Crown of Stars

She watched him with an expression of calm consideration that made him stand to alert as though she had a knife she might pull.

“They love you,” she said.

“Who loves me?”

“All of them. These servants. The Eagles. The soldiers. The common folk. It’s you, the bastard, they look to, to save them, although I am the legitimately born child. There are a few who do love me, my dear retinue, but they are a trifle compared to the ones who love you.”

Since there was no answer to this, he said nothing.

“They stare at you so, Sanglant. I suppose I do, too.” Her smile sharpened her expression. “I know better, yet I can’t help myself. I’m no different than they are. I believe you can save us, if anyone can.”

“Perhaps. I am only first among equals. Without the strength of the duchies and the marchlands, Wendar will fall.”

“As Varre has?” she challenged him. “Fallen to Sabella and Conrad’s ambitions?”

“So we will see, when the king’s progress marches west. You are steady, Theophanu. I need you at my back.”

She had their father’s height and the robust build common to their ancestors, yet a hint in her coloring and eyes and the unnatural opacity of her expression marked her half foreign blood. Never trust Arethousans bearing gifts.

“Always at the back.” There came a spark of emotion into her face he could not interpret: resignation, amusement, envy, or anger, or some other, less simple, reaction. He knew her well enough, but in truth, he did not know her well.

Footsteps warned them of Hathui’s return. She appeared in the door, looked from one to the other, and said, “The horses are saddled and ready, Your Majesty. Your Highness.”

Theophanu indicated the door. “I follow where you lead. Let us make sure that Ekkehard does not escape his duty.”

“So are we all what our father made of us,” he said to her.

She cocked her head to one side, lips thinned, the mere quirk of a smile. “That’s true enough.” She was both amused and bitter. “Father always got what he wanted. Even when it killed him.”

3

THE frosty air of early morning chilled skin and made strong men shudder. The horses bogged down in soggy ground that had never dried out because there was no sun to bake it dry. On the whole, the morning had a miserable air that weighed on everyone and made them ride in disgruntled silence. Why must Ekkehard act like such an idiot?

“Some questions cannot be answered, Your Majesty,” said Hathui, and Sanglant realized he had spoken out loud.

The guards at the gate had pointed north. At a hamlet where the road forked, an old woman, who according to her testimony never could sleep well at night because of the particular ache in her hip that made lying down an agony, had heard a troop of horsemen turn down the northwest fork and rattle off in the twilight hours before dawn. A nervous peddler pushing his cart along that narrow way had seen and heard a dozen men pass his hidden campsite at dawn.

“We’re getting closer,” said Captain Fulk. “See, here. Hoofprints at the verge. Still fresh.”

Liath had fallen to the back of the troop of two-score riders so she could talk to Lord Wichman. Sanglant glanced back, then turned a little to watch them. Liath talked. Wichman seemed to be answering in monosyllables. Hathui snorted.

“Nay, have no fear, Your Majesty,” she said.

“Fear of Liath seeking comfort from Wichman? I think not!”

“Nay. Fear of him harming her. Look at his posture.”

It seemed that Wichman rode a little off-balance, that he was in fact leaning somewhat away from his interlocutor, keeping his distance.

“That damned phoenix,” said Sanglant. “She will gnaw at it.”

“She is what she is, Your Majesty.”

He sighed.

Ahead, a scout appeared at a canter. The man reined in and waited, and when the king’s party were in earshot, announced:

“Ahead! The lady’s mount has gone lame and they’re arguing over whether to leave it.”

“There’s the wrong battle to be fighting,” muttered Fulk.

Hathui chuckled.

“The better to fall into our hands,” said Sanglant wearily. “I am relieved we have no great hunt to pursue.”

The noise of their company reached Ekkehard’s party before they came upon them in a clearing surrounded by hornbeam and oak. A few trees lay cracked and fallen, trunks stretched over hawthorn and dogweed and flowering stitchwort. The others towered like pillars, overseeing the hapless soldiers and frightened lady scrambling to mount horses made restive by their handlers’ fear. Ekkehard was already in the saddle. He rode forward to confront his brother, placing himself between his pursuers and his retinue.