Crown of Stars

Page 85

Food and drink then, enough for a hand or so of days.
Of Kansi-a-lari, whose voice had mocked her, she heard and felt no sign.
6
IVAR had been left behind with a dozen outriders to guard the horses in case the bandits slipped away from Captain Ulric and the strike force. They waited in a clearing ringed with beech trees. Faint trails of mist spun away through the forest. He gazed downslope, where oak trees encroached and bramble flourished. Beyond, at the base of the long hill, lay a fen populated by low-growing wet birch, stands of alder, and every manner of sedge and meadow grass. The captain knew better than to ride into such ground; the soldiers had gone in at dawn on foot.
Ivar and the others listened. Because of the lay of the ground, they heard the attack as if it were the peal of distant chimes: the ring of weapons clashing; a shout; a dog barking; a silence as the wind turned; and scattered shouts and noises as the wind shifted back. He blew on his hands. Sentries prowled at the edge of his sight. Two dogs snoozed on the damp ground. Above, clouds lingered, but it seemed to him that the mist was white and the heavens whiter still, as though the sun were trying to burn through.
“You’d think it’d be warmer, or that summer would come,” muttered one of the grooms, stamping his feet.
“Hey!” shouted a sentry. “It’s Erkanwulf!”
Ivar stayed aloof as the others crowded to meet the returning hero, who had blood on his cheek and a frown on his face.
“Well, it’s over.” He caught Ivar’s gaze, and nodded. “Dedi got slashed on the thigh, and Guy got knocked cold, and a couple of lads have scrapes and bruises, but we’re all safe. We took them by surprise. We got a dozen prisoners for the biscop. The rest are dead.”
“For Lord Geoffrey,” objected the man who had complained about summer. He was a Lavas retainer.
“For the biscop,” repeated Erkanwulf. “For justice.”
The smell of smoke cut the air, wafting up from the fen.
“What about those murdered girls?” asked Ivar.
Erkanwulf made a face. “Yeah, we found them. Dragged off to one side like rubbish. Seems to me they treat their soil better, burying it, like, so it doesn’t attract flies. Animals had gotten into them. I didn’t stay, but I know the captain meant to bury them there instead of hauling their bones back, which we couldn’t do anyway seeing as how what was left was all scattered.” He had gotten red as he talked, and he wiped his forehead with the back of a hand, although it wasn’t at all warm.
“Bad?” asked Ivar, and Erkanwulf looked right at him and nodded. They had traveled far enough together that they no longer needed long explanations to be understood. “I could have said a prayer over them.”
“Captain’s orders,” said Erkanwulf. “He wanted you to command the rear guard.”
“He didn’t want me to come along at all, as I recall.”
“You’re a cleric, Ivar. You’re not meant to be soldiering.”
But Ivar was restless. Since Biscop Constance had established herself at Lavas Holding, he felt himself betwixt and between. He had few clerical skills to bring to her schola, but likewise he was no soldier to serve her in that guise. In truth, as hard as that journey with Erkanwulf had been, he had liked it best of all the things he had experienced and suffered in the last few years. It made him think of Hanna, riding as an Eagle. On the road, he had felt that he was at least going somewhere, and the rescue of Baldwin had brought him a measure of peace even if Baldwin was no longer what he had been.
So are we all changed, he thought.
He wished Hanna was there, so he could tell her his thoughts as he had used to do, but no doubt she would only laugh at him. If she was even alive to do so. Fear pinched him, and he ducked his head, rubbing his eyes.
“Good land there at Ravnholt Manor,” continued Erkanwulf, oblivious to these signs. “Shame to see it gone fallow, like, with no one left to farm it.”
“There they come!” called a sentry.
Captain Ulric led the company out of the mist. Among that number walked Gerulf and Dedi, the two Lions Ivar and his friends had rescued at Queen’s Grave. They saw Ivar and nodded to acknowledge him. Dedi was limping.
The victors had bound the bandits with rope at the ankles and wrists. The prisoners shuffled with heads down, broken in spirit, wounded, sniveling, and groaning. One man with a bloodied nose staunched the flow with a fist pressed against his blistered lips. A younger lad cradled a bleeding hand in the other arm. Lord Geoffrey walked at the end of the line, but everyone knew that Captain Ulric had plotted the raid and commanded it in all but name.