“How can I avoid him?”
“It is impossible to avoid anyone on the king’s progress. But Villam is a good man, more so than most, and if you are modest and respectful when you are around him, so that he knows you mean to keep to your Eagle’s vows, he won’t bother you again. What do you have in the bag, Liath?”
She almost nicked the other Eagle’s neck. “Nothing. Something. It’s a book.”
“I know it’s a book. We saw it at Heart’s Rest. What sort of book is it that you hide as if you’d stolen some of the king’s treasure and mean to keep it hidden for fear of losing your life if you were found out?”
“It’s mine! It was Da’s. I can’t tell you, Hathui, you or anyone. Some words aren’t meant to be spoken out loud or they attract—some words must be kept in silence.”
“Sorcery,” said Hathui, and then, “ouch!”
“I beg your pardon.” Liath staunched the wound with the end of her tunic. “It isn’t bleeding much.”
“Was that to punish me for my curiosity?” But Hathui sounded more like she was about to laugh than to get angry.
“You just startled me.”
“Liath.” Hathui sighed, set down her bridle, and turned ’round. Over her shoulder Liath could see the walls of the hunting lodge still wreathed in mist. Servants led horses out from the stable doors. Men and woman came and went from the privies. Smoke boiled up from the kitchens as the roasting for the afternoon’s feast was begun, and servants grimy with smoke and soot hauled buckets and kettles up from the river beyond the palisade gates. “Every village in the marchlands has its wisewoman or conjureman. We listen to what they say, because it’s always wise to hear the words of the elder folk, what few of them there are. Some of them only tell stories from the old days, before the Circle of Unity came to the outlanders and the Wendish tribes. Aye, those tales are so dreadful and exciting that I fear for my soul when I hear them. Sometimes I still dream of those tales, though their heroes and fighting women are all heathens. Ha!” She clapped her hands to chase off a thin little dog that had sidled over to sniff at her gear. “Anyway, certain of the old ones have powers no one speaks of out loud. But anyone who lives on the edge of the wilderness knows that if you call out the true name of the creatures that live beyond the walls and fields, you might attract their notice and then they would come. Where I come from, we call that sorcery.”
“Ai, Lady,” said Liath, not needing to turn ’round to know who was approaching her.
“Ai, Lady, indeed.” Hathui’s eyes narrowed as she looked past Liath. She rose, inclining her head. “Father Hugh.”
“Princess Sapientia requires the services of her Eagle,” he said crisply. He said nothing else but did not move until Liath put away her knife and turned to follow him.
“Does she have the book?” he asked in a low voice as they crossed the courtyard. “Eagles are notoriously faithful each to the other. One would scarcely think common folk capable of such loyalty. But how can you trust her, a mere freewoman, and not trust me, Liath?”
She did not need to answer because Sapientia was already waiting, impatient to be out on the hunt. She busied herself with duties beneath an Eagle, for Sapientia had servants aplenty, but keeping busy kept her away from Hugh. At last they rode out, a great cavalcade of noble riders, their servants on foot, the hounds and their handlers, and the king’s foresters who lived year round in the tiny village beside the royal lodge. Amid the noise and shouting and hubbub, Liath noticed a sudden and disturbing detail: Theophanu had clasped her hip-length riding cloak with a gold panther brooch. No one else appeared to notice, not even Sapientia.
3
AT first, the forest around the lodge lay fairly open. Trees grew back at shoulder height where they had been cut for firewood for the king’s hearth; half-wild pigs raced away into the shelter of brush and young trees. But soon the foresters led them into the older, deeper, uncut woods. The hounds were released, and the hunt was on.
Their course led them down a ravine and up a steep slope where half the riders had to dismount and lead their horses. Burrs caught on their cloaks. A gap formed between a forward group of the hardiest—and most reckless—riders, and a more cautious group. The unmounted servants lagged behind. Liath could barely keep up with Sapientia, who even halfway through her pregnancy was determined to ride at the head of the host.
Oak and beech had lost most of their leaves, though a scattering of pale gold and dull red leaves still clung to the branches of the trees. Here and there evergreens stood in clumps, shafts of dense green. Ghosts of morning mist wove around the boles of trees and settled in hollows or near pools of standing water. A light rain fell intermittently.