PROLOGUE (102 page)

Had Bulkezu taken Theophanu's bribe and ridden on, bypassing Barenberg? There had been no battle today, and this river looked broad enough to be the mighty Veser, flowing north toward the Amber Sea.

The basket held water well enough that she could carry it around to those folk too exhausted, or too afraid of the Quman, to walk to the river themselves. Best to start with the weak ones. They hadn't the strength to spit at her and were usually grateful for the water.

When she brought it to the mother with the sick child, she met suspicion first.

"What do you want with me, whore?" asked the woman, shrinking away.” Haven't I been punished enough by the beast?"

"I'm a prisoner like you," Hanna repeated.” It's true I've been treated better, and fed, and allowed to ride. But that's not because I'm the prince's whore—

"The Wendish prince?" The woman's spirit flared as anger gave her strength.” Some say it's the king's son himself who rides with the beast. Is it true?"

This was hardly the way to convince these poor souls that she wasn't a traitor, too, but Hanna saw no reason to lie to them about his identity.” Yes, it's Ekkehard, son of Henry."

The woman spat. Perhaps she'd been passed over by the Quman soldiers because of the wart on her nose and lice-ridden hair, or

child
or
flame
perhaps she'd simply been raped and discarded during the attack on whatever doomed village she had once lived in.

"A royal son like that would be better dead than a traitor." But she accepted a sip of water. The child, too, drank, but he couldn't open his eyes. His whimpers tore at Hanna's heart.

"Here. I'll soak a corner of my cloak in water and maybe we can clean his face."

"If you wish," said the woman in a dull voice, "but he'll die anyway. My poor baby. Nothing can save us now. If the beast and his men don't kill us, then hunger will. Or the plague. I heard there's plague everywhere south of us now. So maybe it is God's mercy on us for living a Godly life."

"How can you say so?" demanded Hanna, aghast.

"Better to die of hunger or have your throat slit than to die of the plague. Have you seen what they look like after? I heard it from my cousin. She'd seen it, one man, two years back. He died outside her village and they let the dogs eat him. None of them touched him, not even the deacon. She said you shake and turn gray, and dying people scream that they're being eaten alive from inside, there's so much pain. Then the demon inside you spits you all out, through your mouth and nose and eyes, through your skin and your asshole, all blood and snot and shit and every stinking thing that it's eaten out of you and chewed with its poison—

"That's enough!" said Hanna sharply. People had crept close to listen and some had begun to moan in fear.” No use catching your death standing out waiting for the snow when there's nothing you can do to stop it whether it comes or not. That's what my mother always says."

"Is your mother still alive?" asked one of the prisoners.

"I pray she is. She's in North Mark—

"Ah," said a thin old man with a spark of curiosity left in his expression.” That would explain your accent and that light hair. How'd you come to be a King's Eagle?"

"The same way any do, I suppose. They were looking, and I was available."

This earned her a few chuckles as she continued to wipe the child's face, trying to moisten the crust around his eyes enough so that she could wipe it off without hurting him.

"What got you captured, then?" demanded the mother.

About fifty people had clustered close to watch and listen. The two men who had assaulted her sidled in as well, staring with a bitter, unsparing hatred, as if she were responsible for everything they had suffered and lost.

"I was riding from the east last winter. I left Handelburg at the order of Princess Sapientia, she who is heir to King Henry, to bring word to him of the Quman invasion. I was caught out in a snowstorm, in a forest, and was myself captured by the Quman."

"You've been with the beast all this time?"

She didn't see who had asked that question.” So I have," she admitted, wetting the corner of her cloak in water again, trying to squeeze the caked gunk off it.

The tall man pressed forward. He'd found a stick, too, although he used it to support his weight.” And you didn't whore with the beast all that time? How then are you so clean and fat, Eagle? Where did you get that ring?"

Quicker than she'd thought possible, he struck. His first blow glanced off the side of her head. She fell hard as the mother screamed, and the jolt when she caught herself on her arms sent pain stabbing into her injured eye. Head stinging like fire, she groped for and found her stick and brought it up just in time to catch his next blow on wood. Her stick shattered, and she scrambled backward, crablike, as his stick thwacked down in the grass first to her right and then to her left.

He raised it again. Fury knotted in her stomach. She threw herself forward and slammed into him, knocking him down. They wrestled. A thistle prickled on her back, and she flipped him over and jammed him face down into it. He shrieked, shuddered, and fell still.

Thank God for all that fighting with her elder brother Thancmar. Thank God her adversary had been so weakened by hunger. Breathing hard, she grabbed his unbroken stick and rose, staring down his trembling companion. Beyond, the Quman guards watched impassively, arms crossed.

Her face throbbed.

What had happened to Bulkezu's promise to the owl's master to see that she came to no harm? Blood leaked from her temple where the stick had caught her, and her ear throbbed painfully.

"I'm a King's Eagle, damn you," she said harshly, "and I received this ring from King Henry's own hand in recognition of my service to him. What you do to me is as if you were doing it to the king himself."

"Where's the king, then?" Tall Man's comrade confronted her. Now that he stood, she could see by the way his tunic hung on him hew much flesh he'd lost.” Why hasn't the king come to aid us?"

His words were echoed by other prisoners, many more of whom slunk closer to see what the commotion was all about.” Where is the king while we're suffering here?"

"I don't know," she admitted. But she had a good idea where he might be, and she didn't want to tell these people that particular story. The crown of Emperor Taillefer would seem a sorry treasure to them who had lost everything, had watched their homes burned, their fields trampled, their daughters and sisters being raped, and their townsfolk slaughtered.” I don't know. But I know this, my friends. We'll all die if the strongest among us don't help the weakest."

"Easy for you to say, eating like a queen and sleeping between the beast's silks. Maybe he threw you out now, but that doesn't change what you were before."

She pointed the stick at him and let the end press against his sternum, pushing hard enough that he skipped back a half step. No one laughed, or even spoke. They had fallen silent.” It's true I ate the food he gave me, and ate better than any of you have. But I never slept between his silks. He never raped me." She let the stick fall to her side, keeping it ready for a fast strike, and turned so they could all see her Eagle's badge.” He didn't dare touch me." She hesitated. A complicated kind of hope and cynicism warred in their expressions. What did these folk know of Kerayit women and shamans who had the body of a woman joined with that of a mare? "He didn't dare touch me because he didn't dare insult King Henry. For what he does to me it's as if he does it to the king himself. He knows in the end that the king will have revenge. For me. For all of us."

As would she, by God.

At that instant, she knew what she had to do. Bulkezu had forgotten one thing when he'd thrown her out of his tent.

"But the king needs our help. And I need yours."

The guards did not stop her as she gathered firewood at the fringe of the forest, although maybe they thought she was crazy for thinking of building a fire on such a hot day, especially when she had nothing to eat. Twilight closed over them as she laid sticks for a fire. Wool thread teased off the sleeve of her tunic made a bowstring and a supple branch the tiny bow, wood scraps and dry leaves the tinder, and a notched wedge of wood a cup for her hand. With the bowstring looped around a stick, she drilled the end of that stick into the tinder until friction woke heat, heat smoke, and smoke fire.

Flames licked up through the kindling. Prisoners gathered around, as many as could stand doing so in order to block the view of the Quman guards, and the old man began telling a story.

"Here we begin by telling the tale of Sigisfrid, who won the gold of the Hevelli. He was born out of a she-wolf and a warrior—

Hanna sat cross-legged by the fire, letting the tale drift past her, riding the flow of the words. Under Bulkezu's constant watch, she dared not use her Eagle's sight. But here, among the prisoners, she was free.

"See nothing, not even the flames,”
Wolfhere had told her.”
It is the stillness that lies at the heart of all things that links us.”

"Liath," she whispered. The fire wavered, and for a moment she saw faint shadows of men clothed in armor, she heard the clash of arms, but the vision faded into the snap of flame. Liath remained hidden from her. Was she dead?

Was everyone she cared for dead?

"Ai, God," she whispered, "can I not find you, Ivar? Where have you gone?"

A new log made the fire flare with blue streaks of heat, hot and bright. Were there women moving in the flames? Queens walked under a grave mound, one young, one old, and one as golden as the sun, but they held out empty hands and by the hard flint gleam in their eyes she knew them for the old gods, the Huntress, the Fat One, and the Toothless Hag who cuts the thread of life.

Ivar was lost to her.

For a while she sat mired in grief while some other hand fed the flame and the fire burned merrily on, twisting and popping.

She is the owl, gliding over the treetops, searching for the one she has lost. The streaming wind carries her far to the east, to the

land where the grass grows as high as a man. Two griffins stalk at the edge of sand, closing in on their prey.

Tents shimmer in the distance, but it is the woman wandering on the shore of the desert who catches her eye. Here, among the Bwr-folk, Sorgatani has no need of veils or concealment. As she walks, she speaks passionately to her companion.

Hanna has never before seen the Bwr shaman so clearly: her glossy gray mare's coat and the creamy color of her woman's skin. Her face and upper body are striped with green-and-gold paint. Pointed ears, tufted with coarse black hair, peek out through her unbound hair which falls like silver water all the way to the place where her torso slips easily from a woman's hips into a mare's shoulders. She holds a bow in her hands, the horn curve carved with the semblance of pale dragons.

"Why can we not attack?" Sorgatani is saying fiercely, hands gesturing wildly.” He spits on us by holding her prisoner.”

"She had a chance to come to you," replies her companion.” Now she suffers the fate she chose.”

"Is there noway to rescue her? Is our magic of so little use?"

"Do not forget that magic protects him as well.” She shakes her head as might a cleric surveying the ruins of her once magnificent church.” We are not what we were. Our numbers are much diminished because of the plague. Now is our time of greatest weakness, so we must use caution. We dare not reveal ourselves too soon. But do not fear
—"
She glances up, her gaze sharp as an arrow.” Who watches ? "

In that moment it took her to inhale a gasp and let it out again, Hanna sees Wolfhere, brow furrowed, staring at her through the flames.

He is gone as though a hand wiped him clean off a slate. Lamps bum, brighter points of light within the leaping fire.

A familiar voice is speaking. She had heard it so often that it takes her several breaths to get over her surprise that, after all these months, she is listening to Prince Bayan.” If it is true Bulkezu rides north along the Veser, then what prevents him from swinging wide, around this city, and going on his merry way, as Prince Sanglant says? Bulkezu can leave a force of small size camped outside the walls, and with this force he can trick Duchess Rotrudis so she will believe he sets a siege at her gates. Then, if she so believes, she will not harry him until for her and for Saony it is too late."

Hazy figures too indistinct to see clearly shift within the fire. She can make out none of their faces, but the man who speaks next she recognizes immediately as Sanglant.” And he can do as much damage as he likes. Or he could strike west before he even reaches Osterburg and go for Kassel or the Rhowne heartlands near Autun. The best we could hope for in that case would be that he drives all the way to the western sea and spends his fury laying waste to ^alia."