In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

He dropped his reins and ran for the compound, past the abandoned sheep pasture and the wildly overgrown bramble where once goats had feasted. The front door was stuck, canted sideways because of broken hinges. He yanked it open, grunting and swearing and crying, and tumbled into the vacant entry hall, sprinted, shouting, into the biscop’s audience chamber, but it, too, lay empty. Even her writing desk was gone. He bolted out into the courtyard. Sister Bona’s grave lay bare, untended except for a dandelion.

Abandoned.

Were they all dead? But if so, wouldn’t Captain Tammus have known? Or had he simply ceased to care?

“Ivar?”

He spun, hearing that gentle voice but seeing no one. “Hathumod? Ai, God!” He was weeping with frustration and fear. “Where are you? Where is everyone?”

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.

“Who feeds them?” asked one of the soldiers. “Ground’s not been broken up or even ploughed.”

“The guards are feared to come in,” Hathumod sobbed, “on account of the sickness.”