Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

“Ai, God!” swore the driver, shouting to be heard above the screaming wind. “I’ve got to turn around now or the wheels’ll be stuck in the snow!”

She waved down a trio of soldiers retreating with their backs to the storm. With their help they wrenched the wagon around, although it was a tricky business on the narrow road, with the land falling away steeply on one side and rising precipitously on the other. There was nothing she could do to help the wagon ahead of them, still stuck in the mud.

“Sister!” Fortunatus had miraculously kept hold of both mules, although he had been forced very close to the edge. He laboriously tied the reins of the mules to the back of the wagon, his fingers clumsy with cold. By walking beside and clinging onto their mules, they followed the wagon back down the pass.

The storm made white of the world. Shapes stumbled past them, and sometimes they passed knots of soldiers stopped to help a fallen comrade. The wagon ground down the old road with fresh snow squeaking under its wheels. The wind pressed them along as though it were glad to be rid of them. She stumbled on rocks and found she’d drifted off the road. Fortunatus hauled her back, and with her lips set tight and her energy flagging, she hung onto her stirrup and concentrated on taking one step at a time.

Faintly, above the howl of the wind, horns signaled the passage of the king.

Soon enough, the king’s party overtook them. Henry had by sheer strength of will managed to stay mounted on his sturdy warhorse. Queen Adelheid rode bravely beside him, swathed in a fur cloak coated with so much snow that she looked dusted with ice. As he passed, he shouted encouragement to the soldiers staggering along.

Despite the storm, he recognized Rosvita and hailed her. “Sister Rosvita! Need you a wagon?”

“Nay, Your Majesty. These ill soldiers need it more than I.”

He nodded. “We’ll come soon enough to the hostel where we quartered last night.”

He moved on, vanishing quickly into the streaming snow. After an interminable while in which she only knew she was walking because her legs moved, they came to a thrusting ridge that cut off the worst of the wind. Snow still swirled all around them, soft and abundant as it blanketed the ground.

The hostel had a main hall, crudely built but adequate enough for a sizable party of merchants, stables enough for some forty beasts, and a half dozen outbuildings and sheds. But it couldn’t house a king’s army. Last night they had staked out their camp under the open sky in balmy autumn weather, with not a finger of snow on the ground, confident that the weather would hold for the five days it would take them to pass over the summit and begin their descent into Aosta.

The wagon driver was barely able to maneuver his team in beside a dozen others, crowded together just off the road. Hunching his shoulders against the cold, he swung down from the seat. A Lion hurried up and helped him cover the oxen’s backs with a blanket. Then, with some of his fellows, he hunkered down in the lee of the wagon. There was nowhere else for the servants to go. Soldiers and clerics moved among the sick, helping those who could still walk into the stables. Of the dozen men languishing in the back of the wagon, three were already dead. She murmured a brief prayer over them through lips stiff with cold.

“Alas,” murmured Fortunatus where he huddled beside her. “I fear none of these sick men can survive the cold.”

“If God will it, these poor souls will survive. If not, they’ll gain a just reward.”

“Truly, so shall it be,” echoed Fortunatus.

When all was said and done, there was nothing she could do. “Come,” she said to Fortunatus. “Let us attend the king.”

Henry and his nobles had taken refuge in the hall. The press of bodies made the place warm, although there were only two fires going in the hearths built into either end of the structure. Smoke raked her throat raw. So many people had crushed into the hall to escape from the storm that it was difficult to make her way to the king.

Henry had given pride of place in front of each of the hearths to certain captains and nobles who had taken sick with the flux and to a few common soldiers known to him, Lions or members of his personal guard. With a ring of advisers he stood in the center of the hall holding court, discussing their desperate situation together with the wizened nun who was mother of the order who ran the hostel. As he drank ale straight out of a pitcher, he listened to the old woman, whose words were translated by a second nun.

“Nay, Your Majesty, when a storm comes sudden-like this time of year, it’s not likely it’ll clear up soon. When it does in a day or three, you’ll find the snow too deep to cross.”