Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  Agnetha’s face was a pale shadow under the trees. “How do you know all this? Were you their whore before you went to Bulkezu?”

  “I’m no man’s whore, and never have been! I’ve spent time at court. An Eagle must learn to keep her eyes open and know those she serves.”

  Agnetha wiped her mouth with the back of a hand. She was dressed in a light shift, exposing rather too much creamy white breast only half covered by cloth and the silky fall of her long black hair. Even the normally impassive guards eyed her, such as they could see of her in the shadow of a tree with not more than a quarter moon to light the heavens. Maybe they had been among the dozen who had been fighting over her the evening she had come to Bulkezu’s attention. “Lady save us,” she murmured unsteadily. “When will it ever be over?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She was trying her best not to cry. “I try so hard. My mother and my four siblings, an uncle and three of his children and two cousins. I’m all that stands between them and death.” She shuddered. “And I’m still more fortunate than most, all those poor dead souls. But sometimes I just don’t know how I can stand another day of it.” She sucked in air, coughed at the stench, and rose, squaring her shoulders. “I just have to. I just have to.”

  As she turned to go back into the tent, she rested a comforting hand on Hanna’s arm. “At least I’m out of Bulkezu’s tent. It’s not that he hits you, but there’s just something so cold and unnatural about him. And he’s so ugly.”

  “Ugly?” Hanna almost laughed, but did not.

  “With those slanty eyes and that complexion, like mud? That Lord Manegold is like the sun beside a nasty goblin, for that’s all the beast is.”

  Since Hanna thought Lord Manegold even more vapid than the infamous Baldwin, and not nearly as pretty, she didn’t reply.

  “At least it’s not so bad for me now as it has been for you all this time.”

  “For me?” Shame made her cringe away from the other woman. How had she suffered, compared to all those prisoners she heard screaming as the Quman cut them down?

  “He watches you all the time. I know you’ve been his mistress longer than any other woman. I don’t see how you can stand it and keep so calm and dignified. You’re so strong! I guess that’s why you don’t think of yourself as his whore.”

  Maybe sometimes people could not hear the truth, and it was useless to explain.

  “You’re not even pretty, but I know he only rapes you because you’re the King’s Eagle. It’s like raping the king that way, isn’t it? I know he’s trying to humiliate the king through you. I admire you for never letting him dishonor you.”

  Or maybe it was impossible for people to grasp the truth when the truth stood outside everything they knew.

  Light shone as a lamp bobbed around back, away from the feast. She saw Bulkezu, escorted by one of his night guards. But he was only looking for her. She had been gone for too long.

  “I thank you,” she said to Agnetha. “I had forgotten the words to that song.”

  Agnetha saw Bulkezu. Her mask of stone would have done King Henry proud. She wasn’t a stupid girl, only an innocent one, struggling to survive. “My lord,” she said, dipping down to show him deference. When he did not reply, she walked with head held high back to the feast: no flattery, no fear, no whining.

  “Sing me the song,” whispered Bulkezu. He didn’t laugh.

  It had been a reckless day, and a certain foolhardy courage still gripped her. She stepped carefully as she came out from under the trees. She had always been quick on her feet, so her mother often said.

  “My lord prince,” she said softly, “I didn’t expect to meet you here.” Rude comments and nasty retorts bubbled up on her lips, but she choked them off. “Just an old song I used to sing as girls do. I’d forgotten the first line. It goes like this.”

  She had a decent voice, could carry a tune and entertain the inn customers without ever dreaming of running away to become a court poet. “‘Golden is his hair and sweet is his voice; I don’t want to love him, but I have no choice.’” She laughed, seeing the flash of dimple that could signal his laughter, or his rage. Hate burned hot in her. “I’ve seen him, the man who is handsomer than you. And he is.”

  His right hand twitched once, then stilled. “Why do you go to so much trouble to make me angry? I haven’t touched you.”

  “You haven’t touched my body. You’ve just brutalized my heart and my soul.”

  He regarded her for a while in silence. Behind, Ekkehard had begun, thank God, a more cheerful song, goaded on by Agnetha’s giggling praise.

  “Where is Liathano?” he said at last. “Lead me to her, and I’ll let you go free.”

  “She already has a husband, Prince Bulkezu.”

  “I already have four wives. And a Kerayit shaman’s luck.”

  “Or her curse.”

  That made him laugh, but the laughter did not reach his eyes. “Don’t make me angry,” he said at last, before indicating that she should follow him back to the feasting.

  They continued north along the tributary. Three days and seven villages later, they came to its confluence with the Veser River. The first sign of outriders came about midday when a scout was killed. Several larger scouting bands were sent out, and when they returned with their reports Bulkezu ordered a change in their marching order. As usual when they approached a fortified site, the prisoners were driven to the front as the army pressed forward through the trees.

  “Ai, God,” said Ekkehard when they halted at last on a ridgeline from which they could overlook the Veser River. “That’s the fort of Barenberg. We’re in my aunt Rotrudis’ duchy now.”

  His companions regarded the distant fort in silence. The river wound north through ripening fields and orchards. This was rich country, indeed.

  “I can’t fight her,” whispered Ekkehard, glancing toward Bulkezu, who had ridden up to the edge of the ridge. A steep slope cut away beneath the Quman begh. The wind sang sweetly in his griffin wings. Because he wore his helm, Hanna could not see his expression behind the visor, only that mask of iron.

  “Whose banner flies from the tower?” asked Benedict.

  Ekkehard made a choking noise as his face drained of color. Bulkezu reined his horse around and returned to them.

  “Two banners,” Hanna said as hope sparked. “The regent’s silk, and Wayland’s hawk. We seem to have met up with Princess Theophanu and Duke Conrad, Your Highness.”

  2

  EVEN with an Eagle’s sight to aid him, Sanglant and his troops spent three weeks following the meandering trail of Prince Bayan and Princess Sapientia as it wound through the marchlands of Olsatia, Austra, and Eastfall. He met up at last with their army at a slave auction in the ruins of the fortress of Machteburg. Easy enough to tell that Bulkezu’s army had been here two months before: the mostly rotted bodies of unarmed prisoners lay in heaps along the outer wall where they’d fallen, killed by their own terrified countrymen deceived into believing that the mob of captives was the vanguard of the Quman assault.

  Sanglant tracked Bayan down where he prowled the burned-out ruins, poking with a spear through the ashes of the central tower. The Ungrian prince looked no worse for wear, as bluff and fit as ever, with a becoming twinkle in his eye as he looked up to see Sanglant approaching him. He pressed through his retinue and hurried over.

  “My friend!” Bayan clapped Sanglant heartily on the shoulder before enveloping him in a crushing hug. He kissed him on either cheek, as a kinsman, and finally let him go. “Alas that we meet in such troubled times.”

  “Troubled enough, it’s true.”

  “What is this frowning face, my brother? I know this look of a man who is not sporting in the bed enough.”

  Sanglant laughed. “Is that the trouble you complain of? I thought you meant this war against the Quman.”

  But Bayan was not to be thrown off the scent. “How can this be? You look whole in all parts. Do the women not find you handsome any longer
?”

  The question made Sanglant unaccountably irritable. “Nay, I’m troubled more than enough by women. It was easier to travel in the duchies. I felt safe at night in monastic guesthouses, sung to sleep by the chaste music of God. Out here in the marchlands I’m tormented every night by yet another sweet lass asking prettily for my prince’s seed to honor her family.”

  “Not two sweet lasses every night? From me you get no pity if you send them away without a taste. Five pretty Salavii slave girls I bought at the market in Handelburg this past winter. I must send them to work in the kitchens. Nor can I mention ever my beloved snow woman, whom I sent to her death for the sake of peace in my bed.” He sighed, eyeing Sanglant with a rueful expression. “Are you not traveling with this wife you married against your father’s wishes?”

  As with any wound, the pain did dull after a time, even if the ache of mingled grief, hope, and anger would never go away completely. The late summer heat cast a haze over the dead fortress. Luckily, they had arrived weeks after the worst of the stench had faded, although now and again a tickle of putrefaction teased Sanglant’s nostrils, some bubble of gas released from deep within the mound of corpses.

  “It might be best to bury the dead,” he replied curtly.

  Bayan had a way of quirking up his right eyebrow when he wished to ask an unwanted question, but refrained. “Now we hear report of plague in Avaria. We need none of that here to add to our distress. Already have I men at work digging graves enough to take all these poor innocent corpses. Maybe it is not right to call a corpse innocent, with maggots and flies crawling in its belly.”

  “Your Wendish is much improved.”

  “Your disposition is not. What happened to your wife?”

  Sanglant took the spear out of Bayan’s hand impatiently, stabbing at a gleam caught among the ashes, but all he came up with was yet another skull. He crouched to fish it out of the debris. It had come loose from its body. The lower jaw had been smashed in, probably by falling stone. A few shreds of flesh still adhered to the dome of the skull, trailing patches of reddish hair, but otherwise weather and insects had picked it clean.

  “I haven’t the stomach to tell the tale one more time. You’ll find that my faithful soldiers and clever scholastics know the story by heart.”

  “Father! Daddy!” Blessing had escaped from Heribert and Zacharias again and with nut-brown Anna in tow came charging through the ruins, whacking at tumbled walls with her wooden sword as she passed. “I want a man, Daddy. I saw a man. I want him.” She ran up, wiped soot from her cheek but only succeeded in making her face dirtier than it already was, and placed herself directly in front of Bayan. She set hands on hips and looked him in the eye. “This is a prince,” she proclaimed, thought about what that meant, and leaned closer to Bayan and spoke confidingly. “Can you get me the man?”

  “Who is this charming child?” exclaimed Bayan, delighted. “Why wears she a gold torque?”

  “I am Blessing, heir to Emperor Taillefer.” She was as arrogant as an empress, and he supposed he had only himself to blame. He adored her, utterly, helplessly, and that she had any self-control at all was entirely due no doubt to Anna’s stern, no-nonsense attitude. Nothing scared Anna, not even Blessing’s tantrums.

  “What man does the young empress desire?” asked Bayan, managing not to dissolve into laughter.

  “I saw a man in chains. I want him. I’m thirsty.”

  “We’ll share ale, I trust, child. But first we see about the man in chains.” He beckoned to his retinue, a dozen Ungrian noblemen and soldiers who watched Blessing with a mixture of amusement and interest that both irritated and pleased Sanglant. “Prince Sanglant? You accompany us? A party of Wendish and Polenie merchants camp here with a crowd of slaves among their goods. Some prisoners must be refugees from the fighting. They will have stories to tell about the Quman army.”

  Blessing had recently developed an aversion to being carried, so Sanglant slowed his steps as she trotted alongside. They crossed the fort’s yard. Scorched roof tiles lay shattered on paving stones. A dead horse had been picked down to the bone by vultures. A pale blue tunic, ground into the muck, gave an incongruous splash of color to the grim destruction.

  “What are Bulkezu’s objectives?” Sanglant asked Bayan.

  “Many times I ask myself this question. But how can I think like a filthy Quman?” Bayan spat. “To my shame, I hid all winter behind the walls of Handelburg, licking my wounds. Then I crawled out in the spring, but he rode west long before and left me cowering in my hole. Feh.” He spat again, looking really angry now, a man with a grudge. Gesturing broadly, he indicated Machteburg’s ruins, the once-proud border fortress reduced to rubble and debris. “What else do the Quman want except slaves, gold, and misery?”

  From the height of the citadel, standing among the fallen stones that had once formed the gate, Sanglant watched the Oder River streaming northward below. Northward, toward Walburg, where he had left Waltharia with a small garrison and a gold torque. Her husband Druthmar stood nearby, chatting quietly with Captain Fulk. “He must want something else. Or be driven by a whip we know nothing of.” He grinned, suddenly, and lifted Blessing up onto a block of stone so she could see better. He turned to Bayan. “Where is my sister?”

  “Ah.” Bayan’s answering grin had a wicked edge. “Speaking as we do of a whip. Come. She is down at the slave market with my mother.”

  Sanglant’s army had halted north of Machteburg on the eastern shore of the river. To reach the slave market, a motley collection of wagons, suspicious merchants, and nervous hired guards who had set up for the night in an ancient ring fort, he and Bayan rode south along the western shore, through the ranks of the army marching under the command of Bayan and Sapientia.

  The Wendishmen had not forgotten Gent. They cheered Bayan happily enough, but the sight of Sanglant made them roar. Soon enough, the path was crowded on either side by Lions and milites and young lords with their retinues, hastening forward to cheer him on. Even Bayan’s Ungrians gave the prince his due, shrill whistles that made him think his ears might pop and that forced Blessing to clap hands over her ears to muffle the sound.

  Sapientia heard them coming. By the time they found her emerging from the slave market, she had obviously prepared for the meeting, stationing herself just where the old hill-fort gate, now fallen into ruin, pitched downward. Sanglant, dismounting, had to walk up the rise to greet her. From her position above him on the slope, she deigned to kiss him on either cheek in the greeting of a kinswoman.

  “Sister,” he said cheerfully enough, although he didn’t see much answering warmth in her expression.

  “Has Father sent help at last?” she demanded.

  “Nay, he’s ridden south to Aosta—”

  “Always Aosta!”

  Bayan made to speak, but Sanglant gave a quick lift of his chin to interrupt him. “He’s ridden south to Aosta where lie other threats—”

  “What can possibly threaten us more than Bulkezu and his army? Have you heard about the plague in Avaria? We’ve seen with our own eyes the trail of destruction the Quman army has left in its wake—villages burned and fields trampled. You can see yourself the dead he’s left, there at the walls. All the folk hereabouts, those who survived, say the fortress is haunted by the unavenged dead. A child’s ghost walks at midnight, crying for its mother.”

  “Many a child cries for its mother,” said Sanglant, smoothly slipping into her rant, “but weeping for what we don’t have won’t defeat the Quman. Come, Sapientia, here is my daughter Blessing, your niece.”

  Aunt and niece eyed each other. Sapientia had weathered her first extended campaign well. She had filled out, gained color, and moved with more confidence. But as she examined Blessing, he saw the old dance of envy warring with interest in her gaze. “I thought she looked like you. But this can’t be the Eagle’s child. She’s too old. Did you father her on some concubine before your imprisonment at Gent?”

  He had learned to
resign himself to the questions. Sometimes, the best answer was the simple truth. “Do not forget that sorcery runs in her blood. I can explain no better than you why she grows so fast. She was born in the spring, last year.”

  “She looks like a well-grown girl of three or four years of age,” objected Sapientia, “not a toddling child of fifteen or sixteen months.”

  “So she does.” He had learned to hide his fear. He did not understand what was happening to his daughter. At first he’d believed that the unearthly milk she imbibed from Jerna caused her to grow with unnatural speed, and maybe it had. But Jerna had left them, and Blessing still aged far more quickly than she ought. He had a bad idea that it would not end until Liath returned, as if a link bound Liath and Blessing so closely that what happened to one rebounded onto the other. If Liath only knew that, would she not return to spare her daughter?

  She would, if she cared for them at all.

  At moments like this, he wondered where his own mother had gone. Alia had deserted him, too—for the second time.

  “You are a princess.” Blessing had remained silent long enough.

  Sapientia did not quite recoil. “I am King Henry’s heir.”

  “Oh,” said Blessing appreciatively, oblivious to these nuances, “I like him. He’s my grandfather.” Because she was a child who didn’t mind sharing, she went on. “I am the heir of Emperor Taillefer.”

  “Does she say that to everyone?” asked Bayan as Sapientia’s mouth pursed with disapproval and she looked ready to say something rash.

  “Only to those who deserve it. Come, sweet heart, where is the man you saw?”

  Blessing grabbed his hand and, after a moment’s studious thought, grabbed Bayan’s hand as well. “This way!”

  Even Sapientia laughed. “She is indeed Henry’s granddaughter.”

  “Since you are a princess,” called Blessing as she dragged her escorts forward, “will you help me get the man?”

  Anger sparked as quickly as amusement in Sapientia’s face. “Not one to listen to others, no matter whose need is greater. We could use these men in the army, and a few of these women, too, if they’re willing and strong enough.”