Crown of Stars

Page 8

From this vantage point they could see most of the town below, a skeletal presence rising in the midst of deserted fields and the outraged wreck of a substantial orchard. A number of trees had fallen, most likely torn down by the storm. Dusk-drawn mist drifted along the broken palisade.
“Not ghosts, but memories. Ghosts enough, I suppose, if memories haunt us.” She swallowed and found even that trifling movement caught and choked her.
“Memories are the worst ghosts of all.” His hand curled around her elbow, and the gesture gave her courage.
“Years ago. The Quman army rode through this place when I was their captive. There are no good memories for me here.”
“I’m sorry. Did they burn the town?”
Meadow grass and fescue had swept over the ruins, grown everywhere they could take root. Hawthorn and twining canes of raspberry had found a foothold as well. Nettles thrust up where the last stains of ash mottled the earth. Soon The Fat One would overtake what the princes had built and cover it in flowers, although only a few dusky violets bloomed now.
“It’s late in the season for violets,” she said, pointing to a spray of delicate petals.
He cocked his head, considered her, then followed where she led. “It’s the cloud cover. I fear we’ll face a late growing season. And a short one.”
“I forgot about the town,” she added. “I don’t know what happened to the town. After the palace burned, it was still standing. The flames never touched the town. We took shelter there that night, all of us in the king’s progress. King Henry stayed in the hall of a prosperous merchant, slept in the man’s own bed. How can that all be gone? Where did it go? Did Bulkezu burn it down? I don’t remember.”
An odd spark of color caught her eye and she knelt and swept aside chaff and dirt and ash and the detritus of years of abandonment to uncover a brass belt buckle shaped in the form of a lion.
“Look here! I wonder if it belonged to one of the Lions who died in the fire.” She looked up. Fortunatus was smiling sadly down at her. He had gotten leaner, cutting his face into sharper planes, but somehow more kind. If Bertha was the goad that drove them and Rosvita the sustenance that gave them heart to keep going, then Fortunatus was the arm that steadied Rosvita whenever she faltered.
“Liath burned down the palace,” she said, although he asked nothing. “Hugh attacked her. He meant to rape her. She was so scared. She called fire. She never meant to. Her fear burned down the entire palace. She killed a dozen or more people.”
“I know, Hanna,” he said gently. “I was here when it happened.”
“Ai, God, of course. Of course. I forgot. I came late. We came over the hill, the Lions and I. We saw the smoke. That was: Ingo, Folquin, Leo, and young Stephen, who wasn’t a Lion yet but he wanted to become one. …” Once started, she could not stop herself, not even when the story wound into that terrible captivity among the Quman. She babbled on for a time while Fortunatus waited and nodded and listened and murmured the occasional meaningless word to show that it mattered to him that these memories overwhelmed her.
In time as the drizzle melted away to become a gauze of mist ghosting up from low-lying ground, the rain of words abated.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He smiled in a way that warmed her heart, offered her a hand, and helped her to rise. “We all must speak sometime. You endured much.”
“Not as much as others. Not as much as those who died.”
“No use comparing, unless you were the one who chose who lived and who died.”
His hand touched her shoulder, but a ghost clutched her heart. She remembered Bulkezu’s voice as clearly as if he stood beside her. “Mercy is a waste of time. If I choose, I will leave ten behind for the crows.”
“It was always ten,” she whispered. “For them, life. And for the rest, death.”
“It was not truly your choice, Hanna. If you had not chosen, then ten more would have died. At least you saved ten where you could. You must forgive yourself. I pray you.” He had tears on his cheeks.
“Thank you, Brother.”
He kissed her on the forehead as a benediction. He was a cleric, after all, able to plead with God on behalf of those who have repented and those who suffer although they are innocent.
From here they could see the flickering light cast by the fire although not the fire itself, tucked away within the stone walls of the chapel. One of the soldiers laughed, another Stephen, an older man who had ridden for years with Lady Bertha. She knew all their laughs now, their favorite swear words and curses; she knew Ruoda’s confident way with the dogs and Gerwita’s fear of the big boarhound called Mercy, Jerome’s shy way of stammering when he had to speak with more than two people paying attention to him and the dry sound of Jehan’s constant nagging cough. She knew each silhouette, such as the one ambling along a fallen length of wall as aimlessly as a sheep.