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Around her and above she heard the cheers of artisans, smiths, and soldiers alike. The ebb tide slammed the Eika ship repeatedly against chain and piles until it splintered and began to break up, flames spitting and failing as water swamped the deck. Below, on the shore, a half dozen of Fell’s soldiers stripped again and dragged the Eika bodies to the seaward side of the barricade where they rolled them into the water. The dead sank like stone.
4
DUCHESS Liutgard led the vanguard at a grueling pace and by the first evening out of Steleshame the train had fallen behind, its wagons bogged down where the road twisted through a muddy swale. Men from Villam’s reserve hurried forward to help them dig out, and while Rosvita waited on a patch of higher and drier ground she saw a familiar Eagle ride past.
“I beg you, Eagle!” she called. “What news?”
The young woman reined her horse aside. “The vanguard has set camp for the night, my lady. The king has decreed that the army must not get separated lest the Eika attack us in pieces.” She glanced nervously back the way she had come. “I’m riding a message for Princess Sapientia, my lady.”
“I won’t keep you long.” She could see by the Eagle’s expression that she wanted to ride on but dared not disobey. “A few moments of your time won’t harm your errand, I trust. Hanna, is it not?” The young woman nodded. She had a clean, strong face and wonderfully pale hair the color of old straw. “I recall your comrade, Liath, once had a book—”
Hanna blanched. “The book!” She glanced around like an animal seeking a safe path out of a burning forest. The horse minced under her, and she reined it back with the studied if somewhat awkward determination of a woman who has come late to riding and means to master it.
“I see you know of which book I speak. Did she steal it from Father Hugh?”
“Never!” No one Rosvita knew could feign this kind of passion, and surety. “It was never his. He stole it from her, just as he stole her freedom from her when she was helpless.”
“Helpless?”
“Her da died leaving debts, and then—”
“That can scarcely be called helpless, if she was of an age to take on the debts as his heir. But that is not my question, Eagle.”
“Always the book,” muttered Hanna. The book clearly had a long and interesting history, and Hanna’s reaction only made Rosvita more determined to discover the truth. “I swear to you by Our Lord and Lady and by the honor and virtue of the blessed Daisan that the book is Liath’s, not Father Hugh’s. It belonged to her da before her, and he gave it to her.”
It was an impressive oath. “But if Liath was Father Hugh’s slave because he bought out her debt price, then anything she had became his.”
“She didn’t have it when he bought her. It wasn’t included in the tally of debts and holdings. I hid it for her. Ai, Lady!” She cursed, words learned from the soldiers, no doubt, and then flushed. “I beg your pardon, my lady.”
“You must address me as Sister Rosvita, my child.”
“Yes, my lady. May I ask you a question, my lady?”
Rosvita almost laughed out loud. May I ask you a question? Yet at the same time she refused to acknowledge the rightness of the law. How could anyone possibly argue that Father Hugh had stolen Liath’s freedom if he had paid the debt price legally?
“Why do you care about—” And then, shuttering suddenly, her expression closed down and she looked away. “May I go on with my errand, my lady?”
Rosvita sighed. “You may go.” Of course she had been about to ask why Rosvita cared about the book; but evidently she believed she already knew the answer.
Had an injustice been done? Yet the tale Father Hugh told was different in no particular except that of justice. Who was in the right? Whose claim would God defend?
Brother Fortunatus struggled up from the mired wagons, his robes sloppy with mud. “Here is a stool, Sister Rosvita.”
“You surprise me, Brother! For all your gossip, you have a kind heart within.” But she sat gratefully, and he only chuckled and went back to oversee the soldiers trying to unstick the wagons.
After a time the wagons lurched on, all but the one which was hopelessly bogged down, sunk to the axles in muck. Its contents were divided between other wagons or given to servants to carry on their backs. By dusk they had caught up with the main group.
Sentries riddled the forest on either side of the road. Trees had been chopped down to form barriers in case of a raid, but beyond that Rosvita could see little of the disposition of the camp. She and the other clerics were shown to the king’s pavilion, which lay snug in the center of the sprawling camp, but although Princess Sapientia attended her father, talking excitedly about the coming battle, Father Hugh did not. It took no effort for Rosvita to ease herself away from the group gathered there, to gain directions to that part of the camp where those soldiers under Sapientia’s command had staked out a position. By this time it was dark, but she had a single attendant with a torch and, as well, the moon was almost full, now rising over the treetops. Its light streamed through the trees onto a broad clearing where Sapientia’s servants had set up her traveling tent.
Father Hugh knelt below the awning, unattended except by a few distant guards who chatted around a campfire. Here it was calm and quiet.
Hugh knelt on a carpet, lush grass crushed beneath its edges. He was praying.
Where was the book?
Hidden in the darkness, she remained anonymous. Any lady or captain went attended by servant and torch in such a place as this and, in addition, she took care to stand just outside the flame’s corona so he couldn’t recognize her cleric’s robes. She watched and searched … And found it thrust under his left knee, almost hidden by a fold in his robes.
He finished his prayers, sat back, and slid the book forward into the light cast by twin lanterns. The distant croaking of frogs in an unseen pool scored the night with a chatter no less intense than that of hundreds of soldiers whispering of the battle to come and the fury of the Eika.
