by Kate Elliott
“But if you will not have me, what am I to do?” pleaded Marcovefa, still pressed against him.
“My lord prince.”
“Thank God.” He turned away from Marcovefa as his good friend hurried up to him, lamp in hand. “Heribert, you are come at just the right time. See that this woman is given sceattas, enough that she might set herself up in some business if she has any craft, or that she might return to Salia, or dower herself into a convent.”
Heribert raised one eyebrow, but his expression remained grave. “As you wish, my lord prince.” Marcovefa had flinched back at Sanglant’s words, but now she slid closer to Heribert, perhaps thinking to work her wiles on him. Sanglant smiled slightly, then frowned as Heribert went on. “You’d best attend to your brother. There’s trouble.”
It was a relief to climb the steps in the stone tower, the oldest part of the ducal palace, where noble prisoners were kept in a drafty chamber behind a stout door ribbed with iron bands. He had set his own men to guard Ekkehard’s door, knowing they would allow no mischief from folk who might otherwise be eager to harm the four men who had branded themselves as traitors.
“Trouble,” said Sergeant Cobbo, acknowledging him. Everwin, beside him, smiled nervously. “Captain’s inside with the noble ladies.”
“Which noble ladies would that be? Not my sister?” He had visions of Sapientia trying to pulp Ekkehard with her broadsword, but despite his youth Ekkehard was still taller and bigger than his elder sister, having inherited Henry’s height if not yet his breadth.
“Indeed, your sister. And Margrave Judith’s daughter, Your Highness. They’re both angry.”
He laughed curtly, thinking of Marcovefa’s tempting flesh. “And I’m damned thirsty, not having had a drink for far too long. We’ll see who’s most ill-tempered.”
Cobbo opened the door for him. He walked in to find Lady Bertha with four surly looking soldiers at her back and Ekkehard cornered between the hearth and a table by a raging Sapientia.
“It’s your fault!” Sapientia was screaming. “Bayan wouldn’t be dead if not for your treason!” She flung herself on Ekkehard, who raised his arms to protect himself from her fury.
Ekkehard’s three companions were being held back by main force by Sanglant’s soldiers as they tried to come to his aid. One wore linen bound around a head wound. Another’s arm was in a sling. Their dead comrade lay shrouded under a blanket on the chamber’s only bed. Not even Sanglant had dared suggest that the poor boy be given a place in the chapel beside Bayan and the other noble dead.
“My lord prince.” It was clear by the expression on Captain Fulk’s face that he was relieved to see Sanglant.
“Sapientia.” Sanglant crossed the plank floor in a half-dozen strides, grabbed his sister’s shoulders, and pulled her off Ekkehard. “Don’t let your grief for Bayan drive you to anything rash. God, and our father, will see that he is punished for his crimes.”
“I’ll see him hanged!” she cried, but she collapsed, weeping, into Sanglant’s arms, and he beckoned to her attendants, who hastened to her side, pried her off him, and led her away.
Bertha’s soldiers moved aside quickly to let them through, but as soon as Sapientia left the chamber, Bertha herself stepped forward. “What do you suppose King Henry intends to do with a son convicted of treason?”
“I stand as surety for my brother Ekkehard. What he did was wrong, but he’s young and may be forgiven once for being misled.”
“Brother!” Ekkehard threw himself against Sanglant. He still had a youth’s slenderness, no doubt because he was scarcely more than sixteen, but when he wrapped his arms around Sanglant, he held tight enough that Sanglant wheezed before pulling him off.
Bertha smiled. She had the look of her mother, cunning, sharp, and strong, and none of Hugh’s fabled beauty.
“You and your legion fought well in the battle,” added Sanglant.
“And lost a fair number of my good marchlanders,” she replied tartly. “I promised my elder sister Gerberga I’d bring her a reward for the sacrifice we Austrans and our cousins from Olsatia have made to rid Wendar of the Quman scourge. She lost her husband to a Quman raid last winter. And surely you know that Bulkezu himself is rumored to have killed our mother.”
Even a man as unused to intrigue as Sanglant could see where this was leading. “She wants a royal prince as recompense.”
“He’s young,” observed Bertha, looking Ekkehard over with the same cold regard she might reserve for choosing a new horse. “Not to my taste, but I’m sure that Gerberga will feel her loyalty to King Henry has been amply rewarded if she is given his youngest child as her new husband.”
“A rich prize, indeed. Unfortunately, Ekkehard is abbot at St. Perpetua’s in Gent.”
Bertha laughed. “And my bastard brother Hugh is, so they say, a presbyter in Darre, confidant of the Holy Mother. Vows to God may be conveniently put aside if earthly cares demand it. Your sister Sapientia wants to hang the boy for a traitor because she wants to avenge herself on him for Prince Bayan’s death.” A hard woman, she softened for one instant, touching her cheek as though a fly had tickled her. “He was a good man. If you’re a wise one, Prince Sanglant, you’ll convince your sister otherwise. Wendar will suffer if kin kill kin, as this boy should have known. I think my suggestion would serve us all best.”
“We shall speak of this later. Ekkehard will be sent to Quedlinhame meanwhile, to the care of our aunt, Mother Scholastica. I’ll be leading the army out at dawn, to pursue what remains of the Quman.”
Bertha didn’t waste words or energy. She understood the uses of fast action on campaign. “We’ll speak of this later,” she agreed. With a final glance at Ekkehard, she left with her men.
“I-I don’t want to be hanged,” whispered Ekkehard, still clinging to Sanglant’s arm.
“You should have thought of that before you went over to the Quman.”
“But surely you’d not allow them to kill me in such a dishonorable way. I didn’t have any choice once Bulkezu had captured me—”
“Spare me your excuses, Ekkehard. You’ve been a fool, and now you’ll suffer the consequences.” He glanced over toward the bed where that shrouded figure lay. “Ai, God, what was his name, the one I killed?”
“Welf.” Ekkehard had obviously been crying, and he began weeping again. “He threw himself in front of me. He saved my life.”
“I think he wanted to get himself killed,” muttered one of his companions.
“He managed it well enough,” observed Sanglant. “Isn’t that the way of war? I’ve a piece of news for you, Ekkehard. One of your comrades, Thiemo, still lives—”
“Thiemo is alive! Where is he?”
“He serves another prince now. I’ll let him know you’re alive, but he’s no longer yours to command. These other three—” They stammered out their names: Benedict, Frithuric, and Manegold. “You may return to the monastery or choose to suffer whatever fate Prince Ekkehard suffers. Which will it be?”
For all their youth, for all their foolishness, for all their crimes against Henry and Wendar, they knelt most graciously and proclaimed their undying loyalty to Ekkehard. They would walk with him wherever it led, even unto death.
“So be it.” Sanglant was glad to see that they had that much honor. He left them to stew, and to worry, and returned to the chamber allotted to him.
The bells rang for Vigils.
Blessing, Anna, and Zacharias slept, while Matto and Chustaffus stood guard and Thiemo played dice with Sibold, waiting up for their prince. The chamber was spacious enough to boast two tables and three beds. Wolfhere had pulled his camp chair over to the cold hearth. There he sat, staring into the ashes as though the dead fire still spoke to him.
He glanced up as Sanglant crossed to stand beside him. A few charred sticks lay in a heap to one side where they’d tumbled as they’d burned.
“You seem troubled,” said Sanglant quietly.
When Wolfhere made no answer, he sank down
beside him. Grief at Bayan’s loss cut hard as Sanglant watched the old Eagle reach out with the poker to disturb the charred sticks, mixing them into the heap of ashes. Dust rose from the hearth, and settled again. Bayan had managed to juggle four wives and not get himself killed; he’d even put one aside when the marriage to Sapientia had been offered to him, and he’d not been poisoned or bespelled with impotence by his cast-off wife. Surely he had the cunning to deal with Wolfhere. Impossible to think of Bayan’s corpse decaying and his soul fled.
Thoughts of death choked him. “What is wrong? Have you been using your Eagle’s sight? Surely my father isn’t—?”
“Worse.” Wolfhere’s voice actually trembled. “Anne remains skopos. Henry returned to the palace safely after his campaign in the southern provinces. But then, unless my sight betrays me, what came next—” He could not go on for a moment, and when he did finally speak, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “This much have I deduced from what I can see, although truly Anne’s sorceries have clouded the truth.”
“For God’s sake, go on!”
“I never thought Anne would stoop so low.”
“Did you not? I never had any doubt.”
Wolfhere’s sharp glance only made Sanglant smile bitterly. “So be it. You’re wiser than 1, my lord prince, but I have known her far longer than you have. My whole life in her service—” He could not go on.
“And my father, whom you swore to serve? I pray you, Eagle, tell me about my father!”
Wolfhere shuddered. “Possessed by a daimone. Puppet of Anne and Hugh. What role Queen Adelheid plays in all this I cannot tell. Ai, God! That such a thing should come to pass! He has even declared that he means to anoint the infant, Mathilda, as his heir.”
Anne and Hugh. Whatever else Wolfhere said faded as a rush of anger roared like wind, blinding him. “He should never have trusted them. Yet who is worse, the man who trusts the untrustworthy, or the one who turned his back when he knew what dangers lay in wait for the unwary?”
Wolfhere rested head in hands, looking ten years older at that moment, utterly weary. “What can we do? It is hopeless if they have already gained so much.”
“Nay, do not say so,” said Sanglant as he stared at the hearth. A single spark glinted among white coals. “We are not done yet.”
They rode out at dawn. Considering the disrepair of the walls, Sanglant found it amazing that the Quman hadn’t broken through in any of a half-dozen gaps. Perhaps they hadn’t managed it only because they hadn’t had time. According to Lady Sophie, Bulkezu and his army had arrived a mere three days before Sanglant.
He surveyed the army riding at his back: noble lords and ladies and their eager retinues, the Ungrians bearing the body of Prince Bayan in a barrel of wine, leading them in death as well as life, and Sapientia, subdued and silent. His daughter was laughing at something Lord Thiemo had said. Although the poor boy had wept when told that Prince Ekkehard lived, he had seemed relieved to be told that he could not return to him. Fulk rode at the head of Sanglant’s personal escort, the captain’s keen gaze missing nothing as they headed down the road leading east.
A rash course, that he meant to take now, but the only one left to him. All along, ever since he had turned his back on his father at Angenheim, he had known this was what he would have to do. He had just never suspected that the stakes would be quite so high.
Drastic measures for drastic times.
He kept Lord Wichman beside him, not trusting him anywhere else. “Your mother?” he asked politely.
Wichman laughed coarsely. “The old bitch. She’s stubborn enough to live on for months. I pray she does, if only to torture my sisters. Do you mean to disinherit them?”
“I am not regnant, nor have I been named regent, to pass such a judgment. I believe a messenger has been sent to my sister Theophanu at Quedlinhame. Sapientia must also be consulted.”
“So you say, Cousin, but she’s nothing without Bayan.” Wichman’s thoughtful look gave an unfamiliar cast to his usually arrogant and lustful features, as though another man peered out, seeking to be heard. “He was a right prick, but Lord knows we all respected him.” He hiked up his chain mail to scratch his crotch. “Did the woman please you? I had to content myself with a couple of warty whores down in the town. Maybe I ought to think of getting married. I could use a good setup like Druthmar, there, with Villam’s daughter. Lady Brigida is still looking for a husband, so they say.”
“I understand that Lady Bertha, Judith’s daughter, remains unmarried.”
This sent Wichman into howls of laughter, picked up by his cronies once they had heard the joke, and the conversation quickly grew so crude that even Sanglant could not stand to hear more of it. He rode ahead with Fulk and Wolfhere beside him, falling in with the solemn nobles who attended Princess Sapientia at the van.
South of the city they came to the battlefield, swarming now with looters, ravens, crows, scavengers, and the ever-present vultures circling overhead, waiting their chance. Most of the Wendish nobles had been hauled off the field last night, and now the common soldiers were being carted off to mass graves. The Ungrian priests had their own rites, which he purposefully ignored. The Quman, of course, would be burned. Feathers torn off broken wings rose like chaff on the dawn breeze. A woman wept over the body of a loved one. A cart rumbled past, piled high with corpses.
Farther away, ragged folk wandered the edge of the battlefield like ghosts, stunned and bewildered. Was that young woman with long black hair as lovely as she seemed from this distance? She walked at the head of a pack of about a dozen thin, frightened people, some of them children. They huddled for a while staring over the battlefield while Sanglant watched them. At their backs stood a line of trees set along the length of a fallow field, still green from the recent rains. At last, they turned and trudged toward Osterburg, the towers of the palace stark against the pale rose sky as the sun lifted free of the eastern forest.
The army picked up the pace but hadn’t gotten halfway through the open woodland toward the Veserling ford when they met a triumphant band of Lions marching in their direction with the last of the baggage train—that which hadn’t been able to get in last night—rolling along in two neat lines behind them. Their ragged banner flew proudly, and Captain Thiadbold called the halt and gestured to a Lion next to him to step forward and greet the prince.
“Prince Sanglant! Your Highness, I am called Ingo, sergeant of the first cohort. See what a fine prize we have brought you!”
Sanglant saw the Eagle first. She looked exhausted, and when she saw him she wept.
“My lord prince,” she cried, pressing forward on the horse they had given her to ride, “is Liath with you?”
She needed no answer, nor had he any to give her, knowing that his expression spoke as loudly as words might. She covered her eyes with a hand, hiding fresh tears.
She wasn’t the only prize the Lions had brought in. Beyond all expectation they had captured the greatest prize of all, trussed and tied and forced to walk like a common slave. His face looked horrible, the flap of skin torn away from his cheek still weeping blood although someone had attempted to treat it with a poultice. Impossible to know how much pain he was in. His gaze had a kind of insane glee in it as he laughed, hearing Hanna’s question.
“I should have known a Kerayit shaman’s luck would not crack so easily. You lied to me, frost woman!”
“Yes!” she cried, turning to him in fury. “I lied to you! I lied to you! She was never at Osterburg!”
“Silence, I pray you!” When he had silence, Sanglant spoke again, a single word: “Bulkezu.”
The Quman prince’s wings were completely shattered, but a few bright griffin feathers remained to him, dangling by threads from what remained of his harness.
“Hang him,” said Hanna hoarsely.
“Nay, let me kill him!” cried Wichman, riding up, and the cry rose throughout the ranks as soldiers clamored for the honor.
Sapientia drew her sword and rod
e forward, calling to the Lions to haul Bulkezu out in front of the line. “I’ll have his head in recompense for the death of my husband!”
Men crowded up from the back to see the spectacle, all of them yelling and taunting the twenty or so Quman prisoners, who stood their ground with expressions of blank indifference. Bulkezu laughed, as though to spur Sapientia’s anger further. She shrieked with fury and lifted her sword.
“Quiet!” Sanglant’s voice rang out above the outcry. He rode up beside Sapientia and caught her arm before she could strike. “Nay, Sister, we’ll have no killing of prisoners. Not when they can serve us in another way.”
“Hang him then, as the Eagle says! Then everyone will know with what dishonor we treat heathens!”
“He’ll serve us better alive than dead.”
The words brought disbelieving silence as men murmured and Sanglant’s pronouncement was passed by means of whispers to the rear ranks. Only one person had the courage to speak up.
“He’s a monster,” cried Hanna. “You must see that justice is done for all the ruin he’s caused. I witnessed it, in the name of King Henry!”
“Worse ruin will come if we do not fight the enemy that threatens us most. Lady Bertha. I pray you, come forward.”
Bertha rode up with her standard-bearer at her side and, with only a cursory acknowledgment of Sapientia, placed herself before Sanglant. Without question, Judith’s daughter had summed up the situation quickly. She had a cut on her face that hadn’t been there last night, and one hand bound up in linen—she was not a person he would care to face on the battlefield, strong, cunning, and ruthless.
“I’ll give you what you want,” he said, “if you’ll pledge me your loyalty.”
Sapientia gasped. “I was named as Henry’s heir! This is my army—”
“Nay, Sister. This is my army now.” He beckoned Heribert forward. “I’ll have it now,” he said in a low voice. “It’s time.”
With a brilliant grin, Heribert fished in the pouch hanging from his belt and brought out the gold torque that Waltharia had offered Sanglant months before. The prince took it, twisted the ends, and slid it around his neck. The heavy gold braid rested easily there. He had forgotten how natural its weight felt against his skin, the tangible symbol of his rank, his birthright, and his authority. His soldiers raised their voices in a deafening cheer. Sapientia’s face washed pale, and she swayed as if dizzied by the noise.