Child of Flame

“So I will.”

It was quite warm already and bid fair to become a fiercely hot day despite that they were eight days short of the summer solstice. Henry’s brow had a sheen of sweat. Absently, he mopped his brow with a cloth and handed it to one of his stewards, come up beside him. Three captains waited at his back, one carrying the king’s shield, one his helmet, and one the holy spear of St. Perpetua, sign of God’s favor.

“Where is the queen?” he asked, looking back over his shoulder.

“She comes now, my lord king,” said Hathui.

In the last five days Adelheid had grown increasingly clumsy with pregnancy. She looked ready to burst, and could only mount and dismount with difficulty, aided by a half-dozen servants. But ride she did.

“What is this?” she asked as the lines parted to let her through with her ladies and servingwomen riding in her train. Rosvita reined her mule aside to give place to the queen. “Ah! Ironhead has come to greet us.”

“It seems the issue is to be decided sooner rather than later,” said Henry.

Adelheid had a soldier’s eye. She assessed the length and depth of Ironhead’s force, and studied the banners. “He has more mercenaries than loyal troops. Might they be bribed to desert him?”

“It might be,” said Villam, “but Ironhead will have thought of that himself, if he’s as wily as they say.”

Henry examined Adelheid. The heat had not withered him; he sat as straight as a young man, unbowed by the aches and pains of advancing age that Rosvita felt every day now that she, like the king, was forty-two—or was it forty-four?—years old. It was hard to keep track and not really important.

But infatuation can make a person young again, and Henry admired his pretty, young queen, just as he had so sweetly admired Sophia when they had married all those years ago; just as he had fallen hard for Alia, when he was only a youth of eighteen. Some men were taken that way, preferring attachment to lust, and in Henry, who had been given the regnant’s luck, it extended to all of his friendships. His affections were strong, balanced only by those rare displays of his anger which, once kindled, could not easily be laid to rest.

“If battle is to be joined,” he said now, with a handsome frown as he gazed at his pregnant wife, “it would be best for you to retire, my love, to the fortress of Lady Gisla, where we sheltered last night.”

“I will take not one step backward in fear of Ironhead. I will ride myself into battle if need be rather than retreat!”

“Truly, you have earned the leopard banner your family bears, my heart. But as you know yourself, a battle can range widely, and what sorrow might there be in victory if you were jostled by some flanking movement—”

“I will not retreat.”

Irritation flashed in Henry’s expression, but the sight of her stubborn gaze fixed on Ironhead’s distant army, the way she tilted up her chin when angry, softened him. “So be it. Will you lead the charge, my lady queen?”

She laughed, knowing herself outflanked. Although pregnancy had softened her features somewhat, blurring the sharp lines of her face, she had not lost the lightning-swift changes of expression that made her features so lively. She smoothed a hand down over the fabric of her gown where a placket of cloth had been added to accommodate her girth. A youth held the reins of her horse, solemn as he kept his hand up close to the bit so that it would make no sudden movement. “I would rather not ride all the way back to Lady Gisla’s fortress, but I saw a stout little fort in good repair not more than a league back on the road. I would be willing to wait there, to be sure no harm comes to the child.”

“My lord king.” Hathui pointed toward the plain where a small group of riders broke away from Ironhead’s line to ride toward them. They rode accompanied by three banners: that of the sun of Aosta, that of the presbyters’ college, and a white banner bearing the olive branch that signified “parley.”

“Do you suppose Ironhead wishes to negotiate?” asked Villam skeptically.

“We shall see.”

Henry fell back from the front line. Servants hurried to set up the throne he used when traveling, with its back carved as an eagle’s wings, legs fashioned as a lion’s paws, and arms shaped in the likeness of fierce dragon visages, painted in bold colors. Adelheid sat beside him in a handsome chair that had been fitted with pillows and a special backrest for her comfort. Her ladies brought her the Aostan crown that was hers by right to wear; it and the royal seals were all that she had salvaged in her escape last year.