“Hell could not hold them,” Raphael suggested.
“Or simply found their company tedious,” Roger scoffed.
“Whatever their reason for straying into Rus,” Illarion said, “it is gratifying to see that one, at least, found the fate he deserved.”
“Which leads to the question, are there others?” Raphael said. “For this one is comparatively fresh, and the Shield-Maidens—if my guess is correct as to who yonder women are—seem to be expecting more of them.”
The question was an important one and caused all four men to take their eyes from the red cross and sword for the first time since they had seen it. Instinctively they formed up in a loose circle, facing outward, scanning the ruins around them and the jumbled slope below for any signs that they might have been followed. Hands strayed to sword hilts and ax handles. But they saw nothing untoward.
“Brother Raphael speaks correctly,” Percival said, “when he says that we must learn—and soon—whether there are other Livonians nearby. But there are only four pairs of eyes among us. Those eyes are peering through burnt vines and rubble piles over a new and unfamiliar landscape. Behind us, many more eyes, used to this place, scan the city from a better vantage point, and so the quickest way for us to learn the answer is simply to approach the gates, state our business, and ask the Shield-Maidens to share what they know.”
“Good luck with that,” Roger muttered.
“I shall go alone,” said Percival. This was an ultimatum, not a suggestion. Again that light seemed to play about his face. Raphael wished it would stop; it was most unsettling. Perhaps it came from a withdrawal of blood from the knight’s already pale skin.
Percival removed his sword and scabbard and handed them to Roger, then turned about and began walking directly toward the gates that barred their passage through the inmost and highest of all the priory’s walls.
The Shield-Maidens on the battlements above were divided in their response. Nearly all of them were speaking in the local tongue, and so Raphael could not make out what they were saying, but half were merely derisive, while the rest seemed nearly out of their minds with rage. As Percival strode the last hundred paces to the gate, the surrounding rubble heaps suddenly came alive, like a nest of ants disturbed by the blade of a plow, as ordinary persons—mostly wretched sorts, unarmed, not so much clothed as bandaged in improvised swaddlings of gray blankets and rags—scurried out of makeshift shelters that they had erected along the approaches to the priory and abandoned cookfires that they had kindled along the way. Percival turned his head from side to side, observing this curiously, and Raphael sensed from his posture that he was slightly offended by the refugees’ obvious fear of him.
“Are they afraid of Percival?” Roger asked. “Or of what is about to happen to him?”
“Either would suffice to make such people get well clear of the man,” Illarion said.
Percival found himself standing in a clear space before the gates, gazing directly up at the Latin-speaking woman who had addressed him earlier; she was looking down on him through a crenel on the fortification above the portal. Perhaps feeling that it was not the act of a gentleman to go helmed when he addressed a lady whose own helmet was tucked under her arm, he reached up, lifted his own helmet from his head, bent down, and set it on the ground before his feet, then stood up and raised his chin, tossing his hair back away from his face and gazing directly up at his interlocutor.
All of the ladies went silent for a moment.
“Bastard!” Roger muttered.
The Shield-Maidens’ voices were resurgent, not as loud as before, and in a different tone: some of them even more furious, others mock flirting with him, and perhaps a few of them flirting quite sincerely.
Their leader permitted herself a sardonic grin and a little shake of the head. “I am not certain which of your approaches has been more insulting,” she said. “You came to us the first time, brimming over with the most insufferable arrogance. ‘Well done, girls. Thank you for keeping the place tidy for us. Now open the gates that we can make of it a proper fortress. Vacate your barracks and your bedchambers, plump up our pillows, cook up some vittles, and polish our armor that we may tend to important duties.’ When we sent your emissaries away and fought off the inevitable sneak attack that followed, we supposed we’d seen the last of you. But now you are back. And what is your latest stratagem? A handsome face with which to woo the silly girls who hold the keys to the gate. Tell me, are the men skulking behind you as fair to look at?”
“That would be for you and the other Shield-Maidens to decide, my lady,” Percival returned.
“You may address me as Sister Vera,” said the woman. “I am not a lady, and if I were, I would not be yours.”