In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“We’re trying to come in quietly,” scolded the young soldier when Ivar caught up to him. “Don’t leave a trail.”

“They were hungry.”

“Everyone is hungry! A coin will gain them bread today, if there’s any to be had, but nothing tomorrow.”

“God enjoin us to ease suffering where we can. What is that she said about the phoenix?”

o;They’d need more hands, then, wouldn’t they? A man who had some experience fighting would be of use to them.” Erkanwulf brooded as they moved through the woods. No birds sang. Except for the murmuring wind and the soft fall of their horses’ hooves, there was no sound at all. The quiet made Ivar nervous. He hadn’t felt quite right since that terrible night when wind and rain had battered them and killed Erkanwulf’s horse. They had commandeered the old nag Erkanwulf rode from a village whose name Ivar had already forgotten. Those folk hadn’t greeted them kindly, but they’d offered them shelter and given up the old mare in exchange for some of Princess Theophanu’s coin. Those villagers didn’t love the Wendish either, and with King Henry gone so long from his usual progress around the countryside, they saw no reason not to turn their hearts toward the old stories of Varren queens and kings who had once ruled these lands without any Wendish overlord telling them what to do.

A long time ago, so it seemed, he had been young and thoughtless. He smiled, thinking back on it. Perhaps not so long ago. But so much had happened. He had been thrown headlong into a world whose contours were more complicated than he had ever imagined as the neglected youngest child of the old count up in Heart’s Rest.

“For all I know, my father is dead by now, and my brother Gero become count in his place.”

Erkanwulf glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “What has that to do with us? My lord?”

“Nay, nothing. I just thought of it. I just thought how the world is changed, as you said yourself. Not just because of that storm or Biscop Constance’s imprisonment, or any of those things, but because I left my father’s estate and journeyed farther than I ever expected to go. I can’t be that youth that I once was. When I think of how I was then … I don’t know. It’s just different now. We’ve chosen our path. We can’t go back.”

“Huh. True enough words.”

“What do you think we’ll find in Autun?” Ivar asked.

Erkanwulf only sighed. “I hope we find what we’re looking for. Whatever that may be.”

2

IT snowed the morning they crossed the river on the ferry and moved into a straggle of woodland near the southern gate of Autun. They stumbled over two corpses half hidden under branches and mostly decomposed. Skulls leered at them, so they moved on. In the ruins of an old cottage abandoned among the trees, they stabled the horses with fodder and water, tying their thread-worn blankets over the animals’ backs. After that, they trudged overland to the city walls. No pristine stretches of fresh white snow blanketed the fields. It was all a muddy gray.

They passed several clusters of huts and cottages, shutters closed and doors shut against the cold. No one was about. Once they heard a goat’s bleat; once a child’s weary wailing dogged them before fading into the distance.

Erkanwulf led them first along the river and thence to a postern gate. They approached cautiously, hoods cast up over their faces. Ivar hung back as Erkanwulf strode forward to confront the two men hanging about on guard.

A conversation ensued; he knew them. After a moment he beckoned Ivar forward and without further conversation they were hustled past the gates and into the alleys of the city. Autun was a vast metropolis; Sigfrid had told him that perhaps ten thousand people lived there, cheek by jowl, but Ivar wasn’t sure he believed it. That was an awful lot of people, too many to comprehend. Even Prince Bayan and Princess Sapientia’s combined armies hadn’t numbered more than ten or fifteen centuries of soldiers in addition to auxiliaries and militia.

On this late winter afternoon, few braved the streets. In one square a trio of beggars huddled by a public fountain, hands and faces wrapped in rags to protect themselves from the bitter cold. The tiny child’s face was thin from hunger, and he scooted forward on his rump, like a cripple without use of his legs, to catch the copper coin Ivar tossed to them.

“Bless you, Brother!” the mother croaked, surprised.

“Where the phoenix flies, there is hope of salvation,” he said to her.

Her face lit. “Truth rises with the phoenix!” she answered triumphantly. “Bless you! Bless you!”

Unnerved, he hurried after Erkanwulf, who had not waited.

“We’re trying to come in quietly,” scolded the young soldier when Ivar caught up to him. “Don’t leave a trail.”

“They were hungry.”

“Everyone is hungry! A coin will gain them bread today, if there’s any to be had, but nothing tomorrow.”

“God enjoin us to ease suffering where we can. What is that she said about the phoenix?”

“Hush.”

They hurried across a broader avenue and stood in the narrow alley waiting for a score of mounted soldiers wearing the stallion of Wayland to pass before they scurried through the sludge to a narrow path between two-storied wood houses. The walls tilted awkwardly, shadowing their path, and the shadows made it almost as dim as twilight as they sidestepped refuse left lying in the cracked mud. Because it was cold, it did not stink, but it would, when spring brought warm weather.

“I’ll never get used to cities,” muttered Ivar.

“It’s not so bad,” said Erkanwulf. “A man’s freer here, where he can get rid of his past. And safer too, inside walls.”