In the Ruins

  He could not help anyway but be glad to see her, because he knew she would support him. He hoped she would support him. He needed her support.

  Theophanu had come armored with other great nobles of the realm besides Waltharia: Wichman’s twin sisters, Sophie and Imma, Biscop Suplicia of Gent, Biscop Alberada of Handelburg, two other women in biscop’s surplices whose names he did not know, and three abbots. Margrave Judith’s heir, named Gerberga, rode at Theophanu’s right hand. He did not know her well. Beside her rode his younger half brother, Prince Ekkehard, dressed as a noble, not as a cleric, and in any case easy to overlook among the rest.

  They were handsome women, each in her own way, splendid and terrible, a phalanx that could help him or harm him depending on their wishes and their whims. These were the powers of the realm in whose hands he must place his father’s body and in whose eyes he must prove his worthiness to rule as regnant.

  Three ranks of lesser nobles and courtiers rode behind them, all come to confront or placate the man who claimed Henry’s throne. Belatedly, he noticed that it was one of these, in the second rank, who had caught Liath’s attention. She stared, her expression fixed and cold and unreadable.

  “I will not,” she whispered, so low it was clear she meant no man or woman to hear her, but he had a dog’s hearing, keener than that of humankind. “I have climbed the ladder of the mages. I have walked through fire and lived. That which harmed me can harm me now only if I allow it to, and I will not.”

  A cold shock ran through him. He ought to have noticed. He had not. But Liath had. She had seen his beautiful face first of all:

  Hugh.

  5

  IT was a shock, but she let the anger and fear burn off her. A part of her would always remember, a part of her would always cringe. But not the greater part, not anymore. She could face what she had once feared without shrinking back from the expected blow.

  Still, it was hard to wait beside Sanglant when she did not feel comfortable acting as his consort, a person whose power and authority must be seen and felt at all times in public, with so many faces watching her, measuring her, judging her.

  The riders drew up on the road. Mother Scholastica raised a hand to halt the others. She surveyed Sanglant with an expression Liath could not interpret. At length, Princess Theophanu dismounted and assisted her aunt to dismount. After Mother Scholastica had both feet on the ground, the rest of the front rank dismounted in their turn. Liath did not know them all, but she was sure from their bearing, their pride, and their rich tunics and cloaks that they were nobles of the first rank, the equals whose support the regnant must obtain if he wanted the throne and crown of Wendar.

  There were few men among them—so many men had died fighting in the wars—and she was reminded of Sanglant’s confrontation with Li’at’dano and the centaurs, female all. He did not look in the least discomfited, but then, nothing about women made him uncomfortable. He neither feared nor exalted them, although it was certainly true that the Bwr shaman had annoyed him because of her lack of respect.

  “Well met, Brother,” said Theophanu, coming forward beside her aunt. She turned to Liutgard and spoke polite words of regret, which Liutgard accepted with a bitter glance for the silent abbess.

  “I pray you, Theophanu, Aunt, sit beside me.” He rose and invited them to step in under the awning where two stools had been set up to his right, but Mother Scholastica halted at the edge of the carpet, coming no farther, and Theophanu had perforce to stop beside her.

  Silence reigned. Sanglant sat back down while they remained standing.

  “Let us dispense with pleasantries,” Mother Scholastica said. “Theophanu has ridden far. Let her speak plainly.”

  “So I will,” said Theophanu in her cool way, “for I am weary, having ridden far. You have made a claim for our father’s throne. You have in your possession his corpus, awaiting decent burial. These things I acknowledge. Know this also: I have no army to fight you. I have a century of stout Lions, a hundred cavalry of my own retinue, and what levies we can raise out of Saony. Fesse and Avaria stand with you, I see.”

  “We do,” said Liutgard.

  “We do,” said Burchard, “and we witnessed Henry’s last words, when he named Prince Sanglant as his heir. We witnessed much else, but it is too much to tell here.” He ran a hand over his hair and staggered. Behind him, a steward steadied the old duke with a hand under the elbow.

  “Others mean to stand with you as well,” said Theophanu as one of the noblewomen in her entourage crossed the gap to approach Sanglant.

  He stood and extended his hands, and this woman placed her folded hands in his as a sign of allegiance. Liath did not know the woman, but she had heard stories, and there were only so many women who wore the margrave’s key and might exchange a glance as intimate as that with Sanglant.

  “You are well come back to Wendar, Sanglant.”

  “I pray for your forgiveness, Waltharia. You will have heard the news. I did not even find Druthmar’s body.”

  She was serious and sorrowful, wiping away tears, but not angry. She did not take the news too lightly, but she did not beat her breast and moan and wail. “I have wept, and will weep again,” she said gravely. She and Liutgard exchanged a knowing glance. “He knew the risk, and served as he was able.”

  “He was a good man,” said Sanglant.

  “Yes.” She looked past him to Liath, smiled with a strange expression, and spoke in a tone that balanced amused regret and sincere interest. “This is your bride, the one you spoke of?”

  “It is.”

  “Well met, Liathano.”

  “Well met,” Liath echoed, but she had a horrible, disorienting moment as she met Waltharia’s honest gaze.

  I will like her.

  Waltharia smiled slightly, withdrew her hands from his, and moved to stand beside Liutgard and Burchard. Liath felt the other woman’s presence like fire. It almost made her forget about Hugh, waiting with apparent humility in the second rank.

  Beautiful Hugh.

  He was not looking at her, and because of that, she kept glancing at him to see if he was looking.

  “It is no surprise that Villam is loyal to Sanglant,” said Theophanu. “Where is our sister Sapientia, Brother?”

  Sanglant sat down. “She may be dead. Certainly she is lost.”

  “It was your doing,” said Theophanu calmly, where another woman might rage or accuse.

  “I do not deny that I took control of the army from her. She was not fit to lead, Theophanu. I did not kill her.”

  Liath could not help but think of Helmut Villam, and perhaps Sanglant did as well, because he chose that moment to look toward Hugh. The other man had his gaze fixed modestly on the ground.

  Two noblewomen standing beside Theophanu spoke up.

  “No loss. She was always foolish.”

  “You would say that! Knowing foolishness as well as you do!”

  “I pray you, Sophie. Imma.” Theophanu did not raise her voice, but the two women fell silent. “Let us have neither quarreling nor levity. It is a serious matter to accuse one in our family of responsibility in the death of a sibling.”

  “We are not Salians or Aostans,” remarked Mother Scholastica, “to murder our kinfolk in order to gain preference or advantage for ourselves.”

  “Or Arethousans, for that matter, happy to sell a sister into slavery or death if it means wealth and title for oneself.” Wichman’s comment came unexpectedly, for he had loitered quietly to the left of Duke Burchard this entire time.

  “Have you a complaint, Wichman?” asked Sanglant.

  “Not at all. Sapientia was weak, and a fool. She’s better dead, if she’s dead. Henry named her as heir only after he thought you were dead. I don’t care if you’re a bastard, Cousin. Although certainly I know you are!” He laughed. “I care if you can win the war and hold the kingdom together. If you will, grant me the duchy of Saony. I’ll hold it honorably and support you.”

  Liath realized tha
t Sophie and Imma were sisters, as they got red in the face and burst into nasty, passionate speech.

  “And pass over the elder—!”

  “You snake! You are a viper to strike so at our heels!”

  “I pray you, silence!” said Sanglant. “Let me think on it, Wichman. I must consult with my sister, Theophanu. She has served ably as regent in my absence. Your sisters, as well, have a legal claim. My aunt’s counsel must also be heard.”

  “But you will still decide,” said Wichman with a sneer. “You have the army, and the strength, to do as you will.”

  “So be it,” said Theophanu. “Spoken crudely, but with truth. I cannot stop you from becoming regnant, Sanglant, and I am not sure I wish to. I have struggled to maintain order in Saony and not lose our family’s ancestral lands. In this way I have remained loyal to our father.”

  She paused, and Liath thought she meant to go on in this vein, to say something rash. But Theophanu did not possess a rash temperament.

  “So you have,” agreed Sanglant. “You have done well.”

  “I have done what I can. You will find that we are weak, and that the enemy’s minions are powerful. They have brought fear, famine, plague, strife, hunger, and heresy in their army. This is the battle you must fight now, Your Majesty.” A hint of emotion had crept into her voice. Liath thought her tone sarcastic, but it was difficult to tell because her expression did not change and her tone remained even, except for that edge that made each word sharp and cold. “You will not find it as easy a war to win.”

  “No battle is easy, Theophanu,” he said wearily. “I have seen too many of my trusted companions die. Our father died in my arms. What we won came at a great cost. Not just men at arms. The devastation I saw in Aosta was …” He struggled for words, and finally shrugged. “Aosta lies in ruins. We saw entire forests set ablaze, or flattened by the tempest. We saw a town swamped by a great wave off the sea. I have among my army some few clerics who escaped the holy city of Darre. They say that a volcano erupted to the west. That cracks opened in the earth throughout the plain of Dar and that poisonous fumes, the breath of the Enemy, foul the air so that no one can live there. Wendar has been spared such horrors, at least.”

  “Do you think so? We have suffered while you and our father abandoned us for other adventures, Sanglant. Do you not recall the Quman invasion? The endless bickering wars between Sabella and Henry? Plague in Avaria? The Eika assault on Gent? Drought and famine?”

  “So you see,” he agreed. “If we do not have order, then we will all perish.”

  “If you will.” Mother Scholastica lifted her staff, and they stopped talking. “If you will give Henry’s corpus to me, Sanglant, then those among my clerics who are trained in preparing the body for burial will do what is fitting. Let him be laid to rest now that he has returned to Wendar. After that, we will hold council in the church where Queen Mathilda is buried. Let us pray that the memory of his wisdom guides us to do what is right.”

  “Very well,” said Sanglant. “There is much to tell that you will not have heard.”

  “Much to tell.” Theophanu looked at their brother, Ekkehard, but he remained standing passively beside his wife, Gerberga, who was now the margrave of Austra and Olsatia because she was Judith’s eldest legitimate child.

  No love lost between those two, she thought, for Ekkehard’s stand suggested a coolness between him and his older wife. Hugh’s silence suggested volumes, which Liath could not yet read.

  How had Hugh come here? Where had he been? She had seen him briefly in the interstices of the great weaving, but he had vanished. Unlike the others, he had not died.

  Of course not.

  He shifted so slightly that no one who was not held by a taut thread to his presence would have noticed. She noticed. In the manner of a young woman who does not mean to inflame male desire by glancing up, just so, from under half-lowered lashes that suggest both desire and modesty, he looked up to meet her gaze.

  It was all there to be seen, all that he wished for, everything he remembered. He had not changed.

  But she had.

  Sanglant muttered a curse under his breath. His sword hand tightened on the arm of the chair. He rose, and Hugh looked away from Liath.

  “How soon can the funeral be held?” asked Sanglant.

  “We will need an entire day to prepare the body,” said the abbess. “The day after tomorrow is the Feast of St. Johanna the Messenger. It would be an auspicious day to commend his soul to God.”

  “So be it. I will bring his body to you at first light.”

  6

  HE rose before dawn. Barefoot, wearing only a simple shift, he walked beside the cart as it creaked up the road to the gates of Quedlinhame. The grind of the wheels on dirt sang a counterpoint to the multitudes who had gathered along the road to mourn the passing of their king. Folk of every station cried out loud, or tore their hair, or wept psalms: ragged beggars and sturdy farmers, craftsmen and women with callused hands, silk-clad merchants, and simple laborers. They sobbed as the cart rolled past, although in truth there was nothing to see except a chest padded by sacks of grain so it would not shift when the cart lurched in potholes and ruts.

  He wept, too, because it was expected of him but also because he grieved for his father, whom he had loved.

  He had lost so much, including his schola, Heribert and Breschius, but he had gained the remnants of Henry’s schola, and it was these who walked behind the cart carrying the Wendish crown and the Wendish banner to display to the crowd. They sang, in their sweet voices, the lament for the dead, although the wailing of the crowd almost drowned them out.

  “Put not your trust in the great.

  Not in humankind, who are mortal.

  A person’s breath departs.

  She returns to the dust.

  On that day her plans come to nothing.”

  At intervals he glanced back to be sure that Hathui was close by, guarded by Captain Fulk and his trusted soldiers. The others he did not fear for, but he knew Hathui might be in danger. Keep her close, he had told Fulk, and Fulk, unsmilingly, had agreed.

  They toiled up the slope and halted before the gates of the town. The bell rang for Lauds, and with a shout from the guard and the squeal of gears, the gates were opened.

  The townsfolk of Quedlinhame thronged the streets, falling back as Sanglant advanced in all his penitent splendor. The burden lay heavy. Soon he would be crowned and anointed, and after that day he would no longer be free. Duty would chain him as thoroughly as Bloodheart ever had, but duty had always chained him. Henry had known him better than anyone else. He had known that, in the end, the rebellious son would give way to the obedient one. He dared not blame his father. Henry had loved him best of all his children, though it might have been wiser not to have a favorite. No doubt Sapientia, Theophanu, and Ekkehard had suffered for getting less, although by birth and legitimacy they should have had more. As each step took him closer to the church and the royal funeral, he wondered what had become of Mathilda and Berengaria, his youngest half siblings. Was Adelheid dead, or had she somehow, impossibly, survived?

  Ai, God. What had become of Blessing? Would he ever know?

  The crowd pressed in behind the clerics, giving no right of way to the soldiers and noble captains who accompanied him, but Fulk pushed past them with Hathui in train. Keeping her close. A dozen beggars wearing the white rags of professional mourners raised such a cry of shrieking and yelping that he could no longer hear the clerics’ sweet song.

  He set his face forward and trudged up the hill to the convent, where his aunt, his sister, and his noble brethren waited on the broad porch of Quedlinhame’s church. He knew them for what they were: the dogs who would nip at his heels, just as Bloodheart had long ago predicted.

  X

  A VIGIL

  1

  LONG after the crowd of mourners and courtiers had left, deep into the night, he remained kneeling on the cold stone floor of the church, at the center of the
apse. Sometimes he wept; sometimes he prayed; sometimes he breathed in the sweetness of God’s presence. Why did one man live while another died? Why did God allow suffering? Why did the wicked flourish and remain so damned handsome, standing within the shield of their powerful relatives? As usual, he had no answers.

  He heard the door scrape and soft footfalls. At first he thought it was the guard changing at the door, perhaps Captain Fulk checking on him, and on Hathui, who knelt silently about ten paces behind him.

  Theophanu knelt beside him. She was accompanied by her faithful companion Leoba, who knelt with head bowed a little in front of the Eagle.

  Theophanu set a candle, in its holder, on the floor.

  “You mourn late,” she said in her bland voice.

  “Should I not?”

  Instead of answering, she rested her head on clasped hands and murmured a lengthy prayer.

  He remained silent, listening for God, but heard nothing except the sigh of wind through the upper arcades that housed the bells. Shadows hid the aisles and the painted ceiling. Even the ornamentation on the pillars was colorless, washed gray by night. Did God exist equally in the shadows and in the light?

  “He loved you better,” she said suddenly.

  “I know. I am sorry for your sake, Theo. You didn’t deserve to have less of his love.”

  She shrugged. “I became accustomed to it.”

  She was so frustrating. It was impossible to know what she was thinking. That was why folk didn’t quite trust her. He just didn’t have the patience, not anymore, but he held his tongue, waiting for her to continue.

  She wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on the coffin that rested before the altar, draped by Wendar’s banner. The mass had been sung. The hymns had gone on for hours. At dawn, Henry’s remains would be laid in the crypt beside those of his beloved mother, Queen Mathilda.