“Bring in the heretics,” he said caustically to his guardsmen. “What’s seven more in our lady’s service?”
They were taken to a low room in the barracks loft, the kind of prison that soldiers accused of a crime like petty theft or fist-fighting would be thrown into. Here they languished for four days, measured by the light coming and going in the smoke hole. Food and drink arrived at regular intervals. Their slops bucket was emptied twice a day. They had no fire but plenty of straw for padding and although it was cold enough that Ivar was always shivering, the heat from below made it bearable. In fact, judging by the noise and activity, there seemed to be an awful lot of soldiers gathered in Autun, as many as if. the king dwelled here. In the dim light they couldn’t tell what was going on. They could only listen and pray.
On the fifth morning the trap was flung open, admitting a roil of smoke and a summons. One by one they climbed down the ladder. The awkwardness of their descent on a rickety ladder made them vulnerable, as did a dozen sour-looking guards waiting below. Impossible to make an escape in these circumstances.
“They’ll need a wash before they’re taken in to see Her Most Excellent Highness.” Captain Ulric paused in front of Baldwin, scratching his beard as he looked the young man up and down. “See that this one is given clean clothes. One of you can trim his hair and beard, but don’t let him or any of his comrades handle the razor.”
“Going for a bonus, Captain?” jested one of the guards, a slender young man with pale hair.
“Shut up, Erkanwulf. I do what I must to protect my position and the men under my command. If I can gain Her Ladyship’s favor, so be it. Now move along.”
“Something doesn’t feel right,” whispered Ermanrich, before getting a hard tap on his behind from the haft of a halberd.
“No talking,” said the one called Erkanwulf. Like his captain, he had a surly expression as though he’d eaten something disagreeable.
Ivar glanced at Gerulf, but the old Lion just shrugged. Something wasn’t right here, but it was impossible to know what it was except for the unusual concentration of soldiers, visible as the prisoners were marched through the barracks, out through the busy courtyard, and over to the famous palace baths.
In these stone halls, built long ago by Dariyan engineers, Emperor Taillefer had held court while luxuriating in the waters. His poets had sung of the curative powers of the baths, and more than one tapestry woven in those times depicted Taillefer at his ease among his courtiers in the baths or reclining at dinner on couches as the ancient Dariyans were said to do. The great emperor had restored the glory of the old Dariyan Empire for a brief and brilliant span.
Yet his Holy Dariyan Empire had collapsed when he had died. No one after him had been strong enough to hold it together.
A pair of elderly women had charge of the baths at this hour. Not even they, crones both, were immune to Baldwin’s staggering beauty, and by the time they were done with him, he looked better than he had in weeks with his hair neatly cut in the style favored by the royal princes and his beard trimmed to show off the handsome line of his jaw. A guard brought him a clean wool tunic, simple in cut and color but more than adequate compared to their travel-stained gear. Even Gerulf whistled admiringly.
“God above,” swore Dedi, as if he couldn’t help himself. “I’m glad my Fridesuenda never got a look at him. She’d have forgotten I ever existed.”
Baldwin looked ready to weep, like a calf just realizing that it’s about to be led off to the slaughterhouse. Ivar set a hand on Baldwin’s shoulder. “Just stick by me.”
“You won’t abandon me, will you, Ivar?”
“Of course not, Baldwin. I’ll never abandon you. Never.”
Baldwin’s bright-eyed gaze made Ivar uncomfortable, and even a little aroused. What had Ivar ever done to deserve Baldwin’s loyalty? Well, a few things, maybe, that he blushed to recall now. Those months they’d spent drinking and carousing and whoring with Prince Ekkehard were not ones he cared to dwell on; it was as if they’d been stricken by a plague of lechery and greed that had burned away anything good in them until they were merely rutting husks. But it hadn’t been all bad. He didn’t regret the intimacy he’d shared with Baldwin, because that at least had arisen from genuine love.
Love.
Ai, God. Why hadn’t he seen it before, when it had been staring him in the face all along? Baldwin stood there in all his beauty, so delectable that with only a little effort he could have just about any woman, and a few of the men, at his feet with a smile. But it was Ivar he gazed at trustingly, Ivar he clung to, Ivar he followed through thick and thin.
He loves me.
Captain Ulric arrived and, with a curse, surveyed Baldwin, Ivar, and the silence that had fallen between them. “Please don’t tell me he can’t get it up for women.”
“He’s a novice, sworn to the church,” retorted Ivar angrily, hastily removing his hand from Baldwin’s shoulder. But he knew a blush flowered in his face. His complexion always betrayed him.
The guards snickered until Ulric shut them up with a curt command. “Move them along. Her Most Excellent Highness doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
From the baths to Taillefer’s palace was a climb up a flight of stairs carved into the rock. A light snow fell, white flakes spinning down to dust rocks and rooftops, but not a single flake touched them because of the walkway built over the stairs so that the emperor could walk to and from his baths without getting rained on. Slender stone pillars supported a timber roof. Each pillar had been carved in the shape of an animal: dragons, griffins, eagles, and guivres accompanied their climb. Once Ivar came abreast of a noble phoenix, but when he paused to touch its painted feathers, Erkanwulf prodded him in the back with the butt of his spear.
“Move along, just as Captain said.”
By chance he had ended up behind Baldwin, and as he climbed he could not take his gaze away from the curl of Baldwin’s hair against the trim of his tunic, or the way glimpses of his neck, still moist from the baths, revealed themselves as Baldwin’s tunic shifted on his shoulders to the rhythm of his climb up the stairs. Did Baldwin really love him? Or was he just the only thing Baldwin had to hold on to?
A gate carved with Dariyan rosettes admitted them to the palace compound. Guards stood watch here, too. They were everywhere; a wasps’ swarm of guards inhabited Autun, all of them agitated and tense. Their party emerged into a courtyard bounded by a stone colonnade on one side and a stout rampart on the other. Opposite, Ivar saw the octagon chapel with its stone buttresses flaring out from each corner. He had once been allowed to pray inside the glorious chapel, kneeling in front of the stone effigy marking Taillefer’s resting place. He remembered that stem and noble visage and, most of all, the precious crown held in carved hands, a gold crown with seven points, each point adorned with a precious gem.
But he scarcely had time to gape at the exterior of the chapel before he was hustled away down the colonnade and into the great hall. In this hall he had tried to intervene in the trial of Liath and Hugh. How miserable his failure had been. He’d got a beating for his trouble, Liath had been excommunicated, and Hugh had been sent south to stand trial before the skopos. No doubt that bastard Hugh had by now charmed his way into the Holy Mother’s good graces. And for all Ivar knew, Liath was dead.
He couldn’t hate a dead woman. Was Hanna dead, too? Tears started up in his eyes as he stared around at the tapestried walls, the high ceiling above, half lost in gloom, and the lamps hung from brackets on every pillar and beam. Those hundred blazing flames threw off enough heat to warm the room.
It was strange to stand here again. He seemed doomed to come to grief in this hall. Baldwin caught his hand and squeezed it, then let go as the others were pushed up beside them.