Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4) 00

Bulkezu called a halt. His soldiers and slaves busied themselves setting up camp for the night and turning the horses and livestock out to graze on the lush grass. The site had been entirely abandoned. The forest had encroached upon the open space cleared around the palace grounds. It was a beautiful place, calm and peaceful if only because this one afternoon, at least, there would be no killing.

Hanna had seen enough killing to last her ten lifetimes. Each death was a scar cut into her heart, untold wounds that never really healed, only scabbed over with time.

“Sit here, my lord prince.” Lord Welf steered Ekkehard to a camp chair, swiftly set up by one of their concubines, a blonde girl with the look of a cornered rabbit. As Ekkehard let the girl wipe the tears from his face with a scrap of linen, various slaves erected one of the round Quman tents behind him, deploying an awning to spare him from the afternoon sun. It was a hot day. Hanna sat in the shade of a tree, savoring the tickle of grass against her wrists as she leaned back. Her ever-present guards waited as patiently as stone to either side, not so close that they pressed in on her but not so far that they couldn’t drag her down within ten steps if she made a run for it. One of them chewed on a stalk of grass as he surveyed the birds flitting among the trees. The other two stood there as stupidly as sheep, an easy illusion to cling to until one looked into their eyes.

Bulkezu came whistling cheerfully out of his tent, the first to be erected, leading the prettiest of his concubines, a plump young woman with waist-length black hair almost as luxuriously thick as Bulkezu’s own. This was Agnetha, whom Bulkezu had picked out from the crowd of prisoners that awful twilight when plague had flowered in the mob. She was one of the few to survive that terrible night and she had, amazingly, saved a dozen of her kinsfolk from the slaughter. Bulkezu brought her to Ekkehard and indicated that she should kneel before the young prince. Hanna rose hastily and strode over.

Boso strutted up, as self-important as a rooster. “His Gloriousness cannot bear to see you snivel and whine like a sick child, Your Highness. Therefore, to raise your spirits, and your cock, he’s giving you one of his well-used cunts.”

Hanna had long since grown accustomed to Boso’s coarse and arrogant way of speaking, but she often wondered what exactly Bulkezu did say to his interpreter and how much the Wendish man was twisting his master’s words. As Hanna slid in behind Lord Frithuric, poor Agnetha caught sight of her but could do no more than look at her beseechingly. The young woman was too wise to protest, or even speak or cry, as she was handed from one man’s tender mercies over to the other’s.

However phrased, the offer dried up Ekkehard’s tears. He was well supplied with women, of course, but Agnetha bore about her a certain cachet beyond the perfumes she wore because she was the best-looking woman currently with the army, and Bulkezu’s besides. It was a grand gift to Ekkehard’s mind, and he almost fell over himself thanking Bulkezu while the young woman knelt silently at his feet, trying hard to show no expression at all.

As Ekkehard nattered on, and Boso translated, Bulkezu began to look bored. A discreet hand signal, and quickly enough horses were brought for the Quman prince, his bodyguard, and Hanna. Even Boso was left behind as the small party mounted and rode up to the hilltop to investigate the ruined palace.

Hanna saw no signs of rebuilding. The fire’s destruction had been so complete that there wasn’t anything left to salvage. Two years of rain and wind had washed the mantle of ashes off the hill, but blackened spars still stood in tribute to the sprawling palace that had once taken up half the height. The walls of the stone chapel were more or less intact, scored with the marks of fire. The shattered glass windows gaped vacantly and the roof had fallen in. Roof tiles littered the nave. Bulkezu poked through heaps of tiles with a spear but found nothing of interest except a bronze belt buckle, warped from the intense heat, that had once been fashioned in the shape of a springing deer.

He laughed softly. “Would that I had such power.” He glanced up, caught by Hanna’s silence, and peered at her with an unnerving stare. “Do you know how this came about?” He gestured broadly, encompassing the hilltop ruin.

She pressed her lips tightly together.

He smiled. “A broken lamp, oil spilled, or sorcery?”

At times like this, a fit of reckless fury would overtake her, a wish to slam her fist into that handsome face and gallop onward to freedom. But he had too many guards, more carefully placed since her last attempt to escape, for her to try again.

He enjoyed her anger. He fed on it, and it made him laugh. Although, of course, almost anything could make him laugh.