Andrew Offutt - When Death Birds Fly

Sigebert turned his masked face to look directly on the man. He shuddered and sank to his knees, soiling his soutane as he drew the sign of the cross in the air. Perhaps he superstitiously believed that Satan had come to his village. Perhaps he was not far from wrong. It scarcely mattered. Once a man and then a priest and now neither, he uttered no denunciation and called down no curse in the name of his hanged and risen god.

Having done naught, he now said naught.

Sigebert went on, at the walk. Even the trees of the forest seemed to draw away. Cathula sat still, arms twisted and held high behind her back. She did not test her captor’s grip. The big horse came to the long, dustyy road leading east.

“There is no place you can flee where this horse cannot follow and trample,” Sigebert said, and released her arms.

Knowing they were too stiffened to be of use for a few moments, he thrust both his hands in under her upper arms, grasped her firmly, shook her. Her teeth clacked before she clamped them together. When he let go, she made no attempt to twist free. He had clutched her where none other had touched her, high on her chest. She swallowed, compressed her lips, and made no attempt to twist free of the one hand he kept on her. With the other he took up the reins.

She could not escape him; there was naught in the village to which she could return or cared to, and nowhere else to go. Sitting quietly before the Frank who had so casually destroyed her mother’s life and seemed bent on hers in a way she well knew, she gazed blindly ahead. Her mouth was a line that might have been sliced across her face with a dagger.

“What a fortunate wench you are,” Sigebert told her, speaking in her ear. His fingers moved and she sat stiff, not letting him feel her flinch. “I’ve a house in Nantes such as you have never seen, with linens and silks you may wear when you are somewhat cleaner-and doff by lamplight when I so bid. By Death, but you will live a life such as you’d never have known else! You should thank me!”

Silence.

“Mute, Ha?” His fingertips ground in. “No bad thing either, an it be true. Many men wish their women were voiceless-nay, I remember you cried out, yonder. Well then, Empress Theodosia, you merely need encouraging to speak!”

Sigebert kicked the black horse into a wild gallop-and let go any hold on his captive.

He rode superbly, a flowing part of his mount. Cathula jolted and bounced. Her head rocked and flew wildly back and forth and her hair stung the lower part of Sigebert’s face. Desperately and yet surreptitiously, she let one hand slip forth to grasp the horse’s mane. He had seemed so tall; now lethal hooves flashed in the dust of the road close, so close beneath her. To fall would mean broken bones at the least.

Even so she uttered not a word, whether to curse or to beg, nor did she gasp save when it was slammed from her lungs by sheer impact of flying horse on hard turf.

Hooves rang on the pave as the big black horse entered the walled yard. Arbors and flowerbeds breathed scent to one side, while trellises entwined with vines formed a partial roof above. The stable was beyond. Although cleaner than most, it smelled as stables smelled; yet Sigebert never noticed. Many a street of this city of Nantes reeked worse.

With an athlete’s grace Sigebert One-ear alighted from his saddle. Not a trace of burlesque or mockery informed his manner as he helped the girl Cathula to dismount. She accomplished it far less stylishly than he; her limbs were stiff, she who had never ridden before in her life.

She shuddered uncontrollably when he took her hand. Rather would she have been touched by a coiling adder. Her eyes were those of a trapped doe. After what he had done this day, this blackmasked rider on a black demon masquerading as a horse… his studied courtesy unnerved her more than open brutality. At least she could have comprehended that.

“You shiver,” Sigebert said, “and of a warm summer’s night! And you never cried out whiles we galloped! Indeed my dear, you must suffer in winter! Well, well, never dread that. Who knows? You may not have to endure another winter.” He let his captive peasant feel a threatening tightening of his strong hand on hers. “Austrechilda!”

That bellow brought a creak from the massive main door of Sigebert’s mansion. It opened to spill forth the yellow light of candles. A woman of formidable proportions emerged. Her features were like iron and her arms big as Sigebert’s. Household keys chimed at her belt. She gazed upon Cathula without astonishment.

“Take this wench and make her presentable. Burn the clothes she wears.”

“Aye sir,” Austrechilda said, with no more concern than had she been told to sweep the yard. Less, in truth; that she would have considered beneath her position, although she’d have obeyed none the less. Would be madness for a servant of Sigebert One-ear to do aught else when he spoke.

The big woman took Cathula by the wrist. Her thumb and fingers overlapped, though the stout farmgirl was not tiny. She was drawn within the house while the master watched the girl’s backside. She made one small effort to hang back and desisted swiftly when she felt the strength of Austrechilda’s grip.

Glancing at the big woman’s face, Cathula despaired of finding sympathy. Not that Austrechilda looked cruel. No, it was worse. The peasants of Cathula’s own village wore Austrechilda’s expression, year in and year out. Stolid, it accepted all, questioned nothing aloud and little in silence. It said, “The great ones of the world do as they please, and however bad they may be, we must bend our necks and like it, or they will do worse.”

Cathula felt a sudden scalding upsurge of hate. No! She was here, with no way to go back. So be it. She would watch and listen, however filled with danger that might be, and perhaps… perhaps she’d learn of a way to do her captor some great harm.

She had not yet even had time to mourn her mother.

Tucking her head down to hide the wild gleam in her eyes, she went meekly with Austrechilda. Her bare feet made no sound; Austrechilda was silent; her keys jingled, reminding all that the master’s mistress of household passed.

In the stableyard, Sigebert tossed his horse’s reins to a groom. Though he gave over his latest concubine to another to burnish without supervision, he would not deal so with his mount. Unusually for a Frank, the One-ear was a superb rider.

Sweat prickled on the groom’s unwashed hide at the prospect of seeing to the beast under those masked eyes. The rubdown had better be satisfactory. Sigebert had an affection for his horse that he showed no other living creature.

“My lord Sigebert!”

Sigebert turned at the hail, ripping forth his sword. The figure emerged from the shadows stopped dead while he repeated his greeting to a naked blade. Sigebert recognized him, and put up his sword.

“Faraulf! You are alone?”

“I am, sir.”

“You have word for me? Come within.”

The portal banged shut behind them and Sigebert drew its bolts. Hearing them snib, the groom expelled a breath of relief. Not even to himself did he wonder as to the stranger’s identity or purpose. Was no affair of his. In this household a lack of curiosity helped one live longer. He led the raven-hued horse to its stall.

Sigebert One-ear preceded the messenger through the richly furnished halls of his mansion. Lighted candles vaunted wealth.

The house went with his position. The city’s previous chief customs assessor had acquired all this by turning a blind eye to the dealings of a certain merchant with pirates; shares in the plunder came to the official. This had proven his mistake, and at last it had caught up with him. Sigebert was appointed to replace him. The treacherous Frank had done so right briskly. Both merchant and former official were dead now, executed in grisly fashion at Sigebert’s orders. Nothing to do with manse and furnishing save give them use…