The Gathering Storm (128 page)

“How long will we suffer in this heat?” Duke Burchard asked the empress, as if continuing a conversation halted by Antonia’s arrival.

“It is part of the skopos’ plan. If clouds cover the sky, then she cannot weave her great spell. Or so I understand.” Servants fanned them, but it was still almost too hot to breathe.

Burchard grunted, sounding uneasy. “When I was young,
the church condemned tempestari. They said such magic interfered with the natural course of God’s will.”

“One might say the same of swords and spears,” observed Adelheid, “for otherwise enemies would do much less damage each to the other when they went to war, and battles would be a far less bloody business. Sorcery is a tool, Burchard, just like a sword.” She turned to regard Antonia, who had finished drinking her wine while a servant wiped her sweating brow and neck with a damp linen cloth. “You were not successful, then, Sister Venia?”

She was dusty, sore, hot, tired, and thoroughly angry. “He has griffins!”

“So the scouts reported,” said Burchard with an uplifted brow. “Didn’t you believe them?”

“I did not comprehend the nature of their power.”

“What is the nature of a griffin’s power?” The empress sat with feet tucked up under her in a most unbefitting informality; one blue silk slipper peeped out from beneath the gold drapery of her robe. She leaned forward now, lips parted, eyes wide, as innocent as a child and most likely just as stupid.

“They have the power to banish the galla. It is said griffin feathers can cut through the bonds of magic.”

“Did the galla not throw confusion into his army?”

“A score of men may have died, more or less. I viewed the attack from a safe distance. We have not stopped him.”

“But we have slowed him down.”

The queen’s prettiness had never irritated Antonia more than at this moment. How soft those pink lips looked! How pale and inviting were those lovely eyes! Adelheid had not sullied her hands with blood, since the criminals she had handed over to Antonia were marked for execution in any case. But Adelheid had the knack of getting others to do her dirty work for her so that her hands remained lily white. She had scribes to write her missives; loyal guardsmen to wield swords in her defense; stewards to bring her food and drink and a host of fawning courtiers like that old fool Burchard to sing her praises. Beauty was a perilous gift, so often misused. Even as a girl Antonia had scorned those who with their ephemeral beauty got their way even when it was wrong for them to have done so. She had never possessed winsomeness.
She had studied righteousness and the game of power to achieve her ends, molding herself into God’s instrument.

That was a better kind of sword, one whose reach was infinite and whose span was eternal.

“We cannot stop him,” said Antonia. “Have you not considered what the failure of this attack means? The galla were our most powerful weapon.”

“Think you so, Sister Venia? I would have thought that surprise was our most powerful weapon.”

“The galla surprised him, yet he overcame them.”

Adelheid sighed, shifting her feet. Her hair was uncovered as relief from the heat, and her thick black hair braided in as simple a fashion as any farm girl. “I hope you do not despair. I do not.”

Antonia knew better than to say what she thought. She had her own plans, and it would not do to anger the empress. “What do you mean to do, Your Majesty?”

“I mean to send you back to my daughters. You will reside at Tivura until I call for them. I believe you can protect them with your galla, if need be. You have proved your worth. I know you will do what you must to protect them. I hope you do not fear the journey back to Darre. There may be dangers now that Prince Sanglant’s army descends into our land.”

Burchard was nodding in time to the queen’s recital. Antonia had once had more patience for this kind of nonsense, and it was difficult to endure it now, but even so she knew how to smile to gain another’s confidence and goodwill. Adelheid needed her, and for now she needed Adelheid. “I am well armed, just as Prince Sanglant is, Your Majesty. And your plans?”

“We will march east through Ivria along the coast.”

“Away from Darre?”

“Prince Sanglant will not march on Darre if we challenge him elsewhere. Darre is not the heart of Aosta. I am. He must capture me to have a hope of capturing the empire.”

“Rumor speaks that it is his father he seeks, not you, Your Majesty.”

“No man refuses a crown if it is dangled before him.” Antonia frowned. “Do you want Prince Sanglant, Your Majesty? Is this a feint to capture him?”

Burchard snorted. “The queen is loyal to her husband!”

Adelheid laughed and reached out to pat Burchard’s trembling hands. That sweet laughter had captivated a court, a king, and an empire, but it did not fool Antonia. “Hush, Burchard. My loyalty to Henry is not in question.” She settled back and turned her bright gaze on Antonia. “Of course it is a feint to trap him, Sister. What else would it be? Eagles fly swiftly. I am not the only one who received news from a messenger ten days ago speaking of Sanglant’s approach over the Brinne Pass.”

ADELHEID’S army retreated in good order a half day’s ride out in front of them through the worst heat Sanglant had ever suffered and at last took shelter within the walls of the seaport town of Estriana while his army laid in a siege. Few Wendish towns boasted strong stone walls; most had wooden palisades and a stone keep. These were ancient walls erected in the days of the old Dariyan Empire. The town stood on an outcrop that thrust into a shallow bay with waters flat and glassy beyond and the belt of surrounding fields shorn of forage. Her forces had worked efficiently, leaving nothing more than dusty stubble, plucked vines, and a number of gnarled olive trees. To the east the ground rose into rugged hill country and west the wooded coastal plain stretched into a haze of heat and dust. To the north lay hills as well, and where a tongue of a ridgeline thrust out onto the narrow coastal flat a river spilled down onto low land and thence out to the bay, joined halfway by a smaller stream winding in from the eastern hills. Because this bluff lay less than half a league from the town walls, they used it to anchor their siege works to ensure access to water.

As the camp went up in a huge half circle around the town, he sat down under an awning and held court. No man could stand out in the sun’s glare for long without succumbing to dizziness and fainting and, indeed, the report of his chief
healer and head stable master made him feel light-headed with concern.

“Five men have died since we came out of the mountains,” said the healer. “I swear to you, my lord prince, this heat is worse than the cold of the eastern plains. I’ve a hundred men or more with blistering burns and a fever, or who have collapsed on the march.”

“I wonder if the Aostans have as many words for heat as the Quman do for cold. What of the livestock?”

The stable master had dire news as well. “We’ve lost twenty-two horses over the last ten days, my lord prince. While it’s good that we’re digging in so as to keep the river within our lines, there’s so little water trickling down from the higher ground that I’m wondering if the queen’s forces haven’t diverted it upstream. We just don’t have enough water for the livestock.”

“There’s a drought on this land.”

“Truly, there is,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead, “but if this is the same river we rode beside yesterday and the day before, it had a great deal more water in it then. It would be good tactics on the queen’s part to deprive us of water, especially if they’ve access to a spring within their walls.”

“Lord Wichman.” Sanglant called the duchess’ son forward. “Will you take fifty men and venture to find this dam, if there is one, and destroy it?”

“With pleasure!”

“Do you think that wise?” asked Hathui as Wichman strode out of the gathering, eager to get on the move. “He’ll be alone in enemy countryside. The heat is ruinous.”

“Then I’m rid of him and the trouble he causes, or he solves our water shortage. Captain Fulk?”

The captain stepped forward. “We’re setting up our perimeters on both sides, my lord prince, and digging two rings of ditches, one facing out and one in. That bluff to the north holds one flank. The spot where the stream meets the river fortifies the second. We can’t do anything about an attack from the sea, if one comes, but we’ve set the wagons in line as a palisade. I’ve got a score of men strung out as sentries well into the countryside. We’ve heard a rumor that King Henry marched east many months ago into Arethousan country—
a region called Dalmiaka. If it’s true, his army lies east of us. If not, he could come up from the southwest.”

“Very good.”

“I pray you, Prince Sanglant.” Lady Wendilgard of Avaria came forward with a dozen of her best soldiers at her back. Although her nose and cheeks had been burned red by the sun, her face had the pallor of a woman held under a tight rein. “We have come from the forward line.”

When she knelt before him in an uncharacteristic show of humility, he smelled trouble. The way she had set her mouth, teeth clamped shut and lips pressed thin, bode ill. “I pray you, go on.”

In the distance he heard the griffins shriek. Lady Wendilgard remained silent too long, and when she spoke, she spoke too quickly.

“I have been to the forward line, my lord prince. I have seen the walls of Estriana. My father’s banner flies beside that of Aosta. He rides with Queen Adelheid. I cannot fight against him.” For once she could not look him in the eye, knowing what he was: bastard and rebel. “I cannot.”

Silence was a weapon, and she employed it better than he did.

He spoke first. “It may be a feint. How do you know your father himself rides with the queen?”

Like her parents, she was proud and with a few breaths regained her composure enough to look him in the eye. “I called out to the guards on the wall, my lord prince.” Such formality from a woman who was near enough his equal in rank condemned him. He knew what she would say next. “My father was summoned. I saw him on the walls, hale and alive.”

He tapped a foot on the dirt, stilled it; a surge of energy coursed through him but he had to remain seated and in control. “So,” he said, temporizing, but he had already lost this battle and it was too late to change the course of the defeat.

“So be it,” she replied, again too quickly. “I gave you my oath, my lord prince, which I will not forswear. I will not draw my sword against you. Yet I must remain loyal to my father. I and my Avarians will withdraw from the army and return home.”

HE could not let it be. The lady and her soldiers rode out in the late afternoon while Adelheid’s men gathered on the walls of the town and jeered those who remained, although the griffins prowling between ditch and wall gave the enemy pause. One man shot an arrow which fell harmlessly short of Domina.

The Avarian defection dealt the siege a grievous blow. Men frowned as they dug the ditches that would protect them. Soldiers muttered and fell silent as he passed. They gazed north, toward home. They argued about who had the camp next to the Quman contingent although Fulk had already assigned places, and Gyasi was forced to order his nephews to stake out a rope to encircle the Quman encampment and bind it with charms and bells to keep Wendish and Quman apart.

Worst of all, the griffins flew off suddenly, and although they had done so before in order to go hunting and had always returned, this time their departure smelled of defeat. Men watched them go and turned muttering back to their tasks. On the rocky shoreline, five dead dolphins washed up, their corpses half decayed and infested with tiny worms. In the wake of this omen the seawaters began to retreat as though draining away into a sinkhole. Fish flopped and gasped in shrinking hollows on the exposed seabed, and his soldiers
waded out into the muck to retrieve them in baskets—yet one man wandered too close to the walls and three arrows pierced him before his comrades could drag him to safety. He died shortly after, as the sun was setting, and no sooner had the one piece of ill news made the rounds than two horses suffering from colic had to be slaughtered.

Sanglant took Hathui aside as the camp settled in for an uneasy night punctuated by curses and jeers from Estriana’s walls and the too-distant sigh of the sea, whose waters receded finger’s width by finger’s width although by now the tide—if there even were one in the sheltered Middle Sea—ought to be turning to come back in. Drought on the land and an uncanny ebb tide at sea. What next?

“Saddle a mount. I’m riding after Wendilgard.”

She began to speak, but after making that first sound—no recognizable word—she shut her mouth.

“You know I value your advice. I pray you, Eagle, say what you think.”

“Only this, my lord prince. Best that you persuade her to return. The Avarians make up a fifth part of the army. Lady Wendilgard commands respect because she, too, rode south not for glory but because of loyalty to her father. Now folk are reminded that you are a rebel. They do not like to think of fighting against the regnant they love.”