Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars #2)

Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars #2) Page 18

Henry did not move, simply sat his patient horse with the lance point pressed up under the mail, hard into the lord’s vulnerable throat.

In this way he waited as his Wendish lords hurried to form up around him, the crippled Villam chief among them. Margrave Judith directed the mopup: prisoners herded into a group, horses tied up, the fires put out—although two of the ballistae had already collapsed into ashy heaps.

As the sun rose, the gates of the fortress yawned open again. A great lady, mounted on a brown mare whose trappings had as much gold and silver woven into them as a biscop’s stole, rode between two deacons dressed in simple white and two holy fraters in drab brown. Her retinue, all unarmed, crowded behind her. Already a wailing had risen from the back of their ranks, keening and mourning.

Henry gestured with his free hand and his men parted to let Lady Svanhilde through his lines. She approached, was helped to dismount by one of her stewards, and knelt before the king.

“I beg you, Your Majesty,” she said, her voice shaken with grief. “Let me see if my son yet lives. I beg you, grant us your mercy. This was no plan of mine. He is a rash youth, and has listened too long to the poets singing the music of war.”

“You would have been better served to come before me yesterday, when first we arrived,” said the king, but he withdrew his lance from the body.

Lady Svanhilde unbuckled the helm and drew it back. Her sudden gasp made clear what was not yet apparent to all. The young man was dead although no mark of war stained his body. He had died in the fall from his horse. His mother began to weep, but in a dignified way.

“This gives me no pleasure,” said the king suddenly in a voice made hoarse by remembered grief. “I, too, have lost a beloved son.”

She pressed a hand to her heart and stared down for a long time on the slack face of the young man. She was an old woman, frail, with thin bones. When she stood, she needed help to rise. But pride shone in her face as she regarded the king who sat above her, still mounted, his holy lance given into the care of Helmut Villam. “He followed Lady Sabella, although I counseled against it.”

“And your loyalties?” demanded Biscop Constance, who had come forward now that the fighting was over.

“Your Grace.” Lady Svanhilde inclined her head, showing more respect to the biscop than she had to the king. “We bow to the regnant.”

Margrave Judith snorted. “Now that you are compelled to!”

“Necessity breeds hard choices,” said the lady without flinching. “I will do what I am commanded, because I must.”

“Let her be,” said Henry suddenly. “Feed us this night, Lady Svanhilde, give us the tithe I ask for, and we will be on our way in the morning.”

“What tithe is that?” Several Wendish lords gasped to hear a defeated noble question terms.

“I need men, horses, and armor to retake the city of Gent, which has fallen to the Eika. This is the tax I set upon you and all the other Varren nobles who followed Sabella. Her fight cost me much of my strength, which you and your countryfolk will return to me.”

Lady Svanhilde poured the king’s wine and served him with her own hands at the feast. Her children served his children, the two margraves, the biscop, and certain other high nobles whose rank demanded they be served with equal honor to the rest. Liath, standing with Hathui behind the king’s chair, tried not to listen to the rumbling of her own stomach. As one of the lucky ones, she would get leftovers from the feast fed to the nobles.

As usual, Lady Tallia had pride of place beside her uncle, King Henry, but the young princess merely picked at her food, contenting herself with so little that Liath wondered how she could keep up her strength.

“As you see,” said Henry to Lady Svanhilde, indicating Tallia, “Sabella’s only child rides with me.” He looked carefully at the three children serving at the feast. One, a girl of about twelve years of age, had a face pale from crying; as her aunt’s heir, she served the king’s children, Theophanu and Ekkehard. Svanhilde’s two sons served the other high nobles. One was a boy of no more than eight, so nervous that a steward hovered at his elbow, helping him to set platters down without breaking them and to pour without spilling. The other was a boy somewhat older than Ekkehard, not yet at his majority. His manners were perfect and his expression grimly serious.

“These are your remaining children?” asked Henry.

Svanhilde gestured to a steward to bring more wine. “I have a son in the monastery my grandmother founded. This boy, Constantine—” She indicated the elder of the two boys. “—is to join the schola at Mainni next spring, when he turns fifteen.”