Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  She gestured toward the orchards and fields. In truth Rosvita could see that the winter wheat was stunted and yellowing, and the new leaves on pear and apple trees were already curling.

  “I have brought King Henry of Wendar and Varre, as I promised,” said Adelheid. “We have wed. I am pregnant with a child who joins the blood of both Wendar and Aosta.”

  Tears ran down Lavinia’s face as she kissed Adelheid’s hand. “Bless you, Your Majesty.”

  “Come then, Lady. Rise. We will not march to Darre on our knees.”

  “Nay, nay, we will not.” Lavinia got up at once and came forward to kiss Henry’s ring and offer him her allegiance, but it was clear that she looked first to Queen Adelheid.

  “Who awaits us in Novomo?” asked Henry when Lavinia’s horse had been brought and both the lady and the queen mounted. At his signal, the royal party started forward at a sedate pace. Lavinia’s retinue split to either side of the road to let the royal party pass through their ranks, and for some while the cheering of Novomo’s soldiers drowned out any attempt at conversation.

  “Who awaits us in Novomo?” Henry repeated as Lavinia’s retinue fell in behind, being given the place of honor behind Henry’s noble companions and his cohort of Lions but before the king’s clerics and schola and the rest of his army.

  “Richildis, Marquess of Zuola. Gisla, Count of Placentia, and Gisla, Lady of Piata. Tedbald, Count of Maroca, and his cousin, Red Gisla. Duke Lambert of Uscar, who can bring all of the nobles of his lands if he calls them.”

  “That is half of the north country,” said Adelheid. “Some of these refused to aid me when my first husband died. How can I trust them now?”

  “It is true that some may be spies for Ironhead, but they have all come here to pledge their support to Your Majesties. They like Ironhead no better than I do. The drought has affected all of us, and we fear worse, because the Most Holy Mother Clementia, she who was raised to the seat of the skopos eight years ago, is dead.”

  Rosvita drew the Circle of Unity at her breast and murmured a prayer for God’s mercy, just as others did, even and especially the king.

  “May God grant her peace,” said Adelheid. “She is my great-aunt.”

  “Truly, she comes out of a noble lineage,” agreed Lavinia. Anger lit her expression again. “Rumor whispers that Ironhead means to appoint his cousin as the new skopos, although she is not even a cleric!”

  Rosvita leaned forward over the neck of her mule. “Have you heard any rumor of a Wendish frater among Ironhead’s counselors, Lady?”

  “Nay, Sister Rosvita, although it is said that a Wendish-born presbyter held great influence with the ailing skopos. I have even heard it whispered that he used sorcery to keep her alive, for she suffered greatly from a palsy in her later years. No one knows whether this presbyter supports Ironhead, or defies him, although it’s said that he tried as well as he could to keep young women out of Ironhead’s rough hands. But I hear only rumor. No noble lady or lord who travels to Darre is safe from Ironhead. None of us dare go there ourselves, for fear he’ll kill us outright. You know, of course, that he gained his lands and title by murdering his half brother, and that he murdered his wife when he had no more use for her.”

  “How many wait for us in Novomo?” The catalog of Ironhead’s sins had made Henry impatient. “Who else will march behind our banners? What number of milites and horsemen may we expect?”

  “The wars have taken a toll on us, Your Majesty. Perhaps seven hundred.”

  They rode on for a while in silence. The ring of harness serenaded them. The muted rumble of wagon wheels behind them sounded like distant thunder, but the sky remained cloudless, a hard blue shell.

  “Shall we gather more support, Your Majesty?” asked Lavinia finally, as if she could bear the silence no longer.

  “Nay,” said Adelheid fiercely, “let us strike hard and immediately at Ironhead, before Lord John has time to respond and build up his army.” But as she spoke, she looked toward her husband. It was his army, after all.

  Henry stared ahead. They had come within sight of Novomo, its walls and towers rising where the land opened into a fine landscape of rolling hills and extensively farmed lands, fields cut by ranks upon ranks of orchards and vineyards. They had come down far enough that, looking north, Rosvita could again see the tips of the mountains touching the heavens, distant and cold.

  Beyond Novomo the road ran south to the heart of Aosta. Some trick of perspective allowed her to see a distant, flat-topped hill studded with dark shapes that she first took for sheep. With a shudder of misgiving, she recognized the hilltop of standing stones. Through those stones she and Adelheid and Theophanu and the pitiful remnant of their armies had staggered over a year ago, in the spring, propelled to safety by Hugh’s magic. A spike of dread crippled her heart. Certainly they had escaped John Ironhead’s army, but they had not yet escaped the full consequences of letting a man accused of sorcery harness a most dangerous magic, one long ago condemned by the church, to help them. She could not erase from her mind’s eye the sight of the daimone Hugh had bound. She still saw clearly its writhing fury, heard the resonant bass hammer of its voice, felt the damning chill that boiled off the threads of hard light that made up its body, if the creatures known as daimones even had true bodies.

  She had seen what the others had not, and yet she had acquiesced. She knew in her heart that decision would come back to haunt them all.

  “A well-fitted army with horses and stout soldiers can reach Darre in ten days,” said Lavinia as they approached the gates of Novomo.

  In Darre lay the key to the imperial throne that Henry had for so long dreamed of possessing.

  “God march with us,” said Henry. “Adelheid is correct. We must not wait. Let us feast this night in your hall. In the morning, we will march south.”

  It seemed the entire populace of Novomo turned out to greet them, running out to stand alongside the road or waiting in the narrow streets and leaning out of the windows in their crowded houses inside Novomo’s walls. Their cries and cheers rang to the heavens. When they came to the steps of Lavinia’s palace, fully two dozen noblemen and -women laid their swords at Adelheid’s and Henry’s feet.

  The feast that night had the slightly frenzied spirit of a man coming down with a fever, punctuated at intervals by the distant rumble of thunder, so muted that Rosvita kept thinking she heard wagons passing by on the streets outside.

  Some hours before dawn, rain broke over the town, and in the morning the army began its march south beneath a steady, light rain. God was smiling on Aosta again.

  Five days’ march south they met outriders ranging through low hills, looking for them. Light cavalry chased off these scouts, but by midday the road brought them to a fine vantage point and here, arrayed in battle order, they could see from the ridgetop down onto the central plain that stretched away south until it was lost in a heat haze.

  Ironhead was waiting for them. His army lay encamped across the road, its flanks stretching well out to either side, with a makeshift palisade thrown up before his lines. Ironhead had wasted no time, and it was obvious that he had assembled a larger army than Henry’s, fully two thousand mounted men or more to judge by the tents and banners, herds of horses, and horde of wagons.

  “He must have had word we were coming,” said Villam. “A rider could have left Novomo and changed off horses to get to him in three days, but it seems impossible to me that he could have acted so quickly and brought his army five days’ march north from Darre in so short a time.”

  “Unless he has one among his retinue who has the Eagle’s sight,” said Henry softly, glancing at Hathui, who rode at his right hand.

  Villam had not heard him, but Rosvita did. “If Ironhead commands the loyalty of a sorcerer, who knows what he may attempt. Certainly Ironhead does not have the reputation of an honorable man. I advise that you proceed cautiously, Your Majesty”

  “So I will.”

  It was quite warm alread
y and bid fair to become a fiercely hot day despite that they were eight days short of the summer solstice. Henry’s brow had a sheen of sweat. Absently, he mopped his brow with a cloth and handed it to one of his stewards, come up beside him. Three captains waited at his back, one carrying the king’s shield, one his helmet, and one the holy spear of St. Perpetua, sign of God’s favor.

  “Where is the queen?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder.

  “She comes now, my lord king,” said Hathui.

  In the last five days Adelheid had grown increasingly clumsy with pregnancy. She looked ready to burst, and could only mount and dismount with difficulty, aided by a half-dozen servants. But ride she did.

  “What is this?” she asked as the lines parted to let her through with her ladies and servingwomen riding in her train. Rosvita reined her mule aside to give place to the queen. “Ah! Ironhead has come to greet us.”

  “It seems the issue is to be decided sooner rather than later,” said Henry.

  Adelheid had a soldier’s eye. She assessed the length and depth of Ironhead’s force, and studied the banners. “He has more mercenaries than loyal troops. Might they be bribed to desert him?”

  “It might be,” said Villam, “but Ironhead will have thought of that himself, if he’s as wily as they say.”

  Henry examined Adelheid. The heat had not withered him; he sat as straight as a young man, unbowed by the aches and pains of advancing age that Rosvita felt every day now that she, like the king, was forty-two—or was it forty-four?—years old. It was hard to keep track and not really important.

  But infatuation can make a person young again, and Henry admired his pretty, young queen, just as he had so sweetly admired Sophia when they had married all those years ago; just as he had fallen hard for Alia, when he was only a youth of eighteen. Some men were taken that way, preferring attachment to lust, and in Henry, who had been given the regnant’s luck, it extended to all of his friendships. His affections were strong, balanced only by those rare displays of his anger which, once kindled, could not easily be laid to rest.

  “If battle is to be joined,” he said now, with a handsome frown as he gazed at his pregnant wife, “it would be best for you to retire, my love, to the fortress of Lady Gisla, where we sheltered last night.”

  “I will take not one step backward in fear of Ironhead. I will ride myself into battle if need be rather than retreat!”

  “Truly, you have earned the leopard banner your family bears, my heart. But as you know yourself, a battle can range widely, and what sorrow might there be in victory if you were jostled by some flanking movement—”

  “I will not retreat.”

  Irritation flashed in Henry’s expression, but the sight of her stubborn gaze fixed on Ironhead’s distant army, the way she tilted up her chin when angry, softened him. “So be it. Will you lead the charge, my lady queen?”

  She laughed, knowing herself outflanked. Although pregnancy had softened her features somewhat, blurring the sharp lines of her face, she had not lost the lightning-swift changes of expression that made her features so lively. She smoothed a hand down over the fabric of her gown where a placket of cloth had been added to accommodate her girth. A youth held the reins of her horse, solemn as he kept his hand up close to the bit so that it would make no sudden movement. “I would rather not ride all the way back to Lady Gisla’s fortress, but I saw a stout little fort in good repair not more than a league back on the road. I would be willing to wait there, to be sure no harm comes to the child.”

  “My lord king.” Hathui pointed toward the plain where a small group of riders broke away from Ironhead’s line to ride toward them. They rode accompanied by three banners: that of the sun of Aosta, that of the presbyters’ college, and a white banner bearing the olive branch that signified “parley.”

  “Do you suppose Ironhead wishes to negotiate?” asked Villam skeptically.

  “We shall see.”

  Henry fell back from the front line. Servants hurried to set up the throne he used when traveling, with its back carved as an eagle’s wings, legs fashioned as a lion’s paws, and arms shaped in the likeness of fierce dragon visages, painted in bold colors. Adelheid sat beside him in a handsome chair that had been fitted with pillows and a special backrest for her comfort. Her ladies brought her the Aostan crown that was hers by right to wear; it and the royal seals were all that she had salvaged in her escape last year.

  Henry knew well the proper use of ceremony. His stewards dressed him quickly in his robes of state, and Rosvita hastily anointed him with a dab of holy oil on his forehead before placing the crown of Wendar and Varre on his head. In such state, and with his court and all the noble ladies and lords of Aosta assembled around him, he presided over a formidable gathering.

  The sun beat down. Wind rippled through the assembled banners and bent the tall grass. The Wendish army, waiting beyond, made a thousand quiet noises, horses whinnying, men calling out, the creak of leather and the snap of cloth as they, too, held ready in case of a trick.

  Henry did not rise when Ironhead’s emissaries arrived and were allowed to approach the royal presence. But he looked surprised to see the man who strode at their head, brilliantly arrayed in handsome robes and the distinctive scarlet cloak worn only by presbyters. As beautiful as the sun. It always surprised Rosvita each time she saw him.

  Hugh.

  Henry had not ruled successfully for twenty years because surprises could overset him. One finger stirred, stroking the carven head of a dragon; otherwise he did not move nor give any further impression of amazement. The standard of the realm of Wendar and Varre stirred, belling out, then sagged back to conceal the bright animals embroidered there, the sigils of his regnancy.

  He spoke in the king’s most forbidding tone. “Hugh of Austra, son of Judith. Did I not send you to Aosta to stand trial before the holy skopos, on the grounds that you had soiled your hands with sorcery?”

  Hugh bowed with the precisely correct degree of inclination, neither too proud nor too humble. “So you did, Your Majesty. I was judged and found wanting, but the skopos is merciful, may her soul be at rest. She saw fit to take me into her service so that I could serve God and the church in recompense for my sins.”

  “Yet who is it you serve,” asked Henry in a dangerously soft voice, “when you walk forward now as an envoy from John Iron-head?”

  “I serve God, of course, Your Majesty.”

  Henry’s smile was as dangerous as his tone. “Wisely spoken. Yet you still stand there, while my army and my loyal retinue stand behind me.”

  Hugh gestured to his servants, who carried forward a basket, which they set in front of him. “No man may serve two earthly masters, Your Majesty. This I know well enough, for I was raised by my mother, who has always supported you faithfully.”

  “So she has.”

  “I have always been your loyal subject. That is why I made a place for myself at Ironhead’s court.”

  Truly it was said that God favored the virtuous, and Hugh appeared so devoutly virtuous—as though butter would not melt in his mouth—that Rosvita shuddered with foreboding and moved forward to stand beside the king, thinking that maybe she could deflect whatever sorcerous spell Hugh meant to cast upon them.

  Adelheid put a hand over her mouth and nose, grimacing. “I smell something terrible.”

  Rosvita smelled it, too, a sour iron taste like the odor of magic. She touched the king’s arm and bent to whisper in his ear. “Your Majesty, I beg you—”

  Hugh was too fast for her.

  He signaled. One of his servants whipped aside the cloth that covered the basket. Adelheid cried out, choked, and barely staggered out of her chair before vomiting on the ground while one of her ladies held her.

  Henry leaped to his feet.

  “I beg your pardon, Queen Adelheid.” Hugh took the cloth from the servant and gently placed it over the grisly thing lying on straw in the basket. “I did not intend to upset anyone.”

>   But the image of it had seared into Rosvita’s mind. Even if she hadn’t recognized that beak of a nose and those wretched features, frozen in a death grimace, she would have known anywhere the iron crown Lord John had worn to spite his enemies, now tumbled in blood-soaked straw.

  Adelheid sipped wine and turned back, her face pale but her expression gloating. “It is what he deserved. Stick it on a lance. John’s head is the banner that will clear our path to Darre.”

  The king walked to the basket and drew the cloth aside again. Henry had always been a cautious man, inclined to listen to others but to check for himself. He grabbed the head by its hair and hoisted it. Clotted fluids dripped from the severed neck onto the sodden straw. A spike had been driven through Lord John’s temple.

  “Very well,” he said, calling over one of his captains. “Ironhead will precede us to Darre.” He dropped the head back into the basket, which shuddered at the impact. He turned to Hugh. “His body?”

  “In camp.”

  “His mercenaries?”

  “Loyal by reason of the gold he paid them, not to his person. You will find, Your Majesty, my lady queen, that few will mourn Ironhead’s passing.”

  “Yet such a large army of paid soldiers is doubly dangerous when left to its own devices. We’ll have to negotiate carefully so as not to have a battle on our hands or a countryside laid to waste by marauders.”

  Standing under the sun’s full glare, Hugh did not wilt; it seemed his natural element, as though the sun had been created expressly to illuminate his features. “You’ll find their captains amenable to peace, Your Majesty. They’ll not trouble your army.”

  “An ignoble fate for a warrior,” mused Henry as the basket was carried away. “How did it happen?”

  Hugh shrugged. “As you sow, so shall you reap. He had a violent nature, my lord king, and I believe that he was murdered while sleeping by one of the girls he had raped.”