Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

They would believe what gave them comfort. So people always did.

Next in line rode the remaining ranks of Sanglant’s personal guard—about thirty men arrayed before and behind the wagon that bore the body carefully tucked in between sacks of grain, cushioned by linen and covered with a silk shroud. These men noted him striding past, but it was the hounds that got their attention and made their horses a trifle skittish.

Loyal men, and truehearted. They would follow until the end.

The vanguard had already reached the gate. Monks and novices and lay brothers swarmed forward to greet proud Father Ortulfus, who walked alongside the lead wagon together with Sister Rosvita, her hardy schola, and a dozen soldiers Alain did not recognize who wore much-mended tabards sporting the sigil of Austra.

A mob of refugees had gathered behind the stockade, all amazed and confounded. Churchmen and householders alike chattered and clamored, wept and cried praises to God, and drew the sign of the phoenix as thanksgiving until Prior Ratbold bellowed over their noise.

“Beyond all expectation, you are returned to us, Father Ortulfus! We came under siege! Yet by the blessing of God, and with the help of the phoenix, the Cursed Ones were cast out!”

A miracle!

So they must believe, and perhaps it was even true.

There stood Brother Iso, nervous among the humble lay brothers. When he saw Alain and the hounds, his eyes grew wide and he nudged and poked his brethren until they, too, looked. And said nothing. Father Ortulfus turned, seeing how the locus of attention shifted, and he stepped away from the open gate to indicate that Alain should pass through before him.

But the hounds had a duty and an obligation. They went reluctantly, ears down, hindquarters in a slow waggle as dogs will when they mean to show doggish apology. They crept to the foremost wagon, whining. Even seeing them display such a frenzy of submission, folk feared those powerful bodies and fierce teeth. Soldiers and clerics sidled away.

The sight of those huge hounds amused the frail old woman riding in the foremost wagon. When the hounds leaped up into the bed, rocking it, clerics shrieked and soldiers shouted, but Mother Obligatia merely extended both hands and let the cowering hounds lick her fingers.

“Who are these poor, sweet creatures?” she asked, and looking around saw how far everyone else had retreated. Shamefaced at abandoning her, the soldiers gritted their teeth and squared their shoulders and forced themselves to creep closer, not unlike the hounds.

“You can’t think they’re dangerous?” she added, chuckling as she rubbed their foreheads and scratched over their ears. Seeing that they would be greeted kindly, they flopped down on either side of her, as well as they could on the sacks of grain piled to make her seat, and rolled to expose their bellies and bare their throats.

“What means this?” asked Sister Rosvita. “She was married to the son of Taillefer. She was not a child of Taillefer herself. If these are the hounds descended from those in the emperor’s kennel, how come they to bow before her?”

“These are the hounds of Lavas, Sister Rosvita,” said Alain quietly. “They know who rules them. How they come to her, I know not.”

The wagon carrying the old abbess was drawn onto the monastery grounds. The crowd backed away as the mounted guardsmen forced a path for the wagon bearing the body of their dead liege, and some folk even broke and ran when they saw the Eika infantry marching up behind it.

“Clear the way! Clear the way!” cried Father Ortulfus.

Prior Ratbold took up the call as brothers and farmers scattered and took up places on either side of the dirt path that led from the eastern gate to the central compound.

The day was warm despite the haze that whitened the sky. It had thinned until the disk of the sun setting into the west could be discerned as a bright patch beyond the veil. The scene opened with a clarity that astonished Alain: the whitewashed buildings set at neat angles; the covered porch fronting the lay brothers’ barracks; the squat, square church tower built of stone; the wide path to the main gate that led past the two-storied guesthouse and the beehives and the smithy and stables and byre; the late flowering orchard overgrown with cloth shelters, sprouted up between the trees like so many unruly weeds, to house the refugees.

A familiar place to one who had lived here many months. Here he had found a measure of peace after losing—forever and irrevocably—the one he loved.

He knew how hard that blow struck.

He saw her emerge with a pair of companions from the guesthouse. The crowd backed away to widen the path by which she might approach them. The sound of her wings unfurling sang as a faint chiming music in his body, the kiss of the aether; they were brilliant to his eyes but lacking true existence, more thought than substance. They blazed, as she did, but with the fire of despair. Maybe, right now, he was the only one who could see them.