Crown of Stars

She fixed her courage with a deep breath, and walked forward into the assembly that was waiting for her.

2

HANNA had ridden to Lavas County before, although never with such an escort. All morning the road had pushed through woodland, passing here and there an abandoned or burned-out farmstead or hamlet. For the last three days they had traveled through empty countryside, seeing no one. She remembered the road, and knew they were no more than two or three days out from Lavas Holding.

Near midday, freshly cut fields appeared suddenly along the roadside, ringed by low fences. Ahead, a wide path cut away from the road. In the distance she heard axes ringing against wood. A voice shouted just before the crash of a felled tree resounded. Then the axes started up again.

A wain piled high with hay and a cart loaded with coiled rope were cutting off the main road onto the path. One of the men walking alongside saw their company coming up around the curve, and he broke off from the others and sauntered their way, holding his scythe as if he knew how to make it a weapon.

Hanna pushed forward from the van and rode to meet him. He was a lanky young man with dark hair and a pleasant face.

“Well met,” she called out. “I’m an Eagle, riding from Autun.”

“A fine company you have to escort you,” he said. “I recall when Eagles rode alone on these roads.”

“Not that long ago,” she retorted, “but you know it isn’t safe now. There’s some rough country back there, abandoned by honest folk since the tempest.”

He grunted, squinting as the company neared, counting them on his fingers: a dozen horsemen and a dozen Eika ambling at that easy stride they could hold for weeks on end, it seemed. Over the course of a day they had to restrain themselves from outpacing the horses.

“Some abandoned their lands,” he remarked, looking at the Eika with the usual suspicion. “The others starved or were murdered by savages and outlaws.”

“They’re our allies.”

“So they are, now. But I was at Gent.”

She saw no way to answer this, so she changed the subject. “There wasn’t so much settlement here last time I passed this way. New fields. What’s down that path?”

“Oh, that’s Ravnholt Manor, all right. It was cut out of the forest a generation ago, just a small holding, but we’ve got it building fast, now, quite a few out of Lavas Holding have moved along out this way with the blessing of the count and some have fled to us from farther east, as you saw. We’ve a stout palisade, and room to grow. We’ve got our own plough, too!” He grinned, suddenly delighted, raised a hand, and waved frantically. “Ivar! Ivar!”

Ivar broke out of the company—he had been arguing with that impossible chatter-mouth Aestan of Alba about whether the phoenix had two wings or six—and trotted toward them. Ai, God! She bit down on a grin to see his sulky expression break into a broad smile.

“Erkanwulf!”

“What? Are you riding in the regnant’s service now, Lord Ivar?”

“I’m an Eagle,” he said.

“You can’t be. You’re noble born. My lord.” That last said with a grin.

Ivar pulled up alongside and swung down off his horse. “Maybe so, but my brother Gero is glad to be shed of me. Good God, Erkanwulf! You’re looking well!”

Then she must endure greetings and slaps on the back and all manner of hail, fellow and well met cheer, when truly she just wanted to get on to Lavas Holding. At length, it was settled that Ivar would stay overnight in Ravnholt Manor to catch up on the news and give out his own, and come along afterward.

She rode on with the escort. They were truly in Lavas County now, ripe with summer, trees in full leaf and berries plump and juicy where the sun had sweetened them. Hamlets sprouted at intervals along the road, each ringed by a stockade. Goats grazed, heads deep into brambles. Shepherd children waved at her, then scampered off as the Eika contingent strode into view.

In another day they came to cleared land surrounded by stands of woodland and coppice where flocks of sheep grazed amiably, and after that rode past newly cut fields where men and women were picking out stones so the land could be ploughed for winter wheat. Sooner than she expected, they came over the slope to see the vast spread of striped fields surrounding Lavas Holding. A new stockade had engulfed the old church, which had long stood outside the old earth wall and its four wooden towers. Folk were building a pair of houses along a dirt street struck straight out from the old gate. The company passed a pair of recently planted orchards, still saplings, and a tenting field with fulled cloth strung out taut to dry.