Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

“Not for so many as serve her now.”

“Why needs she so many soldiers?”

He flicked a fly off his arm and sank down into a squat. He was so thin that he looked likely to topple over if the wind came up. “How would I know?”

“You might guess. You might see things, and come to your own conclusions.”

He blew his nose and wiped mucus away with a forearm already streaked with unnameable substances. “I might. She fears some will take from her the duchy as they did before. Her Wendish brother took it from her. I saw that, I did.” He tapped himself on the chest. His ribs showed like bare twigs, his chest was sunken, yet he squared his shoulders a little, proud of what he remembered and what he had worked out, a common man never privy to the plotting and planning of his noble rulers. “Now she’s gathering soldiers to fight, she and that one they call Conrad the Black. I’ve seen him, too. Him and his lady wife, the one they call our queen.”

The one they call our queen.

There, in his heart, Alain felt the tremor, the pain of the affection and loyalty he had offered her which she had rejected. She had turned on him twice over. She had tried to kill him.

But the memory was only that. It no longer had purchase. It no longer dug deep. He was sorry for it, that was all, that folk caused pain because of their own fears. He was angry because folk did do so much damage to the innocent and guilty alike because of their own fears. On his own account, he was free of the burden of desiring revenge. That gave him a measure of strength.

“Lady Sabella. Conrad the Black. Tallia. Who do they mean to fight?”

The man shrugged. “How am I to know the comings and goings of the great nobles?”

“Why must they cast out the innocent folk who lived honestly in Autun, such as you and these others?”

The man said nothing. A rattle of illness sang in each of his exhaled breaths from a rot settled into his lungs. The child sat unmoving, fixated on the hounds, and that one word slipped again from him.

“Dog.”

The hounds waited patiently, heads lifted as they sniffed the air. Out in the woods he heard the rustle and snap of movement, but no one joined them in the clearing. After a while Alain realized he would receive no answer.

“What of this child? Where are his kinfolk?”

The man picked at a scab below his lower lip. “Mother’s dead. Has none else.”

“None to take charge of him?”

A shake of the head gave him his reply.

“Who cared for him?”

“None cared. He ate what scraps he could reach. He’ll be dead in a few days more.”

“If none among you cared whether this child lived or died, then truly it’s as if you have turned your back on humankind. We must be compassionate and look each after the other.”

“There’s not food enough for all.” The man gestured with an elbow. “You’ve somewhat in your sack. Do you mean to share it or keep it to yourself?”

“I’ve bones for my hounds, nothing more. I’ve myself not eaten since this morning.”

“I’d eat what I could gnaw off a bone. I’m that hungry. I beg you.”

Over the last few days he had fed all but two of the bones from the dead deer to Sorrow and Rage. Alain rose and, crossing the clearing, gave one of these to the man. The strip of flesh and fat and tendon still attached gave off the odor of meat that is turning bad. The man grabbed it out of his hand, grunting and slobbering in his haste to choke down what he could. As he ate, half a dozen ragged souls crept out of the woods with gazes fixed on Alain as on a gold talisman held dangling before avaricious eyes.

“Please, please,” they said.

The boy braced himself on his stick arms and, panting and snuffling, dragged himself toward Alain. His legs trailed after him, and now it was possible to see both had been broken and healed askew, so he couldn’t use them. Alain scanned the clearing. A trio of men crept up behind him and a woman approached with a stout stick raised in one hand.

“Told you,” said the man with the bone. “Best give us the rest of it and your cloak and clothes if you want to walk out alive.”

Desperate men cannot be shamed.

Rage and Sorrow rose, growling. Alain hoisted his staff.

“You may choose now,” he said clearly. “I do not want to fight you, but I will not be robbed.”

“If you will be merciful, then give us all you own for we need it, I pray you, master!” called the woman with the stout stick. She was so thin and ill looking that at first glance a decent person would pity her, yet she crept forward with lips pulled back in a rictus grin that was no smile.