While the warriors ate, slaves carried suits of armor into the hall and placed each in one of the cubicles along the sidewalls. Malcolm nudged Hansen and said, “That’s yours,” pointing to the quartet of slaves who had just entered with a russet and black suit.
“The arm’s cut off,” Hansen said, trying to keep the concern out of his voice.
“Don’t worry,” Malcolm explained. “It’s a good suit. We’ll carry it to Vasque the Smith tomorrow and get it repaired.”
“It’s a damned good suit,” muttered Shill.
Maharg turned on the old warrior and snarled, “So why didn’t you ever challenge Zieborn and get a suit just as good, ha?”
“Maharg,” said Malcolm quietly.
“Yeah, well,” said the younger man as he went back to his food.
Taddeusz’ daughter took a silver pitcher of beer from a servant and walked down the runway between the fire and table. Her soft shoes made no sound on the hall’s puncheon floor. Golsingh, Unn and—with dawning fury—Taddeusz watched her progress.
She stopped in front of Hansen. He looked up in surprise.
“Krita!” the warchief shouted.
Krita bent and filled Hansen’s cup.
“I want to meet the new hero,” she said in a clear voice that rang in the sudden silence. “The wolf in Villiers’ clothing.”
“Some would say,” Unn called with equal clarity down the length of the table, “that it’s a coward’s part to slay a man with a bolt.”
Hansen went cold. He looked in Unn’s direction, but he saw nothing except a blur of blond hair and his own cold fury. “Zieborn wouldn’t say that, milady,” he said loudly.
A warrior across the hall snorted. “That’s tellin’ her, buddy!” he shouted. The whole room rocked with laughter as heavy fists pounded the tables in amusement.
Krita raised an eyebrow and walked back to the other end of the room.
Taddeusz stood up. The hall quieted.
“I served my king this day as no other man has done,” the warchief boomed in what Hansen realized after a moment was a set speech. “Alone I strode among my king’s enemies—” nearly true, and nothing for a sensible man to boast about “—and smote them down by the scores. Cerausi, the warchief of Count Lopez, a mighty hero, dared stand against me. His armor was silver and blue. He struck at me—”
Hansen began to nod. He was exhausted; the fire warmed him, and much of his blood supply was in his belly, converting the heavy meal into strength for the morrow.
He looked around covertly to see how the other warriors were reacting to Taddeusz’ speech. They were just as tired as Hansen, and most of them had been much less sparing with the beer. Several had already collapsed in place. Servants worried the plates and remains of food out from under them.
Hansen heard dogs yelping outside, but at least they weren’t being allowed in the hall during the meal as he’d rather expected would be the case. Reassured that the worst he was likely to do would be within the bounds of propriety here, Hansen slid his dish out of the way and concentrated on keeping awake.
After Taddeusz finished his speech, the warrior at the head of the bench to the king’s left rose and rambled off on a boast of his own. No one seemed to listen to him—or, for that matter, to any of the warriors who followed him with equally boring harangues. As soon as one warrior sat down, the next—across the hall—got up, even if they’d been snoring on the table a moment before.
It was noticeable that the farther down the benches the speakers were, the shorter and less circumstantial their boasts tended to be.
The man across from Hansen stopped in the middle of a sentence that hadn’t seemed to be going anywhere. He didn’t so much sit down as flop when his legs gave way. A servant handed him a refilled cup.
Maharg elbowed Hansen. “Well, go on!” he said.
“But—” Hansen said. He stood, shaking his head to clear it. All right, he hadn’t been in the battle, and he wasn’t going to brag about killing Zieborn . . . or anybody else. Zieborn hadn’t been the first, or the twenty-first; but that had been the job of Special Units.