Crown of Stars

“Hush!” he scolded her. “We’re nothing to do with them. Stand your ground!”

Alain whistled the hounds in close as four men challenged them. Other soldiers ranged through the camp cutting ropes and beating down roofs with spears and knives. There was no point to the destruction; they were just enjoying themselves. Two carried lanterns, and they set fire to the hovels, which burned quickly as the child continued to scream.

“Shut that thing up!” said the sergeant without looking toward it. His men wore leather jerkins, but he had a mail shirt and a real iron helm with a brass nasal and leather sides. He waited on his mount two horse lengths from Alain, eyeing the hounds with the squint-eyed interest of a bored fighting man who has at last seen something he considers dangerous.

One man dismounted and cuffed the little boy, but his shrieks doubled in their piercing shrillness.

“Eh!” cried the man, snorting and coughing in an exaggerated manner. “He stinks! Whew! This is no boy, but a sow’s get!”

“Stay!” said Alain to the hounds.

“Hold! There! You!” said the sergeant, as Alain pushed past the outthrust spear and strode over to the terrified child.

The soldiers looked curiously at him and did not interfere as he knelt beside the child. The little boy did stink. He was a stick figure, skin and protruding bones, nose running, skin rimed with dirt and worse filth, and his face was covered with sores and the fading scars of cowpox. It amazed Alain that so frail a child had survived the contagion. He wondered where the boy had suffered the outbreak, and where the demons that spread the disease were traveling now.

“Hush,” said Alain softly. “Hush, child. What is your name?”

The boy hiccuped. Where his gaze slid across Alain’s regard he hesitated, stilled, calmed, and looked at him, as if transfixed by Alain’s face.

“What is your name?”

“Dog,” whispered the little boy.

“Your name is ‘Dog’?”

“Dog.” He lifted a whip-thin arm to point at the hounds.

“Yes, two dogs. Where are your father and mother? Your sisters and brothers? Where are your kinsmen, child?”

“Dog.”

“Where is your mother?”

“Dog.”

The soldiers had gathered to enjoy the spectacle. The sergeant grunted. “Certain it is! That child likely had a bitch for a mother!”

His men chortled at his wit.

The child’s face pinched. His lips trembled, and he drew in breath for a cry.

“Hush,” said Alain, although it was difficult not to speak in an angry tone that would frighten the child. Without standing, he turned to frown at the sergeant. “What sport is there, I pray you, in teasing a creature as helpless as this one is? Had you orders to drive off these poor folk?”

“These poor folk! You’re not from hereabouts, are you? They say all manner of people have taken to the roads since last autumn. It’s a sign of the end of times.”

“Is it?”

“These poor folk! Swindlers and beggars and whores and thieves and murderers, each one of them. We had to drive them out of Autun because they made so much trouble. Now they camp here and trouble honest travelers on the road and honest farmers in the fields. That brat is the bastard of some bitch who sold herself to any man who would pay. No one will miss him. Look!”

The sergeant’s gesture encompassed the entire squalid encampment, now burning. Beyond, Alain saw a flash of movement out among the trees. Someone was watching from a hiding place.

“Maybe he’s got no mother. Maybe she died. No one wanted him. They just left him here. What will you do with a filthy creature like that who has no kinfolk to take care of him? He’s better off dead. Can you say otherwise?”

“Do you mean to take God’s place and judge the worth of the soul of another human creature? We are all equal in the sight of God.”

“Are you a frater? With that beard? What matter, anyway? Who has bread for an orphan child? I don’t.”

“What of the lady who rules in Autun? Doesn’t she feed the poor, as is her duty?”

The sergeant’s amused expression soured. He beckoned to his men. “Let’s go. We’ve driven them out.”

“For today,” said Alain. “Won’t they come back? Where else have they to go?”

The sergeant turned his attention elsewhere. “What about you?” he said, indicating Atto. “Why didn’t you run?”

“I’m nothing to do with the ones who were camping here,” said Atto. Mara huddled beside him. “I come from my village to join the milites in Autun. I heard the lady seeks soldiers.”