by Kate Elliott
Alain gasped and groped for his reins before the horse could feel he had lost control; but this was a trained warhorse. It moved forward with the others. Who had come forward? Who had saved him? Who had witnessed his cowardice?
He turned. Her gaze was at once distant and utterly piercing. The rose burned at his chest like a hot coal pressed against his skin.
She spurred her horse forward, his horse responding not to his limp control but somehow to hers, though she did not touch it, though she did not hold its reins.
“Stay beside me,” she said, whether words spoken through her lips or ringing in his mind he could not tell. I am the Lady of Battles. She had a terrible beauty, seared by hardship and agony and the wild madness of battle. She drove her white horse, and with him beside her, surged forward through the Eika, striking to each side, so smooth in her movements that he knew she had ridden to war for so many years that she no longer had to think in order to kill.
Beyond her rode Lavastine, face grim and focused on his task. He took no pleasure in battle; this was duty. He parried a blow and cut in his turn, striking down a silver-scaled Eika; in that instant, as the Eika fell before him, Lavastine looked right past the woman and with that glance marked Alain and went back to the fight.
Now the cavalry drove the Eika back into the waiting line of infantry. Crushed between foe and foe, the Eika fought with hopeless fury or struggled to run free. But Alain, with the Lady of Battles at his side, remained untouched. She struck down any of the savages who lunged at him or hacked at him with ax or spear. He managed to stay seated on his horse. On her other side, Lavastine fought with the same steady imperturbable calm.
Alain jerked his horse left to avoid trampling an infantrymen. The two lines had met at last. Lavastine peeled aside and with a shouted command led Alain and a dozen others down toward the shore. Some Eika ran flat out for the ships; others fought as the horsemen came up behind them. But the savages were broken now. Each one fought only for its own life, or for death. Down at the beach one ship was halfway into the water; Eika jostled each other for a place in its belly, grappling for oars, shoving it out into the current. The other two ships burned with an oily smoke that stung Alain’s nostrils, bringing tears to his eyes and a cloudy haze over his vision.
“Rein in!” cried Lavastine.
Alain blinked back tears and passed a hand over his eyes.
“Well done,” said the count.
Alain wiped tears from his checks and looked at his father with surprise. Well done? To whom was he speaking?
Soldiers circled them, weapons held at the ready. They waited on that verge where sandy soil turns into grassy beach and watched a single ship as it hove to into the current, watched as oars beat the water and the ship was swept out to sea. A few arrows, shot harmlessly from the rocking belly of the boat, splashed in the shallows or skittered away into the reeds.
The Lady of Battles was gone. At his chest he felt only the cool, soft lump that was the little leather pouch.
The soldiers ranged ‘round as they shook themselves free of the last eddies of skirmishing. A few Eika had plunged into the river to swim after the receding ship. Most lay dying on the ground. A few men were wounded, one or two with mortal wounds, but Lavastine’s tactics had worked with that same blunt effectiveness with which Lavastine himself approached life.
“Well done, my son,” repeated Lavastine. He lifted his sword; a viscous fluid the greenish-blue color of corroded copper stained the blade. With it held high, he addressed his soldiers. “My trusted companions, now you have seen this boy prove himself in battle.”
One of the cavalrymen spoke. “I saw him strike down four with his own hand, my lord. He had the battle fury on him. He shone with it. I will follow Lord Alain gladly.” To Alain’s horror, he saw respect in the soldier’s eyes.
As soon as this was spoken, others began to talk. Others, too, had seen a kind of unearthly glow around the lad.
“But I did nothing,” he protested. “I was afraid. It was the hand of the Lady of Battles which protected me, which struck down those Eika.”
As soon as the words passed his lips, he wished he had not spoken. They misunderstood him utterly. They none of them had seen her. They took his words as modesty, and as piety. They believed he had accomplished those deeds when in fact he had proved himself unworthy and only been saved by her intervention.
Some of the men drew the Circle at their breasts. Some murmured with awe and amazement. Others bowed their heads. Lavastine stared at him hard, and then, as if he could not help himself, he gave that grimace which to him was a smile.
“God in Unity have set Their Hand on you, my son,” he said with pride. “You are meant to be a warrior.”
2
LAVASTINE and his retinue celebrated the Feast of St. Valentinus at the holding of Lord Geoffrey’s wife, Lady Aldegund. All summer Lavastine had drilled Alain in the art of war and the rules of proper conduct, both of which were necessary—more than necessary, given the particulars of Alain’s birth—for Alain to impress those noble families and other stewards and servants who gave allegiance to the counts of Lavas. Wealth Alain would inherit from his father, but there were many other virtues he must display in abundance in order to rule as count after him. All of these virtues Lavastine had and to spare: shrewdness, military prowess, boldness, liberality, and a stubborn and dogged determination to defend his possessions and prerogatives.
“They are treating you well?” Lavastine asked that evening as they made ready for the feast, which would be held in the great hall.
“Yes, Father.” Alain stood very still, admiring the fine brocade that trimmed Lavastine’s indigo tunic while a servingman wrapped strips of linen around Alain’s calves, binding his loose hosen tightly against his lower legs. A buckle worked of tiny panels of cloissonne interspersed with garnets mounted in gold cells clasped the narrow leather belt he wore to hike his tunic up around his knees; its richness still stunned him. The tunic itself, woven of wool, was dyed with woad to a rich afternoon blue. He recognized the color from cloth dyed and woven in Osna village by his Aunt Bel and old Mistress Garia, both of whom had daughters and distant kin and servantwomen trained in weaving.
But she’s not my Aunt Bel, not anymore. She’s only the common woman who raised me.
So had Lavastine decreed. Alain had heard nothing from his old family since the count had sent a reward of sceattas to Bel and Henri, payment for the years they had fostered Alain. Had they forgotten him so quickly, not even to send word of how they and Stancy and Julien and little Agnes and the others fared?
This thought, and the traitorous wrench of sorrow it produced in his heart, he kept to himself.
All was ready at last; in the company of kin they need wear no weapons. The hounds had been penned outside, since it was not safe—to the others—to bring them indoors in an unfamiliar hall. Alain followed Lavastine down the stairs from the loft where they, as honored guests, would sleep with their servants this night. Together, he and his father came into the long hall. Every tapestry in the holding had been aired and now hung to decorate the walls. Fire burned in the central hearth where six months ago Lavastine—under Biscop Antonia’s spell—had set his hounds on his own kinsman, Geoffrey, and on Geoffrey’s young wife.
Now, Alain felt that every eye there turned to measure him. Lavastine they had forgiven for the madness set on him by another, but Alain did not think Lord Geoffrey and the others quite believed that Lavastine truly intended to make this unknown and illegitimate boy his heir.
They were all terribly polite as he took his place on his father’s right side. That place, the one of greatest honor, had once been given to Lord Geoffrey; of all Lavastine’s kin, Geoffrey was his nearest blood relation—or had been, until Alain.
Lady Aldegund, as hostess, sat on Lavastine’s left. After a prayer, she directed her servants to pour wine at the upper table and cider to those at the lower tables. She handed Lavastine the cup that she, as hostess, and
he, as honored guest, were to share; he bowed his head and offered it back to her, so she might have the first taste.
“Let us give this toast,” said Lord Geoffrey with that same polite smile fixed on his face, “to the newly discovered son and heir of my cousin, Lavastine.” He drank and handed his cup to Alain.
Lavastine’s men-at-arms toasted heartily, with cheers. From Aldegund and Geoffrey’s people the salute was subdued, even perfunctory. Lavastine studied the assembled crowd—quite fifty people—with narrowed eyes and his habitual half-frown, but he made no comment. He was no fool. He must know that many folk would not gladly accept the illegitimate son over the legitimate third cousin. Servants brought in the first course, a variety of fowl, chickens, geese, moorhens, and quail, all steeped so heavily in spices that Alain feared he would get sick to his stomach.
“You found no more winter camps?” asked Lord Geoffrey, leaning past Alain to address Lavastine.
Lavastine lifted his cup to lips and made a small gesture with his free hand.
Alain started. “Why, no, Lord Geoffrey,” he said dutifully, seeing that his father meant for him to answer, “we found no more. It is not usual for the Eika to winter in these lands.”
Geoffrey’s mouth twisted into a smile. “Indeed not, Lord Alain. This is the first time we have seen any Eika on our shores after Matthiasmass, and yet my own men burned a winter camp a month ago. Now you bring news that not one week ago you destroyed another. I wonder if the Eika mean to begin a new campaign. What if they want our land as well as our gold?”
“Do they farm?” asked Alain.
Geoffrey blinked. Aldegund took the cup from Lavastine and answered for her husband. She was a year or two younger than Alain, and her first child lay asleep in a cradle upstairs. “I would suppose that savages know nothing of farming. My kin have held estates in these lands since the time of the Emperor Taillefer. All the Eika ever want is gold and whatever other wealth—slaves, iron, coins, jewelry—they can carry away.”
“But why would they want land, if not to farm it?” asked Alain. “Or to pasture sheep and cattle?” He saw at once he had asked the wrong question. He had asked the sort of question Aunt Bel would ask. The other noble folk ranged along the table turned to listen—to see him make a fool of himself.
He refused to oblige them. And he refused to be ashamed of the common sense Aunt Bel had taught him.
“If the Eika are now making winter camps, then we must ask ourselves why they do this now, this year, when they did not before. Isn’t it true that there is one who stands as king among them, this Bloodheart? They have always been raiders before. Each ship is ruled over by a separate warleader. Now one Eika unites many tribes, and he has taken Gent, the very city where King Arnulf the Elder crowned his children and laid his claim for them to be rulers over Wendar and Varre together.”
The nobles grumbled, forgetting their distrust of Alain when reminded of their grievance at old King Arnulf, grandfather of the current king, Henry. Once, as princes and counts and noble ladies and lords of Varre, they had crowned their own sovereign ruler and fought their own private battles for influence in the Varren court. Now, outsiders in a court dominated by nobles of Wendish blood, they waited, discontent. Some of these men had ridden with Sabella in her rebellion against Henry. Some of these women had sent supplies and gold to enrich Sabella’s war chests and maintain her army. Now Sabella was a prisoner and her rebellion ended; Lavastine had pledged himself loyal to King Henry, and in return Henry had acknowledged Lavastine’s bastard son as the count’s heir.
The bastard son who had to prove himself worthy, in their eyes. “Now some of the Eika acknowledge a king,” he continued, “while others build winter camps in Varren lands. What does this mean?”
“Indeed,” said Lavastine. “What does it mean, Lord Geoffrey? Have you thought on this puzzle, cousin?”
By his expression, Geoffrey clearly had not. He took a gulp of wine to cover his discomfiture and set the cup down hard on the table. A few soldiers, at a lower table, laughed; Lavastine’s men, they had seen Alain in battle and now seemed as willing to follow where he led as were Rage and Sorrow and the other black hounds.
I am not worthy.
And yet, if the Lady of Battles had appeared to him and not to the others, was that not a sign of his worthiness? Did he not carry the rose, the mark of her favor?
A servingwoman refilled Lord Geoffrey’s cup and lingered just long enough to look over Alain impertinently but with obvious interest; he flushed, suddenly warm. And why shouldn’t he be? The hall was certainly warm enough to suit the coldest heart.
“Have you formed some opinion yourself as to the Eika’s reasons, Lord Alain?” asked Aldegund with a sharp tinge to her voice, like malice. A sweet-faced woman, scarcely more than a girl, Aldegund had not accepted Alain and, except for her marriage to Geoffrey, Lavastine had no claim over her. Her kin had their own lands and estates, their own connection to Varren nobility and to the Wendish kings. She made a gesture and the servingwoman moved away to tend to other cups.
“I have.” His flush deepened as he heard his own words. It sounded so very—proud. But a count’s son was allowed some arrogance; indeed, it was expected of him.
“Go on.” Lavastine gestured with his cup.
Alain allowed himself a drink of wine for courage—such very fine wine, carted in from Salia, and so much of it— before he continued. “I think Bloodheart means to make of himself a king to rival King Henry, or King Lothair of Salia. But when a king or queen is made, there are always princes who chafe under this rule. Some of these warleaders might not like being under the hand of another Eika, even one said to be a powerful enchanter. Yet if their own people wish to gain Bloodheart’s favor, those warleaders and the men loyal to them might be driven out of their own lands because they are rebels. Perhaps that is why they winter here. They may have nothing to go back to.”
“It is possible,” said Geoffrey grudgingly, finishing their shared cup. His wife sent a servant at once to refill it.
“Is it not just as likely,” asked an older man whom Alain identified as Meginher, one of Aldegund’s many maternal uncles, a fighting man who had a considerable reputation, “that these winter camps have been built at the order of this Bloodheart?”
“Why do we suppose,” asked Aldegund sharply, “that these Eika behave in any manner like ourselves? They are savages, are they not? Why should they act as we do? What do we truly know of them?”
I know what I see in my dreams. But he could not speak of those dreams out loud. His father had forbidden it. He bowed his head before her superior wisdom, for though she was young, she was a woman, lady of this estate and fashioned in the likeness of Our Lady, who orders the Hearth of Life. Men were fashioned for rougher work, and though certainly they were usually skilled beyond women in combat and hard labor, everyone knew, and the church mothers had often written on, the greater potential of women for the labors of the mind and the arts. These blessings, like that of childbirth, were granted to them by the grace of Our Lady, Mother of Life.
“We know little of the Eika,” said Lavastine curtly. “While we still have good weather, however, myself, my son, and these of our men-at-arms who accompany us will patrol the coasts for as long as we can. We will march west to Osna Sound next. The last and worst incursion of the Eika came there two springs ago, as you know.”
“Ah.” Lord Geoffrey leaned forward with new interest. “There is a village at Osna Sound. Isn’t that where you were fostered, Lord Alain? I remember when you came to Lavas town along with the other laborers who owed their year’s service.”
“You do?” asked Alain, surprised that as important a man as Geoffrey had noticed an insignificant common boy like himself.
But Geoffrey looked down swiftly, and Alain glanced at his father to see that Lavastine had fixed an expressionless—yet for that very reason intimidating—stare on the other man.
Meginher snorted and turned to his cup, taking a s
wig of wine. Servants staggered in under the weight of a roasted boar and several haunches of venison decorated with pimentos. Alain could not help but think of Lackling, who had eaten gruel all his life with a few beans or turnips if there were extra. Poor bastard … just like Alain, only how different Lackling’s fate had turned out to be. He had never been given leave to eat food this rich, except the last scraps taken from the table if he could grab them before they were thrown to the pigs.
“Of course,” said Lavastine, relinquishing the cup to his hostess, who had it filled once again with wine, “any person would have noticed your quality at once, Alain, for it was preordained that you take your place among the magnates and potentes, was it not? Twice now you have distinguished yourself in battle.” He said this firmly and clearly so that every person in the hall heard him. He gestured toward the captain of his cavalry. “Is it not true, Captain?”
The soldier stood. He, like the others, had bent his knee before Alain four days ago after the battle—and not just because Lavastine wished them to do so. “I have fought for the counts of Lavas since I was a lad, and I have never seen anything like this. I remember when the boy killed the guivre at the battle outside Kassel. Even so, to see him ride through his first battle as a true soldier, to see him strike to either side with no sign of fear, with such strength, with such fury that it shone from him as if he had been touched by the saints and God Themselves, to see him slay Eika on his right hand and on his left, I could see he had been born to the life of a warrior.” The other men—those of Lavastine’s soldiers who had survived the battle— pounded cups and knife hilts and empty platters on the table as they roared their approval.
Alain leaped up. “It was the hand of the Lady of Battles, not my own,” he insisted, “which killed those Eika.”
“Sit,” said Lavastine softly and, as obedient as the hounds, Alain sat.
The others murmured, but Lord Geoffrey made no more comments about Alain’s service as a laborer at Lavas Holding, and Lady Aldegund turned the talk to more innocent subjects: the year’s harvest, the new wheeled plow, and how the mild summer and autumn presaged a good growing season which would, in turn, presage a rich harvest of taxes.
