And yet, if the Lady of Battles had appeared to him and not to the others, was that not a sign of his worthiness? Did he not carry the rose, the mark of her favor?
A servingwoman refilled Lord Geoffrey’s cup and lingered just long enough to look over Alain impertinently but with obvious interest; he flushed, suddenly warm. And why shouldn’t he be? The hall was certainly warm enough to suit the coldest heart.
“Have you formed some opinion yourself as to the Eika’s reasons, Lord Alain?” asked Aldegund with a sharp tinge to her voice, like malice. A sweet-faced woman, scarcely more than a girl, Aldegund had not accepted Alain and, except for her marriage to Geoffrey, Lavastine had no claim over her. Her kin had their own lands and estates, their own connection to Varren nobility and to the Wendish kings. She made a gesture and the servingwoman moved away to tend to other cups.
“I have.” His flush deepened as he heard his own words. It sounded so very—proud. But a count’s son was allowed some arrogance; indeed, it was expected of him.
“Go on.” Lavastine gestured with his cup.
Alain allowed himself a drink of wine for courage—such very fine wine, carted in from Salia, and so much of it— before he continued. “I think Bloodheart means to make of himself a king to rival King Henry, or King Lothair of Salia. But when a king or queen is made, there are always princes who chafe under this rule. Some of these warleaders might not like being under the hand of another Eika, even one said to be a powerful enchanter. Yet if their own people wish to gain Bloodheart’s favor, those warleaders and the men loyal to them might be driven out of their own lands because they are rebels. Perhaps that is why they winter here. They may have nothing to go back to.”
“It is possible,” said Geoffrey grudgingly, finishing their shared cup. His wife sent a servant at once to refill it.
“Is it not just as likely,” asked an older man whom Alain identified as Meginher, one of Aldegund’s many maternal uncles, a fighting man who had a considerable reputation, “that these winter camps have been built at the order of this Bloodheart?”
“Why do we suppose,” asked Aldegund sharply, “that these Eika behave in any manner like ourselves? They are savages, are they not? Why should they act as we do? What do we truly know of them?”
I know what I see in my dreams. But he could not speak of those dreams out loud. His father had forbidden it. He bowed his head before her superior wisdom, for though she was young, she was a woman, lady of this estate and fashioned in the likeness of Our Lady, who orders the Hearth of Life. Men were fashioned for rougher work, and though certainly they were usually skilled beyond women in combat and hard labor, everyone knew, and the church mothers had often written on, the greater potential of women for the labors of the mind and the arts. These blessings, like that of childbirth, were granted to them by the grace of Our Lady, Mother of Life.
“We know little of the Eika,” said Lavastine curtly. “While we still have good weather, however, myself, my son, and these of our men-at-arms who accompany us will patrol the coasts for as long as we can. We will march west to Osna Sound next. The last and worst incursion of the Eika came there two springs ago, as you know.”
“Ah.” Lord Geoffrey leaned forward with new interest. “There is a village at Osna Sound. Isn’t that where you were fostered, Lord Alain? I remember when you came to Lavas town along with the other laborers who owed their year’s service.”
“You do?” asked Alain, surprised that as important a man as Geoffrey had noticed an insignificant common boy like himself.
But Geoffrey looked down swiftly, and Alain glanced at his father to see that Lavastine had fixed an expressionless—yet for that very reason intimidating—stare on the other man.
Meginher snorted and turned to his cup, taking a swig of wine. Servants staggered in under the weight of a roasted boar and several haunches of venison decorated with pimentos. Alain could not help but think of Lackling, who had eaten gruel all his life with a few beans or turnips if there were extra. Poor bastard … just like Alain, only how different Lackling’s fate had turned out to be. He had never been given leave to eat food this rich, except the last scraps taken from the table if he could grab them before they were thrown to the pigs.
“Of course,” said Lavastine, relinquishing the cup to his hostess, who had it filled once again with wine, “any person would have noticed your quality at once, Alain, for it was preordained that you take your place among the magnates and potentes, was it not? Twice now you have distinguished yourself in battle.” He said this firmly and clearly so that every person in the hall heard him. He gestured toward the captain of his cavalry. “Is it not true, Captain?”
The soldier stood. He, like the others, had bent his knee before Alain four days ago after the battle—and not just because Lavastine wished them to do so. “I have fought for the counts of Lavas since I was a lad, and I have never seen anything like this. I remember when the boy killed the guivre at the battle outside Kassel. Even so, to see him ride through his first battle as a true soldier, to see him strike to either side with no sign of fear, with such strength, with such fury that it shone from him as if he had been touched by the saints and God Themselves, to see him slay Eika on his right hand and on his left, I could see he had been born to the life of a warrior.” The other men—those of Lavastine’s soldiers who had survived the battle— pounded cups and knife hilts and empty platters on the table as they roared their approval.
Alain leaped up. “It was the hand of the Lady of Battles, not my own,” he insisted, “which killed those Eika.”
“Sit,” said Lavastine softly and, as obedient as the hounds, Alain sat.
The others murmured, but Lord Geoffrey made no more comments about Alain’s service as a laborer at Lavas Holding, and Lady Aldegund turned the talk to more innocent subjects: the year’s harvest, the new wheeled plow, and how the mild summer and autumn presaged a good growing season which would, in turn, presage a rich harvest of taxes.
A third course was brought in, veal and lamb spiced with cumin and pepper and other exotic flavors and condiments. A poet, trained in the court chapel of the Salian king and now singing for his supper at the lesser courts of nobles, sang from an old and lengthy panegyric in praise of the Salian Emperor Taillefer as Alain picked at his food.
o;It is possible,” said Geoffrey grudgingly, finishing their shared cup. His wife sent a servant at once to refill it.
“Is it not just as likely,” asked an older man whom Alain identified as Meginher, one of Aldegund’s many maternal uncles, a fighting man who had a considerable reputation, “that these winter camps have been built at the order of this Bloodheart?”
“Why do we suppose,” asked Aldegund sharply, “that these Eika behave in any manner like ourselves? They are savages, are they not? Why should they act as we do? What do we truly know of them?”
I know what I see in my dreams. But he could not speak of those dreams out loud. His father had forbidden it. He bowed his head before her superior wisdom, for though she was young, she was a woman, lady of this estate and fashioned in the likeness of Our Lady, who orders the Hearth of Life. Men were fashioned for rougher work, and though certainly they were usually skilled beyond women in combat and hard labor, everyone knew, and the church mothers had often written on, the greater potential of women for the labors of the mind and the arts. These blessings, like that of childbirth, were granted to them by the grace of Our Lady, Mother of Life.
“We know little of the Eika,” said Lavastine curtly. “While we still have good weather, however, myself, my son, and these of our men-at-arms who accompany us will patrol the coasts for as long as we can. We will march west to Osna Sound next. The last and worst incursion of the Eika came there two springs ago, as you know.”
“Ah.” Lord Geoffrey leaned forward with new interest. “There is a village at Osna Sound. Isn’t that where you were fostered, Lord Alain? I remember when you came to Lavas town along with the other laborers who owed their year’s service.”
“You do?” asked Alain, surprised that as important a man as Geoffrey had noticed an insignificant common boy like himself.
But Geoffrey looked down swiftly, and Alain glanced at his father to see that Lavastine had fixed an expressionless—yet for that very reason intimidating—stare on the other man.
Meginher snorted and turned to his cup, taking a swig of wine. Servants staggered in under the weight of a roasted boar and several haunches of venison decorated with pimentos. Alain could not help but think of Lackling, who had eaten gruel all his life with a few beans or turnips if there were extra. Poor bastard … just like Alain, only how different Lackling’s fate had turned out to be. He had never been given leave to eat food this rich, except the last scraps taken from the table if he could grab them before they were thrown to the pigs.