Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“There!” cried Liutgard, pointing.

The clouds split as suddenly as if they had been sliced asunder. Sunlight lanced over the valley, sharpening every detail of Conrad’s camp. That light illuminated the southeastern ridgeline. A gash in the wall of trees opened as first one, then a pair, and then a dozen trees toppled. Banners made tiny by distance flowed like water as they rippled back and forth.

“That’s her signal!” cried Sanglant. He turned to Captain Fulk. “Set Lewenhardt here to watch and listen. We arm. Spread the word by mouth alone. Let no trumpet or bell sound the alarm until the gates are opened.”

“What of Wichman?” Liutgard asked. “Do you think he and his company are lost?”

“Always.” He grinned. “We shall not count on them. But I will expect them, nevertheless.”

As they moved to the stair to descend the tower and prepare for battle, a tingling in the middle of his back gave him pause, like the misgivings of a man new to war who imagines the ax blow that will bring his death. Stopping in mid-stride, he canted his head, lifted his chin, and tasted the air. “That is the smell of Eika.”

“Eika?” cried Fulk.

“Can Sabella have made an alliance with those creatures?” demanded Liutgard. “Better to hold within our walls than ride into such an ambush.”

o;A whisper like the ranks of the dead approaching,” he said, and she looked at him, puzzled, and only then did he realize he had spoken his thought aloud. “A taste like the eve of battle.”

“Is that what makes you restless as a prowling dog? Not just those dark clouds? Will we fight Conrad today?”

“He’s sent no herald, made no attempt to parley.”

“Sent no word of my daughter,” said Liutgard bitterly.

“It makes me wonder what his intentions are. But, in truth, there is another scent on the wind, and I’m not sure what it is.”

“Where is Theophanu?”

“Close. See, there.” He pointed to the southeast. “That color on the ridgeline. There.”

She squinted, then shrugged. “I don’t see it. Only the trees along the hills.”

“My archer Lewenhardt caught sight of it yesterday. I wouldn’t have noticed it myself, but his eyes are sharp. I believe that is her banner, set up to alert us.”

“Too far for us to see.” She stared and stared, shook herself with a measure of impatience and frustration, and shifted her gaze back to the encampment draped in a semicircle about the valley of Kassel, one which girdled all roads and tracks.

“That’s as close as she can come, with Conrad and Sabella in her path. If we could coordinate our attack, we could strike from two sides. At this juncture, neither army has an advantage. If I judge correctly, Conrad and Sabella have numbers about equal to our own.”

“The margraves should have marched with us.”

“Yes, I suppose they should have. Gerberga will wait it out in Austra and come to claim what she can from whichever is left standing.”

“Gerberga can go rot! It was Waltharia I was thinking about.”

“She sent three centuries of men, all she could spare. Think how many she lost—her own husband—when she sent a troop south with me.”

Liutgard did not appear so much aged by the long campaign but hardened, made mirthless. She had laughed more, once upon a time, and she had been wont to cast quotes into her banter—she could read—lively lines from the poets or homilies out of the mouths of the church mothers. “I, too, lost many milites in Henry’s wars, Cousin! Yet I stand beside you. Even Burchard went home.”

“To die.”

She snorted. “I’ve come to think that dying is the coward’s choice.”

He shook his head. “I have been sorely wounded many times. Perhaps it’s true that being dead brings peace, but the dying itself is not so easy. I pray you, Liutgard, remember that I value your loyalty.”

“Surely you do!”

“You have never faltered.”

“Only in my heart.”