Prince of Dogs

The scene by the gates of Steleshame had all the volume, and drama, that was lacking when Helvidius sang The Gold of the Hevelli before an ill-attentive and drunken audience.

“I will no longer claim kinship with you, ungrateful child! Expect no hospitality in this hall! Stealing from me!”

“I have taken no more than what my mother’s inheritance brought me.” With those words, Gisela’s niece turned her back on her aunt and started down the hill. She carried a rolled-up bundle of cloth and clothing on her back and she, unlike most of the travelers, commanded an entourage: three women whom Anna knew came from the weaving hall and a young man who had recently married one of them. The young man hauled a cart laden with a dye vat, sheepskins, beams for a loom, and a number of smaller items tucked away in pouches, pots, and small baskets; the women carried, variously, an infant, some of the small parts of the loom, and rolled fleeces.

“You’ll starve!” Gisela shouted ungraciously after them.

Anna had a sudden instinct that now was the time to leave. She got up, grabbed her bundle, and beckoned to Matthias to do the same. He was so strong now that it was no trouble for him to carry a bundle as well as little Helen, who for all her cheerful smiles and gangling limbs still weighed next to nothing. Perhaps, somehow, Anna thought, she’d given her voice in trade for his crippled leg; it wasn’t such a bad exchange.

Helvidius did not follow them. Helen began to cry.

The little girl’s cry brought the niece’s attention, who walked a short way ahead of them. She halted her group and turned, surveying the children.

“I recognize you,” she said. “You were the last to escape from Gent. Come, walk with us.” She addressed Matthias. “Perhaps you know Gent well enough to advise me.”

“Advise you in what?” Matthias asked cautiously.

“I mean to set up a weaving hall. There are good sheep-farming lands east of the city, so it will be easy enough to trade for wool. And ships have always sailed in and out of Gent, trading to other ports.”

Matthias considered. “I could help you,” he said at last, “but you’d have to give some kind of employment to my sister, Anna, and let our little one, Helen, free with the other children in the hall.” Here he gestured toward the sleeping infant, cradled in swaddling bands and tied to its mother’s back.

Anna tugged furiously on Matthias’ arm, but he paid no attention to her.

But the niece only smiled. “And yourself, Master Bargainer? No, I recall now: You work in the tannery.”

“So I do.”

“Very well, then. I think we can make a fair bargain that will benefit each of us. Will you walk with us?” She smiled so winningly at Anna that Anna could not help but smile back. She was certainly a pretty woman, but she had something more than that inside, a certain iron gleam in her eyes that suggested a woman who would make a way for herself despite what obstacles the world threw into her path.

Matthias glanced, questioningly, at his sister. Anna merely signed a Yes.

But she could not stop her tears as they walked away from Steleshame. Despite everything, she was sad to leave Master Helvidius and his stories behind.

On the second day as they trudged along the forest road, they heard a song rising from the east.

“It is good to give thanks to God.

Their love endures forever.

When I was in distress I called on the Lady,

Her answer was to set me free.

When I rode into battle I called upon the Lord, and though the enemy surrounded me like bees to honey,

though they attacked me as fire attacks wood,

with the Lord’s name I drove them away.”

Ahead, travelers hastened to get off the road. Their party did so quickly as well, huddling along the verge. Anna appraised the plants along the forest’s edge but what could be gleaned had already been taken, either by the folk ahead of them or by the two armies which had so recently passed this way. She could go farther into the forest while they waited, find berries and mushrooms, but even as she stepped back to do so, a glimmer of color flashed in the trees, and she hesitated as the great procession rounded a corner. The sight of such grandeur stopped her, and she could only stare helplessly with the others.

“Open to me the gates of victory.

I will praise God,

for They have become my deliverer.

It is good to give thanks to God,

for Their love endures forever.”

Six standards were borne before the main procession. They fluttered sporadically and she caught only glimpses of startling and disturbing creatures embroidered on their rich fabric: a black dragon, a red eagle, a gold lion, a hawk, a horse, and another beast whose fierce profile she did not recognize. Behind them rode a man carrying a silver banner marked with twin black hounds.