Prince of Dogs

by Kate Elliott

  “I can’t,” she said with some regret. She was not used to sitting and chatting in the company of soldiers—or anyone else, for that matter. Even some of the other Eagles thought her aloof and had told her so, being by nature an independent group of souls who had no reluctance to speak their minds when in the company of their own kind. “I stand watch tonight.”

  He nodded and let her go.

  In the woods beyond she heard the bleating and lowing of livestock, kept well away from the tempting fields. Some soldiers, too, had been commandeered from those recalcitrant Varren lords who had fled home after Sabella’s defeat and hoped to avoid the king’s notice. These sat sullen in their own camps, watched by the king’s men. A few brace of young noble lordlings and a handful of their rashest sisters had come along as well, some as hostages, some for the hope of war and booty at Gent or farther east in the marchlands. At least some of these had gear and horses but, all in all, Henry’s army had lost much of its strength.

  By the time she got back to the king’s tent, she had licked every last spot of grease off her fingers. The king had gone to his bed and his noble companions had retired to their own tents.

  Hathui handed her a skin filled with ale. “You’ll want this,” she said. “If we don’t take this damned city by tomorrow, we’ll be forced to drink water. Now I’m to bed.” As the king’s favored Eagle, she slept just inside the entrance to his tent, along with his other personal servants.

  Liath got the night watch because she could see so well in the dark, but she also liked it because it left her alone with her thoughts. Some nights, though, her thoughts were no fit companion.

  Gent.

  She could not bear to think of Gent and what had happened there. Sometimes, at night, she still dreamed of the Eika dogs. It was better to remain awake at night, if she could.

  With the sky overcast, she could not observe the heavens. Instead, she walked through her city of memory. Only standing alone through the night, freed from Hugh and no longer under the eye of Wolfhere, dared she risk the intense concentration it took to order her city and remember.

  The city stands on a hill that is also an island. Seven walls ring the city, each one pierced by a gate. At the height, on a plateau, stands the tower.

  But on this journey into the city, she crosses under the threshold of the third gate, which is surmounted by the Cup of Boundless Waters. She enters the fourth house to the left, passing under an archway of horn.

  Here resides her recollection of Artemisia’s Dreams, and here she walks into the first hall and enters the second chamber, first book, second chapter. Why do these dreams of the Eika dogs torment her? Do they mean something she ought to interpret, or are they just the memory of that awful last day in Gent?

  But Artemisia gives her no respite, once she has read the various symbols installed in the little chamber, each one a trigger for some portion of the words written in the book.

  “‘Let me tell you that if you want to make sense of your dream, it must be remembered from beginning to end, or you cannot interpret it. Only if you remember it completely, can you explore the point to which the vision leads.’”

  But she never recalled beginning or end to the dreams, only the sudden madness of the dogs feeding among the pale tombs of the dead, in the darkness of the crypt at the cathedral in Gent.

  Wind soughed through the trees. She shook herself and shifted. Her knees ached from standing so stiffly. Down by the siege engines several campfires burned. Figures shifted, a change of guard. She watched as a man’s figure stooped, adding wood, then straightened and moved out of her sight into darkness. Drizzle started up, pattered for a little while, and gave way to a weighty night’s stillness, more sticky than hot. One of the servants emerged from the tent, staggering with sleep, relieved himself, and went in again.

  Slowly the clouds began to break up. Stars shone here and there through the rents, ragged patterns formed and concealed as quickly as she could recognize them. The waning crescent moon appeared in a gap, then vanished. Above, the wheel of the heavens turned and winter’s sky rose—the sky seen in the late autumn and early winter evenings, here marking the advent of late summer’s dawn. The first hint of light colored the tents and palisade wall a murky gray, gaining tone as, above, the faintest stars faded from view.

  A man’s figure moved down by the siege engines, scurrying along the wall of mantelets. One of the campfires was doused. She started forward in surprise, then saw half a dozen shadowy figures heave themselves over the mantelets and drop to the ground behind.

  Raiders from the fortress.

  “Hathui!” she cried, then drew her sword and dashed down the slope, shouting the alarm as she ran.

  A horn sounded, and men began to yell. “To arms! To arms!”

  As she ran through the foremost tents, soldiers fell in beside her or hurried before, all running to protect the front line. Below, a man screamed in pain. Swords rang, the clash of arms and the pound of blade against shield. A sudden fire bloomed at the base of the leftmost siege engine and by its unruly light she saw the skirmish unfold and spread as men leaped forward to beat down the flames while others took up blazing brands to look for their enemy—or start new fires.

  Dawn grayed the horizon. As if in answer to the call to arms now ringing through camp, the gates of the fortress swung open. More than a score of mounted riders, pennants held high upon their up-raised spears, galloped through the yawning gate and drove down toward the engines.

  Liath saw them coming, heard voices beyond her shout warnings, heard the shrill of horns from King Henry’s camp as they blared a warning, but she had more pressing matters before her.

  The raiders had put one ballista to the torch with a flaming pitch that refused to yield to water or blanket. A solitary Lion—one she didn’t recognize except by his tabard—defended another ballista from three of the raiders. With torch and sword he held them at bay. Another raider lay dead, nearly decapitated, at his feet. They had not yet trapped the Lion against the ballista, but they would in a moment.

  ”Eagles don’t fight, they witness.” So Hathui always said. But he would die without her help.

  She plunged in, parrying blows, and took up a position to his left. He greeted her with a slurred “gud morn’n.” Despite the odds, she sensed he was smiling. The raiders hesitated, faced with two where there had been one. She shifted, feinting to attack, when the Lion changed position beside her and his face fell within her view. His cheek had been split by a slash; a permanent toothy grin showed through the rivulets of blood. For an instant too long the ghastly grin caught her eye. One of the raiders rushed her from the left. She turned, catching his blow on her quillons, but the weight of his charge drove her to her knees. She strained up, locked in a test of strength as the man tried to force her down. The injured Lion thrust his lit torch into a second raider’s face, stunning him, and then two more Lions ran up.

  One was Thiadbold. She recognized him by his red hair; he had not had time to put on a helmet. That fast, he drove his sword to its hilt through the abdomen of the raider who grappled with her. They stood embraced above her, the impaled man flushing and twitching, his sword arm pinned to his side by the body of the man who killed him. Thiadbold had wrapped his free arm tight around his prey, holding him as he would a shield, until he was sure that all of the fight had drained from the body. The raider’s sword fell from his limp hand. Thiadbold stepped back to let the corpse fall, twisting his own sword free.

  Liath rolled out of the way of the body, then jumped to her feet as the two remaining raiders gave ground—but not fast enough. Cut down, they dropped, screaming, and lay still.

  The injured Lion turned to beat again at the fire that scorched the ballista. Blood dripped down his tabard.

  “Fall back!” cried Thiadbold, his words underscored by a heavy drumming throb, the pound of hooves and the ominous call of a low-pitched horn. “To the camp! To the king!”

  She saw at once what the ruse had bee
n. The raid on the siege engines had diverted their attention from the picket of stakes that protected the flanks of the camp. The horsemen from the fortress pressed forward at full charge and with spears lowered. With the stakes now uprooted or cut down, they had a clear sweep into camp.

  “We have too few to repel the charge!” cried Thiadbold. “Eagle! Fall back!”

  She obeyed, and they made room for her behind them, for of all the men hacking around at the remains of the raiding force, falling back to set a position against the charge of heavy horse, she was the only one without some kind of armor.

  The injured Lion had salvaged bolts from the ballista and these he handed to his fellows. “Brace with these,” he shouted, his voice heavily slurred. “It’s our only chance to stop the charge. Eagle!” He nodded toward her, his sliced cheek still seeping blood. “Shoot into the faces of the horses. That might hurt their charge.”

  Men stumbled forward through the dawning light, forming a line where once the pickets had stood. New raiders, emboldened by the defensive posture of the king’s troops, set to work on the now undefended engines.

  “The king!” voices shouted far behind her. “The king rides forth!”

  She hunched down behind the line of Lions and men-at-arms, a few of whom held the long ballista bolts inclined forward like spears. While the others braced themselves, spear butts dug into the ground, she sheathed her sword and readied her bow. Her mind had gone still and quiet; empty. She nocked, drew, and shot, but lost sight of the arrow in the gloom. The pounding of hooves drowned her; she could not even hear the Lions next to her speaking. Beyond, the fortress lay still. No footmen or archers had followed the lord’s charge out the gates. She nocked another arrow, drew—

  The horsemen were upon them. She had only an instant to register their tabards, sewn with the device of a swan. The lead horseman, made bright by his shining mail and gleaming helm and the white coat of his horse, cleared them with a great leap. His fellows broke through, some of the horses jumping, some simply shattering the line with their weight. Only one horse faltered, screaming in pain as a spear caught it in the chest, and went down. A Lion dragged the rider from his horse.

  She followed the charging horsemen with her nocked arrow but could not release it for fear of hitting the king’s people. By now, all was chaos in the camp. The lord leading the charge had little interest in the infantry who hurried forward. His milites behind him, he headed for the tent that flew the king’s banner: a huge red silk pennant marked with an eagle, a dragon, and a lion stitched in gold. His charge carried him through camp, scattering the disorganized troops who lay in his path.

  King Henry had not waited for his lords. With a quilted jacket and steel cap he had mounted, taken up St. Perpetua’s holy lance, and now, with no more than a dozen mounted riders at his back, he raced toward the fray. The king broke from a cluster of tents into the small parade that separated the high nobility from the rest of the camp. Henry drove his horse into a charge, lance lowered, and galloped forward in a headlong fury. Others, shouting, tried to divert his charge, but the king’s horse was evidently possessed by the same fury that, smoldering for so long, had finally burst into full flame. These riders would feel the wrath that Sabella, as his kinswoman, had been spared.

  From the opposite end of the parade, the lord and his retinue approached, also at full gallop. As they passed the last tent of the lower camp, the right leg of the lord’s mount caught the guy rope, toppling the tent and throwing lord and horse to the ground with terrific force.

  “Up, you!” cried Thiadbold, jerking Liath to her feet. A few men lay moaning or quiet on the ground around her. The rider, pulled from his horse, was dead.

  She ran up the hill with the others.

  Henry barely had time to pull up his charge as the lord’s companions scattered in confusion. The king laid his lance against the man’s chest. The lord’s face was hidden by mail that draped down from the nasal of his gold-trimmed helmet.

  “Yield!” cried the king in a voice that carried across the camp and caused a sudden stilling hand to press down on the battle. The man did not stir but, one by one, his companions were slain, disarmed, or forced to surrender.

  “Liath! To me!” Liath ran over to Hathui and stood panting beside her. “Eagles don’t fight,” added Hathui in an undertone. “They witness. But you did well, comrade.”

  Henry did not move, simply sat his patient horse with the lance point pressed up under the mail, hard into the lord’s vulnerable throat.

  In this way he waited as his Wendish lords hurried to form up around him, the crippled Villam chief among them. Margrave Judith directed the mopup: prisoners herded into a group, horses tied up, the fires put out—although two of the ballistae had already collapsed into ashy heaps.

  As the sun rose, the gates of the fortress yawned open again. A great lady, mounted on a brown mare whose trappings had as much gold and silver woven into them as a biscop’s stole, rode between two deacons dressed in simple white and two holy fraters in drab brown. Her retinue, all unarmed, crowded behind her. Already a wailing had risen from the back of their ranks, keening and mourning.

  Henry gestured with his free hand and his men parted to let Lady Svanhilde through his lines. She approached, was helped to dismount by one of her stewards, and knelt before the king.

  “I beg you, Your Majesty,” she said, her voice shaken with grief. “Let me see if my son yet lives. I beg you, grant us your mercy. This was no plan of mine. He is a rash youth, and has listened too long to the poets singing the music of war.”

  “You would have been better served to come before me yesterday, when first we arrived,” said the king, but he withdrew his lance from the body.

  Lady Svanhilde unbuckled the helm and drew it back. Her sudden gasp made clear what was not yet apparent to all. The young man was dead although no mark of war stained his body. He had died in the fall from his horse. His mother began to weep, but in a dignified way.

  “This gives me no pleasure,” said the king suddenly in a voice made hoarse by remembered grief. “I, too, have lost a beloved son.”

  She pressed a hand to her heart and stared down for a long time on the slack face of the young man. She was an old woman, frail, with thin bones. When she stood, she needed help to rise. But pride shone in her face as she regarded the king who sat above her, still mounted, his holy lance given into the care of Helmut Villam. “He followed Lady Sabella, although I counseled against it.”

  “And your loyalties?” demanded Biscop Constance, who had come forward now that the fighting was over.

  “Your Grace.” Lady Svanhilde inclined her head, showing more respect to the biscop than she had to the king. “We bow to the regnant.”

  Margrave Judith snorted. “Now that you are compelled to!”

  “Necessity breeds hard choices,” said the lady without flinching. “I will do what I am commanded, because I must.”

  “Let her be,” said Henry suddenly. “Feed us this night, Lady Svanhilde, give us the tithe I ask for, and we will be on our way in the morning.”

  “What tithe is that?” Several Wendish lords gasped to hear a defeated noble question terms.

  “I need men, horses, and armor to retake the city of Gent, which has fallen to the Eika. This is the tax I set upon you and all the other Varren nobles who followed Sabella. Her fight cost me much of my strength, which you and your countryfolk will return to me.”

  Lady Svanhilde poured the king’s wine and served him with her own hands at the feast. Her children served his children, the two margraves, the biscop, and certain other high nobles whose rank demanded they be served with equal honor to the rest. Liath, standing with Hathui behind the king’s chair, tried not to listen to the rumbling of her own stomach. As one of the lucky ones, she would get leftovers from the feast fed to the nobles.

  As usual, Lady Tallia had pride of place beside her uncle, King Henry, but the young princess merely picked at her food, contenting herself with so
little that Liath wondered how she could keep up her strength.

  “As you see,” said Henry to Lady Svanhilde, indicating Tallia, “Sabella’s only child rides with me.” He looked carefully at the three children serving at the feast. One, a girl of about twelve years of age, had a face pale from crying; as her aunt’s heir, she served the king’s children, Theophanu and Ekkehard. Svanhilde’s two sons served the other high nobles. One was a boy of no more than eight, so nervous that a steward hovered at his elbow, helping him to set platters down without breaking them and to pour without spilling. The other was a boy somewhat older than Ekkehard, not yet at his majority. His manners were perfect and his expression grimly serious.

  “These are your remaining children?” asked Henry.

  Svanhilde gestured to a steward to bring more wine. “I have a son in the monastery my grandmother founded. This boy, Constantine—” She indicated the elder of the two boys. “—is to join the schola at Mainni next spring, when he turns fifteen.”

  “Let him join my schola instead,” said the king. “Sister Rosvita supervises the young clerics and the business of the court. She would be glad to attend to his education.”

  “That would be a great honor,” said the lady without emotion, glancing toward Lady Tallia. She, like everyone else there, understood that her son was now a hostage for her good behavior and continued support.

  Hathui cleared her throat, shifting to stretch her back. “Indeed,” she murmured so that only Liath could hear, “the king’s schola has increased vastly in numbers in these last two months, so many young lords and ladies from Varre have come to join us. They almost make up for the lack of Princess Sapientia.”