“Surely they must have seen that Biscop Constance was a fair ruler?”

Erkanwulf shrugged. “How many winters did she rule in Autun? The local folk know only that some Wendish noble was set in place by the Wendish king. We Varrens have no reason to love the Wendish, my lord. That’s an old grudge, for sure.”

“Yet you and your captain and his men were willing to aid Biscop Constance in getting a messenger out.”

“We took her measure, my lord, when we served her in Autun. We know her for what she is. But there’s war in Salia now. Our borders are at risk. Captain Ulric may no longer be barracked in Autun. He may have been sent southwest to fight. Or he may refuse to help us now. Maybe he’s done as much as he’s willing to do to aid Biscop Constance. I don’t know. Duke Conrad is fair to soldiers. He’s a good man to fight for.”

“Surely you know Captain Ulric well enough to know what’s in his mind! He sent you to aid me, after all.”

“We’ve been gone for months. Things have changed.”

They rode in silence for a while along the path that cut through woods. Ash and sycamore swayed softly among oak and beech and hornbeam. It was cloudy, as always these days, and cold and dry. The rains of last autumn had evidently poured all their moisture into the earth in the space of a month or so of incessant rain. Over the winter there had been little snow, although the clouds never lifted, and in time the roads had dried enough for Ivar and Erkanwulf to set off again from their refuge in the Bretwald.

“I didn’t like leaving,” said Erkanwulf after a while.

“What? Your village? They didn’t treat you very nicely.”

“Nay, not them. You see why I left! No, I liked that steading in the Bretwald. They were good, decent, kind people. That’s the kind of place I’d like to settle down, not that I’m likely to.”

“What do you mean? Settle in Bretwald?”

Erkanwulf was about the same age as Ivar, not as tall, and lanky in the way of a young man who never quite got enough food as he could eat growing up. He was tough—Ivar knew that—but he shrugged like a man defeated. “If I leave Captain Ulric’s company, I’ll have to go back to my village and let my mother make a marriage for me. Who else would have me? I’d be an outlaw if I left the place I’m bound to by birth.”

“They took in strangers in the Bretwald.”

“That’s true. Refugees from Gent. I liked it there, with no lord holding a sword over their head and telling them what to do.”

“Until bandits realize how wide that road is, and attack them who have no lord to defend them.”

“They’d need more hands, then, wouldn’t they? A man who had some experience fighting would be of use to them.” Erkanwulf brooded as they moved through the woods. No birds sang. Except for the murmuring wind and the soft fall of their horses’ hooves, there was no sound at all. The quiet made Ivar nervous. He hadn’t felt quite right since that terrible night when wind and rain had battered them and killed Erkanwulf’s horse. They had commandeered the old nag Erkanwulf rode from a village whose name Ivar had already forgotten. Those folk hadn’t greeted them kindly, but they’d offered them shelter and given up the old mare in exchange for some of Princess Theophanu’s coin. Those villagers didn’t love the Wendish either, and with King Henry gone so long from his usual progress around the countryside, they saw no reason not to turn their hearts toward the old stories of Varren queens and kings who had once ruled these lands without any Wendish overlord telling them what to do.