Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

“Where was that?” asked Master Helmand as the folk around him whispered and nodded.

“There’s a stone circle. That’s where we camped last night.”

“Old ghosts walk there. No one goes willingly to that place.”

It was clear to Liath that the man thought them fools for having camped on haunted ground, but the confession seemed to peel off a layer of suspicion from his scrutiny. After all, how badly can fools threaten an armed village?

“You know the convent?” she asked him. “We had hoped to ask for a guide to show us the way.”

“Oh, yes. They come twice a year to trade with us and sing a mass and read the prayers for the dead.”

Liath gestured toward the chapel, seen now to be so small that no more than twenty folk could crowd into its nave. “You have a chapel, I see.”

“Yet no deacon.” He hesitated, glanced at the other elders, and went on as they fluttered their hands and nodded their heads eagerly. “Perhaps you’d take a request to the regnant, Eagle. We’ll host you gladly, though we haven’t much in our stores after this long winter and no good spring. We’re beholden to the regnant here, as you know. Freeholders. We have a charter!”

“Have you?” Liath asked with interest. “When was it written?”

He cleared his throat. Everyone looked embarrassed. “Well, then, in the time of the old Henry, father to the first Arnulf, long since. We only hear it read aloud but twice the year at spring and fall, and this year at springtide none came from the convent to us.”

“Did they not?” Liath looked at Thiadbold. He shrugged. “Have any gone to see if there is trouble there?”

“The river flooded. The ford hasn’t been passable for months. There’s no other way through.”

“Is there no hope of us winning through?”

He beckoned to a man standing up on the walls. This one came down, and it appeared he was a hunter and tracker for the holding, one who ranged wide.

“I’m called Wulf,” the man said by way of introduction after Helmand had explained the situation. He looked to be about Thiadbold’s age, somewhere between late twenties and middle thirties, dark-featured, wiry, tough, with handsome eyes and a warp to his chin from an old injury. “I was up that way ten days ago. It might be better now. We can try.”

“We must try,” said Liath to him before turning to the elders. “We’ll be grateful for your hospitality. I can read that charter for you, if you’ve a wish to hear it.”

Oh, they did.

An entire ceremony had collected around the twice-yearly reading of their charter in the same way flotsam collects around a boulder rising from the sandy seashore. A table and chair were carried out into the open air and a cloth thrown over the table. Every household brought cups and drink and set them on the common table. Last, a pale horn was produced from a locked chest. Its call rang four times, once at each corner of the stockade, before they put it away. Lanterns were lit as the inhabitants gathered, stationing themselves in a tidy semicircle, children at the front, adults behind. All remained standing as Master Helmand emerged from the largest longhouse with a small cedar chest in his hands. He set it on the table, opened it reverently, and uncovered folded parchment. This he opened on the table, one hand pinning down the top and the other the bottom. Lanterns were set on either side, although there was still enough light for Liath, at least, to read the bold letters.

The text was succinctly written and began on the paler, flesh side of the vellum. The cream-colored grain side was blank and the corners showed a tendency to curl in that way. The parchment had a hole in it, and the scribe had drawn her ruled lines and written in her text around the flaw. The script had an old-fashioned look to it. For one thing, it used all uncials, as they had done in those days. The scribe’s hand had no beauty; Liath could have done a better job. But she could read it.

“‘I, Henry, by the Grace of God in Unity, Regnant over Wendar, do grant to the inhabitants of Freeburg the customs and privileges written below …’” Reading, she was reminded of that day years ago in the forest holding west of Gent, when she had read aloud a charter very like to this one. “Whoever shall acquire property by clearing wastelands shall hold it for the same price as her house…. No one, not the regnant nor anyone else, shall demand of the householders of Freeburg any requisition or aid…. They shall pay neither tariff nor tax upon their food or the wine they have grown in their own vineyards. … Whoever lives in the holding a year and a day shall afterward remain undisturbed.’”