The Ghost Rider Read Free Page A

family’s only daughter, Doruntine. The principality had been attacked without warning by a Norman army and, unlike in previous campaigns, where each household had had to give up one of their sons, this time all eligible young men were conscripted. So all nine brothers had gone off to war. It had often happened that several brothers of a single household went to fight in far more bloody conflicts, but never had more than half of them fallen in combat. This time, however, there was something very special about the enemy army: it was afflicted with plague, and most of those who took part in the fighting died one way or another, victors and vanquished alike, some in combat, others after the battle. Many a household had two, three, even four deaths to mourn, but only the Vranaj mourned nine. No one could recall a more impressive funeral. All the counts and barons of the principality attended, even the prince himself, and dignitaries of neighbouring principalities came as well.
    Stres remembered it all quite clearly, most of all the words on everyone’s lips at the time: how the mother, in those days of grief, did not have her only daughter, Doruntine, at her side. But Doruntine alone had not been told about the disaster.
    Stres sighed. How quickly those three years had passed! The great double doors, worm-eaten in places, stood ajar. Walking ahead of his deputy, he crossed the courtyard and entered the house, where he could hear the faint sound of voices. Two or three elderly women, apparently neighbours, looked the newcomers up and down.
    “Where are they?” Stres asked.
    One of the women nodded towards a door. Stres, followed by his deputy, walked into a vast, dimly lit room where his eyes were immediately drawn to two large beds set in opposite corners. Beside each of these stood a woman, staring straight ahead. The icons on the walls and the two great brass candelabra above the fireplace, long unused, cast flickers of light through the atmosphere of gloom. One of the women turned her head towards them. Stres stopped for a moment, then motioned her to approach.
    “Which is the mother’s bed?” he asked softly.
    The woman pointed to one of the beds.
    “Leave us alone for a moment,” Stres said.
    The woman opened her mouth, doubtless to oppose him, but her gaze fell on Stres’s uniform and she was silent. She walked over to her companion, who was very old, and both women left without a word.
    Walking carefully so as not to make a noise, Stresapproached the bed where the old woman lay, her head in the folds of a white bonnet.
    “My Lady,” he whispered. “Lady Mother” – for so had she been called since the death of her sons – “it’s me, Stres. Do you remember me?”
    She opened her eyes. They seemed glazed with grief and terror. He withstood her gaze for a moment and then, leaning a little nearer the white pillow, murmured, “How do you feel, Lady Mother?”
    Her expression was unreadable.
    “Doruntine came back last night, didn’t she?” Stres asked.
    The woman looked up from her bed, her eyes saying “yes.” Her gaze then settled on Stres as though asking him some question. For a moment, Stres was unsure how to proceed.
    “How did it happen?” he asked very softly. “Who brought her back?”
    The old woman covered her eyes with one hand, then her head moved in a way that told him she had lost consciousness. Stres took her hand and found her pulse with difficulty. Her heart was still beating.
    “Call one of the women,” Stres said quietly to his deputy.
    His aide soon returned with one of the women who had just left the room. Stres let go of the old woman’s hand and walked noiselessly, as before, to the bed where Doruntine lay. He could see her blond hair on the pillow. He felt his heart wrench, but the sensation had nothing to do with what was happening now. An ancient pang that went back to that wedding three years before. Onthat day, as she rode off on the white bridal steed amidst the throng