Light shone as a lamp bobbed around back, away from the feast. She saw Bulkezu, escorted by one of his night guards. But he was only looking for her. She had been gone for too long.
“I thank you,” she said to Agnetha. “I had forgotten the words to that song.”
Agnetha saw Bulkezu. Her mask of stone would have done King Henry proud. She wasn’t a stupid girl, only an innocent one, struggling to survive. “My lord,” she said, dipping down to show him deference. When he did not reply, she walked with head held high back to the feast: no flattery, no fear, no whining.
“Sing me the song,” whispered Bulkezu. He didn’t laugh.
It had been a reckless day, and a certain foolhardy courage still gripped her. She stepped carefully as she came out from under the trees. She had always been quick on her feet, so her mother often said.
“My lord prince,” she said softly, “I didn’t expect to meet you here.” Rude comments and nasty retorts bubbled up on her lips, but she choked them off. “Just an old song I used to sing as girls do. I’d forgotten the first line. It goes like this.”
She had a decent voice, could carry a tune and entertain the inn customers without ever dreaming of running away to become a court poet. “‘Golden is his hair and sweet is his voice; I don’t want to love him, but I have no choice.’” She laughed, seeing the flash of dimple that could signal his laughter, or his rage. Hate burned hot in her. “I’ve seen him, the man who is handsomer than you. And he is.”
His right hand twitched once, then stilled. “Why do you go to so much trouble to make me angry? I haven’t touched you.”
“You haven’t touched my body. You’ve just brutalized my heart and my soul.”
He regarded her for a while in silence. Behind, Ekkehard had begun, thank God, a more cheerful song, goaded on by Agnetha’s giggling praise.
“Where is Liathano?” he said at last. “Lead me to her, and I’ll let you go free.”
“She already has a husband, Prince Bulkezu.”
“I already have four wives. And a Kerayit shaman’s luck.”
“Or her curse.”
That made him laugh, but the laughter did not reach his eyes. “Don’t make me angry,” he said at last, before indicating that she should follow him back to the feasting.
They continued north along the tributary. Three days and seven villages later, they came to its confluence with the Veser River. The first sign of outriders came about midday when a scout was killed. Several larger scouting bands were sent out, and when they returned with their reports Bulkezu ordered a change in their marching order. As usual when they approached a fortified site, the prisoners were driven to the front as the army pressed forward through the trees.
“Ai, God,” said Ekkehard when they halted at last on a ridgeline from which they could overlook the Veser River. “That’s the fort of Barenberg. We’re in my aunt Rotrudis’ duchy now.”
His companions regarded the distant fort in silence. The river wound north through ripening fields and orchards. This was rich country, indeed.
“I can’t fight her,” whispered Ekkehard, glancing toward Bulkezu, who had ridden up to the edge of the ridge. A steep slope cut away beneath the Quman begh. The wind sang sweetly in his griffin wings. Because he wore his helm, Hanna could not see his expression behind the visor, only that mask of iron.
“Whose banner flies from the tower?” asked Benedict.
Ekkehard made a choking noise as his face drained of color. Bulkezu reined his horse around and returned to them.
“Two banners,” Hanna said as hope sparked. “The regent’s silk, and Wayland’s hawk. We seem to have met up with Princess Theophanu and Duke Conrad, Your Highness.”
2
EVEN with an Eagle’s sight to aid him, Sanglant and his troops spent three weeks following the meandering trail of Prince Bayan and Princess Sapientia as it wound through the marchlands of Olsatia, Austra, and Eastfall. He met up at last with their army at a slave auction in the ruins of the fortress of Machteburg. Easy enough to tell that Bulkezu’s army had been here two months before: the mostly rotted bodies of unarmed prisoners lay in heaps along the outer wall where they’d fallen, killed by their own terrified countrymen deceived into believing that the mob of captives was the vanguard of the Quman assault.
Sanglant tracked Bayan down where he prowled the burned-out ruins, poking with a spear through the ashes of the central tower. The Ungrian prince looked no worse for wear, as bluff and fit as ever, with a becoming twinkle in his eye as he looked up to see Sanglant approaching him. He pressed through his retinue and hurried over.
“My friend!” Bayan clapped Sanglant heartily on the shoulder before enveloping him in a crushing hug. He kissed him on either cheek, as a kinsman, and finally let him go. “Alas that we meet in such troubled times.”
“Troubled enough, it’s true.”
“What is this frowning face, my brother? I know this look of a man who is not sporting in the bed enough.”
Sanglant laughed. “Is that the trouble you complain of? I thought you meant this war against the Quman.”
But Bayan was not to be thrown off the scent. “How can this be? You look whole in all parts. Do the women not find you handsome any longer?”