by Kate Elliott
Six campfires burned merrily to mark out a circle. In their center sat Lady Bertha and her favorites, drinking what was left of the mead they’d commandeered from a Salavii holding two days before. Usually Hanna could hear them singing all the way up in the vanguard, for they were a hard drinking, tough crew, but tonight they sat quietly, if restlessly, and Lady Bertha bade them be still as she listened to Prince Ekkehard.
“It’s the same story he’s been telling every night,” whispered Folquin. A dozen or more Lions had come to stand here as well, positioned out of the smoke that streamed south-east from the fires. Those nearest turned irritably and told him to be quiet so that they could hear.
Prince Ekkehard was an attractive youth, still caught on that twilight cusp between boy and man. With his right arm up in a sling and his hair blown astray by the cold wind, he made an appealing sight. Most importantly, he had a bard’s voice, able to make the most unlikely story sound so believable that you might well begin to swear you’d seen it yourself. He had his audience enraptured as he came to the end of his tale.
“The mound of ashes and coals gleamed like a forge, and truly it was a forge for God’s miracles. It opened as a flower does, with the dawn. Out of the ashes the phoenix rose. Nay, truly, for I saw it with my own eyes. The phoenix rose into the dawn. Flowers showered down around us. But their petals vanished as soon as they touched the earth. Isn’t that how it is with those who refuse to believe? For them, the trail of flowers is illusory rather than real. But I believe, because I saw the phoenix. I, who was injured, was healed utterly by the miracle. For you see, as the phoenix rose, it gave forth a great trumpeting call even as far as the heavens, and we heard it answered. Then we knew what it was.”
“What was it?” demanded Lady Bertha, so intent on his story that she hadn’t taken a single draught of mead, although she did have a disconcerting habit of stroking her sword hilt as though it were her lover.
Ekkehard smiled sweetly, and Hanna felt a cold shudder in her heart at the single-minded intensity of his gaze as he surveyed his listeners. “It was the sign of the blessed Daisan, who rose from death to become Life for us all.”
Many in his audience murmured nervously.
“Ivar’s heresy,” Hanna muttered.
“Didn’t the skopos excommunicate the entire Arethousan nation and all their vassal states for believing in the Redemption?” demanded Lady Bertha. “My mother, God rest her, had a physician who came from Arethousa. Poor fellow lost his balls as a lad in the emperor’s palace in Arethousa, for it’s well known they like eunuchs there, and he came close to losing his head here in Wendar for professing the Arethousan heresy. It’s a pleasing story you tell, Prince Ekkehard, but I’ve taken a liking to my head and would prefer to keep it on my own shoulders, not decorating a spike outside the biscop’s palace in Handelburg.”
“To deny what I saw would be worse than lying,” said Ekkehard. “Nor is it only those of us who saw the miracle of the phoenix who have had our eyes opened to the truth. Others have heard and understood the true word, if they have courage enough to stand up and bear witness.”
“Are there, truly?” Lady Bertha looked ever more interested as she swept her gaze around her circle of intimates. After a moment, she settled on a young lord, one Dietrich. Hanna recalled well how much trouble he’d caused on the early part of their journey east from Autun last summer, when she’d been sent by the king with two cohorts of Lions and a ragtag assortment of other fighters as reinforcements for Sapientia. But at some point on the journey he had changed his ways, a puzzling change of heart that hadn’t seemed quite so startling then as it did at this moment.
Slowly, Lord Dietrich rose. For a hulking fighting man he seemed unaccountably diffident. “I have witnessed God’s work on this Earth,” he said hesitantly, as though he didn’t trust his own tongue. “I’m no bard, to speak fine words about it and make it sound pretty and pleasing. I’ve heard the teaching. I know it’s true in my heart for I saw—” Amazingly, he began to weep tears of ecstatic joy. “I saw God’s holy light shining here on Earth. I sinned against the one who became my teacher. I was an empty shell, no better than a rotting corpse. Lust had eaten out my heart so I walked mindlessly from one day to the next. But God’s light filled me up again. I was given a last chance to choose in which camp I would muster, whether I would chose God or the Enemy. That was when I discovered the truth of the blessed Daisan’s sacrifice and redemption—”
Hanna grabbed Folquin’s arm and dragged him away. “I’ve heard enough. That’s a wicked heresy.”
The light of many fires gave Folquin’s expression a fitful inconstancy. “You don’t think it might be true? How else can you explain a phoenix? And the miracle, that all their hurts were healed?”
“I’ll admit that something happened to change Lord Dietrich’s ways, for I remember how you Lions complained of him on the march east this summer. Is it this kind of talk that people are fighting over?”
“Yes. Some go every night to hear Prince Ekkehard. He’ll preach to any person, highborn or low. Others say he’s speaking with the Enemy’s voice. Do you think so, Eagle?”
“I’ve seen so many strange things—”
The horn call came, as it did every night. Men cried out the alarm. Ekkehard’s audience dissolved as soldiers grabbed their weapons, lying ready at their sides. Out beyond the wagon lines, winged riders broke free of the storm to gallop toward the rear guard, but only a few soggy arrows skittered harmlessly into camp before Lord Dietrich and his contingent of cavalry chased them off with spears and a flight of whistling arrows.
By the time Prince Bayan arrived from the vanguard to investigate, all lay quiet again except for the ever-present wind and the hammer of rain off to the southeast. He rode up with a small contingent of his personal house guard, a dozen Ungrian horsemen whose once-bright clothing was streaked with dirt. Foot soldiers lit their way with torches. Bayan had the knack of remaining relatively clean even in such circumstances as this—in the torchlight Hanna could see the intense blue of his tunic—and the contrast made him all the more striking, a robust, intelligent man still in his prime whom adversity could not tarnish.
“Fewer attacked tonight,” said Lady Bertha, handing him an arrow once he had dismounted. “It may be that they’ve fallen back so far they’ve given up catching us. Or perhaps they mean us to grow complacent, until they attack in force and take us by surprise.”
Prince Bayan turned the arrow over in his hands, studying the sodden fletchings. “Perhaps,” he echoed skeptically. “I like not these attacks which are coming each night same time.”
Lady Bertha had the stocky build and bandy-legged stance of a person who has spent most of her life on a horse, in armor. She looked older than her twenty or so years, weathered by a hard apprenticeship fighting in the borderlands. “I’ve sent three scouts back to see if Bulkezu’s army still follows us, but none have returned.”
Bayan nodded, twisting the ends of his long mustache. “To Handelburg we must go. We need rest, repair, food, wine. With good walls around us, then can we wait for—” He turned to his interpreter, Breschius, a middle-aged cleric who was missing his right hand. “What is this word? More troops to come.”
“Reinforcements, my lord prince.”
“Yes! Reinforcements.” He had trouble pronouncing the word and grinned at his stumbling effort.
Lady Bertha did not smile. She was not in any case a woman who smiled often, if at all. “Unless we can’t get word out from Handelburg because Bulkezu has used the cover of this storm to move his army so that he surrounds us.”
“Not even Quman army can ride all places at one time,” replied Bayan just as he caught sight of Hanna loitering in the crowd which had gathered to observe the commanders. “Snow woman!” His face lit with a bold smile. “Your brightness hides here. So dark it has become by my campfire!”
Hanna felt her face flame with embarrassment, but luckily Bayan was distracted by Brother Breschius, who le
aned over to speak to the prince in a low voice.
“Ekkehard?” exclaimed Prince Bayan, looking startled.
Hanna glanced over at the ring of campfires, but Prince Ekkehard had vanished. She grabbed Folquin’s sleeve and slipped away, eager to be out of Prince Bayan’s sight. She had sustained Sapientia’s anger more than once and didn’t care to suffer it again as long as she had any choice in the matter.
By asking permission of Sapientia to continue searching out news of Ivar, she kept a low profile in the last days of the march until they came to the frontier fortress and town of Handelburg. From the eastern slopes, as they rode down into the valley of the Vitadi River, she could see the walled town, situated on three islands linked by bridges across the channels of the river. West lay the march of the Villams, which stretched all the way to the Oder River. To the east beyond sparsely inhabited borderlands spread the loose confederation of half-civilized tribes known as the kingdom of the Polenie.
The biscop’s flag flew from the high tower to show that she had remained in residence in her city despite the danger from Quman attack. All the gates stood closed, and the few hovels resting along the banks of the river, homes for fisherfolk and poor laborers, sat empty, stripped of every furnishing. Even crude furniture could be used for firewood in a besieged city. Fields had been harvested and the riverbanks stripped of fodder or bedding: reeds, straw, grass, all shorn in preparation for a Quman attack. In a way, the countryside surrounding Handelburg looked as though a swarm of locusts had descended, eaten their fill, and flown on, leaving not even the bones.
A messenger came from the vanguard: the Eagle, representing the king’s ear, must ride in the front. With trepidation, Hanna left her good companions among the Lions and rode forward to take her place, as circumspectly as possible, beside Brother Breschius.
“Stay near me,” he said in a low voice. “I’ll do my best to keep you out of their way.”
“I thank you, friend.”
The gates were opened and they advanced into the city. The townsfolk greeted Bayan and Sapientia and their ragged army with cheers, but Hanna noted that the streets weren’t crowded despite this welcome. She wondered how many had already fled west into the march of the Villams.
Biscop Alberada met them on the steps of the episcopal palace, dressed in the full splendor of her office and wearing at her throat the gold torque that signaled her royal ancestry. A number of noble ladies and lords attended her, including one dashing man who wore the peaked cap common to the Polenie. The biscop waited until Princess Sapientia dismounted, then descended the steps to greet her and Prince Ekkehard. With such precisely measured greetings did the nobles mark out their status and territory. Had it been King Henry riding into Handelburg, the biscop would have met him on the road outside of town. Had it been Margrave Villam, come to pay his respects, Alberada would have remained inside so that he had to come in to her.
Sapientia and Ekkehard kissed her hand, as befit her holy station, and she kissed their cheeks, the mark of kinship between them. It was not easy to see the resemblance. Alberada was older than Henry, fading into the winter of her life. In the year since she had presided over Sapientia’s and Bayan’s wedding, she had aged noticeably. Her hair had gone stark white. Her shoulders bowed under the weight of her episcopal robes.
She turned from her niece and nephew to greet Bayan and acknowledge the other nobles, those worthy of her immediate notice. Hanna could not tell whether she meant to greet Bayan’s mother, hidden away in her wagon, or ignore her, but in any case by some silent communication the wagon was drawn away toward the guest wing.
If Biscop Alberada noticed this slight, she gave no sign. “Come, let us get out of the cold. I wish I had better news to greet you with, but troubles assail us on every side.”
“What news?” asked Sapientia eagerly. The long march had made the princess more handsome; what she lacked in wisdom she made up for in enthusiasm and a certain shining light in her face when her interest was engaged.
“Quman armies have attacked the Polenie cities of Mirnik and Girdst. Girdst is burned to the ground. Both the royal fortress and the new church are destroyed.”
“This is sore news!” exclaimed Lady Bertha, who stood to Sapientia’s left.
“Yet there is worse.” It began to rain, a misting drizzle made colder by the cutting wind. “The Polenie king is dead, his wife, Queen Sfildi, is a prisoner of the Quman, and his brother Prince Woloklas has made peace with the Quman to save his own life and lands. This we heard from Duke Boleslas—” She indicated the nobleman standing on the steps above. “—who has taken refuge with his family in my palace.”
“Who rule the Polenie folk, if their king is dead?” asked Bayan.
Evidently Duke Boleslas could not speak Wendish well enough to answer easily, because Alberada replied. “King Sfiatslev’s only surviving child, a daughter, has fled east into the lands of the pagan Starviki to seek aid. Shall I go on?”
Bayan laughed. “Only if I have wine to drink to make the news go down easier. Of wine there is none this past month.”
“Let us move into the hall!” exclaimed the biscop, looking more shocked by this revelation than by the Polenie defeat. Or perhaps she just wanted to get out of the rain, which began to come down in sheets. Her servants hurried away to finish their preparations. “Of course there is wine.”
“Then I fear not to hear your news. The war is not lost if there is wine still to drink.”
Biscop Alberada had laid in a feast worthy of her status as a royal bastard. Because of her kinship with the Polenie royal family, she had been allowed to found the biscopry of Handelburg thirty years ago when only a very young woman newly come to the church. One of King Sfiatslev’s aunts had been taken prisoner during the wars between Wendar and the Polenie fifty years ago, and this young noblewoman had been given to the adolescent Arnulf the Younger as his first concubine, a royal mistress to assuage his youthful lusts while he waited for his betrothed, Berengaria of Varre, to reach marriageable age. In the thirty years Alberada had overseen the growing fortress town of Handelburg, the noble families of the Polenie had all been thoroughly converted to the Daisanite faith in a right and proper manner.
The biscop reminded them of her successful efforts at conversion as wine was poured and the first course brought. “That is why I fear for Sfiatslev’s daughter, Princess Rinka, for the Starviki have been stubborn in holding to their pagan ways. What if they induce her to marry one of their princelings? She might become apostate, or even worse, fall into the error of the Arethousans, for the Starviki are known to trade furs and slaves to the Arethousans in exchange for gold nomias. What news of your father, Sapientia? I trust we expect him in the east soon, for truly we have need of his presence here.”
Sapientia glanced toward Hanna, standing back among the servitors. “This Eagle brought the most recent news,” she said in a tone which suggested that whatever bad news she had to impart was Hanna’s fault. “King Henry means to ride south to Aosta. He sent a paltry contingent of two hundreds of Lions and not more than fifty horsemen even though I pleaded with him that our situation was desperate.”
“He seeks the emperor’s crown,” said Alberada.
“I wonder what use the emperor’s crown if the east burns,” mused Bayan.
“These are troubled times in more ways than one.” Alberada gestured to her steward, who refilled all the cups at the table. “An emperor’s crown may bring stability and right order to a realm afflicted by the whisperings of the Enemy. These Quman raids are God’s judgment on us for our sinfulness. Daily my clerics bring me more stories of the pit of corruption into which we have fallen—”
After so many days on sparse rations, Hanna was glad enough to be obliged to serve, since it meant she could eat the leavings off the platters. A stew of eels was followed by roasted swan, several sides of beef, and a spicy venison sausage. Despite the biscop’s forbidding disquisition on sinfulness, the nobles ate with gusto, and certainly ther
e was enough to spare both for the servants and for the dogs.
Prince Bayan had cleverly turned the topic of conversation to what interested him most: the war. “We must hold here the whole winter.”
“Surely winter will put a stop to the Quman raids.” Freed from her armor and heavy traveling cloak, Sapientia looked much smaller. She hadn’t her father’s height or breadth of shoulder, but months riding to war had given her a certain heft that she had lacked before her marriage.
Bayan laughed. “Does my lion queen tire of war?”
“Certainly not!” Sapientia had a habit of preening when Bayan paid lush attention to her. She could never get enough of his praise, and the prince had a knack for knowing when to flatter his wife. “But no one ever fights during the winter.”
“Nay, Your Highness,” said Breschius as smoothly as if he and Bayan had rehearsed the exchange, “the Quman are famous for attacking during winter, when ice dries out the roads and makes streams into paths. Snow doesn’t stop them. Nothing stops them but flowing water. Even then, they have captive engineers in their army who can build bridges for them and show them how to make use of fords and ferries.”
“I have prepared for a siege,” said Alberada. “Although, truly,” she added disapprovingly, “sieges come in many guises.” Farther down the table, Lord Wichman was drinking heavily with his cronies. He had been seated beside Lord Dietrich, but despite baiting him with crude jokes and cruder suggestions, Wichman could not get Dietrich either to join him or to lose his temper. Having lost this skirmish, he had turned to harassing any servingwomen who ventured within arm’s reach. “If your army winters here, Prince Bayan, then I must have some assurance that they will not disrupt the lives of my townsfolk and servants.”
