He was at first silent, but at length he spoke. “If fire and ash and water have wreaked such havoc here, how badly has the rest of the land suffered?”
Lord Wichman laughed coarsely and shouted, “Surely we have survived the worst!”
“Hush! You fool!” said Liutgard to her cousin. “Do not tempt God! There may be worse yet to come. What do you mean to do, Your Majesty?”
The curse of foresight had spared him, as it spared all born of humankind. It was amazing that he had once said to his father: “I don’t want to be king with princes all biting at my heels and waiting for me to go down so they can rip out my throat. I want a grant of land, Liath as my wife, and peace.” Such luxury was no longer in his grasp. If he did not lead, then this army would fall to pieces and much worse would indeed come to pass.
“We must move out, and swiftly. This land is too devastated to support an army.”
hardt offered him reins. Sanglant mounted Fest and together the remnants of his once proud company rode into the trees.
2
“I looked through fire for those whose faces I know, Your Majesty, but I saw nothing.”
Sanglant glanced toward his council members waiting on the ramp that led up into the ruined fortress. The army had settled down under the afternoon haze to lick its wounds, recover its strength, and assess its numbers and provisions. “The Seven Sleepers may have protected themselves from Eagle’s Sight. We must act as if they still live. They remain a threat.”
Hathui shrugged. “I saw flames and shadow. Flashes of things. An overturned wagon. Falling rocks. A horse killed by a falling branch. None of it made any sense, nor could I hold any one vision within the fire. And of Liath, I saw nothing.”
“Ai, God!” He paced, kicking up ash, and spun to face her. “Seek her at nightfall, each night, and hope she seeks in turn.”
“Nightfall is difficult to gauge with this cloud cover and ash fall, Your Majesty. We might each seek the other every evening and never touch. The Eagle’s Sight is a powerful gift, but a man butchering a deer has more accuracy and delicacy.”
He laughed, more in pain than amusement. “The crowns have the same failing, do they not? Thus we are spared the weight of a power too great to combat by natural means. I no longer wonder—” He swept an arm wide to indicate the heavens and the shattered forest. “—why the church condemned sorcery. See what sorcery has wrought.”
“Liath is a mathematicus, Your Majesty. Do you mean to put her aside because she knows the art of sorcery?”
He grinned. “I began as captain of the King’s Dragons. I have always been a soldier. If a weapon is put in my hands, I use it. And anyway …”
And anyway I love her.
He could not speak those words aloud. He was regnant now, but his position was by no means secure. He could show no weakness; he could possess no weakness, and if he did, if he loved unwisely, then he must conceal the nature of his desire or it would be used against him. In that way the Pechanek Quman had tried to dishonor him by tempting him with a woman’s flesh. He had come close to falling.
“Seek her at nightfall, Hathui. Keep trying.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
He strode over to those who waited, climbed the ramp until he stood above them, and situated himself so all those gathered below or huddled within the ruined walls could hear. He raised a hand for silence, and they quieted, but it was never still. The hiss of falling ash, the crack of breaking branches in the forest, not as many now but sharp and startling each time the sound came, and the moans of the wounded ran beneath his words.
“Cousin,” he said. “What accounting have you reached?”
Liutgard was an excellent administrator and a wise enough soldier that she let her captains fight her battles for her. When she was younger, her husband had carried her sword as a talisman in place of her, but since his death some years earlier she had shown a disturbing tendency to take to the field herself.
She beckoned her chief steward forward. That woman tallied their remaining forces and lines of command, about two thousand men and perhaps half that many horses remaining although strays were continually being roped in. They had salvaged provisions for about three weeks, if strictly rationed, but were low on fresh water and feed for the horses. There were not enough wagons to carry all the wounded though crude sledges could be built and the wounded placed upon those and dragged by healthy men.
“What now, Your Majesty?” Liutgard asked when her steward had finished.
“Yes, what now?” they asked, all the assembled nobles and captains, those who had survived.
He was at first silent, but at length he spoke. “If fire and ash and water have wreaked such havoc here, how badly has the rest of the land suffered?”
Lord Wichman laughed coarsely and shouted, “Surely we have survived the worst!”
“Hush! You fool!” said Liutgard to her cousin. “Do not tempt God! There may be worse yet to come. What do you mean to do, Your Majesty?”
The curse of foresight had spared him, as it spared all born of humankind. It was amazing that he had once said to his father: “I don’t want to be king with princes all biting at my heels and waiting for me to go down so they can rip out my throat. I want a grant of land, Liath as my wife, and peace.” Such luxury was no longer in his grasp. If he did not lead, then this army would fall to pieces and much worse would indeed come to pass.
“We must move out, and swiftly. This land is too devastated to support an army.”