Chapter 1

Spring, 796 AD

The Rune, and a Secret Promised

   Rotaida knelt on the earthen floor, a wooden cup of coltsfoot tea in her hand. She winced with her mother’s every cough. At last the coughing spell ended and her mother lay back gasping. Her red hair, dark and damp with sweat, straggled in limp threads upon her straw pallet.

   Rotaida offered the tea. After a few sips, her mother said, “’Taida, ik haba ains gibt vor thu.”

   “A gift for me? But please, Mama, speak Frankish, not your old language. If Papa heard—“

   Her mother, groping beneath the straw, pulled forth a clay pendant on a leather thong.

   Rotaida’s green eyes widened. She glanced furtively toward the door. “Din hrune! The lines on it look like old dried blood.”

   “Is blood. Is hrune Algiz. . . Tree of Life.”

   “It does look like a tree, but with only two branches and no leaves. How can you part with it, Mama?“

   “To save your life. It once saved mine.”

   “From what?”

   Before her mother could answer, another coughing spell bent her double. With her every cough, Rotaida felt a pain in her own chest. When her mother’s coughing ceased, she offered the tea again.

   Her mother sipped. “A secret I’ve long kept— I must tell you now, ‘Taida.”

   “Is it about danger to me? Is it why I need Algiz?”   

   “About who you are, min liofling─and who I once was─and how I met Raoul. You are old enough now to know.“

“Please don’t talk more now, Mama,” Rotaida said in Frankish. “It makes you cough, and that will make your fever worse.”

She drew the coverlet over her mother’s thin shoulders. “Rest now, Mama. We’ll talk later, but not in your old language, please. It’s dangerous for you, for us.”

   Struggling to speak between coughs, weaving Frankish and old words, her mother began again, “Ik skal thu qipan—I  shall tell you–uf ven ik ─of when I—“

   “Please, don’t try to talk now, Mama.” 

   “Frankish . . .so hard.” Her mother grasped her swollen belly. “Ik will nik ─ I will not — this baby lose.”

   Rotaida wanted to ask, is it because your blood and Papa’s blood doesn’t match, like Belisarde says? Alors, how was I born?

   Instead, she said, “Mama, I’ll run to Belisarde and ask her for a stronger potion for your cough and fever.”

   She rose from her knees, ready to go to the healer.

   “Nin, nin! Ni stronger─not good for baby.” Her mother coughed again and retched, then closed her eyes and lay still. She whispered, “I must tell you about the palace─ the king —”

   “Mama, I want to know, but do rest ‘til I get back from the market.”

   Rotaida slipped the rune’s leather cord over her head and held the pendant on her palm. “I haven’t seen this since we swam in the lake last summer.”

   “Franks don’t hroun magik understand.” Her mother paused for breath. “Raoul thinks it . . . a devil thing of his enemies.”

   Rotaida tucked the pendant inside her neckline. She kissed her mother’s cheek and felt the heat from her fever warm her lips.

   “I’ll buy meal for gruel, Mama, and an egg to give you strength. If I haven’t enough coins, I’ll trade yarn. I’ll spin all the way.”

   Rotaida wound wool onto her distaff. She draped her stole around her head to hide her red hair, took her mother’s market basket on the crook of her right arm, and tucked the distaff firmly between her left arm and chest.

   “I’ll hurry to market, and hurry back,” she promised. With her spindle dangling from her left hand, she ducked through the low door. Even Papa doesn’t have to duck so low, she thought. No wonder he thinks me strange.

   She picked her way around garbage and floor sweepings in the lane, trying not to inhale the stench. A neighbor tossed out a rotten cabbage and stared at her.

   As she walked from the old hamlet by the lake toward Aachen village, Rotaida kept her spindle spinning an even thread, but her head swam with worries. What if Mama doesn’t get well?”

   As she spun, she pulled wool strands off the distaff but she tugged too hard. The fleeces parted. She stopped, carefully worked the separated strands together, and started the spindle spinning again. Thread for the loom meant a warm cloak for next winter and thread to sell or barter.

   Aachen’s market noises assaulted Rotaida’s ears─carts’ rumblings and squeakings, vendors’ calls as harsh as crows’ cries, a kicked dog’s whine, haggling customers voices, and children’s shouts. Beggars tugged at her, imploring, whining, and even threatening until she turned her green-eyed gaze on them.

   She wanted to run back to the quiet cluster of houses by the lake, but clenched her jaws and pushed her way through the throng of shoppers to the stone church. A procession was just coming out. A bystander whispered, “A funeral. Reed cutter drowned by the watersprite.”

   Rotaida watched, and shivered.

   If Mama dies--

   At the henwife’s stall she pondered over baskets of brown chicken eggs, larger goose eggs, and tiny quail eggs. Which would be freshest? Which cheapest?

   “Buying or not?” the henwife snapped. She called over her shoulder to the flower seller at the next stall,    “These brats! They’ll steal you to beggary!”

   “I have coins.” Rotaida’s voice sounded small and thin in her own ears. “How much for a pullet’s egg?”

“You’ve never beaten me yet, Ludo!” the nearer rider shouted. He slapped a whip against his horse’s rump.

   Rotaida heard gasps and curses all around her. People scurried aside, but Rotaida paused, entranced and envious. The handsome horses bore scarlet saddlecloths, and their pommels were topped with gold. The riders wore gleaming velvets and gold chains swung upon their chests.

   A boy in a grease-stained tunic grabbed her arm and jerked her aside. “’Ware the horse!”

   The front rider drove his horse right at her, laughing. His horse’s eyes met hers. It swerved to miss her, but its haunch hit her shoulder and its tail whipped her face. She crashed into the egg seller’s table. Her distaff and spindle rolled beneath it. Her stole slipped from her hair.

   The henwife steadied her table and reached for her egg baskets. She caught one, but the others escaped and a week’s labor of a dozen hens and pullets smashed onto the stone paving.

   “Stupid wench! Look what you done!” The woman dropped to her knees and groped among the broken shells. ”There’s got to be a few left to sell!”

   She glared at Rotaida. “The sorceress’s red haired daughter! Devil’s spawn! Worse than a watersprite!”

   Rotaida, stunned, stood silent, rubbing her bruised hip.

   The henwife spat, “Tell your witch ma she’s got to pay for these broken eggs! In real coin I can spend, not some kind of magic!”

   “My mother’s no sorceress!”

“She is!” The woman wiped her yellow-smeared hands on her skirt. “That’s why she got thrown out of the palace. And you’re a demon child, born red-furred with pointed ears like an elf or a cat. Belisarde, the midwife, said so!”

   “When did she say that?” Rotaida gasped. She pulled her stole back over her hair, under her chin and over her shoulders. Have I spun thread enough to pay for all those eggs?

   The flower seller said, “Rest tranquil, Gerda! It was Prince Charles’s fault, not the girl’s. Too bad your eggs got broke, but I can lend you some coin ‘til next market day if you run short.”

   She won’t go hungry, Rotaida thought. Gud! I can keep my thread.

   She ducked beneath the table and retrieved her distaff and spindle. With one hand she felt her ear.

My ear rims curl over, like anyone else’s!

   “I’m the charcoal burner’s daughter, no devil’s spawn,” she muttered.

   “That Jana, she stole my Raoul from me,” the henwife whined to the flower seller, “and her belly already swelling with that devil-begot child. Raoul swore he never sired that babe.”

   The flower seller raised an eyebrow. “Why did he take her to wife, alors?”

   “Bespelled, I say!”

   “Let it go, Gerda. It’s time you forgot Raoul.”

   Rotaida, shaking with anger and shocked to the marrow rose to her feet. She had heard herself whispered about before and seen fingers pointing as she passed, but never been cursed as a demon until now. Nor had she heard before that Raoul was not her father. Her hands shook as she rewound thread spilled from her spindle. If Raoul didn’t sire me, why did Mama marry him, and not my true father?

   The henwife ranted on, “Hasn’t your mother’s every babe since you come before its time, devil’s child? And soon died or been born dead, like they say? That proves she’s cursed her own womb! Or you did. The rest of us bear more young than we can feed. Not her!”

   “Mama wants children! I never cursed anybody!”

   “Men like Raoul don’t sire healthy babes,” the flower seller interjected. “You’re better off without him, Gerda.”

   Rotaida tucked her distaff back under her arm. Market basket in hand, she rushed away forgetting to keep her spindle turning.

   Belisarde never said that, she thought. Gerda twisted her tale.

   Or did she? Am I a demon?

   I must ask Belisarde.

   She bit her lower lip to stop its trembling. Maybe Papa saw me newborn. But my ear rims bend over now and I have no fur on me. Poor Papa! He wanted a dark-haired son and got me. No wonder he’s so cross.

   Sun-warmed dust puffed between her bare toes as she walked through the salt vendor’s alley. She stopped and bought a lump of gray salt.

   If Papa didn’t sire me, who did? Who am I? Questions made her head spin. In a daze, she almost forgot to buy barley meal.

   The dough-faced pieman sauntered toward her, smiling and singing, “Come, buy! Fine pies!”

   She traded her last coin for a meat pie. His sweaty hand lingered on hers. She pulled her hand back, shoved the pie into her basket, and hurried away.

   The pieman called after her, “Come and see me again, little love, when you’re in a more cheerful mood!”

   She glanced back and saw his smile twist to a leer. Her stomach lurched. Right then, more than anything, she wanted to get away from all Aacheners. Belisarde could wait. She rushed home without another backward glance.. . .

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