In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

Forever ago, or so it seemed because it was a moment he preferred not to recall, pretty young Sister Bona had crawled out of the courtyard past a loose board. It jiggled now, and he grabbed it and wrenched it to one side, then cursed, because he’d gotten a splinter deep in his palm.

Hathumod’s face blinked at him out of the shadows.

“What are you doing in there?” he demanded.

“Ivar! Oh, Ivar.” She was weeping. “I thought you were dead.”

“I pray you, Hathumod. Come out! What are you doing in there?”

She shoved the loose board aside and clambered out. Once, she would have been too stout to squeeze through, but she was so thin now that it hurt to look at her, all skin stretched over knobby bones. She had lost that rabbity look, although her protruding front teeth stood out more starkly than ever with no plump cheeks to give harmony to her features.

“We have stores hidden in here that we don’t want the guards to know about.”

“Where is everyone?”

“We had to retreat to the amphitheater, at the head of the valley. It was too dangerous to stay here.”

“Why?”

She stared at him as if he had said something particularly stupid. “Because of the sickness, of course!” Her lips quivered. She burst into tears. “So many dead we couldn’t bury them decently. And we were all feared we would die, too.”

“Who still lives? What of Sigfrid and Ermanrich? What of the biscop?”

“Th–they live. Th–they aren’t the ones…. It’s been so awful.” She tried to gulp down her sobs. She rubbed angrily at her face, but she could not stop crying. His intense relief at discovering that some still lived made him furious.

“Take me to them! We have only until nightfall.”

“F–for what?”

“To free you.”

She wailed, bawling.

He grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Hathumod! We must go quickly!”

“I—if only you’d come last autumn. Half our number are dead.”

“Hurry!”

He grabbed her wrist and she followed him meekly outside. Hugo’s men had fanned out to explore the compound, but Ivar called them back.

“There are stores hidden behind a loose board in the courtyard. Get those, and abandon the rest. There was a terrible sickness here. The demons who cause it might still be lurking. Sergeant, stay here and make ready. Half your men and the mounts come with us.”

They rode down the path that led past the vegetable garden and the grain fields. Hathumod wept, unable to stop herself.

id we not think to do this sooner?

It was a foolish thought. Until his escape, no one in Queen’s Grave had opportunity to speak freely to those outside.

“You have until nightfall,” Tammus growled at last.

Hugo hesitated, as if to argue, but did not. He snapped his fingers, and his men mounted and rode briskly to the gates, which were opened at Tammus’ order. After they rode through, the gates were shoved shut behind them.

“Something’s wrong,” said Ivar.

He dismounted. The bare ground, covered with a sheen of ice, crackled beneath his boots as he walked forward. He knew this landscape well enough. He had had many months to learn its contours. He had lost track of the time since he had escaped, but it had been nine or ten months, early summer then and the end of winter now. In that time the tidy gardens, fields, and orchards had gone untended, so it appeared. Worst, a dozen new graves marked the cemetery plot north of the infirmary. He recognized them because of the heaps of earth, yet not one bore a wooden Circle staked into the ground or a crude headstone.

It was deadly quiet. Not a soul stirred, not even come to see what the noise was or to investigate the whickering of horses and the sound of armed men.