II
 The Ache of an Old Wound
 

 1

 “Hanna?”

 Someone held a light close to her face.  Squeezing her eyes shut, she turned away from the harsh glare.

 “Hanna”  More insistently.

 She smelled horse on his tunic.  A breeze tickled her ear, and she cracked open one eye and realized that it was not lamplight but sunlight that lit the chamber.  She lay in a neatly appointed chamber with a second rope-frame bed opposite hers, a table and bench, a chest for clothing, and several basins set here and there about the room, five on the floor and two small copper ones on the table.  Through open shutters she glimpsed an apple tree in bloom.

 Ingo knelt beside her bed.  “Hanna?”

 She grunted, reaching out to grasp his shoulder, not sure if he were real or another vivid dream like the ones that plagued her.  Even moving her arm took an effort.  She was terribly weak, but she could breathe without pain.  “You’re really here,” she said, mildly surprised that her voice worked.

 “Aye, indeed, lass,” he replied with a crooked grin.  He wiped a tear from his cheek.  “I’ve been here many a day over the winter, but you didn’t know it.  We’ve all watched over you.  I thank God that you look likely to live.”

 “Ah.”  All she remembered was the dreaming, although she knew that long stretches had passed in which she was intermittently aware of the struggle it took to draw a single breath, of fever and chills washing through her as though she were wracked by a tidal flow.

 “Listen, Hanna.”  He took hold of her hand.  “We’re leaving Gent.  Princess Theophanu is marching with her retinue to Osterburg.  Duchess Rotrudis has died at last.  The princess must go there swiftly to make sure the old duchess’s heirs don’t tear Saony into pieces.”

 “Yes.”  She had a vague recollection that Prince Sanglant had given her a message to take to his sister, and an even mistier memory that she had, perhaps, delivered it.

 “We leave after Sext.  Today.”

 Her head throbbed with the effort of thinking.  “How long?”

 “A week or more–“

 “She’s asking how long she’s been sick,” said a second voice from the door.

 “Folquin?”

 He hurried in to kneel beside her, and suddenly Leo and Stephen pressed into the room as well.

 “Captain said that until she’s stronger--“ began Stephen hesitantly.

 “She might as well know from us.”  Folquin's shoulders were so broad that they blocked her view out of the open window.  He bent close to her, setting a huge hand on her shoulder as gently as if she were a newborn baby.  She didn’t remember them all being so large and so very robust.  “You’ve been sick with the lungfever all winter.  You almost died.  It’s spring.  Mariansmass has come and gone.  It will be Avril soon.”

 Her mouth was so dry that her tongue felt swollen.  Still, she managed to smile despite cracked lips.  The passing of seasons meant little to her.  It was just nice to see their familiar faces, but exhaustion already had its grip on her again.  She wanted to sleep.  Yet would she be abandoned once they left?  Ingo and the others had rescued her from Bulkezu, after all.

 “Who will look after me?”

 “There’s a good woman here, by name of Frederun.  She’s been nursing you all winter.  She’s head of the servant’s hall here at the palace.  Princess Theophanu thinks well enough of you to leave her good companion, Lady Leoba, as lady over Gent.  You’ll travel to Osterburg once you’re strong enough to ride.  We’ll see you soon, friend.”

 They fussed over her for a little longer before being called away, but in truth she was relieved to be able to rest.  She’d forgotten how exhausting they were, yet she had an idea that they hadn’t always seemed so, back before her illness, before Bulkezu.

 Days passed, quiet and unspeakably dreary.  Her hip had healed, but even to stand tired her and walking from her bed to the door and back again seemed so impossible a task that she despaired of ever regaining her strength.  Her ribs stuck out, and her abdomen was a hollow, skin stretched tight over hip bones.  Some days she hadn’t the will to eat, yet Frederun coaxed her with bowls of porridge and lukewarm broths.

 The passing days became weeks.  Avril flowered, and with it the feast day of St. Eusebë, when apprentices sealed themselves into service to a new master.  She had recovered enough that she could walk to a chair set outside in the sun, in the broad courtyard, and watch as a dozen youths were accepted into the palace, seven year’s service in exchange for a place to sleep and two meals every day.  Lady Leoba herself came by to speak with her, and Hanna even managed to rise, to show the new lady of Gent proper respect.

 “I see you are healing, Eagle.”  The lady looked her over as carefully as she might a prized mare whom she had feared lost to colic.  “My lady Princess Theophanu hoped we could join her by the Feast of the Queen, but I’ve sent a messenger to let her know we’ll be delayed until the month of Sormas.  It was a lad who said you had deputized him as an Eagle.  He went by the name of Ernst.  Do you remember him?”

 At first she did not, but when Lady Leoba gave her leave to sit down again, a hazy memory brushed her: the village, the thunderstorm, the eager youth Ernst.  For some reason, tears filled her eyes.  She didn’t cry as much now but that was only because the world seemed so stretched and thin that it was difficult to get up enough energy to cry.

 “Hanna?”  Frederun appeared at her side.  She had sent the new apprentices to their duties in stable, hall, kitchens, or carpentry.  Dressed in a fine calf-length tunic worn over a linen underdress, she looked quite striking with her bountiful dark hair caught back in a scarf and her cheeks rosy with sun.  “You look tired again.”

 “I’d like to go back to bed.”

 “Nay, you must take three turns around the courtyard first.  Otherwise you’ll not get stronger.”

 Hanna did not have the stamina to resist Frederun’s commands.  She did as she was told, because it was easier to obey than to fight.  Yet in fact, she did get stronger.  The invalid’s spelt porridge soon had a hank of freshly baked bread to supplement it, and infusions of galingale and feverfew gave way to cups of mead and mulled wine.  Light broths became soups, and soon after that she could eat chicken stewed in wine, fish soup, and periwinkles cooked up with peas.  By the beginning of the month of Sormas she took her meals in the servants’ hall rather than alone in her room.  Gent remained peaceful, a haven, but its quiet did not soothe her.  She did not care to explore the city and kept to herself within the confines of the palace compound.  Those like Frederun, who tried to befriend her, she kept at arm’s length; the others she ignored.  When young Ernst returned late in the month of Sormas with an urgent summons for Lady Leoba, Hanna greeted his arrival with relief.  It was time to move on.

 Leoba and her retinue rode out the day after Luciasmass, the first day of summer.  Fields of winter wheat and rye had grown high over the spring, turning gold as summer crept in.  Gardens neatly fenced off from the depredations of wild creatures and wandering sheep stood around hamlets sprung up along the road.  Children ran out to watch them ride by.  Some enterprising farmers had planted apple orchards to replace those chopped down during the Eika occupation, but these were young trees not yet bearing fruit.  As they rode south along the river, fields gave way to pasture lands and a series of enclosed fields of flax and hemp near palisaded villages built up in the last two years to replace those burned by Bloodheart and his marauding army.  The cathedral tower remained a beacon for a long while as they rode, but eventually it was lost behind trees.  Settlement grew sparser and children more shy of standing at the roadside to stare.

 Ernst insisted on riding beside her.  “I’ve never seen such fine ladies as those in the princess’s court!  Do you see the clothes they wear for riding?  All those colors!  I’ve never seen so much gold and silver.  God must truly love those to whom They grant so much wealth.  I have so much food to eat that every night I have a full stomach!  Sometimes I’m allowed to eat the leftovers off the platters the noble folk eat from.  I had swan, but some spice in it made my tongue burn!”

 He sat a horse well.  It hadn’t taken him long to learn, but his simple belief in the glamor of an Eagle’s life would prove a more stubborn obstacle to overcome.  She kept silent, and eventually he shut up.

 The warm days and cloudless sky of Quadrii did not cheer her.  Each league they traveled seemed much like the last, although there was always something new to look at and plenty of folk willing to offer them a meal of porridge and bread in exchange for news.  The local farmers and manor-born field hands had heard rumors of bandits, cursed shades, and plague, but hadn’t seen any for themselves, nor had any of them heard until now of the great battle at Osterburg.  Again and again she felt obliged to repeat the story.  It was her duty, after all.

 Would it have been better to have stayed in Gent, safe behind bland walls?  Yet she had grown tired of the friendliness of Gent’s servants and of her caretaker, Frederun.  Everyone knew Frederun had been Prince Sanglant’s concubine when he’d wintered over in Gent the year before, on the road east; they spoke of it still, although never in Frederun’s hearing.  He had given her certain small tokens, but she had stayed behind, bound to the palace, when he had ridden on.  The Prince had had a child with him, but no one knew what had happened to his wife, only that she had, evidently, vanished when the daughter was still a newborn infant.

 What had happened to Liath?

 When she closed her eyes, she saw the fever dream that had chased her through her illness, the hazy vision of a woman winged with flame whose face looked exactly like Liath’s.  At night, she sought Liath through fire, but she never found her.  King Henry, Hathui, even Prince Sanglant no longer appeared to her Eagle’s Sight, and Sorgatani came to her only in stuttering glimpses, clouded by smoke and sparks.  It had been so long since she had seen Wolfhere that she had trouble recalling his features.  Only Bulkezu’s beautiful, monstrous face coalesced without fail when she stared into the flames.  Even Ivar was lost to her, invisible to her Eagle’s Sight although she sought him with increasing desperation.  Had her sight failed her?  Or were they all, at last, dead?

 She felt dead, withered like a leaf wilting under the sun’s glare.

 Rain delayed them.  “It will ruin the harvest,” Ernst muttered more than once, surveying sodden fields, but Hanna had no answer to give.  She had seen so much ruin already.

 After twenty days, they rode into Osterburg under cover of a weary summer drizzle that just would not let up. A gray mist hung over the fields, half of them abandoned or left fallow after the trampling they had received from two armies but the rest planted with spring-sown oats and barley and a scattering of fenced gardens confining turnips, peas, beans, and onions.  Stone-masons worked on scaffolds along the worst gaps in Osterburg’s walls, but although there were still a number of gaps and tumbled sections, the worst stretch had been repaired.  Inside, the streets seemed narrow and choked with refuse after so many days out on the open road.

 Stable-hands took their horses in the courtyard of the ducal palace.  She and Ernst walked at the rear of Lady Leoba’s escort as they crowded into the great hall, glad to get out of the rain.  A steward, the same stout, intelligent woman who had met the Lions outside Gent, escorted them up stairs to the grand chamber where Princess Theophanu held court.

 Despite the rain, it was warm enough that the shutters had been taken down to let in the breeze.  Theophanu reclined at her ease on a fabulously padded couch, playing chess with one of her ladies while her companions looked on in restful silence.  Two women Hanna did not know but who bore a passing resemblance to the notorious Lord Wichman fidgeted on chairs on either side of Theophanu;  it was hard on first glance to tell which one was more bored, irritable, and sour.

 “Ah.”  Theophanu looked up with a flash of genuine pleasure.  “Leoba!”  They embraced. Theophanu turned to address the women sitting on either of her.  “Cousin Sophie.  Cousin Imma.  Here is my best companion, Leoba.  She is out of the Hesbaye clan, and was married last summer to Margrave Villam.”

 “But isn’t dead yet?” asked the one called Sophie, with a leer.  “How many wives has Villam outlasted?”

 “Nay, it will be a test of the Hesbaye and Villam clans to see which one can outlast the other on fourth and fifth marriages,” retorted her sister.

 Leoba colored, but Theophanu drew her attention away, making room on the couch for Leoba to sit beside her.  “How fares Gent?”

 “Well enough.  A spring sowing of oats and barley was put in on the fallow fields.  The winter wheat and rye crop has flourished.  There are four excellent weaving houses.  Each one produced enough cloth over the winter and spring that there is surplus for trade.  The market brings in folk from three days’ walk away.  Merchants have sailed in from as far as Medemelacha.  They pay the regnant’s tax willingly enough.  The year the city lay under Eika rule hurt their custom and their routes to the east.  There’s to be a harvest fair that will likely bring folk from a week’s walk.  Gent is a prosperous place.  I have brought five chests of coin and treasure to give into your coffers.”

 “That is Saony’s tax!” cried Imma.  “It belongs to our family.”

 “Nay, Imma,” said Theophanu mildly, “it belongs to the regnant, and to Saony.  You have not been named as duchess, I think?”

 “Because I am the elder!” said Sophie triumphantly.

 “You are not!”

 “I pray you, Cousins, let us not hear this argument again.  I have been left as regent while King Henry remains in Aosta.  I must judge.  As I have already told you, I mean to let my father decide who will succeed my aunt, may she rest in peace, as duchess of Saony.  I have only been waiting for an experienced Eagle, one who has traveled before across the Alfar Mountains.”

 Every person in the chamber turned to look at Hanna.

 “Dare you send another?” asked Leoba.  “You have sent all three of the Eagles left in your care south to Aosta and not heard one word from any of them, whether they lived or died or even reached the king.”

 “Do I dare not send one more?  You did not hear the news, Leoba?  My cousin Conrad the Black celebrated Penitire in Mainni as though he were king!  He allowed the biscop to receive him outside the city and escort him in to the palace as she would if it were my father who had come.  The feasting lasted a full three days in the royal manner.  He has taken Tallia of Arconia as wife and gotten her pregnant.  She rides with Conrad rather than remaining in the custody of my aunt Constance, in Autun, as my father decreed.  If this is not rebellion, then I don’t know what is.”

 “Conrad would support my claim to Saony,” said Sophie, her expression shifting with animal cunning, “if I offered to support him and Tallia.  You forget that, Theophanu.  You are not my only recourse.”

 “But Conrad is not here, you stupid cow,” said her sister, “nor is he king of Wendar, although it seems he would like to lay claim to the kingship of Varre by right of the body and blood of his new wife.”

 “Where is the king of Wendar?” demanded Sophie.  “Can he be king if he has abandoned his people?”

 “Henry is king over Wendar and Varre,” said Theophanu, “and God have given their blessing to him.  I trust you will remember that, Cousins.”

 “I remember seeing your troops ride in after your brother stripped us of half our mounted soldiers for his mad journey east!  Yet you haven’t half the army Sanglant has, nor could you drive out the Quman invaders.  And you can’t do anything to stop Conrad!”  Sophie’s peevish expression vanished abruptly as she glanced at her sister, who like a cat seemed ready to wash her paws with disdainful triumph, seeing that her enemy was about to fall into a trap of her own making.

 “Do not think I am unsympathetic to your plight, Theophanu,” Sophie went on quickly.  “If Sapientia cannot rule after your father, then you are the rightful heir.  You have not received what you deserve.”

 “But you’ll have honey poured on you now.”  Imma sneered as she reached for her wine cup.  “Whom do you mean to flatter and cozen, Sophie?  Conrad, or Theophanu?”

 “It’s true enough, nor can any of you admit otherwise!” said Sophie.  “Theophanu was left to be regent for King Henry but given no support.  Henry has an army in Aosta, and Sanglant rides east with the army that defeated the Quman.  What are you left with, Cousin?”

 “My wits.”  With an enigmatic smile, Theophanu gestured toward the windows.  “It seems the rain has passed.  I intend to ride today.  My head is quite stuffy from all this chattering.  Eagle, you will attend me.”

 In this way, Hanna found herself back on a horse and riding beside the princess along the verge of muddy fields where, last autumn, battle lines had been drawn and armies had clashed.  Beyond the western shore of the Veser lay the hills where the Quman army had made its camp and where Bulkezu’s prisoners had huddled in those last desperate hours.  To the east she recognized the ragged band of forest that concealed the Veserling, where Ingo and the others had rescued her.

 “Where are the Lions, Your Highness?  They came to you early in the spring, did they not?”

 Theophanu nodded.  “I keep them in the city to remind my cousins of my authority.  These days, they work on the wall.  It was let fall into shameful disrepair by my aunt, may she be at peace.  I think she must not have been at all well these past few years.”

 Together with two stewards, three servants, and a half dozen of the princess’s noble companions, they skirted several ditches half full of rainwater, an attempt to drain off the excess water collecting on the fields, and approached a low hill that rose out of the plain like a bubble.  Theophanu waved her companions back but beckoned Hanna forward with her, and with some difficulty the two women urged their mounts up the slippery rise to the top.  Alder and oak had been cut back here only recently, and they had to be careful of burned out stumps laying traps for their mounts’ hooves.  Wood-rush and bramble bush proliferated.  Dill had taken root, flowering in yellow clusters alongside cream-colored bells of comfrey.  Yet at the height of the hill, in one man-sized spot, the lush greenery turned to blackened ground, as bare as if salt had been sown on the earth.

 “It’s said that this is where Bayan died.”  Theophanu pulled her mare up beside the barren patch of ground, surveying it dispassionately.  “I never met him.  What was he like?”

 Hanna dismounted, kneeling to touch the earth.  A wasp sting came alive in her chest as her fingers brushed the scorched ground.   She knew in her bones that Bayan had been killed here, but the eerie sensation that coursed up her hand lasted only an instant.  It was only dirt, after all.  Catching her breath, she rose.  “He was a good man, Your Highness, may he rest at peace in the Chamber of Light.  He was no fool.”

 “A good match for Sapientia.”  Was that sarcasm in Theophanu’s tone?  Hanna could not tell.

 “She trusted him, Your Highness.  With his guidance she gained in wisdom.”

 “Then my father chose wisely.”

 “In truth, I believe he did.  Bayan’s death grieved Princess Sapientia mightily.  Things might have turned out differently for all of us, and for the kingdom, if Prince Bayan had not died at Bulkezu’s hand.”

 “The Quman prince himself killed Bayan, in combat?”

 “Nay, Quman magic killed Prince Bayan.  And his mother.”

 Such a complicated expression swept Theophanu’s face that Hanna looked away, embarrassed.  But when Theophanu spoke again, no trace of emotion sullied her voice.

 “Have you command of the Eagle’s Sight?”

 No one stood near enough to hear them.  The rest of their party waited obediently at the base of the little hill.  “I do, Your Highness.”

 “Surely you have sought sight of my father.”

 Ashamed, she lowered her gaze.  “My Eagle’s Sight is clouded, Your Highness.  I have looked for him, but I cannot see him.”

 “Is it possible that another hand has clouded your sight?”

 What a fool she had been!  Cherbu had concealed Bulkezu’s army for many months with magic.  Surely a knowledgeable sorcerer could shield herself against the Eagle’s Sight.  Yet Wolfhere had never spoken of such things to her.  Perhaps he had not wanted her to know, so that he could always keep an eye on her.

 “It could be possible,” she admitted.  “I know little about magic, and less about the Eagle’s Sight save that I can seek for visions of those I know through fire and sometimes hear them speak.”

 “You have done nothing wrong, Hanna.  The king himself rewarded you with that ring you wear, and therefore I know that he considered you a faithful and trustworthy subject.  That is why I am glad you are with me now.  My father must understand that I am in an impossible position.  The duchy of Saony cannot go to one of Rotrudis’s children.  Their greed and mismanagement will only weaken the duchy.  But I haven’t troops or authority to install another in their place, and either one of my cousins will ride straight to Conrad if she thinks he will take her part.  I have no army, or little enough of one–“ She gestured impatiently toward distant Osterburg.  “–and Sanglant has taken the rest.”

 “It seems a large army for even a commander with Sanglant’s reputation to march so far into the wilderness, Your Highness.  They must all be fed and housed.”

 “It’s true enough.  We’ve heard reports from various places that all of the infantry was dispersed after the battle, sent home to tend to planting.  Villam’s daughter is said to be supporting Sanglant.  It’s rumored that she’s holding a portion of his army in reserve, in the marchlands, for when he returns from Ungria and the east.  It could be true.  She wanted to marry him once, but it wasn’t allowed because he was only a bastard.”

 Wind tugged at the princess’s hair, bound up with silver pins, but no trace of feeling troubled her expression.  Was it possible that the calmer Theophanu looked on the outside the more she raged in her inner heart?  No wonder many in the king’s court dared not trust her, if she concealed the truth of her heart behind a veil of composure.  Yet after watching Bulkezu do as he willed, giving his whims and frenzies full rein, Hanna could admire a person who had the fortitude and discipline to hold herself in check.

 “I might have been allowed more, born a bastard,” Theophanu murmured.  As if she had just heard herself, she looked directly, almost defiantly, at Hanna, who gazed back steadily, unafraid.

 “I beg your pardon, Your Highness, for speaking so boldly.  I am also a third child, and what was granted to my elder siblings was not possible for me.  That is why I joined the Eagles, rather than accept a marriage I would have found distasteful.  I am proud to serve King Henry.”

 Theophanu’s smile was thin.  “Then you and I are perhaps the last folk here in Wendar who remain faithful of our own will to the rightful king.  Do you fear magic, Eagle?”

 “I fear it, Your Highness, but I have seen too much now to let the threat of magic halt my steps.”

 “I am glad to hear you say so, because I must rest all my hopes on you.  I have sent three Eagles to Aosta, but none have returned to me although I sent the first more than a year ago.  You must travel to Aosta and find my father.  I will give you a message to bring to him, but in truth it will be up to you to make him understand that his position here in Wendar is weakening, even here in Saony, our clan's ancient home.  Conrad troubles the west while Sanglant troubles the east.  My cousin Tallia is a dangerous pawn in Conrad’s hands, and I have heard no message from my aunt Constance in Autun for many months.  I cannot hold here in the center for long, when even my cousins plot to seek help from those who would undermine Henry’s authority.  Not when famine and plague afflict Avaria.  Not when we hear rumors of civil war from Salia.  If the king hears your tale of the Quman invasion and the terrible destruction brought down onto Wendish lands, if he knows the extent of the plots whispered against his rule, surely he will return.”

 
 

 2

 “Hanna?  Did you hear that?  Hanna?”

 Hanna had been lost in thought, repeating Theophanu’s message to herself for the hundredth time, but the pitch of anxiety in Ernst’s voice started into alertness.  “I didn’t hear anything.”

 “You weren’t listening.  Hush.  It will come again.”

 Fog swathed the beech forest in the central uplands of Avaria through which she and Ernst rode, thirty or more days out of Osterburg; she had lost count because the weather had not favored their journey.  They had suffered many delays because of day-long downpours, swamped roads, and pockets of plague they’d had to take detours to avoid.  This clinging fog was the least of the hindrances they had faced.

 Above, the sky appeared gray-white, almost glaring, while around them slender trees faded into the fog, their shapes blurred by the mist.  Deer darted away, vanishing quickly into the fog, but otherwise there was no sign of life except for the chuckling calls of thrushes, the exuberant song of a blackcap, and the occasional rustle of some small animal thrashing away through the dense field layer of wood-rush, or into a stand of honeysuckle.  Although the world was obscured, these sounds carried easily enough.

 She listened.

 Nothing, except for the steady clop of hooves, two mounts and two spares.  Nothing, except for the sough of an east wind through the summer leaves.  East lay memories, and no matter how hard she tried to squeeze them out of herself, they still swelled inside her with the ache of an old wound.  On a chill summer’s day like today, her hip hurt.  Where fog wrapped its tendrils around trees, she kept catching glimpses of strange figures from her dreams: centaur women stalking warriors with the bodies of humans and the faces of wolves and lynx; Sorgatani kneeling among reeds at the margin of a vast swamp; a pair of griffins hunting in the tall grass; a long-ship ghosting through a tide of mist like a beast swimming upriver toward unsuspecting prey; men with human-like faces and the tails of fish swimming through the fog-bound trees as through a pillared underwater city.

 “Nothing,” said Ernst with disgust.  “But I know I heard something.  It sounded like fighting.”

 His indignation made her smile.  To her surprise, the youth had proved to be a decent traveling companion.  He no longer talked too much, he did his share of the work, and he never faltered or complained.

 “If I never see any fighting again, I will be content,” she said.

 All at once the wind shifted, and she heard the distinctive clap of weapons striking.

 “It’s ahead of us.  Come on.”

 She slipped her staff free from its harness across her back and, laying it ready over her thighs, pressed her horse forward along the path.  With a gasp of excitement, or fear, Ernst drew the short sword the princess had given him and rode after.

 Because of the swallowing fog they came upon the skirmish unexpectedly where the forest opened into a clearing marked by a tumble of stones and a crossroads.  A tall woman in a battered Eagle’s cloak had taken shelter with her back to the remains of a stone wall, fending off three ragged bandits armed with staves and a knife.

 “Hai!  For King Henry!” cried Hanna.

 “For King Henry!” bellowed Ernst behind her, voice cracking.

 Hanna got in a good whack at one of the bandits before they ran thrashing into the trees, dropping their weapons in their haste to flee.

 “Do we go after them?” shouted Ernst, barely remembering to rein his horse back from the fence of beech trees.

 “Hold!”  Hanna peered into the forest, but the fog shielded the bandit’s flight, although she heard branches cracking and shouts fading into the distance.  Her heart raced from the exertion, but her hands were perfectly steady.  Was she glad they had gotten away?  Or would she have gladly killed them?

 Maybe it was better not to know.

 She turned to see the Eagle doubled over.

 “Comrade!  Are you hurt?”  Dismounting, she ran over, grabbed the woman’s arm, and saw who it was.
“Hathui!”  The shock caused her to step back, and she slammed hard into stone.

 “Nay.  A cut on the arm, that’s all.”  Hathui straightened with a grimace.  “Hanna!  How is it you come here?  Where are the bandits?”

 “Fled,” called Ernst cheerfully from the forest’s edge.  “We routed them!”

 He dismounted to collect the two staves.  The horses bent their heads to graze.  The fog seemed to be making an effort to lift, and they could see pretty far into the forest by now.  Far back into the misty haze among the trees, nothing moved.

 “God above,” swore Hathui.  Blood trickled through her fingers where she held them clamped tight just below her left shoulder.  “Have you something I can bind this with?  He slashed me.  Lad, look for my horse.  She can’t have strayed far.”

 Hanna’s shoulders throbbed where she’d hit the stone wall.  Lichen slipped under her fingers as she pushed forward, finally sweeping away the grip of shock.  “Ernst!  Go on!  Keep your eyes open.  We don’t want those men creeping back with their friends to attack us.”

 She had nothing to say to Hathui.  Surprise had mangled her tongue.  She hurried to the horse tied on behind the saddled gelding and fished out the roll of linen in their stores packed by Theophanu’s stewards for just such an eventuality.

 Hathui limped over to a ramp of stone half overgrown by a bramble bush heavy with berries.  With a grunt, she eased down to sit on the stone and carefully released her fingers.  Blood leaked through a gash in her sleeve.  The cloth had been mended once, just above the fresh rip, tidy white stitches set into the dirty gray wool that matched a dozen mended tears in her Eagle’s cloak.  Her dark hair was caught back in an untidy pony’s tail, and a smudge of dirt darkened her hawk’s nose.  Fresh blood smeared one corner of her mouth.

 “Best move quickly,” she said without raising her head as she delicately pulled aside torn cloth to examine the cut.  She was breathing hard but did not look likely to faint.

 Hanna had seen worse wounds.  The blade had caught the surface of the skin and torn it back raggedly, but not deeply.  She unfastened Hathui’s Eagle’s broach and helped her pull off the tunic, then painted a paste of crushed marigold flowers over the cut before binding it up with a strip of linen.  Hathui got her tunic on, wincing, just as Ernst returned triumphantly, leading the sorriest-looking mare Hanna had ever seen.

 “My thanks, lad.”  Hathui limped forward to take the reins from him.  “I’m called Hathui.  Are you one of us?”

 “I’m called Ernst,” said the youth, staring at her with admiration.  Hathui was not, Hanna supposed, a handsome woman, but she was impressive: tough, proud, and looking like she’d ridden through a storm of demons and survived.  “I mean to be an Eagle.  That’s why I’m riding with Hanna.”

 “Well met.”  After greeting him, Hathui rubbed the mare’s nose affectionately and checked her saddle bag, which seemed to hold nothing more than half a loaf of dry bread and an empty wine sack.  Finally, she looked up.  “Ai, God, Hanna, it’s good to see you.  Where are you bound?”

 “Aosta.  What news, Hathui?  Have you come from the king?  I’ve been sent with an urgent message from Princess Theophanu–“

 Hathui’s face drained to white, bled dry, and she sank down onto the fallen stone with a grimace of pain.
“You must ride straight back to Princess Theophanu!”

 “The king’s dead?”

 “Not dead when I left him.”  Hathui spoke so quietly it was difficult to hear her voice.  “I pray he is not dead now.”  Tears trickled down her cheeks, and her breathing became harsh.  “That I should take so long to get even this far!  And I do not know how far I have left to go.”

 Her expression made Hanna tremble as the older Eagle grabbed her sword hilt and pushed herself up, looking grim and determined.  “We must make haste, you to Princess Theophanu and I – can you tell me, Hanna?  Where is Prince Sanglant?  I have followed rumors that lead me east, but I may be following a cold trail, God help me, for he is veiled to my Eagle’s Sight.  I must reach Prince Sanglant.”

 Ernst had wandered close to listen, but Hanna chased him off.  “You’re sentry, Ernst!  You must keep watch.  Those brigands could come sneaking back and kill us while we’re not looking!”

 She picked up one of the bandit’s captured staves, which was not much more than a stout walking stick carved to a nasty point at one end, and beat down the bramble bush around the stone bench so she and Hathui could sit without fear of thorns.  It felt good to batter down the bramble bush, to hear the snap of vines and watch bits of leaf spill like chaff onto the ground, revealing more of the old stone ruin.  By the pattern of the tumbled stones and their neatly dressed edges, she guessed this had once been an old Dariyan way-station.  Dariyan messengers, folk like herself, had sheltered here long ago.

 “Sit down,” she said.  Hathui sat, shaking and still pale.  “You must tell the whole.”

 Haltingly she did, although Hanna had never before heard Hathui sound so unlike the confident, sharp-tongued Eagle she had met in Heart’s Rest five years ago.  While she talked, Ernst paced out the edge of the clearing, riding a short way down each of the three paths that branched out from the clearing:  one led north back toward Theophanu, one east, and one southwest.  Each time he returned he glanced over at them and their hushed conversation before resuming his circuit of the forest’s edge.

 Hathui spoke more with rasp than voice.  “I bring no message from King Henry, only news of his betrayal.  Hugh of Austra has connived with Queen Adelheid and the skopos herself, the Holy Mother Anne, to make Henry their creature in all ways.  I know not with what black spells Hugh has sullied his hands, but he trapped an unearthly daimone and forced it into the king, who was all unsuspecting.  Now the king speaks with the daimone’s voice, for the daimone controls his speech and his movements.”

 “How came Hugh of Austra into the councils of Queen Adelheid and the skopos?”

 “He is a presbyter now, forgiven for all his sins,” said Hathui bitterly.  “I know little of the new skopos save that she claims to be the grand-daughter of the Empress Taillefer.  She also claims to be Liath’s mother.”

 Could it be true?  Hanna had seen Liath’s child, with Sanglant, in the few days she had remained at the prince’s side beyond the Veser, when the prince himself had interviewed her at length about the time she had spent as a prisoner of Bulkezu and the Quman army.  Before he had sent her away to carry word of his victory and his plans to his sister.  She had heard this tale herself, but it seemed as unlikely then as it did now.

 Or perhaps it was the only explanation that made sense.

 Wind made the leaves dance and murmur.  A brown wren came to light among the brambles, eyeing Hanna and Hathui with its alert gaze before fluttering off.

 “There is more,” said Hathui at last, sounding exhausted, her shoulders slumped.  “The infant Mathilda is to be named as heir.  Adelheid wanted Henry to stay in Aosta to fight in the south, although it was his intent to return to Wendar.  That is why they bound him with the daimone.  Now he only does what they wish.”

 “Why go to Sanglant, then?”

 “He must know what has happened.”

 “But he is himself a rebel against the king.  You must take this news to Theophanu at once!”

 “Nay, to Sanglant.  So Rosvita counseled me.  She said. . .”  Hathui grasped her injured arm again, shutting her eyes, remembering, Her words were almost inaudible.  “She said, ‘a bastard will show his true mettle when temptation is thrown in his path and the worst tales he can imagine are brought to his attention.’  Ai, Lady.  She allowed herself to be taken prisoner so that I might escape.  I do not know if she lives, after all this time.  I have searched with my Eagle’s Sight, but I see only darkness.”  To Hanna’s horror, indomitable Hathui began to weep.  “I fear she is dead.”

 Rosvita meant little to Hanna beyond being Ivar’s elder and half sister.  “When did this happen?  How long have you been traveling?”

 She wiped her cheeks with the back of a hand.  “Months.  Since last year.  I had to ride west, toward Salia.  Even then I came too late to the mountains.  Snow had already closed the pass.  So I laid low and lived as I could, all winter.  They hunted me.  A dozen times or more I saw soldiers wearing Queen Adelheid’s livery along the roads.  It was only three months ago that I was able to fight my way through the snow and into Salia, and then I had to travel in the wilderness, or at night, until I came at last to Wayland.  There I found that Duke Conrad’s soldiers would as soon throw me in prison as aid me.  I have not come easily to this place.”  She patted the cold stone, almost with affection.  “Those bandits were the least of the troubles I’ve faced.  I fear I have a long and difficult journey still ahead of me.”

 “So you do, if you will not turn north to bring your tidings to Theophanu.  Prince Sanglant rides to Ungria.  He left last autumn from Osterburg, after the battle there, although I do not know how he fared this past winter.  He is hidden to my Eagle’s Sight as well.  You would be a fool to ride east after him.  You must take this news to Princess Theophanu–“

 ”Nay!”  She rose, striding toward her horse.  “I must ride to Sanglant!  I will do as Sister Rosvita commanded me, for she is the last one I know who is loyal to the king now that Hugh has murdered Margrave Villam.”

 “Villam!”  The words came at her like barbs, pricking and venomous.  “May God save us if it’s true.”  And yet. . .  “We’ve heard no news from Aosta.  Nothing.  Princess Theophanu sent three Eagles to her father with desperate tidings--”

 “One at least delivered that message, but she has been detained in Darre.  Perhaps the others have as well, if they reached the court after I fled.  They will not let Theophanu’s Eagles leave Aosta now.  King Henry knew that he was needed in Wendar!  He meant to return!”  She halted beside the tallest segment of wall, which came to her shoulder; a pair of fallen wooden roof beams lay covered in nettles and moss at her feet.  Her expression was set, and stubborn.  Unshakeable.  “I go to Sanglant, Hanna.  Sanglant will avenge his father’s betrayal.  He will save Henry.  No one else can.”

 “Sanglant is not the man you think he is, Hathui.  Do not ride to him, I beg you.  Princess Theophanu–“

 ”No.”  Hathui tied a stave to her saddle and made ready to mount.  “I will not be bent from my task.”

 This was the stubbornness that King Henry had admired so much that he had made Hathui his favored Eagle and, indeed, an intimate counselor whose opinion he consulted and trusted.  Hathui loved the king.

 But she was wrong about Sanglant.

 “Very well,” said Hanna at last.  “Ernst will return to Theophanu.”

 The answer gave Hathui pause as she swung onto her mare and, turning, gazed with an expression of dismay at Hanna.  “What do you mean to do?”

 “I mean to do as Princess Theophanu commanded me.  I will ride to Aosta to the king.”

 “Hanna!”

 “I can be as stubborn as you, Hathui.”  But as she spoke the words, she felt the wasp sting burn in her heart.  Was she turning away from Sorgatani because the Kerayit princess had not rescued her from the Quman?  Was she punishing Sanglant, who had betrayed his own people by letting Bulkezu live?  Or was she only doing what was right?

 “You can’t have understood what I’ve told you–“

 ”I understand it well enough.  I will deliver Theophanu’s message, as is my duty.  I will deliver my report about the Quman invasion to King Henry, as I swore I would.  I shall see for myself how he responds.”

 “You cannot trust them!  What they might do to you–“

 “They can do nothing worse to me than what I’ve already suffered.”

 Imperceptibly, as they spoke, the sun had burned off the fog, and now light broke across the clearing.  Dew sparkled on nettles and glistened on ripe berries, quickly wicked away by the heat of the sun.  The morning breeze faded and a drowsy summer glamor settled over the green wood, broken only by the song of birds and the caw of an irritated crow.

 The light of camaraderie had fled from Hathui’s face, replaced by the expression of a woman who has seen the thing she loves best poisoned and trampled.  “So be it.  You have chosen your path.  I have chosen mine.”

 Enough, thought Hanna.  I have made my choice.  The core of rage that these days never left her had hardened into iron.  As long as Bulkezu lived she would never give loyalty, aid, or trust to the man who had refused to punish him as he deserved.

 “So be it,” she echoed.

 There were three paths leading out of the clearing.  She would ride hers alone.