The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3) Page 77

Prince Sanglant was not a subtle man. Liath glanced toward him, and he reached to touch her on the elbow. The glance, the movement, the touch: these spoke as eloquently as words.

“What means this?” demanded Henry.

But every soul there knew what it meant: Sanglant, the obedient son, had defied his father.

Rosvita knew well the signs of Henry’s wrath; he wore them now: the tic in his upper lip, the stark lightning glare in his eyes, the threatening way he rested his royal staff on his forearm as if in preparation for a sharp blow. She stepped forward in the hope of turning his anger aside, but Hugh had already moved to place himself before the king.

“I beg you, Your Majesty.” His expression was smooth but his hands were trembling. “She no longer wears the Eagle’s badge that marks her as in your service. Therefore, she is now by right—and your judgment—my slave.”

“She is my wife,” said Sanglant suddenly. His hoarse tenor, accustomed to the battlefield, carried easily over the noise of the throng. Everyone burst into exclamations at once, and after a furious but short-lived uproar, the assembly like a huge beast quieted, the better to hear. Even the king’s favorite poet or a juggling troupe from Aosta did not provide as thrilling an entertainment as this.

The prince dismounted and everyone stared as he hammered an iron stake into the ground and staked down the dogs. From their savage presence all shrank back as the prince walked forward to stand before his father. Clouds covered the sun, and rain spattered the crowd, enough to keep the dust down and to wet tongues made dry by anticipation.

“She is my wife,” Sanglant repeated, “by mutual consent, witnessed by these soldiers and a freewoman of Ferse village, and made legal and binding by the act of consummation and by the exchange of morning gifts.”

“‘Let the children be satisfied first,’” said Hugh in a low, furious voice. She had never before seen him lose his composure, but he was shaking visibly now, flushed and agitated. “‘It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’”

“Hugh,” warned his mother from her place near the king.

Abruptly, Liath replied in a bold and angry voice. “‘Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.’”

Hugh looked as if he had been slapped. He bolted toward her. That fast, and more smoothly than Rosvita believed possible, Sanglant stepped between them, and Hugh actually bumped up against him. But to go around the prince would be to make a fool of himself. Even so he hesitated, as if actually contemplating fighting it out hand to hand, the gracious cleric and the half-wild prince.

“I did not give my permission for you to marry,” said Henry.

“I did not ask permission to marry, nor need I do so, since I am of age, and of free birth.”

“She is not free,” retorted Hugh, recovering his composure so completely that she might have dreamed that flash of rage. “She is either in the king’s service, and thus needs his permission to marry, or she is my slave. As a slave, she has no right to marry a man of free birth—much less, my lord prince,” he added, with a humble bow, “a man of your exalted rank and birth.” He turned back to the king. “Yet I would not dare to pass judgment when we must bow before your wisdom, Your Majesty.”

“I gave her a choice.” Henry gestured toward the young woman. “Did I not give that choice, Eagle? Have you forsaken my service and thus rebelled against my rightful authority?”

She blanched.

“Let me speak,” said Sanglant.

“Sanglant,” she murmured, as softly as a person caught in the whirlpool whispers with her last breath before she goes under. “Do not—”

“Sanglant.” The king uttered his name with that same tone of warning with which Margrave Judith had moments before spoken her own son’s name.

“I will speak! The blessed Daisan said that it is not the things that go into a man from outside that defile him but the things that come out of him that defile him. Look upon him, whom you all admire and love, who is charming and elegant and handsome. Yet out of this man’s heart come evil thoughts, acts of fornication forced upon a helpless woman, theft, murder, ruthless greed and malice, fraud, indecency for a man sworn to the church to cohabit with a woman, envy, slander, arrogance—and with his hands and his fine manners he has blinded you all with sorcery—”

Theophanu started up out of her chair.

Margrave Judith strode forward, flushed with anger. “I will not stand by quietly while my son is insulted and abused—”