Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

“This one hasn’t offered herself to you.”

He laughed. “Yes, better that you stay out of my bed. I respect you now, but I wouldn’t once I’d conquered your body.”

“Which do you want?” she said, irritated by his games.

“I want victory.”

“Against whom?”

“Against anyone who stands in my way.”

A drum rapped smartly in the distance, answered by a second. He cocked his head to one side, listening to the message they brought. He whistled, turned aside his horse, and his night guard fell in around him. Hanna had no choice but to follow; she couldn’t escape their net. Twilight washed the prisoners to gray, but the darkening light could not hide the smell of despair or the stink of diarrhea and sickness. An infant cried on and on and on. Hanna was suddenly hungry, smelling meat roasting up ahead, brought on the wind, but the appetizing scent curdled in her stomach as they rode alongside the line of prisoners, many of whom would not eat this night and had not eaten last night or the night before.

While she feasted tonight, a child would die of starvation, just as one had last night, and the night before. The Eagle’s burden had never weighed as heavily as it had these last months, since her capture. She had to witness and remember, so that, in time, she could report to the king. Sometimes that was the only thing that kept her going: her determination to report to the king.

Bulkezu moved out to greet the last raiding party, come in to report. Truly, some things would be more difficult to report to King Henry than others.

Prince Ekkehard and his companions had taken to wearing princely Quman armor, cobbled together from armored coats stripped off of dead men, felt coifs, looted Wendish cloaks made rich by fur linings, supple leather gloves, painted shields, everything but the wings, which they had not earned. Everything but the shrunken heads, which not even Ekkehard had the stomach for.

They had brought loot, and news. Lord Boso was called back from the vanguard to translate as Lord Welf delivered the report.

“Lord Hedo’s fort was stripped of soldiers and easy to take. The servants said his son marched west last autumn with fifty men to fight in Saony.”

“Who is fighting in Saony?” asked Hanna.

“Duchess Rotrudis’ children.” With his highborn arrogance, meaty hands, and scarred lip, Welf looked remarkably like a fool to her, especially when he could barely bring himself to answer her just because she was common born. He only spoke to her because Bulkezu had a habit of whipping, and once castrating, men who treated Hanna disrespectfully: not warming the water brought for her bath, not getting out of her way fast enough as she walked through camp, daring to look her in the eye, who bore the luck of a Kerayit shaman.

The loot gained at the fort was a fine haul: gold vessels; silver drinking cups; ivory spoons; and two tapestries.

“His Contemptuousness bids you keep what you have earned,” said Boso, translating for Bulkezu. “For are you not brothers? Are you not honorable, in the way of all noble folk?”

How Bulkezu kept his expression blank Hanna did not understand, considering the insulting way Boso had of speaking. It was another one of his charades, the games he played incessantly with his prisoners, because even Ekkehard, for all that he now rode and fought with the army, was nothing more than a glorified hostage made much of and let range wide on a leash. Ekkehard had women, he had silks, he had meat and wine, and he had his own honor guard, which he evidently chose not to recognize for what it was: his jailers. Let him get dirty enough with raiding under Bulkezu’s banner and it would be too late for him to go back to his father’s hall and authority.

No doubt Bulkezu counted on it. He didn’t care one whit for Ekkehard. He had just found a more amusing way to ruin him.

“I’m surprised, my lord prince,” said Hanna, “that you would war on your father’s people. Isn’t that treason?”

Prince Ekkehard did not deign to reply, but Lord Benedict rose to the bait. “Lord Hedo did not come to King Henry’s aid when the king’s sister, Lady Sabella, rose in revolt against him. This is his just punishment. We are doing nothing more than seeing him rewarded for his disobedience.”

“Aiding an enemy as he devastates your father’s lands and cripples his people scarcely seems the act of a loyal subject.”

“You’ll regret those words,” Lord Welf said hotly, “when you don’t have a prince to protect you.” He nodded toward Bulkezu.

“Nay, I don’t have a prince to protect me.” She lifted her right hand to display the emerald ring. “I’m the King’s Eagle.”

Ekkehard flushed, and his companions muttered among themselves, glancing toward Bulkezu, gauging his mood. Ekkehard’s boys didn’t like her. She didn’t like them much, either, if it came to that; they were the real traitors. Yet were they any different than most of the nobly born, fighting their wars across the bodies of the common folk?

Bulkezu laughed as soon as Boso translated the exchange. He moved forward to ride beside Ekkehard, treating Ekkehard to flowery compliments delivered by a sarcastic Boso; how well he acquitted himself in battle, how many women he had won for his slaves, how terrible it was that his relatives had tried to consign him to the monastery when certainly any fool could see that he was born for the glory of war. Ekkehard lapped it up like cream. He even forgot about Hanna, trailing behind, she who carried the wasp sting of conscience because she never let him forget that he had turned coat and embraced Bulkezu’s cause.

A scream shattered the sleepy twilight. Deep in the crowd of weary, worn-down, lethargic prisoners, an eddy of movement spiraled out of control like leaves picked up by a dust devil.

“Witchcraft! Demons! The Enemy has spawned among us!”

Panic broke like a storm. Prisoners pushed and shoved frantically, more afraid of an unseen menace in their ranks than of the dour Quman soldiers who guarded them. Terrified captives spilled across the invisible boundary into range of Quman spears. Like raindrops presaging a downpour, the first handful turned an instant later into a hysterical flood of ragged people desperate to escape the horror in their midst.

Even horses accustomed to war shied at the sudden agitation. Ekkehard’s nervous gelding reared, backing sideways into Bulkezu’s horse. The night guard, distracted by this threat to their leader, hastened forward.

Hanna saw her chance.