In front, tables had been set up and on them a victory feast laid out—such as it was: mostly mutton and beef from some among the many herds of cattle and sheep which under the protection of the Eika had flourished on farmlands gone to pasture in the past year. But there was also bread, not too stale, brought from Steleshame, and a few other delicacies preserved for such a moment. A king must reward his followers, especially on the field after such a triumph.
With Alain at his side, Lavastine knelt before the king and brashly, even presumptuously, offered Gent into the king’s hands—Lavastine’s to offer because his troops had won through at the gates. But Henry had anticipated Lavastine. The chair to the king’s right sat empty, and it was to this chair that Henry waved the count, giving him pride of place.
An unfamiliar man with a thin, haunted face and bronzish skin sat to the king’s left. He was dressed as richly as any noble there, and Alain heard the servingfolk whisper that this was the king’s lost son. Instead of the gold torque marking royal kinship, he wore a rough iron slave collar around his neck. He did not speak.
To Alain was given the signal honor of standing at the king’s right shoulder and pouring him wine. From his place, Alain could see—and hear—the nobles arguing among themselves, made irritable by hunger and the relief of a battle won at great cost.
From her place to the right of Lavastine, thrust out from her usual seat of honor, Princess Sapientia complained to her distant cousin, Duchess Liutgard. “He stole my glory!”
“That’s not how I heard the tale! I heard your entire flank crumbled … and that he arrived in time to rally your forces when you could not!”
Of Sapientia’s adviser and Liath’s tormentor, Father Hugh, there was no sign. Liath stood in the shadows next to one of her fellow Eagles, a tough-looking woman who came forward, now and again, to whisper messages received from scouts into the king’s ear. Liath had an arm draped around the shoulders of a straw-haired young Eagle Alain recalled from the battle at Kassel. She and her companion surveyed the assembly as if to see who was missing.
Henry’s army had taken light casualties, all but the flank commanded by Princess Sapientia which had apparently had the misfortune to hit a ferociously vicious Eika attack when they had come between a retreating princeling and his ships.
Besides Lavastine and his cousin, there were few noble survivors of the army Lavastine had brought to Gent. Lord Dedi was slain; Lady Amalia’s body had not yet been found. Lord Wichman had been pulled, alive, from a veritable maelstrom of corpses, the detritus of his final stand, but he lay sorely wounded in a tent and it was not known if he would live. Captain Ulric, of Autun, had won through with most of his company of light cavalry intact.
But it was the fate of the common men, nameless and unmentioned in this assembly, which gnawed at Alain. Raised in a village, he knew what grief would come to their homes in the wake of this news, all invisible to the sight of the great lords who marked it as a victory. Who would till their fields? Who would marry their sweethearts now? What son could take the place of the one who had fallen, never to return?
There was still light to see as platters were brought and set before king and company, but in the background the first torches were lit. The moon had risen in the east above the ruins of Gent, and now as dusk settled over the land, the moon spilled its sullen light over the distant fields where the nameless dead lay, men and Eika alike.
A platter was set down before the king and his lost son.
Without warning, the prince bolted down the food as if he were a starving dog let free with the scraps. Gasps came, and giggling—quickly stifled—from the assembly. From behind, dogs began to bark and howl furiously, and in answer the Lavas hounds, which had been staked out some way off, growled and barked in challenge.
At once, the prince leaped up. Grease dripped from his lips. The king placed a hand, firmly, on his sleeve. Alain felt such a terrible surge of pity for the prince that he moved between Henry and Sanglant and made much of pouring more wine so as to draw attention to himself and away from them.
That was all it took. With an effort made the more obvious by the way his hands shook, the prince commenced eating again, only very, very slowly and with such painstaking care that anyone would know he could barely stop himself from gobbling down his food like a savage.
“Your Majesty,” said Lavastine, catching Alain’s eye and indicating with the tilt of his head that the young man could now move back. His ploy had served its purpose. “With great cost to myself and my people, I have freed Gent from the Eika and killed the creature who held your son prisoner for so long.”