Prince of Dogs

Bloodheart must not muster an army out of Gent. The Veser River ran deep into Wendish lands and with enough ships and a clear road past Gent, Bloodheart and his Eika army could wreak havoc on Henry’s lands.

Even Bloodheart must have a weakness. He needed only to be clear-sighted, like Liath, to find it out.

Certain things he observed.

A small gallery—the choir—ran above the nave along one side of the cathedral, but no Eika ever walked here or crowded above to stare down at their brothers.

The dogs never had puppies, nor did they ever seem to mate.

Just as he was tethered to the altar stone by his chains, so the Eika priest seemed tethered to Bloodheart. If Bloodheart sat on his throne, the priest did not venture out of doors. If Bloodheart left the cathedral as he did four times a day, then the priest left as well, dogging the chieftain’s heels.

The Eika showed no sexual interest in their slaves, none that he had ever seen; perhaps their contempt for their human enemies ran too deep for such intercourse.

Wooden chest and leather pouch never left the priest’s care. From the pouch he drew the bones which he read to prophesy the future. The chest he never opened.

However many Eika crowded the nave, they never stank. Humans stank; Sanglant knew that well enough because he had lived so long among them. The king’s progress reeked with the smell of many humans jostled together. Villages and estates had each their own aroma of sweat and mold and damp wool, cesspits and rotting meat, women’s holy blood, manure, all the lingering smells of human activity in the smithies and tanneries, the butcheries and the bakeries rolled into a fetid whole. He suspected the Eika thought he stank, even though he was only half of human kin. But it had been months since he had washed; even the dogs were cleaner than he was.

Ai, Lady, he was no better than a wild animal rolling in the forest loam, matted with filth—though he took what care he could of himself. But it was never enough.

When would King Henry come? Sanglant understood now that he could not die here among the dogs. His mother’s geas was also a curse, for death would have been a blessing; it had been one for his faithful Dragons whose bones rotted in the crypt or, smoothed and bored, made music for Bloodheart’s pleasure. That some other event had prevented Henry from marching last autumn on Gent Sanglant believed. Not for Sanglant’s sake: Revenge was a luxury. But Henry had to retake Gent.

And someone had to stop Bloodheart.

If one only looked clearly at what lay in plain sight, the answer was obvious. He was amazed that it had taken him this long to realize it. He knew how to kill Bloodheart, if only he could get close enough.

2

IVAR was of such little importance to Mother Scholastica that she allowed Master Pursed-Lips to deliver the message, which might as well have been a death blow.

“I’ll hear no more complaining from you, feckless creature!” scolded the schoolmaster. He did not exactly smile, but he clearly felt an unpleasant glee in the words which followed. “Your lord father has replied at last to your unseemly request to be released from your vows. Of course you are to stay in the monastery. You will offer up your prayers in the service of your kin—those living and those now dead. Now.” He rapped Ivar hard on the knuckles with his switch. “Get back to your labors!”

What choice did he have? The daily round at Quedlinhame was, in its own monotonous way, soothing to his bruised heart. Trapped forever. Even Liath had rejected him, and that after everything he had promised to do for her.

Only once a day did this monotony lift, did he feel one iota stirred from the numbness that afflicted his heart and soul. And even this event was attended by obstacles.

“The problem,” said Baldwin, “is that we can’t get close enough to her. It’s all very well to listen to what she preaches, but there is a fence between us.”

“What matters a mere fence?” demanded Ermanrich. “How can you even doubt her, Baldwin? Can’t you hear the truth in each word she utters?”

“How can we truly see how sincere she is if we can’t see her face except through a knothole? What if she has been set here as a test for us?”

“A test, indeed,” murmured Sigfrid, voice muffled by his clenched hands pressed against his lips. Head bent, he had his eyes shut tight and seemed to be grimacing.

Ever since Tallia had come to Quedlinhame, ever since she began speaking in her monotonously fervid voice about the Redemptio of the blessed Daisan, of his death and rebirth, poor Sigfrid seemed engaged in an inner struggle which caused him much pain.

The four boys were not her only audience. Each afternoon just after the office of Vespers she walked barefoot out from under the colonnade to the fence that separated the girls’ side of the novitiary from the boys’ half. Each day for the last three months, no matter how awful the weather, she knelt, covered only by her novice’s drab brown robe, and prayed. Only a few prayed with her every day. One of these was Ermanrich, who knelt on the opposite side of the fence, shivering in snow, in sleet, in gusty winds, in the heavy chill of winter’s hard breath, to hear her speak. Some of the female novices did as well, among them Ermanrich’s cousin, Hathumod.