“Huh!” said Crooked Teeth disdainfully. “You sound like a cleric yourself. Think you’re too good for us, don’t you? I’m leaving, Withi.” She swung her buckets out with a flourish and departed in the direction of the well.
Withi lingered. “I’m still going up there.” She followed her companion but paused and looked back over her shoulder with a grin. “If you’re not too scared, you could meet me there. I might just show you something you haven’t seen before.” Then, to Crooked Teeth: “Wait for me!”
Digging out the latrines was such filthy work that he was relieved when Master Rodlin called him in. Sergeant Fell had brought a company of soldiers back to the fortress and Alain helped unload their wagon. Then he washed his face and hands and rinsed down his boots before going to supper.
Chatelaine Dhuoda had ridden east to escort Lavastine’s cousin’s wife to Lavas Holding for the remainder of her pregnancy. Because of the summer heat and the absence of lord and lady in the hall, Cook had set up two trestle tables out behind the kitchens. The party of young soldiers took up all of one table, where they boasted of their great exploits and ate their supper of wheat bread and pease porridge and roasted fish and berries with equal gusto. Sergeant Fell sat at their head, tolerant of their high spirits.
Lackling sat alone at the end of the other table, which was set beside the first. If the soldiers hadn’t been too busy flirting with Withi and Crooked Teeth and a black-haired woman, they would likely have chased him off. Alain sat down beside the halfwit and was rewarded with a smile and one of the boy’s incomprehensible phrases as greeting.
“So,” said Sergeant Fell, continuing his news. He had a dramatic facial scar on his left cheek that had not been there when he and the others marched out. “Then the count tells us we’re to be riding east to join up with the king’s progress—”
“Nay,” exclaimed Cook. “Say it’s not so! Count Lavastine has decided to swear loyalty to Henry?”
Alain caught in his breath. He set his spoon down, porridge only half eaten, to listen more closely.
“I think not,” said the sergeant. “I think he only wanted to beg aid from Henry, because these raids have been so bad. But it never came to that. For then a lad rode in from the west, saying the Eika have raided again.”
Cook rubbed her chin. “But they’ve burned both monasteries along the coast, we heard. There’s nothing else rich enough along there to tempt them, I’d thought.”
“Not only along the coast, but if they was to sail in along the River Mese, they’d come up past St. Synodios’ Monastery which was richly endowed by the count’s grandfather and indeed all the way to this very holding.”
“When I was a lad,” said old Raimond in his querulous voice, “we followed the laws set down by the church. Our faith was enough to keep those barbarians away from Varre.” He clapped his tin mug down on the table for emphasis. “Before Henry took the throne as wasn’t his to take. When I was a boy, Eika raided all the way west and south to Salia, and laid it waste, we heard. We even got Salians come up hereabouts, running from them.” Raimond was so old that he was bald and his beard was mostly stray wisps of curling hair. “That was when Taillefer’s last daughter was still alive. Biscop she might be, but neither her prayers nor the Salian king’s soldiers would drive the Eika off. Had to pay them, in the end.” He clucked, pleased at this manifestation of the Lord and Lady’s dislike of the Salians. “Those were hard times, I don’t mind saying.”
One of the young soldiers laughed. “How would you have known about goings-on in Salia when you’ve never set foot outside of Lavas Holding?” He snorted, pleased with his retort, and called for more ale.
Sergeant Fell swatted him in the head. “None of your impudence, Heric! You give the old man respect, you hear? If you live so long, I’ll be amazed!” The other soldiers chuckled. “My old uncle said the same thing, that the Salian king had to pay the Eika to leave and that they left only after they’d plundered the countryside. Well, then, Cook, I don’t know what is meant to be done about Lady Sabella and her banner, or the king’s progress. I do know that we’ve been sent by the count’s order to ask Biscop Thierra to offer up church’s gold, for we’ve need of more weapons and more supplies. There are too many Eika and too many raids this year. Count Lavastine must have aid.”
Withi paused beside the sergeant and leaned close enough that her clothing brushed his. “Is it true that Eika are dragon’s get? That they have skin scaled like a snake’s? And claws?”