The Burning Stone by Kate Elliott

Author:Kate Elliott
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9780886778156
Publisher: Daw
Published: 1998-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

He wondered where Jerna had gone, and why she had departed so

precipitously. She had never abandoned Blessing before. Someone or something

had called her away. Judging by the disturbance in the trees in the lower part of the valley, he guessed it was Anne.

Resuelto was eager enough to come with him; the gray gelding always

looked forward to their daily rides. The goat was less eager, but he got hold of her kid and she followed meekly enough, although she had a tendency to try to

butt him from the rear and she kept pulling away from the path to nip at any

delectable flower or weed.

He had buried the dog along the path, just below their hut, as a reminder

to Anne and the others that he hadn't forgotten their treachery. After two

months, al the grass and wildflowers had withered on the mound that marked

the burial, leaving only dirt and dead things. In a sour kind of way he liked the look of it; at times, chafing at the elegant bonds that held him, the barren little tumulus matched his mood.

He was still fuming. As soon as Jerna had sung open the concealed

pathway up in the high meadow, he should have thrown Liath over Resuelto and

taken them all out, not just Heribert, but he had chosen caution. Maybe he had

been right to be cautious: it had been a trap, after all. But it galled to know they had been so close to escape.

And yet, how far would they have gotten before Sister Anne sent her

servants after them? He knew how Liath's father had died, and while he didn't

fear for himself, or even Liath, he wasn't sure that he could protect Blessing.

He went so deep into this sort of fruitless musing that he actually tied up

Resuelto and the goat to opposite ends of the post by the trough before he

realized that Liath was talking to someone, inside the hut. He halted, hearing

Blessing fuss a little, and there was a silence. Perhaps she had only been talking to herself.

"Nay," Liath said with anger, "you're too kindhearted a soul to trust a man like Hugh of Austra."

"Is he a dangerous man, then, set loose in Darre?"

"With Da's book, and a daimone at his command? He is."

"But a clever one, evidently."

Liath grunted. Sanglant dipped a hand in the cold water of the trough, and

waited. "Hugh told me once that you could only hate what you could also love.

But you can never trust him.

Never, ever." Sanglant had never heard her speak with such passionate

and almost gleeful fury. "If that had been Hugh who was here when I was ill, he would have sat beside my bed and read aloud to me, and reminded me that

Sanglant can't read. Hugh would have knelt beside me as I measured the angle

of rising or plotted the course of the moon through the zodiac, and he would

have mentioned just so elegantly that Sanglant has learned some of the names

of the constellations and stars, enough to navigate the night sky, but it doesn't truly engage him.

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