2
ANNA had never seen a noble lord so close before. Nor had she ever imagined that a table could groan under the weight of so much food. She had never seen people eat and drink as much as these did: Lord Wichman, eldest son and second child of Duchess Rotrudis, his cousin Lord Henry—named after the king—and their retinue of young nobles and stalwart men-at-arms. The young nobles boasted about the battles they would fight with the Eika in the days to come. The men-at-arms, who drank as lustily as their noble masters, were wont to get into fistfights when their interest in Master Helvidius’ lengthy and complicated court poems waned.
It had not taken long after the departure of the refugees for the mayor of Gent—desperate to find amusement for Mistress Gisela’s noble guests—to remember that he had left a court poet out among the refugees and to wonder if the old man had remained behind.
“You’ll go to his summons?” demanded Matthias that next afternoon, amazed and appalled, “after he deserted you here when he took the rest of his servants inside the palisade?”
“Pride hath no place among the starving,” said Master Helvidius. So each evening he took Anna with him to carry his stool and help support him on the long walk up the rise that led to the inner court, and of course Helen had to tag along as well, for there was no one else to watch over her with Matthias working until last light each day. The tanners and smiths and foresters worked long hours and harder even than they had before, for they now had over seventy men and thirty horses to care for, feed, and keep in armor and weapons besides those they had brought with them.
Over the next many days Lord Wichman’s force marched out every day, searching for Eika, fighting a skirmish here, burning a ship there, each feat of arms retold in great detail at the night’s feast. Helvidius quickly became adept at turning the details of these expeditions into flattering paeans to Lord Wichman’s courage and prowess, which the young Lord never grew tired of hearing.
Anna grew equally adept at grabbing half-eaten bones off the floor before the lord’s dogs could get them, or at begging crusts of bread from drunken soldiers. Master Helvidius, fed at the high table, slipped her food from the common platter, delicacies she had never before tasted: baked grouse, black pudding, pork pie, and other savories. Helen was content to sit sucking her thumb in a corner, by the hearth, eating what was offered her; the rest Anna saved in her pouch and took back to Matthias in the mornings—she, Helen, and the poet had to sleep in the hall because once night fell, the gates to Steleshame remained shut.
Sleeping on the floor of the newly built longhall in Steleshame was a more luxurious bed than any she had slept on before. It was never bitter cold inside even as autumn eased into winter and the days grew short and gray. Little Helen got roundness back in her cheeks, and Master Helvidius’ legs got stronger, although he still needed his staff to walk.
“They’ve turned all the lands round Gent into pasture, I swear,” said Lord Henry, Wichman’s father’s sister’s son. He was a young man, not much older than a boy, with dark hair, a fresh scar on his cheek which he wore as proudly as his sword, and a boastful tongue. “There’s enough cattle out there trampling good fields to feed an army a thousand strong!”
“Why have none wandered back to us?” demanded Gisela.
“They’re tended by slaves and guarded by Eika.”
“Do the Eika have so many soldiers still wintering there?” asked the mayor nervously.
“We haven’t ridden close enough to the town to count them,” said Lord Henry, glancing reproachfully toward his elder cousin. “But we might still do so, if we dared more.”
Young Wichman merely belched in reply to this appeal and called for Mistress Gisela’s pretty young niece to fetch him another cup of wine. He had, as Master Helvidius said, “an itch between his legs,” though she didn’t quite understand what that meant except that he pestered the young woman in a way the niece didn’t like, yet no one else seemed inclined to prevent.
Helen had already fallen asleep. Anna curled up beside her, smoke and warmth a haze around them, and closed her eyes while Master Helvidius droned on, his slightly nasal voice intoning the lay of Helen. Neither he nor the young lord ever seemed to tire of the long poem—and what the young lord wanted the young lord got.
“… Now the servants removed the tables, and while the second course was brought, as much talk sprang up among the banqueters as echoed in the hall like the din of battle. But King Sykaeus raised his cup and called silence to the hall. Huge bowls were brought and filled to the brim with wine, and out of these the king himself filled the first cup and this he passed among the company.