Night Blooming (34 page)

“It doesn’t sound very satisfying,” Rorthger remarked.

“Oh, she is a willing-enough lover, and she doesn’t mind what I require of her—or not too much. She is loyal to the King, as she must be, for he will protect her from her husband’s kin. Accepting the lovers he approves is a small price to pay for this. And with me, serving him is not unpleasant.” He laughed once, the sound melancholy. When he spoke again, it was in Frankish. “She has so little that is her own.”

Three ragged children emerged from the brush at the side of the track and, pointing at the newcomers, ran toward the village, yelling something in the local dialect that neither Rakoczy nor Rorthger could understand.

Rakoczy looked toward the center of the village, and then at the fading sky overhead. “It is getting late. The monks will be singing Vespers shortly. We should return to the villa when we’re through here. What do they call this place?”

“Cnared Oert.” He pronounced the strange syllables with care. “The monks call it Sant’ Trinitas, to keep the ban on the old regional tongue.” Rorthger dropped his voice. “There has been trouble about that.”

“This is not the only place with such trouble.” Rakoczy drew in his grey and swung out of the saddle, then stood, holding the mare’s reins, while he waited for the peasants to respond to his presence.

Rorthger dismounted and approached Rakoczy with a great display of respect. “Let me hold your mare, Magnatus,” he said in Frankish, and went to take the reins from Rakoczy.

A man in a discolored, double-woolen tunica came out of a wooden shed, a long, thick staff of wood in his hand. “Who is this?” he growled, not looking directly at Rakoczy.

Rorthger answered. “This is Magnatus Rakoczy, Comes Sant’ Germainius, friend of Karl-lo-Magne, and hobu of four fiscs, master of this place.” He spoke it loudly enough to be heard all through the village. “Come forward to greet him.”

The children, who had reached the center of the place ahead of them, were shouting and pointing; the youngest was pale with fear, the older two posturing their bravery. A woman in the regional costume came rushing out of one of the houses and grabbed the children, hustling them away from the open center of the village. Other men and women began to gather at the far end of the open center, their demeanors wary and their glances hostile. Rakoczy noticed that all the young women were sent into the houses as soon as they appeared in the village center, and he wondered again how Comes Udofrid had used these people when he had title to the fiscs.

Finally a big man almost as tall as Rakoczy, with a brutish, bearded face and wearing a tunica of rough-cured leather over his banded trews, shouldered his way through the assembled people and stood facing Rakoczy, his arms folded, his bearing as pugnacious as he dared to be. “I am Vulfoald. I am headman here.”

“This is Magnatus Rakoczy,” said Rorthger. “He is hobu of this fisc.”

“So we have heard.” His accent was so thick it was hard to make out what he was saying, but Rakoczy listened intently. “Why is he here?”

“I am here,” said Rakoczy, surprising all the villagers by addressing Vulfoald directly instead of using Rorthger as his speaker as was the custom, “because as hobu and representative of the King, it is my duty to hear your grievances and do what I can to redress them.”

“What is he saying?” Vulfoald asked Rorthger, who obligingly repeated what Rakoczy had said in the local tongue. “All very well, to make such an assertion; we have heard them before, and know their worth. But what is his true intent here?”

“My intent is to perform those tasks that I am required to, in accordance with the responsibilities the King has laid upon me,” Rakoczy said, pitching his musical voice to carry to everyone listening; he spoke slowly and clearly, hoping to help their comprehension.

“And what will you take in return for your help?” Vulfoald asked, daring to be sarcastic. “Our flocks? Our women? Our children to be your slaves?”

Rakoczy listened quietly, then said, “None of those things. The King has charged me to keep his law in these fiscs and I am obliged to do it, for his sake. If I take anything from you, then I do the King dishonor, and I should suffer for it.”

Vulfoald turned his head and spat. “So we have heard, time and again. It is what every Potente and Primore says he will do. And yet nine of our women grew large with the Comes Udofrid’s seed, and thirteen of our children were taken to serve him as his slaves, and we were left to make our laws in the old way. He, too, was King Karl’s friend, and upheld his laws.”

“Perhaps the King was not deceived by the Comes, and saw what mischief he did: you know he has been sent far away and his lands seized, and the Magnatus has been granted his fiscs in his place,” said Rorthger, motioning to Rakoczy to remain silent. “Whatever the case, Magnatus Rakoczy is no part of Comes Udofrid or his kin, and is answerable only to Great Karl. He will hear you with fairness and will administer justice as the King charges shall be done.”

“That may be,” said Vulfoald. “But I have not seen it, and no one says—”

Rakoczy cut him off. “If you are to judge me, then do so when I have done something that you may decide upon. Do not accept rumor and the bad acts of others to weigh with you.” There was silence; in a moment, he went on. “Tell me what wrongs demand justice and I will do my utmost to address them and dispense such remedies as I am permitted to give.”

“You will tell us anything, and then you will leave, and your soldiers will come and our children will vanish, and then our women, and all will be the same as it was when Udofrid ruled,” said Vulfoald. His big hands knotted into fists.

“I swear before the God of Christ and the monks of Sant’ Cyricus that I will not prey upon your people,” said Rakoczy.

“No one hears you but us, and that means nothing. A Magnatus, even a foreign one, may say anything to peasants and it is as if it was nothing more than a cry on the wind, to be denied without dishonor,” said Vulfoald contemptuously. He motioned to three men standing a little apart from him and said, “It is time to light the evening fire. Do it.”

“Yes, Headman,” said the largest of the three men, and went to fetch the village torch that always hung in the iron cleat over the brazier that was kept lit day and night, year after year. It was protected by a stone enclosure that resembled a shrine—as it had once been.

Rakoczy laid his hand on the hilt of his Byzantine long-sword. “I offer an oath on this blade,” he said; he had seen soldiers make such pledges and knew they were bound by them.

Vulfoald lifted his head and glared directly at Rakoczy. “Hold Court and take an oath with monks and many people to hear you, and I may believe what you say.”

This insolence shocked most of the villagers, who drew back, not quite cowering, and looked from Vulfoald to Rakoczy and back again as if expecting some terrible retaliation from the black-clad Magnatus; a few of the men slipped away, bolting for their houses as if to escape from terrible danger. The very air seemed to crackle with the kindling of the bonfire, emphasizing the tension that increased with every breath. The light from the new fire cast shifting illumination on them all, accentuating their movements.

“I will hold Court,” said Rakoczy. “On the Feast of the Dead.” He pointed to Vulfoald. “You must bring your people to my villa then, or you will receive no justice from me.”

Vulfoald slapped his palms together. “On the Feast of the Dead, we will come. If there is treachery, the curse of the old gods will fall upon you.”

“If there is treachery, I shall deserve no less,” said Rakoczy, and took his reins from Rorthger, preparing to remount. “Those children of Comes Udofrid: what became of them?”

“They were exposed, as all foreign infants are. The old gods and their beasts took them,” said Vulfoald as if the answer must be obvious. “Did you want them for slaves?”

“No,” said Rakoczy, and swung up into the saddle. “Until the Feast of the Dead.”

“Until then,” said Vulfoald, and turned away before Rakoczy and Rorthger rode out of the village, this studied insult making more than one of the men around Vulfoald shudder at the enormity of their headman’s affront.

As they took the path that led most directly to the villa, Rakoczy said to Rorthger, “I’m sorry, old friend, but I must ask you to ride tomorrow to all the villages and monasteries in my fiscs to inform them of the Court. See that they all know about it. Anything less would lead to trouble among these people, and I fear there has been more than enough of that already.” He looked ahead into the gloom of dusk. “How did Comes Udofrid do so much to their detriment? And why?”

“I cannot say,” Rorthger responded. “But from what little I have been able to discover, Comes Udofrid was a rapacious, tyrannical coward who made himself loathed everywhere in his fiscs. Not even the Superior of Sant’ Cyricus—who was supported by the Comes—has spoken well of him.”

Rakoczy thought this over; they continued on into the gathering darkness, letting their horses find their way back to the stable. As they passed the outer walls of Santa Julitta, Rakoczy asked, “Did Comes Udofrid do anything to the nuns?”

“The rumors say he made whores of them,” said Rorthger.

“Was this known? What did the Bishop have to say?” Rakoczy asked.

“The Bishop was the one who finally persuaded Karl-lo-Magne to remove Comes Udofrid from his position, for the sake of the nuns, if nothing else. The Church insisted that something be done, and Great Karl finally complied, and bore the brunt of Udofrid’s kinsmen’s displeasure at his ignominy.” Rorthger considered his next remark. “Not that his reputation wasn’t earned: his debauchery seems to have been common gossip, but nothing was said officially, which was the same as relegating it all to oblivion. If the Church hadn’t stepped in, and his killer, Comes Udofrid might well be here still, continuing his old amusements at the cost of all those around him. Even with his discredit, the damage he did lingers. The nuns have done nothing untoward since the Comes left, yet the rumors remain. I have not spoken to any at Santa Julitta but the Priora, and she said nothing of it.”

“Not that she would; the Sorrae would be disgraced,” Rakoczy observed; the nunnery was lost to view as they went around the soft rise of the hill and into the trees once more. “Well. I have much to rectify, it appears, and the sooner I make an effort, the better for all of us. I have no wish to awaken more suspicions than I already have. It would probably behoove me to ready myself: if there are any records at the villa, I should review them before Court, so I will be prepared for the complaints.” He shifted in the saddle, listening. “There is someone behind us.” He waited. “More than one, I think.”

“Mounted?” Rorthger asked as he reached for the short-sword in the saddle-scabbard.

“Yes. Unshod horses.” Rakoczy drew his Byzantine long-sword and swung it to limber his arm against its weight.

“How many?” Rorthger asked, swinging his mouse-dun into position against Rakoczy’s grey, noses to tails, flanks almost touching.

“Four, I think. Yes. Four.” Rakoczy studied their surroundings and decided their position was defensible; the trees had thinned, and they were in a meadow with a brook on the far side. In the cold-scoured sky overhead the first stars were beginning to shine; the waning moon would not rise until after Compline. “This is as good a place as any to face them.”

“Do you think this could be something other than an attack?” Rorthger wondered. “Couldn’t this be couriers or missi dominici?”

“At this hour, in this place?” Rakoczy shook his head.

“Do you suppose there will be a fight?” Rorthger took a swipe at the air with his short-sword.

“If they are very foolish, there will be,” said Rakoczy, so calmly that Rorthger knew it was certain that Rakoczy was prepared for battle.

The sound of the approaching hoofbeats got louder, and there were shouts, harsh and abrupt, that drove out all notion of cordiality; the riders were hunting Rakoczy and Rorthger.

“They’ll be on us,” said Rakoczy, cocking his head to indicate the curve of the road as it came out of the trees. “Be ready.”

“I am,” said Rorthger. “I’m only sorry I don’t have a maul with me.”

“They may well have one,” said Rakoczy, and directed his gaze toward the track behind them. “Be careful of blows.”

The first of the followers emerged from the trees at the trot, then slapped his pony into the canter; his men behind him did so as well. The leader checked his mount as he caught sight of Rakoczy and Rorthger up ahead; then he urged his pony to gallop, yelling as he closed with Rakoczy, a heavy cudgel raised above his head, ready to strike.

The impact went awry as Rakoczy swung his sword back-handed, bringing the blade up and under the leader’s arm; its steel bit deeply into his flesh. The cudgel fell from his hand, striking the on-side forecannon-bone of Rakoczy’s grey; the horse screamed and reared, which kept Rakoczy from killing the attackers’ leader with his first slam of his blade. Rakoczy held his grey with his legs, making the horse drop back onto her front legs; she minced in place, squealing with hurt.

Two of the men had swept around to strike at Rorthger; the attack faltered as Rorthger jabbed at the nearer of the two men, missed, and thrust his short-sword deep into the pony’s neck. Blood erupted from the wound as the animal went down, hooves thrashing; his rider was pinned beneath him, screaming that his arm was broken; his voice was rising in anguish. The second man pulled back and drew a short spear from a scabbard on his saddle; he prepared to rush at Rorthger, and put his pony into the gallop, only to find that Rorthger had brought his mouse-dun around to charge him.

The fourth man reined in, hesitating at the edge of the trees. Then he wheeled about and fled, leaving his companions to face Rakoczy and Rorthger alone. The man riding at Rorthger saw this and sheered off, following the fourth man toward the woods.

The single remaining mounted man shouted loudly and made an effort to take another swipe at Rakoczy, using a long knife; he reeled in the saddle, and were it not for his hardy, sure-footed pony, he would have fallen; as it was, the man clung to the high pommel as the pony wheeled on his back legs, then bore his rider off in the direction the other two men had taken.