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“SOMETHING, but I don’t know what.” It was midday. Sanglant paced on Archer’s Tower, the highest on the walls of Kassel, and surveyed the valley. Conrad and Sabella had used their ground wisely, not bothering with a complete encirclement, since the steep slopes to the northeast of the town were too unstable for anyone to negotiate even on foot.
“What manner of something?” Liutgard brushed hair out of her eyes with a forearm. She had stood up here most of the day and the wind had torn all that time at her tightly braided hair, culling wisps that fluttered with each gust in greater numbers. She glanced to the north. “A storm coming?”
“A whisper like the ranks of the dead approaching,” he said, and she looked at him, puzzled, and only then did he realize he had spoken his thought aloud. “A taste like the eve of battle.”
“Is that what makes you restless as a prowling dog? Not just those dark clouds? Will we fight Conrad today?”
“He’s sent no herald, made no attempt to parley.”
“Sent no word of my daughter,” said Liutgard bitterly.
“It makes me wonder what his intentions are. But, in truth, there is another scent on the wind, and I’m not sure what it is.”
“Where is Theophanu?”
“Close. See, there.” He pointed to the southeast. “That color on the ridgeline. There.”
She squinted, then shrugged. “I don’t see it. Only the trees along the hills.”
“My archer Lewenhardt caught sight of it yesterday. I wouldn’t have noticed it myself, but his eyes are sharp. I believe that is her banner, set up to alert us.”
“Too far for us to see.” She stared and stared, shook herself with a measure of impatience and frustration, and shifted her gaze back to the encampment draped in a semicircle about the valley of Kassel, one which girdled all roads and tracks.
“That’s as close as she can come, with Conrad and Sabella in her path. If we could coordinate our attack, we could strike from two sides. At this juncture, neither army has an advantage. If I judge correctly, Conrad and Sabella have numbers about equal to our own.”
“The margraves should have marched with us.”
“Yes, I suppose they should have. Gerberga will wait it out in Austra and come to claim what she can from whichever is left standing.”
“Gerberga can go rot! It was Waltharia I was thinking about.”
“She sent three centuries of men, all she could spare. Think how many she lost—her own husband—when she sent a troop south with me.”
Liutgard did not appear so much aged by the long campaign but hardened, made mirthless. She had laughed more, once upon a time, and she had been wont to cast quotes into her banter—she could read—lively lines from the poets or homilies out of the mouths of the church mothers. “I, too, lost many milites in Henry’s wars, Cousin! Yet I stand beside you. Even Burchard went home.”
“To die.”
She snorted. “I’ve come to think that dying is the coward’s choice.”
He shook his head. “I have been sorely wounded many times. Perhaps it’s true that being dead brings peace, but the dying itself is not so easy. I pray you, Liutgard, remember that I value your loyalty.”
“Surely you do!”
“You have never faltered.”
“Only in my heart.”
“Well, then, listen to me. When the time comes to strike, you must remain behind the walls. Until your daughter is recovered, you must remain safe—”
“In case I am killed, and she is dead after all, and the inheritance thereby left in confusion? No. I will ride, just as you will. I want revenge.”
“I need a strong captain to hold these walls!”
She gestured toward Fulk. “There he is.”
“Hai!” A sentry shouted. “See there, Your Majesty.”
Guards clattered to attention along Kassel’s wall walk.
