The Gathering Storm (14 page)

Above, the lantern rocked as men crowded around the trapdoor to stare down. He heard their whispers as they laid wagers on how many blows it would take their prince to lay the prisoner out flat.

All at once he was tired of the charade. What kind of contest was it, really, to fight a man chained up for almost two years? Bulkezu remained remarkably strong, yet what kind of man was he, to torment another as Bloodheart had once tormented him?

Bulkezu struck for his face. Sanglant blocked the blow and delivered his own to Bulkezu’s gut, knocking him back, then stepped in, turning sideways as Bulkezu kicked out so the blow glanced off his thigh. As he closed, Bulkezu lunged for his throat. Sanglant seized his wrists and they froze a moment, locked, motionless.

“No creature male or female may kill me,” Sanglant muttered, “so it was never a fair fight.”

With a curse, Bulkezu twisted his hands free, spinning to strike with his elbow. Sanglant caught the blow on his forearm and delivered a sharp punch below the ribs followed by a flurry of blows that made the men watching from above cheer. Bulkezu collapsed limply to the ground.

“On that day you’ll go free,” Sanglant repeated, “and we’ll see which man wins griffin feathers.”

Malbert pushed down the ladder and climbed down, eager to help shackle the prisoner.

“Nay, I will do it.” Let him do the dirty work himself, chaining a warrior who would rather die fighting than leashed like a slave—or a dog. But perhaps Bulkezu deserved no better than the fate he had meted out to the many people he had enslaved and murdered.

What was justice? What was right?

“Here’s the key,” he said, handing it to Malbert, glad to be rid of it, although he would never be rid of the responsibility for what he chose to do.

Yet his night’s work wasn’t done. He crawled up the ladder to discover that King Geza had been alerted by his own guard. Sanglant met him just outside the keep. The king came attended by a half dozen of his white-cloaked honor guard, young men with long mustaches and scant beards. Geza was about ten years older than Bayan, rather more burly, gone a little to fat, and keenly intelligent. He had the luck of the king, that powerful presence, but he lacked the wicked sense of humor that had made Bayan a good companion.

“A problem with the prisoner?” he asked through his interpreter. Was he suspicious, or amused?

“He insulted my father,” replied Sanglant.

“Ah.” Geza spat on the ground to show his contempt for the prisoner. “Is he dead now?”

“Not until he’s given me what I need.”

Geza nodded and took his leave, returning to his bed. He had been grateful enough to get Bayan’s body back, and he had stinted in no way in making Sanglant a welcome guest in the kingdom of Ungria, yet it remained clear that he was only waiting for Sanglant and his army to leave and that he was by no means happy at the thought of that same army returning to cross Ungrian lands on their road back to Wendar. He had even suggested that Sanglant take his army north into the war-torn Polenie lands. Yet he didn’t want to fight Wendish troops either; after all, he and King Henry were nominally allies. When Geza had offered one of his sons as a new husband for
Sapientia, Sanglant had actually flirted with the idea—for the space of three breaths.

As Geza and his entourage crossed the courtyard to the hall, Sanglant caught sight of Hathui and Zacharias over by the stables, she with her arm around his waist as if she were holding him up. Wolfhere stood by the doorway, lighting their way with a lamp as they ducked inside. How had Zacharias hidden his mutilation all these months? No one had even suspected. But then, Zacharias kept to himself, never truly part of the group, and in truth he stank because he so rarely washed.

“My lord prince!” Heribert hurried up, hair mussed and face puffy with sleep. “Everyone is saying you killed Bulkezu.”

“Rumor has already flown, I see. Thank the Lord we’re moving on tomorrow. These Ungrians sing too much.”

“You haven’t complained of Lady Ilona’s attentions.”

“She’s worst of all! I’m nothing more than a stallion to her, brought in to breed the mare. No more women, Heribert.”

The cleric chuckled. “Isn’t that what you said in Gent?”

“I mean it this time!”

Mercifully, Heribert did not answer, merely cocked an eyebrow, looking skeptical as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to comb it down. The first predawn birds cried out, heralding the day to come.

“The Ungrian camp followers will stay behind when we leave Geza’s kingdom. Who will be left to tempt me? Pray God the sorcerers we find will know how to get Liath back.”

“Yet what lies beyond Ungria? A trackless plain, so they say. How will we find these griffins and sorcerers you seek?”

Sanglant smiled, but in his heart he felt no peace, knowing that some choices were ugly, made for expediency’s sake rather than being ruled by what was just. “That is why Bulkezu still lives. He’ll guide me to the griffins in exchange for his freedom—and a chance to kill me.”

AT the Ungrian town of Vidinyi, King Geza made his farewells and turned his court west to return to the heartland of his kingdom. A small fleet of broad-beamed merchant ships and a dozen smaller, swifter galleys had been put at the disposal of Prince Sanglant. After off-loading their cargoes of wine, oil, and silk from the Arethousan Empire, they took on grain for the return journey downriver as well as the two thousand horses, eight hundred soldiers, and two hundred or more servants with their miscellaneous carts and pack animals.

The river seemed as broad as a lake to Sanglant as he stood on deck, Heribert beside him, watching the lengthy and difficult process of horses coming up onto the ships. Beyond the wharves, earth-covered fires burned along the strand. Because there was no wind and the air lay heavy and humid, wraithlike streamers of smoke from these fires stretched out along the shoreline, screening willow scrub and sapling poplars.

“They can’t get much more charcoal near town,” Heribert said. “Look how far back the woodland is cut.”

“They’re using charcoal for their ironworks, to forge more weapons. Ungria grows stronger every year and expands its border eastward.” Sanglant gestured toward the new palisade
wall surrounding Vidinyi. “They say it’s a seven-day trip downriver to the Heretic’s Sea. We won’t be gone from Ungria fast enough for my taste.” “Missing Lady Ilona already?”

“I suppose I deserve that! Missing Bayan, more like. He was the best of them.”

“If what Brother Breschius and Zacharias say is true, and considering the example of Bulkezu, you may look more kindly on the Ungrians once we are out on the plains at the mercy of the Quman and the Kerayit.”

“Maybe so. But Geza delayed us here for his own reasons. He’s a stubborn man and more conniving than he seems.”

“Hoping to convince Sapientia to marry one of his sons? Or hoping to loose us into the wild lands so late in the season that the winter finishes us off?”

“Hard to say. He’s not simple. No doubt the barbarians are more honest about what they want.”

“Our heads? Our horses?”

“Our selves as their slaves and puras?” He laughed curtly, wiping sweat from the back of his neck. “Something like that.”

The woodland had indeed been cut back on all sides of the town, but when they at long last cast off and the press of the current took them round a bend out of sight of Vidinyi, forest gradually took hold on either side until it became a monotonous fence of trees broken at intervals by clusters of low houses dug into the ground. The folk about their daily chores stared as they passed; some of the children shouted greetings; then the little village would be lost behind a new screen of forest as if it had never existed.

In those stretches of wilderness between holdings, he heard nothing except the intermittent beat of oars keeping them in the main channel and the lap of water at the bows. Once he saw a hawk half hidden among the branches of a poplar. Above, the sky was a vivid blue. In the distance the rugged mountains lifted up from a horizon untouched by haze, as though the air were somehow purer there, closer to the heavenly aether.

If he looked hard enough, could he see Liath shining in the heavens? But the air was clear, only scraps of clouds and
the bright sun, concealing neither angels nor daimones. He had seen no sign of her since that awful day at Gent. Two and a half years had passed since then; it was almost as though their brief life together was only a dream remembered as if it were real.

“Do you suppose she is dead, Heribert?” he asked finally.

Heribert sighed. The slender cleric had never been one to tell him only what he wanted to hear. That was why Sanglant prized his companionship. “How can we know? I’m sorry.”

“Papa! Look at me!”

Blessing had got herself into the furled rigging of the lateen sail and shinnied halfway up the mast, clinging to a rope.

“Oh, God!” Heribert hurried toward her, unsteady enough on the rocking ship that he careened into one of the sailors.

“No matter,” called Sanglant after him, laughing. “She’ll either fall and kill herself, or she won’t.”

But it quickly became clear that the captain of the ship wished no brat getting in the way, and soon enough Sanglant found himself presiding over his sullen daughter at the bow of the ship.

“On this boat, you obey the captain, who is like the regnant.”

“He’s only a common man, Papa.”

“In your first battle, will you tell Captain Fulk he’s wrong when he gives you advice just because he was born the son of a steward and you are a prince’s daughter? A wise ruler knows how to listen to those who may know something she does not, and seeks out advisers who tell her the truth rather than those who simply flatter.”

Ai, God, she was well grown enough to pout, arms crossed and shoulders hunched as she stared at the river. Here, as forest gave way to marsh, a heron took wing, slow flaps along the shallows until it was lost in the haze that clung to the waters. Would her life pass as swiftly as the bird’s flight? Would she become an old woman before he reached thirty? He could not bear to think of losing her in such an unnatural way, having to watch as age captured her and made her its prisoner. How soon would she flower and be ready to wed? She still had a child’s body, all innocent
grace and coltish limbs, as lively and strong as any creature let run free. Thank the Lady she was not yet showing signs of the woman she would become; the longer he could put off such considerations the better. Yet he would have to choose carefully what man she married, because she would need every advantage when it came time to restore to her what was due her: her birthright as a descendant of the Emperor Taillefer.

In such moments, watching her, he despaired. She had much the look of Liath about her, delicate features, that creamy brown complexion, and unexpectedly blue eyes, but she had the night-black hair of the Aoi and a cast of features that reminded him of his own mother. The older she grew, the more the resemblance sharpened. By appearance alone, no one would take her for Taillefer’s heir; she had not the look of the west at all. Maybe there was something of Henry in her—she had his rages, after all, and his generous ability to forgive—but as hard as ever he looked he could see no resemblance to Anne, not one bit. That made him glad.

She had such a fierce expression of affronted ire on her sweet face that he almost laughed, but he knew better than to laugh at her. She struggled, lower lip thrust out and quivering, a tear welling from one eye to slide down a cheek. Heribert moved forward to console her, but Sanglant checked him with a gesture. Anna, Thiemo, and Matto, standing alertly nearby, knew better than to intervene when he had laid down a punishment.

“Papa,” she said finally, gaze still stubbornly fixed downriver. The prow of the ship cut the current to either side as the oars pulled them on and the current pressed them forward. Ahead, the gray-green waters purled around a snag that thrust up out of the water. “I
would
listen to Captain Fulk. I would. When can I start training to arms?”

“You’re too young—” he began, the old refrain, then broke off. Why deny what was obvious to any fool traveling with his army, of whom he was obviously the chief example? He had himself been sent at the age of seven to begin his training. Six months ago she had been too young, but for Blessing a few months was like to a year for any normal person. If he did not start training her now, it might be too late,
she might be grown and past her prime before she had a chance to prove herself. If she were doomed to a brief life, at least he must try to give to her all that he could, including her heart’s wish: to be a soldier like her father.

“Look!” she shrieked as a cry rose from the warship running before them, the vanguard of their fleet.

The spar had grown to reveal itself as the topmost ruins of an ancient tower, now drowned in the shallows of the river by rising waters and a change in the river’s course. Like all earthly power, the fortification had fallen in the end, its builders and queens long forgotten. But in the eddy where the river parted around that base of crumbling stone, something waited and watched. Shouts shattered the silence as other oarsmen and sailors saw what lashed in the murky water. Their cries rang out with fear and horror. Yet there it floated, a creature from nightmare, more fish than man with flat red eyes, a lipless mouth, and no nose, only slits for breathing. Each strand of its writhing hair was as thick as an eel with beady little eyes and a snapping mouth.