Prince of Dogs

Page 39

Sanglant shut his eyes. He had to lean forward onto his hands, swept by such a powerful memory of Liath walking ahead of him through the stables, her body ornamented by a bowcase incised with a griffin devouring a deer, that he trembled. His dogs growled, always alert to weakness. Bloodheart barked out words, and Sanglant jerked up, ready to fight. Never let it be said that he did not fight until his last breath.
But Bloodheart’s attention was on another. He called one of his sons before him, the one who wore the Circle. This one, young and straight, had less of the bulky mass of his brothers, but there was yet something about him that was different, something Sanglant recognized but could put no name to, unless it was intelligence.
Bloodheart gestured to the treasures scattered like leaves at his feet. He spoke, indicating this last of his sons. What had he brought?
The other Eika howled and dogs began barking and howling in response. Never allowed to leave the city, this Eika son could hardly have been expected to find and bring home treasure. But perhaps he was in disgrace, and this, finally, was the moment Bloodheart had chosen to make the point.
The young Eika stood calmly under the storm of their howling and derision. At last, seeing they had not made him cower, they quieted. He did not speak immediately. He waited, and when he did speak, he spoke only to his father and, amazingly, in good Wendish.
“I bring you the most precious treasure,” he said, his voice as smooth as the tone of the bone flutes Bloodheart played each day. “Wisdom.”
“Wisdom!” Bloodheart grinned, flashing gems. “What might that be?”
“Which of your other sons can speak the tongue of the human kind?”
“Why should they? What use are the humans to us? They are weak, and being weak, will die. We will take what we want from them and go on our way.”
“They have not died yet.” He did not look toward Sanglant. “The humankind are as numerous as flies on a corpse. Though we are stronger, we are fewer.”
Murmuring, the others grew restless at an exchange few of them could understand.
“What matters it if we are fewer,” said Bloodheart, “if they are weaker?” But he still spoke Wendish, to Sanglant’s surprise. “What matters it as long as we kill twenty for every one of our brothers who dies?”
“Why must we kill so many if we could gain more with less killing?”
Bloodheart’s laughter sounded long and ominously in the echoing nave. Abruptly, he spat at the young Eika’s feet. “Go back to Rikin fjord. You are too young to bide here any longer. Your captivity weakened you, and you are not strong enough to fight this war. Go home and rest with the Mothers. Prove yourself there in the fjordlands, bring the other tribes under my heel, and perhaps I will let you return. But while you are under my displeasure, let none among my sons speak to you in the language of true people, but only in the language of the Soft Ones. I have spoken.”
He turned, spat toward Sanglant, and seated himself on his throne. The priest translated his words in a quavering voice, and then the hubbub began, so loud with howling and laughter and harsh words, with the scraping and banging of spear hafts on stone, and with the stamping of heels to the ground that Sanglant was deafened.
The Eika princeling stood his ground, oblivious to the taunts and the abuse. When at last Bloodheart began to distribute gifts to his favored soldiers, he alone left quietly, without looking back—out to the lit world beyond this stone and timber prison. A breath of wind touched Sanglant’s lips. He licked it, moisture from rain almost painful on his dry tongue.
Free to go, even in disgrace.
The madness came as a cloud covers the sun. But he fought it this time, fought succumbing to it. He did not want to fall into madness in front of so many, an animal in truth. But the dogs circled in, and the black cloud descended, and he forgot everything except his fear that he would be chained here forever.
3
A rich autumn light streamed in through the schola windows, bathing Ivar in such a soporific warmth that he nodded, then jerked himself back to attention as the schoolmaster paused beside him.
“Mundus, munde, mundi, mundo, mundum, mundo, Ivar. Certainly if you would bestir yourself, you could master Dariyan easily. Ermanrich, pay attention. Ah, yes, Baldwin, of course you are doing well; it just needs more practice. See, it is mundi here, not mundo, in the vocative.”
The schoolmaster moved forward to the second-year novices, whose study of Dariyan, the language of the old Empire and now of the Daisanite Church, was more advanced than that of the first years—all but Sigfrid, who spoke and read Dariyan fluently.