Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

“Have you any milk to spill?” asked Ingo with a laugh, but he sobered, seeing her grief-stricken expression. “Here, have more cider. You look cold, lass. What’s the news from the prince’s camp?”

“Princess Sapientia has taken a liking to Lord Wichman, now that he’s recovering from his wounds, and you know how Prince Bayan humors her in everything. But that Wichman and his lordly friends—” She hesitated, but she could see by their expressions that her comments would shock no one here. “Truly, I’d as soon run with a pack of wormy dogs. Sometimes I think the princess—well, may God bless her and I’ll say no more on that score. But she’d be better served in attending to her poor brother.”

“He still can’t use his spear arm?” asked Ingo.

“For all I know he’ll never regain use of it, for he was sorely wounded. Lord Wichman is insufferable precisely on that account, for he was the one who rescued Prince Ekkehard from the Quman prince who was about to cut him down.”

“I tell you truly,” said Folquin in a low voice, “and not meaning to speak ill of the princess, may God bless her, but I wonder does she know what Prince Ekkehard does in the evening here in camp?”

“What do you mean?” demanded Hanna.

Folquin hesitated.

“You’d better show her,” said Ingo. “There’s been some fights about it already, in the ranks, and an army in our position can hardly afford to be fighting among itself.”

“Come on,” said Folquin reluctantly.

Hanna drained her mug and gave it to Ingo. The four Lions had stationed their campfire where wagons had been lined up in a horseshoe curve to form a barrier between the rear guard and the outlying sentries. The wooden cart walls gave some protection against the winged riders who dogged them persistently as they retreated north just ahead of the most astoundingly bad weather. There always seemed to be a rainstorm following at their heels, and as Hanna followed Folquin she could hear it like a storm front breaking in front of her. Wind and rain agitated the woodland behind them, but no rain ever touched Bayan’s army. The dry ground they walked on surely was churned to muck behind them, hindering their pursuers so badly that the main mass of the Quman army had never been able to catch up and finish them off.

Such was the power of Prince Bayan’s mother, a formidable sorcerer, princess of the dreaded Kerayit people.

But even with her magic to aid them, they had had a miserable month following their defeat by Bulkezu’s army at the ancient tumulus. The Ungrians had a saying: a defeated army is like a dying flower whose falling petals leave a trail. Every dawn, when they moved out, the freshly dug graves of a few more soldiers, dead from wounds suffered at the battle, were left behind to mark their path. Only Prince Bayan’s steady leadership had kept them more-or-less in one piece.

But even his leadership had not been enough to save Ivar.

The Lions formed the rear guard together with the stoutest companies of light cavalry left to Bayan, now under the captaincy of Margrave Judith’s second daughter and her admired troop of fighters. Lady Bertha was the only one of Judith’s Austran and Olsatian commanders who hadn’t lost her troops to rout when the margrave had lost her head on the battlefield. A popular and unquenchable rumor had spread throughout the army that Lady Bertha had so disliked her mother that the margrave’s death had emboldened rather than disheartened her. It was to the fringe of her bivouac that Folquin now led Hanna.

Six campfires burned merrily to mark out a circle. In their center sat Lady Bertha and her favorites, drinking what was left of the mead they’d commandeered from a Salavii holding two days before. Usually Hanna could hear them singing all the way up in the vanguard, for they were a hard drinking, tough crew, but tonight they sat quietly, if restlessly, and Lady Bertha bade them be still as she listened to Prince Ekkehard.

o;It could have been much worse,” agreed Stephen, but since he was accounted a novice, having survived only one major battle, his opinion was passed over in silence.

The fire popped. Ashy branches settled, gleaming briefly before Leo set another stick on the fire. All around them other campfires sparked and smoked as far as Hanna could see up along the cart track that the army followed as it retreated toward Handelburg. But the sight of so many fires did not make her feel any safer. She sipped at the hot cider, wishing it would warm the chill that constantly ate away at her heart.

Ivar was missing. She’d searched up and down through Bayan’s retreating army and not found a trace of him. She hadn’t even found anyone who remembered seeing him on the day of the battle except the injured prince, Ekkehard, who was so vexed at having lost his favorite, Baldwin, that he couldn’t be bothered to recall where and when he’d last seen Ivar.

“Only God can know the outcome of battles in advance,” she said at last, with a sigh. “It’s no use worrying over what’s already happened.”