Crown of Stars

By the light of red coals simmering in the fire pit, she measured their position. The dogs swarmed around Lady Bertha’s feet, yapping and circling. A dozen soldiers were ranged around the chapel, a few fixed up on the wall, others braced behind the wagons or the shields. One man cut away at the arrow in Stephen’s shoulder.



“You’ve suffered worse, old friend!” the surgeon joked. “You’re just wanting a scar to impress new lovers—”



Stephen gagged, stiffened, and went into convulsions, twisting right out of the other man’s grasp. Hanna stumbled forward, dropped beside him, and held him down, but when the fit passed, he stopped breathing and fell slack.



Dead.



The other soldier—it was Sergeant Aronvald—looked up at her, eyes wide with disbelief. “That shouldn’t have killed him.”



Hanna touched the shaft where it met the skin. She circled it with her finger, then sniffed. “Poison, perhaps. Or magic.”



“Poison!”



She wiped her moist skin on the dead man’s leggings, then for good measure in the dirt, rubbing it and rubbing it to make sure it all came off.



On the wall, a man cried out. “Uhng! Damn. Scraped me, but I’m still good.” She saw him only as a shadow. He twisted the arrow in his hand and set it to the string.



“So far no sign of any but these damn arrows out of the dark,” said Bertha from the corner where wagon met stone wall. She hushed the dogs.



“Best smother what remains of the fire,” said Hanna, not realizing she had a voice.



The coals gave only enough light to distinguish one form from another. The horses had been moved back to the raised dais where the altar had stood. Their hooves rang on stone as they shifted nervously under the control of Bertha’s groom Geralt, Sister Ruoda, and Brother Jerome, who calmed and comforted them. The skewbald kept his head, nipping younger horses who wanted to kick up a fuss. Canvas had been rigged to form a measure of shelter against rain.



Sorgatani’s cart was set against the right-hand wall. Tracery gleamed on its painted walls, patterns that to Hanna’s eyes seemed to slowly unravel and knit together. The goats had been tied up on a line behind it, and they protested with a constant chorus of bleats.



They had shoved Mother Obligatia’s pallet under the Kerayit cart. Others huddled there with her, as many of the clerics as could fit: sobbing Gerwita, Petra and Princess Sapientia, Hilaria, Diocletia, slight Jehan. Heriburg was wedged between cart wheel and stone wall stubbornly sharpening willow wands into pointed sticks which might be used as weapons in close quarters if all else failed. Hanna could not see Sister Rosvita or Brother Fortunatus.



“Let us pray they get bored and fade back into the woods,” murmured the sergeant.



“Ai! Ai! What fire burns me!”



The man up on the wall who had been scraped by arrow shot roared in pain, thrashed, and tumbled. He did not fall more than ten feet, but he fell hard and wetly and lay dead still. His bow smacked into the dirt beside his body. The terrier trotted over to him, sniffed the glistening tip of the arrow that had felled him, and backed away growling.



The sergeant looked at her, and she looked at him. He scrambled for the fallen man, pressed his own head down over the other man’s head. For a moment no arrows struck the stone; only the wind wept among the ruins.



He flung back his head. “My lady! Lady Bertha! I fear these points are poisoned. Any scrape, any strike, will kill us. Ai, God have mercy!”



An arrow clacked against the wall.



“I’m hit,” said Jerome, from among the horses.



Every person startled, as if his words were a blow. For the longest time, no one moved or spoke as from the night came no fresh shower of arrows. Even the scrape of Heriburg’s knife ceased. Rain clattered in the trees.



Or was that rain? Pebbles shaken in a gourd might make such a sound. Whining, the dogs slunk under the wagons.



A man’s scream rose out of the night. No one moved. They were all afraid of exposing themselves to an arrow’s poisoned barb. The cry cut off. The rainlike sound ceased.



“That was Wilhelm,” said the sergeant. “At the first wall, twenty paces out.”



The men stared into darkness. They were nothing but silhouettes, barely visible. Spears and swords and bows had no more substance than branches. When the next flight of arrows poured in, anyone might be scratched, and die.



Hanna stood. “Under the wagons. Under shields. Under canvas, any cover at all. Cover your faces. No matter what you hear, don’t look. Be blind.”



“We can’t fight if we’re blind and hiding!” said the sergeant.