As our carriage approaches, they straighten.
The procession halts.
I hear soldiers shouting, barking commands. They promise safety if the men step away and dismantle their heathen altar.
The men do not move.
Charles’s soldiers advance, warning them again. I cannot hear the words, but I see the tension coil tight as a drawn bow.
Then the men reach for their axes.
It is no fight at all, really. The soldiers disarm them in seconds. I watch, frozen, as swords are driven into the men’s chests, swift, merciless blows. There is no plea, no mercy granted.
Submit to the King, or die.
The rest is done quickly. The wooden figure is toppled. The wreath is thrown into the fire and burns with a sharp, green hiss. The soldiers strip the dead men of their coats and leave them where they fall—bloodied, naked, a warning to all.
I pull the blanket tighter around Ella without waking her.
It is not the first cruelty I have witnessed in the name of Christ.
And it will not be the last.
Not here, where God is spoken of as a curse, and Rome’s reach fades into the wind.
Chapter 20
The North is not cruel in the way men are cruel.
It does not rage or shout or strike without warning.
It simply endures.
From the moment we arrive, the cold settles into us as though it has been waiting. It seeps through stone and wool and skin alike, creeping into bone and breath. Fires burn constantly, yet the rooms are never truly warm. The walls sweat with damp, darkening the tapestries and curling the edges of parchment. Even the air feels heavy, laden with rain and snow that never quite ends—falling, pausing, threatening to begin again.
I cannot remember the last time I felt truly dry.
The moors stretch endlessly beyond the fortress walls, a wide and treeless expanse that swallows sound and distance alike. On clear days, which are rare, the sky presses low and vast, and I find myself longing for forests, for hills, for anything that might interrupt the horizon. Here, the land offers no shelter.
The children do not fare well here in Verden.
It begins with coughs—small, persistent sounds that echo through the chambers at night. Then come the fevers. Ella’s cheeks burn beneath my palms, her skin too warm onemoment and clammy the next. Thea grows listless, appetite fading, eyes dull with exhaustion. Even when the worst passes, weakness lingers, clinging to them like damp clings to cloth.
The physicians murmur reassurances. They speak of northern air and adjusting humor. They brew tonics, apply poultices, wrap the children in layers of wool and fur. I nod and thank them and do not sleep.
Every night, I lie awake listening to the wind batter the walls, counting breaths that are not my own.
Charles is often absent.
He leaves before dawn, armored and grim, returning long after night has fallen—if he returns at all. There are councils to attend, disputes among nobles who bristle beneath his rule. There are raids to answer. Executions, too, though these are spoken of only obliquely, as if naming them aloud might summon something worse.
When he is present, he is restless. His temper frays quickly, patience worn thin by exhaustion and the endless resistance of this land. He paces, speaks too sharply, falls silent without warning. Some nights he clutches me as though I might vanish if he loosens his hold; others, he turns away, rigid and unreachable.
I do not know which unsettles me more.
I feel stranded here, at the edge of the known world. Letters from the South arrive late, damp, and travel-worn. Familiar voices feel distant, as if I am slowly forgetting those I love. Maybe they have forgotten me, too. Even time itself seems altered—days stretching long and indistinct, marked only by rain and illness and waiting. I miss Aileen, miss having a friend around.
Cold becomes more than a sensation.
