He bowed his head obediently. Monica lectured for a while more, the words so familiar they sounded a drone in Rosvita’s ears. She stretched and rubbed her back, trying to be surreptitious about it, but Berthold, noticing, grinned at her before he finished writing his name.
Abruptly Rosvita became aware of voices from the garden outside, heard through the opened shutters of the window that let light wash over her desk. The others, children and clerics alike, concentrating on their work or on Monica’s lesson, seemed oblivious. Rosvita could not be.
Blessed Lady! The king’s daughters were quarreling again.
“I merely said I think you are unwise to allow such a man so much influence over your councils.”
“You’re jealous he chose my company over yours!”
“Of course that isn’t true. I am only concerned for your reputation. Everyone knows he is a charlatan.”
“He’s nothing of the kind! They’re all envious of his wisdom.”
“I thought they were all annoyed by his arrogance and his terrible manners.”
Rosvita sighed, laid down her quill, and wiped her fingers quickly on a rag, then rose from her stool, rubbing her aching back. Berthold looked up, startled; she signed to him to stay where he was. Cleric Monica merely nodded curtly at her, acknowledging her leavetaking; no doubt Monica knew and approved what she was about.
Rosvita hastened down the aisle of the scriptorium, cut through the sacristy—startling the aged brother in charge who had fallen asleep by the vestments—and came out into the rose garden in time to see the two sisters in their full glory by the fountain.
They were a strange admixture of their parents. Sapientia was, like her mother, small and dark and neat, but she had in all other ways the look of her father about her, including the unfortunate tendency to flush a bright red when she lost her temper.
Theophanu had the greater height and the finer figure, robust and well-formed, but also her mother’s unnatural coolness of temperament; Eastern wiles, the courtiers called it, and had never entirely trusted Queen Sophia, although they had wept as grievously as any when she was laid to rest. No doubt, thought Rosvita uncharitably, because they knew the accepted order of King Henry’s court, molded over the sixteen years of Henry and Sophia’s rule, would be thrown all into chaos when he married a new queen.
“You’re furious because Father wishes to name me as margrave of Eastfall and give me those lands to administer. You want them yourself!” Sapientia’s complexion by now rivaled that of the bright pink floribundas twining up the stone wall that bounded the private garden, although the color did not become her as well as it did the roses.
In eighteen years Rosvita had never yet seen Theophanu lose her temper, not even as a small child. Unnatural girl! She had many more effective ways of making her elder sister angry. “I trust that Father will add to my estates when he deems it time. I have never found it worthwhile to beg for duties before he is willing to settle them on me.”
Rosvita hurried forward. Poor Sapientia, in the face of this insult that so pointedly must remind her of yesterday’s tempest, was about to succumb to one of her famous rages.
“Your Gracious Highnesses,” said Rosvita just as Sapientia drew breath, “I have found you at last!” The bright statement had its intended effect: Sapientia, caught in the moment before speaking, lost hold of her thought.
Theophanu arched one eyebrow provocatively. “You bring news?” she asked politely, although Rosvita knew perfectly well the princess was not fooled by this transparent ploy.
Rosvita recalled the message from her father and blessed Our Lady for the inspiration. “It is only a small family matter, nothing important, but with great humility I venture to speak of it before you, Your Highnesses.”
“You must confide in us at once.” said Sapientia, coming forward to take Rosvita’s hands in hers. “We will do all we can.”
Theophanu simply lifted a hand in assent. “I have a brother, named Ivar, who has just been sent into orders. He is to become a monk at the monastery ruled over by Mother Scholastica, at Quedlinhame. I had hoped you might show some favor to me and my family by asking your Aunt Scholastica to watch over him in his early days there. He is very young, perhaps two or three years younger than you, Your Highness.” She nodded at Theophanu. “And I believe from the tone of my father’s letter that it was not Ivar’s intention to enter the church.”
“He is a younger son,” said Sapientia. “What else might he have wanted?”
“I cannot know his mind. I have only met him twice. He was born at least ten years after I left home to become a novice at Korvei. He is the child of my father’s second wife, who is a daughter of the countess of Hesbaye.”
“Ah, yes, she had three daughters by her third husband.” Sapientia released Rosvita’s hands and paced over to the dry fountain. Four stone unicorns, rearing back on their hind legs, regarded her calmly, their stippled surface streaked with old water trails from the spray that had coursed out from their manes and horns. Damaged by winter storms, the fountain had not yet been repaired. Father Bardo had apologized most profusely when the king and his court had arrived at Hersford Monastery to find the garden’s charming centerpiece not working.
It was a warm day for spring, going on hot. Without a cooling spray to refresh the courtyard, Rosvita felt the heat radiating up from the mosaic tile that surrounded the broken fountain.
“Her daughter, who is now the wife of Helmut Villam, spoke in my favor last night,” Sapientia continued, then laughed. “It will be interesting to see who buries more spouses before they themselves die, Helmut Villam or the countess of Hesbaye. But Villam is on his fifth wife now, is he not? The countess’ fourth husband is still alive. She will have to send him away to war as she did with all the others.”
“That was a tactless thing to say,” said Theophanu. “It is no wonder Father won’t send you on your progress.”
Sapientia whirled away from her contemplation of the fountain, took two strides to her sister, and slapped her.
“Lady preserve me,” Rosvita muttered, hastening forward.
Theophanu neither smiled in triumph nor cried out in pain; her face was as flat as polished wood. “Their loss should not be fodder for your amusement.”
“Now, now,” said Rosvita, hurriedly placing herself between the two young women. “Let us not argue and strike out when we feel the heat of our passions on us. ‘It is well to speak first,’ as the blessed Daisan said when his disciples asked him what to do when false accusations of sorcery were laid against them.”
“‘For the truth shall make us free,’” finished Theophanu.
Sapientia burst into noisy sobs of thwarted anger and fled the garden. From a half-hidden bench a maidservant jumped up and followed her inside.
“I am not sure it is wise to bait your sister in this fashion.”
“If she would only think before she speaks—” Theophanu broke off, turned, and took several steps forward to greet the man who emerged at that moment into the courtyard. Like the two young women, he wore a gold torque, braids of solid gold twisted into a three-quarters circle, around his neck. Theophanu knelt. “Father.”
He laid a hand on her dark hair.
Rosvita knelt as well. “Your Majesty.”
“You must rise, my most valued cleric,” said the king. “I have an errand for you, which I am assured only you can accomplish.”
Rosvita rose and faced King Henry. As a young man he had been, like his elder daughter, rash at times; now, as always these days, he wore a grave expression that contrasted well with the bright lights of his silvering hair. “I am your servant, Your Majesty.” She could not quite restrain a smile. “Your praise honors me.”
“No more than it should, my friend. You will indulge me, I hope, by carrying out this errand at once.”
“Of course.”
“Father Bardo tells me there is a hermit, a holy monk, who lives in a cell in the hills above the monastery. He is old and w
as once, I am told, a scholar.”
Despite herself, Rosvita felt her heart beat faster. An old man, and a scholar as well! Always there were new things to be discovered from the testimony of such people.
“He is known to be well versed in the laws of the Emperor Taillefer, to have knowledge of capitularies of those times that have been lost to us. But he is reluctant to break his contemplation, so says Father Bardo.”
“Then ought we to ask him to break his contemplation, Your Majesty?”
“There are some things I need to know about inheritance.” His tone, barely, betrayed agitation. Theophanu looked up sharply at her father, but said nothing. “As for you, Rosvita, Father Bardo says this holy monk has heard of your work compiling a history of the Wendish people for my blessed mother and might be willing to speak with you. Perhaps his curiosity outweighs his serenity.” He said it with the secular lord’s fine disregard for the pursuits of those sworn to the church.
Or his meditations on the Lady’s and Lord’s Holy Works had not yet quieted his passion for learning. But Rosvita did not voice this thought out loud.
“You are thinking the same thing,” said the king, with a smile.
“I am, indeed.”
“Then you must speak your mind freely in front of me, or how else will I benefit from your wise counsel?”
Now, Rosvita did smile. She had always liked Henry, as much as one allowed oneself to like the heir and later king; in recent years, however, as he had drawn her more tightly into his orbit, she had also come to respect him. “Then I must ask you if there is some certain thing you are hoping to discover from such an interview.”
The king lifted his hand from Theophanu’s head and glanced around the courtyard. Behind a hedge of cypress, Rosvita saw two courtiers waiting in discreet attendance: One, the elder man, was Helmut Villam, the king’s constant companion and most trusted adviser; the other was hidden by the leaves.
“Where is your sister?” Henry said to his daughter. “I was told the two of you walked here together.”
“She has gone inside.”
“If you will wait, then, with Villam, I would have you come riding with me.”
“I will attend you, Father.” She rose and retreated obediently to stand with the others. Rosvita caught a glimpse of Berthold Villam. Evidently he had slipped out after her to find out what all the fuss was about. The other person in attendance, now visible, was the formidable Judith, margrave of Olsatia and Austra. Behind the margrave hovered several servants.
The spring sun, glaringly hot in the enclosed garden of stone and hedge and roses, suddenly vanished, cloaked by a cloud.
“You know what is whispered,” said Henry. “What none of them will say aloud.”
The dukes and margraves, counts and biscops and clerics and courtiers who populated the king’s progress spoke freely and volubly of the great concerns of the day: Would Henry’s sister Sabella break into open revolt against him? Was this to be a summer of raids along the northern coast, or would the Eika land, as was rumored, with an army? What did the skopos in Darre mean to do about the whispers of heresy taking root inside the church?
But on one subject they were silent, or spoke in circles that surrounded but never touched the heart of the issue. In the terrible arguments that had raged yesterday afternoon and in the tense feast that had followed, where whispers and glances continued the dispute, one name had not been spoken so that it could be heard.
“Sanglant,” she said, pronouncing it in the Salian way: sahnglawnt.
“And what is it they say about Sanglant?”
“They speak not of Sanglant but of you. They say your sentiment has overreached your reason. They say it is time to send Sapientia on her progress so she may be judged worthy or unworthy of being named as your heir. And if not Sapientia, then Theophanu.”
“Theophanu is not as well liked.”
“Not in general, no.”
“Yet she is the more capable, Rosvita.”
“It is not my place to judge such matters.”
“Then whose is it?” He sounded impatient now.
“It is yours, Your Majesty. Such is the burden laid on the sovereign king by Our Lady and Lord.”
He arched one eyebrow; for an instant she saw how much Theophanu resembled him, in wit and intelligence if not feature. The church bell began to toll, calling the monks to the service of Sext. She smelled charcoal in the air and the stench of meat being seared over hot coals in preparation for roasting and the night’s feast. After a long pause, Henry spoke again. “What do they say about Sanglant?”
Better to tell him the truth he already knew but chose, out of sentiment, to ignore. “That he is a bastard, Your Majesty. That he is not a true man. Whatever other fine qualities he certainly has, and which are fully acknowledged, can never compensate for his birth and his mother’s blood.” She hesitated, then went on. “Nor ought they to.”
He looked annoyed but he did not respond at once. The bell fell into silence; she heard the whisper of monks’ robes as the last stragglers made their way to the chapel within the cloister where they would pray.
“I will attend service,” he said. “But you will visit the hermit nevertheless, Rosvita. And you will discover whether this holy monk knows of precedent for a child born to a concubine or other unofficial union being named as heir.”
His voice dropped even as he said the fateful words. Only she heard them. But surely every man and woman who followed along on the king’s progress knew what was in his mind: that his eldest child, the bastard son of an Aoi woman who had emerged from unknown lands to enchant the young Henry on his heir’s progress, was and always had been his favorite, though he had three legitimate children by Queen Sophia who were each possessed of a sound mind and body.
She caught a glimpse in his face then of an ancient longing, a passion never extinguished, never fulfilled. But quickly it was covered by the mask of stone worn by the king.
“I will do as you ask, Your Majesty,” she said, and bowed her head to the inevitable. Although surely nothing good could come of this obsession.
IX
THE DRAGONS
1
TEN days after leaving Heart’s Rest, Liath sat on the old stone wall and enjoyed the spring sun. She was tired, but not overly so; free of Hugh, she had recovered her strength quickly.
This moment of respite she used to study the layout of the holding of Steleshame: the dye vats sheltered under a lean-to; the henhouse; two cauldrons spitting with boiling water attended by three women who stirred wool cloth as it shrank; felters at work in the sun; two of the blacksmith’s boys linking tiny iron rings into mail; furs stretched and strung to cure.
Here, within the large courtyard protected by a palisade of wood, lay the remains of an older structure. The Eagles had thrown up an outpost and used the old dressed stone to build a tower for defense. The householder and her relatives lived in a timber longhouse, and the stables were also built of wood. Only the skeleton of the old fort was left, straight lines squared to the equinoxes and the solstices, the map of the sun. She could trace these bones with her eyes, and read, here and there, inscriptions in old Dariyan cut into the stone by the soldiers and craftsman who had inhabited this place long ago.
Lucian loves the red-haired woman.
Estephanos owes Julia eight quiniones.
Let it be known that this outpost has been erected by the order of Arki-kai Tangashuan, under the auspices of the Most Exalted Empress Thaissania, she of the mask.
Liath knelt to wipe dirt from this last inscription, graven into a block of stone half sunk in the ground next to the watering trough. For how many years had it lain here, trampled by horses and cattle, scoured by wind and dust, drenched by rain? She coughed, sucking in a mouthful of dust blown up by a gust of wind. Her fingers, scraping, reached beaten earth; the inscription extended farther yet, buried in the ground.
“‘She of the mask,’” said Wolfhere, behind her. “The heathen empress
before whom the blessed Daisan stood without fear and proclaimed the Holy Word and the saving Mercy of the Lady and Lord of Unities.”
Surprised, Liath bolted up unsteadily. Wolfhere smiled, a baring of teeth.
“Do not deny you can read it, child. Both your father and mother were church educated, and when you were but six years of age you could read old Dariyan texts with the skill of a scholar bred in the convent.”
“Surely not,” she blurted out, embarrassed.
His smile now seemed less forced. “Not with the skill of an adult perhaps, but astonishing in one so young. Come, now. There is an armory here, and we must find you weapons that are suitable. Mistress Gisela’s niece is sewing borders on new cloaks for you and Hanna.”
Hanna was already at the tower, trying the weight of swords. She handled the weapons awkwardly. They had traveled for ten days and during that time Hathui and Manfred had tested Liath and Hanna in swordcraft and found them sorely wanting.
“Eagles are not soldiers,” Hathui was saying to Hanna as Liath and Wolfhere paused at the heavy iron-ribbed door that led into the round chamber at the base of the tower. “But you must know how to defend yourself against bandits and the king’s enemies. Ai! What do you know how to do, woman?”
“I can milk a cow, make butter and cheese,” puffed Hanna, “feed twenty travelers a good meal, chop wood, build a fire, salt and smoke meat, ret and spin flax—
Hathui laughed, lowering her sword. She was not winded. “Enough! Enough!” The two women had been sparring, circling while Manfred used a staff to fend off the stray children and dogs and chickens which infested the yard. “The Lady honors those who are chatelaine to a hearth, for is She not Herself Chatelaine to us all? But you’re hamfisted with the sword, Hanna. Manfred, give her a spear.” He obliged, and Hanna had only time to look longingly toward Liath—as if to say “I wish you were here and I there at the door”—before she handed him the sword and took up the spear.
“This is like a staff.” Hanna settled her hands into a comfortable grip on the haft. She tried a few whacks at the stout post sunk in the ground in the middle of the yard. To Liath’s surprise, Hanna grinned suddenly. “Thancmar and I have crossed staves a few times. When we were younger, we sparred with staves to pass the time while we were out with the sheep.”