Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

“They’ll be shown more mercy than those girls they murdered,” said Erkanwulf.

“How so?” asked Ivar, who was wondering how any folk could fall so low as these. They looked worse than he felt! They were the filthiest people he had ever seen, coated in dirt and worse things, besides their sins.

“They’ll receive a trial, and their death’ll come quick. Lucky for them.” He spat.

“There was a woman, the one that man Heric said goaded them to murder the girls.”

Erkanwulf looked away and wiped his mouth. “She was dead. I don’t know who killed her.”

The lad with the injured hand wept. To Ivar, the day seemed dark; the clouds would never lift. Ravnholt Manor was avenged, but no one seemed likely to rejoice.

In Lavas Holding, the prisoners were locked into the kennels once reserved for Count Lavastine’s famous pack of hounds. Ivar paused to speak to Sergeant Gerulf, who had been assigned to the first shift of guards.

“How is Dedi?”

“He’ll do, as long as the wound doesn’t get infected, but Biscop Constance knows a bit about healing and anyway that one, Brother Baldwin, can heal him, surely, if it comes to that.”

“Maybe so.”

“You doubt it?” asked Gerulf, with a hint of a smile. “They say he’s a saint, that one.”

Ivar sighed, but he and Gerulf had a bond sewn up out of grim circumstances survived together. “It’s difficult for me to see Baldwin as—what you say.”

“It might explain his handsome face, since some say that’s a sign of God’s favor.” Gerulf chuckled. “There now, my lord, I’m just joking. Dedi will do well enough. It was a shallow cut.”

“Are you satisfied, still, with your service with Captain Ulric?”

“Duke Conrad assigned us to the captain, and I hold no grudge against the duke, since he treated us fairly considering the lady wished us all dead. It must have been for a reason that Dedi and I came to Ulric’s troop. My loyalty remains to King Henry, my lord, and I serve Henry by serving his sister, don’t you think?”

“If Henry still lives.”

“Then Henry’s heir. That’s not all. There’s a widow in Ulric’s following I’ve a mind to marry. That lad Erkanwulf got to talking about taking a small company of men to settle Ravnholt Manor, now that it’s abandoned. It’s something to think about, especially for a man of my age. I’m content, my lord Ivar. Are you?”

Ivar shrugged, and Gerulf smiled crookedly, as if to say he knew what words Ivar would speak, if he dared—which he did not. Restlessness ate at him, a mortal disease. Somewhere, surely, events of great importance transpired and as usual he was stuck here waiting in the backwaters while the battle moved on and left him behind.

In the hall, Constance was seated beside the blazing hearth with her schola and young Lady Lavrentia in attendance, listening to testimony from a pair of woodsmen.

“That was a few years back, Your Holiness. We got a good look at these refugees, and we knew they was likely to be dead come winter. But the next year we swung back that way on the trail of a boar and they were still living. They said it was the cloak, that they had been blessed by God or some such. It were a little hard to understand them being as they did not speak quite right, coming up from the south as they did.”

Baldwin and Sigfrid were writing, and Ermanrich was cutting quills on the opposite side of the table. Lavrentia was seated awkwardly on a chair beside Constance, with her hands folded in her lap and her twin canes resting against her knees. She uttered no word and made no sign, and Ivar could not tell what she might be feeling except that when, on occasion, Constance smiled at her, the girl smiled back.

On the other side of a hall a trio of wounded soldiers lay on the floor. Hathumod knelt beside one of them, smearing a white salve on the cut that had opened his thigh. That was Dedi, grimacing at the pain, but then he gave a snort of a laugh as Hathumod said something that amused him.

The woodsmen left. A man twisting a soft cap in his hands walked forward hesitantly.

“Do not fear,” said Constance gently. “Are you the one who came all the way up from the southern borders of Lavas County? Lady Hildegard holds the land in that part of the county. I hear it was a long walk—five days!”

He dropped to his knees as if she had shot him. “Six, Your Holiness. I was sent by our village to bring our request to the count.” He glanced around the hall apprehensively, looked at Lady Lavrentia, rubbed his cap against his chin, and coughed. “I wasn’t sure who to speak to, Your Holiness.”