The pallor of their hair gave them away, ranks and ranks of them ranged in the forest, all standing as still as if they were statues—and so they might have been, sheeted in tin or copper or gold.
“I believe we are surrounded.” In the face of disaster, Rosvita found that she felt perfectly calm. “I pray you, Mother Scholastica, fall back to the wagons. I will remain here. Fortunatus, please find Sergeant Ingo or Sergeant Aronvald. We’d best discuss our options while we still have time to talk.”
They waited in a chilling silence, Rosvita out in front with Peter remaining bravely beside her while Mother Scholastica led the others back to the wagons.
“If your wagons are all strung out along the road,” remarked Peter with the even voice of a man who sees he can’t escape death, “they’ll offer little safety.”
“We must rely on God to protect us,” said Rosvita. “Why do you suppose they have not yet attacked?”
“What are they?” he asked her. “I’ve never seen men like them, if they’re men.”
“They are called Eika.”
“I’ve heard tales of such beasts. But you never know whether to believe them.”
“They’re real enough. King Henry fought a battle against them at Gent and drove them out of the city. For a few years, the north coast was peaceful.”
“Licking their wounds and making ready to invade again.”
“So it appears.”
Wind conversed in the leaves and branches, but the Eika did not speak or move. Fortunatus came up from the wagons with Sergeant Ingo.
“Lord have mercy.” The sergeant surveyed the blocked road, then spat.
“So we must pray,” said Rosvita. “Have they attacked the rear guard or the wagons?”
“Nay, they stand as if stone, on all sides,” said Ingo. “Some among us Lions fought Eika in earlier years, Sister. I will tell you that we never saw the like of this behavior. They were always silent, but their terrible dogs would yammer and attack, and they themselves would leap straight into battle like starving wolves. I wonder.”
“You wonder what?”
“I wonder what intelligence controls them.”
On the road ahead the Eika soldiers stepped aside. Two individuals came forward. One was an Eika warrior, noticeably more slender and shorter than many of his fellows. Around his hips was slung a girdle of surpassing beauty, gold-wire lacework studded with pearls and gems. Loops and spirals, a garish display, were painted on his chest. He bared his teeth, seeing the four who waited in the van; jewels winked, drilled into the incisors. He carried a gruesome standard, like a crossed spar on which hung streamers of bone and frayed ribbon and the same sort of trophies chosen by a flash-eyed crow to decorate its gaudy nest.
The individual holding a parley flag stepped forward to address them. He was a young man, born of humankind, with black hair, swarthy skin, and dressed in the manner of a foreigner.
“I come before you as an envoy,” he said in serviceable Wendish and in the most polite and respectful of tones, “to ask if there are any mothers among you, deacons of your holy church. If there are, the emperor Stronghand invites them to speak before him. He gives safe passage to all holy women sworn to walk within the Circle of Unity. You will wish to confer with your party to choose a suitable envoy.”
“That’s one of the Hessi,” murmured Fortunatus. “I saw them in Autun. They had a merchant house there, a daughter branch out of Medemelacha.”
“Aren’t they some manner of heretic?” asked Ingo in a low voice.
“Nay,” whispered Rosvita, “they are unbelievers but not truly heathens. They pray to God, so it’s said, but they don’t recognize the Translatus of the blessed Daisan.”
“Sounds like an infidel to me,” muttered Ingo.
“They write in a cipher,” said Fortunatus, “a secret language that no one outside their tribe is allowed to learn.”
“Did you try?” she asked him with a smile as the envoys waited.
His grin was swift, if brief “So I did, but nothing came of it. What will you tell these two?”
“I’ll get more information. Yet we’ll have little choice. We can’t fight them.”
“So we can!” declared Ingo stoutly, before making a scene of coughing, as he realized that he had spoken in a loud voice.
Peter rubbed his naked throat.