Prince of Dogs

In the morning, Count Lavastine and his army marched out, the count and his son at their head—and Lord Wichman and his unruly retinue with them. Gisela’s niece stood in the shadows and counted through a pouch filled with silver sceattas.

After the army vanished down the forest road, Matthias took Anna to see the herbwife. The old woman listened to their troubles and took a knife in exchange for her treatment: a noxious-smelling salve which she applied to Anna’s throat and a more palatable tea brewed of waybroad and spear-root which Matthias insisted on trying first. Anna gulped the remainder down dutifully, but the day passed with no change in her condition.

That evening, Matthias led Anna to Lord Wichman’s deacon, who had remained behind rather than ride into battle. A woman of noble birth, she eyed them with misgiving, as well she might considering their filthy condition and obvious look of common-born children seeking a boon.

“She can’t speak, good deacon,” said Matthias as he thrust Anna forward.

“Many’s the child too weak or slow-witted to speak,” said the deacon patiently. “Or has caught a sickness, although that’s more common in wintertime. Or she may have taken a blow to the head in one of the skirmishes.”

“Nay, good deacon.” Matthias was nothing if not persistent. Otherwise, they would never have survived Gent. “She spoke as good as me until yesterday.”

“Go see the herbwife, then.”

“We’ve done so already.”

“Then it’s in God’s hands.” A mute child among so many who were injured in countless ways was of little concern to the deacon, good woman though she was. She prayed over Anna, touched her on the head, and indicated she should move on.

“Do not go yet, child,” she said to Matthias, who had moved away with Anna. “I remember you. You were sore wounded by the Eika, were you not? I came to pray last rites over you some months ago, but you survived by God’s mercy, and indeed I thought you must live out the rest of your days as a cripple. I see that God have healed you in the meantime. It is a blessing we must all be thankful for, that some have escaped this terrible time with whole bodies and strong minds.”

Anna had been so terrified at losing her voice that she had scarcely had time to notice Matthias. He had been so busy fussing over her that he had taken no notice of himself. But like the sun rising, the light dawned on her now: Matthias wasn’t limping.

Hastily he unwrapped the much worn and stained leggings from his calf, and there they stood, both of them gaping while the deacon looked on mildly, unaware of how remarkable—indeed, how impossible—the sight of his leg was now to their eyes.

No festering wound discolored the skin; no horrible, unnatural bend skewed his calf where the bone had broken and healed all wrong. The leg was straight, smooth, and strong.

He was a cripple no longer.

But even so, there was yet one more wondrous event in store for them.

Four days later the shout came from far down the west road.

“The king! The king rides to Steleshame!”

Anna and Matthias, like every last soul in and around Steleshame, ran to line the road for the adventus of King Henry as he and his retinue, armed for war, rode in to the battered holding.

The magnificence of his host would have struck any soul speechless. The king did not notice her, of course. She was only another dirty common child standing barefoot in the dirt beside the road.

What a fine handsome man he was, upright and proud, strong and stern! He dressed much like the other lords, no richer than they, but no one could have mistaken him for anyone but the king.

Surely someday her voice would return to her. Surely someday, if she lived to be an old grandmother, she could tell this story to a host of children gathered at her feet and astonished to hear that a soul as humble as her own had been privileged to see the king himself.

2

“IT will be the ruin of me! I have already depleted my foodstuffs sending provisions with Count Lavastine. Now I must feed this host, and give up the rest of my stores as well?”

The mistress of Steleshame was overwrought and Rosvita had, alas, been given the task of calming her nerves. Outside, within palisade and ditch, the army set up camp for the night. Obviously, with Count Lavastine and his army ahead of them and the householder in hysterics, they could not expect to stay in Steleshame for more than one night. Rosvita had to admit that she was getting tired of the saddle.

After Sapientia’s recovery from childbed, they had ridden north at a steady but unrelenting pace, wagons lurching behind, the army swelling its ranks with new recruits at every lady’s holding at which they sheltered and feasted.