Child of Flame (Crown of Stars 4)

“He managed it well enough,” observed Sanglant. “Isn’t that the way of war? I’ve a piece of news for you, Ekkehard. One of your comrades, Thiemo, still lives—”

“Thiemo is alive! Where is he?”

“He serves another prince now. I’ll let him know you’re alive, but he’s no longer yours to command. These other three—” They stammered out their names: Benedict, Frithuric, and Manegold. “You may return to the monastery or choose to suffer whatever fate Prince Ekkehard suffers. Which will it be?”

For all their youth, for all their foolishness, for all their crimes against Henry and Wendar, they knelt most graciously and proclaimed their undying loyalty to Ekkehard. They would walk with him wherever it led, even unto death.

“So be it.” Sanglant was glad to see that they had that much honor. He left them to stew, and to worry, and returned to the chamber allotted to him.

The bells rang for Vigils.

Blessing, Anna, and Zacharias slept, while Matto and Chustaffus stood guard and Thiemo played dice with Sibold, waiting up for their prince. The chamber was spacious enough to boast two tables and three beds. Wolfhere had pulled his camp chair over to the cold hearth. There he sat, staring into the ashes as though the dead fire still spoke to him.

He glanced up as Sanglant crossed to stand beside him. A few charred sticks lay in a heap to one side where they’d tumbled as they’d burned.

“You seem troubled,” said Sanglant quietly.

When Wolfhere made no answer, he sank down beside him. Grief at Bayan’s loss cut hard as Sanglant watched the old Eagle reach out with the poker to disturb the charred sticks, mixing them into the heap of ashes. Dust rose from the hearth, and settled again. Bayan had managed to juggle four wives and not get himself killed; he’d even put one aside when the marriage to Sapientia had been offered to him, and he’d not been poisoned or bespelled with impotence by his cast-off wife. Surely he had the cunning to deal with Wolfhere. Impossible to think of Bayan’s corpse decaying and his soul fled.

Thoughts of death choked him. “What is wrong? Have you been using your Eagle’s sight? Surely my father isn’t—?”

“Worse.” Wolfhere’s voice actually trembled. “Anne remains skopos. Henry returned to the palace safely after his campaign in the southern provinces. But then, unless my sight betrays me, what came next—” He could not go on for a moment, and when he did finally speak, his voice was a hoarse whisper. “This much have I deduced from what I can see, although truly Anne’s sorceries have clouded the truth.”

“For God’s sake, go on!”

“I never thought Anne would stoop so low.”

“Did you not? I never had any doubt.”

Wolfhere’s sharp glance only made Sanglant smile bitterly. “So be it. You’re wiser than 1, my lord prince, but I have known her far longer than you have. My whole life in her service—” He could not go on.

“And my father, whom you swore to serve? I pray you, Eagle, tell me about my father!”

Wolfhere shuddered. “Possessed by a daimone. Puppet of Anne and Hugh. What role Queen Adelheid plays in all this I cannot tell. Ai, God! That such a thing should come to pass! He has even declared that he means to anoint the infant, Mathilda, as his heir.”

Anne and Hugh. Whatever else Wolfhere said faded as a rush of anger roared like wind, blinding him. “He should never have trusted them. Yet who is worse, the man who trusts the untrustworthy, or the one who turned his back when he knew what dangers lay in wait for the unwary?”

Wolfhere rested head in hands, looking ten years older at that moment, utterly weary. “What can we do? It is hopeless if they have already gained so much.”

“Nay, do not say so,” said Sanglant as he stared at the hearth. A single spark glinted among white coals. “We are not done yet.”

They rode out at dawn. Considering the disrepair of the walls, Sanglant found it amazing that the Quman hadn’t broken through in any of a half-dozen gaps. Perhaps they hadn’t managed it only because they hadn’t had time. According to Lady Sophie, Bulkezu and his army had arrived a mere three days before Sanglant.

He surveyed the army riding at his back: noble lords and ladies and their eager retinues, the Ungrians bearing the body of Prince Bayan in a barrel of wine, leading them in death as well as life, and Sapientia, subdued and silent. His daughter was laughing at something Lord Thiemo had said. Although the poor boy had wept when told that Prince Ekkehard lived, he had seemed relieved to be told that he could not return to him. Fulk rode at the head of Sanglant’s personal escort, the captain’s keen gaze missing nothing as they headed down the road leading east.

A rash course, that he meant to take now, but the only one left to him. All along, ever since he had turned his back on his father at Angenheim, he had known this was what he would have to do. He had just never suspected that the stakes would be quite so high.

Drastic measures for drastic times.

He kept Lord Wichman beside him, not trusting him anywhere else. “Your mother?” he asked politely.

Wichman laughed coarsely. “The old bitch. She’s stubborn enough to live on for months. I pray she does, if only to torture my sisters. Do you mean to disinherit them?”

“I am not regnant, nor have I been named regent, to pass such a judgment. I believe a messenger has been sent to my sister Theophanu at Quedlinhame. Sapientia must also be consulted.”

“So you say, Cousin, but she’s nothing without Bayan.” Wichman’s thoughtful look gave an unfamiliar cast to his usually arrogant and lustful features, as though another man peered out, seeking to be heard. “He was a right prick, but Lord knows we all respected him.” He hiked up his chain mail to scratch his crotch. “Did the woman please you? I had to content myself with a couple of warty whores down in the town. Maybe I ought to think of getting married. I could use a good setup like Druthmar, there, with Villam’s daughter. Lady Brigida is still looking for a husband, so they say.”

o;You seem troubled,” said Sanglant quietly.