The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“You are a true historian, I see. Lavastine had no legitimate heirs?”

“He was given no child born in legal marriage. Here is another entry, a place I have visited, above Hersford Monastery.” She touched the entry. “Seven stones, just as it says here. Ai, God, Villam lost his son there, who had gone to play among the stones.”

“The boy died?”

“I do not know. Young Berthold vanished with six companions. No one knows what became of him, but I had always assumed that he crawled too far in the darkness and fell, and was killed. Now I’m not sure what to believe. Poor child. He had the making of a good historian. He should have been put in the church.”

“Ah. It is always a terrible thing to lose a beloved child.”

“These are all stone crowns, are they not? When Henry was still prince, he lost his Aoi lover at Thersa, the one who gave him his son, Sanglant. She, too, vanished among the stones, so the story goes.” She turned another page, searched it, and read out loud. “Brienac in the lordship of Josselin in Salia, seven stones. Here, another with seven stones, in the ruins of Kartiako. I did not know there were so many stone circles.”

“No one can know, unless they look. That which is in plain sight is easily hidden.”

“But they were built a very long time ago, even before the Dariyan Empire. The chroniclers of that time mentioned them as being ancient then, and they wondered if giants had once roamed the earth. No one knows who built them.”

“Who do you think built them?”

“Giants, perhaps. But if it were giants, then why have we never found the remains of palaces fit for giants? I think Lord Hugh is right, that the Aoi must have built them.” It was difficult to say; giving Hugh any truth undercut her desire to condemn him utterly. “If that’s so, then their secret was lost.”

Within the walls of the convent, wind did not blow, only a faint whine heard as down a far distance. No oil burned in the library, and with the sun no longer overhead to pierce down through the shafts, it had become quite dim. Rosvita only noticed it now as she looked at the convent chronicle and had to squint to read the letters; the change had come so gradually.

“I do not want my secrets to be lost,” said Mother Obligatia. Her fingers brushed Rosvita’s like the flutter of a moth’s wings, moved on to the Vita. “I have held them close to my breast for many years. But this book is a sign.” She opened the Vita at random and read aloud.

“’When the women of the court came to Baralcha, they brought the finest clothing sewn of Katai silk and embroidered with thread beaten out of gold and silver, but the blessed Radegundis would not wear the garments of earth, however splendid they might be. She would not come before the emperor dressed in gold and silver but only in the robes of the poor, which she had herself woven out of nettles. And the women of the court were afraid. They feared the displeasure of the emperor would be turned on them, who brought her to the holy emperor dressed like a pauper instead of a queen, yet in her beggar’s robes the blessed Radegundis so outshone the multitude in their rich clothing that even the emperor’s fierce hounds bowed before her in recognition of her holiness.’” Her voice failed, and she shut her eyes. Like all old women, it was hard to judge her age. Her skin was wrinkled but otherwise soft and white, that of a woman who has spent much of her life indoors. She had a noblewoman’s hands, unmarked by the calluses brought on by hard labor but still strong.

“Brother Fidelis ended his days at the monastery at Hersford,” said Rosvita, seeing that his book had uncovered a deep well of emotion in the abbess. What had brought it on? “He must have been almost one hundred years old when I spoke to him. He gave the book to me just before he died. It was his last gift. It was his testimony.”

“Indeed, it was his testimony.” Her breath came a little ragged, as though she had been running. “That after all these years I should again touch something he once touched—”

“You speak in riddles, Mother.” She spoke in her calmest voice, but her heart was aflame.

“I think I fell under a spell that summer. He was old enough to be my grandfather, full fifty years of age, and I was perhaps fifteen. He worked in the garden, and because of that I thought he was a lay brother. But he was kind, and sad, and I had always been lonely and alone in the world. We girls at the convent of St. Thierry were never allowed outside the walls. Then I was uprooted from the only place I had ever known and brought to Salia, where I scarcely understood the language. I had taken a novice’s vows because I knew nothing else in life, but I found those vows were easy enough to forswear.”