“This is no ordinary steed,” she said, “but Lady Bertha’s own palfrey, a noble steed, impossibly brave and strong-hearted. She’s Wicked.”
“Then why are you riding her?”
Hanna chuckled. “That’s her name. The story goes that when Lady Bertha acquired her, the mare bit her. I don’t know if it’s true. She can jump, though, and she isn’t afraid of anything.”
“I pray you, Hanna, tell me again of what has transpired since the tempest last autumn. I cannot believe—Lady Bertha survived with some few others of those that accompanied me—and yet so close to home she is killed! Are you sure of what you saw?”
“I’ll tell you again,” said Hanna, soberly, not taking offense at the question as Liath had known she would not. “Ask me what questions you will. Maybe I’ll remember something I’ve forgot. It was a horrible night. Those arrows flying out of the darkness!” She shuddered. “Should another have spoken to me of it, I would not have believed him.”
She repeated the story. Hanna’s testimony was well observed and, as far as it was in her power given her place within the night’s events, related without too much emotion clouding her comments.
“Ashioi, then,” Liath agreed. “They have attacked in other places as well. How can they have come so far north?”
“On their own two feet, I suppose.”
“Well, then. Why?”
“To kill Wendish folk, I must guess. Or to kill Prince Sanglant. They called his name.”
“Some think they are allied with him, now that he is regnant. That he means to conquer Wendar and Varre and hand the kingdom over to his mother’s people.”
“You do not think so.”
Liath gave her a sidelong look and wondered if Hanna distrusted Sanglant. If Hanna distrusted her because of Sanglant. “I don’t believe it.”
When Hanna frowned, she looked years older. “I don’t know what to think. I fear those warriors with their poisoned darts more than I ever feared Bulkezu and his Quman.”
“Maybe so, but that doesn’t make Sanglant their ally. He would never betray his father’s memory.”
A stream had changed course in the last months and cut a gully across the path. They had to dismount. The Lions scrambled down and cut enough of a ramp into the sides with shovels that the horses could negotiate the obstacle. Pine whispered above. The forest cover made the path dim as they moved forward along higher ground.
Hanna lengthened her stride. Hurrying to catch up to her, Liath found they were walking out in front of the others, beyond earshot.
“What troubles you, Hanna? I see it in your face.”
Hanna looked back, looked ahead, even looked up at the canopy of green above them. The heady aroma of pitch caught in Liath’s throat; for such a long time she had smelled only mildewed leaf litter and the icy breath of unseasonable wintry winds.
“I admit, I’m still angry at Prince Sanglant for letting Bulkezu live when he should have executed him. I’m sorry to say so. It’s the truth. Whether it speaks good or ill of me, I don’t know.”
“It’s honest of you. None of us are saints.”
“That’s truth!” She smiled wryly, then frowned in a way that made Liath want to touch her, but she held back. “I should know better. If you trust him, so should I.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s thinking of Sorgatani just now that made me realize. The others fear her, because of what she did at Augensburg.”
“They knew the curse laid on her by her power. She never said otherwise, did she? Was she not honest with them?”
“Honesty is not the same as trust. It was worse than the poisoned arrows. They died only from looking at her.” She made a kind of hiccup, like a laugh or a cough. “Sorgatani told me you are like sisters, that you alone are not bound to her but’ are powerful enough to see her without dying. Did it not scare you the first time, knowing the nature of her curse?”
“I don’t remember thinking of it at all.”
Hanna halted and faced her, looking awful.
“I spoke too lightly,” said Liath. “Forgive me. Of course it would terrify them. As much as it must frighten folk to be around me.”
“Around you? Why so?”
Liath felt how crooked the smile must look on her face. “Because I can kill people, too.”
“So can we all, with a sword or a spear thrust. With our own hands, if we’re strong enough.”
“I can burn them alive. People fear me, and they should.”