Part 45 (2/2)
Blessing grunted in her sleep, rolled over, and nudged up against Anna, who squeezed her eyes shut and desperately tried to keep still even though Blessing's elbow was jabbed against her ribs.
”We wintered at Gent.” That hoa.r.s.e sc.r.a.pe in his voice gave his words a nostalgic tone but in truth, his voice always sounded like that.” There was a woman there, a servant in the palace. Frederun. She wept when I left.”
”Thinking already of the gifts she would no longer get from you.”
”No. She was genuinely sorry to see me go.”
”So will I be, Sanglant.” She spoke the words teasingly, but he did not respond in kind.
”That's not what I meant. It didn't seem right somehow, to use her that way. It seemed as though I'd offered her something she desperately wanted and then s.n.a.t.c.hed it out of her hands.”
”I don't understand you,” said Waltharia impatiently.” I am a woman, just as she is. You know well enough what appeal you have to us, or at least you once knew it well enough to encourage our sighs and offers, and I know you have never suffered a lack of interest on our part. She was lucky you paid her any attention at all.”
”Was she?” he murmured, but Waltharia either did not hear or did not reply. Sanglant sighed sharply. Blessing gave a snorting sigh as if in answer and rolled away, flinging an arm out as she s.h.i.+fted. She had grown into a remarkably unquiet sleeper. Lying still, Anna risked opening one eye. Sanglant still sat on the bed, looking intent but rather rumpled, as though he'd already taken a few rolls in the hay. He fingered his hair, playing with the tips, needing something to do with his restless hands.
”Where is my schola?” he asked at last.
”They were given my leave to sleep by the hearth in the hall this night.”
At last he rose, walking to the window, leaning out to stare into the night just as Waltharia had done before him. His embroidered tunic showed off the breadth of his shoulders and the tapering line of his torso and hips. Anna was old enough now to note that men were good-looking. Sometimes she peeked at Matto, watching the changes overcome his youthful body, but she had never precisely thought of the prince himself in those terms. He was too old, and too high above her. The night breeze breathed in his hair, stirring black strands along his neck.
”It would be treason to rise against my father,” he said to the night sky.
”Walburg is a stout fortress, Your Highness. I do not doubt I can bide here safely, despite war and famine. But my people will not do as well, and if they suffer, then what kind of steward am I? Will there be anything left for my children, and my children's children, to rule? I cannot take that chance.”
”I am not ready to take so bold a step.” ”Do not wait too long, Prince Sanglant.” Her voice roughened, and not only from pa.s.sion.” Your child is precious, but children are easily lost in times like these.” He turned back, startled, to regard her. Tears shone in her eyes.” Our daughter was but two years of age when she died.”
”I was never told. She was to be placed in a convent. That's all I heard. My father made it clear that was to be the end of it, as far as I was concerned.”
”And so it was the end of it,” she said bitterly.” Is the church not the proper place for an illegitimate child? When a stallion is brought in to breed a mare, isn't he returned afterward to his master?”
”What happened?”
Anna feared to breathe, seeing how still the prince stood and knowing how well he could hear.
After a moment, Waltharia continued.” Bandits fell upon the party that was escorting her to the cloister at Warteshausen. I had them hunted down and hanged, and let their corpses rot to nothing on the walls. But that did not bring back the child.” She smiled bravely, wiped her face, and downed another cup of cider.” There,” she finished, setting down the cup. It rang lightly on wood.” I had done grieving, until you reminded me. It happened four years past, not yesterday. I lost my second son to fever two winters ago, and I pray to G.o.d every dawn and every night that I shall not lose the other three.” Anger made her tears wither and dry, a heat that wicked them away.” I will not risk Villam lands and all that my father has left in my care so that Henry may run to Aosta seeking an illusory crown among foreigners.”
”You risk Henry's wrath if you counsel rebellion. You could lose everything, even your life.”
The fever had pa.s.sed, leaving her calm again, the kind of woman who rarely lost control and then only when she really, really wanted to and was prepared for the consequences. She displayed the gold torque again, tracing the curve of the braid sensuously with her finger. Sanglant, shuddering, shut his eyes. His hands, lying open against the stone ledge, curled into fists.
She smiled as at a challenge offered and accepted.” We march lords must be prepared for anything.”
He stirred at the window, opening his eyes.” Is that an invitation, or a proposal?”
”It's whatever you take it to be. Will you wear the gold torque, my lord prince?”
THE Eika fleet sailed out of Rikin Sound before a fair wind, two hundred and twenty-three longs.h.i.+ps and forty-six knarrs, the big-bellied cargo s.h.i.+ps that plied the northern seas. Behind them came eight s.h.i.+ps of various size and shape, captained by human allies. These were mostly young men from the merchant colonies that now paid tribute to Stronghand, restless youths eager to make a fortune looting Alba's rich towns and heathen temples.
At first the weather favored them, but they had no sooner seen the sh.o.r.ebirds flying overhead, they had no sooner heard the first shout from the foremost s.h.i.+ps, sighting the green hills of Alba, than a gale blew up from the southwest and scattered the fleet north and east.
Stronghand ordered his men to shorten their sails and they rode out the storm with ease, but it took six days for their merfolk allies to track down the scattered s.h.i.+ps and escort them back to a rendezvous at the Cackling Skerries off the rugged northeastern coast of Alba, far from the southern lands where lay the most prosperous towns, fields, and temples.
He met with his commanders on Cracknose Rock. Their skiffs were beached in a narrow strand strewn with coa.r.s.e rocks as grainy as pumice. Cracknose Rock lay at the center of the Skerries, a fist of stone thrusting up defiantly out of the sea. Climbing to the top, scrambling on rock split and cracked and seeping water from every creva.s.se and depression, Stronghand could see the fleet riding at anchor in the choppy waters, most of the s.h.i.+ps pulled well back from the scatter of rocky islets. Spray whipped off the sea. Breakers surged and sucked among the smaller rocks crowding like children about the foot of Cracknose. Dark clouds made iron of the sky. A pale promontory flashed in and out of view on the western horizon as a rainstorm occluded it at intervals.
The storm had made a few of his allies timid.
”What if it's true that the Alba tree sorcerers raised that storm?” said Isa's chief.” Our priests don't have the power to call wind and make the waves into mountains.”
Stronghand set his standard pole at the center of the gathered chieftains. He pivoted around, gripping it, looking each of his commanders in the eye. None looked away. They had more pride than that. But he knew he could not trust them all.
”I have nothing to fear from the Alban tree sorcerers. They must fear me, although they may be too foolish to do so.”
After a pause during which the chieftains fingered their spears in silence and a few regarded him as if they were thinking that it might be a good idea to run him through that instant, his littermate Tenth Son raised the expected objection, as they two had agreed beforehand.” It is foolish not to fear those with powerful magic.”
”I am protected against their magic.” He raised his standard. Feathers adorned it, bones strung together with wire and clacking softly against strings made of beads and sc.r.a.ps of leather that twisted in the breeze as they brushed against the desiccated skin of a snake. Chains forged from the spun and braided hair of Swift-Daughters, iron and gold, tin and silver, chimed softly. The bone whistles strung from the crosspiece clacked together, moaning as the wind raced through them.
”You may be protected, but what of us?” said Sk.u.ma's chief, a huge warrior with ma.s.sive hands the size of a spade and skin as pale as powdered a.r.s.enic.
”All those I hold in my hand cannot be harmed by any magic thrown against me.”
”What of spears and arrows?”
He grinned, displaying the jewels set into his teeth.” Not even I can protect your sorry hides from plain iron. Are there any among you who desire such a s.h.i.+eld in battle? Do you fear to fight?”
They roared their answer as the wind ripped through their lifted standards, raising a h.e.l.lish noise.
CHILD or FLAME After a bit, the wind dropped enough, and their shouting ceased, so that he could speak again.” Those who faithfully follow me, I hold in my hand. Those whose hearts are not loyal receive no protection from me.” He gestured toward the fleet before counting his commanders.” Who are we missing? Who has turned tail to run home?”
Eight longs.h.i.+ps and two knarrs were missing from those that had set out eight days before. One had been seen drifting lifeless on the open waters, and no captain had dared board it for fear that the tree sorcerers had poisoned its hull with their magic.
”It flew Ardaneka's banner,” said Hakonin's chief.” Not one of Ardaneka's s.h.i.+ps do I see now.”
Some of his chieftains eyed the distant sh.o.r.e nervously. A blanket of fog had settled in over the headland, tendrils probing out onto the open sea before they were ripped to pieces by the wind. A warning whistle blew shrill and strong. At the fringe of the gathered a.s.sembly, right where the rock dropped precipitously away to the sea on its steepest side, his human allies huddled. They had pulled their cloaks up in a vain attempt to s.h.i.+eld themselves from the battering of the wind, but now they exclaimed out loud and pointed to the northeast.
A longs.h.i.+p was coming in, bucking in the swells. Its mast had been snapped off halfway, and shreds of sail draped the deck. Seaweed wreathed the stem of the s.h.i.+p. A half-dozen oars had survived the wreck, but not one body could be seen. Deep gouges marred the clinker-built hull, scars cutting through the red-and-yellow paint to reveal pale wood beneath. Rigging trailed behind like so many snakes wriggling through the sea, except for two lines drawn taut at the front.
The merfolk were hauling in the crippled s.h.i.+p.
Four merfolk surfaced near the strand, propelling a bloated corpse. Two swam in close enough to give it a final shove, and it sc.r.a.ped up along the beach, rolling against the pebbled sh.o.r.e until it wedged face up between two rocks, caught there. They watched in silence as the sea troubled its rest, trying to suck it out as waves receded, trying to force it in to sh.o.r.e as waves rolled in.
Even from the height of Cracknose Rock every soul there recognized the corpse. Like the rest of them, Ardaneka's chieftain bore distinctive markings on his torso. Seawater and feasting crabs had obliterated portions of the three-headed yellow serpent painted onto his chest yet, even with sea worms writhing in the rotting oval that had once been his face, enough could be seen to identify him.
Hakonin's chief hissed derisively.” Ardaneka's master only bared his throat to you after the battle at Kjalmarsfjord, when he saw no one else had the strength to resist you. It seems his faith in you was not strong enough to protect him from the tree sorcerers' storm.”
”So it was not,” remarked Stronghand.
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