“You found no more winter camps?” asked Lord Geoffrey, leaning past Alain to address Lavastine.
Lavastine lifted his cup to lips and made a small gesture with his free hand.
Alain started. “Why, no, Lord Geoffrey,” he said dutifully, seeing that his father meant for him to answer, “we found no more. It is not usual for the Eika to winter in these lands.”
Geoffrey’s mouth twisted into a smile. “Indeed not, Lord Alain. This is the first time we have seen any Eika on our shores after Matthiasmass, and yet my own men burned a winter camp a month ago. Now you bring news that not one week ago you destroyed another. I wonder if the Eika mean to begin a new campaign. What if they want our land as well as our gold?”
“Do they farm?” asked Alain.
Geoffrey blinked. Aldegund took the cup from Lavastine and answered for her husband. She was a year or two younger than Alain, and her first child lay asleep in a cradle upstairs. “I would suppose that savages know nothing of farming. My kin have held estates in these lands since the time of the Emperor Taillefer. All the Eika ever want is gold and whatever other wealth—slaves, iron, coins, jewelry—they can carry away.”
“But why would they want land, if not to farm it?” asked Alain. “Or to pasture sheep and cattle?” He saw at once he had asked the wrong question. He had asked the sort of question Aunt Bel would ask. The other noble folk ranged along the table turned to listen—to see him make a fool of himself.
He refused to oblige them. And he refused to be ashamed of the common sense Aunt Bel had taught him.
“If the Eika are now making winter camps, then we must ask ourselves why they do this now, this year, when they did not before. Isn’t it true that there is one who stands as king among them, this Bloodheart? They have always been raiders before. Each ship is ruled over by a separate warleader. Now one Eika unites many tribes, and he has taken Gent, the very city where King Arnulf the Elder crowned his children and laid his claim for them to be rulers over Wendar and Varre together.”
The nobles grumbled, forgetting their distrust of Alain when reminded of their grievance at old King Arnulf, grandfather of the current king, Henry. Once, as princes and counts and noble ladies and lords of Varre, they had crowned their own sovereign ruler and fought their own private battles for influence in the Varren court. Now, outsiders in a court dominated by nobles of Wendish blood, they waited, discontent. Some of these men had ridden with Sabella in her rebellion against Henry. Some of these women had sent supplies and gold to enrich Sabella’s war chests and maintain her army. Now Sabella was a prisoner and her rebellion ended; Lavastine had pledged himself loyal to King Henry, and in return Henry had acknowledged Lavastine’s bastard son as the count’s heir.
The bastard son who had to prove himself worthy, in their eyes. “Now some of the Eika acknowledge a king,” he continued, “while others build winter camps in Varren lands. What does this mean?”
“Indeed,” said Lavastine. “What does it mean, Lord Geoffrey? Have you thought on this puzzle, cousin?”
By his expression, Geoffrey clearly had not. He took a gulp of wine to cover his discomfiture and set the cup down hard on the table. A few soldiers, at a lower table, laughed; Lavastine’s men, they had seen Alain in battle and now seemed as willing to follow where he led as were Rage and Sorrow and the other black hounds.
I am not worthy.
And yet, if the Lady of Battles had appeared to him and not to the others, was that not a sign of his worthiness? Did he not carry the rose, the mark of her favor?
A servingwoman refilled Lord Geoffrey’s cup and lingered just long enough to look over Alain impertinently but with obvious interest; he flushed, suddenly warm. And why shouldn’t he be? The hall was certainly warm enough to suit the coldest heart.
“Have you formed some opinion yourself as to the Eika’s reasons, Lord Alain?” asked Aldegund with a sharp tinge to her voice, like malice. A sweet-faced woman, scarcely more than a girl, Aldegund had not accepted Alain and, except for her marriage to Geoffrey, Lavastine had no claim over her. Her kin had their own lands and estates, their own connection to Varren nobility and to the Wendish kings. She made a gesture and the servingwoman moved away to tend to other cups.
“I have.” His flush deepened as he heard his own words. It sounded so very—proud. But a count’s son was allowed some arrogance; indeed, it was expected of him.
“Go on.” Lavastine gestured with his cup.
Alain allowed himself a drink of wine for courage—such very fine wine, carted in from Salia, and so much of it— before he continued. “I think Bloodheart means to make of himself a king to rival King Henry, or King Lothair of Salia. But when a king or queen is made, there are always princes who chafe under this rule. Some of these warleaders might not like being under the hand of another Eika, even one said to be a powerful enchanter. Yet if their own people wish to gain Bloodheart’s favor, those warleaders and the men loyal to them might be driven out of their own lands because they are rebels. Perhaps that is why they winter here. They may have nothing to go back to.”