by Kate Elliott
Mother Scholastica stepped behind the altar. At her side, Brother Methodius began to chant the opening prayer for the Mass for the Dead.
“Blessed is the Country of the Mother and Father of Life—”
“Lies!” On the steps a slight figure leaped up to address the townsfolk caught in the opening cadence of prayer, at their most responsive before the flow of the liturgy lulled them into a stupor. “You have all been made blind by the darkness spread over this land because of their lies. The true course of Her miracle and Her Holy Word has been hidden away. For God found a worthy vessel in the holy Edessia. God filled her with the blessed light, and in this way she gave birth to the blessed Daisan, he who partakes both of the nature of God and of humankind. He brought God’s message to all of us, that he would suffer and die to redeem us from the stain of darkness that lies within all of us—”
A shriek of frustration burst from the schoolmaster. Three monks leaped up, scuffled with the young novice, and hauled him away while he still shouted, his words muffled by a hand pressing his mouth closed. Ivar stood stunned while around him people burst into frenzied talk, pointing and questioning.
“That was Sigfrid,” whispered Baldwin. “Is he gone mad?”
“That’s what’s become of him without us to protect him.”
“We’ll have to get him free.”
“How can we get him free?” Ivar’s laugh left a bitter taste. He dragged Baldwin back by the elbow. “Let’s go. What if they find us here?”
He knew that look on Mother Scholastica’s face as, slowly, the multitude quieted in the face of her anger. She looked mightily displeased as she spoke to Brother Methodius. He nodded, knelt by the bier, kissed the dead queen’s robe, then left the church by a side door.
Mother Scholastica lifted her hands. “Let us pray, Sisters and Brothers. Let us pray that God forgive us our sins, and that through prayer we may follow the example of the blessed Daisan, he who was the child of God brought forth into this world through the vessel of St. Edessia, he who through his own efforts found the way to salvation that we all may follow. Let us pray that we may not be stained by those desires which the Enemy casts upon the ground like jewels, tempting us to pick them up for they glitter so brightly and their colors attract our eye. Let us be humble before God, for Their word is truth. All else is lies.”
“We must stay and listen!” hissed Baldwin. “Prince Ekkehard will be able to get Sigfrid free. His aunt can’t refuse him anything.”
“Do you think so? I know better.” He was bigger and stronger, and he was shaking with fury and helplessness as he hauled Baldwin backward.
“We’ll look more suspicious if we run away!”
At the threshold, the people who hadn’t found room inside pushed forward, trying to see what had caused the commotion, and those disturbed by Sigfrid’s outburst or by the squeeze inside pressed outward. Ivar followed their tidal flow, two steps forward, one back, two forward, until they came out into a drizzle and the finger-numbing chill of a mid-autumn day.
Baldwin pouted all the way down the hill. But for once Ivar wasn’t minded to give in to his pretty sulk. The only thing worse than abandoning Sigfrid was to be caught themselves. Mother Scholastica would not be merciful.
They stumbled down the road churned muddy by the crowd, slipped more than once until their leggings and sleeves and hands dripped mud. They had nothing to wash with, and so huddled in the loft while mud caked and dried, then crumbled with each least movement. Baldwin sulked with the only blanket wrapped around him. Ivar paced because he could not sleep, and it was too cold to be still.
Why had Sigfrid done it? Had he bided his time all this while only to burst like an overfull winesack at the sight of so many willing ears? Would he, Ivar, have done anything as courageous—and so blindly stupid? Was he brave enough to act on what he believed, to preach, as Tallia had, as Sigfrid had, and accept the consequences?
It was an ugly truth, but it had to be faced: He was nothing but a cold, miserable sinner.
“Oh, Ivar,” said Baldwin. “I’m so cold, and I love you so much. I know you’re just shy because you’ve never—”
“I have so!” he retorted, face scalding. “That’s how my father always celebrated his children’s fifteenth birthday. He sent me a servingwoman—”
“To make a man of you? It’s not the same. You were just using her the way Judith used me. You’ve never done it just for yourself and the one you were with. That’s different.”
“I did after that, when I—” When I thought about Liath. And she had thrown him away.
“Just doing it once won’t matter. You’ll like it. You’ll see. And you’ll be a lot warmer.”
It really didn’t matter, did it? That it did matter was the lie he’d been telling himself all along: look what had happened to Sigfrid. At least Baldwin cared for him, in a way Liath never had. He dropped down beside Baldwin and, cautiously, nervously, touched him above the heart. Baldwin responded with a sudden, shy smile, the touch of a hand on his thigh, sweet breath at his ear.
And then, after all, it proved easier to live only in sensation.
In the morning, Milo arrived out of breath, nose bright red from the cold. “Go out of town now,” he said, “and wait on the road to Gent.”
Beyond the gates they walked a while to warm themselves; as the traffic along the road began to pick up, Ivar got nervous. He used a stick to beat out a hiding place within the prickly branches of an overgrown hedge. There, with the blanket wrapped round them, they waited.
“We could have done something for Sigfrid,” muttered Baldwin.
“Just like you could have done something when Margrave Judith came to fetch you? We’re powerless against them. Or do you want to go back to your wife? It was certainly warmer with her!”
Baldwin only grunted.
Wagons passed, then a peddler on foot and, later in the morning, clots of pilgrims dressed in rags, weeping and wailing the name of Queen Mathilda. No doubt word had already been sent to King Henry, by horse, but these humble pilgrims would spread the news among the common people in return for a bit of bread and a loft to sleep in.
Something stirred in Ivar’s gut, a feeling, an idea—or maybe just hunger.
“Look!” Baldwin jumped up, got his hair caught in the hedge, and swore as the branches yanked him to a halt. By the time Ivar had freed him, Prince Ekkehard’s cavalcade had come up beside them.
“How did you get so muddy?” said the prince with a frown for Baldwin.
“We had to walk here, my lord prince. What news of our friends?”
Prince Ekkehard had a habit of blinking two or three times before he replied, as if it took him that long to register words. He was all sun and light when happy but as sullen as a rainy day when annoyed. Right now he glowered. “It is no easy thing to question my aunt, I’ll tell you that. That comrade of yours is quite mad, and disrespectful, too. Imagine treating my grandmother’s memory in such a way! I didn’t like him, and my aunt said there’s some terrible punishment in store for him, so it’s no use to pine over him. He’s lost to us.”
“But you promised—”
“Enough! There’s nothing I can do.” Then he grinned. “But I got in a good kick to my awful cousin, Reginar. I told my aunt that the abbacy of Firsebarg has come free now that Lord Hugh is being sent to the skopos for punishment, so she’s sending him there. He was so grateful that he promised to do me a favor, so I told him there was a novice there called Ermanrich whom I’d seen in a vision, and that I wanted him to come to Gent to serve me.” His young attendants giggled. “Come now, fair Baldwin.” He turned coaxing, seeing that Baldwin still pouted. “I did what I could.”
“You could have got Sigfrid as well.”
“There’s nothing I could do against my aunt when she was in such a rage! He’ll deserve whatever punishment she metes out. What a terrible thing—” The young prince faltered, seeing Baldwin’s expression. “But I did everything else just as you wished
, Baldwin. You do love me, don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” said Baldwin reflexively, then muttered, “as long as you keep me away from Margrave Judith.” Ivar kicked him, and he startled like a deer seeking cover. “I am grateful, my lord prince.”
“As well you should be. Come, ride beside me, Baldwin.”
A horse was brought. Ivar found a seat in one of the wagons, and there he brooded as he jolted along, listening to the chatter of the prince and his loyal retainers. He had heard the refrain often enough: That young men were reckless and feckless and untrustworthy by reason of lacking a steadying womb and the knowledge that they would give life to daughters, who would inherit after them. It was no wonder that women, like the Lady before them, held the reins of administration while they tended the Hearth. What could they expect from feckless men? Headstrong Prince Ekkehard? Pretty, spoiled Baldwin?
Was Ivar, son of Harl and Herlinda, any better? Trapped by desire for a woman who had never even wanted him. A coward, unlike Sigfrid, who however stupidly and disrespectfully had at least shouted the truth out loud, no matter the cost to himself.
He wept, although the day was bright.
4
“WHITE-HAIR! Snow woman!”
A dozen Ungrian warriors sat-cross-legged on the ground, sharpening their curved swords, but they had all paused to look up as Hanna passed. She had almost grown used to being the center of attention whenever she walked through camp, on account of her blonde hair and light skin. Except for Prince Bayan, the Ungrians knew no Wendish, but it seemed like every soldier in his retinue had all learned these few phrases, and they were completely unashamed when it came time to call them out to her in their atrocious accents.
“Beautiful ice maiden, I die for you!” cried one young man with black hair and a long, drooping and exceptionally greasy mustache. He had sweet eyes, and was missing one of his front teeth. Like all the other Ungrians, he wore a padded leather coat over baggy trousers.
“My greetings to your wife, my friend,” she called back in Ungrian. They all laughed, slapped their thighs, and began to talk volubly among themselves—probably about her. It was disconcerting, and tiring, being the object of so much attention.
Beside her, Brother Breschius chuckled. “Softer on the ‘gh,’” he corrected, “but otherwise it was a creditable attempt. You have a better head for languages than your mistress.”
Hanna let this gentle criticism pass unremarked. “They flirt terribly, Brother, but not one has propositioned me. I feel perfectly safe walking about the camp.”
He grunted amiably. “For now you are safe. When they swear an oath, they keep it, and they are still barbarians in their hearts, which means they are superstitious. They truly do believe that if they waste their strength on carnal play before a battle, they will surely die at the hand of a man who did not waste himself in such a manner.”
“But some who hold to that vow will die anyway.”
“True. Such is God’s will. In their minds, such deaths will be blamed on other things they did or did not do: stepping on a shadow, the chastity of their wife a hundred leagues away, a fly that landed on their left ear instead of their right. They profess to worship God in Unity, but they have not yet given their hearts fully into God’s care. You, too, come from a land only recently brought into the Light, I believe, my child. On the first day of spring do you place flowers at a crossroads to bring you luck in your journeys for the rest of the year?”
She looked at him sharply. Then she grinned, because she liked him, with his missing hand and his tolerant heart. “You have traveled widely, Brother. You know a great deal.”
He chuckled. “We are all ignorant. I do what I can to share God’s Holy Word with those who live in night. But mind you, Eagle, be cautious after the battle. It is the custom of those who survive to behave wildly. At that time I advise you to remain close to your mistress.”
She glanced up at their destination: a stone tower set on a ridge overlooking the long valley of the Vitadi River. Half a palisade of wood had been built a generation ago and then abandoned. Now, at Princess Sapientia’s order, a levy of men from the surrounding settlements labored to complete the fort.
Men dug out a trench, hauled logs, swore, and sweated as she and Breschius climbed the path that led to the palisade gate and then inside, up a trail hacked into the rock face of a cliff, through a roughly-hewn tunnel where she had to duck her head, and into the fortress itself.
Within the inner rock wall she heard Prince Bayan’s jovial laugh echoing among the stones. He stood at the threshold of the tower, laughing with the Wendish captain who commanded the fortress. Turning, he saw Hanna and beckoned her forward.
“The snow woman arrives!” he exclaimed. “Soon winter comes in her trail.” He had a pleasant habit of wrinkling up his eyes when he spoke, and even when he didn’t smile, his eyes laughed. Life was good to Prince Bayan because he made it so. “To where is my royal wife?” he asked.
Hanna glanced toward Brother Breschius who, mercifully, saved her the awkward reply. Lady Udalfreda of Naumannsfurt had arrived with twenty cavalry and thirty-five foot soldiers, and Princess Sapientia felt obliged to entertain her fittingly.
In truth, Hanna suspected Sapientia, for all her love of fighting, did not have the stomach for what she had sent Hanna to witness in her stead.
Bayan merely shrugged good-naturedly. The Wendish captain led the way down a narrow flight of stairs to the root cellar. It was very cold down here. Water dripped along the rough-hewn rock and made puddles for unwary boots. Beside the cellar door a brazier glowed red with coals; a soldier thrust an iron rod in among the coals to heat it. In the dankest corner, lit only by a dim lantern, lay a savage so heavily chained, wrists to ankles, that he had been forced to lie in his own filth. He stank. Two soldiers grabbed him by the shoulders as Bayan entered the room and jerked him upright. He only stared at them with stubborn eyes dulled by pain. A weeping sore marked his cheek. When he saw Bayan, he spat at him, but he could make no fluid pass his lips.
“This is the one we captured when they raided here two days ago,” said the captain. “We burned him with an iron rod, but he would only speak in his language, and none of us understood him.”
Jovial Prince Bayan had vanished somewhere on those stairs. The man who stared down at the Quman prisoner frightened Hanna because of his merciless expression. He dispensed with his crude Wendish and spoke directly to Breschius, who translated. “Bring me a block of wood and an ax.” When that was done, he had them unchain the prisoner’s left hand and haul the man forward. The prisoner had no weapons, of course, but he still wore his armor, which resembled nothing Hanna had ever seen before: small pieces of leather sewn together to make a hard coat of armor, and a leather belt studded with gold plackets formed in the shapes of horses and griffins. A small object swung from the belt, resting now on his bent legs, but she couldn’t make it out. He wore a strange harness on his back, a contraption of wood and iron and, strangely enough, a few shredded feathers.
Hanna was beginning to feel sick to her stomach. Waves of stench accompanied the prisoner. He made no sound as the Wendish soldiers held his left hand, fingers splayed, against the block of wood. Prince Bayan drew his knife and with one sharp hack cut off the man’s little finger.
A sound escaped the prisoner, a “gawh” of pain caught in as blood flowed. Bayan addressed him in a language Hanna did not recognize, but the man merely spat again in answer. Bayan cut off the next finger, and the next, and then Hanna had to look away. She thought maybe she was going to vomit. Bayan questioned the prisoner in a calm voice that did not betray in its tone the torment he was inflicting; she hung on to that voice, it was her lifeline. The man screamed.
She looked up to see him lolling back, handless now as blood pumped from the stump of his wrist. Thrown back as he was, she could see clearly the object that hung from his belt: black and wizened, headlike in shape with a dark mane of straw hanging from it, it had one side molded into
the grotesque likeness of a face. Then the hot iron rod was brought forward to sear the wound, and as he screamed, she stared and stared at that ghastly little thing hanging from his belt so that she wouldn’t have to watch his agony and after forever she realized that it was, in fact, a hideous little human head, all shrunken and nasty, with a glorious mane of stiff, black hair.
“I’m going to be sick,” she muttered. Brother Breschius moved aside just in time and she threw up in the corner while, apparently oblivious to her, Prince Bayan got back to work on the right hand. He broke the fingers first, one by one, then cut off the little finger, then the next, then the middle finger; but the prisoner only grunted, stoic to the end.
Bayan finally cursed genially and slit the man’s throat, stepping back nimbly so that he wouldn’t get any blood on him. “Once sword hand crippled, he never speak because he have nothing to go back to in his tribe, because he no longer a man,” he explained. He shrugged. “So God wills. These Quman never talk anyway. Stubborn bastards.” Then he laughed, an amazingly resonant and perverse sound in the stinking cellar. “That a good word, yes? Taught to me by Prince Sanglant. ‘Stubborn-bastards.’”
He chuckled and wiped at his eyes. He did not even give the corpse a second glance. It meant as little to him as a dead dog lying at the side of a road. “Come,” he said to Hanna. “The snow woman must wash away this smell and be clean like the lily flower again, yes? We go to the feast.”
