The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Beautiful ice maiden, I die for you!” cried one young man with black hair and a long, drooping and exceptionally greasy mustache. He had sweet eyes, and was missing one of his front teeth. Like all the other Ungrians, he wore a padded leather coat over baggy trousers.

“My greetings to your wife, my friend,” she called back in Ungrian. They all laughed, slapped their thighs, and began to talk volubly among themselves—probably about her. It was disconcerting, and tiring, being the object of so much attention.

Beside her, Brother Breschius chuckled. “Softer on the ‘gh,’” he corrected, “but otherwise it was a creditable attempt. You have a better head for languages than your mistress.”

Hanna let this gentle criticism pass unremarked. “They flirt terribly, Brother, but not one has propositioned me. I feel perfectly safe walking about the camp.”

He grunted amiably. “For now you are safe. When they swear an oath, they keep it, and they are still barbarians in their hearts, which means they are superstitious. They truly do believe that if they waste their strength on carnal play before a battle, they will surely die at the hand of a man who did not waste himself in such a manner.”

“But some who hold to that vow will die anyway.”

“True. Such is God’s will. In their minds, such deaths will be blamed on other things they did or did not do: stepping on a shadow, the chastity of their wife a hundred leagues away, a fly that landed on their left ear instead of their right. They profess to worship God in Unity, but they have not yet given their hearts fully into God’s care. You, too, come from a land only recently brought into the Light, I believe, my child. On the first day of spring do you place flowers at a crossroads to bring you luck in your journeys for the rest of the year?”

She looked at him sharply. Then she grinned, because she liked him, with his missing hand and his tolerant heart. “You have traveled widely, Brother. You know a great deal.”

He chuckled. “We are all ignorant. I do what I can to share God’s Holy Word with those who live in night. But mind you, Eagle, be cautious after the battle. It is the custom of those who survive to behave wildly. At that time I advise you to remain close to your mistress.”

She glanced up at their destination: a stone tower set on a ridge overlooking the long valley of the Vitadi River. Half a palisade of wood had been built a generation ago and then abandoned. Now, at Princess Sapientia’s order, a levy of men from the surrounding settlements labored to complete the fort.

Men dug out a trench, hauled logs, swore, and sweated as she and Breschius climbed the path that led to the palisade gate and then inside, up a trail hacked into the rock face of a cliff, through a roughly-hewn tunnel where she had to duck her head, and into the fortress itself.

Within the inner rock wall she heard Prince Bayan’s jovial laugh echoing among the stones. He stood at the threshold of the tower, laughing with the Wendish captain who commanded the fortress. Turning, he saw Hanna and beckoned her forward.

“The snow woman arrives!” he exclaimed. “Soon winter comes in her trail.” He had a pleasant habit of wrinkling up his eyes when he spoke, and even when he didn’t smile, his eyes laughed. Life was good to Prince Bayan because he made it so. “To where is my royal wife?” he asked.

Hanna glanced toward Brother Breschius who, mercifully, saved her the awkward reply. Lady Udalfreda of Naumannsfurt had arrived with twenty cavalry and thirty-five foot soldiers, and Princess Sapientia felt obliged to entertain her fittingly.

In truth, Hanna suspected Sapientia, for all her love of fighting, did not have the stomach for what she had sent Hanna to witness in her stead.

Bayan merely shrugged good-naturedly. The Wendish captain led the way down a narrow flight of stairs to the root cellar. It was very cold down here. Water dripped along the rough-hewn rock and made puddles for unwary boots. Beside the cellar door a brazier glowed red with coals; a soldier thrust an iron rod in among the coals to heat it. In the dankest corner, lit only by a dim lantern, lay a savage so heavily chained, wrists to ankles, that he had been forced to lie in his own filth. He stank. Two soldiers grabbed him by the shoulders as Bayan entered the room and jerked him upright. He only stared at them with stubborn eyes dulled by pain. A weeping sore marked his cheek. When he saw Bayan, he spat at him, but he could make no fluid pass his lips.

“This is the one we captured when they raided here two days ago,” said the captain. “We burned him with an iron rod, but he would only speak in his language, and none of us understood him.”

Jovial Prince Bayan had vanished somewhere on those stairs. The man who stared down at the Quman prisoner frightened Hanna because of his merciless expression. He dispensed with his crude Wendish and spoke directly to Breschius, who translated. “Bring me a block of wood and an ax.” When that was done, he had them unchain the prisoner’s left hand and haul the man forward. The prisoner had no weapons, of course, but he still wore his armor, which resembled nothing Hanna had ever seen before: small pieces of leather sewn together to make a hard coat of armor, and a leather belt studded with gold plackets formed in the shapes of horses and griffins. A small object swung from the belt, resting now on his bent legs, but she couldn’t make it out. He wore a strange harness on his back, a contraption of wood and iron and, strangely enough, a few shredded feathers.

e her, Brother Breschius chuckled. “Softer on the ‘gh,’” he corrected, “but otherwise it was a creditable attempt. You have a better head for languages than your mistress.”

Hanna let this gentle criticism pass unremarked. “They flirt terribly, Brother, but not one has propositioned me. I feel perfectly safe walking about the camp.”

He grunted amiably. “For now you are safe. When they swear an oath, they keep it, and they are still barbarians in their hearts, which means they are superstitious. They truly do believe that if they waste their strength on carnal play before a battle, they will surely die at the hand of a man who did not waste himself in such a manner.”

“But some who hold to that vow will die anyway.”

“True. Such is God’s will. In their minds, such deaths will be blamed on other things they did or did not do: stepping on a shadow, the chastity of their wife a hundred leagues away, a fly that landed on their left ear instead of their right. They profess to worship God in Unity, but they have not yet given their hearts fully into God’s care. You, too, come from a land only recently brought into the Light, I believe, my child. On the first day of spring do you place flowers at a crossroads to bring you luck in your journeys for the rest of the year?”

She looked at him sharply. Then she grinned, because she liked him, with his missing hand and his tolerant heart. “You have traveled widely, Brother. You know a great deal.”

He chuckled. “We are all ignorant. I do what I can to share God’s Holy Word with those who live in night. But mind you, Eagle, be cautious after the battle. It is the custom of those who survive to behave wildly. At that time I advise you to remain close to your mistress.”

She glanced up at their destination: a stone tower set on a ridge overlooking the long valley of the Vitadi River. Half a palisade of wood had been built a generation ago and then abandoned. Now, at Princess Sapientia’s order, a levy of men from the surrounding settlements labored to complete the fort.

Men dug out a trench, hauled logs, swore, and sweated as she and Breschius climbed the path that led to the palisade gate and then inside, up a trail hacked into the rock face of a cliff, through a roughly-hewn tunnel where she had to duck her head, and into the fortress itself.

Within the inner rock wall she heard Prince Bayan’s jovial laugh echoing among the stones. He stood at the threshold of the tower, laughing with the Wendish captain who commanded the fortress. Turning, he saw Hanna and beckoned her forward.

“The snow woman arrives!” he exclaimed. “Soon winter comes in her trail.” He had a pleasant habit of wrinkling up his eyes when he spoke, and even when he didn’t smile, his eyes laughed. Life was good to Prince Bayan because he made it so. “To where is my royal wife?” he asked.

Hanna glanced toward Brother Breschius who, mercifully, saved her the awkward reply. Lady Udalfreda of Naumannsfurt had arrived with twenty cavalry and thirty-five foot soldiers, and Princess Sapientia felt obliged to entertain her fittingly.