The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“Nay, so I did not, nor would I wish any person to see what you saw, nor any to suffer it, but—”

She limped away, unwilling to hear more. He swore and hurried after her.

“Truce, then,” he said as he came up beside her. “I’ll speak no more on this subject, only I must warn you—”

“I pray you, do not.”

He raised his hands in surrender, and his lips twisted in something resembling a smile but concealing unspoken words and a wealth of emotion. A spark of feeling flared in her heart, unbidden and unexpected. She had to concede he was well enough looking, with broad shoulders and that shock of red hair. Was it possible the interest he had taken in her over the last two weeks, after the battle and then once Prince Sanglant had sent them away from the main army to track down Theophanu, was more than comradely? Was he, however mildly, courting her? Did she find him attractive?

But to think of a man at all in that way made her think of Bulkezu, and anger and hatred scoured her clean in a tide of loathing.

Maybe Bulkezu had died of the wound to his face that he had received at the Veser. Maybe it had festered and poisoned him. But her Eagle’s Sight told her otherwise.

She halted beside a pile of wood under the spreading branches of an oak tree that stood at the edge of the forest. Acorns slipped under her feet. Most of the wood had been split by the Lions and taken away to feed campfires, but a few unsplit logs remained. Thiadbold crossed his arms, not watching her directly, and said nothing. There was still enough light to distinguish his mutilated ear, the lobe cut cleanly away and long since healed in a dimple of white scar tissue. He had a new scar on his chin, taken at the Veser.

Ai, God, so many people had died at the hands of Bulkezu.

Rolling a log into place between several rocks, she grabbed the ax and started chopping. Yet not even the gleeful strike of the ax into wood could cut the rage and sorrow out of her.

The wind gusted as a hard rain swept over them. Soldiers scrambled for the shelter of their canvas tents. She retreated under the sheltering canopy of the oak. Out in the open, campfires wavered under the storm’s force. One went right out, drowned by the heavy rain, and the dozen others flickered and began to die. Distant lightning flashed, and a few heartbeats later, thunder cracked and rumbled.

“That came on fast,” remarked Thiadbold. “Usually you can hear them coming.”

“I felt it. They should have taken shelter sooner.”

“So must we all. Prince Sanglant is a man who hears the tide of battle before the rest of us quite know what is about to hit us. He’s like a hound that way, hearing and smelling danger before an ordinary man knows there’s a beast ready to pounce. If he fears for the kingdom, if he fears that his father will not listen while black sorcery threatens Wendar, then I, for one, trust his instinct.”

“Or his ambition?”

“Do you think so? That all this talk of a sorcerous cabal is only a cloak for vanity and greed? That he is simply a rebel intent on his own gain and glory?”

“What did the great nobles care when the common folk were murdered and enslaved by the Quman? How many came to the aid of the farmers and cottagers? They only thought to defend themselves and their treasure, to nurse along their own petty quarrels. They left their people behind to suffer at the hands of monsters.”

“So that may be. I will hardly be the one to defend the likes of Lord Wichman, though it was God’s will that he be born the son of a duchess and set above you and me. Some say that the Quman were a punishment sent from God against the wicked.”

“Innocent children!”

“Martyrs now, each one. Yet who can say whom God favor? It was Prince Sanglant who defeated the Quman in the end.”

She could think of no answer to this and so fumed as rain pelted down, drumming merrily on the earth. Drenched and shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself. A gust of wind raked the trees while thunder cracked. Branches splintered, torn free by the wind, and crashed to the ground a stone’s toss away. Out in the meadow, a tent tore free of the stakes pinning it to the ground, exposing the poor soldiers huddled within. She recognized three wounded men who couldn’t yet move well; one had lost a hand, another had a broken leg in a splint, and the third had both his arms up in slings to protect his injured shoulders. The canvas flapped like a great wing in the gale, trying to pull free of the remaining stakes.

Thiadbold swore, laughing, and ran out into the full force of the storm. For a moment she simply stood there in the wind and rain, staring, slack. Then a branch snapped above her, like a warning, and leaves showered down. She bolted after Thiadbold and together, with the belated help of other Lions, they got the tent staked down again while their injured comrades made jokes, humor being their only shield against their helpless condition.

At last Thiadbold insisted she walk over to the village and ask for Eagle’s shelter at a hearth fire. There she dried out her clothing and dozed away the night in relative comfort on a sheepskin laid over a sleeping platform near the hearth. She woke periodically to cough or because the ache in her hip felt like the intermittent stabbing of a knife, thrust deep into the joint.

Would she never be rid of the pain?

The next day they chose a lanky youth from the village to take a message to Mother Scholastica at Quedlinhame. No person among them, none of the Lions and certainly not any of the villagers, could write, so the lad had to be drilled until Hanna was sure he had the words right and could repeat them back at need. He proved quick and eager, learning the message thoroughly although eventually they had to chase away a chorus of onlookers who kept interrupting him to be helpful.

“I’d be an Eagle, if I could,” he confided, glancing back to make sure his father could not hear. The old man was complaining to Thiadbold about losing the boy’s labor for the week it would take him to walk to Quedlinhame and back at this time of year when the fields were being turned under and mash shaken down for the pigs and wood split. “It must be a good life, being an Eagle and serving the king.”

“If you don’t mind death and misery.” He looked startled, then hurt, and a twinge of guilt made her shrug her shoulders. She hated the way his expression lit hopefully as he waited for her to go on. “It’s a hard life. I’ve seen worse things than I can bear to speak of—” She could not go on so stood instead, fighting the agony in her hip as tears came to her eyes.

But he was young and stupid, as she had been once.

“I wouldn’t mind it,” he said as he followed her to the door of his father’s small but neat cottage. “I’m not afraid of cold or bandits. I’ve got a good memory. I know all the psalms by heart. Everyone says I’m quick. The deacon who comes Ladysday to lead mass sometimes asks me to lead the singing. B-but, I don’t know how to ride a horse. I’ve been on the back of a donkey many a time, so surely that means I can easily learn how to sit a horse.”

She wiped tears from her cheeks and swung back to look at him, with his work-scarred hands and an undistinguished but good-natured face that made her think of poor Manfred, killed at Gent. She’d salvaged Manfred’s Eagle’s brooch after Bulkezu had torn it from her cloak, that day the Quman had captured her. She’d clung to that brass brooch and to the emerald ring Henry had given her. Together with her Eagle’s oath, these things had allowed her to survive.