Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

Erkanwulf made a face. “Yeah, we found them. Dragged off to one side like rubbish. Seems to me they treat their soil better, burying it, like, so it doesn’t attract flies. Animals had gotten into them. I didn’t stay, but I know the captain meant to bury them there instead of hauling their bones back, which we couldn’t do anyway seeing as how what was left was all scattered.” He had gotten red as he talked, and he wiped his forehead with the back of a hand, although it wasn’t at all warm.

“Bad?” asked Ivar, and Erkanwulf looked right at him and nodded. They had traveled far enough together that they no longer needed long explanations to be understood. “I could have said a prayer over them.”

“Captain’s orders,” said Erkanwulf. “He wanted you to command the rear guard.”

“He didn’t want me to come along at all, as I recall.”

“You’re a cleric, Ivar. You’re not meant to be soldiering.”

But Ivar was restless. Since Biscop Constance had established herself at Lavas Holding, he felt himself betwixt and between. He had few clerical skills to bring to her schola, but likewise he was no soldier to serve her in that guise. In truth, as hard as that journey with Erkanwulf had been, he had liked it best of all the things he had experienced and suffered in the last few years. It made him think of Hanna, riding as an Eagle. On the road, he had felt that he was at least going somewhere, and the rescue of Baldwin had brought him a measure of peace even if Baldwin was no longer what he had been.

So are we all changed, he thought.

He wished Hanna was there, so he could tell her his thoughts as he had used to do, but no doubt she would only laugh at him. If she was even alive to do so. Fear pinched him, and he ducked his head, rubbing his eyes.

“Good land there at Ravnholt Manor,” continued Erkanwulf, oblivious to these signs. “Shame to see it gone fallow, like, with no one left to farm it.”

“There they come!” called a sentry.

Captain Ulric led the company out of the mist. Among that number walked Gerulf and Dedi, the two Lions Ivar and his friends had rescued at Queen’s Grave. They saw Ivar and nodded to acknowledge him. Dedi was limping.

The victors had bound the bandits with rope at the ankles and wrists. The prisoners shuffled with heads down, broken in spirit, wounded, sniveling, and groaning. One man with a bloodied nose staunched the flow with a fist pressed against his blistered lips. A younger lad cradled a bleeding hand in the other arm. Lord Geoffrey walked at the end of the line, but everyone knew that Captain Ulric had plotted the raid and commanded it in all but name.

“They’ll be shown more mercy than those girls they murdered,” said Erkanwulf.

“How so?” asked Ivar, who was wondering how any folk could fall so low as these. They looked worse than he felt! They were the filthiest people he had ever seen, coated in dirt and worse things, besides their sins.

“They’ll receive a trial, and their death’ll come quick. Lucky for them.” He spat.

“There was a woman, the one that man Heric said goaded them to murder the girls.”

Erkanwulf looked away and wiped his mouth. “She was dead. I don’t know who killed her.”

The lad with the injured hand wept. To Ivar, the day seemed dark; the clouds would never lift. Ravnholt Manor was avenged, but no one seemed likely to rejoice.

In Lavas Holding, the prisoners were locked into the kennels once reserved for Count Lavastine’s famous pack of hounds. Ivar paused to speak to Sergeant Gerulf, who had been assigned to the first shift of guards.

“How is Dedi?”

“He’ll do, as long as the wound doesn’t get infected, but Biscop Constance knows a bit about healing and anyway that one, Brother Baldwin, can heal him, surely, if it comes to that.”

“Maybe so.”

“You doubt it?” asked Gerulf, with a hint of a smile. “They say he’s a saint, that one.”

Ivar sighed, but he and Gerulf had a bond sewn up out of grim circumstances survived together. “It’s difficult for me to see Baldwin as—what you say.”

“It might explain his handsome face, since some say that’s a sign of God’s favor.” Gerulf chuckled. “There now, my lord, I’m just joking. Dedi will do well enough. It was a shallow cut.”

“Are you satisfied, still, with your service with Captain Ulric?”

“Duke Conrad assigned us to the captain, and I hold no grudge against the duke, since he treated us fairly considering the lady wished us all dead. It must have been for a reason that Dedi and I came to Ulric’s troop. My loyalty remains to King Henry, my lord, and I serve Henry by serving his sister, don’t you think?”

“If Henry still lives.”

“Then Henry’s heir. That’s not all. There’s a widow in Ulric’s following I’ve a mind to marry. That lad Erkanwulf got to talking about taking a small company of men to settle Ravnholt Manor, now that it’s abandoned. It’s something to think about, especially for a man of my age. I’m content, my lord Ivar. Are you?”

Ivar shrugged, and Gerulf smiled crookedly, as if to say he knew what words Ivar would speak, if he dared—which he did not. Restlessness ate at him, a mortal disease. Somewhere, surely, events of great importance transpired and as usual he was stuck here waiting in the backwaters while the battle moved on and left him behind.