The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars #3)

“We must keep the royal insignia and the crowns and the tribute lists at all costs,” she commanded. “But leave what we can’t carry of the rest of the treasure. Gold will be of little use to me if I am locked away with it all in my lap in a prison of Ironhead’s devising.”

“If we could hide some it off the road, Your Majesty,” said one of the stewards, “then perhaps we could return and find it.”

“Look!” Captain Rikard had sought out a vantage point, the ruins of an old tower somewhat above the main track. As Rosvita rode up beside him to look down at the rugged hills up which they had come, helmets bobbed into view far below. “Ironhead’s men,” he told her, pointing. From this ancient site, soldiers of another race had surveyed the southern approach with ease, as Rosvita did now, shielding her eyes from the sun’s glare as she squinted south. Vennaci’s towers lay small and dust-hazed far beyond, no taller than her hand measured from this distance. She searched to the west, where Theophanu had set her camp—

“There!” cried the captain.

There! Fire ravaged the Wendish camp, tents ablaze. Smoke obscured the struggle raging below, and in any case they were too far away to truly make sense of what they saw. Was Theophanu routing Ironhead’s troops, or being routed in her turn?

“They are closing,” said the captain, and all at once Rosvita realized that he cared so little for the Wendish camp that he wasn’t looking there at all: He was still measuring the progress of Ironhead’s soldiers. A helm winked in sunlight, then was lost to shadow as a score of soldiers vanished up a switchback, riding in the vanguard. Below them, a banner appeared, colors Rosvita could not quite make out but which the captain recognized.

“Ironhead himself dogs us.” Hurriedly, they made their way down to the main path, where Adelheid and the others waited. “Your Majesty, we must leave those on foot behind or you will surely be captured. Ironhead has learned of the trick. He himself leads the party that pursues us.”

She said nothing for a moment that seemed to drag out into infinity and yet comprised no more than ten heartbeats. But her servants, quickly understanding the situation, threw themselves onto their knees among dirt and stones and begged her to go on. She blessed them and, with tears in her eyes, abandoned them to the mercies of Ironhead’s men.

“Was I wrong, Cleric?” she demanded finally as they picked their way down a defile: the queen, a dozen courtiers, six servingwomen, four clerics, Rosvita and about eighty soldiers. Her servants followed en masse, for here on the roughest part of the trail it was no hardship for them to keep up with the horses. “Was I wrong to believe that it was time to make my escape? Should I have thrown myself on Ironhead’s mercy? Should I have maintained the siege through the winter and prayed for deliverance? Was the vision seen in the sky of an army marching in flames a sign sent from the Enemy, not from God?”

“Only God can know, Your Majesty. Their plan remains a mystery to those of us of mortal kin. You did what you thought was right at the time.”

Adelheid glanced at her sharply. “What of your lady, my cousin Theophanu? Perhaps this plan of ours has resulted in her death. Was it foolish to try?”

“God have given us free will, Your Majesty. It is in our nature to take risks, to press onward, sometimes foolishly into disaster, sometimes recklessly into unexpected success. I cannot answer. I can only say that we can be no more than what we are.”

For a while the path led smoothly alongside a stream flowing down the length of a narrow valley otherwise inhabited only by scrub trees and grassy slopes. Here they made good time, leaving the mass of servants behind. Once they heard a shout, carried on the wind by an echo. But soon the trail turned rough again, pushing up and over several ridges. They came to a stony patch of ground where the path plunged down into a defile, then took a steep turn upward, only to descend again in the next valley, where rocky outcroppings formed fantastic shapes along the steep valley walls, sculpted by a millennia of wind and rain.

“Our road to Vennaci was much smoother than this,” said Rosvita to one of the clerics, a lean, unsmiling man called Brother Amicus.

“You came on the road through the Egemo Valley,” he observed. “We move west and north into the country of the Capardian ascetics. It is harsh country, and will be hard enough for us to cross. But it will be harder for Ironhead and his men to cross because they have more horses to water and men to feed. It is possible we can hide there until he gives up the chase.”

Would Ironhead turn back to take Theophanu prisoner? Or was she already in his hands, or dead?