Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

“I haven’t the stomach to tell the tale one more time. You’ll find that my faithful soldiers and clever scholastics know the story by heart.”

“Father! Daddy!” Blessing had escaped from Heribert and Zacharias again and with nut-brown Anna in tow came charging through the ruins, whacking at tumbled walls with her wooden sword as she passed. “I want a man, Daddy. I saw a man. I want him.” She ran up, wiped soot from her cheek but only succeeded in making her face dirtier than it already was, and placed herself directly in front of Bayan. She set hands on hips and looked him in the eye. “This is a prince,” she proclaimed, thought about what that meant, and leaned closer to Bayan and spoke confidingly. “Can you get me the man?”

“Who is this charming child?” exclaimed Bayan, delighted. “Why wears she a gold torque?”

“I am Blessing, heir to Emperor Taillefer.” She was as arrogant as an empress, and he supposed he had only himself to blame. He adored her, utterly, helplessly, and that she had any self-control at all was entirely due no doubt to Anna’s stern, no-nonsense attitude. Nothing scared Anna, not even Blessing’s tantrums.

“What man does the young empress desire?” asked Bayan, managing not to dissolve into laughter.

“I saw a man in chains. I want him. I’m thirsty.”

“We’ll share ale, I trust, child. But first we see about the man in chains.” He beckoned to his retinue, a dozen Ungrian noblemen and soldiers who watched Blessing with a mixture of amusement and interest that both irritated and pleased Sanglant. “Prince Sanglant? You accompany us? A party of Wendish and Polenie merchants camp here with a crowd of slaves among their goods. Some prisoners must be refugees from the fighting. They will have stories to tell about the Quman army.”

Blessing had recently developed an aversion to being carried, so Sanglant slowed his steps as she trotted alongside. They crossed the fort’s yard. Scorched roof tiles lay shattered on paving stones. A dead horse had been picked down to the bone by vultures. A pale blue tunic, ground into the muck, gave an incongruous splash of color to the grim destruction.

“What are Bulkezu’s objectives?” Sanglant asked Bayan.

“Many times I ask myself this question. But how can I think like a filthy Quman?” Bayan spat. “To my shame, I hid all winter behind the walls of Handelburg, licking my wounds. Then I crawled out in the spring, but he rode west long before and left me cowering in my hole. Feh.” He spat again, looking really angry now, a man with a grudge. Gesturing broadly, he indicated Machteburg’s ruins, the once-proud border fortress reduced to rubble and debris. “What else do the Quman want except slaves, gold, and misery?”

From the height of the citadel, standing among the fallen stones that had once formed the gate, Sanglant watched the Oder River streaming northward below. Northward, toward Walburg, where he had left Waltharia with a small garrison and a gold torque. Her husband Druthmar stood nearby, chatting quietly with Captain Fulk. “He must want something else. Or be driven by a whip we know nothing of.” He grinned, suddenly, and lifted Blessing up onto a block of stone so she could see better. He turned to Bayan. “Where is my sister?”

“Ah.” Bayan’s answering grin had a wicked edge. “Speaking as we do of a whip. Come. She is down at the slave market with my mother.”

Sanglant’s army had halted north of Machteburg on the eastern shore of the river. To reach the slave market, a motley collection of wagons, suspicious merchants, and nervous hired guards who had set up for the night in an ancient ring fort, he and Bayan rode south along the western shore, through the ranks of the army marching under the command of Bayan and Sapientia.

The Wendishmen had not forgotten Gent. They cheered Bayan happily enough, but the sight of Sanglant made them roar. Soon enough, the path was crowded on either side by Lions and milites and young lords with their retinues, hastening forward to cheer him on. Even Bayan’s Ungrians gave the prince his due, shrill whistles that made him think his ears might pop and that forced Blessing to clap hands over her ears to muffle the sound.

Sapientia heard them coming. By the time they found her emerging from the slave market, she had obviously prepared for the meeting, stationing herself just where the old hill-fort gate, now fallen into ruin, pitched downward. Sanglant, dismounting, had to walk up the rise to greet her. From her position above him on the slope, she deigned to kiss him on either cheek in the greeting of a kinswoman.

“Sister,” he said cheerfully enough, although he didn’t see much answering warmth in her expression.