Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  Sanglant surveyed the scene with a dull heart. All of Bayan’s liveliness was gone, fled; what remained was only a husk. He wept openly, honoring Bayan with his grief, while Anshelm washed and bound the cuts on his left arm where the griffin feathers had laid open his skin. They stung like crazy, but they didn’t hurt half as much as the pain of seeing Bayan dead.

  Captain Fulk rode up with the latest reports: Lady Bertha had followed a large contingent west, toward the Veser; Lord Wichman, recovered from the near rout of his forces earlier, was engaged in a lively slaughter of any Quman soldier he and his men could get their hands on; Thiadbold’s Lions had captured a lordling, son of a begh, but it wasn’t Bulkezu. Prince Bayan’s mother had been found, with her slaves keening around her: she, too, was dead.

  “Where is my brother Ekkehard?” asked Sanglant quietly, not wanting Sapientia to overhear. He could not predict how she would react to the news of Ekkehard’s treachery.

  Fulk nodded wisely. “We’ve taken him to the baggage train and put him in the custody of the Lions, my lord prince. They’re levelheaded enough to treat him calmly. What of Bulkezu? Do we pursue?”

  “Nay. I doubt we’ve more than an hour of daylight left to us. Send Druthmar to the baggage train. I want my daughter escorted forward at once under heavy guard. I’d best go pay my respects to my aunt and remind her whom she has to thank for saving her city and her duchy. Sapientia and I will ride to Osterburg together, with Bayan’s corpse.”

  “But Prince Bulkezu got free—” objected Sibold. He stood in his stirrups, alive with excitement as he held the gold banner aloft in victory, as his gaze scanned the field beyond. Broken wings littered the field, obscuring bodies. Feathers drifted on the wind. A roan kept struggling to get up but could not stand. Carrion crows circled. In their haste to retreat the Quman had scattered into packs of two or ten or twenty, hard to catch but easy to kill once they were ridden down. Many escaped into the forest, fleeing east like frightened rats toward their distant home.

  Sanglant shook his head, eyes narrowing as a soldier dismounted beside the distant roan and knelt to examine its wounds. Sapientia sobbed on, and on, and on, brokenhearted. He wiped away tears from his own cheeks, thinking of the toasts he could no longer share with Bayan. “Tomorrow is soon enough to hunt Bulkezu. He may already lie dead on the field.”

  “And if he does not?” asked Fulk.

  “I’ve never heard that any Quman can swim. He’ll have to cross at a ford or ferry. My soldiers will be ready for him.”

  4

  FROM a rise on the east bank of the Veser River, Hanna watched in silent exultation as the two armies engaged. Even from a distance she could see that the Wendish were better armed, and that the weight of their larger horses and bigger shields gave them an advantage despite the crippling heat. Sweat streaked her forehead, and her tunic stuck to her back. With her bound hands, she swatted at a cloud of gnats swarming around her face. The ropes made her awkward, so she couldn’t hope to escape, or to interfere.

  Not until too late did she realize why her hands had been tied, so that she could not possibly disturb the other battle going on, the secret one. Not until Cherbu stopped muttering and chanting did she hold her breath, abruptly aware that something was about to happen. A shout of despair and confusion arose from the Ungrian ranks. Prince Bayan’s banner, no bigger than her hand seen from this distance but still easily recognizable, was furled, as they would do if he were dead.

  Dead.

  She knew then, seeing Cherbu’s solemn face, that the Quman shaman had killed him with magic. He sighed, dismounted, and laid himself flat on the ground, all four limbs pointing out like those of a sea star, as though he were awaiting his fate. Was that a single tear, trickling down one cheek?

  The storm hit.

  The first blast of wind actually tossed her from her horse. She hit the ground, taking the brunt of the fall on one hip, and lay there, stunned, while thunder cracked around them and lightning flashed so close that horses screamed and she smelled burning. A cloudburst swept through, flattening the grass.

  Then all stilled. She took in two shuddering breaths. Her skin tingled alarmingly, as though she had been stung by a thousand hornets. Her face, where Bulkezu had hit her, throbbed painfully, and her hip ached as she rolled over to push herself up. A spear drifted lazily in front of her eyes. The guards, at least, had not forgotten their duty.

  Stiffly, cautiously, she got to her feet, gritting her teeth as pain shot through her hip and up into her shoulder. The stink of charred flesh made her gag.

  Cherbu was dead, his body blackened and contorted. He had been struck by lightning. Her stomach clenched. She stumbled away, dropped to her knees, and vomited.

  A ragged cheer rose from the ranks of her guard. Surprised to hear their cry, she raised her head in time to see Bulkezu, his griffin wings a glittering beacon on the distant field, leading a charge to smash the Wendish army. The Ungrian legion began to retreat. Tears stung her eyes, but she choked them back, swallowing bile as she stared helplessly. Yet wasn’t this her duty? To witness and remember, so that she could report to the king? She straightened up proudly, though it hurt to stand. No matter what happened, she had to be strong enough to defy Bulkezu. If he defeated her, then it would be as if he had defeated King Henry. Maybe that was the game Bulkezu had been playing with her all along.

  So when the horns rang and a gold banner emerged from the wooded lands farther east, she could not help but cry out in hope and triumph. Who bore the gold banner? What prince or noble lady had come to Sapientia’s aid?

  Dust obscured the scene. The guards muttered nervously around her as the clamor of battle drifted up to them on a stiff breeze blowing in from the east. It was impossible to see who was winning, and who was losing. Impossible to know anything except interpret the shouts and cheers and commands ringing faintly from the field.

  At first, she didn’t recognize the rider making a dash for their line, galloping out of the haze of battle with about a dozen Quman soldiers at his heels. The shattered wood frame of his wings trailed over him, shedding bright feathers. Griffin feathers.

  As Bulkezu rode up, she laughed to see him humbled, but when he yanked his battered helm and featureless face mask from his head, her laughter choked in her throat. Blood ran down his face from a gash at the corner of one eye where the mask had been driven into his skin. A flap of skin hung loosely; she even saw the white of bone. His terrible expression made her shudder as, with the tip of his spear, he poked his brother’s corpse. Without comment, he turned and, signaling, headed south at a brisk pace. By now he had about thirty soldiers following. She saw no sign of Prince Ekkehard and his companions.

  They swung south a ways before cutting east, pushing their horses to the limit. Twice they came across knots of Wendish soldiers and, after a skirmish, broke free. But they always left a few men behind, wounded or dead. After the first time she tried to escape under cover of such fighting, Bulkezu tied a rope around her neck and, using it like a lead line, forced her to ride directly behind him. When she let her mount lag too far behind, the noose choked her. When she crowded him, hoping to injure his horse or make it stumble, he turned and whipped her across the face with the only weapon he had left: a stick.

  Her nose was bleeding and her hip had gone into spasms by the time it got too dark to ride any farther. In any case, the horses were winded, blown. It was at least a week past the full moon, and the waning crescent hadn’t yet risen. They had to stop, taking the time now to eat and drink what little remained to them.

  There were about two dozen left, creeping through the forest, signaling to each other with hisses and whistles. From ahead, they heard shouts and the noise of horses and fighting. Bulkezu yanked her rope and dragged her forward. By this time she could hardly walk; the pain in her hip stabbed all the way up to her head, and her teeth ached. They took refuge in dense cover on the edge of a clearing. Leaves tickled her face.

  He pressed a hand over her mout
h so that she couldn’t cry out. Where he held his head against hers, blood from his wound seeped onto her cheek, warm and sticky, and where the blood snaked in between her lips, she swallowed reflexively, tried to jerk away, but could not. No one had ever called Hanna, born and raised to hard work, a weakling, but Bulkezu had a grip like iron chains, almost as though he wasn’t really a man at all but some kind of unnatural daimone.

  A party of Wendish horsemen, at least fifty strong, had cornered a much smaller party of Quman soldiers in a little hamlet. The fleeing Quman had taken refuge in two cottages and now used this cover to take shots at the enemy.

  A lord rode into view, followed by a dozen lordlings, all swearing and laughing as they taunted the trapped Quman. It made no difference to them that they trampled the gardens and kicked over the fences and now-empty chicken coops of the fanners who lived here. Probably the families had taken refuge in Osterburg. Hanna recognized Lord Wichman as he called forward six archers. Fire bloomed along six arrows and made a beautiful arc as the arrows lofted into the air and landed on thatch roofs.

  A few of the Quman tried to break free of the burning death traps but were shot full of arrows. The rest chose to die, burned alive, in silence.

  Bulkezu grunted, retreated back into the wood, and they moved on. The damp ground made the going rough. Soon enough her boots were caked as she shed mud and picked it up with every step. After a while the soldiers had to take turns carrying her. After an interminable gray journey, bounced and jounced while the throbbing in her hip slowly receded into a merely agonizing torment, she smelled horse manure, heard the rush of a river, and was dumped unceremoniously into the rotting remains of an old hovel. She could see nothing, only hear, as Bulkezu and his surviving men whispered to each other, settling in around her.

  Under the collapsing roof the ground was dry. She grimaced as she straightened out her leg, rolled onto her back, and used her palms to massage the knot in her hip. The pain eased.

  That was when she heard the Lions.

  At first she didn’t understand the melange of voices, blending as they did with the rush of the river behind her.

  “There! Coming out of the water!”

  “Behind you, you idiot!”

  “Got him!”

  “God be praised!”

  Fading again. She thought maybe she had dozed and heard the words in a dream. Strange that one of those voices should sound so like that of her old friend Ingo. Hope plagued her, making it impossible to sleep as the night dragged on.

  Bulkezu squatted down beside her.

  “You lost.” She no longer cared what happened to her. She no longer cared if he killed her. Or at least, at this moment, her hatred drove her. “Now what can you do except run like a whipped dog?”

  “I am still the only man in the tribes to have killed two griffins,” he said, but he did not laugh. He grunted, softly. She hoped the pain of his wound scalded him. She hoped he was suffering. “The beghs cannot turn their backs on me. One defeat does not mean the end of the war.”

  “What do you want? What have you ever wanted?”

  He was silent for so long that she sat up, brushing moldy straw from her lips with the backs of her hands. Thirst chafed her throat.

  Still, he said nothing. A shroud of silence fell, broken only by the sound of the river. This river didn’t have the deep strength of the Veser. It flowed more lightly, singing over rocks and shallows, the bass melody of its main current almost lost beneath these higher notes and the constant roaring rush of wind through the trees. It reminded her of the rushing river after the battle at the tumulus, when Bayan’s mother had called down a flood that had swept away the vanguard of the Quman pursuit, that had blocked the river, delaying Bulkezu’s army long enough that Bayan and Sapientia had been able to lead their battered troops on an orderly retreat.

  Was Bayan truly dead? What had happened to his mother? Was it her magic that had struck down Cherbu?

  She could stand it no longer. “If the luck of a Kerayit shaman dies, what happens to that shaman?”

  “She dies.”

  “Why did you risk killing Prince Bayan’s mother, yet won’t risk killing me? Don’t you all fear the Kerayit weather witches?”

  “Any wise man does. But it was our only chance. The other prince was protected from Cherbu’s magic, so I had to strike Bayan.” Small at first, then growing, he giggled, that nasty, gleeful, mad laughter. “I’ve been wanting to get rid of him for a long time, anyway. But I do regret losing Cherbu.” Nothing in his tone gave credence to this statement.

  “Surely Cherbu understood that if he struck against Bayan, then Bayan’s mother would avenge her son.”

  “Cherbu didn’t like me anyway. He was jealous that I was the elder born and that he had to obey me.”

  “Did you care about him at all?”

  He made no answer, as if she’d spoken to him in a language he did not understand.

  “Then why not have me killed, if the wrath of my Kerayit shaman will not strike you but only the person whose hand strikes the killing blow?”

  “Nay, it’s not your young shaman I fear. It’s the owl who watches over you, who is the messenger of the Fearsome One.”

  Hanna thought that she actually heard fear in his voice, quickly surfacing, as quickly gone. He rose and went outside so fast that he kicked dirt up into her face. She spat, wiped her mouth. Two guards crouched in the doorway, watching her. One held the rope that bound her at the neck. With a sigh, she lay back down

  No Lions’ voices serenaded her as she dozed, waking at intervals with questions chasing themselves through her thoughts. Ai, God, what other prince was Bulkezu referring to? Who flew the gold banner she had seen emerging from the woods? Was it Sanglant who had saved the day? Was it possible that Liath was with him, hidden by magic?

  The darkness lightened at last. When they came for her, she was able to walk without too much discomfort while one of the guards led her horse. They moved downriver a short way before attempting a crossing, but the first man to dare the water got caught in the swift current, not deep but strong. He slid off his saddle and his wings dragged him down. The horse fought the water before being lost to sight in the predawn twilight.

  The soldiers made certain signs, as though to avert the evil eye. Even Bulkezu seemed unwilling to test the waters, although Hanna would gladly have swum, given the chance. She had never feared the water, but she was fiercely glad to see that they did. If they stayed here, trapped by the river, eventually their enemies would catch them.

  A twig snapped behind them. A warning whistle shrilled, cut off abruptly. The Quman soldiers spun around, raising their weapons those who had them.

  She saw her chance. She yanked hard on the rope, jerked it right out of Bulkezu’s hand in that instant when his attention jumped away from her, and leaped into the river. Hinging herself forward, she hit the water with a mighty splash, head going under. When she surfaced, she floundered toward deeper water, thrust forward as Bulkezu cursed behind her and shouts rang out. A host of men broke out of the trees to surround the band of Quman and their horses.

  The current caught her. With bound hands, it was hard to keep her head above the water. The trailing rope caught in a snag and dragged tight.

  “Hanna!”

  Just as the noose pulled taut, choking her, just as her vision hazed and the water closed over her face, a hand gripped her. The rope came free, cut through, and she went limp, letting herself be hauled to the bank through the streaming water and thrown up on shore like a fish gasping for air.

  “Hanna! We thought you were dead!”

  Coughing and spluttering, she rolled onto her stomach and heaved a few times onto rocky shoreline. At last, she looked up to see the concerned and horrified faces of four very familiar men: Ingo, Leo, Folquin, and Stephen, her good friends from the Lions.

  “Bulkezu!” she cried, heaving again as she struggled to her feet, but Ingo caught her easily as she staggered.

  “Nay
, we’ve captured a group of them, the ones that had you prisoner. Are you saying that lord with the broken wings is Prince Bulkezu himself?” He laughed aloud and punched Folquin merrily on the shoulder. “Won’t we have a great prize to deliver to Prince Sanglant!”

  “Ai, God,” whispered Hanna. “I’m free.”

  Her legs gave out completely and, while Ingo held her, she broke down and sobbed uncontrollably, a storm of tears she could no longer restrain.

  5

  ROSVITA rose at dawn and, after prayers, studied the first of the books Heriburg and Ruoda had found in the palace library the day before. This copy of the prose Life of Taillefer, by his faithful cleric and counselor Albinus, said in his time to be the most learned man in the world, confirmed what she already knew. Taillefer had had four daughters who lived to adulthood. Three had entered the church, including the famous Biscop Tallia. The fourth girl, Gundara, had after certain unnamed embarrassments been married to the Duc de Rossalia, the most powerful noble in the kingdom outside of Taillefer’s own family. Albinus said nothing more about Gundara’s life, only mentioned that a set of rich bed curtains, three Belguise tapestries, a square table engraved with a depiction of the universe set out as seven spheres, and four chests of treasure including vessels of gold and silver were allotted to her in Taillefer’s will.

  “Here is the Chronicle of Vitalia.” Ruoda opened the next book to the appropriate chapter. The cleric and deacon Vitalia, at the Salian convent of St. Ceneri on the Eides, had written an extensive history of her cloister, and it was owing to her superior understanding as a woman that they could therefore discover more of the details they desired to know. In the civil wars following Taillefer’s death, the great emperor’s nephew’s cousin Lothair had emerged triumphant in the end and been crowned king of Salia in 629. Yet he had never been strong enough to claim the imperial title.