In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“Maybe so,” muttered Heric, “but they still kept a girl from Salia to serve the steward’s son in whatever manner he wished.”

“How do you know?”

“She got free and come to the bandits, that’s why. It was she made the plan, and give the signal. She knew the ways and times of the household, that’s why. The others said she killed that one herself, the one who used her, but I didn’t see it.”

“Made she no protest when four girls were taken to be used in the same rough manner she was? And worse, for they were killed after?”

“What did she care for them? She wanted revenge, and took it. It was she argued loudest that they were a nuisance and ought to go. I think it was for that she was jealous of the attention they got. She liked keeping the men on a string, you know how it is. That girl at Lavas, called Withi, I liked her well, but she did do that to me, curse her. Went off in the end with a man who could keep her fed.” His tone was self-pitying. “The Salian girl, she said also those other girls cursed her ill with words and slaps, back when she was only a concubine. So it was revenge twice over.”

“Might she have been lying?”

“About what? Being taken to bed each night by a man she hated? The other girls slapping her and calling her a Salian whore? How would I know?”

Alain tramped on, unable to speak for the bitterness lodged in his throat. It seemed that injustice was woven through the world in inexplicable patterns, impossible to tease apart without unraveling the entire web.

“Seems like God are blind and deaf and mute,” continued Heric, having gotten a good wind to fill the sails of his complaining. “But I heard a story about a phoenix. You heard it? They say a phoenix descended from heaven and tore the heart out of the blessed Daisan to make him suffer just like the rest of us. I wonder if it’s true.”

“I think that story was twisted in the telling.”

“Huh. ‘Truth flies with the phoenix.’ That’s what one of those girls cried out as they was cutting her throat. Well, she flew, anyway, right up to the light, or into the Pit.”

“Don’t mock!”

Rage barked and Sorrow growled. Heric fell into a sullen muttering that was not audible enough to fashion into words.

They went on, and soon a second murmuring noise caught Alain’s hearing. He lifted a hand and halted on the path just before it curved left. He recognized this place from his morning’s passage along this way. In another twoscore or so steps they would come to the main road. As they listened, they heard the sound of a cavalcade moving along the as-yet-unseen track: harness jingling, wheels scraping along dirt, voices chattering, and a dog’s bark. Sorrow whined but did not answer.

Heric whimpered. Alain looked back to see that Rage had gotten hold of the man’s leggings as he tried to creep back the way they had come.

“That’s a big party,” he whined. “Listen! A hundred or more, Lord Geoffrey riding to war. Maybe come to have you killed!”

Alain shook his head. “They’re riding toward Lavas Holding.” He turned to the hounds. “Rage. Sorrow. Stay. Guard.”

He picked his way past fallen branches, more numerous close to the joining with the road as though the bandits had pulled down obstacles to cover their tracks. Soon he heard the procession in full spate but marked also with the giggling of children and an unexpected snatch of hymn from a voice he had heard before but could not quite place.

“… who made a road to the sea

And a path through the mighty waters.”

He came to the last turning, where the path hitched around a massive oak that served as a towering landmark. He recalled it from earlier years. The autumn storm had half torn it from the ground. Its vast trunk had fallen westward to leave roots thrust like daggers across the path. He used these as cover as he examined the road.

There were soldiers riding in pairs or marching in fours while between their ranks trundled carts and wagons filled with household goods and children and elders and caged chickens. Youths and sturdy looking women walked alongside, most of them carrying a bundle or two. A pair of clerics walked beside a wagon containing several fine chests. He saw—

Hathumod!

She sat on a wagon next to a white-haired woman placed among pillows. Another, older woman dressed in cleric’s robes made up the third in the bed of the wagon. Her back was to Alain, but by the movements of her shoulders and hands she seemed to be talking in a lively way while the others listened, the white-haired woman with a smile of patient interest despite the pain etched into her face, and Hathumod with a scarcely concealed look of boredom.

The wagon passed and was gone beyond his line of sight through the trees before he realized who he had just seen. And where she must be going: Lavas Holding was about three days’ journey west, and there was no crossroads that came sooner on the road than the holding itself.

Soon it would be dark. The cavalcade must camp for the night, most likely on the road itself. Soldiers scanned the woodland as though they expected attack, but the upturned oak hid him because he did not move. What strange company was this? It was like an entire village on the move, not like a noblewoman’s royal progress.

When the last ranks of infantry had passed, he waited a while longer, and at length a trio of silent outriders ambled by. He waited even longer until one last pair of men rode past with hands easy on the reins, their gazes keen and penetrating, and a bow and a sword, respectively, laid across their thighs.

It was one of these who saw him, although he hadn’t meant to be seen.

“Whsst!” The young man’s chin jerked around fast. He had his bow up and arrow ready, holding his horse with tightened knees, before Alain could take a second breath. The other man reined his horse around to face back the way they’d come, sword raised.

“I’ll come out,” said Alain in an even voice. “I’ve been waiting for you. What business has Biscop Constance in these parts? I heard she was a prisoner of Lady Sabella in Autun.”