Yet there was life here still. Some manner of person had husbanded these woods, cutting down trees for firewood and boatbuilding in many spots but fostering quick-growing ash and sparing half the slow-growing oaks in others. Coppice-cut willow, hazel, and hawthorn flourished in various states of regrowth, some freshly cut and others ready for felling again. Sorrow barked. Pigs squealed away into the undergrowth.
“Who’s there?” came a cry from ahead.
“I’ve found him!” cried Henri.
Alain hadn’t the strength to raise his head, so, sidewise, he watched the estate emerge as the path opened onto neatly mown hayfields and a tidy garden, recently harvested. Two corrals ringed sheep and a pair of cows. Geese honked, and chickens scattered. There was even a horse and a pony, riches for a free-holding family without noble forebears. Folk had come out of the workshop and the house to stand and stare, but it was the ones he knew best who ran up the path to meet them. Julien was scarred and lean. Stancy was pregnant; she ran forward with a child grasping her hand. Was that third adult little Agnes, grown so comely and tall?
“That can’t be Alain,” said Julien. “That creature’s nothing more than skin pulled over bones.”
“It’s him,” said Stancy. “Poor boy.” She wiped away tears.
“Stink! Stink!” wailed the child, tugging to break free and run. “He scares me.”
“Hush!” Aunt Bel strode up to them, looked at him hard, and frowned. “Stancy, kill a chicken and get a broth cooking. He’ll not be strong enough to eat solid food. Agnes, I’ll want the big basin tub for bathing him. Outside, though. Julien, haul water and tell Bruno to heat it on the workshop fire. We’ll need plenty. He can’t be chilled.”
Like the chickens, they scattered but to more purpose.
“Dear God,” said Aunt Bel. “That’s a strong smell. We’ll have to wash him twice over before we bring him inside. I’ll have the girls make a good bed for him by the hearth. He’ll be abed all winter, if he survives at all. He looks more like a ghost than like our sweet lad.”
“He can hear you.”
“Can you hear me, boy?” she demanded. Because it was Aunt Bel asking, he fluttered his eyelids and got out a croak, not much more than a sigh. “It’s a wonder he’s still alive, abused like that.” She made a clucking noise, quite disgusted. “It’s a good thing you went after him, Henri.”
“Don’t let him die, Bel. I failed him once already.”
“It’s true you let your pride get the better of you. You were jealous.”
The movement of Henri’s shoulders, beneath Alain’s chest, betrayed a reaction.
“Nay, there’s nothing more to be said,” retorted Bel. “Let it be, little brother. What’s in the past is gone with the tide. Let him be. I’ll nurse him myself. If he lives, then we can see.”
A drop of moisture fell on Alain’s dangling hand. At first, he thought it might be rain from those brooding clouds, but as they trudged down into the riot of the living, he realized that these were Henri’s tears.
II
THE LUCK OF THE KING
1
SANGLANT knew dawn came only because he could smell the sun’s rising beyond the haze that concealed all horizons. Ash rained down on his army as they straggled through the scorched forest, dragging their wounded with them. Here and there fires burned in the treetops. Smoke rose, blending with the ash drifting over them. Limbs snapped and crashed to earth to create echoes within echoes as the devastated forest collapsed on itself.
They assembled in their tattered legions around the ancient fortress where Lady Wendilgard had met her death. Up on the height of half fallen walls, Captain Fulk posted sentries to watch over the wounded. The prince stood on the shattered ramp, once a causeway leading up into the fortress and now a series of broken stair steps littered with stones, weapons, and four dead men not yet dragged away. The last surviving troops who had heard the call to sheathe weapons and retreat emerged battered, bruised, and limping from the trees to take up places in the clearing. They were crammed shoulder to shoulder, weary and frightened, and all of them awaiting his command.
Perhaps two thousand troops remained to him, out of opposing armies which had each easily boasted twice that number. Of his personal guard, once numbering more than two hundred, some two score remained. Every man among them bore at least one wound, some minor and a few, no doubt, mortal. To his left waited Capi’ra and her centaurs, who had weathered the storm better than most, and a remnant of Quman soldiers. The winged riders had been hit hard in the field by the heavier numbers of Henry’s army, but they had held their ground. It was largely due to their courage and will that he had saved as many of his troops as he had during that initial disastrous retreat when Henry’s forces had overpowered him in the early part of the battle. Of the rest of his noble brethren who had marched with him from Wendar and the marchlands, he had only two surviving commanders: Lord Wichman and Captain Istvan, the Ungrian. Lord Druthmar was lost on the field, although no man living had seen him fall, and he had long since lost track of the rest of his captains and lords, who might still be huddling in the forest or lying among the dead.