by Kate Elliott
Liath remained silent, watching neither Venia nor Sanglant but the grain of wood on the lid of the chest, as if she expected it to writhe into life at any moment.
“Go on,” said Sanglant.
“If a great cataclysm is coming, then those who survive it will be in chaos. They will need strong leadership. Separately, I am sure you stand as powerful pieces in this great game being waged above our heads. Together, you could be more powerful still.” Then she smiled modestly, holding out the baby. “I believe she is wet.”
She left, and left them in silence.
“Why did you speak of Hugh with her?” asked Sanglant.
She looked him straight in the eye as if challenging him to object to anything she had said, as if she knew he’d been listening. “He was being discussed by the others because of his activities in Darre. He was sent to the palace of the skopos to stand trial for sorcery, but instead he seems to have bound the skopos to his will by means of a daimone, and thrown his power behind a man called John Ironhead, who has been crowned king of Aosta.”
“What news of Queen Adelheid?”
“Dead. Fled. No one knows. Or they won’t say. Sister Venia felt at a disadvantage during the discussion because she didn’t know anything about Hugh.”
“So she came to you.”
“She might have felt I would have fewer compunctions about telling her what I knew.”
“She might have wanted to curry favor,” he pointed out. But he was too proud to let her know how much he’d overheard. Did it really bother her that much that he couldn’t read?
“What do I care about her currying favor?” demanded Liath. “I was upset, and she listened. How can it matter what I said now? Tomorrow we won’t be here.”
“But what she said—” he began, and she turned on him with as much anger as he’d ever seen in her.
“Rule as emperor and empress with the dogs all going for our throats? Never.”
“But, Liath,” he began, coaxingly, seeing what an uncertain and difficult temper she was in, “what Sister Venia says is true. We have to look farther than our own escape, our own well-being. Many more people than you and I and Blessing will be swept up in this tide, when it floods in. If we have any power to protect them, then isn’t it right that we act?”
But she only started to laugh. “You’d better change her,” she said. “Jerna brought down some fresh moss from the slopes this morning. You’re dripping.”
He had to laugh, too. In his passion, he’d not noticed. “Ai, God,” he said, feeling the dampness seep over his hands. “I suppose it would be wise to remember the old saying: ‘One task at a time.’”
Blessing began to fuss. As he stepped to the door, Liath sat down on the edge of the bed and, stylus pressing into wax, began to make diagrams.
5
THEY met the outriders at midday, a party made up of soldiers and stewards who were riding ahead to the palace of Angenheim to alert its steward to expect the arrival of the king, his retinue, and his army on the morrow. Since Adelheid’s party had just sheltered for three nights in the manifold comforts of Angenheim, Rosvita would happily have turned ’round right then and followed the king’s party back to the palace, to await Henry’s coming.
“If we wait for King Henry at Angenheim, we can make ready for the meeting,” she explained to the queen and the princess. “And he will have word of our presence.”
Adelheid refused to consider this course of action. “We will ride on to meet the king.” Belatedly, she turned to Theophanu. “What do you think, Cousin?”
Theophanu did not glance at Rosvita. Once, before the escape from St. Ekatarina, the princess would have sought Rosvita’s opinion, even acquiesced to her judgment. But no longer. “Let us ride on,” said Theophanu. “I would rather see my father this night than ride back the way we came and not see him until tomorrow.”
Rosvita missed the understanding they had once shared. Now Theophanu was more likely to turn to quiet Brother Heribert, who rode next to her like a favored adviser. After her passionate accusation of Hugh, it was puzzling to see Theophanu develop such a close friendship with a man who had been accused of sorcery and implicated with Biscop Antonia. But Theophanu and Heribert both trusted, and remembered, their link to Prince Sanglant. In a way, Sanglant bound them. It saddened Rosvita to think that because of the choice she had made, because of the trust Theophanu had given into her hands when they were confronted with Hugh at the convent, she had lost Theophanu’s confidence. Indeed, in dark moments, she wondered if Theophanu felt that she had actually in some manner betrayed her.
She wondered if she had betrayed herself and her own principles for the sake of her implacable curiosity, because it was obvious that Theophanu hated not the thought of magic, but the thought of any kind of alliance with Hugh.
“It will be good to ride among the schola again,” said Fortunatus softly as their retinue started forward. Adelheid and Theophanu rode at the forefront, with their noble companions and their clerics around them. The servants and wagons—all of their supplies and many of their horses had been a gift from Lady Lavinia at Novomo—followed, with Captain Fulk and his soldiers bringing up the rear.
“You have missed Amabilia, have you not, Brother?”
“I even miss poor Constantine.” Crossing the Alfar Mountains had restored some of his humor, although he was still slender, a little pinch-faced: He was not a man suited to leanness, and with the weight had gone that seemingly inexhaustible supply of joviality. “I confess to you that I still cannot understand all that lisping and slurring of our Aostan comrades. And while I have scarcely encountered a more polished vessel than Brother Heribert, I am not sure he trusts us, or if we should trust him, knowing what he was once accused of.”
“He speaks of it freely enough,” she said, feeling obliged to come to Heribert’s defense if only because she admired his brilliant command of fully five languages. “But I understand your meaning well enough, Brother. We shall be back among our own soon. I also have missed the schola.” And it was true, she thought, a little surprised: She had missed the genial companionship of other churchwomen and men, the books, the documents, the ink-stained fingers, and, not least, the company of the king himself. She had missed Henry.
Did Henry, too, mistrust her? Was that why he had sent her to Aosta? Or had he sent her away because of her involvement with the accusations against Hugh only because, at that time, he had needed to placate Margrave Judith?
Soon she would find out.
Soon enough they rode over a stout bridge crossing a tributary of the Malnin River. They rode under the canopy of forest for a while before emerging into the cultivated lands that surrounded the city of Wertburg. Summer fields lay rich around them, ripe for harvest. They wound their way up a rise and, before them, saw the king’s banner flying from the biscop’s palace in the city lying to their north.
A flush had come to Adelheid’s cheeks. Theophanu looked pale. Fortunatus sighed deeply in the way of a man who has finally come home.
With a shout, Captain Fulk and his soldiers burst into song: “In honor of the king, I sing.”
Amazingly, as they rode down and passed through the gates of Wertburg, Rosvita found herself weeping.
They rode, truly, as a rather bedraggled expedition, much depleted in number and without the dazzling magnificence due a queen. But as they passed down the dirt streets, townsfolk gathered on plank walkways to stare, and by the time they reached the biscop’s palace, they had a substantial escort trailing behind them, folk who were curious to see what this meeting would bring.
King Henry was holding court in the great hall. The throng of petitioners crowding the doors parted to let Adelheid through, and she strode forward into the hall with Theophanu at her right side and two servingwomen to her left carrying the only portion of the queen’s treasure that had survived her flight. Rosvita and the other clerics stuck close behind them, followed by the rest of their noble companions. Captain Fulk and the soldie
rs remained outside.
She saw him, first, seated on his throne and listening patiently to a group of petitioners. His trusted Eagle stood behind him, and at intervals he would beckon to her and she would lean down and murmur a comment into his ear. He seemed lost in thought, somewhat distracted from the complaints and entreaties brought before him. He had lines on his face that hadn’t been there before, and he looked tired, drawn out, and worn of spirit.
She still had tears, and she let them fall. At that moment, she comprehended the heart of the exile who at last has come home. Hadn’t his courtiers been taking care of him? How had he fallen into such a careworn state?
Hathui saw their party at once, and she got his attention, whispered urgently in his ear.
Surprised, he rose.
The petitioners shrank back, like water parting before the stem of a proud ship. Adelheid had little enough, a rich gown that had stood up remarkably well on their travels, rings and necklaces fit for her station, black hair that had come partially undone to lap her shoulders and frame her pretty face, but most importantly she had youth, and intensity, and a determined, rapturous expression.
Henry took a step forward. He had the kind of stunned look on his face that afflicts very young men who have seen a beautiful woman smile at them for the first time. But he had been king for almost twenty years; he knew how to collect himself.
“Word was brought me that your party had been sighted,” he said, “but I did not expect to see you so soon. Daughter.” He extended a hand, brought Theophanu to him, and allowed her to kiss him on either cheek. “Bring a chair,” he said to his stewards. “One for my left hand.” He indicated to Theophanu that she should sit there, but it was obvious that he was having a difficult time keeping his gaze off Adelheid. “And one for my right.”
“King Henry,” she said, in greeting. “Well met.”
“Queen Adelheid. You are welcome in my kingdom. I pray you, sit beside me and rest.”
She gestured to her servants to open the little chests they carried. “Truly, after such a journey in desperate circumstances, I cannot rest until I am sure of your intentions. See what I have brought.” Her voice rang easily throughout the hall. Clasps were opened; oiled hinges wheeled. A servingwoman knelt and uncoiled cloth from the objects nestled in the first chest: two burnished gold crowns set with rubies. “These are the queen’s crown and the king’s crown of Aosta,” she went on, “which I have rescued from the grasp of John Ironhead. I have with me also all that I could salvage: the tribute lists, the royal insignia, the seals, the scepter, and the royal cup of the Adeline line, and the robe of the blessed Daisan which we have kept in our treasure for a hundred years. These things I have brought to you, for surely you have heard by now that I was driven from my throne by one unworthy to hold it. I am in need of your aid, Henry.”
She paused to look once around the hall, as if gauging her audience, as if measuring them. The last of the combs holding up her hair, already jogged loose, slipped out and fell to the floor just as her hair tumbled down in a sensuous fall. A servant bent to retrieve the comb, but Henry reached it first, picked it up, and with a sudden and quite startling smile presented it to Adelheid as if it were a precious jewel rather than a simple ivory comb.
Their hands touched.
Only Rosvita and the servingwomen stood close enough to hear Adelheid’s hoarse whisper. “You are everything I expected you would be.”
Ai, Lady! What man was proof against a young, passionate, and pretty woman who held in her possession the crowns of the realm he had so long desired? Not Henry.
The comb dropped unheeded to the floor as he clasped her hands tightly. “Come,” he said, and it was possible that his voice was a little unsteady. “Sit beside me.”
This time Adelheid did not hesitate. She sat beside him in a chair only somewhat less finely carved than his own, and Theophanu sat as well, to his left. Seated, Henry saw Rosvita and beckoned her forward.
“Sister Rosvita! My most valued adviser!” He clasped her hands as she knelt before him. As always, the sheer force of his approval staggered her. Was it possible that she had subsisted so many months without it? Only now, separated from him for so long, did she truly realize how much she loved him. “I knew that if I entrusted you with this task, you would succeed. You have brought me a great treasure.”
“Your Majesty,” she said, for once at a loss for words. But she had been trained in a hard school, she knew the court, and she knew what traps and pits to avoid. Theophanu sat so still that she might have been posing as the image of the queen in an ancient fresco. Rosvita knew when to be prudent, and when to be frank. She used the business of bending to pick up the comb to give herself a few moments to find the right words. It was, after all, no simple ivory comb but rather one fit for a queen: studded with pearls and tiny opals and carved in the shape of a leopard. When she straightened, comb in hand, she spoke.
“Indeed, Your Majesty, it is your daughter, Princess Theophanu, who should receive all credit for any success this expedition has had.”
“Nay, do not say so!” cried Adelheid. “My cousin Theophanu has been a strong companion to me in this crisis, but Sister Rosvita’s wisdom led us to escape. We are all beholden to her for her steadiness and firm counsel.”
He laughed. “We must celebrate this meeting with a feast,” he said, and as he gestured stewards scurried off to begin preparations.
But Adelheid frowned, ever so slightly, and she leaned toward him so that her shoulder brushed his. She wore a delicate perfume, musk of roses distilled from some sun-drenched Aostan garden. “Why not a wedding feast?” she declared boldly.
At once, whispers swept the hall as her question was relayed to those, in the back, who couldn’t hear. Rosvita could not help herself, it was such a brilliant flanking maneuver that she heard herself chuckle before she knew she meant to do so. Henry rarely looked startled, but he did so now. Yet he did not look displeased.
“I bring news,” said Theophanu, stirring in her seat like a woman who cannot find a comfortable place, “of my brother Sanglant.”
“Ah,” said Henry with a small smile. “Sanglant. He placed a hand over Adelheid’s smaller one. His hand rested on hers lightly, but firmly, and he seemed overtaken by some kind of sea change, a lightening of expression, a shift of perspective. Once, Rosvita had understood the shores of his ambition, but Adelheid had swept in, bearing with her an invisible tide that had altered the landscape. “We have also heard news of Sanglant, and I believe that you have with you in your retinue one who can reveal much more to us.”
It was Theophanu’s turn to look startled. “So I do, Father,” she said obediently.
“Well,” he said, reading reluctance in her otherwise placid expression, “now is not the time. Still, there remains the matter of Sanglant. Both Villam and Judith have ridden east to rally their marchlanders against the Quman threat. If there is war in the east and war coming in Aosta, then certainly we must hope to convince Sanglant to return to court.” This comment scarcely caused a ripple, given the swells that had passed through the crowd before. Henry turned to regard Rosvita with his most compelling gaze. “But I can make no decision without consulting the best of my counselors. What do you advise, Sister? How am I to respond to Adelheid’s proposal?”
Curiously, it was Hathui, standing behind the king’s chair, who lifted her chin to show support, or to suggest an answer. The hall lay as silent as any hall could be with fully three or four hundred people crammed inside, all sweating and struggling to get close enough to hear what would come next.
In that silence of coughs and shifting feet, a distantly shouted question floating in from outdoors, and the whine of some poor dog crushed in the crowd, Rosvita remembered Theophanu’s words at the convent of St. Ekatarina, the ones the princess had spoken when she thought Rosvita was still asleep: “What good is my high birth if our lord father marries again and sires younger children whom he loves more and sets above me? Why should I serv
e them, when I came before them? Is that not why the angels rebelled?”
Rosvita was fond of Theophanu, truly. She had sympathy for the difficult position that Theophanu had, all these years, handled with dignity and calm. She even admired Theophanu’s cool loyalty to her elder brother, Sanglant, and the constant, uncomplaining service she had given her father.
But Rosvita was Henry’s loyal servant first and foremost—after God, of course. Henry would always come first in her heart, and as his trusted counselor she had also to take into account what would benefit the kingdom as well the man himself. She stepped forward to offer him the ivory comb.
“You are still young, Your Majesty.” She needed to say nothing more. Like her, he was not more than forty-three years old.
He smiled brilliantly, and indeed he looked five years younger in that moment, as if Adelheid had brought in her train a spell of youth which she now spun over him. He brought the comb to his lips and kissed it gently, then turned over Adelheid’s hand and placed the comb in it, folding her fingers over it and sealing her grasp with his own hand, cupped over hers. She sat back with a sharp, satisfied, and vehement smile.
“Send ahead to Angenheim,” said Henry to his stewards and to every soul waiting in the hall. “Tell them to make ready for a wedding feast fitting for the marriage of a queen to a king!”
6
ZACHARIAS woke at sunrise. He ached all over from sleeping all night. Kansi-a-lari sat cross-legged in the shallow pit, arms raised to greet the sun. She was singing in her own language, and when she had finished, she bent to bathe her face in the pool of still water that had collected in the shallow pit over the night. With beads of water slipping down her chin, she swung to look at him.
