A Mankind Witch (18 page)

Erik nodded.

"She looks like she might enjoy thrashing the miscreant."

Someone knocked politely. It was the steward. "My lords, you are summoned to the evening feast. Can I show you where to go?"

They set off up the passage. As they walked, Erik caught sight of the dark-skinned man who had aroused his suspicions earlier. He pointed. "Who is that fellow, friend?"

The steward looked startled. Erik noticed that he made a warding symbol with his hands, obviously without realizing what he was doing. "It's just a thrall, sir. He's the princess Signy's stable-thrall. He's not supposed to be indoors. But he always is," said the steward irritably.

"Odd-looking man," said Erik, fishing.

The steward nodded. "Ugly fellow. He comes from some far-off place, sir. They took him during a raiding voyage. Fished him from the sea, I believe. It's never wise to cheat the sea of its prey."

No more useful information was forthcoming as they were led into the feasting hall of the royal house of Telemark, and to the high table.

The feasting hall might have had all the trappings of a Norse Valhalla, complete with the shield-hung walls, bearskins, rich hangings, and golden—well, thatched—roof, but Da Messibugo's innovations hadn't reached this far into the wilds. The Ferrarese steward's delicate carving was a great success in Mainz, with birds and flesh being neatly cut without the carver even dirtying his fingers. This was more like a scene from an earlier century. Erik realized that if anyone did plan to kill Manfred, dinner would be the ideal time. It was definitely a case of he who stabbed fastest got the best bits. And even the slight girl with the severely braided hair and tight mouth was better at it than Manfred was, and she was clumsy. Erik carefully surveyed the people at the king's feasting hall. Quite a rough crew, by the looks of it. And very free with the ale horns.

Interesting. They were certainly not the courtiers and elder statesmen he'd come to expect in Frankish courts. These were more like a mercenary company, with drinking habits to match. Manfred would look like a man of moderation in this scaff and raff.
Bragar
toasts were drunk, and the evening grew steadily more raucous. Manfred matched the Norse, toast for toast. At least, being foreign, he didn't have to match the boasting. Erik kept himself quiet and watched. There was something about the King of Telemark and his court that made him very, very watchful.

The only person who had been quieter was the slight woman with the braids. Her place at the high-table proclaimed that she must be high-born—most likely the king's half-sister, according to the information Francesca had provided. The woman had answered his questions without looking at him, in as few words as possible. Words spoken in Frankish, good Frankish. Some outlandish name . . . Princess Signy. Her garb and her manner were at odds with her position, thought Erik, watching her. Her dress was citron taffeta, but, in Erik's opinion, badly cobbled. The yellow became her badly, and did not go with the only jewelry she appeared to be wearing—identical bracelets on each wrist. They were pretty enough work, little bears holding paws, but hardly the jewelry of a Norse kinglet's adult sister. A minor merchant's teenaged daughter might have worn them with pride. Her stepmother displayed jewelry enough to prove that the kingdom wasn't poor. Mind you, bears seemed fashionable here. The queen mother had little bear earrings.

If the princess dressed as befitted her station, and wore an expression of less misery, and maybe braided her hair less tightly, she'd probably be quite pretty. As it was she appeared to be a spinster in her mid-twenties, at a guess, in a society where marriage by sixteen was the norm. Well, perhaps she was fussy as well as a bit clumsy. She had a slight squint, he noticed. And tiny frown-lines on her forehead. She sneaked off early, leaving the motherly dowager queen to smile blandly at the steadily more drunken antics of her son's court.

The queen reminded him of his mother—at her worst.

Erik hoped that Manfred would have a suitable headache in the morning.

And he was not disappointed.

The next day, after breaking their fast, the Knights and the Servants of the Holy Trinity with their divining gear were escorted to the edge of the sacred grove, which, it appeared, was as far as they were going.

Or at least as far as they were going according to the old skinny-shanks pagan priest in his ratty wolf skin, who stood with folded arms, blocking their way. He seemed convinced that his hundred and ten pound bulk was an insurmountable barrier.

Manfred studied the layout of the place carefully. It appeared that a cluster of oaks—the sacred grove, or
Vé
, presumably—grew around a huge tumbled boulder, a rock the size of several cathedrals. Across the fields he could see another such knot of ancient oaks, presumably another temple. The perimeter of the oak grove was marked with driven stones. And, if he understood old spindle-shanks correctly, "No heathen, idol-worshiping unconsecrated priest would come past those stones to profane the holy place."

Manfred had never thought of it that way before, but it was a question of perspective. And old skinny-shanks had the penetrating voice that nature had seen fit to give some older men. Did he have to shout?

Best to do something about it now, before it got any louder. "Brother Uriel." Both the monk and, Manfred noticed, Juzef Szpak, looked in danger of exploding into some very unwise action. "Is it necessary that you actually physically have to go to the place? Is there no way we can just do it from here? We can try again from each path out of there, or something."

The monk turned to him, shaking his head emphatically. "We need to apply the principles of contagion . . . we need the actual place the accur . . ." Brother Uriel restrained himself with effort, obviously recalling something. "The item. We need something that was touching it. It was lying on an altar stone, apparently. Thus we need the altar stone."

"Does the altar stone need to be in the temple?"

Brother Uriel blinked at the idea, turned to Brother Ottar and Sisters Mary and Mercy. "What do you think, Sisters? Brother Ottar?"

"No reason at all," said Mercy. "Of course the place retains the memories of what happened there—and allowing these memories to be visualized is one of my skills. It will be impossible to perform those magics in some other place, so 'seeing' the deed will be difficult."

"Anyway," said Ottar in a low voice, "I had always cautioned against that. Too much blood has been spilled there. Too much sacrifice and pain. We risk bringing back some
draug
 . . . some shades are best left sleeping. Brother, if we can work on the stone in a consecrated space that has never been so defiled . . . it will be safer as well as more likely to succeed."

One of King Vortenbras's hearthmen had translated the idea to Vortenbras.

The king shook his head emphatically. "
Nei!
" He seemed shocked by the very idea.

The old priest, however, found it funny. Something about "it would break the heathen Frank's back and serve him right."

"Excuse me," said the timorous Sister Mary. "It would not have to be the stone itself. We could do a working from dust off the stone. It was done thus with the relics from St. Theophilus's tomb, remember, Sister?"

Sister Mercy nodded. "I had forgotten. Yes. Ask them, Prince Manfred, if we can send one person to gather some dust from the stone."

Manfred turned to Vortenbras, who was looking as if he, too, might just explode any minute. Szpak. Uriel. The priest of Odin—for all that the old geezer looked as if a stiff breeze might knock him over—and this giant of a king. All were braced for a fight. Manfred was used to being the biggest man around. It gave one a new viewpoint to have someone looking down at you. So Manfred spoke calmly, as if he were asking a taverner for another stoup of wine when the fellow already thought he'd had too much. "We will not take our priests inside your holy place, or try to move the stone."

The hearthman translated hastily. The storm clouds over Vortenbras's brow lifted a bit. Old skinny-shanks nodded, and tossed back his ratty wolf-skin cape and lifted his nose, saying something about the true god of noblemen, if Manfred got it right. "We ask though that one of my knights go to see the place where the arm-ring lay. To bring out some dust."

This one gave the translator coughing fits. Vortenbras and the old priest looked thoroughly taken aback and, be it said, amused. However, it seemed that old skinny-shanks was inclined to refuse anything on principle. Vortenbras cut him off mid-tirade, with an imperious wave of the hand. "
Ja,
" he nodded. He looked thoughtful for a moment and then continued. Manfred didn't grasp enough to understand it except for the word "noble."

The hearthman translated. "The prince himself must go. Odin is god for the nobleman."

"Tell them I go with you, or I'm not letting you go," said Erik in the tone that Manfred had learned meant "nonnegotiable."

Manfred turned to the translator again. "I must take my bodyguard with me."

Back came the reply. "Only noblemen."

Erik stepped forward. And said something in Norse. The eyes of the translator, the priest and Vortenbras widened. He turned to Manfred. "We will need something to collect the dust on, Prince."

Wordlessly Sister Mary produced a folded piece of fine white linen cloth from the little bag she carried with her.

Manfred took it, and the priest grumpily turned to lead the way into the leafless grove.

Walking quietly behind him between old gnarled trees, some of them with boles the size of cannon trunnions, hung with lichen and mistletoe, Erik said quietly, "So much for the dignity of the Church and the Knights of the Holy Trinity. Do you realize what that translator made of 'dust'?"

"No. What?"

"Dirt," said Erik, sourly.

Manfred's eyes widened. "Oh. No wonder the bastard found it funny."

"Yes," said Erik in a very even voice. "One of the Knights of the Holy Trinity and a prince of the Holy Roman Empire . . . going to clean the dirt off Odin's altar."

"That'll sound good in their next drinking and bragging session," said Manfred wearily. "Oh well, it's done. And what did you do to get them staring at you?"

"They wanted to know if I was noble enough. I told them who my maternal great-grandfather was," said Erik curtly.

Manfred gave a wry half smile. "I didn't know that great-grandparents frightened them like that. I'd have dug out my Great-aunt Olga for the trip. So who was this venerable relation?"

Erik just looked at him coldly.

"Tell."

"Hush." They'd come to the temple. It was cut into the rock of the boulder with a portico-style roof extending out from the stone. The carved wood of the rooftree was black with age and smoke. "Been around for a while," said Manfred, quietly taking in details. Inside, the place was dim, and dominated by the altar stone. It was a back-breaker all right. Set straight onto the earth floor, it must have weighed three or four hundredweight. Manfred wondered if he could have lifted it, let alone have carried it.

"A very very long time," said Erik equally quietly. "Look at the hearthstone." The stone was deeply incised with spiral patterns. The fire burned in what was plainly a natural fissure in the rock, behind it.

The old priest said something, peevishly.

"What does he want?"

"Us to clean the altar stone and get out of his temple," said Erik.

Manfred shook the cloth out. And said: "Keep a straight face, for heaven's sake, Erik," as he hastily bunched it in his big hands.

It was a small, cross-embroidered altar cloth.

"You can actually see where the ring was lying," said Erik looking at the altar carefully. It was indeed dusty. That was inevitable with a floor of tramped earth. "Here, Manfred." He pointed. One could see the faint outline of the arm-ring there in the dust. "Fold the cloth up again. Let's see if we can capture just that."

Manfred held it out to him. "You do it. You've a more delicate touch than I have."

So Erik folded the cloth, and gently placed it on the altar, just over the dust marks. He rubbed just slightly, and picked up the cloth. "Let's get out of here."

The old priest muttered something that was probably "Can't even clean properly." But he was too glad to see them go to make any more fuss.

"What did you mean about those spiral carvings?" asked Manfred as they walked back, Erik carrying the cloth carefully. "You see them in Brittany, too, you know."

"And in Ireland as well. They're no part of Scandinavian Odin worship. That place was a temple long before the Norse brought Odin here."

"Common practice, building your temple or church where another one stood. Establishes that you're the master," said Manfred. "Half the churches in the Empire stand on the sites of old Lundar, apparently."

"Considering that you can't pray without moving your lips, isn't that just what you were doing when I put the altar cloth on top of Odin's altar?" asked Erik, his lips quirking.

Manfred looked a little sheepish. "After Venice and what we ended up fighting there, I take my religion just a little more seriously. Besides, I'd give you long odds that you were doing the same."

Erik acknowledged the hit. "You always were a lucky gambler."

"Well, I hope that this particular gamble pays off," said Manfred with a gesture at the cloth.

They met the others, waiting just outside the ring of stones that marked the
waerd
of the temple
Vé
. "You were successful?" asked Brother Uriel.

"I hope so. There is an imprint of the ring in the dust on the altar stone. I hope we've got that on the . . . cloth," said Erik, handing it over.

By the glint in the monk's eye he knew exactly what sort of cloth Sister Mary had given them. But all he said was, "Excellent! We'll take it back to our chambers and work on it."

King Vortenbras barked out something. Brother Ottar and Erik both visibly paused. "I'm afraid we won't," said Erik. "The king has ordered that you do your . . . work in the feasting hall, before all of the company. He's not quite accusing you of chicanery. Yet."