Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

“Ai, God,” swore Fortunatus. “I forgot Sister Gerwita. She was quite out of breath.” He was sweating, if possible, even more than before.

“You have news, Brother,” said Rosvita, not needing an answer. His expression was answer enough.

Aurea opened the door all the way to admit poor timid Gerwita, who was indeed panting so hard that Rosvita herself hurried over to help her to the bed. “Dear God, child, I hope you are not falling ill.”

“Nay, Sister, it was just the stairs and the heat. In truth, my heart aches for the suffering I’ve seen. There is so little we can do to help them.” She wiped a tear, or sweat, from her cheek. The lamplight washed her thin, pale face to ivory. “Alas, Sister, that we come bearing such tidings. Brother Fortunatus told you… didn’t he?”

Nay, he’s had no chance.

“We found her, Sister.” Gerwita sighed heavily, shoulders drooping.

“Gerwita found her,” said Fortunatus sternly, never one to take credit where he had not earned it. “She was the only one not afraid to tour the plague houses and the poor houses and the infirmaries. She only took me there to identify the body.”

“God have mercy,” breathed Rosvita, seeing all too clearly where this would lead. “Go on.”

“Found who?” asked Ruoda.

Gerwita waved a languid hand, unable to speak. Fortunatus went on. “Paloma, the lay sister from St. Ekatarina’s Convent. Dead of the summer fever, so the sisters at St. Asella’s infirmary reported. But she had none of the bruising on the cheeks. Her eyes weren’t sunken in. You know how they look. I think she was murdered, Sister, for when I met her yesterday before Lauds, she was as healthy as I am.”

3

IT was obvious even from the outside that Osterburg’s walls were in poor repair. But a mob of prisoners, whipped forward with the lash, could not breach them, not with so many determined defenders pouring hot oil and a rain of arrows down on their hapless foe. Most of the captives died in agony at the base of the walls while Bulkezu and his army watched in a silence tempered only by the whisper of their wings in a steady autumn breeze. There was nothing Hanna could do to stop the killing, nothing she could do to save them.

Nothing.

By the time rudimentary siege engines were brought forward on the third day of the siege, the defenders had plugged the gaps with piles of rubble and quickly erected palisades. To Hanna’s eyes, it looked as though they had ripped down entire houses for the beams and planks thrown up to fill in the weak spots, but of course from this distance it was hard to tell.

All she could do was pray that Osterburg would not fall too soon. All she could do was pray that what she had seen with her Eagle’s sight two weeks ago had been a true vision, not a false one.

“Eagle.” Prince Ekkehard’s concubine, Agnetha, had been weeping. She wiped at her eyes as she joined Hanna on the slope between the begh’s tent and the prince’s. The guards glanced at her and away, pretending disinterest. “Tell me what I must do, Eagle. They took my uncle away yesterday. I was barely able to save his sons from being sent out as well.” Two dark-haired, ragged boys knelt on the dirt outside Ekkehard’s tent, heads bowed in prayer or in grief. “But they took Uncle away for the attack. I know he must be dead now.” She began to cry again. “I should have gone in his place. Look at how many are dead, and I’m safe and dry and not hungry.”

“There’s nothing you could have done.” But her words sounded hollow. In truth, she felt hollow. “Nothing.”

Even had she demanded that Bulkezu cast her back into the crowd of prisoners, that he let his soldiers lash her forward with the rest, he would not have done so. That one night she had spent in the mob had only been a ruse to catch her out, to see what magic she might be hiding. After that, he had reeled in her leash once again and kept her close by his side, always close. She had never known that hate, like a fever, could burn you out until you were only a husk.

She had seen so much death and cruelty that she wondered if it had crushed her heart. She hated herself for ever thinking of Bulkezu as a handsome man. Outward beauty meant nothing if the heart within was misshapen and monstrous.

Bulkezu’s pavilion and the main encampment stood on a low rise overlooking the river valley from the west. The Veser River flowed northward, mighty and broad, meeting a tributary that flowed in from the east through rugged countryside right where the fortress city had been built to take advantage of such a good defensive position. The Quman army had trampled the fields outside of the city, on the west bank of the Veser, although most looked as though they had already been harvested.

“They must have good grain stores,” said Agnetha suddenly, betraying her background as a practical farm girl. Not even the rich gowns that Ekkehard dressed her in could disguise the strength of her callused hands. No doubt she had hoed many a field and wrung many a chicken’s neck in her time, before she’d been forced to accept the privilege of gracing a captive prince’s bed. “And with rivers on two sides, good access to water. They’ll be hard to take, as long as the walls hold.”

Hanna glanced at her, surprised. “You’ve learned a thing or two about war.”

“So I’ve had to,” replied Agnetha bitterly. “Prince Ekkehard and his companions talk of little else.” Although she was already speaking in a low voice, she leaned closer and whispered so softly in Hanna’s ear that Hanna strained to hear. “He’s terrified. That’s his aunt’s city, and you can see by the banner that she is in residence together with his cousins. All he’s done the last three days is pray to God to not force him to commit treason against his own kin.”

“It seems late to worry about that.”

“That may be, but what else was he to do, taken prisoner and all?”

“He could have refused to fight on Bulkezu’s behalf.”

“And been killed instead? His own kin haven’t treated him with respect, have they? Why shouldn’t he resent them?”

“Is that what he tells you?” asked Hanna.

“Why shouldn’t he tell me? Who else will listen to him?”

Hanna examined the pretty young woman. Not even red and swollen eyes could ruin the promise of her full lips and fuller bosom, nor tarnish the glory of her thick, dark hair. For all Ekkehard’s faults, he was still a prince of the royal house, with fine manners, an elegant figure, and his own share of Henry’s charisma. Thrown together with him in desperate circumstances, learning the best ways to smooth his feathers when he became agitated, comprehending that his protection could perhaps save her remaining family: nay, she could not find it in her heart to blame Agnetha for becoming his champion, in her own way. People did what they had to, to survive.