“Did you feel it?”
“Ah, yes.” The men turned as the faint jingle of harness, the clop of hooves, and a murmur of jovial voices drifted up to them. “You’ve good hearing, my lord, as good as those hounds, I’d wager. There come my lord count and the others.”
Count Lavastine and his company emerged from the winter forest and made their way up the path to the high ridge. Even after two months on the road fighting Eika and mopping up ragtag packs of bandits, and after a week of hunting in the dense forest a day’s ride east of here, the count and his retinue still looked impressive with banners flying and dressed in tabards dyed bright blue and embroidered with two black hounds—the mark of the Lavas counts. Count Lavastine let none of his personal guard go into battle unarmed, and each man had at least a helmet decorated with blue ribands, a spear and a knife, and a padded coat under the tabard. Some, if they could afford it or had been lucky enough to glean such winnings from the field, had more armor: a boiled leather coat or a scale hauberk, a leather aventail, even leather bindings on their arms and legs. Like any good lord, Lavastine was generous with his winnings and always gave his men-at-arms their fair share of the spoils.
Alain mounted his horse and rode dutifully alongside his father. They crested the dragon’s back and started down the slope of shoulders and neck. A jutting boulder at the base of the ridge, lifting the height of three men, was commonly called the dragon’s head; it was crowned with a scraggly yew tree and the stubble of old climbing roses, planted years ago.
By this boulder the people of Osna village waited to greet Count Lavastine. Osna village was an emporium—a trading port—and as such it needed protection. Count Lavastine provided that protection … at a price levied in goods and services. And in any case, as Aunt Bel used to say, “It’s wisest to greet politely those as have better weapons than you do.”
Everyone stared at him. Embarrassed, he fixed his gaze on the reins twisted across his palm, but he still heard whispers, his name a mutter in the background.
They rode through the palisade gate and past the fields, halting in front of the church made proud and handsome by the contributions of Osna’s wealthiest families. But their wealth was nothing compared to the wealth he had seen at Biscop Constance’s palace and at the king’s court, or to that he enjoyed every day as heir to a count.
The rough-hewn longhouses, built of undressed logs patched with mud and sticks, looked shabby compared to the palaces of the nobly born. Yet weren’t they good houses built of good timber by the willing hands of good people? He had always thought himself well off when he lived here—though he had forgotten how strongly the village smelled of fish.
Was it pride that made him see modest Osna village differently now? Or only the experience of the wider world?
Deacon Miria declaimed a formal welcome. Count Lavastine dismounted, and Alain hurried to do the same, handing his reins to a groom but keeping a firm hold on the leashes of the hounds. He looked about him, then, and saw many familiar faces, people he had grown up with, people he knew well….
But he saw not a single member of his family.
Not my family any longer.
Not one of them stood among the crowd.
“Come, my lord,” said Deacon Miria. “I trust you will find the lodgings here in Osna village not beneath your notice.” She led them away … to Mistress Garia’s long-house. The men-at-arms remained behind to be dispersed into other households.
Why were they not honoring Aunt Bel with their presence?
Their path gave him a view of the entrance to Aunt Bel’s longhouse. A woman stood in the threshold, a ladle in one hand and the other holding a toddler on one hip. It was not Aunt Bel.
Why was old Mistress Garia’s daughter standing in the entrance of Aunt Bel’s house as if she lived there?
Afternoon eased into dusk. Garia and her daughters laid out a feast at which her own sons and grandsons served the count, his heir, and his most honored retainers.
Though a feast by Osna standards, it was poorer fare by far than the feast celebrated at Lady Aldegund’s manor. The bread was dark, not white; besides the ubiquitous fish, there were only two kinds of meat, pig and veal, and they were spiced only with pepper and such herbs as could be found locally; there were apples baked in honey but no sweet custard to melt on his lips. He blushed, thinking of the servingwoman and what she had wanted.
At a remove between courses, Mistress Garia came forward to offer Count Lavastine her eldest grandson as a retainer, to serve the count as a permanent member of his guard. “It is hard, indeed, my lord, to find places for all my grandsons. Our Lady has blessed my line with many healthy children, but the girls will inherit the workshop, and we do not yet have the means, as some do—” For the first time, her gaze darted to touch on Alain’s face, then away. “—to build another ship. Meanwhile, the boy is almost sixteen. I hope you will honor us with your notice.”