The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3) Page 161

The biscop spoke words of blessing over them, and there were toasts to their health, to Bayan’s virility, and to Sapientia’s womanly strength.

“‘Let us contest with swords not with words,’” cried Bayan, “‘and if not in battle with worthy opponents then in the bed of a handsome woman.’” He laughed as he tossed off another cup of wine. He had an amazing capacity to drink and had only had to leave the table twice to pee. He turned to his betrothed with a grin. “These words is teach to me by your brother, the famous warrior Bloody Fields, who makes the land to run red with the blood of his enemies. But you name him differently in your own tongue.” He spoke to the frater, grunted, and tried the word on his tongue but could not make it come out like anything intelligible.

“Do you mean Sanglant?” demanded Sapientia. “You have met Sanglant!”

“Hai—ai! We fight the Quman together these five years past. It is a good battle! They run, and do not to come back. He is alive still, your brother?”

“He is still alive,” said Sapientia curtly, and seemed about to say more when shouting rose from the far end of the hall.

“Make way! Make way!” Two men in soiled clothing came forward and knelt before the high table.

“What is this?” asked the biscop. “Is the news you bring so urgent that it cannot wait until morning?”

“I beg your pardon, Your Grace,” said the elder of the two. He had a reddish beard and a scar above his left eye. “We have had news of several raids beyond the town of Meilessen. There have been more than a dozen such raids, villages burned, many people killed and some beheaded, so it is said. It is hard to know how long ago this began, twenty days or more, but the raiders are moving west. We thought it best to tell you as soon as we entered Handelburg.”

The frater had been translating, and now Prince Bayan got to his feet and gestured for a servant to take wine to the two men. “Who does this raiding?” he asked, but he seemed already to know the answer.

“It is the Quman, my lord,” said the man, startled as he now took in the assembly of Ungrian warriors mixed together with Wendish folk.

Bayan set his teeth in a vicious smile, an expression quite at odds with his usual jolly demeanor. “What mark do they bear, these Quman?”

The spokesman consulted with his companion, then looked toward the biscop for permission to speak. Sapientia stirred restlessly, then rose, too, a pallid echo of Bayan’s movement. The spokesman acknowledged her with a bow, but it was obvious he did not recognize her as Henry’s eldest daughter and putative heir.

“They wear the mark of the claw’s rake.” The messenger took his three middle fingers and made a raking gesture down his arm. “Like so.”

Bayan spat on the floor, then leaped up onto the table with raised cup. He shouted out a name, and the hall rang with the shatteringly loud reply of his assembled men as they, too, all cursed a name and spat on the floor in response. He cried out again, and they answered him, then all drained their cups dry to seal their bargain.

“The snow leopard clan,” translated the frater. “Bulkezu, son of Bruak.”

Bayan had launched into another one of his poems, which Hanna recognized by its distinctive cadences, and by the awkward translation of the frater, who no doubt did what he could to make the words pleasing.

“‘… Hard rides the fighter. Strong are his sinews. Many days in the saddle…’”

“What is the snow leopard clan?” demanded Sapientia, still glaring at the messengers, who, poor souls, looked quite taken aback at being surrounded by a host of shouting Ungrian warriors who were most likely still half heathens themselves—and pungent ones at that. She beckoned to the frater, who faltered, stopped translating, and answered her.

“The snow leopard clan is one of the many Quman tribes.”

“There is more than one Quman tribe?”

The frater looked at her with ill-concealed surprise. “I know the clan marks of at least sixteen Quman clans. They are numberless, and as merciless as any of the tribes who live out beyond the Light of God.”

“Are they the ones who took your hand?” she asked.

He laughed. “Nay, indeed. They’d have taken my head.”

“Who is this Bulkezu they all speak of, and spit at?”

“The war leader who in battle killed Prince Bayan’s only son, eldest child of his first wife. She was a Kerayit princess like Bayan’s own mother.”

“And these Kerayit—” Sapientia pronounced the word awkwardly. “They are a Quman tribe as well?”