'What did he say?' I asked desperately.
He waved his hand north, towards Hard Hill. 'He confided in me. He worried that you had been betrayed, and he said he knows where Tear and Balderich are held by the orders of your father, in Odo's former hold. I was shocked to learn Balderich is alive. The true leader of the Marcomanni, but what can we do? He told me he came to me, for it seemed to him we would be natural allies, seeing how the southern men came back with no loot but empty horses, and the northern men with fewer dead but all the wealth. He was right, of course.'
Ansbor was always the keenest of us. My head spun. So Ansbor already found Balderich. I would free him. 'And Ishild?'
He nodded as he eyed me. 'The girl you made pregnant? The deed that nearly condemned you to losing your hands? He did not need to tell me this. Ishild is with Gunhild, your aunt, your father's wife. Ishild is still pregnant, and your father does not trust Odo. He watches her closely. Moreover, Tear and Balderich are being watched by that bald shit Leuthard, they say.'
'Leuthard,' I said grimly, for the warrior was terrible news. Catualda's father, Bero, had many champions, but Leuthard had been the greatest of them, a spear terror, breaker of walls, brother to Maroboodus's lieutenant, Guthbert. Burlein snapped his fingers. 'No, it's not going to be easy to conquer him.'
'You knew much about my matters already, Burlein,' I said, gritting my teeth at the thought of Ishild being held a prisoner, despite our differences. Once, we had been friends, nearly more.
'Yes. And I think your friend is right,' he laughed. 'I will do what you have done. I will try to reverse my fortunes. And we will do so together.'
'To do this, my father has to die,' I said calmly.
'We will kill him, and restore the rights of free men,' Burlein nodded and turned the horse. 'We will calm our ghosts, and make them happy.'
I smiled inwardly. 'Did you know Gunhild is not happy with my father?' He glanced at me, and could not help but smile. I continued. 'The whole issue started with my father withholding Gunhild's royal blood from your family, reneging on the promise he gave. But, she is still there. Perhaps she might be without a man one day, and you are looking for a field to plough.'
'She has not been a fertile field, Hraban, childless,' he said, intrigued, for Gunhild was of the high, ancient royal blood. Who married her, ruled all the Marcomanni, not only the South or the North.
'Father wanted to marry another for the children, and keep her for the blood and pleasure,' I snickered, and he actually blushed.
'Shut the hell up, Hraban, and let us go and plan,' he told me and turned to look at me. 'I am glad the Raven flew this way. I hate the bloody, ill-omened crows, for we have had few too many here lately. Let us entice them to move to the Hard Hill, and soon we will piss on your father's grave.'
‘I’ll not have him buried, lord,’ I told him.
‘I’m fine with that,’ he agreed.
I smiled at him, thinking Fulcher was wise after all. But, he was wrong about my fame.
It could be regained.
PART II: CLAWS AND SPEARS
'I do hate you, boy. Not sure why, but there you have it. Sometimes the dogs just hate each other, for what would the world be like if we all loved each other, eh? We would be bored to tears. I will see you in Valholl.'
Leuthard to Hraban.
CHAPTER V
I rode off with Fulcher the next morning. I was riding Minas, and we led a string of sturdy, old workhorses loaded with mottled, ugly bags full of hides and rubble. We followed the same routes we had ridden with Wandal and Felix earlier that year, and I was deep in my thoughts. I had cast my die.
The sky looked like it was about to rain, and one could not be sure if it would be wet snow or ice-cold water. The leaves were turning yellow and red, and it was freezing cold in the night. I wore a bearskin tunic with matching pants; a hood was covering my face. My helmet was hidden in a sack, and I had a bag of silver, some gold mixed in, and Vago's head was packed in yet another heavy leather sack. We rested when the sun went down, and Fulcher was quiet as he guarded the woods. He noticed I did not sleep. Instead, I stared at him, and so he stared back. Finally, he shrugged. 'I was right, was I not? About Burlein?'
I grunted, not willing to admit anything.
'And that you feel hope now, less guilt?'
'Maybe?' I said reluctantly.
'Definitely,' he said happily.
'Had you heard my friend had visited the town?' I asked and frowned. He did not answer, but dug around the grass with the butt of his spear. 'You had? You knew Burlein had spoken with him about me?' I mused. 'You bastard.'
'I am not privy to my lord's councils,' he told me with a hurt voice. 'My sight told me Burlein was not entirely hateful to you, and I had heard some gossip when I visited Grinrock. But, my sight is true.' He got up to take a piss in the dark. 'I told you that you should meet Burlein,' he said from the darkness. ‘And now, you have real plans.'
'Do you have sight on what is going to happen in Hard Hill?' I growled back at him. 'What do we need to succeed?'
He laughed. 'Wyrd, lord. Fate. Luck. I do not see that far. Call it what you will, but luck we shall need!'
'I call you an idiot, a charlatan, and a liar, but I like you,' I said grudgingly.
He was quiet for a while. 'My lord is dead. He was never replaced. I asked Burlein for a leave to serve you. I will give you my oath, but of course, you must give me wealth and protection, as a lord should. And help me with my vengeance.'
I laughed, surprised. 'You ask me for protection? If it is not a Vangione with slavering dogs, then it is a powerful Marcomanni, an army of the Matticati, or a mad, world-hating vitka trying to slay me. I would need an army to keep you safe.'
He laughed in the dark but said, 'No, lord. I mean protection in small ways. That you shall not betray me. I just need a lord, and a lord who saved my family is a fine choice, no matter if he is considered excrement by all the rest.'
'Give your oaths then, Fulcher, and I will do the same. I suppose I will need you, even if you think I am an evil man,' I said, and he did, his long face betraying a brief smile, the first real one since the death of his son.
'What is the plan?' he asked, sitting down.
'Well, we will take Father's hall with Burlein,' I spat and glowered at him.
'Burlein is taking a chance, then,' he said, and nodded with approval.
'But, I am changing the plan a bit,' I told him.
'How?'
'We will see, but I have a hunch where Balderich is, and gods know I will want him there when we face Father.'
'Where is he?' Fulcher asked carefully.
'If Father is holding Tear a prisoner in her former home, then there are most likely other prisoners there.'
He nodded, his eyes worried. 'That means you would have to kill the guards. Leuthard. Without Burlein.'
'Yes,' I told him. 'We will see. I need an idea how to deal with that beast.'
'You need sense. If you will not sleep, then you can guard,' he crumbled and fell to his side. 'Lord.'
We rode out the next morning, and soon, emerging from the thickets, Marcomanni riders from Hard Hill could be seen, patrolling the land languidly, for there was little evidence of a war. The weather was chilly, there was a bank of clouds racing across the northern sky. I was afraid, yet determined, as I gazed the horizon for the hill I knew. At midday, I saw it; the long, flat hill our tribe had so long ago made their capital. It was strangely different from the past spring, when I spied it for the first time. Yes, the Matticati had burned part of it down, and those halls and huts were still being repaired, but it was mostly still lightly wooded, save for the very top, where Balderich's old hall stood, the Red Hall, now apparently the home of Maroboodus. The colorful clusters of halls were strangling the slopes. The gardens and stables were still there, and the sturdy planked harbor attracted some long-hulled traders, but it was different, nonetheless. It was Maroboodus's town, and no longer lovely to me. It had been
so when I first spied it with Nihta, Maroboodus's deadly lieutenant.
Hate changes so many things.
A troop of mounted Marcomanni rode up from a nearby village. One of the war parties charged with the safety around the town, the hulking warriors held better shields, long beards, and wild hairs braided with their elaborate suebian knots, spears and axes glittering in the pale sunlight. They stopped in front of us, and we halted the horses with difficulty, cursing the packhorses that seemed reluctant to yield to each other.
A man laughed gruffly at our struggles, good-natured, but still annoying. He waved his hand around. 'Welcome, and who are you?' he said with a slightly bored voice. Clearly there were many people visiting the hill those days, and they had little time to enjoy the last of the dwindling sunlight and sour ale.
Fulcher rode forward and bowed. 'I am Fulcher, from the mountains to the south. I bear ore for your smiths and some hides. Will they buy, you think?'
The man nodded. 'They will buy. The month ends tomorrow; winter is upon us. The long months of being starved of ore and coal makes this a perfect time to be selling. They will need it, surely, like a drunk needs dice. Who is he?' he pointed at me.
Fulcher rolled his eyes, tearing softly at his red beard. 'Ah him! That is my son, he is an idiot, a hulking thing good for carrying and fetching, and perhaps breeding,' Fulcher said, and hit me lightly with the end of his spear. I growled softly but held my peace. 'One has to guide him like a mule.'
They laughed with Fulcher like a pack of bastards and rode off, their shields banging on their backs, beards flying behind them. I glowered at Fulcher, who pretended not to notice. He might seem a taciturn, sad man for his recent losses, but he certainly enjoyed himself, when the time was ripe. We rode to the bottom of the hill, dodging some halls and a cellar surrounded by a lush garden. The area looked prosperous. Some new houses were being built, and the fields were still full of fat, though small, cows. Many people streamed around in the wooded ways of the place, more men rode in patrols, and harried traders and craftsmen came and went.
We found a busy market set up downhill from Bero's old hall, near the harbor, where my friends might still live in Wandal's father's smithy. Sweet wine and expensive mead, unusually sizable cows, and even rare sheep, many handsome items were being sold. Some weapons by skilled smiths, as well, were on display. A grizzly man in a bear cape was selling a live, fairly tame wolf and also a savage, rare beast on another cage, the size of a dog, growling with hate at a pack of children poking it with sticks. I stopped to stare at it.
'Maroboodus is doing well,' I noted, and Fulcher nodded.
'It is opulence he has brought, and men do love opulence. Even men seem to enjoy the jewelry,' he said, noting a warrior rifling through a hoard of fine bronze arm-rings. 'South is different.'
'Men should love war,' I spat as I groped for the silver I had been given by Burlein. 'But, jewelry makes them look war-like.'
'Women love fineries, and that I understand,' Fulcher said sourly. 'My wife was always unhappy about our secluded hall, hating the trip to the town. She would not be kind to me, some days and nights after she visited Grinrock.'
'She denied you your happiness,' I drawled lecherously, 'and you got back to her bed by buying such trinkets?' He hummed, not getting pulled into such a discussion. I turned towards him. 'You mock me in front of the enemy, enjoying it, and I cannot make mockery of you?'
'She was raped,' he told me morosely, and I started to argue, but decided not to. He was certainly right, but his wife lived, and that meant something as well. He was an enigmatic man, brusque and efficient, but also moody. I wondered how he would enjoy Wandal and Ansbor's company, for we were young men with young men's amusements. I huffed and decided it was his problem. I went to banter with the man in a bear cloak and parted with much silver. I gave him instructions, and he nodded.
'Why?' Fulcher asked, as he eyed what I had bought.
'I got an idea for Leuthard,' I snickered. 'A mad, crazy idea, but better than a dozen of Burlein's spears.'
'You are mad,' he said softly, and he was right. It was mad.
We rode on, cumbersomely taking the horses past crates and jugs being carried up the Hill from the harbor. There were celebrations ongoing up there, I decided, my eyes scouring the Red Hall and Father's home. Fulcher nodded at my scrutiny. 'He has a guard of men, fifty strong, with the looted Roman armor. That includes the surviving riders he brought home. You know some of them, no?'
'Yes,' I said with a small voice. Nihta was a deadly man, worth a dozen warriors. Guthbert, the huge bastard I liked, Leuthard's brother, a Batavi originally, but Father's champion nonetheless. Another man who was worth a dozen men. We would run out of men if they should fight us fairly. 'He was training men in the east, the Roman way. They are not here, no?'
Fulcher continued, while guiding the horse past some women scolding their irate children. 'They are not. And he is still training more. He brought some of the looted Roman armor here, and gave it to young and hungry men, but most went east. The old families, he seems to despise, even if he has to bear with them. I hear the Quadi, whom Sibratus and Vannius led to the Matticati war, have some Roman armor and weapons as well. Few Germani have such a force,' he said neutrally, as he guided his horse around some Marcomanni maidens, who were not yet made old by the joys of parenthood, and smiled happily up at him, for he had wonderfully long hair and a fiercely handsome face.
'Your wife would not like the looks they gave you,' I teased him. 'Would need to buy her a crown to get back under the sheets.'
'Those women used to live in Grinrock,' he said with mild reproof. 'Hope they keep their mouth shut.'
'They follow the men after riches and glory. We will see whom they follow soon. Force of men, all armed in mail, eh? Likely all in the Hall up there.' He nodded. We had already spoken about this with Burlein. That night, we would deal with them, armor or not. Before that, I would go and do a deed. And before that, I would have to see if Wandal was home. And Ansbor.
I rode to Euric's well-ordered yard. It seemed ages since we were there, since Nihta had fetched me to be judged by Father. The hall seemed strange indeed, the yard unfamiliar. We dismounted, and I gave the reins to Fulcher and stepped to the door, opening it softly with my foot for I heard the dull clangs of a smithy.
Euric was hammering on a spear point, his eyes red, back hunched.
I stepped in and he looked up, eyeing me hopefully. Then he slumped and just nodded slowly, trying to see past the hood covering my face. Gods, Wandal had not returned. Surely that was it. He put his hammer down heavily. 'Selling or buying?' he asked dully. Ansbor came to the room from the side, his brown beard long and unruly, dark rings around his eyes. It was true he was no longer entirely fat, though not thin either. The wound Cassia had been healing had made him a suffering husk of the boy I had known. He seemed older, in many ways like me.
I stood there, in my hood. Cassia followed Ansbor to the room, her pretty face curious, wiping her hands to her tunic and her long, lustrous black hair was disheveled. I was half surprised she was still there. I had promised the Celt woman freedom after Ansbor was healed. I scrutinized my friend, and wondered if there was something that was not hale yet. Cassia had an inquisitive face, one with thin, sharp eyebrows that moved animatedly, adorably, and I knew her father had been a famous Celt noble across the water. Yet, there she was, still.
'What is it,' I heard Ermendrud call out from the side room. 'Trouble or amusement?'
‘Gods,’ I whimpered softly. I had been Ermendrud's lover; she had thought she would marry me, but I had been briefly promised to Gunda, a Chatti princess, and so I had taken an opportunity to force her on Wandal. Now she had not objected too loudly, but neither did she love me for it. Yet, at her insistence, Wandal had joined me in my exile. I grinned briefly at the thought. Perhaps she had wanted to be rid of both. She appeared, her slightly flat face unchanged, the blonde hair sweaty, and cheeks smeared with a web of flours. She stop
ped to stare at me, and dropped a rag she had been using to wipe her hands and put a hand before her face, surprised.
'What is it, girl?' Euric asked.
'Hraban is back!' she gasped and rushed forward but then checked herself suddenly.
I thought she wanted news of Wandal. I sighed, and pushed my hood back. 'Hello, Ansbor. Euric.' I nodded at Cassia gratefully, her face scowling now, and then I bowed slightly to Ermendrud.
Euric's eyebrows shot up, Ansbor rushed forward, and we embraced. 'Thank Woden, thank you, high god,' Ansbor breathed, his eyes wet, his beard tickling my chest.
I pushed him further and looked at Euric, Ermendrud, and Cassia. 'I do not know where Wandal is, not even if he is alive or dead,' I told them, and they looked away, disappointed mixture of relief and disappointment on their collective faces.
Euric grunted. 'They say he fell in battle, and songs of his heroism are being sung in the feasts. They give me little happiness, though.'
I nodded and sat down and told them everything. How we had survived Odo and Gernot, and chased after Catualda for the ring and revenge, and how in Castrum Luppia, we had done great deeds worthy of a dozen men, fighting for a ballista that Nihta's men finally used to kill many Roman soldiers. Wandal had fought like a berserker, like I had, but had fallen from the wall. I had followed him down, falling to my doom due to Catualda, and the retreating Roman cohort had captured me. Fulcher entered slowly, and Euric served him a mug of good mead as I spoke, and they nodded. Cassia looked pale at my words, and Ermendrud was pulling at her dress, agitated. She cared for Wandal, after all.
'I do not know he is dead, at least he was not struck by a weapon,' I told them. 'Likely, he is a prisoner, somewhere.'
Euric nodded sadly. 'I did not blame you for his death, Hraban. He followed you, and you served him well. That he might be alive is good news, but where would we start looking?'
I felt shame for having let him fight alone in the rampart while I went for Catualda, and Ermendrud noticed this, slamming her fist forcefully on the table, startling everyone. 'I blame you, though. I am sure you let him down. You grasp at bright stars, and when you fail, you climb over bodies of friends and their women alike. He was a good man. Is!' I noticed Ansbor looked uncomfortable, but stole glances at Cassia, full of star-eyed wonder. Ansbor had grown attached to Cassia. I snorted at Ermendrud's anger, but waved my hands to mollify her. She fumed and stayed her tongue, with difficulty.
Raven's Wyrd: A Novel of Germania and Rome (Hraban Chronicles Book 2) Page 7