The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“Then where? You can’t just strike out on your own. A mendicant’s life cannot be for you, Lady Hathumod.” He gestured toward her clothing, a good linen gown embroidered with cavorting rabbits; she was almost rabbitlike herself, with a soft round face, someone you wanted to pet rather than kick. She wore bright red cloth slippers, the kind of courtly, delicate shoes that would wear out after a day of walking. Her hands bore no calluses. Her skin was still as soft as a rose petal. “Will you go back to Quedlinhame?”

He recognized the stubborn set of her shoulders. “They won’t have me back. It matters not where I go, my lord. I will trust in God’s wisdom.” Finally, she gained the courage to look him in the eye, and he was startled by her quiet yet passionate certitude. “But I know what I have seen here. I saw what happened with the loaves among the poor. If it is God’s will to hide Her servants among us, then I will keep silence.”

Then, astoundingly, she knelt before him and kissed his hand as a lady would that of her regnant.

“Nay, you must not!” he cried, embarrassed by this act of devotion. He lifted her gently to her feet, but could say no more, because the king’s Eagle came in then, looking for him, and called him to court.

And in the end, when they had all assembled, Alain watched as the Tallia who would not speak to him nor even look at him, the only woman he had ever truly loved, came before her uncle the king.

“Can you swear before this court and by the name of Our Lord and Lady that the marriage was never consummated?”

“Yes,” she said, and it seemed to him that she was glad to say it, that she positively rejoiced in that one word that shamed him and ruined him.

A nobleman laughed, a snorting chuckle. Henry looked up from his study of his niece, and it became so quiet that Alain could hear Rage’s toenails clicking on the floor as she shifted her head on her paws. Someone nearby had farted ripely. A bee buzzed outside one of the open shutters, and from the distant fields he heard a hoe picking at dirt, someone chopping as if they were bothered and angry.

“By the oath you swore in front of witnesses on your marriage night, you have the right to support him as his kinswoman,” continued Henry, almost suggestively. “Will you speak on his behalf?”

“I am not his wife,” said Tallia, and the gleam of triumph colored her thin face. “If it was not consummated, then the marriage never took place.”

The faintest scent of a fading dog rose drifted to him, vanished, and he became aware of his own rose hanging against his heart, as heavy as a lump of worthless iron slag. The point of the old nail had shifted, driven against his breastbone as if striking for the heart.

It was her betrayal that hurt the most.

Henry sat back with an obvious sigh. “So be it,” he said, sounding more than a little displeased. “No woman or man can rule without kin to support them. Because this man Alain has no kin to support him, I have no choice but to rule in Lord Geoffrey’s favor. His daughter, Lavrentia, I name as count of Lavas, to be guided under her father’s regency until she comes of age at fifteen.”

After that it was all meaningless noise.

And yet, hadn’t the judgment been passed a year or more ago? Hadn’t his foster father Henri accused him of everything Geoffrey had, excepting sorcery?

Henri’s own words had condemned him. “You don’t think I’m Lavastine’s son,” Alain had cried. Henri hadn’t hesitated: “Nay, and why should I?”

Ai, God, and without Tallia, would he have had the heart for it anyway, reigning as count for years and years, alone as Lavastine had been? No wonder Lavastine had fastened on to the unknown fatherless boy. He had been desperate and lonely. What a fool Lavastine had been! Would he have proved any better, any less foolish, any less desperate after years of lonely rule? Nay, it was all for the best that it end this way. He could have expected nothing else.

But then he shook himself, knowing this for the sin of despair. He would not dishonor Lavastine’s memory by giving in to self-pity.

In this way he came to himself as the shouting and stamping feet subsided and Geoffrey leaped to his feet in triumph and anger.

“I beg you, Your Majesty! You must punish him for his presumption. Let the church take him to trial for sorcery!” He had to wipe his mouth because he was spitting, so eager was he to get the words out.

Rage and Sorrow rose, stiff-legged, more threatening in silence than a pack of barking dogs. One of Geoffrey’s kinsmen grabbed Geoffrey’s arm and yanked him back.

Henry rose and rapped his scepter on the floor three times, and anyone sitting quickly stood. “Nay!” cried Henry, staring Geoffrey down until the poor man hit his knees on his chair and sat down hard, then leaped up, fearful of insulting the king. “Your zealotry does you no honor. I see no sorcery involved in this case, only the error of a man heartfelt on finding a beloved son who had been lost to him.”