by Kate Elliott
“They need Henry alive in order to rule through him,” said Sanglant. “His Wendish armies will desert Adelheid and her advisers if Henry dies. The nobles and their retinues will return to Wendar without the king to lead them.”
“There is the child, Your Highness.” The Eagle’s voice was soft, but Sapientia all at once burst into noisy exclamations.
“Abandoned! Set aside! And for a toddling brat!”
Wichman snorted, but fell silent at a glance from the prince.
“It is true that the child can become queen in Henry’s place, but she cannot yet be three years of age.” Sanglant looked toward the embrasure where his unnatural daughter had concealed herself in the shadows of the window’s stone archway. Blessing was not more than three years old, but she appeared so much older that King Geza had suggested to Sanglant that he betroth her to Geza’s favorite child, a brash fifteen-year-old boy whom many whispered had been all but anointed as heir despite having a dozen older brothers.
“Regents have ruled through three-year-old children before, Your Highness,” said Wolfhere. “This girl, Mathilda, would no doubt be easier to control than a mature man of Henry’s stature and experience.”
“Are you suggesting we give up our quest?”
“Nay, I do not, my lord prince, but I implore you to listen carefully to what Hathui has seen and heard. I trained her myself, and King Henry saw her worth and raised her up to stand at his right hand as a trusted adviser.”
Sanglant’s lips twitched, as though he wasn’t sure whether to smile or frown. “Just as you stood beside my grandfather, King Arnulf?”
Wolfhere shrugged, unwilling to be drawn into an argument so old that Anna could only guess at its contours. Intimately involved as she was in the care of Blessing, she often witnessed the interactions between Sanglant and his closest counselors. Despite Wolfhere’s status as a respected elder, she had seen tempers flare and accusations thrown like knives.
Sanglant returned his gaze to the younger Eagle. “I do not question your loyalty to my father, Hathui. You have proved it by riding so far to seek my help.”
“What of the king?” she demanded.
“To fight the rebellious lords of Aosta, to fight the Jinna bandits and the Arethousan usurpers, it seems to me they must have Henry to lead the army. Why kill him if they can control him with sorcery? Why control him with sorcery if they felt powerful enough to kill him and still keep the crown of Wendar on the child’s head? Nay, let us pray that my father lives, and that his queen and her counselors will keep him alive until the child is old enough to stand up at the war council herself.” He glanced again toward the embrasure, but the shadows hid his daughter from view. Only her eyes winked there, two sparks of fire. “We cannot fight the sorcerers unless we have a hope of winning, and we have no hope of winning unless we can protect ourselves against their magic.”
“Griffin feathers,” murmured Zacharias. His face was flushed, and he was perspiring.
“I fear the Kerayit will not care about Wendish troubles, Your Highness,” said Breschius softly. “They may not choose to aid you.”
“So you have said before. I do not neglect your counsel, Brother. But Anne’s plotting threatens the Kerayit as much as any people. No place on earth will be safe.”
“And we could all die tomorrow,” added Lady Bertha cheerfully.
Wichman guffawed, caught sight of Anna, and gave her a wink. She shifted nervously. He had tried to grope her once, although Sanglant had put a stop to it, but the duchess’ unruly son still made her uneasy.
“Set aside for a babe in arms!” muttered Sapientia. Yet it had been months since anyone had paid much attention to her, and although she still had the luster of the royal blood, she had faded in an intangible way, like silver left unpolished. “Did the Wendish nobles not hear my father confirm me as heir? How can they bow before an infant in Aosta?”
“What of Wendar itself, my lord prince?” Hathui asked.
He paced to the door, pausing there with his back to the assembly.
“I should return to Wendar!” cried Sapientia.
“I wonder if my sisters still quarrel over Saony,” remarked Wichman, “and if Ekkehard has managed to stick his key into his wife’s treasure chest yet.”
Sanglant ignored these comments as he replied to the Eagle. “I commanded a cohort of Lions to attend Theophanu. I sent many levies of fighters back to their farms. As you can see, I rode east with less than a thousand soldiers. Two thirds of the army we had at the Veser no longer rides with me. They must defend Wendar until I return.”
“Can they?” Grimacing with pain and favoring a leg. Hathui rose to stand defiantly in the middle of the room. “Do you know what I have seen in the two years I have traveled, struggling to reach you, my lord prince?”
From no other common-born person might a noble lord hear such a tone, but it had long been understood that Eagles had to have a certain amount of freedom to speak their mind if their information was to be of any use to their regnant. She went on without asking his leave.
“Salia lies torn apart by civil war, plague, and drought. Bandits lurk along every road. I heard little news of Varre as I rode through Wayland, and received nothing but scorn from the retainers of Conrad the Black. It is said that he celebrated Penitire in Mainni as if he were king, with Sabella’s daughter Tallia beside him as his new wife. Avaria has been swept by plague. I rode through more than one empty hamlet, and as many where the path was blocked by fallen trees and villagers standing there with scythes and shovels to guard themselves from any who might bring the contagion into their homes.
“Princess Theophanu refuses to name any of Duchess Rotrudis’ children as heir to the duchy of Saony, but both the daughters have threatened to seek Conrad’s aid to gain the ducal seat.”
“Two sows rooting in the mud while the boar looks on!”
“I pray you, Wichman,” said Sanglant, “let the Eagle finish her report without interruption.”
Hathui continued. “Cousins fight among themselves to gain lands and titles come free because there have been so many deaths in the recent wars. Riding through the marchlands, I saw fields withered by drought. I saw children laid low by famine, with their stomachs swollen and their eyes sunk in like those of corpses. In Eastfall, it rained every day for two months straight and black rot destroyed half their stores of rye. Heretics preach a story of a phoenix offering redemption. It is no wonder that people listen. The common folk fear that the end of the world is coming.”
Wichman laughed. “What evil does not plague Wendar?”
Hathui was not so easily cowed. “I have heard no report of locusts, my lord, nor has there been any news of Eika raids along the northern shores these past two years.”
“A spitfire! Do your claws come out in bed, too?”
Impatiently, she turned back to Prince Sanglant. “Princess Theophanu has sent three Eagles to Aosta and heard no answer from her father in reply to her pleas for help. I crossed paths with a fourth—” Anger creased her lips, quickly fled. “—last summer, who rode south to seek the king. I saw with my Eagle’s Sight that she crossed the Alfar Mountains safely this spring, but as soon as she came near to Darre she was lost in the sorcerer’s veil.
“Conrad of Wayland acts as if he is king, not duke. Yolanda of Varingia is embroiled in the Salian wars. Biscop Constance remains silent in Arconia. Liutgard of Fesse and Burchard of Avaria ride at Henry’s side in Aosta. Saony has no duke. Theophanu cannot act with the meager forces she has at her disposal. Who will save Wendar, my lord prince? Who will save the king?”
Sanglant said nothing. Within the embrasure, Blessing shifted, feet rubbing on stone. Sapientia wept quietly while Brigida comforted her. The others waited. Anna glanced over toward the window to see both Thiemo and Matto looking at her. Heat scalded her cheeks, and she looked down. What would happen if they came to blows? Would Prince Sanglant banish them for creating trouble? She didn’t want to lose either of them, but matters
could not remain in this tense stalemate. She was going to have to choose. And she didn’t want to.
“You have the army and the leadership, my lord prince,” continued Hathui. “Turn your army home.”
“I cannot.”
“You can! Henry left Wendar in a time of trial. If he had stayed in Wendar, he would not have become bewitched. He ought to have stayed in Wendar and not ridden off to Aosta in search of a crown. And neither should you!”
“I am not riding to Aosta in search of a crown.” Anna heard the edge creep into the prince’s voice that meant the Eagle’s words had angered him, but perhaps the Eagle did not care, or did not know him well enough, to heed the warning.
“But you are riding east, in search of other tokens of power. Some have named you as a rebel against your father. I see for myself that you have usurped your sister’s command of this army.”
Silence, cold and deadly.
Yet wasn’t it true? Even though nobody said so?
A sharp snap caused everyone to jump, but it was only Wolfhere treading on a twig carried up to the room in the crowd. Lord Wichman chuckled, looking at Sapientia to see what she would do, thus challenged. Lady Bertha folded her arms across her chest, her smile thin and wicked.
Sapientia stared up at her elder brother, waiting. In a strange way, thought Anna, Prince Bayan had trained her to listen to him and wait for his approval before acting or reacting. Now she looked to Sanglant in the same way. Over the last three years she had been broken of the habit of leading.
“I have done what I must.” The hoarse scrape of his voice lent a note of urgency and passion to his words; but then, he always sounded like that. “I have never rebelled against my father. Nor will I. But the war is not won yet. Adelheid and her supporters have traded in the king for a pawn who speaks with the king’s voice but without Henry’s will. Who will act as regnant now? I say, the one who can save him by acting against Anne and her sorcerers.”
Heribert cleared his throat and spoke diffidently. “Do not forget that Anne sits on the skopos’ throne. She is no mere ‘Sister.’ She is Holy Mother over us all. To go against her, my lord prince, you must war against the church itself.”
“Even those who call themselves holy may be agents of the Enemy,” murmured Wolfhere.
“As you well know,” replied Sanglant with a mordant laugh, moving restlessly toward the table. “Is there wine?”
“Return to Wendar, my lord prince,” said Hathui stubbornly. “Raise an army, and ride to Aosta to save the king. I beg you.”
He allowed Heribert to pour him a full cup of wine, which he drained. “No.” He set down the cup so hard that the base rang hollowly on the wooden table. “I ride east, to hunt griffins.”
3
AFTER the conference with the king’s Eagle, Sanglant made his way to the privacy of Lady Ilona’s bedchamber. Her four attendants slept soundly on pallets lined up along the far wall, and Ilona lay naked on her stomach among the tangled bedclothes. Smiling slightly, she watched him as he stripped, then raised an eyebrow when he went to the unshuttered window instead of coming immediately to her bed.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
Sanglant lingered by the window, staring east, yet all he saw was stars and campfires and, beyond them, unknown country lost in darkness. The moon had not yet risen. The night was mild, the breeze a caress against his skin. “That my daughter is impossible.”
“She is only jealous. She wants you to herself. She does not like this attention you pay to a woman. It was only one gown. I have others.”
“You are very forgiving.”
“No. I am patient. She grows quickly, your daughter. Soon enough she will become a woman, and she will desire men herself.”
“Oh, God,” he groaned.
“Then you will be jealous,” she said with a chuckle, “because you will no longer be first in her heart. She will be torn between father and lover. If she is wise and fortunate, she will choose to follow her own destiny in the end, not that of a man.”
“I am chastened,” he replied, clapping a hand over his heart. “Now I realize that you have not given that gown a second thought, although its fate has been nagging at me all day. What are you thinking of, then?”
She smiled, stretching. The single lamp gave off enough light for him to admire the mole on her left hip, the curve of her buttocks, and a glimpse of rosy nipple as she shifted. With an exaggerated sigh, drawn out and almost musical, she rolled up onto her side. He felt the familiar stirring, heat suffusing his skin.
He had met the persuasive widow last autumn, when they had finally arrived at King Geza’s court in Erztegom. She had propositioned him within a week of their first encounter, but it wasn’t until the winter, when they were confined by a succession of blizzards within the town walls, that he had finally allowed her to seduce him. The arrangement had lasted through the spring.
He crossed the room to sit on the bed.
“I am thinking of the sorrow in my heart,” she said warmly, “now that we journey close to the borderlands.”
“Are you sorry I’m leaving?”
“But of course! Now that you are leaving they are at me again, all those grasping relatives! Marry this lord! Marry that lord! Don’t be selfish with your wealth and independence! How good it was when they could not insult me with their offers because they feared to anger you!”
He grinned, twining a strand of her copper hair between his fingers. “You could enter a convent.”
“I think not! All this praying would be very bad for my knees. I am very careful of my knees. Among my people it is said that after too much kneeling, you can no longer ride a horse.”
“Then will you let your uncle choose a husband for you?”
“That old fool! It is very lucky he cannot touch my inheritance, or he would have married me himself even if the church would call him a whore for it. Is that the right word?”
He withdrew his hand from her hair. “That would be incest.”
“So it would. I am thinking of marrying the one they call the White Stallion, Prince Arhad’s eldest son by the Arethousan woman.”
“Ah. The lady with the white-blonde hair.”
“Yes, that one. Why is it that men find her so fascinating? Already she is an old woman, at least forty. I cannot see it.”
“Women can be beautiful in many different ways.” He traced the shape of her body from the shoulder, along the dip of her waist, and up along the ample curve of her hip. Her copper-colored hair and lush figure did not make him think of Liath each time he set eyes on her. Ilona had her own exceedingly pleasant charms.
She stretched to savor the touch of his hand. “Men who find so many women beautiful in so many different ways are the ones who break their hearts and steal their treasure!”
“Ilona, has any man ever broken your heart?”
“Of course not!”
“Or stolen your treasure?”
“Do not laugh at me, you heartless man. My mother chose my first husband very carefully!” She burst into the laughter he found so attractive. “When she found us in bed together! It was a good thing he was the son of a princely family. Alas that he died so young. My second husband smelled bad. I am determined not to make this mistake two times.”
“Thus the White Stallion? He’s handsome enough, a good fighter, young, and he looks clean and maybe he even smells good.” That was another thing he liked about Ilona: she smelled good. She burned perfumed oils in the lamps that lit her chamber, oil of violets, if she had them, or vervain or sage. Tonight a garland of sweet woodruff hung on a nail above the window, stirred by the soft breeze. Even from this distance he could smell its dusky scent.
“He is not so powerful in Geza’s court that he will think he can rule me. I do not like to be ruled.” She shifted onto her back and eased herself up onto the bolster that lay along the head of the bed, resting her head on a bent arm. “You would make a bad husband for me, Sanglant.”
“You’re not the first to have said so.”
She laughed again and let her free hand caress his shoulder. “Ah, yes. What was I going to say?” She seemed distracted by the feel of his skin, and certainly the way she stroked him made it difficult for him to pay attention to her words. “Of course. The White Stallion. My mother as a girl spent three years among the veiled priestesses. They serve the Blind Mother, who is one of the gods worshiped by those who follow the old ways. My mother would be amused to think that even though I abandoned her ways to embrace the God in Unity, I will have brought a man called by the name of the Blind Mother’s companion to serve in my bed.”
By this time he had relaxed onto one elbow, beside her, but the comment made him sit bolt upright. “Do you mean that when a white stallion is sacrificed at midwinter, he is going to be husband to the Blind Mother? That is not how I heard the ritual explained.”
“You heard what the men say. This is what the women know. Our grandmothers brought the old ways from the grasslands when we came to Ungria four generations ago. Out in the wild lands, the Kerayit shaman women still take a handsome young man as a companion, to keep their bed warm.”
“As a slave, Brother Breschius told me. A pura, which means ‘horse’ in the Kerayit speech.” For an instant, Sanglant had the uneasy feeling that Ilona had been playing with him all along, these past months, as though she were pretending that he were her pura. Maybe she wasn’t as fond of him as he had become of her. But it was impossible to guess anything when she laughed like that, and maybe it didn’t really matter.
“The White Stallion, the pura, is also a sacrifice, for the well being of the tribe. Be careful that the Kerayit women do not demand you for a pura, Sanglant, in exchange for their help to defeat your western sorcerers. Because there will be a price. The Kerayit and their masters make no bargain without exacting a steep price in return.”
