The Burning Stone
“The Quman move swiftly,” she said at last. “If you’re caught on the road, you’ll all be slaughtered. The rains have been bad enough that the roads are terrible in any case. It took us three days to get this far from the fortress of Machteburg, and you’ll find no closer refuge than that. I think you’re better off building a second palisade hard up against the ditch, and bracing for a siege. If your Salavii neighbors are good Daisanites, you might try to ally with them to protect yourselves—”
But that was more objectionable even than the thought of dying at Quman hands. True, the Salavii had converted ten or even twenty years ago, and they weren’t particularly belligerent even as more Wendish settlers moved into what had once been exclusively Salavii territory—their Wendish overlords saw to that—but everyone knew that they were dark, dirty, different. Their daughters were whores and their sons rams. They talked a funny language and were too stupid to learn Wendish. They couldn’t be trusted. Worst of all, when the church had finally sent a deacon to minister to the region, she had established her parish by the Salavii village instead of in the perfectly fine little church they had built here in expectation of her coming, and she walked here on Hefensdays and LadysDays to lead Mass and preach a sermon. It was a terrible insult.
Hanna had a fair idea that it was wise of the deacon to stay closest by those of her flock who were most likely to stray. But she wasn’t about to tell these people that, not when their anger roiled in the longhouse as acrid as smoke from the hearth fire.
“I pray you, friends,” she began, raising her hands for silence. “These are difficult times, and we must pray to God to give us guidance. But if there is nothing further I can do to help you, then we must march on so that we can join up with the host of Princess Sapientia. If Margrave Judith has joined them with a host as well, then perhaps the Quman need never reach your village at all, and you can get on with your harvest.”
The distant blare of a horn drowned out the rest of his complaint. The startled servant girl dropped the pitcher, and it hit the corner of the table, cracked, and spilled crockery and fragrant mead all over the packed earth floor. Every head turned toward the sound.
Hanna was already on her feet and headed toward the door when the others began talking, calling to her, begging to know what the horn symbolized.
“It’s the call to arms,” said Hanna, and then she got outside and ran toward the gate.
“I think they’re agreeing that there’s nothing worse than trailing an army,” said Baldwin.
“It would be worse not to be trailing an army,” retorted Ivar. “The enemy could be anywhere out here, so they said at Machteburg.”
Ermanrich, mounted on a sway-backed gelding which had seen better days, only snorted. “We won’t be trailing them for long from the looks of it.”
“Imagine, Ivar,” Ermanrich said, “you were to enter the monastery of St. Walaricus that lies somewhere out here in these Godforsaken lands. But I suppose that the missionaries who bring the word of truth are the favorites of God, not the forsaken ones.”
“We should remain out here after the war is over,” suggested Sigfrid. It was still startling to hear his voice. “Maybe this is where we’re meant to preach.”
Baldwin replied, but Ivar didn’t really hear him. Something held his gaze on that strip of northern woodland, something about the way distant branches shifted as the wind died and the drizzle let up. The others began to move on, but he held his mount up short and stared into the woods.