In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“So Erkanwulf led me to understand. What news?”

“None. Her Highness sorrows to hear of her aunt’s plight, but she has no army and no treasury and cannot act against Lady Sabella and Duke Conrad. She offered us coin, fresh horses, good cloaks, and such weapons as we might use to defend ourselves, but nothing more than that. She bides in Osterburg at the seat of the duchy of Saony. That is all.”

“The Wendish king, the first Henry, was duke of Saony before he became king.” Ulric pushed the chicken away but paused with a hand on the wooden platter as he caught the desperation of Ivar’s gaze. “You two look hungry.”

He shoved the carcass toward them, then engaged his sergeants in conversation while the two young men stripped every last scrap of meat and fat from the bones. Ale was brought, and the cup refilled after they had drained it. That, and the warmth and smoky draft from the lamps, made Ivar so tired that he forgot his rehearsed arguments.

“Do you mean to support Biscop Constance, or not?” he demanded. “If you do, I have a plan that may allow us to free her. If not, then I pray you will let me go my way without hindering me, and let Erkanwulf remain here with no punishment. He’s been a loyal soldier.”

“Oh, I know it,” said Ulric without looking at Erkanwulf, but Erkanwulf grinned at hearing those words and his shoulders lifted as he self-consciously rubbed the dirty stubble of a beard grown along his jaw. “But if you free Biscop Constance, what then? She has no loyal soldiers and no treasury. She is in no wise different than her niece in Saony. Better she remain safe in Queen’s Grave. If she escapes, Lady Sabella will hunt her down and this time kill her.”

“We must move quickly. I will need your help, horses, provisions, men to escort us. A special seat built onto a saddle so that the biscop can ride, because she is crippled.”

“If all this comes to pass, then what?”

“We will ride to Wendar, to the town of Kassel. That way, Lady Sabella holds no noble Wendish hostage in Varre. Once the biscop reaches the duchy of Fesse, she can choose herself whether to ride to Osterburg.”

Ulric was a cautious man. They both spoke in low voices. His sergeants, cool, stalwart men who spoke no word but only listened, sat so still and alert that a mouse could not have crept through that tiny chamber without being caught. Ivar wasn’t sure whether they were listening to the conversation or listening for sounds from outside, in the barracks where the last conversations of men making ready for rest played out, and out of doors beyond the single closed shutter.

“A large guard protects the palisade and gates enclosing Queen’s Grave. How are they to be suborned?”

“Not at all. They will believe they are only following Lady Sabella’s orders.”

For the first time, Ulric looked surprised. One of the sergeants rolled his eyes and tapped a foot thrice on the ground, as though impatient with this nonsense.

“Nay, hear me out.” Ivar hadn’t known how passionate he had become about this idea over the last few weeks. He had a debt to pay twice over, and perhaps, if he were honest, he could admit that it was as much for himself as for the biscop that he wanted so badly to succeed. “I know someone in Sabella’s retinue. I hope to persuade him to steal what we need.”

Once Captain Ulric had heard the whole thing, he sat for a while in thought with his bearded chin propped on a hand, then stood. “Very well. I’ll give you cover until dawn. After that, you must leave Autun, and Arconia, and never come back. Or, at the least, never be caught. If you come into my custody, I will be forced to treat you as a criminal and hand you over to Lady Sabella. I can assure you, she will not be merciful.”

3

IN the end he needed no particular disguise, only a cap drawn down over his head to cover his red hair. Any lowly servant could be found wearing such a thing to keep his ears warm in this cold winter weather. His robes, although cut for riding, were dirty and patched enough to pass as those of a laboring man, and the months of labor at Queen’s Grave had given his chapped hands something of the look of those of a man born and bred to labor. He was hidden in plain sight with his gaze cast down and a slump in his shoulders to minimize his height; the sons of noble houses had a tendency to grow tall. Count Harl had always noted this with a certain arrogance, sure of God’s favor manifest in the straight limbs and handsome faces of his children, but after so long on the road Ivar had begun to think it was more likely that he had simply gone hungry less often as a child than folk like Erkanwulf and frail Sigfrid.

Captain Ulric had friends among the servants. One of these, an amiable woman with dark hair and pale blue eyes, took him with her when she made her evening rounds carrying buckets of coal to fill the braziers in the lady’s suite. He staggered under a pole laid over his shoulders as she weighted it down with two full buckets on either side, their handles hooked into notches cut into the wood. A cover hid the hot coals, but heat radiated off the bronze buckets, warming him.

“Come along,” she said, “but say nothing.” She carried only the empty buckets, tongs, and shovel, so he was sweating and his legs shaking by the time they climbed the steps that led up to the old palace, once the imperial winter residence of Emperor Taillefer.

They passed by the broad porch of the famous octagonal chapel where lay the emperor’s tomb. A pair of bored guards stood on watch, chatting as they chafed hands and stamped feet to keep warm.

“Yes, the lad would have been whipped to death, I’m thinking, and all for a loaf of bread, but the lord cleric intervened and got him sent to the church as a servant instead. Hoo! That was a stroke of fortune.”

“Or God’s work done through man’s hands.”

“Truth rises with the phoenix! Here, now, did you hear about—”

“Come!” whispered his guide, seeing how Ivar had slowed to listen. He hurried after her.

The central palace, built all of wood, was an echoing hall and terrifically cold within, but they passed through to a separate wing where the lady and her personal retainers made their home. Like Count Harl, but unlike her brother the regnant, Sabella had planted herself in one place and traveled only brief circuits of the countryside when the mood took her or a pocket of discontent needed quelling.

o;We must move quickly. I will need your help, horses, provisions, men to escort us. A special seat built onto a saddle so that the biscop can ride, because she is crippled.”

“If all this comes to pass, then what?”

“We will ride to Wendar, to the town of Kassel. That way, Lady Sabella holds no noble Wendish hostage in Varre. Once the biscop reaches the duchy of Fesse, she can choose herself whether to ride to Osterburg.”

Ulric was a cautious man. They both spoke in low voices. His sergeants, cool, stalwart men who spoke no word but only listened, sat so still and alert that a mouse could not have crept through that tiny chamber without being caught. Ivar wasn’t sure whether they were listening to the conversation or listening for sounds from outside, in the barracks where the last conversations of men making ready for rest played out, and out of doors beyond the single closed shutter.

“A large guard protects the palisade and gates enclosing Queen’s Grave. How are they to be suborned?”