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CROWN OF STARS
Crown of Stars Book 07


Kate Elliott
ARETHOUSA
 PROLOGUE
BEYOND Gent, moving into the east toward the marchlands, the king's progress journeyed slowly
because of the immense damage caused by the great winds of autumn. Along the roads and in every
village they passed through the regnant heard the same desperate complaints: the farmers dared not plant
because frost kept coming long past its accustomed time; there was no sun; too little rain fell despite the
haze that covered the sky.
They ate on short rations and collected a meager tithe from the estates and villages they passed
through, but none among the king's progress complained, because they ate every day. Each afternoon
when they set camp and gathered wood for fires, folk approached the camp, materializing out of
woodland, out of the dusk, out of the misty night air.
"I pray you," a ragged child might whisper, clutching the hand of an emaciated younger child, both
barefoot although the ground had a sheen of frost. "Have you bread? Any crust?"
Haggard young women and youths beckoned from the twilight. "Anything you want, for a bite of
food. Anything."
Peddlers made the rounds. "Rope. Cloth. Nice carved bowls. For a good price. Very cheap. I'll
take food in trade."
Exhausted stewards and villagers begged to see the regnant. Noble lords and ladies grown lean with
hardship asked for an audience.
"A plague of rats, Your Majesty. They ate all of our grain. Even that we had set aside for seed.
Gnawed through half the leather we had tanned and worked. They came out of nowhere, a flood of
them. Horrible!"
"It's this frost. We daren't plant because it will kill the seedlings. Yet if we wait, there'll not be
enough season for the crops to ripen."
"Have you seen the sun on your travels, Your Majesty?"
"Wolves carried off a child, Your Majesty, and killed two of our milk cows. We hunted them, but
they attacked us when we tracked them to their lair. They killed four men. I'm an old man. I've never
seen them so bold as they are now."
"My husband and sons were killed, Your Majesty. They were only walking to market. I have no
one to plow the field. My daughters are just now barely old enough to be married. My husband's cousins
claim the land and wish to turn me and the girls out homeless, with nothing."
"Bandits, Your Majesty. No one is safe on the roads without an armed escort. I have but a dozen
milites in my service. The rest were called to serve King Henry, may he rest in peace in the Chamber of
Light. They never returned from Aosta."
Their desperation gave Liath a headache, but Sanglant would sit for hours and listen even and
especially when there was nothing he could do for them except listen.
"I have been told," he might say, "that if you cover the fields with straw it protects seedlings from
frost. There lies plenty of deadwood because of the tempest. Set bonfires at night to warm the air along
the rows."
"Here is a deed to the land, signed by my schola. If you have no nephews or kinsmen who can help
with the land, then here are a pair of crippled soldiers in my retinue who agree to marry into your house.
They can't fight, but together they can manage the fieldwork."
"Speak to Lady Renate of Spelburg. She is also plagued by bandits, no doubt the same group. Her
estate lies only two days' march east of here. You must pool your resources. If you have lost this much
of your population, then for the time being you must consolidate in one place. Offer protection there for