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Bulkezu called a halt His soldiers and slaves busied the the horses and livestock out to graze on the lush grass The site had been entirely abandoned The forest had encroached upon the open space cleared around the palace grounds It was a beautiful place, calm and peaceful if only because this one afternoon, at least, there would be no killing

Hanna had seen enough killing to last her ten lifetimes Each death was a scar cut into her heart, untold wounds that never really healed, only scabbed over with time

"Sit here, my lord prince" Lord Welf steered Ekkehard to a camp chair, swiftly set up by one of their concubines, a blonde girl with the look of a cornered rabbit As Ekkehard let the girl wipe the tears from his face with a scrap of linen, various slaves erected one of the round Qu to spare him from the afternoon sun It was a hot day Hanna sat in the shade of a tree, savoring the tickle of grass against her wrists as she leaned back Her ever-present guards waited as patiently as stone to either side, not so close that they pressed in on her but not so far that they couldn’t drag her doithin ten steps if she rass as he surveyed the birds flitting a the trees The other two stood there as stupidly as sheep, an easy illusion to cling to until one looked into their eyes

Bulkezu ca cheerfully out of his tent, the first to be erected, leading the prettiest of his concubines, a pluth black hair alnetha, whom Bulkezu had picked out froue had flowered in the ht and she had, ahter Bulkezu brought her to Ekkehard and indicated that she should kneel before the young prince Hanna rose hastily and strode over

Boso strutted up, as self-important as a rooster "His Gloriousness cannot bear to see you snivel and whine like a sick child, Your Highness Therefore, to raise your spirits, and your cock, he’s giving you one of his well-used cunts"

Hanna had long since grown accusto, but she often wondered what exactly Bulkezu did say to his interpreter and howhis master’s words As Hanna slid in behind Lord Frithuric, poor Agnetha caught sight of her but could do nowoman was too wise to protest, or even speak or cry, as she was handed from one man’s tender mercies over to the other’s

However phrased, the offer dried up Ekkehard’s tears He ell supplied onetha bore about her a certain cachet beyond the perfu worand gift to Ekkehard’sBulkezu while the young wo hard to show no expression at all

As Ekkehard nattered on, and Boso translated, Bulkezu began to look bored A discreet hand signal, and quickly enough horses were brought for the Quuard, and Hanna Even Boso was left behind as the sate the ruined palace

Hanna saw no signs of rebuilding The fire’s destruction had been so coe Two years of rain and wind had washed the mantle of ashes off the hill, but blackened spars still stood in tribute to the sprawling palace that had once taken up half the height The walls of the stone chapel were more or less intact, scored with the aped vacantly and the roof had fallen in Roof tiles littered the nave Bulkezu poked through heaps of tiles with a spear but found nothing of interest except a bronze belt buckle, warped from the intense heat, that had once been fashioned in the shape of a springing deer

He laughed softly "Would that I had such power" He glanced up, caught by Hanna’s silence, and peered at her with an unnerving stare "Do you kno this ca the hilltop ruin

She pressed her lips tightly together

He smiled "A broken lamp, oil spilled, or sorcery?"

At times like this, a fit of reckless fury would overtake her, a wish to slaallop onward to freedouards, more carefully placed since her last atteain

He enjoyed her anger He fed on it, and itcould h