The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars 5)

“I know who you are!” she exclaimed as Zacharias climbed groggily to his feet, a hand clapped to the back of his head.

Bulkezu’s smile vanished. His eyes narrowed as he stared at the Eagle, annoyed and puzzled. He was always at his most dangerous when exasperated.

“Hathui.” Zacharias staggered forward between his sister and the chained prisoner. “He’s dangerous.”

“I know that.” She stepped past him to confront Sanglant. “My lord prince, I demand satisfaction. His Majesty King Arnulf the Younger sent his subjects east to settle pagan lands and in exchange he promised they could rule themselves with the king alone, and no lady or lord, set over them as their ruler. The king’s law sets a price for certain crimes, does it not?”

“So it does,” said Sanglant, glancing at Bulkezu. The prisoner clearly had no more idea than his captor did what she was talking about.

“This man raped me when I was a virgin of but fourteen years of age. He cut me, too, and after that the wisewoman of my village said I would not be able to bear children. So I set my sights on the King’s Eagles. Otherwise, I would have stayed in my village and inherited my mother’s lands, and had daughters of my own to inherit in their turn. Do I not have a claim, my lord prince?”

“He raped you, Hathui?” croaked Zacharias. He looked around wildly, grabbed the broken haft of the spear, and hoisted it.

“Stay.” Sanglant yanked the spear out of the frater’s hand and tossed it against the ladder. “Do nothing rash, Brother. Is this true, Prince Bulkezu?”

Bulkezu laughed again. “One looks like another. I don’t remember. It must have been years ago. But I recall clearly what I did to the worm. Does she know, your paramour, that you have no cock, Zach’rias? That we cut it off because you told us you’d rather lose your cock than your tongue? Does she know that you let men use you as a woman, just so you could stay alive? Does she know that you watched others die, because you wanted yourself to live? That it is you who taught me to speak the Wendish language, so that I could understand the speech of my enemy without them knowing?”

Zacharias screamed with rage and leaped toward Bulkezu. Sanglant swung to grab him, but Hathui had already got hold of her older brother. She stood almost as tall and had the strength of a woman who has spent years riding at the king’s behest.

“Stay, Brother, do nothing rash,” she said, echoing Sanglant’s words. “What does it matter what this prisoner says to you or about you?”

Despite himself, Sanglant took a half step away from the ragged frater, a little disgusted by Bulkezu’s accusations and repelled by the thought of a man so mutilated. What kind of man would watch his own kind die without doing all he could to prevent it? What kind of man would submit to any indignity, just to save his own life? For God’s sake, what kind of man would rather lose his penis than his tongue?

“What answer do you make to these accusations?” he asked, struggling to keep contempt out of his tone. It was remarkably easy to believe that Zacharias had done these vile things. The frater never acted like a real man. Whatever drove him—and he wasn’t without courage—he so often faltered, recoiled, and hid. Nor had he ever truly become a full member of Sanglant’s court. He loitered on the fringe, not quite accepted, never able to push himself forward to join with the others.

To the prince’s surprise, the frater wept frustrated tears. “All true,” he gasped. “And worse.” His expression was so bleak that pity swelled in Sanglant’s heart. “I’m sorry, Hathui. Scorn me if you must—”

“Sorry for having been a slave for seven years to this monster?” She dropped Zacharias’ arm, took three steps forward, and spat into Bulkezu’s face. The Quman chieftain flinched back from her anger, surprised rather than scared. “I will lay my case before the prince and demand full recompense. And for the crimes you committed against my brother as well.” She did not wait for his response. “Come, Zacharias. It was foolish of you to come down here, but I suppose you were afraid that I would turn away from you if I knew the truth.” Her anger hadn’t subsided; it spilled out to wash over her hapless brother. “I would never turn away from you. What a man suffers when he is a prisoner and a slave, under duress, cannot be held against him. Come now, let’s get out of this stinking pit.”

Zacharias croaked out her name, broken and pathetic, but he followed her obediently up the ladder. Malbert’s face appeared.

“My lord prince?”

“I’m coming,” said Sanglant, turning to pick up the two halves of the spear.

Bulkezu wasn’t finished. “She wore the badge of an Eagle. Are all the king’s Eagles also his whores?”

“A weak thrust, Prince Bulkezu, and unworthy of you.” He set a foot on the lowest rung, stretched, and handed the broken spear to Malbert, then passed up the sword as well.

Bulkezu’s lips had a way of quivering, almost a twitch, that Sanglant had learned to recognize as a prelude to his worst rages. “What weapons do you give me?” he asked in that voice, as soft as feathers but poisoned at its heart.

“I’ll give you a spear, as I promised, once you have guided me to the hunting grounds of the griffins. On that day you’ll go free—”

“And until that day? You’d have done better to kill me if you’re so afraid of me that you must shackle me, as a dog must a lion. At least Zach’rias is an honest worm. You call yourself a man but you act like a dog, slinking and cowering.”

Sanglant laughed. That surge of restlessness that had driven him from Ilona’s bed swept back twice as strong. For two years they’d made their slow and circuitous way eastward, delayed by blizzards, snow, high water, rains, and bouts of illness in the troops and the horses. He had never seen as much rain and snow as he had in the year and a half since the battle at the Veser. Rain had drenched the land, causing floods and mildew in the grain, and snow had buried it for two winters running, as if God were punishing them for their sins.

But God’s hand alone had not caused all their troubles. They had also been delayed by the necessity of making nice to King Geza, whose lands they had to cross. He didn’t like Geza nearly as much as he’d liked Bayan, and Sapientia’s presence was a rankling sore, a constant source of frustration.

Or perhaps it had just been too long since he’d had a good fight.

“Malbert!”

“Yes, my lord prince.”

“Throw me down the key and pull up the ladder.”

“My lord!”