Chapter 6: September 12, 1214

Once again dinner was early and abundant. They had more than forty miles to go before suppertime. Afterwards, Karl marshaled the party to leave. Both knights and sergeants wore hauberks, coats of mail. So did all the squires but Roger. It seemed an extreme precaution. "Is the territory through which we travel that dangerous?" she asked.

"Not really. The Count Du Montagne sees his power slipping away. Under that circumstance, it would be foolish of him to make an attack unless it were one that the Duke or the Emperor would sanction. Even more foolish for one of his vassals to do so. On the other hand, people often make foolish moves when they see their power slipping away."

This time, the help in mounting was more than ceremonial. She rode Belle; George was being saved for the ceremonial entry into Clavius. Aside from the armor and the sergeants riding ahead and behind, the knights seemed neither bellicose nor particularly worried. She and Karl rehearsed one of the duets again, and then all the gentle males sang a long section of the Song of Roland. They were interrupted by a long roll of thunder.

Soon it was raining steadily, the kind of rain which drives itself into cloth however tight the weave. The hawks were quickly transferred to covered cages on the pack animals. Less than an hour later, she was soaked through. Their horses plodded on, appearing less disturbed by the weather than she felt.

"At least," said Karl after a few tries at song had petered out, "this weather makes an attack even less likely." And, in truth, no armored man would patrol in such weather except for specific need. "Did I promise thee the tale of how thy mare got the name 'George'?" he continued.

"Something like that. Thou didst say that it was not a tale for that moment." She had to raise her voice to answer him; Karl did not seem to have that problem.

"Never mention her to my father," Karl began. "George was the name of his last child. My stepmother is never going to bear again, and there are many arrows in his quiver. (Although, God is my witness, there never seem to be enough.) Anyway George, the boy, was a scamp. Somehow, behavior that would have broken a switch on my hide -- or even my sisters' -- brought him a scolding. I will admit that he got nearly as many switchings as we; it was just that his mischiefs were much more numerous. Anyway, despite being my father's favorite, he was well liked by the rest of us. He laughed with such glee, he ran so excitedly to greet any of us on our return, his adventures were so outrageous, nobody could help loving him. The very peasants whose chickens he chased adored him. I was a squire, home seldom, before he was walking, but I loved him well.

"When it came time for him to learn to ride, he was put on top of the gentlest horse in the stable, an old mare called Schreiterin. Thou knowest how it is at that age; one less rides the horse than one sits on it. George was nervous for two minutes, and then he fell in love. I would have expected him to demand a faster-stepping horse too soon. Instead, he wheedled to ride Schreiterin every day, sometimes several times a day. Nor did he try to gallop her, it was always a gentle walk with George perched on top. The times I saw them, they looked more like a boy sitting on a hay bale than horse-and-rider. After well more than a year of this, George learned that Schreiterin would have a foal. (First he noticed that her girth was growing faster than his legs.) He pestered my father to allow him to name the foal after himself. Perhaps he was convinced that the foal would be male, perhaps not; sex means little at that age.

"Then George caught some inexplicable fever and wasted away. I'm told that, by the time Schreiterin had her foal, George had hardly any flesh on his bones except for a grossly swollen belly. However ridiculous the name, it made him happy for several minutes in a week when no other news interested him at all. After he died, my father gave Robert mare and filly, with the request that they be kept away from Castle Dan and his presence. Robert gave the filly to me after my knighting."

Her first impulse was to put her arm around him after that story. The hauberk, however, effectively prevented that. Instead, she reached over and put her hand on his rein hand. Hands and face were the only skin that he revealed, and there was enough rain on their faces to hide any other dampness.

They rode in silence after that. Who was this man to whom she had joined her life? She thought of all the characterizations she had heard of the Danclavens.

A little tight-fisted? That seemed accurate. Karl wore little more fur on his clothes than did her father's vassals. More than a little calculating? That was certainly true. From his play at backgammon to his schedule for Roger, Karl seemed to think out more moves ahead in every aspect of his life than her father would have spent on planning a siege.

Karl certainly spoke as if the notorious Danclaven solidarity were fact. On the other hand, the two of them had been given only brief times when they could speak in private. It was certainly possible that he had ambitions at the expense of his family which he planned to share with her later -- or ambitions he never planned to share; he was a self-contained man.

All of this was slightly off the point of her impression of this particular Danclaven. Karl had been unfailingly polite to her, which was only her due; and he had been remarkably considerate as well. He had also been what she could only call "encouraging." And he had been enticing, oh yes! He seemed set on seducing her, and she was well content to be seduced. Their courtship, although long, had been more about Festmauer than about her person. It seemed almost as if Karl courted her after the wedding, and she enjoyed his doing so.

Reassuring thoughts did little to brighten the wet, cold day; but the rain gradually eased. Then, the hooves rang on stone. They turned left and were on the Roman road. Shortly after, the sun came out on their backs. It hardly cast any shadow, much less warm them; but it showed that the rain was finishing. "Heinrich!" Karl bellowed.

One of the sergeants trotted up to them. "My lord?"

"Have one of the servants unpack another mantle for my lady and bring it here -- warm, not dressy."

"Should I send it with Eagle, my lord? The other servants' horses are too tired to trot."

"I think that would be safe; there are empty fields on both sides of the road."

She knew that the new mantle would only get damp from the inside, but it did feel a little warmer. "What does safety have to do with which servant does a task?" she asked after the man -- presumably Eagle -- had dropped back. Karl emphasized, especially to Roger, that she was the chatelaine of his castle and was to be obeyed; but she had no part of the shared history. Occasionally she felt like a stranger within a company that all spoke another language, Flemish perhaps, or Sicilian.

"Elijah, as thou sawest, is still a boy and light of weight. He rides a horse of good quality. If we are attacked, he is to ride for Castle Clavius."

"And Elijah is Eagle?"

"That is the command for him to take flight, although he should act without command when he sees an attack. There is no great secret to Danclaven word-code. We work out what messages we might want to convey and then put a word to each one of them. It is useful, but there are weaknesses. Suppose I tell my men to suspect treachery in the castle that I am about to visit. I warn them: 'If I say "destrier," then draw your weapons and attack our host.' Then Roger comes into the hall and reports on Partizan's condition. 'And what is Partizan?' asks our host.

"I reply, 'Why Partizan is my ... Uh ... it is the horse I ride into battle.' At best, he thinks me a dunce; at worst he guesses the code word, and suspects why I needed one."

She smiled at the picture, but her sopping clothes soon darkened her spirits. She had company in her misery, however. A stream of drops scattered from the edge of Karl's hauberk. With the new mantle, the weight of all the water on her back had decreased. She was considering what weight there must be on Karl's when he lifted another song. She joined in, and Roger added some trills around their voices.

An hour later, well past the half-way point, she and Karl changed horses. Karl showed a little strain in lifting her onto George that time, but he placed her gently in the saddle.

Soon after they resumed their journey, the Rhine came into view. The road followed it in general, but avoided most of its swings. When the river could be seen by the rearguard, one of them burst into song.

"Whom do we bring to her rightful place?"

"Lady Elizabeth," all the other sergeants sang.

"Who is the fairest dame of the Rhine valley?" another sang.

"Lady Elizabeth," the chorus responded.

They sang until each had sung his solo. Her face warmed at each compliment, and burned at "Who can ride all day and be ridden all night?"

That song out of the way, older ones arose from the company as they traveled. They had seen no other travelers since shortly after the rain began, but they now passed peasants walking in both directions. Sometime later, a body of merchants passed them heading south. Another came into sight a soon as they passed the first. The road was broad, however, and the traffic in the other direction hardly needed to narrow itself to give the noble party free passage.

They splashed across a shallow puddle from a ditch that ended at the road. A dirt wall, much too low to be defensible, spread on either side of the road. "Clavius land," Karl said. "Heinrich!"

Heinrich trotted up again. "My lord?"

"Send Elijah forward. I have a message for the castle. And tell another servant to bring my lady's best mantle." When Elijah trotted up he told him: "The best speed that will not harm thy horse. Tell Sir Stephen that we will dismount in the middle court and address the castle from there. We will sup half an hour after arrival. We will need a change of clothes for the knights and Master Luke to meet me there. Have a room set apart for my lady. Now go!"

When he trotted off, the servant took her mantle and draped the blue one she had worn for her wedding over her shoulders. It was a very clumsy job, the servant's horse being a good two hands lower than George. Elizabeth adjusted the mantle herself. When she looked up again, the castle was in sight. The walls seemed to go on forever, climbing the hill to their left and entering the river to their right.

"But it is immense!" she said.

"Large," said Karl, "but not so large as it looks from here. The low walls on either side enclose nothing. They merely make it difficult for foes to pass us by on the hillside."

Nevertheless, she could see that it was a formidable fortress that they approached. The walls stretched straight on either side, embellished by a large gatehouse and several round towers. The ditch was wide and had no further bank, exposing the wall. There were two bridges over it, side by side.

Once through the gatehouse, they broke into a trot. Elizabeth found herself still on the Roman road. Now, however, there were walls on either side, with not more than two feet of grass between road and wall. The wall on the left rose well above the lances that the knights were now carrying erect from stirrup height, she guessed it at six or so feet higher than the walls around her Father's outer courtyard. The right-hand wall was at least eight feet higher than the left.

The road ran straight and empty towards what must be another gatehouse. They were still really not in the castle. Finally, they came to a gatehouse on their right. They passed within, and came to a large courtyard. This contained a crowd, which cheered as they entered. There was a more-or-less clear section to their right, and Karl rode that way, saying "Follow."

They circled to the right until they reached a shelf of stone against the outer wall. It was about four feet high, and twelve deep. There were wooden buildings atop it, preventing her from seeing how far it ran. Karl, still mounted, plucked her from the saddle and moved her atop that shelf. She found some footing, and he released her so she could stand. He turned his horse so that his back was turned to her.

Karl's voice carried the courtyard with no trouble. "People of Clavius," he began, and then waited for the echo to die away.
"Vassals, villeins, and visitors... "I present to you... "Elizabeth of Danclaven...
"Baroness Festmauer... "Your chatelaine... "And my wife... "What you hear from her...
"You have heard from me.

She, perforce stood there while the people cheered and shouted welcome. There was only one way she was going to get off that shelf unless she wanted to risk her introduction to her new home to be falling on her rump in the mud. A knight came forward, saluted her, and then helped Karl to dismount. The two of them walked over to her. Karl held up his arms, and she grasped them. She stooped until he could get a firm grip on her waist, and then he lifted her and swung her down. When she found footing in the mud, he released his hold.

"Sir Stephen," he said, "seneschal of Castle Clavius." Apparently her public introduction sufficed for introduction to him. A gentlewoman came forward next. "Lady Ingrid, Baroness Adlernest, my brother's widow." She embraced Elizabeth gingerly.

"Sister," Ingrid said, "thou art soaked. We have a room set aside for thee, and thy clothes should be there before us. We have much to discuss, but nothing which cannot wait until thou art dry." Indeed, the walk through that courtyard and over the drawbridge into the next was quite enough delay for Elizabeth.

The room was not particularly small, but it was crowded. The maids who had accompanied her were more than matched by the maids whom Lady Ingrid had provided. A fire blazed on the hearth, and there was a small tub. "We really lack time for a proper bath," said Ingrid.

"I know," Elizabeth responded. The cluster of maids stripped her in record time. As soon as one pair removed one garment the next pair was reaching for the next garment. She stepped into the bath as soon as her stockings were removed. It was scalding, and there was no room to sit down. Lady Ingrid wiped the water over her legs, and she stepped out. From the knees down, she was a bright red from the heat of the water.

Helga and a stranger dried her in front of the blazing fire. Helga giggled at her two-tone appearance, receiving a slap from Lady Ingrid for the insolence. Helga had been Elizabeth's from birth, and Elizabeth herself almost never slapped her. She did, however, realize that Helga would profit from the stricter discipline.

Her own servants had precedence when it came to putting the clothes on. They knew what she meant by her description and had a good guess where it was packed. She chose the clothes that she had worn for her wedding, but asked for another mantle. The blue one was now wet.