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“It will be as strange to you as this wagon is to me,” she said, half laughing, half crying, and completely exhausted, too tired, indeed, to stand and seek out a place to rest. “As for what we will find there, I don’t know. I think the world has changed utterly. I have seen such destruction that at first it made no sense to me. A vast city flattened as with a giant’s hand. Refugees on the roads, many of them starving. Clouds of dust everywhere. How much worse may it be elsewhere? What if there is worse yet to come? I must seek out the regnant of Wendar, whoever that is now, and give my report. That I must do first. Afterward—”
“Afterward” was too vast a landscape to survey.
VIII
THE PHOENIX
1
THE estate Ivar and Erkanwulf rode into looked very different from Ivar’s father’s manor and compound. It had no significant palisade, only a set of corrals to keep livestock in and predators from the forest out, and there was a wooden tower set on a hillock just off the road to serve as a refuge in times of trouble. An enclosure surrounded a score of fruit trees. Several withered gardens lay in winter’s sleep, protected by fences to keep out rabbits and other vermin. Four boys came running from the distant trees, each one holding a crude bow. Dogs barked. A barefoot child seated in the branches of one of the fruit trees stared at them but said no word. A trio of men loitering beside an empty byre greeted them with nods.
In Heart’s Rest the village had grown up around a commons, and in addition lay a morning’s walk from Count Hart’s isolated manor. Here, in Varre, houses straggled along the road like disorderly soldiers. Fields stretched out in stripes behind them until they were overtaken by woods. A tiny church had been built where the path they rode crossed with a broad wagon track. The house of worship was ringed by a cemetery, itself disturbed by a dozen recently dug graves. Wattle-and-daub huts with roofs low to the ground lay scattered hither and yon, but Erkanwulf led them to the grandest house in the village, a two-storied stone house standing under the shadow of the three-storied wooden tower.
“Who lives here?” Ivar asked, admiring this massive stone structure and the single story addition built out behind it. There were also three sheds and a dozen leafless fruit trees.
“My mother.”
Before they reached the stone house, the church bell rang twice. Ivar looked back to see that two of the men who had greeted them beside the byre had vanished.
“She’s chatelaine for the steward here, my lord,” Erkanwulf added. “It was the steward who asked Captain Ulric to take me into the militia. They’re cousins twice removed on their mother’s side.”
It was cold, and even though it was near midday, the light had the faded glamour of late afternoon. They hadn’t seen the sun for weeks, not since many days before the night of the great storm and their rescue by the villagers who lived deep within the Bretwald.
A woman came out of the farthest shed. Her hair was covered by a blue scarf and her hands were full of uncombed wool. “Erkanwulf!” She turned and fled back into the shed. As though her cry had woken the village, a stream of folk emerged from every hovel and out of sheds and fields to converge on the stone house.
It was a prosperous village. Ivar held his mount on a tight rein, preferring not to dismount in case there was trouble. He counted fully twoscore folk ranging in age from toddling babies to one old crone who supported her hobbling steps on a walking stick. There were older men, and lads, but no young men at all, not one.
Erkanwulf dismounted and tied his horse to a post before running down the path and into the arms of a fair-haired girl of perhaps sixteen or seventeen years of age. He grabbed her, spun her around, and kissed her on the cheek. Hand in hand they walked swiftly back to the stone house. His mother came out of the shed with her hands empty and a grim look in her eyes.
“Who is this?” cried the girl, breaking free of Erkanwulf’s grip and walking boldly right up to Ivar’s horse. She had no fear of the animal. She rummaged in the pocket tied to her dress and pulled out a wizened apple, which was delicately accepted by the beast.
“Too high for the likes of you,” said Erkanwulf with a snort. “Unless you’re wanting a noble bastard to bring to your wedding bed.”
“You!” said the girl with a roll of her eyes. She grinned at Ivar. She was plump, healthy, very attractive, and well aware of her charms.
“And a monk besides,” Erkanwulf added.
“As if that ever stopped a man!” She laughed. She had lovely blue eyes, deep enough to drown in, as the poets would say, and she fixed that gaze on Ivar so hard that he blushed.
“Hush, you, Daughter,” said Erkanwulf’s mother. “Don’t embarrass me before this holy man. I beg your pardon, Your Excellency.”
“No offense taken,” Ivar said awkwardly.
The mother swung her gaze from the one to the other. It was difficult to say who blanched more, the sister or the brother. “What are you doing here, Erkanwulf? There came the lady’s riders looking for you last autumn. We had a good deal of trouble because of your disobedience. Best you have a good reason for bringing her wrath down on us.”
“What trouble?” He looked around the circle of villagers gathered and saw that their mood was sour, not welcoming.
When she did not answer, he said, “We can trust this man. I swear to you on my father’s grave.”
She held up a hand and folded down one digit for each offense. “Steward was taken back to Autun with both her son and daughter, as hostage for our good behavior. Bruno and Fritho were whipped for protesting. Your brother and four cousins took to the woods and hide there still, like common bandits, because the lady’s riders said they’d hold them as hostage against your return. Goodwife Margaret’s two grandsons were led off God know where, although they said they meant to make them grooms in the lady’s stables.” The crone bobbed her head vigorously. “How is Margaret to plow her fields now? You best make a good accounting for yourself, Son, for as bad as all that is,” and now she folded in her thumb, and shook a fist at him, “we lost also our entire store of salted venison meant to husband us through to spring. They took it as tax, a fine levied against your desertion. New year is coming. Our stores grow thin. Much of what remains is rotting. What with this cold weather, too much rain all winter, and no sun for these many weeks, I fear more trouble to come. What do you say?”
“He came at my order,” said Ivar, “and in the service of Biscop Constance.”
Folk murmured. Some drew the circle at their breast while others made the sign to avert the evil eye.
“She’s dead, may God have mercy on her,” said Erkanwulf’s mother.
“She’s not dead but living in a monastery they call Queen’s Grave.”
