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of this region. Perhaps one of the Abbotts will have food to spare from monastery fields, but I must tell you, though I take no pleasure in it, that we, here, do not have enough to feed ourselves, let alone your people.
    Further, I must ask you for your prayers on behalf of those still living. The fields will not support us again for at least a year, and in the meantime, fever has come into the region, scything down those that famine has spared. Every day the funeral bells toll, and families are consumed with new grief. Surely your supplication to Heaven will bring us surcease of the suffering we have endured. This may appear a poor exchange, for we ask prayers of you when we cannot do anything to relieve your hunger, but I fear that without the prayers of such mighty men as you, Heaven will remain deaf to our cries and this region will be lost to the King and the Church. Since neither of us wants that, I beseech you to do your utmost to petition God for an end to our plight.
    It is no easy thing, Sublime Bishop, for a Grav to admit so much to anyone but the King Himself, and in doing this, I rely upon you to guard what I have said from the eyes of the world, as I would do for you, should you make such a request of me. It is mete that you and I share confidences, as is the Right of our place in life, but few are entitled to know these things, and we must be mindful of this at all times. There are enemies of the King who would use this against his rule, inciting the farmers and artisans to rise up against travelers and the Potenti who govern them, which you can desire no more than I do.
    Until such time as our hardships are lessened, I must continue to withhold aid to you, for we cannot give what we do not have. In time, as the conditions here improve, I will strive to see that you are provided with grain and wine and oil. Once the flocks are flourishing again, I will order that you be provided with cheese, salt-meat, and leather, but that is at least a year away, if God is good to us once more. I swear on my sword, Greytooth, that I will do this in spite of all Hell has to throw at me.
    The courier who carries this and his escort will return to me when they have presented this to you. I have told them to wait upon you for no more than two days, so if you wish to send a response with them, you must attend to it promptly or entrust it to another courier. If you decide to postpone your answer to me, I ask that you tell my courier so that he may depart without failing in his duty to me. I await your reply in the full certainty that you will uphold my decision and will support our labors with your prayers.
     
    At midsummer, the Feast of Apostle Thomas, in the Pope’s Year 796.
    Hartgar de solignac
    By the hand of Ardulf, scribe, monk of Sant’ Ambrose

Chapter Two
    U NDER THE TREES THE MID-DAY HEAT was less smothering than it had been in the open, but the horses and mules were lathered and plodded along the rutted, dusty road as if they had spent the morning in a hard canter instead of at the same steady walk; the armed soldiers who had joined the missi dominici and the two men with them only three days ago were drooping in their saddles. Four mounted Wendish soldiers had been turned back at Erfurt, and just now the new escort of six could envy those soldiers, who undoubtedly had sheltered for the worst of the day. Even the breeze moved in a desultory way, hardly doing more than tweaking the leaves as it passed on in an exhausted breath.
    Hiernom Rakoczy showed no sign of discomfort, although he was glad to be out of the direct sunlight; not even a hint of sweat on his upper lip or forehead marred his neat appearance, from his black linen gonelle to his thick-heeled Avar stirrup-boots in red-tooled leather. He might have entered the presence of the Pope Himself without offending. He was an impressive figure in the saddle: slightly taller than the soldiers and Otfrid, he had a presence about him that did more than his height to