Child of Flame (Page 158)

She didn’t flinch. In this contest, he could kill her if he wished, but he would never win. She refused to be beaten.

Fluttering up from the depths of her memory in that moment before the worst happened, she remembered Brother Breschius.

Without looking away from the Quman prince, Hanna spoke clearly and strongly. “I pray you, traitor, tell your master that he’d rather be dead than touch me because I’m the luck of a Kerayit shaman.”

She saw the word “Kerayit” strike Bulkezu as might an arrow, right in the eyes. His grip on her slackened, just for an instant, but hesitation is usually fatal. She twisted her wrist within his fingers and jerked out of his grasp.

The interpreter made a gagging noise in his throat, as though a bone had stuck there. But he spoke words nevertheless. Prince Bulkezu stepped back from her at once, alarmed and surprised. He snapped an order in his own tongue. It seemed like every man there gaped at her, faces white or flushed, as one darted out of the tent. He returned quickly with the man dressed in the patchwork cloak.

The shaman groped in one of his barkskin pouches. He came up with a handful of powder and flung it at her. Coughing, she waved the white powder away as it settled down into her hair and on her shoulders, drifting to the carpet. Its stink ate into her and woke the wasp sting in her heart. The shaman’s eyes got very wide. He babbled in a high, anxious voice, made a number of signs that looked like the kind of gestures witches made when casting protection about themselves, and became so agitated, drooling and spitting froth, that most of the men fled the tent. His nose earrings swayed as he shuddered and twitched. Finally, he sank down into a huddle on the floor, exhausted. As well he might be, after fighting off the shadow elves with his magic.

There was silence. Hanna began to wonder where Ekkehard was, or if he was even still alive.

And then, of course, Prince Bulkezu laughed, as if he’d just heard the best joke of his life. That easy laughter was beginning to make her nervous.

Her wrist hurt, and her stomach and breasts ached from the jolting drag across the ground, and her feet especially were freezing with flashes of hot and cold. But she couldn’t afford to look weak now.

With an amused smile on his handsome face, Bulkezu sat back down on his camp stool and gave some orders, nothing she could understand. The old shaman unrolled himself from his stupor, rose, and hurried away without any sign he’d had a fit. He returned with a fine copper basin engraved with griffins devouring deer and a copper pitcher filled with hot water. Where on Earth had they come by hot water in this godforsaken wilderness when they had not even one campfire burning to alert enemies to their position?

He gestured toward a curtain while Bulkezu watched her with avid interest. Other men hurried out, sent on errands. Hanna allowed the shaman to show her behind the curtain. Here lay pillows and furs, the plush sleeping quarters of a nomad prince. The shaman ignored them, indicating that she should wash herself.

Why not? She washed her hands and face and cleaned up the worst of the stains on her clothing, then, daringly, took off her boots and bathed her freezing feet in the cooling water. Maybe she had never felt anything so wonderful in her life up to then as that water pooling over her toes. She dug out her wooden comb from her pouch, undid her braid, and untangled her hair before braiding it up again.

The shaman watched her with interest and respect. Strangely, he didn’t scare her, despite the gruesome ornaments he wore. He had tended his own people and Lord Welf with equal skill. Nor did he look likely to rape her. And at least he didn’t dangle a shrunken head at his belt like the rest of them did. As horrible as the noses and ears were, she could pretend that they were just dried apricots, discolored and withered into peculiar shapes. If anything, he looked a little crazy, but in a mellow way, as if he’d inhaled too much smoke and spoken to the gods once too often.

“Thank you,” she said to him when she was finished. She made to wrap her leggings back on, but he indicated that she should hang them up to dry instead. He poked about among the prince’s sparse belongings and came up with a gorgeous silk robe. She shook her head, sensing all at once that someone was peering in through a gap in the curtains. “No, I thank you. I’ll keep my own clothing on, if you please. I don’t want His Gracious Highness Prince Bulkezu to believe for one instant that I am giving in to him or indeed taking anything from him that might lead him to believe I feel myself indebted to him.”

The shaman smiled beatifically, nodding his head in time to the rhythm of her words. Obviously he couldn’t understand a single thing she’d said. She rose, crossed to the curtain, and pulled it aside to reveal Prince Bulkezu himself, lounging just on the other side. He had gotten out of his armor and now wore a silk robe dyed a lush purple that set off his eyes. His hair had been combed out, and it lay draped over the robe in all its luxuriant beauty. He had that same irritating smile on his face. Had he been peeking, to see if she stripped?