The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3) Page 333

But they wouldn’t listen.

She had already lost sight of the rear guard in the forest. She had her own duty. She’d done what she could here.

She turned her horse and rode east down the now-empty road. The drizzle only made it worse because every drip, every snap of a water-logged branch, made her start round, ready for those dozen Quman who had escaped to come whistling down on her and cut her to pieces. Cut her head off and blacken it and burn it until it became one of those horrible little shriveled heads. She’d noticed that the raiders they’d met didn’t carry heads at their belts. Didn’t that mean they were young men who hadn’t made their first kill yet? Wouldn’t that make them more dangerous, because they were desperate to prove themselves?

She heard a shout, and abruptly relaxed as she came round a corner to see a dozen Lions waiting on the road, her old comrades Ingo, Folquin, Stephen, and Leo among them.

Ingo had a good grip on his spear and shield, so he used a lift of his chin to indicate the road behind her. “Alain noticed you’d fallen behind. Did you see aught?”

“Only those poor fool villagers. They’re running west to Machteburg.”

“Ai, God,” said Ingo. “No doubt they’ll run right into those raiders. Poor souls. But we can’t wait for them. Come, lads.” They turned to follow the army.

As Hanna made her way up through their ranks, knowing that she ought to ride in the vanguard, she overheard Alain speaking to Folquin.

“Poor souls,” he said softly. “I pray that God protect them until this war is over and peace returns.”

They camped that night within sight of the Salavii village. A rough palisade protected the village, which boasted more houses than that of the Wendish settlement, but while the Wendish built longhouses, the Salavii favored smaller, rounder homes with curved roofs whose low eaves made storage shelters around each house. They looked poorer, hadn’t as much livestock but seemed overflowing with little black-haired, pale-complected children who stared at the soldiers and had to be dragged inside the log palisade by their more cautious older siblings.

The deacon came to greet them. She had bare feet, was astoundingly filthy, had lost her two front teeth, and needed a cane despite her youth, but was otherwise cheerful. “What do you recommend, Eagle?” she asked after she had made an awkward courtesy to Prince Ekkehard and Lord Dietrich. She had come from the west and had no discernible accent. Two Salavii men trailed behind her, one young and one quite old.

“Your Wendish neighbors have fled,” said Hanna. “I would recommend you take these folk to the other village, which is better fortified.”

“They won’t want to go,” she explained. “They don’t trust the Wendish settlers.”

“If they trust you, then you must persuade them, Deacon. We fought a Quman raiding party hours ago. There will be others. Brace for it here if you will, or find stronger shelter if there are other fortified settlements nearby. War may yet be averted, but it is better to be ready for anything.”

“Wise words, Eagle. I will do what I can.”

The rain slackened finally. She sought out Prince Ekkehard’s tent, looking for Ivar, and found him at prayer with the others. The frailest of their number led them, a thin-faced and very young man with a persuasively sweet voice. Every word seemed fraught with a deeper meaning, one she couldn’t understand, but she understood that it made her terribly uncomfortable.

“We pray you, Lady, watch over us as you watched over Your Son—”

The words thrilled through her with a kind of horror. But she waited stubbornly until they finished, and Ivar, seeing her, rose and came out to speak with her.

She was so disturbed that it came in a flood. “You’re still involved in that heresy. And you’ve corrupted Prince Ekkehard. Why aren’t you with Margrave Judith? Or in a monastery? Don’t you understand what a dangerous path you’re treading?”

“It isn’t a heresy, Hanna.” He had changed. He rested a hand lightly on her arm and spoke with the same persuasive fervor as had his frail friend, although his voice hadn’t the same music in it. “It’s truth. You didn’t see the miracle of the phoenix. If you had, you’d not wonder why Prince Ekkehard prays with us now when he only tolerated us before.”

“What kind of miracle?” she asked, although she did not like to do so: this new Ivar made her nervous. Once, like a climbing rose, he had grown luxuriantly and with spontaneity. Now, he seemed like a vine trained to a fretwork that some other person had constructed.