The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

The messenger kneels. “My lord prince. A large host under Prince Bulkezu has attacked the garrison at Matthiaburg and won a victory. There was much slaughter. Lord Rodulf of Varingia and his companions fell or were taken prisoner. Rederii scouts reported that at least ten of their headless corpses were seen stuck on pikes outside the Quman camp.”

“How know they these are the corpses of Rodulf and his companions?” demands the prince. He gestures to one of his servingmen, who brings him a cup of wine.

“By their arms and armor, my lord prince.”

He sips at his wine consideringly. He has well muscled shoulders and a bit of a paunch around the middle. The curtain leading into the interior of the pavilion stirs, and a small, black-haired woman looks out. She is dressed in nothing more than a gorgeously embroidered blanket which she has wrapped around herself.

“What news?” she asks.

“The Quman are on the move.” He spits suddenly, a faint purplish stain flowering on the carpet. “Again we must retreat. Them we cannot engage with the troops we have now. We must have reinforcements from your father!”

“No word from Margrave Judith?” she asks. “The Quman will be in her territory soon.”

“No word,” he says softly. “But north we must ride along the Oder River. There hope we to meet up with her forces. Then we can to attack.”

The woman steps out into the soft lamplight. The blanket she holds so tightly glitters, gold thread tracing antelopes and bounding lions no bigger than her hands. She, too, has well-muscled shoulders, compellingly white, and the prince rests a hand caressingly on one of them. A wind sighs along the cloth face of the pavilion. Bells sewn to the fringe of the awning chime in a hundred light and ever-changing voices.

Bells chimed, and Zacharias started back, flailing a little as he got his balance.

“The tide comes in,” she said. She shook her spear a second time, an incantation of bells that echoed along the narrow path. The high stone walls seemed to sing back in answer to their song, but as the sound faded, she merely began walking again, downward as the spiral steepened and small stair-steps became evident in the path.

He shook himself out of inaction and followed her, but she seemed already so far below him, a thousand leagues away through a substance as murky as the glass bowl that had sheltered the single burning candle. Mist cloaked the sky, and he only knew the sun’s position by a whitening glare of haze above.

The next gate shone with a pale iron gleam not unlike the mist that lay dense along the top of the stone walls. Beyond the gate lay a cover of fog so thick that it might have been a host of sheep gathered together, blotting out the earth and sea beneath. Oddly, he could see a few stars overhead and a quarter moon sliding in and out of wispy clouds.

He was so tired suddenly, and very thirsty. He leaned into the wall, bracing himself, unwilling to see any more visions, but his fingers slid anyway along the slick wall and he touched the iron gate and saw beyond it.

A woman sits in a chair carved with guivres. She wears the gold torque of royal kinship at her throat and a coronet on her brow. Her hair runs to silver, and her face is lined with old angers and frustrations. A girlish young woman with hair the color of wheat kneels before her, trembling. She wears only an undershirt, the linen cloth woven so fine that he can see the shape of her body beneath. She is very thin.

“Constance has gone on progress through her duchy,” says the seated woman with a tone no less iron than the gleaming gate. “You could have ridden with her, but you chose to remain here.”

“She promised me—” sobs the kneeling woman.

“I made no promises to you. I have my allies, and they have their price. You threw away one husband, Tallia. Now you will do as I bid you. Let that be the end of it.” She rises from her chair. “Gerhard,” she calls to one of the guards. “I will walk in the garden now. Let our guest enter.”

The guards standing at the door move aside to admit a man. He walks into the room with the kind of effortless force of a thunderhead. He isn’t particularly tall but his broad shoulders and his somewhat bow-legged swagger suggest a man who has fought in many battles and ridden a long way to get here.

“Duke Conrad,” says the silver-haired woman, greeting him with a nod. “I have met the terms of our agreement.” She gestures toward the sobbing young woman, who has clasped her hands in prayer. “I’ve cleaned her up a bit, although I can’t imagine why any man would find her appetizing.” Without waiting for an answer, perhaps even finding the entire transaction distasteful, she walks out of the chamber.