Prince of Dogs

Ai, Lady, the dream had been so vivid that Alain had forgotten about the work they meant to do at dawn.

“No,” he said truthfully. “I am troubled by dreams of the Eika prince.”

Lavastine began to pace. Terror yawned, stretched, made as if to rise and pad after his master, and then bared teeth, nipped sleepily at Rage again, and settled back to sleep. “Do not fear my anger, Alain. You were honest with me, and I have forgiven you for freeing the savage. Is it the Eika you fear? Perhaps you’re afraid the prince you let go will be among them and you don’t know if you can kill him, if it comes to that?”

“He isn’t among them. He’s sailing north. He was sent back to his own country by his father to bring to heel all the warleaders who haven’t yet accepted Bloodheart as chief over all the Eika. King, I suppose we might say.”

As soon as he spoke, Alain realized how strange this statement must sound. Lavastine turned and, in the warm light of the candle, he gave that grimace which was his smile, not an expression of warmth, precisely, nor yet of amusement. “Son.” Always, these past months, he savored the word, son. “If it is true you have dreams that are also true visions, I wish you never to speak of them to anyone but me. Never to a deacon or any person in the church.”

“Why not?”

“They might claim you have been touched by God and try to take you away from me. I will not let you go, not as long as I am alive.”

Alain shivered. “Don’t say that,” he whispered. “Don’t speak of death.”

Lavastine reached, hesitated, then touched the boy on his dark head, laying his hand there almost tenderly, certainly possessively. “I will not let go of you, ever, Alain,” he repeated. With a shake of his head as a dog shakes off water, he pulled away and crossed to the other side of the tent, hooking the fabric wall up over a post. “I smell morning,” he said. “Come, son. It is time to arm for battle.”

The hounds roused and with their waking roused the servants, who hurried to bring lit lanterns and clothing. They dressed the count and his heir in padded jackets to cushion their bodies from the weight of their armor. Alain had spent the summer training in armor, becoming accustomed to its weight and feel along his body: heavy mail hauberk, soft leather hood over which a servant slipped and tightened a mail coif and, on top of that, a conical helmet trimmed with bronze. Another servant bound his calves with leather strips wound from ankle to knee. This was far better armor than anything he could have hoped to wear as a man-at-arms.

He did not think about battle—if it came to that—as the servant hung belt and short sword at his hips. Outside, he took a spear from the rack set up beside the tent. The long haft of oak was strengthened by a twining ribbon of blue leather that wound from butt to lugs, the “wings” projecting out on either side just below the blade. Grooms brought their horses. Without too much trepidation, Alain swung up on his. He was a natural rider—Lavastine had stated more than once, in his emphatic way, that this was clearly a sign of Alain’s noble blood. He might well have been born to the saddle, but he had truly only learned to ride after that day in the month of Sormas when Lavastine had acknowledged him as son and heir. He was untried and inexperienced, especially when it came time to ride into a skirmish where he might see actual fighting. But a count’s son did not walk into battle. So he would ride.

Lavastine mounted his fine gray gelding, Graymane, and nodded at Alain as if to say: “Are you ready?”

Alain nodded in turn. He would not disappoint his father.

Wasn’t riding to war what he had dreamed of all his life? His foster father, Henri the merchant, and his Aunt Bel had pledged him to the church, to live out his life as a monk at the Dragon’s Tail Monastery. But the Lady of Battles had appeared that stormy spring day when Eika had burned the monastery and slaughtered all the monks. She had given him a rose that never wilted and could never be crushed, a rose he kept wrapped in a little cloth bag and wore on a leather thong around his neck. She had taken a pledge from him. “Serve me.” He had sworn to serve her in order to save Osna village from the Eika attack but also because what she promised him was his heart’s desire. For that, knowing that the man who raised him had promised him in good faith to the church, he still felt guilty.

Birds chirped, and the gray light that heralds dawn rose around them, etching the skeletal lines of trees against the seamless expanse of sky. Above the trees stars shone. Trained by a navigator, Alain could not help but note stars and constellations and wonder at their omens. The wandering stars moved on the backdrop of the sphere of the fixed stars, the highest of the seven spheres beyond which lay the Chamber of Light. Their threads wove power that guided Fate and could be wielded by hands trained in that craft. Or so it was claimed, though such teaching was condemned by the church.