Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

She tapped his arm in a four square pattern; let them pass. He returned the tap on her forearm to show he understood. He shifted back as she shifted forward to get a better look. Most likely they were messengers, but it made sense to be cautious until she was sure they were not enemies.

The wind fluttering in the trees and the soft tap of their footfalls covered their words, so it wasn’t until they were close enough to toss a stone at that she realized they were speaking in low voices, a murmur as constant as that of a stream. She could not distinguish words, although Sanglant could have, but she could tell that they were arguing. The lamps swayed in their hands; held low to illuminate the road, the swinging lights captured only flashes of a chin or cheek until all at once one of the walkers raised her lamp high and stopped dead. The light shone full on her face.

“What is it?” hissed her companion, stumbling to a halt a step ahead of her as the horses stamped and waited. “I told you we shouldn’t be walking so fast. We’ll hurt ourselves. Or the horses.”

“She’s here!” said the woman in tones of surprise and dismay.

Liath uncurled with a sharp breath and stepped out onto the path. “Hanna! Ivar!”

Ivar recoiled a step. “God be praised. You’re gleaming.”

No greeting met her. The message they carried was written on Hanna’s face, in the tight line of her mouth and the deep circles under her eyes. “I pray you, Liath, this is not how I wished to find you.”

“What is it?” said Liath, her voice gone hoarse.

“Oh, God.” Hanna faltered, and could not go on.

So the arrow finds its mark, seeker of hearts, deadly and sure. Pierced there, she went blind, mute, deaf, the dark forest and the night breeze and the dusty path and all the people gathering around her fading to insignificance. There is only the white light of pain blossoming, although it does not yet hurt in the way it will when the blood starts running.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, because sometimes words are a spell that can alter the fabric of the universe, a weft shuttled through the tight warp of fate. “No creature male or female can harm him.”

Hanna’s expression, torn by sorrow, was thereby implacable. It is when the ones who truly love you tell you the worst news that you know it cannot be escaped.

“Come,” said Hanna gently. “Best we go wait at Hersford Monastery. It will be peaceful there. Have you companions—oh!”

“My friends,” said Liath, words emerging by rote. “They are my friends, my allies. And the baby is here. Take us to him. I beg you.”

Her companions emerged cautiously from the trees, but what they did or what accommodation they reached with Hanna and Ivar, Liath did not notice, only that Blessing clung to Anna and spoke not one word, as though her voice had broken like her father’s long ago in battle, forever altered by an arrow to the throat.

As Liath was herself changed. What she feared most had come to pass. There was no going back. There can never be.

The world had narrowed to a tunnel of shadows down which she must walk.

“Not this way,” she said insistently. “Not this way!”

But no one heard her, and she had no power to alter destiny or even the path and direction her feet must take.

Weeping, Hanna took her arm and led her back toward Hersford Monastery, into the darkness.

2

ALAIN caught up with the funeral procession in the late afternoon just before they reached the eastern gate of Hersford Monastery, because a man who walks with two hounds—however unwilling those hounds may be—can move faster than a train of wagons. Theirs was a solemn, formidable procession. In the rear marched two score Lions, led by a one-handed captain with bright red hair. They watched Alain pass them along the side of the road, and although they said nothing they nodded and met his gaze, each one, as a man greets a comrade.

At the end of the line of wagons lurched the closed cart whose scarred walls imprisoned the Kerayit shaman. Her escort came courtesy of Stronghand, two score of Eika and Alban soldiers to match the Lions. These had neither greeting nor words for him, who had never marched to battle at their side.

In the middle of the line rolled the wagon bearing Biscop Constance and her attendants. These, too, remained silent as he overtook them and walked past. Hathumod saw him, but she no longer wept, only marked him; she must tend to the lady as each jolt jarred her; it was a constant struggle to bring the crippled biscop a measure of comfort. One of their number, a stick-thin young man scarcely larger than a child, formed the sign of the phoenix as the hounds passed, before dropping his gaze humbly.