he had not. Then at least he would have taken the edge off that terrible appetite which is desire unfulfilled. Even the mothers and fathers of the church understood that it is easier to cure the body of its lust for eat and drink than of the inclination toward concupiscence.



In Ferse, a dozen riders waited, men-at-arms sent by the king who had stopped for that selfsame cold supper before riding on. They stared at Liath when the young watchman led her and Sanglant into the longhouse of his mother, a woman called Hilda. The householder was eager to serve a royal prince. She fed them with roasted chicken, greens, baked turnips, and a piece of honey cake.