The Black Chalice (15 page)

“Father….”

The blow cracked her cheekbone and spun her back like a rag doll, into the broken shelving.

“Don’t call me father, you whore! And don’t beg for your life. Beg for a priest.”

She knelt, tasting blood in her mouth, feeling it trickle from cuts on her hands and her knees.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please…!”

They were coming already; she heard the tramp of feet, the smell of fire. Was hell so close then, already? What answer could she give to God and his judges when they stood before her?
We never knew….
Oh, but you did!
We never meant it….
Oh, but you did!

She shook her head, the motion turning into a slow, blind rocking on her knees. There was no use appealing to God. It was God who made the laws, God who condemned her, God who was waiting for it to end, so the real punishment could begin….

“Rudi….”

Arnulf shoved the iron spars deep into the fire. She knew what they were for.

“Let him go. Please let him go.”

Arnulf laughed. “Do you think I should? I’ll tell you what I’ll do, whore. I’ll give him back to you, one piece at a time. Nicely roasted. The best parts first.”

The men chuckled. She stared at them. Rudi’s fellow knights, his comrades in arms,
chuckled…?

She tasted bile in her throat, burning, mixed with tears. It was barely possible to speak.

“Let him go, and I’ll tell you what happened to Silverwind.”

For the first time in her life, she had her father’s absolute, undivided attention. It terrified her as nothing else had.

“What did you say?” he asked. He was always dangerous, but most dangerous of all when he spoke quietly.

She backed away without even noticing, tearing her knees on the broken pottery.

“It wasn’t an accident,” she whispered. “Someone… bewitched him.”

“Really? How can you possibly know that?”

“I saw things. I heard things. I know.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She could not look at him. “I was afraid.”

“You were afraid, when my life was at stake? But not afraid now, for this dog of a traitor? What a loving child you’ve grown up to be. Very well. Tell me what you know, and I’ll let him go.”

She swallowed, and lifted her head, and tried to keep her voice from shattering. “Not here. At the gates. When he’s gone, and out of bowshot, with his horse and his arms— then I’ll tell you.”

The silence was devouring. No one moved. No one dared to. She shot a brief, desperate glance towards her lover, wanting to see hope in his face, and not finding it.

Arnulf took one lumbering step towards her.

“You mean to bargain with me, girl?” He laughed. It was a laugh of raw fury and absolute astonishment. “I killed a thousand men before you were born, and every one of them was smarter than you. I’ve bested every breed of man there is. Vikings. Prussians. Wends. Frisians. For damn near forty years, in mud and rain and blood and fury. Every emperor since Otto the Great swore these borders could not be held, and I held them. I held them, when God himself couldn’t! And you think you can bargain me out of my honor, as though I were a stupid boy haggling over a tin whistle?
You?
God’s blood, I’ll show you how to bargain!”

He moved another step towards her. She could not back away any further; the wall was at her back.

“I will set the terms here, and I won’t debate them. This man will die. If an enemy were standing here with a drawn bow, ready to kill me, and God himself were standing beside me, and God said to me: You may strike one more blow in your life, and then never strike again, I would kill Rudolf of Selven.

“This is my bargain, whore: tell me what you know, and I’ll kill him with a single blow. Refuse, and I’ll roast him alive. And then we’ll see who is stronger. We’ll see if you can listen to his screams longer than I can listen to your silence.”

She did not answer him. It was Rudi who answered him, shouting despite the arm pressed against his throat, the brutal plunge of a knee into his groin.

“It doesn’t matter, Heidi! Nothing is going to matter! Save yourself, if you can—!” The voice ended in a choked snarl.

“That’s enough, Franz!” Arnulf said sharply. “I don’t want him strangled.”

He picked up one of the iron spars and handed it to a soldier.

She scrambled to her feet, sobbing. She tried to run to him, but armed men blocked her way. The iron glowed a handbreadth from Rudi’s thigh.

She had always known they might die. She had even known they might die hard, but she had never imagined it would be like this,so shamefully, without even being allowed to do up their clothing first. They were not people any more, not lovers from the shining songs. They were only objects of sport, caged animals to whimper and howl until they were dead.

“Don’t! Oh, God, please don’t, I’ll tell you!”

Arnulf raised his hand, and the iron stopped moving.

“Well?” he said.

“The countess bewitched your horse. Lady Clara. To kill you.”

He stared at her, disbelieving.

“My wife? She wouldn’t dare.”

But nobody would dare; that was the problem. He was Arnulf of Ravensbruck, the man who fought half the northern world and walked away laughing.

“I saw her. She has… things… in her jewel box. Horrible things. I heard her calling devils into the horse, asking them to break your neck. She hates you. You know she hates you, and you know why!”

He was still staring at her. She went on, frantically. “I swear to you, I heard her…!”

He was tottering a little on his cane. For a moment she thought he was going to fall.

“And you never told me?” he said.

“I never thought… I didn’t know…!”

He turned slowly, spoke to the men. “Bind him. On his feet. Those pillars should do.”

Horror knotted her throat and dissolved the last of her strength.

“No!” she sobbed. “No, father, you can’t, dear God, you can’t, you promised!”

“I promised I would kill him with a single blow. And so I will.”

“What did you expect, Heidi?” Rudi said bitterly. “That he would keep his word to you any better than he kept it to me?”

And so she stood, prisoned between two soldiers who would neither let her fall, nor run, nor die, and watched her father take a lance, and balance it a moment in his hands, and walk forward on the steady arm of his squire, and drive the weapon through Rudi’s belly, low and hard— so hard that it lodged in the wall behind him.

She screamed. She did not know what the words were, or if they were words at all or only cries. Something hit her in the stomach, a fist, a club, she did not know which, she did not care. She buckled, vomiting, and the darkness took her down.

TWELVE

A Matter of Honor

The adulteress Swanhild, he said, ought to suffer a
shameful end, trampled under the hoofs of beasts.

Saxo Grammaticus

* * *

I have left it to your hands, Karelian— unwillingly, I must admit. I don’t bear shame well, least of all in my own house. But you are her husband, and I have deferred to your rights.”

No, Karelian thought grimly.
You have deferred to my kinship with Gottfried, and to nothing else.

“You may be sure,” the lord of Ravensbruck continued, “whatever punishment you choose, you need have no fear of offending me.”

Arnulf had aged. They had ridden out three mornings ago with their horns and their hounds, and he had stood in the courtyard with only a cape flung around his shoulders and naked envy in his eyes. “By God,” he had said, “next time I’ll be riding with you!”

Now he sat leaning both elbows on his wooden table, as though even his chair would no longer hold up his sagging body. His eyes were hollows of bitterness, and he drank without ceasing. The great hall was empty; even their squires had been sent away. The whole world knew what had happened, but he would not speak of it in front of others, and no sane man, after today, would ever speak of it in front of him.

“When I was ten,” he said, “my father told me to trust no one— not ever. No man, he said, and still less any woman. I heeded him for most of my life. And then I forgot.”

Arnulf’s wounded feelings were not something Karelian wanted to discuss.

“Where is Adelaide?” he asked.

Arnulf gestured vaguely. “In the prison. The men will take you.”

“Selven?”

“He died last night.”

Last night. He had lived two and half days then, shackled to a pillar, with a lance in his bowels…. Karelian rose, pulled his cloak around his body, looked again at his father-in-law, who was no longer looking at anything.

“You were here,” he said, “and the countess was confined to her bed. How did they come to be discovered?”

“I have one honest daughter left,” Arnulf said. With great difficulty, like a man forced to remember that the world was still with him, he straightened a little. “I hope you won’t hold this against me. Against our friendship. The duke wouldn’t wish it so, and nor would I. When this is over, I trust we can discuss a new alliance.”

“I am honored, my lord.”

There was no warmth in Karelian’s voice. There was barely respect. Arnulf, ill and weary as he was, still noticed, and a spark of anger ignited in his eyes.

“Don’t judge me until you’ve raised your own brood, Karelian. You may find it’s harder than you think.”

“So I may.” He bowed faintly. “Good day, my lord.”

It was a fine afternoon. So often, in the very depths of the winter, the northern lands enjoyed these days of quiet warmth. It was a favorite time for visiting, for festivals, for great, far-ranging hunts. They had come home laden with game, singing. It was a fool, Karelian thought, who ever sang in Ravensbruck.

She was such a gentle thing. So young, so afraid of the world and everything in it. At times he wanted to shake her, and other times he wanted to wrap her under his cloak like a starving kitten and wait for her to purr.

He was a worldly man; he knew the physical evidence of virginity was sometimes very slight, and could be lost in completely innocent ways, often when the girl was still a child. He knew all things were possible in Ravensbruck, rape and incest among them. Whatever had happened to Adelaide, he was prepared to consider her innocent, and to go on doing so until he had a reason not to.

He knew she did not love him, or even trust him much. But she had tried to please him. She liked stories; she enjoyed it when he told her about his travels, about the cities he had seen, and the marvels he had found in strange lands. After the first few nights, she did not turn away when he slept, to huddle alone on the far side of the bed. He would wake to find her nestled against him, like a wary cat who nonetheless knew enough to stay where it was warm.

And all the while she was in love with Rudolf of Selven. Thinking of him. Wanting him. Bedding with him. Nothing, he thought, was ever as it seemed, and human creatures least of all.

The soldiers who led him across the courtyard kept their eyes straight ahead, and did not speak. What did you say to a man who was not married a month, and was already a cuckold? Reinhard walked beside him, his face ashen and set, and Pauli shadowed them in mute yet eloquent despair.

They went through a narrow gate into the western bastion. The soldiers took torches from the wall, and lit them, and they went down a long stone staircase. He heard shouts, a man’s voice babbling somewhere in the caverns beyond. Their breath turned into puffs of fog, grey and scattering in the torchlight.

This is my life then, the same life still, the life of a man who never mattered, except to those he killed….

The men stopped before an iron door, mauled it roughly with a twisted key, and yanked it open.

There was a huddle lying in the corner; a very small huddle. He thought they had made a mistake, it was only a child, and what on earth was a child doing here? But the child wore Adelaide’s clothes; he recognized the dress, recognized the face lifting from the straw, fever-eyed, hung about with tangles of matted hair.

She sat up. For a moment it seemed she did not know him. Her sight was never good, and the torchlight was flickering in her eyes. Her mouth trembled faintly, but she did not speak. She waited. He stood over her, and found he had no words, either; they dissolved against the terror in her eyes. He had seen such terror before, many times, but always on the faces of enemies, always in a sea of blood. This was his own wife, a woman barely grown, looking at him the way fallen soldiers looked at an advancing foe, knowing the next blow would kill.

So many of those faces. Jerusalem had been full of them— faces backed against walls, against the edges of roofs, against rings of iron-clad men, always with the same wild, empty, bitter look.

She had on nothing but her dress and her shoes, and she was shivering. Shivering and dirty; her face was bruised and there were smears of blood on it, as though she had touched it with bleeding hands.
Whore… deceiving wife… unfaithful… without faith… infidel….

He was swept by vertigo, and found himself reaching to steady himself against Reinhard’s shoulder.
My own house…. Is this where it ends, then, or where it all begins?

He had not known what he would feel, walking across the courtyard. But his judgment came easily now, so easily it surprised him. He knew what he would do, and he knew he would live with it. After Jerusalem nothing would be hard to live with, not ever again.

“Your cloak, Reini.”

The seneschal surrendered his garment without a word.

He lifted Adelaide to her feet, and wrapped the cloak around her.

“Can you walk?”

She did not answer. There was nothing but fear in her eyes, fear and a black, wild grief. She did not make it even to the cell door without stumbling, and would have fallen except for Karelian’s arm. He picked her up and carried her like a child.

Everything stopped where they passed. The world stood frozen into watching statues: servants and soldiers and men-at-arms. A few crossed themselves, and their eyes followed him, but otherwise they did not move or speak. As each door closed behind him, he knew, there would be an outburst of question and dispute:

— Is she dead?

— What are they going to do?

— Maybe he’ll forgive her; she’s only a child.

— She’s old enough; she knew what she was doing; she should pay.

— You’re heartless; what if she were your daughter?

— I would wield the knife myself.

— Aye, and go to the brothel afterwards, just like you’ve been doing for the last twenty years, you damn hypocrite….

Adelaide’s chambermaid was a steady young woman named Matilde.

“Oh, my lady…!” One glance, and she was reaching for the reeling girl, shouting for hot bricks and broth, stripping off Adelaide’s fouled clothing, slipping a gown over her head, wiping the blood from her face, all the while talking softly like a mother to a child: “There now, my lady, it’s all right, it’s all right….”

In better light, he could see that Adelaide was very sick. Her face and throat were flushed with fever, and when she tried once to speak — whether to thank him or to plead he did not know — all she could manage was a harsh whisper and a broken cough. Matilde tucked her into the canopied bed, and she curled there into a shivering ball.

“She’s burning up, my lord,” the maid said. “Shall I send for Sigune?”

“Sigune?”

“The Wend woman. The scarred one. She’s better than the doctor, if I may say so.”

“Get her then— quietly. And send Reinhard in here, too.”

“At once, my lord.”

The seneschal, waiting outside the door, entered immediately. He said nothing. He would rarely comment on anything concerning his lord’s personal life unless he were asked. But he carefully did not look at Adelaide, and that was comment enough.

“Nobody comes into this room when I’m not here, Reini, except Matilde and the Wend woman. I will depend on you for it.”

“We are in Count Arnulf’s house, my lord.” It was not an objection; it was simply a fact.

“I will deal with Count Arnulf.” Karelian hesitated before he spoke again, not because he was unsure of his decision, but because he did not know how Reinhard would react. It was painful to be thought a fool.

“If it comes to a fight, Reini, I will defend her.”

“That is your choice, my lord. I made mine in Stavoren.” Bent on one knee, with his raised hands held between those of the count of Lys, swearing his allegiance….

“Thank you, my good friend.”

He touched Reinhard’s shoulder briefly, fondly, and went back to Arnulf’s hall, dreading the encounter more than he dreaded most of the battles he had ever faced, even the nasty, outnumbered ones. He was not afraid of Arnulf, at least not in any personal, physical sense. But he was afraid of chaos. He knew how little he or anyone could control the lunacies of other men.

He sat down by Arnulf’s elbow. A mute servant brought beer, served them both, and withdrew to the far reaches of the hall. Arnulf looked up from his dark brooding; their eyes met and held. Whatever else, the count of Ravensbruck was an intelligent man; intelligent and shrewd. He was rarely mistaken in his judgment of others. When it happened, he did not take it well.

“Why,” he asked flatly, “did you bring that whore back into my house?”

“There would be little point in trying to punish her now,” Karelian said. “She’s too sick to notice.”

“And when she’s better?”

“We will return to Lys.” Karelian drained his beer. It annoyed him to realize how much he depended on it for strength. “I’ll deal with my domestic affairs in my own house, my lord, and according to my own judgment.”

“I wonder,” Arnulf said, “if you have the balls to deal with it at all.”

“You presume on your infirmity, my lord.”

“You may challenge me any time you wish. I have three hundred men in range of my voice. Any one of them will stand good for my honor— better than you seem willing to do!”

“Keep throwing your men to the wolves, my lord, and one day you’ll wake up and find you haven’t any left.”

Arnulf knotted his hands together on the table before him— whether to prevent himself from reaching for a weapon, or to hide their trembling, Karelian did not know.

“When I was on my feet, you wouldn’t have crossed me like this, in my own house! By God, you wouldn’t have!”

He was finished, Karelian thought. He was done and shredding like an old cloak. But he was still dangerous. Evil men were the most dangerous of all when they were going down.

“I mean you no offense, my lord. But I won’t kill Adelaide. She’s only a child.”

Why am I apologizing? I’m under no damned obligation to kill anyone, not any more, and please God not ever again….

“You’re a guest in my house,” Arnulf said grimly. “One word from me, Karelian, one single word and by God’s blood it will be done with! I won’t sit here in my own house unavenged!”

“If you speak that word, my lord, there’ll be a bloodbath.”

Arnulf stared at him. His hands were gripping the edge of the table, as though he were about to heave himself to his feet. “You would fight over it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I choose to.”

“You will lose.”

“No, my lord. I will die. You will lose.” Karelian reached, poured more beer from the flagon. “You’ll lose your ally in Lys. More important, you’ll lose your ally in Stavoren.”

“Duke Gottfried would never take your side in a matter like this! There isn’t a man in Christendom who would!”

“Indeed? Your first words to me, as I recall, were that you put the matter in my hands. Because I was her husband. You know yourself where the right of it lies. So will Gottfried. Besides….” Karelian had the edge now, and he knew it. He paused, deliberately. “Besides, Duke Gottfried owes me his life.
And
the temple of Jerusalem. Had we not been blood kin, he would have given me one of his own daughters to marry.”