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He offered it. Hand shaking, Ivar took it from him. He was hot and cold at once. Words had abandoned him. He tugged the lapis lazuli ring off his finger and pressed it into Baldwin’s warm palm.
Baldwin slipped the ring onto his own finger, held Ivar’s gaze a moment longer, and turned to the captain. “I’m ready.”
“Erkanwulf will guide you,” said the captain.
The pair moved away into the night, although the taper’s light was visible for an interminable interval as they made their way up the strand.
The parchment Ivar held paralyzed him. That quickly, Baldwin was gone, torn from him again. And anyway, he was so unaccustomed to succeeding that it seemed impossible he just had.
“I’ll ride with you to the ferry,” said the captain. “Sergeant Hugo will accompany you to Queen’s Grave. The rest of us will meet you as soon as we can on the road to Kassel. Go then. Go with God. May She watch over you.”
Only later, after he had crossed the river and felt its swirl and spray against his face, did he realize that Captain Ulric had spoken those last words without a trace of self-consciousness.
May She watch over you.
In Autun, at any rate, belief in the Redemption had triumphed, and he had to wonder: was it Lady Tallia’s example, or Baldwin’s, that had won the most converts?
4
WITH his hair concealed under a dirty coif and a boiled leather helmet on his head, Ivar stood among the dozen soldiers who acted as his cover and watched as Sergeant Hugo delivered the false order to Captain Tammus.
“Being sent into exile?” demanded the scarred captain after the deacon who presided over the camp’s chapel read the missive out loud.
“I just does as I’m told,” said Sergeant Hugo with a shrug. “Still, there’s troubles along the Salian borders worse these days than ever. I hear tell of famine. Lady Sabella needs all her troops for other business. Best to be rid of them. They can starve in Wendar as well as here.”
“Easier to kill them.” Tammus had a way of squinting that made his scars twist and pucker. He was an evil-looking man, with a vile temper to match, but he wasn’t stupid. Ivar was careful to keep his head lowered. Tammus might remember his face. There had been only three young men interred in Queen’s Grave, and his “death” had been so very public and unexpected and dramatic. His hands felt clammy. Despite the chill, he was sweating.
“No orders about killing,” said Hugo without expression. “We’re to escort them to the border with Fesse and let them go on their own. That’s all I know.”
Tammus grunted. He took the parchment from the deacon and sniffed at the seal, then licked it, spat, and handed it back to the woman.
“It is genuine,” said the deacon, sure of her ground but hesitant as she eyed him fearfully. She had, Ivar saw, a fading bruise on her right cheek. “The seal is that of the duchess, which she keeps on her person. The calligraphy is in an exceptionally fine hand. I recognize it from other letters she has sent this past year.”
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand as he surveyed the dozen men-at-arms waiting beside horses, two carts, and a dozen donkeys and mules. They had tracked down Captain Tammus easily enough in the camp that lay outside the palisade. His was the largest house, two whole rooms, and the only one whose walls were freshly whitewashed. The camp looked unkempt and half deserted. Mud slopped the pathways. Ivar heard no clucking of chickens, although the guardsmen had once held a significant flock, taxed out of the nearby villages. Bored and surly-looking soldiers had gathered, but there were only a dozen of them, of whom half scratched at rashes blistering their faces and two limped. They looked to be no match for Hugo’s troop, who were healthier and had, in addition, a strength of purpose that lent iron to their resolve.
Why did we not think to do this sooner?
It was a foolish thought. Until his escape, no one in Queen’s Grave had opportunity to speak freely to those outside.
“You have until nightfall,” Tammus growled at last.
Hugo hesitated, as if to argue, but did not. He snapped his fingers, and his men mounted and rode briskly to the gates, which were opened at Tammus’ order. After they rode through, the gates were shoved shut behind them.
“Something’s wrong,” said Ivar.
He dismounted. The bare ground, covered with a sheen of ice, crackled beneath his boots as he walked forward. He knew this landscape well enough. He had had many months to learn its contours. He had lost track of the time since he had escaped, but it had been nine or ten months, early summer then and the end of winter now. In that time the tidy gardens, fields, and orchards had gone untended, so it appeared. Worst, a dozen new graves marked the cemetery plot north of the infirmary. He recognized them because of the heaps of earth, yet not one bore a wooden Circle staked into the ground or a crude headstone.
It was deadly quiet. Not a soul stirred, not even come to see what the noise was or to investigate the whickering of horses and the sound of armed men.
He dropped his reins and ran for the compound, past the abandoned sheep pasture and the wildly overgrown bramble where once goats had feasted. The front door was stuck, canted sideways because of broken hinges. He yanked it open, grunting and swearing and crying, and tumbled into the vacant entry hall, sprinted, shouting, into the biscop’s audience chamber, but it, too, lay empty. Even her writing desk was gone. He bolted out into the courtyard. Sister Bona’s grave lay bare, untended except for a dandelion.
Abandoned.
Were they all dead? But if so, wouldn’t Captain Tammus have known? Or had he simply ceased to care?
“Ivar?”
He spun, hearing that gentle voice but seeing no one. “Hathumod? Ai, God!” He was weeping with frustration and fear. “Where are you? Where is everyone?”
