Crown of Stars

“She is an invalid now. Lamed in a fall from her pony.”

Conrad had a ready sympathy for daughters. “Poor creature! What incompetent taught her to ride? Or gave her the wrong mount?”

“Perhaps it was only an accident.”

“Or justice served on her because of the sins of her father.”

“An innocent child? I do not believe so.”

“Do you know God’s mind, then?” Conrad chuckled. “I ask my clerics every day, and they remain blind. Only my wife insists that she speaks with God’s wishes brimful on her tongue, and in truth, Lord Alain, I despise her. She is a sniveling, lying, whining weakling, no better than a … a … God know there is no creature I despise as much!”

“She deserves respect from the man who married her.”

“So the church prattles, but they are not wed to her—although they were once, and cast her out because of all her puling and moaning! She brought me only one good thing, and that is Berry. Tallia is like to ruin the child if she got her way, which I will not let her do.”

“Tallia brought you an alliance with Lady Sabella and a claim to the throne of Varre for your daughter.”

“Yes, it’s true. I am hasty in condemning her. A duchy for Ælf and a throne for Berry. Ai, God. My poor Elene.”

“Who is that?”

“Never mind,” he said so curtly that both hounds stiffened, coming to stand, and growled, ears going flat. “Something I gave away, because I am an obedient son.”

Amazingly, he wept. Alain was too surprised to speak because the duke’s grief was so stark and expansive that it seemed the heavens themselves must weep in sympathy, although no rain fell and only the wind’s rattle through late blooming leaves and the distant clatter of the company about its twilight business accompanied Conrad’s tears.

He sighed but did not wipe away the remaining tears. He was a man who need never apologize for any strong emotion.

“I pray that which you cherish be restored to you,” said Alain, unexpectedly moved by the display.

“Do you so? She is dead. I was warned it would be so, and I feel it in my heart. How, then, can she be restored to me? Even a miracle cannot bring her home.”

“Who is she?” he asked again.

Conrad rose. He wore a light cloak against the cool evening. Its hem slid down to lap at his hips, and he moved away, answering only when he had gone several paces out, and even then casting the words over his shoulder as though they were a dart meant to wound. “My eldest child. My own beloved daughter. My chosen heir, who will not now sit in my place when the time comes. Henry had that advantage over me, did he not? I feel inclined to spoil his wishes.”

“Who could have taken this beloved child from you?”

“My mother. To whom I owe my life.”

Alain bowed his head.

Sorrow growled, and Rage lifted her ears. A familiar figure walked toward them, accompanied by a trio of young men whose handsome faces were illuminated by the lit lamps they carried.

“Here you are, Conrad.” Despite her age, Sabella moved as easily as a much younger woman. She marked Alain, seated, and Conrad, standing, and the hounds with their alert if not quite threatening posture on either side of Alain. “I wondered where you had gone. Is there anything I should know?”

A suspicious woman will see intrigue flowing on all sides. No doubt the duchess of Arconia drank deeply at that river.

“You know everything I know,” said Conrad, wiping his face before turning to face her.

She snorted. “I doubt it. Had you kept no secrets from me, I would not respect you.”

Conrad gestured toward Alain. “As for this one, you know what I know. He makes no claims, no demands, no refusals.”

“None, but for grain. What do you make of that?”

“I judge him too subtle to measure.”

“A common man pretending to an eminence he does not deserve?”

“Think you so?”

“He does not appear so to me,” she admitted. “No common-born man speaks to Arnulf’s heir with such words and such boldness. What have you to say to this, Lord Alain?”

“Nothing.”

She had a twisted kind of grimace that posed as a smile. If she had ever known happiness, it was by now buried under a mountain of worldly cynicism that must make her dangerous because of the weight on her heart. “It is my experience that people do want things, and want them more the closer they are to grasping them. Are you a spy, sent to ferret out our secrets?”