It was amazing how quickly a crude palisade could go up when the workers were lashed by the goad of fear. Strange how these kept joking as they labored. Zacharias felt he could hardly speak, as though he’d lost his tongue.
How would Bulkezu cut it out? Where would the knife’s edge first touch flesh?
The jolt of water on his legs brought him back, hazy, clinging to the saddle as his horse plunged into the river. The current streamed past, trying to drag him off, but he had clung to life for this long that he hung on with bitter strength as the horse made for the opposite bank. This time of year the river was wide but shallow, a silty greenish-brown color. A branch swirled past him, then, strangely, a mangled glove. At last the horse struggled up the shore and he was at once directed to the right, leaving a trail of water drops as he followed the others along a narrow trail cut through the forest, mostly oak and hornbeam here along the river, fairly open, with a dense layer of crocus, hellebore, and wild strawberry carpeting the ground. They regrouped north of the ford where someone had years ago cut a clearing into the wood. An old shack lay tumbled down, good for nothing more than breaking into firewood. In all, as they gathered into their command groups, Zacharias estimated they had about five hundred mounted soldiers: Sanglant’s legion, made up of his own personal retinue, Gent’s irregulars, and Waltharia’s levies.
“We’ll make camp here, with the river at our back,” said the prince. Lord Druthmar and Lord Hrodik hurried off to give their captains the order to dig in for the night.
Bayan and his Ungrians had just crossed when a scout rode up to Sanglant’s position. “Come quickly, my lord prince. There’s news! The siege has been lifted!”
A cheer rose raggedly from the men standing around, echoed by others, farther away, as the news was relayed out to them. Sanglant only frowned. “I’ll come,” he said, hauling his daughter up on the saddle in front of him. “Heribert! Lord Thiemo. Zacharias. Wolfhere. Fulk. Lord Druthmar. You’ll attend me. The rest, be mindful that we must be ready. An attack might come at any moment.”
At the ford, Duke Boleslas and his Polenie were crossing; behind them waited the baggage train, lost to Zacharias’ sight where it snaked back into the woodland on the other side of the Veserling. Sanglant’s party rode on upstream, where Bayan’s Ungrians had made camp next to Sapientia’s Wendish legions.
The princess and Bayan held court where three logs had fallen together in such a way that planks could be thrown over them and chairs set up on this raised platform. As they rode up, and Sanglant handed his horse over to Captain Fulk to hold, an argument broke out between two lords standing right in front of the makeshift platform. One of them Zacharias had never seen before; the other was the infamous Lord Wichman, second son of Duchess Rotrudis of Saony, known throughout the army for impressive deeds of valor as well as an absolutely vile temperament. Some said he couldn’t be killed, for many had tried, and not all of them were Wendar’s enemies.
“—swore you wouldn’t molest, but then I found that you’d forced her not even just once but three times before you left for Gent!” said the other lord, a brawny fellow with a bald spot and a fleshy face.
“Who’s to say I forced her,” sneered Wichman, “or that she didn’t ask for it, wishing for a bull instead of an ox?”
The other lord swore violently, leaped forward, and grabbed Wichman’s throat in his beefy hands. Prince Bayan turned bright red with anger as he jumped up, but before he could act, Sanglant had cut through the crowd and hauled the first man off Wichman.
“I beg you, Cousin, pray leave off strangling your brother.” His hoarse voice rang out over the rising clamor. “He may well deserve it, but we need him to fight the Quman.”
Laughter coursed through the ranks of the assembled nobles. A good family quarrel broke the tension. Bayan leaned down to whisper in Sapientia’s ear.
Gagging and rubbing his throat, Wichman spat on the ground, careful to aim away from the prince. “Ai, Lord! She was just his concubine, common born. Easy enough to get another one, if she didn’t please him.”
The brother was struggling in Sanglant’s grip, but even a man as stout and broad as he was couldn’t quite get free. “She pleased me well enough, before you spoiled her!”
“Lord’s balls, Zwentibold, that was—what?—two years ago? She’s forgotten you by now—”
“She’s dead. She hanged herself after you raped her.”
The crowd had drawn back away from the brothers, but Zacharias couldn’t tell if the nobles were appalled at the tale or only worried that one of the two men would draw a sword and accidentally injure a bystander.
Unexpectedly, Sapientia rose, signaling to Bayan to sit down again. “I pray you, Sanglant, let go of our cousin Zwentibold.” She took a spear out of the hands of one of the men-at-arms standing below the platform and, from the height, drove the point into the ground between the two men. “Place your right hand on the haft,” she commanded imperiously. Not even Duchess Rotrudis’ sons, who both wore the gold torque that signified their royal birth, dared disobey a public order made by the king’s heir, especially not when so many of her husband’s picked soldiers crowded around, smiling grimly with their spears in hand.
“Now swear by Our Lord and Lady,” she said when both men gripped the haft, glaring at each other with a hatred as palpable as that of the looming thunderstorm. “Swear that until the Quman are vanquished, you will do no harm to the other, for the sake of peace in our ranks and for the sake of the realm itself.”
Put to the test in front of the entire assembly, they had no choice but to swear.
Sapientia’s triumph was easy to see in her expression. At that moment, she looked truly as the heir ought to look: bold, stalwart, and ready to lead. But it was Bayan who stepped up beside her and raised his voice.
“Lord Zwentibold has brought us valuable news: The Quman army withdrew this morning from their siege of Osterburg.” A cheer rose, but it died away when Bayan lifted a hand for silence. “Lord Zwentibold was therefore able to ride out of the city with three full cohorts of mounted men and make his way to us. But if Bulkezu withdrew his soldiers, it was only to prepare to meet us. We have no good count of their numbers, and they are in any case difficult to count because of their habit of ranging wide and moving quickly. Do not believe that they can defeat us, because God are with us.”
This ringing statement produced another cheer, during which Bayan whispered into Sapientia’s ear. When the cheering died down, she grasped hold of the spear’s haft again and called out. “Let every leader swear peace and mutual help to one another. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Angels, when the heavenly host sing of the glories of God. We will fight in the name of Our Lord and Lady, and they will ride with us. Do not doubt that we will defeat the Quman once and for all time.”
5
THAT morning, Antonia rose early, prayed, and paced, knowing it important to keep up her strength. At the appropriate time, she waited by the curtained entrance to the guest quarters, head bent and hands folded in the very picture of perfect repose. But in her heart she fumed over the petty insults and grave wrongs the mother abbess and nuns at the convent of St. Ekatarina had done to her.
For three months she had bided here, as quiet as a mouse, as humble as a sparrow, a most unexceptional guest. And yet Mother Obligatia persisted in treating her as an enemy.
A woman’s voice, raised in prayer, lifted with heartbreaking beauty: “The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.”
o;—swore you wouldn’t molest, but then I found that you’d forced her not even just once but three times before you left for Gent!” said the other lord, a brawny fellow with a bald spot and a fleshy face.
“Who’s to say I forced her,” sneered Wichman, “or that she didn’t ask for it, wishing for a bull instead of an ox?”