The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

She was interviewing three of the whores, who knelt somewhat nervously an arm’s length away from the big cat, and in her quick movements and flashing, sudden changes of expression, Rosvita read the habit of command. The steward bent to whisper in her ear, and she dismissed the prostitutes by giving them each a coin, then rose and strode over to her visitors. The spotted leopard uncoiled gracefully to pad after her. The timbre of the pleasant courtyard atmosphere changed utterly with her movement: Everyone watched to see what she would do.

She halted before them, looked Theophanu up and down, and said boldly, in terrible Wendish: “You my cousin? I learn this tongue for to speak with the king.”

“Cousin, I greet you,” replied Theophanu in the Aostan way. Then she switched to Wendish and let Rosvita translate. “I greet you, Cousin, and bring you greetings from my father, Henry, king of Wendar and Varre.” The princess towered over Queen Adelheid; she stood a good head taller, and her handsome features had that strongboned cast that lasts through old age. Adelheid was formed of different matter: She had the kind of lush, youthful prettiness that fades with age into the respectable authority of a stout matron.

“Come,” said Adelheid in Aostan, acknowledging Rosvita with a nod, “we will take wine and food, but alas we can waste no time with pleasantries, as would be proper. You must tell me how many troops you have brought, and if you are willing to use them to drive away Ironhead.” She continued talking so rapidly that Rosvita was forced several times to ask her to repeat herself as they left the courtyard, passed down a shadowed colonnade, and were shown onto an airy balcony shaded by a massive grape arbor where servants laid out a table with various delicacies: a platter of fruit, gold dishes filled with plum cakes and poppyseed bread, and a decanter of wine whose rich bouquet flavored every bite they took.

“You have seen,” Adelheid began when the worst pangs of hunger were assuaged, “how dogs fight over a bone. The good people of Aosta are my children, and they are obedient, but the lords are scavengers. I can trust none of them. If one throws out Ironhead’s army, it will only be to take his place. They say Ironhead had his wife poisoned before he marched here because she refused to take the veil and enter a convent to leave him free to marry me.”

“He did not seem a merciful man.” Theophanu took another bunch of grapes from the platter and neatly plucked the ripe fruit from the stalk. “But I do not have sufficient strength in troops to drive him away alone.”

“If we coordinate our attack? You attack as my own forces sally out of the walls?”

“It is possible. Before I left, I agreed on certain signals with my captains. They are ready to attack if need be. But what is the number of your forces? How many may you rely on?”

They discussed the option, but dismissed it finally, with reluctance. Ironhead still had too great an advantage, even if they attacked on two fronts.

“How long can you withstand the siege?” Theophanu asked. “I could return to my father and assemble a larger army. Nay. Even if we can still cross the mountains, we couldn’t return until spring.”

“By then our stores will be exhausted.” Adelheid gestured toward the table. “The palace gardens cannot feed everyone, and the sentries on the wall have told me that Ironhead has already set engineers to work to try to dam the river. Nay, cousin. This morning my clerics brought word to me that guards at the north gate saw a vision in the night sky, of an army made of flame. Surely that sign was the herald of your arrival. I believe this is part of God’s plan. Now is our last, best chance to act.”

“Ironhead will soon know the disposition of my forces,” added Theophanu, “and then he will know that I dare not fight him. At that point, I will be forced to withdraw.”

“He won’t let you go. You are at risk here as well. He would as gladly marry a Wendish princess as another woman, if he cannot have me. His first wife he took by force as well, after he’d murdered her husband. She came from the south, although her family’s lands are now in the hands of the Arethousan generals. Thus she was of no more use to him. No; there must be some way out.”

“Perhaps you can escape in the same way we got in, disguised as a cleric, or as some other sort of woman.”

Adelheid laughed. “As a whore? I know what they say of me. It might work, I alone with one other might be able to get away, but I will not leave my loyal subjects in Ironhead’s hands, especially not my good soldiers. You see what he will do to them. No, but still I must get to Henry. Is it true his queen is dead and he has not yet remarried?”