Crown of Stars

  Instead, thinking of how much she had hated Bulkezu and how furious she had been to see Sanglant keep him alive because it was expedient, she sipped at a second cup of wine until all the amazed speculation ceased and they waited for her to go on.

  “King Geza had pledged to take the throne of Wendar and Varre in Sapientia’s name, Your Highness,” Hanna said.

  Theophanu nodded. “Of course. And his child by her on the throne after she was dead. Go on.”

  “After the great tempest destroyed their camp, both armies fled. King Geza abandoned Sapientia, divorced her, and left her in the ruins of the camp.”

  “Did he so?” the lady said without any trace of spite or glee. She might have been wood, untested by fire or flood, her face polished clean of emotion. Yet her court had fallen into a horrible, fascinated silence, hanging on every word. “What then?”

  “We found her, for we had been abandoned as well.” She paused, and decided to skip her own ordeal, her second captivity among the Arethousans, although the memory of the ruins of that great city haunted her. “We walked north, and stumbled in our turn upon a company under the command of Lady Bertha of Austra.”

  “So she lived!”

  “You know the tale?”

  “We heard it. It was thought she was dead.”

  “She is dead now, alas, murdered by a poisoned arrow loosed out of the night. But that comes later in the tale, my lady. Bertha died in Avaria, not in the south where we all thought we would die.”

  “Go on.”

  “We joined together—clerics and soldiers—and traveled north as well as we could. We did well, gathering goats and chickens to feed us and a few dogs to keep watch. We thought we had come home safely, but after we reached Wendar, we were set upon twice by masked warriors, creatures like nothing we have seen before. Liath said they are Ashioi.”

  Now Theophanu was piqued, but Hanna could not tell if she were overjoyed, or furious. “Liath? You have seen Liathano? She is with you?”

  “The king will reward you well for returning her to him,” said a captain among the company, and there was nervous laughter.

  She could not get the words out. Better to change the subject. “Princess Sapientia rides with us, but she is much changed.”

  Theophanu shifted ground easily. “‘Changed?’ I pray you, speak bluntly.”

  “It’s as if she does not even know her own name.”

  “She’s lost her wits,” said her sister. “Is that what you mean?”

  Hanna nodded, so uncomfortable that she downed the remainder of the cup of wine, just to do something.

  Theophanu looked neither pleased nor sorrowing. She merely nodded, as if hearing that the laundry had been taken down because it was dry. “What of Liathano?”

  “Lost,” said Hanna, and choked.

  There was a dead, awful silence, and a voice came out of the crowd and said, in the manner of a man who is hard of hearing and must have each comment repeated, “Is she dead?”

  “Lost,” Hanna repeated, more strongly. “Mother Scholastica comes on the road with us, riding with Princess Sapientia.”

  “Henry’s sister, supporting Henry’s eldest legitimate child.” Theophanu nodded. “Well, that does not surprise me, that my aunt would choose to champion her long after the rest of us have accepted that she is unfit to rule. Is that all?”

  “Not by any measure is that all. It is not sure which faction Mother Scholastica supports.”

  “Are you suggesting that my aunt supports Conrad?”

  Hanna found herself hoarse, and coughing did not ease her.

  “Bring the Eagle more wine,” said Theophanu, but her voice was as cold as the winter wind, not warm and sympathetic. Not as Prince Sanglant would have been, treating each least servant under his rule as though that individual was, for a moment, the most important person in the world. Theophanu was all business. In that, she reminded Hanna of Lady Eudokia.

  “I will sit here until you have told it all, Eagle. Conrad and Sabella stand before us, and my aunt creeps up behind. What other knives wait to stab us, I cannot yet see. I must know what to expect before my Aunt Scholastica rides in with God—and Sapientia—to wield over us as a whip. I must hear it all. From the beginning. Take your time.”

  Hanna had not gotten further than recounting the earthquake in Darre when the door opened and a messenger ran in, a young man with cheeks flushed and eyes flared in genuine fear. A captain strode at his heels. Seeing them, Theophanu stood as the lad dropped to his knees before her.

  “What news?” she demanded.

  For a moment Hanna thought she sounded alarmed.

  The messenger began to cough, and the captain laid a comforting hand on the lad’s shoulder and spoke instead.

  “Grave news, Your Highness. This young fellow was sent to ride to Mother Scholastica’s company, as you ordered.”

  “Yet here he is.”

  The lad found his voice. “The road is blocked,” he said faintly. He shuddered, bit a lip, and steadied himself. “Your Highness,” he said more clearly. The captain stepped back. “I pray you, I bring ill news. We can’t reach the company you speak of because the road is blocked.”

  “Blocked by what?” she asked.

  He groaned and covered his eyes.

  “Go on,” said the captain. “You must speak, because you were the one who saw it.”

  “An army, Your Highness.”

  A murmur of alarm passed through the court, but Theophanu called for quiet. “Have Conrad and Sabella flanked us? We’ve seen no movement in their encampment.”

  “This army isn’t human, Your Highness. They’re the northlanders, what were once used to raid the northern coast years back. It’s an army of Eika, Your Highness.”

  “We saw no sign of Eika on the road.”

  He shook his head. “I know not where they came from, my lady. We are cut off utterly from the east.”

  Theophanu looked at her captains and her companions, who had fallen into stunned silence. “They have come out of the west, or out of the north, and if that is so, then they have circled most of the valley of Kassel. We are caught between them, and Conrad. Captain, to arms. See to our eastern defenses—if we have any. We must find some way to alert Sanglant, so he is ready when we sound our advance.”

  4

  AFTER the rider named Peter joined them, they marched for about a league through quiet forestlands before a horn called the alarm from the rear guard. Rosvita heard shouts as a soldier galloped up along the road.

  “Holy Mother! Sister! I pray you, fall back to the line of wagons at once!”

  Rosvita swung her mount around immediately, but Mother Scholastica stared stubbornly at the flushed and frightened messenger. “What news? Why this alert?”

  “Armed men, trailing us on the road!”

  “Have they identified themselves?”

  “I think they mean to do so.” Trembling, Brother Fortunatus pointed west.

  A score of beasts stepped out of the trees and onto the shaded road. In form they bore a remarkable resemblance to humankind, with bone-white hair, two arms and two legs and a human-shaped torso, and facial features that from a distance might be mistaken for those of a man, but they were not men. Many bared their teeth, which had a sharp splendor like to that of dogs. They made no other threatening move, although their silence seemed threatening enough.

  “Ai, God!” cried their escort, Peter.

  “This can’t be Conrad’s army,” said Mother Scholastica indignantly.

  “Pull back to the wagons,” said Sister Rosvita in a quiet voice to the riders surrounding her, who were mostly clerics of her own party or those church folk attending the royal abbess.

  “Look in the trees!” exclaimed Fortunatus.

  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.

  “Stay here.” Rosvita took three steps forward. “Are your people slaves to the Eika now?” she asked boldly.

  The youth’s grin was as swift and subtle as Fortunatus’. “I am not a slave to any man, or any Eika master. Nor are my people ruled by one regnant, as yours are. What my mothers choose for my house may not necessarily be chosen by another house.”

  “How comes it you speak of an emperor? Taillefer is dead, and King Henry’s imperial crown lost in the south after the cataclysm.”

  “If you wish to know, come and see,” said the youth with that same charming, reckless grin, daring her.

  He reminded her of the best of her clerics. Those she loved best she had liked most quickly, knowing it a flaw to make a judgment in haste but succumbing nevertheless to that impulse. She liked him, and that would only make worse the choice she knew she had to make. Maybe it was a sin—surely it was—but in war you use the weapons you have. These Eika would slaughter Henry’s faithful Lions, and Sanglant’s hope to restore Henry’s kingdom to peace.

  She stepped back. “Ingo,” she murmured, “go swiftly with Peter. Let every person in our company know they must drop to the ground and cover their face at once.”

  He blanched, but he nodded.

  Fortunatus touched her sleeve. “I will stay with you, Sister.”

  “It will be dangerous,” she said without looking at him, seeking instead to be sure that Ingo understood her meaning. The Lion nodded. She offered him her ring. He kissed it, then walked rapidly toward the wagons and his soldiers. Peter followed him.

  She turned back to the interpreter.

  “I pray you, a moment of patience.” She regretted the lie, because he was a quicksilver lad with a bright expression and clever eyes. “I have sent the soldiers to summon the most holy abbess who commands our company.”

  The envoy glanced at the standard-bearer. They exchanged a look, and it seemed to her a subtle request for permission from the Eika. So much for not having a master. That gesture decided her. He might be a fine and graceful young man, but he was the enemy.

  God enjoined mercy, but her heart must be hard.

  There whispered through the ranks of the Eika a lazy wind that she perceived as she saw their bone-white hair lifted by that breeze, as she heard their handsome ornaments tinkling where the wind shifted through. That chime provided a most peculiar and delicate counterpoint to their forbidding silence and closed countenances.

  The Hessi youth examined her with interest. He had a light gaze that leaped here and there as though he could not keep his attention on any one thing, and yet she mistrusted it; where he looked, he looked hard.

  The wind sighed a second time, and changed direction to blow up behind their backs. The hair on the back of her neck grew stiff. Her skin tingled.

  “Keep your eyes forward,” she whispered to Fortunatus.

  He was pale. His hand touched hers, and a spark bit them where skin brushed. He winced. She heard a sound like a resigned murmur, the whisper of doubt, people falling, dropping as they shielded their eyes.

  So also do the dead fall, when struck in the heart.

  She kept her gaze fixed on the young envoy. If she called death, then she must face what she wrought.

  Behind, from the company, she heard a shout as bright as ecstasy, cut short. A shriek answered that interrupted cry, a sob—then it, too, died abruptly. A cart’s wheels ground along the road as it rolled closer.

  In a moment, the Eika would begin to fall.

  The envoy’s eyes widened, and his expression underwent a remarkable change. He had seen something on the road, behind Rosvita. He cocked his head sideways, as if this shift in angle might answer a question.

  In the dead silence, the standard-bearer laughed, a strange, and strangely frightening because very human, sound.

  He spoke, in perfect Wendish.

  “My shaman
s sensed a locus of magic in your train, so I came myself to see what it might be. It is not what I expected.”

  She heard the feather brush of footsteps beneath the sound made by the passage of the cart. Fortunatus gulped audibly. He was sweating and trembling—she could smell his fear—but he kept his gaze focused forward.

  Not one Eika or man allied with the Eika had fallen.

  The cart scraped to a halt behind them.

  Rosvita had heard Sorgatani’s voice before—Hanna had taught the shaman Wendish—but she had heard it only through the veil of shutters. To hear it in the open air made it seem entirely different, more ominous because it sounded all the more pure and innocent, although such a creature could never be innocent.

  “I come at your command, Sister Rosvita,” said Sorgatani. “Breschius drives the wagon. But it is gone wrong. A pair of people in our ranks falls because they forget to hide their eyes. But the enemy—they stand untouched.”

  The standard-bearer walked forward. “What manner of sorcery invests you?” he asked with genuine curiosity.

  “How are you protected?” demanded Rosvita.

  “That is my secret. What is it you expect to happen to my army?”

  “Who are you?” she asked him, angered that she had imperiled her soul and to no purpose! How had they failed?

  Behind her, Sorgatani began to weep.

  “What do you fear, Holy One?” he asked.

  Only when Sorgatani answered did Rosvita realize he had not addressed the question to her.

  The Kerayit shaman spoke with a trembling voice. “Among your people, I am free. All others, they die, to see me. Even here, when they forget to hide their eyes.”

  “Ah. If that bothers you, then join me, Holy One. You cannot hurt anyone in my army. And I do believe that you are a powerful weapon, one I would be happy to wield.”

  Almost, Rosvita turned to see Sorgatani’s expression, to see if this offer tempted, to see if this foreign woman would leap to shift alliances. Fortunatus clamped a hand over her wrist, reminding her—God help her—that to look was to die.

  As someone had already died!