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“Nay, not mine. My sister’s. She saw her mother murdered, my lord. She has these nightmares. You see.” She waved a hand in front of the child’s staring eyes, but the little girl did not react. “She is asleep. I always wake her, but when she falls back to sleep, it’s the same over again.”
He set a hand on the child’s dirty brow. The hair was combed back and tightly braided, greasy because unwashed, but otherwise neat. The shift the child wore was smeared with dirt but several tears in the fabric had been precisely repaired with even stitches.
He closed her eyes gently. After a moment her sobs subsided and she sighed and fell into a calm slumber.
“Can you sleep?” he asked her aunt, who was, he saw now, a young woman made old by what she had seen. No older than his foster cousin, Agnes, yet her cheeks were hollows, and her gaze was bleak.
“It’s hard to sleep,” she admitted.
“You must have a name. What happened?”
“I’m called Leisl. I’ve six nieces and nephews to tend. Both of my sisters were murdered. And my brother-in-law, hit by a falling branch. The other’s husband is gone missing, God help him. I was betrothed to Karl, who lived over by Linde—that’s a half day’s walk from our village. But I haven’t seen him since that day. We’ve good land where we are, but no man to till and tend the fields. These boys are too young. I can’t tend to house and field at the same time. I don’t know what we’ll do this winter.”
She raised her head to stare through the dark night toward the black shadow of the church and its high tower. “They say the phoenix came, that it was a sign from God. But I don’t know, my lord. I was frightened. It got so cold, like a winter storm. Maybe it was the Enemy instead. Three demons walk here, with their masks, in the company of the winged one. The same ones that killed my family. How can I think they are beloved of God?”
“These seeds were sown long ago,” he said, taking her hand, “but it is our fate to be left with the harvest. Let those who remain here be at peace. God’s mercy reaches into many hearts. As for you, Leisl, what needs doing?”
She shrugged, gone beyond sorrow into bitter practicality. “I need a husband. If Karl is dead—and I suppose he must be, since he didn’t come here and I heard that Linde was burned right down, all of it—then I must find another man willing. It’s a decent household, with good land, and two walnut trees and six fruit trees. We had five sheep and four goats, but they’re lost, too. Chickens. Near the river. The house well thatched. Three other families nearby, none of them cousins to us. One family of outlanders up from south of Autun who settled there in my grandmother’s time.”
“There might be a man among these refugees here, who lost his wife and needs to marry.”
She flashed him a look. She had a stark gaze, stripped of illusions. “There is one man I have noticed. He came out of Kien, up in the high country. But he’s lost in his mourning, more a mute beast than a man. I don’t know if I can carry him out.”
“Wounded beasts can be healed by treating them with patience and respect. So may humankind. You are strong.”
“What choice have I? I am all that’s left. I would not have my family’s name die with me, and the good land we farm go to some other, for we’ve not even any cousins left to us. If I lose the land, the children will have to go out as bondsmen or servants.”
He left her and went on, talking to those who were wakeful and smelling out those who were sick. Hamlets and villages and farms all through this region had been laid waste, they told him, crops left unsown, livestock scattered, and many, many folk were dead. It would be a hard winter ahead, but at least they now had the rest of summer to rebuild and some measure of peace to build in. At least they now had some hope to hold onto.
Late in the night, he circled back to the main compound. The haze had thinned. The quarter moon faded in and out behind wisps of high cloud. At zenith, the Queen processed in glory with her Sword, Staff, and jeweled Cup. The Dragon had already set.
Lions stood at guard on the porch, and their captain hailed him.
“Lord Alain. You are out late.”
“Many sleep restlessly tonight,” he remarked. “Now that I think on it, Captain Thiadbold, are there any men among your Lions who are ready to retire from the regnant’s service? There’s at least one young householder with a grand inheritance who is in desperate need of a partner—a husband—to help her hold her land and title.”
“She’s too high for me,” said the captain with a startled laugh.
Alain was startled in his turn. “I pray you, what do you mean?”
“Sister Rosvita has let it be known. The good cleric went inside not long ago, to the mourners.”
“Let what be known?”
“About the rightful heir to Lavas County. Who would have guessed it! The holy abbess cannot live long, and so the granddaughter will take the coronet. It’s a miracle—don’t you think?—for the truth to be known after so long.”
He paused, seeing that his dozen men on guard had shifted closer to listen. “Still, no triumph, coming in the wake of her grief.”
“See there.” Sergeant Ingo pointed at the sky over the dormitory roofs. “There’s the Phoenix, rising.”
Where the haze cleared, the constellation Alain had always known as the Eagle unfurled its great square of wings. No one corrected the other man.
“They’re saying it’s why you brought the hounds of Lavas, all this way,” said the captain. “None dare touch them but the rightful heir to Lavas. That’s what they’re saying.”
“What will you do now, you Lions?” Alain asked.
The lamps lit along the porch illuminated the captain’s crooked smile and flame-red hair. “Queen Theophanu herself called me to her chambers before we left. She has asked me to stay on as captain. It’s all I’m good for—training new Lions, that is. I’ll do it. As for these others, that’s up to them. They’ve served faithfully on a long road.”
