AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Of course everyone looked. A hound sat on either side of Alain. He had a hand buried in each one’s neck, as if holding them back—or as if they were all that was holding him up. Yet she could read nothing in his expression except perhaps a kind of resigned calm. His black hair had been recently cropped; his clothes were neat and handsomely fitted. But except for the hounds he sat unattended even by a servant while Lord Geoffrey was flanked by noble kinsmen who, with empty sword belts and arms crossed menacingly, looked ready to solve the problem with their fists. Lord Geoffrey had the kind of red face that comes of too much choler seeping from the blood into the mind. He looked as if he were about to burst into wrathful speech at any moment.
“The hounds?” asked Henry.
“He has the gift with the hounds, Your Majesty. Just as Count Lavastine did, and his father before him and his father before him, may their souls rest in peace in the Chamber of Light.” She frowned at a sight unseen by the rest of them, glanced over her shoulder as if looking at someone in the crowd, then rubbed her bulbous nose self-consciously. “Poor Rose. That’s the girl who was Count Alain’s mother, for I know she bore him truly enough. I saw him come from her body, just as I saw poor Lackling born out of Cecily, No mixing those two boys up, because Lackling come out of Cecily with his face all bent and legs funny and Alain was as perfectly-formed a baby as I ever saw. Yet Cecily was the good girl, obedient and quiet. She never went to any man but the count, and I’m not sure that wasn’t more his choice than hers, begging your pardon, Your Majesty. She always said there was a young man in her village she meant to marry, when she returned home. Rose, now, alas, she was a whore, there’s no kinder word for it. Pretty as a rose, that girl. That’s where she got the name, for she never claimed to have one of her own. She and her people come up from Salia a year or two before to find harvest work and she hadn’t anything of her own, as poor as the mice in the church. They was even too poor to have a lord take them in. The man who called himself her father just called her ‘girl,’ and we all suspected that he was doing that to her that goes against nature, if you take my meaning, Your Majesty.”
People chuckled and whispered around Hanna, finding amusement in this salacious tidbit. Henry frowned and rapped his scepter once, hard, on the floor. Everyone quieted.
“Pray give this woman silence in which to testify.”
She rubbed her nose again, which had gotten quite red from the heat of the hall, or of the king’s regard. “She were so poor and so poorly treated by her father who was always slapping her and calling her indecent names right out where everyone could hear that it’s no wonder she went looking for what she could get wherever she could get it. Everyone knew she made her assignations up in the old ruins. She were always going on about meeting the Lost Ones there, and how a prince of the old people was coming in to her and was going to make her a queen. Who’s to say she didn’t meet the young count up in the ruins one night? Every man in this holding looked at her with lust in his eyes, she was that pretty and had that kind of way with her that made you know that if you just gave her the right thing she’d, well, begging your pardon, she’d make it worth your while. It’s as likely that Count Alain was Count Lavastine’s son as any other man’s, Your Majesty,”
Lord Geoffrey looked ready to burst, and he burst now. “He might have been the get of any man in this holding! He might have been the lowest stable boy’s by-blow! Ai, Lord! He’s as likely to be the ill-begotten product of an incestuous union between the girl and her father!”
“Begging your pardon, my lord,” the cook retorted with astonishing asperity, “but what about the testimony of the hounds, then? Not any man but the counts of Lavas can touch them hounds. They obey Count Alain just as they obeyed Count Lavastine. That was good enough for Count Lavastine, and he was a careful man and a good lord to us. We trusted him and never saw reason to question his judgment. He only did one foolish thing in his life, when his poor daughter was killed, and he repented that the rest of his days.”
“Strong words,” said Henry. His niece Tallia shifted in her seat as if his voice had startled her, but she did not look up from her study of her knees. She had a pale face, pale hair, and pale hands, was almost colorless, quite in contrast to the plump young noblewoman who stood in attendance on her with her hands folded quietly before her and her serious gaze flicking now and again toward Alain.
“What about this boy, Lackling?” asked Henry. “You seem sure he was Count Lavastine’s bastard. Could he touch the hounds?”
“Why, bless you, Your Majesty,” she said with a chuckle, “he hadn’t enough wits to try, nor would anyone let him. He was misshapen in the body, poor lad, as sweet a soul as you might wish, but he was simple in the head.”
“I pray you, Your Majesty, have I your permission to speak?” said Alain. His voice warmed Hanna; she had never heard him speak before, but there was nothing nasty or irate in his tone, nothing to trouble one’s heart or scrape raw one’s soul. Henry nodded. “The hounds never troubled Lackling.”
It was an astounding observation to make in the face of the really awful accusations just thrown at him by his rival. The young noblewoman sitting at Geoffrey’s side—most likely his wife because she held a young child on her lap—leaned over to whisper in Geoffrey’s ear, and he sat back, looking irritated, but keeping his mouth shut.
“What are you saying? I don’t understand your meaning.” Henry sat back in his chair, hands curling over the dragon armrests. Their carved tongues licked out between his fingers, and he rubbed them absently as he listened.
“They never troubled him,” repeated Alain. “They never lunged at him or tried to bite him, as they would everyone else.” He pointedly did not look at Geoffrey.
“Everyone but you,” retorted Geoffrey. His face went from red to white in an instant, the complexion of a sinning man, or a fearful one. “Because you’re an agent of the Enemy. You used sorcery to enslave them, just as you used sorcery to bind my cousin to your will. We’ve all heard the story that the elder Count Charles Lavastine was accused of having made a pact with the Enemy to get those hounds. Why would any man want them? We’ve all seen and heard how vicious they are. They can only be creatures of the Enemy, and if they obey you, it must be because you are a servant of the Enemy as well!”
“Hold!” cried Henry, raising a hand for silence as the crowd began to mutter and stir. The hounds growled softly, but Alain merely touched them on their muzzles and they lay down, resting their great heads on their forelegs. The king paused while Hathui bent to whisper in his ear. He nodded, and she gave an order to a steward, who hurried away. Hanna edged forward on the bench, got stuck again, jammed between a noble lady and her companion. She thought of crawling under the table, but the noble lady’s whippets had hunkered down in a pack under the table and not only did they growl at her as she bent over to survey her chances, but they had made a stinking mess of the rushes underneath. She shoved her way back up on the bench as the king began again to speak.
“This is a grave accusation, Lord Geoffrey, not only against Alain but against Count Lavastine, his father the younger Charles, and his grandfather Charles Lavastine as well. Do you mean to imply that all of them were in league with the Enemy?”
At once the young noblewoman and an older man who resembled her leaned over to whisper furiously to Geoffrey while he by turns looked irate and mortified. The child on the woman’s lap fussed and was given a fig to chew on to keep it quiet.
The crowd had begun talking and there was a buzz of anger below it, like bees smoked out of their hive, but Hanna couldn’t tell who the anger was directed against. Alain did not move except to pat the head of one of the hounds. Tallia glanced at her uncle. She seemed to have eyes for no one but Henry, and even so her gaze was more like that of a rabbit eyeing the hawk that would like to eat it than that of a trusting niece. Hadn’t she married Lord Alain last summer? Of course she had! Why wasn’t she sitting beside him, then?
“Nay, Your Majesty,” said Geoffrey finally. “It is evident that Count Lavastine and his father Charles were innocent.”
“Then do you lay a claim against the elder Charles Lavastine and his conduct?”
“No one knows what he got in return for the hounds, but it brought ill luck into his house. The story goes that his own mother died in childbed the day he got the hounds. He himself never had but one child although he married four different women, and his son had only the one living child although his wife was brought to bed ten or twelve times. My cousin Lavastine had only the one child, and not only were she and her mother murdered by these same hounds, but it was rumored that the girl wasn’t his get at all, that his wife had committed adultery. Two times more he made ready to marry, and both those women died under unnatural circumstances. And last, that same ill luck brought this liar to Lavas Holding, this man who tempted my cousin and bewitched him. And killed him, too, so I hear. Everyone agrees it was sorcery that killed him, some foul creature of the Enemy. Even those who will speak no ill of this bastard acknowledge that my cousin died in an unnatural way. It’s true, isn’t it?” he demanded at last, for the first time glaring belligerently at Alain.
o;Strong words,” said Henry. His niece Tallia shifted in her seat as if his voice had startled her, but she did not look up from her study of her knees. She had a pale face, pale hair, and pale hands, was almost colorless, quite in contrast to the plump young noblewoman who stood in attendance on her with her hands folded quietly before her and her serious gaze flicking now and again toward Alain.
“What about this boy, Lackling?” asked Henry. “You seem sure he was Count Lavastine’s bastard. Could he touch the hounds?”
“Why, bless you, Your Majesty,” she said with a chuckle, “he hadn’t enough wits to try, nor would anyone let him. He was misshapen in the body, poor lad, as sweet a soul as you might wish, but he was simple in the head.”
“I pray you, Your Majesty, have I your permission to speak?” said Alain. His voice warmed Hanna; she had never heard him speak before, but there was nothing nasty or irate in his tone, nothing to trouble one’s heart or scrape raw one’s soul. Henry nodded. “The hounds never troubled Lackling.”
It was an astounding observation to make in the face of the really awful accusations just thrown at him by his rival. The young noblewoman sitting at Geoffrey’s side—most likely his wife because she held a young child on her lap—leaned over to whisper in Geoffrey’s ear, and he sat back, looking irritated, but keeping his mouth shut.
“What are you saying? I don’t understand your meaning.” Henry sat back in his chair, hands curling over the dragon armrests. Their carved tongues licked out between his fingers, and he rubbed them absently as he listened.
“They never troubled him,” repeated Alain. “They never lunged at him or tried to bite him, as they would everyone else.” He pointedly did not look at Geoffrey.
