“Have we met before?” Stronghand asked in his perfect Wendish.
The man started visibly as if he had not thought an Eika could form human words. “I-I think not, my lord. Many years ago Eika burned the monastery near our village.” He stammered again, realizing that he might have offended. “The-the count as was then drove off another group of invaders that year. He captured one of them, rumor said, but the creature later escaped. My foster son was at Lavas Holding at that time, but we heard the story from others. I’ve met no Eika face-to-face. Not in all my years.” He twisted his fingers through his beard in an anxious gesture, realized that he did so, and lowered his hand. “My lord.”
“Have you heard other news of Eika this summer? Have you heard news of Duke Conrad? Of the Salian war?”
His hands were clenched, and he nodded in a manner so suggestive of resignation, of a man who has given up hope of a successful enterprise, that Stronghand felt a stab of compassion. “In truth, my lord, we at Osna have been beset by our own troubles for the last year or two. We’ve heard nothing of the world.”
“What troubles have plagued you?”
“Harvests have failed. It’s rained too much. There’s no trade at our little emporium, none at all these last two years, although we showed signs of prosperity before. Refugees from the Salian wars have overwhelmed us. There were four murders in the village last year. Unthinkable!” He shook his head. “Lads have gone off to join the war and never returned. Laborers beg for a crust of bread. There’s been a sickness among the outlying farms and among the poorest—they call it ‘holy fire’ because their limbs burn and the poor afflicted souls see rivers burning with blood. Our new count has deserted us. He hides in his fortress, fearing enemies on all sides. Some say he’s not our true count, that the rightful heir was disinherited, cheated of his place.”
“Do you think that’s true?” asked Stronghand, intrigued by the man’s complex expression which grew yet more grim, leavened by sadness.
“Nay, my lord. If any man cheated, it was him who claimed to be the rightful heir. Yet I’ll not say the new count has courted God’s favor either, for his folk fare ill in these days.” He shifted on the plank floor, setting his left knee on the floor to give his right a rest. “I pray you, let me go. I am no spy. I have no grand knowledge to reveal to you. If we eat once a day, we count ourselves fortunate. It’s true we’ve heard tales of troubles along the coast and seen sails passing, but they did not stop. I sailed south this year to Medemelacha because we have become desperate. I pray you, my lord, let me return home.”
“Let him go on his way!” said Stronghand brusquely. The man’s speech had shaken him, although he wasn’t sure why. “I see nothing suspicious in his arrival here. Are there any here who have a complaint of him?”
There were none. The man was known as one of those who traded once a year at the market, bringing in a few goods from the countryside which lay north up the coast. He had always dealt honestly over the many years he had come to Medemelacha. He had only been detained today while loading his small boat to leave, because it had occurred to someone that he was a foreigner and might therefore be a spy.
“He has nothing of importance to tell us. Go!”
The man hurried out, although when he reached the doors, he glanced back toward Stronghand. As if in answer to an unspoken question, Sorrow heaved himself to his feet and barked again, and he and Rage trotted over to the door as if in pursuit. The sunlight streaming in through the doors hid the man in that haze of light as soon as he stepped outside.
“Osna Sound,” Stronghand murmured. He whistled, but the hounds did not return.
Because he was seated, others came forward to press him for a decision on trifling matters, disputes and arguments that a strong council ought to have disposed of. Yet they tested him; they wanted to know if he was as clever as rumor made him out to be. He had to listen, to ask questions, and to judge.
Yet the name teased him as petitioners came forward and retired in pairs, as trios, in groups, now and again a single person. A disputed fence that marked the border between two fields; a bull that had gored a child; stolen apples; a knife fight between feuding suitors.
Osna Sound.
He had heard the name before. Wasn’t that where Alain had come from? He wasn’t sure; he didn’t know the Varren coast well, not as he had learned the Eika shore and the settlements and roads and landscape of Alba or the fields around Gent. In Varre, when he had been captured, he hadn’t been quite awake; he had only vague memories of those days when he was little more than a ravening beast like his brothers. The cage had changed him. It had woken him, and Alain’s blood had quickened him, and since then he had been plagued by this restlessness, this lack of peace, and yet he could not wish for it to have transpired in any other way.