Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

The Eika, it seemed, had arrived in time to witness the slaughter of both the Varren and Wendish armies. Lord Stronghand had merely to stand aside and watch them do his work for him.

She found the Eika lord standing directly behind Alain. He had a sharp, intelligent face, and he, too, studied the lay of the ground and the disposition of forces in the valley. What he thought of it she could not read in his expression, only that he measured and calculated and, moving to one side, spoke in a whisper to a pair of his attendant captains, Eika warriors like him although half a head taller.

The procession lurched up the steps. She hurried after, puffing and wheezing and gasping at the pain. The stone lintel that spanned the double doors leading into the feasting hall swam in her sight, a most welcome apparition, and she passed under it and into the hall itself where a flock of palace stewards and servants swarmed to set out benches for the coming assembly. The body was carried up to the dais.

o;I’ll go with you,” said Ivar, following her. He was still red. He was still filthy, shedding muck and fingerling twigs with each step. Some of the mud had rubbed off on her tunic and cloak. But he clasped her hands between his. He bent to kiss her forehead, quite tenderly. “I’ll not let you go alone. Never again, Hanna.”

Dear Ivar.

She tried to speak, but the sight of him, his look, and his touch, strangled her, and all she could do was cry.

4

SIX carried the litter off the field of battle: Princess Theophanu, Duke Conrad, Duchess Liutgard, Captain Fulk, and two young lords, one chosen from each army to let the battered soldiers see that for now, at least, a truce had been called.

They trudged with their burden through the gate, along Kassel’s broad north-south avenue, and up the steep street cut into the hillside that gave access to the fortified palace, home to the dukes of Fesse. Many wept as they passed. Some of the townspeople who flowed out to line the streets whispered to see their duchess with her hair uncovered in grief, and dirt and tears and blood smearing her face. Soldiers with their helmets tucked under their arms stared in shock as their commander and king was carried past. One man holding a bow broke down and had to be supported by his fellows. Even the slinking street dogs kept to the walls, whining with anxious respect.

Rosvita walked directly behind the litter. Behind her came Lord Alain and his hounds, escorting Stronghand, who marched at the head of a hundred loyal warriors. Seeing these creatures enter the town through open gates caused a hush to fall. Some people crept away into their houses, seeking refuge, while others—and many of the soldiers—fingered their weapons thoughtfully. The street dogs did not bark, only faded away into alleys and open spaces grown high with untended grass. Yet among that century of Eika walked a dozen human soldiers, fair Alban men with glossy golden hair and darker-haired men speaking in the Salian tongue. They walked not as slaves but as comrades-in-arms.

There are deep forces at work here, Rosvita thought, and she feared them.

It hurt both her shoulder and hip to toil up that slope to the palace, but Rosvita fixed her jaw and wept a little in order to tolerate the pain. She concentrated on placing one foot ahead of the next. A sharp twinge jabbed through her right hip each time that foot struck earth. Her right shoulder was already tightening into a screaming knot of agony. She was sweating and crying at the same time, too bewildered and stunned to know just what it was she was crying over.

Before they entered the palace through its wide double doors, the litter bearers paused in the forecourt to catch their breath. She halted with a grateful sigh. Turning, she caught in her breath. This vista she had admired before, years ago, when Henry had fought Sabella and defeated her. Then, too, a guivre had stalked the field, but the outcome had proved very different.

How quickly the outlook changes. Kassel town had gained population in the intervening years, much of it recent judging by the fresh look of hovels and houses erected within the shelter of the town walls. There was less open space, and more fields beyond the walls given over to cultivation. Yet half the ground outside—where fields of rye and barley had been sown—was trenched by siege works, while other fields had been trampled. The detritus of battle lay strewn as though a flood tide had swept over the valley floor.

Just outside the town gates, the armies of Wendar and Varre gathered their forces. They were frighteningly few compared to the many dead left lying on the ground beside the pickets or in the earthworks or across the flat fields. What she saw, looking farther afield, were Eika pulling their net in around the valley itself, ranks and ranks of infantry filing out of the forest. That portion of the army marching with Lord Stronghand along the Hellweg had certainly been decimated, but he had brought many more with him, too many to count. Thousands, she estimated. Even at this distance she could identify among his soldiers the human men who had turned their back on humankind to march with the enemy.

The Eika, it seemed, had arrived in time to witness the slaughter of both the Varren and Wendish armies. Lord Stronghand had merely to stand aside and watch them do his work for him.

She found the Eika lord standing directly behind Alain. He had a sharp, intelligent face, and he, too, studied the lay of the ground and the disposition of forces in the valley. What he thought of it she could not read in his expression, only that he measured and calculated and, moving to one side, spoke in a whisper to a pair of his attendant captains, Eika warriors like him although half a head taller.

The procession lurched up the steps. She hurried after, puffing and wheezing and gasping at the pain. The stone lintel that spanned the double doors leading into the feasting hall swam in her sight, a most welcome apparition, and she passed under it and into the hall itself where a flock of palace stewards and servants swarmed to set out benches for the coming assembly. The body was carried up to the dais.

The faithful Eagle, Hathui, came forward to grasp her hands. “Sister Rosvita!” She was weeping.

Ai, God, she was so weary. Too weary to think. Too weary even to wonder or grieve. It was as much as she could do to allow Hathui to lead her forward, in her authority as an honored cleric in the regnant’s schola, so that she could stand at the head of the litter as it was placed across three parallel benches.

“He would want you,” said Hathui in a choked voice, “to stand guard over his body now that his soul is fled.”

“How can it be?” Rosvita asked her. “I thought—we had all come to believe—that somehow his mother’s blessing would always protect him.”

Hathui shrugged. She could no longer speak. Turning away, she hid her face.

Out of the massing crowd a young nobleman appeared carrying a chair, which he set behind her. “Sister Rosvita,” he said, smiling at her. “I pray you, you look tired. Please sit.”

She blinked. It seemed apparitions would trouble her today, because this lad looked exactly like young Berthold Villam. “You were lost years ago,” she told him, feeling foolish for speaking to a ghost, although in general ghosts could not fetch chairs.

“So I was, Sister, but I am found again. I pray you, Sister. Sit. I will tell you the tale later.”

Berthold Villam!

This was a peculiar miracle, one impossible to believe, yet as he walked away to join a pair of young men—one of them foreign and almost certainly a Quman—she saw that he walked like Berthold Villam and he looked like Berthold Villam. Such a good boy, with the charm of his famous father and the sweet vitality of youth. The vision dizzied her. Gratefully, she sank into the seat, although at this level, steadied by the support, she must look on the mangled corpse at close quarters.

His face was undamaged, but his torso and legs were torn and twisted. Without the soul animating him, he was no more than a collection of parts and pieces; the handsome man who charmed effortlessly and led his troops with determination and assurance could not be glimpsed in this empty flesh.

More, and more still, crowded into the hall. Chairs for the great princes were set to either side of the pallet on which he lay, and one by one they took their places: Princess Theophanu, Duchess Liutgard, Duke Conrad. A murmur arose when the Eika commander sat in a chair beside the others, with two human and two Eika standing behind him in close council, often bending to whisper in his ear.