The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 313

“Still, he looks familiar,” Lady Sabella mused, but although she kept talking her voice receded as she moved away, now disinterested. “I don’t see many folk with hair that coppery-red shade. He must hail from the north….”

The shriek would have made any man jump, except one dosed with a potion that made him more dead than alive.

“Ivar? Ai, God. Ivar! It’s Ivar! Nay, Lord, it can’t be! Lady protect him! I thought he would be safe!”

“Lord Baldwin! Come back here!”

A figure hurtled over the cart’s edge and landed so hard on Ivar that, had he not been paralyzed, he would certainly have betrayed himself.

“Ivar! It can’t be! Ai, God! Ai, God!”

Tears poured in a flood. Baldwin clutched Ivar’s hands and chafed them, repeating the same words over and over, crying and groaning, his pretty face twisted with grief. “Ai! Ai! Ai!”

“Come, Lord Baldwin! This man may have died of the plague. Get off him!”

“Then I wish I would die, too. And so I would, if it would bring him back! I would share death with him if I could! Don’t touch me!”

“Baldwin! Come!” Sabella spoke as if to a dog. Weeping, Baldwin tugged a ring off his hand and twisted it onto Ivar’s right forefinger. “Take something of me into the afterlife,” he sniveled. “Ai, God! Ai!”

“Get him off there,” ordered the lady. “I’ve had enough!”

Baldwin was hauled off, kicking and shouting, and dragged away while Ivar lay helpless, screaming inside, guts all knotted up with bitter fury and an ugly relief that the charade had passed the direst test of all.

Baldwin thought he was dead. Baldwin—who had sacrificed so much—would mourn him, although he still lived. Ivar would not suffer, but Baldwin would. The others dared not risk telling Baldwin the truth, not as long as he rode in Lady Sabella’s train.

Not as long as he slept in Lady Sabella’s bed, whether willing or no.

“Friend of his, you think?” said Maynard to his comrade.

“Didn’t look like no brother or cousin, if you ask me. Mayhap they were fostered together.”

“No doubt. Whist! You stubborn ass! Get along!”

The donkey brayed a mighty protest, but the cart jerked and they set off again as the sun glared down, burning his skin, scalding his eyes, making tears run from the face of a dead man who wasn’t dead at all.

But Baldwin would never know.

5

THE merchants who lived and traded in the emporium of Medemelacha had wisely surrendered without a fight, warned by their Hessi compatriots that it were better to yield than die, but upstream on the Helde River the duc d’Amalisses had retreated inside a fortified town, seat of his power. By the time Stronghand reached the scene of the siege, Quickdeath had forced a battle by driving prisoners up against the walls at the point of Eika spears and, on their bleeding and mangled backs, swarming the walls.

The river was choked with corpses as the Eika burned and looted the town.

“This is not what I intended,” said Stronghand when Quickdeath came before him to gloat over his victory. “This town cannot serve us burned to the ground. The fields cannot yield grain if no farmer is left to till and harvest.”

“But we are rich!” Quickdeath had brought a score of warriors and two score dogs as escort; they shouted and cheered, displaying the baubles, fine cloth, and silver coins they had plucked from the ruins. “And the chief of this town is dead!”

Bodies dangled from the burning palisade. As the wind shifted, smoke chased away carrion crows come to seek their own fortunes.

“You are rash.” Stronghand did not rise from the chair where he sat. A choice few of his littermates stood at his back while the handful of chieftains who had joined up with him in Medemelacha kept their distance. Ironclaw stood foremost among them, watching and waiting. The bulk of Stronghand’s army remained in Alba under the command of Trueheart, but in the months since the death of the Alban queen he had sent out smaller groups to strike hard along the coast, casting a net of terror as widely as they could. “We are not yet ready to push inland. If we stretch ourselves too thin, we will break. War bands are more susceptible to ambush than large armies. Your orders were to harry the coast, nothing more.”

Quickdeath laughed, baring his teeth. “And if I do not wish to heed those orders? Maybe I am rash. But you are too cautious!” He gripped his ax more tightly as his men pressed forward threateningly. If the lesser chieftains chose to stand by and not intervene, then Quickdeath’s party easily outnumbered his own.