“The deep wound in my arm from Fallo’s dagger was not making my problems any less difficult. The bleeding finally stopped, however, thanks to the pressure of the wadded bandage Fallo had strapped around my arm using one of my several belts. He was in better condition than I was, so I rode and he led me back cautiously toward our former encampment. I was fretting at his caution, but it proved worthwhile, for there were large numbers of enemy troops among the woods. Fortunately, they were all leaving, and there was that air of flattened calm about them that affects all of us after the terror of heavy fighting. We stopped and concealed ourselves in a dense thicket within a quarter mile of the camp and remained there for almost half an hour, watching as the last of them drifted away into the woods, heading northward. I had been watching those of them who had approached us, but none had come close enough for me to examine closely, and yet there was something that I felt I should be seeing, something that was plainly there but was eluding me. It was annoying, like the buzzing of an insect in the night, clearly heard but unseen.
“When they were all safely gone, we ventured out and made our way into the camp, where we found your father’s headless body, but no sign at all of your mother the Queen. We searched high and low, hoping to find her safely hidden somewhere in the surrounding area, but in the end we found no trace of her and were left wondering what had become of her.
“Whoever these attackers were, they had taken your father’s head as a trophy, for his was the only corpse that had been mutilated that way. His and Merofled’s, if Fallo was to be believed. But there was no sign of Merofled on the killing field, other than a great outpouring of blood at the spot where Fallo said he had struck off the butcher’s head, and the man in whose body Fallo had left his sword had vanished, too. All of the bodies of the enemy fallen had been removed, in fact, the dead as well as the wounded, and only a few slaughtered defenders and two dead horses remained sprawled in the clearing that had housed the camp. Our dead, and the far-flung ring of perimeter guards, had fallen where they stood and fought. I sat light-headed and reeling in my saddle, blinking at the sights that surrounded me, aware that something was wrong but unable to identify what it was. It was Fallo who finally defined it.
“‘They took all their dead,’ he pointed out to me. ‘Everything. Weapons, gear, trappings from the horses. Everything.’ I remember agreeing with him and being aware that I was swaying drunkenly, and my tongue was threatening not to do my bidding, so I articulated my words very precisely. ‘Why would they do that, think you?’
“‘To hide who they are. They don’t want anyone to know who did this.’
“That sobered me slightly, making me concentrate more closely. ‘Who are they, then?’
“Fallo looked at me as though I were dull-witted. ‘They’re Clodas’s people,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you recognize them?’
“I remember I scoffed at him, unable or unwilling to really appreciate what he was saying.
“‘Then why was Merofled there?’ he demanded. ‘Clodas’s strong right arm. Where has he been hiding for the past year? Those were his men. Did you not see their uniforms? Black tunics and black leather; no insignia. That’s Merofled’s mercenaries.’
“Suddenly, crushingly, I saw the truth of what he was telling me and everything fell into place. Merofled’s ‘death’ had been no more than a subterfuge to prepare the way for his grieving widow to be introduced into Childebertus’s household and into Elaine’s trust. No one, of course, could have known in advance that Elaine’s milk would dry up; the fact that it had, I quickly realized, was merely a fortunate bonus from the viewpoint of the plotters. They had spent long hours plotting their designs and must have laid careful plans to have Sabina’s baby ‘die’ and then be cared for by someone else for long enough to leave its mother free and piteously qualified to assist Elaine with her still-living child. Sabina’s child, then, was yet alive today, as had been her husband, which meant that Sabina was a treacherous, duplicitous whore, set in place to betray the entire household that had welcomed her into their lives, and specifically instructed to lure and seduce me away from the path of my duty, thereby leaving the way free for murderers and rapists to glut themselves in this orgy of slaughter.
“How easy had it been for her to influence the family, given the compassion they had felt for her and the position of total trust they had accorded her? Hers had been the voice goading Childebertus to spend some time alone with his wife and son, and she had used her seductive wiles on me to bring me to acceptance of many things that I would never otherwise have countenanced, all of which had made her foul task easier. And now Childebertus and Elaine were dead and you, their son, were gone, stolen away, if not killed, by the person who had engineered this entire catastrophe.
“Within moments I was riding Fallo’s horse hard back to where I had left you and the woman, more than a mile away. Every vestige of weakness and sickness had disappeared from me and I rode like a man possessed by demons, thinking as I went that you were already dead, for I saw nothing strange in the thought of Sabina killing you out of hand—the callousness with which she had arranged the death of your parents made the additional killing of a mere brat insignificant. So convinced was I that she had killed you that I heard myself wailing as I went, aware that it was me making the noise, but that it did not sound like me. I had yelled to Fallo to find another horse and follow me, but I didn’t know if he would and in truth he was the least of my concerns.
“My horse broke from the woods into the open meadow where I had left you both and I headed it directly for the place where I had last seen you, hoping, I suppose, to find some traces of your presence there, some spoor that I could follow. And there you were, alive and alone in the grass, tightly wrapped in your swaddling clothes, your face twisted as you howled out your outrage at being left abandoned and unable to move. I almost fell from the saddle, leaping down, and I did fall flat on my face when I bent over to try to pick you up. So for a time I simply lay there beside you, listening to you scream and thinking it the sweetest music I might ever hear.”
The muffled sounds of our horses’ hooves seemed very loud after that, neither of us having anything further to say, but while I found myself intrigued by the thought of Chulderic finding a baby’s screams enjoyable, I drew no pleasure from thinking of myself as a screaming infant. And so I rode head down and waited, while counting twice from one to twenty, for him to resume his tale. When he did not, I kneed my mount slightly closer to him.
“What about Sabina, Magister? Where had she gone? Did you ever see her again?”
“Oh yes, and far sooner than she had thought to be seen. She had worn a brilliant yellow scarf that day, when we set out to walk, and I had admired it greatly. Now, when I finally sat up and took you in my arms to try to soothe you, I saw it in the distance—a flash of brilliant yellow in a clump of brambles. It was obvious at first glance that Sabina had lost it without being aware of it, because it hung motionless among the thorns and it blazed like a beacon, showing which way she had gone, so I went to collect it, taking you with me.
“I reached the spot without difficulty, but the ground there, on which the brambles grew, was wet and muddy, almost a swamp, and it was immediately plain to me that Sabina had lost her scarf in falling. There were clear marks where her feet had slipped on the treacherous path and the unmistakable imprint where her body had landed in the mud. She had scrambled to her feet, leaving distinct handprints where she had pushed herself upright, and had then begun to run, the spaces between her footprints almost twice as far apart as they had been before she had lost her balance.