The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“Bring me into your chamber, O queen.

I have eaten my bread and honey.

I have drunk my wine.

Eat, friends, and drink, until you are drunk with love.”

One of Judith’s noble companions was questioning the elderly uncle, brother to Baldwin’s mother, whose presence had been necessary to pry Baldwin loose from the monastery: The old man had explained to Mother Scholastica in a quavering voice that the betrothal between Judith and Baldwin had been formally confirmed by oaths when Baldwin was thirteen; thus the covenant superseded Baldwin’s personal oath to the monastery.

Now drunk, the uncle confided in Lady Adelinde. “But the margrave was still married then, when she saw the lad. Ai, well, if her husband hadn’t died fighting the Quman, no doubt she would have set him aside in Baldwin’s favor. He was of a good family but nothing as well-favored as the boy.”

Adelinde only smiled. “And when Judith sees a man she wants, she will have him despite what the church says about cleaving only to one spouse. No doubt it was a good match for the family.”

“Yes, indeed,” he agreed enthusiastically. “My sister saw how much she wanted the boy, so she drove a hard bargain and was able to expand her own holdings with several good estates.”

Ai, God! Sold like a young bull at market. Ivar gulped the dregs of wine from the cup he was taking to refill. The wine burned his throat; his head was already swimming.

“She’ll marry him tonight,” said the old uncle, nodding toward the bridal pair. Judith kept a firm hand on the wine cup she and Baldwin shared, making sure he did not drink too much, but she did not fawn over him or pay him an unseemly amount of attention. “And a biscop will sing a blessing over the marriage when we reach the king.”

“Come, my beloved, let us go early to the vineyards.

Let us see if the vine has budded or its blossom opened.”

“You see, Adelinde,” said the margrave, calling Lady Adelinde’s attention away from Baldwin’s aged relative. “No flower should be plucked before it blooms, or we will never see it in its full flowering.” She indicated Baldwin who by this time was pink with embarrassment; yet like a flower under the hot gaze of the sun—and the abrupt attention of all the folk privileged to sit at the table with Margrave Judith—he did not wilt but rather flourished. But she had already turned her gaze elsewhere; she had a sudden and uncomfortable glint in her eyes. “Is that not so, Lady Tallia?”

The young woman did not look up. She had not even eaten the bread off her plate, and at once Ivar felt guilty for having eaten and drunk so lustily. Her face was as pale as a dusting of snow on spring fields, her voice so soft that he could scarcely hear her reply. “‘If a woman were to offer for love the whole wealth of her house, it would be utterly scorned.’”

This rebuke had no effect on Margrave Judith’s good cheer. “‘But my vineyard is mine to give,’” she retorted to hearty laughter, and then signaled to her waiting attendants. “Come. Now we shall retire.”

“What?” exclaimed her companion with drunken joviality. “So soon after fetching him from the monastery? You raise horses aplenty in the east. Surely you know you break them in a bit at a time. You don’t just throw a saddle on them and ride them the first time you put a harness on them.”

“I have been patient,” said Judith with a pleasant smile, but there was iron in her tone. She gestured to Baldwin to rise, and Ivar hastily followed him, since poor Baldwin had now gone as white as a burial shroud.

In the bustle as they retreated from the hall Ivar found himself cornered by Judith’s noble companion, who was so flushed with drink that her hands had no more discretion than her wine-loosened tongue. “Do you have those freckles everywhere?” she demanded, and with a hand on his thigh seemed likely to pull up his robe to find out.

“Nay, Adelinde.” Judith put herself between the woman and Ivar. “This boy is sworn to the church. He’s not even allowed to speak to women. I have pledged to see him safely to the monastery of St. Walaricus the Martyr. And that means safe in all parts.” Her glance touched Ivar, but in her case it was her disinterest in him that was tangible. He could have been a chair she moved aside. “Go on, boy. Attend my bridegroom to his night’s rest.”

A chamber had been set aside for the margrave and her attendants. Several pallets had been set to one side on the floor; the bed, wide and soft, had a curtain hung about it like a shield. A breath of wind through open shutters stirred the curtain. Outside, twilight bled a buttery light into the room.