“So it is with all of us. Those destined to mature into men must prove their manhood by killing one of their nest-brothers. Don’t you do the same?”
“It wasn’t dead. It ran.”
The Eika flashed a sudden and startling grin, white sharp teeth glinting with bright jewels. “What is dead may be animated by sorcery. So Bloodheart protects himself against his sons and any others who might attempt to kill him.”
Sensation had returned to his legs and he got one heel to move, sliding under him. His broken wrist was stiff but whole. “Protects himself? How?”
“It is the curse we all fear, even the greatest chieftain.”
“A curse on you all,” muttered Sanglant under his breath. He jerked over, fist swinging.
But the Eika laughed and nimbly leaped out of the way as the dogs, alerted, bolted away from their food and rushed the princeling.
“Stop,” said Sanglant and the dogs sat, yipped irritably, and returned to the scraps. “Did you come to strip me of what little I have left?” He could move enough now to indicate his tattered clothing.
The Eika recoiled. “No Eika would want such things so foul. Here.” He kicked at something on the floor and the brass Eagle’s badge skidded across the stone and lodged against Sanglant’s thigh. Dried blood caked his skin—or at least, the dirt that grimed his skin. He was all dirt and stink except where the dogs had tried to lick him clean. The tatters of his undertunic were translucent, almost crystalline, because they were soaked with months of sweat. What remained of his tabard had so much dried blood and fluid on it that flakes fell off with each least movement and the cloth itself was stiff with grime.
The Eika princeling stared, then shook his head as he stepped away. “You were the pride of the human king’s army?” he demanded. “If you are their greatest soldier, then no army they bring can be strong enough to defeat us.”
“No army,” murmured Sanglant, the words bitter to his ears.
“Even the one that has now camped in the hills toward the sunset horizon cannot possibly be strong enough to defeat us.”
“Is it true? Has King Henry come to Gent with an army?”
“Henri,” mused the Eika, naming the king in the Salian way. Without answering, he walked away.
“Ai, Lady,” murmured Sanglant, crawling to his hands and knees. “How long has it been? Lord, have mercy upon me. I am not an animal to roll in my own filth. Spare me this humiliation. I have always been Your faithful servant.” He tried to get to his feet but did not have the strength. One of the dogs wandered back and, seeing his weakness, nipped at him. He barely had strength to slap it back, and it whined and slunk away, snapping at the other dogs who came to trouble it for its own sign of weakness.
What had he done wrong? He had been so sure that Bloodheart kept his heart in the wooden chest; it was the obvious place. It was the only place. But Bloodheart had said: “The heart you seek lies hidden among the stones of Rikin fjall.”
Ai, Lady, he was only grateful that the cathedral was empty, that the Eika had left. That way they could not see him humbled. That way they could not see him weep with pain as he struggled to stand upright like a man.
XIV
A SWIRL OF DANGEROUS CURRENTS
1
LORD Wichman’s deacon sang Mass every morning, and that morning she closed with her usual prayer: “From the fury of the Eika, God deliver us.”
That morning after Mass, Anna paused beside the tannery to catch a glimpse of Matthias, as she did every morning to remind herself he really was still alive.
Not well, perhaps, but alive. He spoke no word of complaint; he never once said that his leg ached him although he could scarcely put weight on it. How he had broken the calf bone she never knew. He wouldn’t speak of his captivity among the Eika. He had suffered terribly from fever and swelling after his rescue, but in the end he had recovered although the leg had healed crookedly, with an unnatural skew to it, ugly and discolored. Now he limped like an old man, leaning heavily on a stout stick, and had to brace himself on his good leg and prop his weight on a stool while he scraped hair and the residue of flesh from skins draped over a beam of wood. He had a delicate hand at this labor and could do it quickly, and for that reason had been allowed back at the rebuilt tannery despite his crippling injury. For his work he was fed twice a day.
Anna slipped away before he saw her; he didn’t like her to forage in the forest, but with her gleanings and the scraps given Master Helvidius for his songs and poetry, they had survived through winter and early spring. Now, as spring ripened into summer, the first berries could be harvested, mushrooms gleaned from damp hollows, and all kinds of plants collected in glades and meadows and in the shade of trees. Certain bugs were edible, too—and, Anna had discovered, if you were hungry enough, they could be quite tasty.