Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“Either way,” persisted Ivar, “if he knows now, he’ll be able to offer Conrad and Sabella a truce, so together they can fight the Eika.”

“Fairly spoken words,” agreed Wolfhere. “Let me scout, see what weaknesses this camp has.”

“Do you mean to speak to Conrad and Sabella?” asked Berthold.

“No. The rest of you stay here until I return. Be ready to move at the least signal. Fly east or north, if you must run. Do not let Conrad or Sabella intimidate you, should they happen to call for you before I am come back. If the Eika attack, seek Kassel’s walls and pray that friendly hands let you in.”

Berthold nodded, but Ivar rose in protest.

“At least one of us must come with you.”

“None of you can walk out of here without being captured. Not as I can. Lord Berthold, I pray you. Let me take the writ. It is possible I will break through. I can deliver it to Sanglant.”

“That will make him love you more!” said Berthold with a laugh as he drew a length of carefully wrapped cloth out of his tunic and gave it to Wolfhere.

“Go to the gate and make some noise. Draw the attention of the guards, but not so much that they come inside. Sing, or joke with them. Ask for more ale.”

“Jonas, with me,” said Berthold. “Odei, finish off the rest of that wine sack.”

Odei grinned, and guzzled.

They crowded up to the gate, hanging over the rail as Berthold called in a cheerful voice. “I beg you, friends! A little more wine, if you will! We’ve been walking days with nothing but stream water to drink, and you know what that does to a man! My companions are perishing of thirst. And if you have an accommodating woman in camp, we wouldn’t mind a taste of that sweet wine as well.”

“Oh, God,” murmured Ivar, and just then he realized that Wolfhere was gone.

“Are we all going now?” asked Brother Heribert, rising to his knees.

Ivar dove forward and grasped the man before he could ruin their plan. “Nay, nay, Brother. Hold tight. We’re to hold tight here. That’s our work.”

“Got a redheaded woman?” Jonas was asking, loud enough that any man within a hundred paces could hear him. “I hear they spit fire, hot in the bed, but I admit I’ve never tried one myself.”

An older man’s voice answered, close at hand. “Look at your face, lad! I’d wager you’ve never bedded a lass in your short life!” He and his fellows chortled with laughter as Jonas protested heatedly.

“But he is close. I must go with the other man, with the wolf. Why did he not wait for me?”

Ivar tightened his hands over the cleric’s slender wrists. They were as small as a child’s. The man was so thin it was a miracle he could walk, and that weird, intense gaze gave Ivar the shudders. In the dusk, the cleric’s blue eyes seemed almost to burn on a wick flaring deep within.

“If we go, we’ll be captured and put in a worse cage. We must wait here until it is our time to act. Lady Sabella is holding us prisoner.”

“Who is Lady Sabella?”

“She is the lady who spoke to us, and to Duke Conrad. The noblewoman. Henry’s half sister. She is Prince Sanglant’s enemy.”

“I must find the one I love. I must find the one called Sanglant. How can I reach him? He is close! The other one, the wolf, he is going there, to him.”

“Only Lady Sabella can release us.”

“Ah!” Heribert’s mouth opened as though he were surprised.

A cold breeze snaked through Ivar’s hair. Heribert’s weight collapsed in his arms, and he fell backward.

“God! God!” he cried, half caught and panicking before he twisted the man in his grasp and laid him down on the earth.

“Ivar! We’ll pray in a moment!” That was Berthold, who turned back to the guards. “Nay, never mind him. He’s a frater, you know, a novice monk, and the fight today made him piss his pants. Any little thing sets him to shrieking!”

They all laughed, but Ivar still held Brother Heribert’s cooling wrist in his own warm hand. Something was very wrong. His heart hammered, and he could not catch his breath, but after all, that pounding was only the sound of men still at work in the twilight as they readied their siege works.

Unexpectedly, the steppe woman knelt beside him and bent over the limp body. She pressed her face up against that pale mouth; she sniffed at his eyes, his throat, and his loins. She placed one hand on his abdomen and another at his breastbone and for a while sat in perfect stillness and with eyes closed as the jawing of Lord Berthold and his new friends went on and on. So close, Ivar noticed her musky scent, which was not the complicated spice he associated with women.