They walked on, and Alain could no longer hear them. Everyone said the black hounds traveled only and everywhere with Count Lavastine. No man otherwise could handle them, and they were known to have ravaged more than one servingman in the holding. Not even Master Rodlin, master over the stables and kennels, could control them.
“Horses,” said Lackling.
Or at least, he made a noise which Alain knew he meant to signify horses because the boy then threw his head back and scraped the ground with one foot, remarkably like a horse. He sniffed the air, as if he could smell their approach. And perhaps he could. Cook sometimes called him a changeling, and it was true he had an affinity for animals, just as a child born of a goblin mother would have, though he looked human enough. The others, of course, said that animals—God’s innocents—were said to recognize the halfwitted as innocents like themselves. Impatient, Lackling dashed outside.
Alain finished oiling the harness he had in his hands. Eight days had passed since Heric had come to the holding and warned them to expect the count’s return. Alain could wait a bit longer to look. It was an oddly auspicious day for the count and his forces to arrive back home: At the morning service the deacon had reminded them all that this was the saint’s day of St. Lavrentius, the very saint venerated with relics and a chapel in Lavas Church, which stood just outside town. Lavas Holding rested under the protection of St. Lavrentius’ hand. There was an ivory reliquary in the church that contained some of the holy martyr’s bones and a scrap of the leather belt that had bound him to the wheel on which he had died his martyr’s death in the last years of the Dariyan Empire. But thinking of the wheel made Alain think of the stars that wheeled in the heavens on their ceaseless round. It made him think of Midsummer’s Eve and the vision he had seen, and of Withi’s rejection of him after.
He sighed. Well, Aunt Bel would tell him that a serving maid like Withi wasn’t worth pining over in any case. And she would bluntly remind him that he was sworn to the church and, thus, to celibacy. But he couldn’t help thinking of Withi, even if he knew Aunt Bel was right.
By the time he hung the harness back on a peg and went to the stable door, he saw the guard waving one arm at a distant sight and then, in a loud voice, calling out to those below.
“They have come! The count arrives!”
The yard dissolved into a wild frenzy of activity.
Alain and Lackling found shelter at the corner of the stables, out of the way. From there they watched as the militia marched in through the gates, a lord who was obviously Count Lavastine at their head. The count rode a chestnut gelding. His kinsman Lord Geoffrey rode beside him on a roan, his fine armor betraying his status as a lord, and with them at the fore rode a young man wrapped in a cloak bearing the badge of the King’s Eagles. With them also rode the count’s captain, two clerics, and a dozen mounted soldiers Alain did not recognize. Behind these riders marched the militia, led by Sergeant Fell, and after them rolled the wagons and pack mules, kicking up dust.
The count pulled up his gelding in front of the steps that led into the hall. There waited Chatelaine Dhuoda, together with her retinue and Lord Geoffrey’s young bride, Aldegund, now hugely pregnant. As soon as the count dismounted, Lackling ran recklessly forward and stood shifting from one foot to the next while the count handed his reins over to his captain and then walked forward to greet his kinswomen. The captain glanced at Lackling and, with the barest nod, allowed the boy to walk beside him as he led the chestnut toward the stables.
Suddenly all the horses in the yard flung their heads back and shied. One of the clerics was thrown from his mount, and Lord Geoffrey cursed and fought his mare to a standstill. Only the chestnut, under Lackling’s hands, remained calm. Howling pierced the air, accompanied by a chorus of barks and ugly growls. Count Lavastine broke away from the women and hurried down the steps.
A wagon trundled through the gate, pulled by four oxen. A stocky man walked at the head of the lead ox, a good long way away from the bed of the wagon. Six black hounds lunged, snapping, toward the soldiers and onlookers, who shouted in alarm, or cried out, or scuttled back. But with yips and angry barks the hounds were, again and again, brought up short by thick chains fastened to the undercarriage. From the bed rose a cross built of heavy wood spars. To this cross was chained …
Not a man.
Like everyone else, Alain drew back, but more from the sight of the prisoner than from the savage hounds.
An Eika prince. Sergeant Fell’s tale of a dragon’s heart and its curse suddenly seemed more believable.
Alain had seen creatures like this before: the painted beasts, worse for looking so much like men, who had murdered frail, gentle Brother Gilles and the other monks at Dragon’s Tail Monastery. Garish painted swirls faded from this one’s face and chest. Hard white claws thrust out from the backs of his bony hands. The creature wore an armband of beaten gold around his right arm and two of bronze, curled like snakes, around his left. He wore as well stiff trousers caked with mud and a girdle of surpassing beauty, tiny links of woven gold chain and delicate faience, belted at his narrow waist and hanging down past his hips. He was naked above the waist, and his skin, under the paint, looked more like scaled copper than flesh. Despite his savage aspect, he looked every bit an arrogant prince, with black slit eyes and coarse white hair bound into a thick braid that ended past his waist. His thin lips were pulled back in an expression that resembled the hounds’ baring of teeth more than a smile. Tiny jewels studded his teeth, giving his snarl an unexpected brilliance.