Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

The ten Eika soldiers who ran in the lead broke into a sprint and raced out to encircle to abbot and his tiny charge, beating back the dogs. One stabbed a dog clean through, and where it twitched and howled on the ground, the other dogs converged, snarling and ripping.

“I can’t look!” moaned Baldwin. “I should have gone after them!”

“Hush! You want those dogs to hear us?” Thank God the wind was blowing into their faces. At least their scent would not give them away. “They won’t stop for your pretty face!”

The second ranks kept coming along the road, and more and yet more, too many to count unless he numbered each rank—two rows of soldiers—as a pair of hands.

“Ten pairs of hands make a hundred,” Ivar muttered. “Of hundreds: One…. Two…. Three…. Four…. Five.”

The army went on forever, and the horses didn’t like it. Something about the smell or sound unnerved them. Baldwin kept up a steady, gentling murmur to keep them quiet and in one place as Ivar counted. The Eika pace seemed to swallow the ground; they moved without faltering along the road to Kassel, a new rank marching into view as the forward groups moved out of sight. With their horses pushed to the limit, Ivar and Baldwin could not possibly hope to overtake this army, even by ruining their mounts.

All this time, Father Ortulfus stood within a ring of Eika, held the silent child, and waited. The soldiers around him had also ceased moving. They also were waiting.

Banners streamed. Rippling strips of cloth in bright yellows and stark reds and heavenly blues marked the core of the army. A column of wagons rolled into view, pulled not by horses but by Eika and other creatures, ones who were like the Eika in walking on two feet and having hands and familiar-seeming faces but with blond and brown and black hair.

“Look!” whispered Baldwin, nudging Ivar. “Prisoners! Slaves!”

Humankind.

But they weren’t slaves. They wore no chains. They carried arms and armor. They wore leather jerkins or mail coats. Those who were not taking their turn at pulling the wagons marched freely within the ranks. He’d seen a few of them scattered in the forward portion of the army but only now realized what they were: human men marching with the Eika. Allies, not enemies. Traitors.

Baldwin grabbed his arm. “God help us! They have her!”

Most of the wagons carried supplies, and Ivar would have missed the person Baldwin indicated because she was surrounded by a heavy guard of brawny Eika crowded together so tightly that they obscured the people seated in the bed of that wagon. He saw their faces in flashes, living faces drawn taut with fear and exhaustion: frail Sigfrid, steadfast Ermanrich, the glowering Sister Eligia, and brave Hathumod, who was seated, strangely enough, beside the driver. She seemed to be chatting amiably with the tall youth, who was clad in a boiled leather jerkin and no helm and who, despite having no horses to drive, was somehow in charge of this wagon. Biscop Constance sat beside Sister Eligia, in the bed of the wagon. She gripped the side and stared intently into the clearing. She had caught sight of Father Ortulfus amid his captors.

A commotion stirred within the ranks of soldiers encircling the abbot. The child squirted out between the legs of one of the soldiers and, grasping its rag doll, sprinted for the trees. A pair of dogs scrambled after it, but their masters whistled sharply and both, wisely, turned back as the Eika soldiers laughed as the child stumbled, fell, and scrabbled forward in a panic. They let it go, but Father Ortulfus was tugged forward and slung unceremoniously into the wagon without the army slackening its pace. He fell on top of Ermanrich, and Sigfrid went down as well as limbs thrashed and bodies righted themselves. Hathumod turned to stare, mouth agape. Father Ortulfus managed to get to his knees. He bowed over the biscop’s hand and kissed her ring. Ivar was too far away to hear speech or see their faces closely, but the reunion of the biscop and the young man who had once served in her schola in Autun made him cry. As Ivar wiped away tears, Baldwin muttered under his breath.

“What of the sergeant and the others? Are they all dead?”

The army plunged onward. Of the sergeant and his company, they saw no sign.

“I thought the Eika took no person as prisoner,” added Baldwin, “but only killed every soul they met.”

“Even the Eika might think twice before killing a holy biscop. Hush, now. Until they’re gone.”

It seemed forever until the main force marched past and vanished down the road. No horses accompanied this army, only the dogs. They waited longer afterward as several parties of outliers trotted past. Ivar held his breath as dogs swarmed this way and that in the clearing, following the many scents, but in the end they were brought up short by the stream and by the command of their masters, who moved fast in the wake of the main army.

For a long while it was silent. At length, a crow landed on the ground beyond the oak, scratched at the ground, and abruptly took wing and fluttered away.

“Let’s go!” said Baldwin.

Ivar put a finger to his lips just as a pair of loping scouts came into view, sniffed the air exactly as dogs would, and moved on.

They waited. Again the crow returned and this time, as it searched in the grass, a second and third joined it.

Ivar said, “we’ll go to Hersford. There must be a woodsman’s path out of Hersford that will take us cross-country.”

Baldwin, like the horses, was eager to move. He got the reins in hand and coaxed the horses out of the coppice. They crossed the clearing quickly. The crows cawed at them and flapped a short distance away, but did not consider these two weary travelers a threat. The grassy path led them into the forest. Ivar recalled no landmarks. He and the others had been marched quickly along this route those few years back; he’d even forgotten the oak at the crossroads, although such a majestic tree must surely be memorable.

They had not walked for long before folk crept out of the forest to follow them, who were armed and who traveled with purpose. In time, a pair of monks emerged with more of the ragged party, and one of them was the very Prior Ratbold who had escorted Ivar and his friends as prisoners to Autun. When Ivar told him of the fate of Father Ortulfus, he met the news with a strange equanimity.

“He’ll be safe,” the prior said, making the sign of the phoenix. “So was it promised to us.”

Baldwin nodded.

Ivar wished he possessed such faith, but he did not. He was relieved to see the palisade surrounding Hersford Monastery, rather more formidable a structure than it had been when he was led away from the institution. He tried to recall how long ago it had been, but the march into the east, the lost years beneath the crown, and the captivity in Queen’s Grave wove into a confounding tapestry. Two years? Four years? It all blurred together.

o;Look!” whispered Baldwin, nudging Ivar. “Prisoners! Slaves!”