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It was, thank God, possible to step away from the feast and relieve herself in what passed for privacy, given the three soldiers who never strayed more than ten steps from her. The Quman were not in the habit of digging ditches to use as privies, but at least, like well-trained dogs, they tended to choose one area at each place they camped for these necessities. She remained at the outskirts of camp for as long as she could and watched the stars twinkling in the sky above.
Where was Liath now?
She had no way to look for her. She did not dare attempt to use her Eagle’s sight for fear that Bulkezu would discover that she possessed a skill, not quite magic but stinking enough of sorcery, that he might try to force her to use it on his behalf.
A woman hurried out from the tent, making choking noises. She dropped to her knees a few paces from Hanna and threw up, mostly wine. The acid smell stung the air, then faded.
Hanna dropped down beside her. “Are you well?”
It was Agnetha. She grasped Hanna’s hands. “He’s not happy with me,” she whispered frantically. “I did what you said. No flattery. No whining. No crying. But he sulked. Listen to him now.”
Ekkehard had gotten hold of a lute and started singing, obviously drunk. He had a clear tenor and a poet’s talent for shaping a phrase.
“Once in this bright feasting hall
I laid eyes on the most beautiful of women.
Yet now I return and find her gone
the walls fallen,
the hearth silent,
no ring of cup or lilt of song
to cheer my heart.
Death has swept away all that I cherished.”
“What shall I do?” whispered Agnetha, retching again, nothing but dry heaves now. She clutched her stomach. “Ai, God, he said he would throw me to the wolves, to the common soldiers. Tell me what shall I do, Eagle, I pray you.”
“Lady shield you,” murmured Hanna. A simple village girl like Agnetha hadn’t the least idea how to be a concubine. And why should she have? Hanna had learned how to negotiate and observe at her mother’s inn; those skills had served her well at court. “You can’t treat each man the same. What Bulkezu liked isn’t what the prince will want. Flattery for Prince Ekkehard. Tell him anything as long as it’s praise. If he casts you off, beg to go to one of his companions. Manegold is vain and shallow. Welf is short-tempered but feels shame for what they’re doing. Benedict is sharp. He’ll see through bald flattery, and he likes to hit his girls. Frithuric likes men as well as women and mostly wants to be petted and kept comfortable. He’s decent enough.”
Agnetha’s face was a pale shadow under the trees. “How do you know all this? Were you their whore before you went to Bulkezu?”
“I’m no man’s whore, and never have been! I’ve spent time at court. An Eagle must learn to keep her eyes open and know those she serves.”
Agnetha wiped her mouth with the back of a hand. She was dressed in a light shift, exposing rather too much creamy white breast only half covered by cloth and the silky fall of her long black hair. Even the normally impassive guards eyed her, such as they could see of her in the shadow of a tree with not more than a quarter moon to light the heavens. Maybe they had been among the dozen who had been fighting over her the evening she had come to Bulkezu’s attention. “Lady save us,” she murmured unsteadily. “When will it ever be over?”
“I don’t know.”
She was trying her best not to cry. “I try so hard. My mother and my four siblings, an uncle and three of his children and two cousins. I’m all that stands between them and death.” She shuddered. “And I’m still more fortunate than most, all those poor dead souls. But sometimes I just don’t know how I can stand another day of it.” She sucked in air, coughed at the stench, and rose, squaring her shoulders. “I just have to. I just have to.”
As she turned to go back into the tent, she rested a comforting hand on Hanna’s arm. “At least I’m out of Bulkezu’s tent. It’s not that he hits you, but there’s just something so cold and unnatural about him. And he’s so ugly.”
“Ugly?” Hanna almost laughed, but did not.
“With those slanty eyes and that complexion, like mud? That Lord Manegold is like the sun beside a nasty goblin, for that’s all the beast is.”
Since Hanna thought Lord Manegold even more vapid than the infamous Baldwin, and not nearly as pretty, she didn’t reply.
“At least it’s not so bad for me now as it has been for you all this time.”
“For me?” Shame made her cringe away from the other woman. How had she suffered, compared to all those prisoners she heard screaming as the Quman cut them down?
“He watches you all the time. I know you’ve been his mistress longer than any other woman. I don’t see how you can stand it and keep so calm and dignified. You’re so strong! I guess that’s why you don’t think of yourself as his whore.”
Maybe sometimes people could not hear the truth, and it was useless to explain.
