The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“A whole cavalcade. Some mighty noble, I wager.”

“Must be the lady duchess.”

“Ai, yes, so it must.” Maynard hawked and spat. “So. For her.”

“Careful. She’d as like ride her horse over you as spare you for the mines, so they say.”

The cart jounced over the ruts that made the road as the Garters pulled their vehicle aside so the noble procession could pass unimpeded. He heard the clamor of the approach, hooves, talk, a smattering of song, and the rumble of wagon wheels, all wafting over him as the summer breeze did, felt and forgotten and beyond him, now, who was dead. Or so he remembered.

Sparks of memory clotted into recollection. He was carrying a message for Biscop Constance, written on a tiny strip of parchment that they’d rolled up in a bit of oiled sheepskin and which he now concealed within his cheek like a squirrel storing nuts against the coming winter dearth. He was only pretending to be dead.

That was a relief!

“Is that a corpse you’re hauling?” a voice asked.

“Don’t come no closer. One of the folk in St. Asella’s died a nasty death, and they feared it’s some manner of plague brought up from the south with the soldiers.”

“God save us! Have they all fallen sick?”

“Nay, none other. It might only be demons that chewed away the poor lad’s vitals. But they’re taking no chances so we’re to haul him out to the woods where there’s an old church abandoned in days gone. Our deacon’ll say the rites over him there.”

“Let me see him!”

This new voice belonged to a woman. Ivar recognized that imperious tone, rankling and sour. A face loomed to one side. It was a woman past her prime, mounted on horseback, seen out of the corner of his vision and after a lengthy gasp of shade—for she blocked the sun—the light blasted him again and he would have blinked but he could not.

“He’s not breathing, my lady duchess,” said another person. “Ought we to turn aside?”

“Nay, I do not fear the plague. We’ve had no word of it in this region. No doubt some other ill felled him. Elfshot, maybe.”

“True enough, my lady. We’ve heard many a tale of shades haunting the woods in greater numbers than ever, bold as you please and afflicting the common folk who do fear even to seek wood and game though they’ve need of it. Do you suppose that’s what felled this young fellow?”

“It might have.”

With the easy stream of their conversation flowing past, his thoughts began to coalesce into proper order, although their sluggish pace frustrated him. The Garters would dump him in the wood at an old oak tree where the old gods had once demanded sacrifice. A chapel dedicated to Saint Leoba stood there now, proof against lightning, a boon to the righteous. As he must be, if he meant to carry word of Biscop Constance’s plight to Princess Theophanu.

“Still, he looks familiar,” Lady Sabella mused, but although she kept talking her voice receded as she moved away, now disinterested. “I don’t see many folk with hair that coppery-red shade. He must hail from the north….”

The shriek would have made any man jump, except one dosed with a potion that made him more dead than alive.

“Ivar? Ai, God. Ivar! It’s Ivar! Nay, Lord, it can’t be! Lady protect him! I thought he would be safe!”

“Lord Baldwin! Come back here!”

A figure hurtled over the cart’s edge and landed so hard on Ivar that, had he not been paralyzed, he would certainly have betrayed himself.

“Ivar! It can’t be! Ai, God! Ai, God!”

Tears poured in a flood. Baldwin clutched Ivar’s hands and chafed them, repeating the same words over and over, crying and groaning, his pretty face twisted with grief. “Ai! Ai! Ai!”

“Come, Lord Baldwin! This man may have died of the plague. Get off him!”

“Then I wish I would die, too. And so I would, if it would bring him back! I would share death with him if I could! Don’t touch me!”

“Baldwin! Come!” Sabella spoke as if to a dog. Weeping, Baldwin tugged a ring off his hand and twisted it onto Ivar’s right forefinger. “Take something of me into the afterlife,” he sniveled. “Ai, God! Ai!”

“Get him off there,” ordered the lady. “I’ve had enough!”

Baldwin was hauled off, kicking and shouting, and dragged away while Ivar lay helpless, screaming inside, guts all knotted up with bitter fury and an ugly relief that the charade had passed the direst test of all.