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“I know it,” said Ivar.
“Why?” said Hanna. “What of the Eika?”
“An Eika staff will grant you safe passage. Although I think with that hair you’ll have no trouble with the Eika, for they will believe you to be kin to them.”
“What do you want?” she said.
“Liath is coming to Hersford. It seems likely she will ride this way afterward.”
“Ai, God.” Hanna looked at the corpse.
The banner of Saony had reached the road, and the crowd parted to let Princess Theophanu pass through. She stopped dead beside her brother’s body, gazing at him with such a lack of emotion that all at once Hanna felt grief rip straight into her ribs.
“She hides what she feels,” remarked Alain. “But the currents run deep in that one.”
“Ai, God,” said Ivar. “Liath doesn’t know!”
“I’ll go.” Hanna had thought nothing could be worse than reporting to Sanglant that Liath was missing, but now she knew that wasn’t true. There was something much worse. “I’ll go,” she repeated, because it was better this way, that Liath not ride into Kassel unknowing.
“If you arrive before she leaves Hersford Monastery, convince her to stay there, if you can,” Alain added. “I’ll see you get horses, and that staff. I pray you, wait off to the side.”
“What of Sorgatani?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, turning back.
“The Kerayit shaman. In the wagon. She may be injured.”
“I’ll see she is cared for.”
“Nay, you don’t understand! She is bound by a terrible sorcery. To look on her will kill you, or any man or woman. They fear her, those who came with us. But she is no threat to us! She must be cared for. Only I can do it.”
He touched the back of his hand to her cheek. He had dark eyes, and an implacable stare that pinned her to the ground. She did not draw breath. “Hanna. Listen to me. I will see she is safe and cared for.”
She nodded dumbly, and he moved off, and after a moment she shook herself and walked off to the place where he had told her to wait for horses.
“I’ll go with you,” said Ivar, following her. He was still red. He was still filthy, shedding muck and fingerling twigs with each step. Some of the mud had rubbed off on her tunic and cloak. But he clasped her hands between his. He bent to kiss her forehead, quite tenderly. “I’ll not let you go alone. Never again, Hanna.”
Dear Ivar.
She tried to speak, but the sight of him, his look, and his touch, strangled her, and all she could do was cry.
4
SIX carried the litter off the field of battle: Princess Theophanu, Duke Conrad, Duchess Liutgard, Captain Fulk, and two young lords, one chosen from each army to let the battered soldiers see that for now, at least, a truce had been called.
They trudged with their burden through the gate, along Kassel’s broad north-south avenue, and up the steep street cut into the hillside that gave access to the fortified palace, home to the dukes of Fesse. Many wept as they passed. Some of the townspeople who flowed out to line the streets whispered to see their duchess with her hair uncovered in grief, and dirt and tears and blood smearing her face. Soldiers with their helmets tucked under their arms stared in shock as their commander and king was carried past. One man holding a bow broke down and had to be supported by his fellows. Even the slinking street dogs kept to the walls, whining with anxious respect.
Rosvita walked directly behind the litter. Behind her came Lord Alain and his hounds, escorting Stronghand, who marched at the head of a hundred loyal warriors. Seeing these creatures enter the town through open gates caused a hush to fall. Some people crept away into their houses, seeking refuge, while others—and many of the soldiers—fingered their weapons thoughtfully. The street dogs did not bark, only faded away into alleys and open spaces grown high with untended grass. Yet among that century of Eika walked a dozen human soldiers, fair Alban men with glossy golden hair and darker-haired men speaking in the Salian tongue. They walked not as slaves but as comrades-in-arms.
There are deep forces at work here, Rosvita thought, and she feared them.
It hurt both her shoulder and hip to toil up that slope to the palace, but Rosvita fixed her jaw and wept a little in order to tolerate the pain. She concentrated on placing one foot ahead of the next. A sharp twinge jabbed through her right hip each time that foot struck earth. Her right shoulder was already tightening into a screaming knot of agony. She was sweating and crying at the same time, too bewildered and stunned to know just what it was she was crying over.
Before they entered the palace through its wide double doors, the litter bearers paused in the forecourt to catch their breath. She halted with a grateful sigh. Turning, she caught in her breath. This vista she had admired before, years ago, when Henry had fought Sabella and defeated her. Then, too, a guivre had stalked the field, but the outcome had proved very different.
How quickly the outlook changes. Kassel town had gained population in the intervening years, much of it recent judging by the fresh look of hovels and houses erected within the shelter of the town walls. There was less open space, and more fields beyond the walls given over to cultivation. Yet half the ground outside—where fields of rye and barley had been sown—was trenched by siege works, while other fields had been trampled. The detritus of battle lay strewn as though a flood tide had swept over the valley floor.
Just outside the town gates, the armies of Wendar and Varre gathered their forces. They were frighteningly few compared to the many dead left lying on the ground beside the pickets or in the earthworks or across the flat fields. What she saw, looking farther afield, were Eika pulling their net in around the valley itself, ranks and ranks of infantry filing out of the forest. That portion of the army marching with Lord Stronghand along the Hellweg had certainly been decimated, but he had brought many more with him, too many to count. Thousands, she estimated. Even at this distance she could identify among his soldiers the human men who had turned their back on humankind to march with the enemy.
