King's Dragon

  “Taillefer’s influence once extended as far as these lands. But he died without naming an heir, as you must know, Sister, for you, like your sisters at Korvei, study the old chronicles. And without an heir, his great empire soon fell to strife between warring claimants for his throne.”

  “He had living daughters.”

  “Legitimate daughters, of whom three were in the church. But in the Salian tradition only men are allowed to be sovereign, and their women queen consort, not more than that.”

  “Yet Our Lady and Lord reign together in the Chamber of Light.”

  His breath whistled out, and she listened to him breathe for a bit, gathering strength again. “Did the blessed Daisan himself not say that ‘people have established laws in each country by that liberty given them by God?’ People do not lead their lives in the same manner. So is it with the Salians and the Wendish peoples.”

  “So did the blessed Daisan remind us that we are not slaves to our physical nature.”

  He wheezed out a soft laugh and then, again, she had to wait while he regained his breath.

  “Some chronicles say,” Rosvita added, “that Queen Radegundis was pregnant when her husband died, and that it was this child—had it been a boy—whom Taillefer would have named as his heir. But no one knows what became of the child, whether it was stillborn, murdered, or not brought to term.”

  “Radegundis never spoke of the child. Of all those who were at Taillefer’s court at that time, only one servingwoman by the name of Clothilde remained by St. Radegundis’ side throughout her years in the cloister. Perhaps she knew the answer to the mystery, but she kept silence also. It is that silence which brought about the end of Taillefer’s great empire. If a boychild had been born and acknowledged, that boy would indeed have reigned after him. If Queen Radegundis could have found support among the Salian and Varren nobility, for enough years, to raise the child to manhood.”

  Rosvita reflected gravely on Sabella, raising revolt against a king as strong as Henry. Imagine how much more likely the nobles would be to fight over a throne held by a child. No infant was safe from the intrigues of the great princes, all of whom sought power. According to the histories, Radegundis had been very young when she had married Taillefer, more pretty than well-born, for by his sixty-fifth year Taillefer could choose his wives as he pleased. No young queen without strong family connections could hope to guide her child safely through such a world, with so many dukes and counts set against her.

  “In Varre or Wendar,” continued Fidelis, “the one daughter who was not pledged to the church would have inherited and held the throne, if she was strong enough. But the Salians preferred a bastard boy to a legitimate girl. With my own eyes, when I still lived at St. Radegundis Cloister, I read a capitulary from that time, stating that an illegitimate son could inherit a father’s portion. This is why the dukes and counts of Salia and the bastard sons of Taillefer—for he had as many concubines as wives—fought over the empire and brought it to ruin.”

  This, thought Rosvita sadly, was the message King Henry wanted to hear: “A capitulary stating that an illegitimate son could inherit.” Yet she hesitated, for Brother Fidelis also spoke of ruin. “Then a bastard son could inherit throne and crown in Salia?”

  “One did. He ruled for four years before he was murdered by the due de Rossalia under the flag of truce. And for his perfidy, the due de Rossalia was punished by the fitting justice of Our Lady and Lord: His lands were purged and plundered for twenty years by the raids of the Eika savages until no house was left unburned and all his people fled. But the throne passed to distant cousins of Taillefer, not his own seed, legitimate or otherwise, and his lineage vanished from the Earth.”

  Rosvita allowed herself a deep sigh. Four years. Not an auspicious or stable reign.

  “This is not what you wished to hear?” asked Brother Fidelis. She felt that he could see her expression, indeed, practically see into her very soul.

  “It is not what I wish that matters. But perhaps, Brother, it is this message—of ruin and the downfall of bastard sons—that needs to be spoken to King Henry.”

  “Even I, in my hut, have heard whispers of the bastard son Henry got with an Aoi woman. The birds sing of this child, and at night when I am at my meditations the daimones of the upper air whisper to each other of the child’s progress from infant to youth to man, so that I cannot help but hear them.”

  Was he jesting or serious? She could not tell. Nor did he elaborate. His breath whistled, a thin sound in the quiet afternoon, as fragile as the desiccated straw that had fallen from the thatch to the cold earth below. Rosvita felt the hard pressure of dirt on her knees. One of her feet was falling asleep.

  “Speak to me of your work,” he said.

  And she heard in his voice the same yearning that ate away at her; a constant curiosity, like a mouse’s hunger, insistent and gnawing.

  “I am writing a history of the Wendish people, which will be presented to King Henry’s mother, Queen Mathilda. She now resides at the convent at Quedlinhame where she has found peace, I trust, and where she watches over her son and her other children. Much of the history will deal with the reigns of the first Henry and the two Arnulfs, for it is by their efforts that the Wendish people rose to the power they now have.”

  She thought. He breathed, patient. The task of writing this history rose before her in her mind’s eye, daunting and yet attractive exactly because it was a challenge. And this man, certainly, would understand what drove her, her curiosities, her fears, the need to investigate and discover. “I have worked as one who walks in a wide forest where every path lies covered deep in snow. I have had no one to guide me while I made my way forward, sometimes wandering devious paths, sometimes hitting the trail. There is so much you might tell me, Brother Fidelis. So much you must know! So much you must have seen with your own eyes or heard from those who did see!”

  “I have little breath left to me.” So weak was this utterance that she thought for a moment she had only imagined it. “Indulge me, Sister. As a child confesses to its mother, may I confess to you now?”

  She was aware of bitter disappointment. But she could not refuse him. “I have taken orders as a deacon. I can hear confessions.”

  He spoke very slowly now, a few labored words with each wheezing breath. “I have sinned once, and greatly, for lying with a woman. That was many years ago, though I think of her still with affection. I have tried to be content. I have tried to still the anger that eats away at my heart. And so at last I have found peace of a kind. I have looked away from the world and seen that its temptations mean nothing compared to the promise of the Chamber of Light.” He had such a kind voice, that of a man who sees his own faults and forgives himself for them—not arrogantly or leniently but with wisdom—knowing that he, as are all humans, is hopelessly flawed. “But still devils visit me. Not in the guise of women, as they so afflict some of my brothers. Not even in the guise of she whom I recall so clearly.” Now he paused. To hear him breathe, harsh rasps torn out of a weak and failing chest, was painful. “But in the guise of scholars and magi, tempting me with knowledge, if only … if only I would …”

  His voice failed. She could hear his breath, so faint the flapping of a butterfly’s wings might have drowned it out. All at once she became aware of the world beyond her. The birds still sang. Were they singing of the deeds of Sanglant? But she could not understand their language. Berthold had clambered to the top of the outcropping and was surveying the lands below with evident pleasure. The vitality of youth sang out from his figure where he stood—never completely still—at the edge of a sheer drop-off. Villam had stationed himself at the base of the outcropping and was clearly annoyed, or worried, but unwilling to raise his voice and thus disturb the holy man.

  It was hot, though the sun was hidden behind clouds. Sweat had broken out under her wool robe, trickling down her spine. She restrained herself from wiping her neck. Any movement on her part might cover Brother Fidelis’ next wo
rds.

  She heard him shift within the tiny hut. “If only I would tell them what I knew of the secrets of the Seven Sleepers. But I swore never again to speak of these things. And yet …”

  She waited. He did not continue.

  From inside the hut she heard the sound of something being dragged, not something as heavy as a body, something light but solid. A shadow crossed the slit cut into the door, then a dark shape slowly emerged. Heart beating suddenly fast, Rosvita took hold of it and drew it out.

  It was a book.

  Laboriously bound, stitched out of parchment leaves, it was a book written in a clear, elegant hand.

  “On this I have labored many years when I should have been meditating on the Holy Word of God in Unity. I pass it on to you, so that it will hold my spirit on this earth no longer. Godspeed, Sister. May Our Lady and Lord watch over your labors. Do not forget what you have learned here. Fare you well.”

  She stared at the book. Inscribed on the cover were these words: The Vita of St. Radegundis.

  Then, finally, his last words registered: Fare you well.

  “Brother Fidelis?”

  The sun came out from behind the clouds, blinding her momentarily, its light was so unexpectedly bright.

  “Go, then,” his voice said, sounding in her ears. Spoken like a command, strong and firm, it was utterly unlike the frail voice with which she had conversed through the screen of branches.

  She rose, keeping a tight hold on the book. “Fare you well, Brother. I thank you. I will keep your words locked in my heart.”

  Did she hear him smile? It was only her fancy. The hut stood in front of her, small and ragged, as poor a hovel as any beggar might build for himself to keep the rain off his back. She backed away, not wanting to turn her back on the old man, for fear of seeming disrespectful. Stumbled over the ground.

  Villam caught her arm. “The interview is ended?”

  “It is over.” She looked back. No sign of life came from the hut.

  “I heard nothing, and saw nothing,” said Villam. “Except my son, climbing like a young squirrel trying to dash its brains out on the cliffs below.”

  “Let us go,” said Rosvita. She did not have the heart to speak of their conversation.

  Villam accepted her reticence. He signed to his men. Together they made their way back along the trail, this time skirting the clearing of fallen stones. Rosvita was too sunk in thought to observe the clearing or even think much of it, though Berthold tried to detour over to one of the mounds and was stopped by his father.

  King Henry would not like what Brother Fidelis had said, not if Henry wished to name Sanglant as his heir. It was all very well to say a bastard might inherit the throne in Salia. But not when the price was death, civil war, and the extinction of a noble lineage. Perhaps Henry would see reason. He was a good man and a good king, and he had three strong legitimate children.

  But that was not what ate at her. Like a hand scratching at a door, the question nagged at her. Who were the Seven Sleepers?

  In all her reading and study, preparing to write her work of history, she had come across a few references to the Seven Sleepers. It was an innocuous story, one of many set among the tales of the early martyrs; even Eusebe mentioned it, in passing, in her Ecclesiastial History.

  In the time of the persecution of Daisanites by the Dariyan Emperor Tianathano, seven young persons in the holy city of Sai’s took refuge in a cave to gain strength before they presented themselves for martyrdom; the cave miraculously sealed over them and there they were left to sleep until …

  Until when? That Rosvita had never learned, or even thought to ask. As she had learned over twenty years of studying the chronicles and interviewing eyewitnesses to events fifty years ago, not all tales were necessarily true.

  But something in the way Brother Fidelis had said the words, his hesitation, his suggestion that creatures who were not human worried at him in his solitude, plaguing him to make him speak of these “seven sleepers,” made her think this was more than just a legend.

  “You are solemn, Sister Rosvita,” said Villam, understandably trying to draw her out.

  “I have much to think about,” she said. He was too well mannered to press her.

  2

  THAT night they celebrated the Feast of St. Susannah, a saint beloved by cobblers and goldsmiths and jewelers. The king’s retinue filled up the old monastery’s guest houses and half the villages within an hour’s walk of the cloister, in addition to those who stayed in tents pitched in the surrounding pastures. The brother cellarer, in charge of provisioning the monastery, was actually heard to mutter that the king’s retainers were too many and too fond of their food and wine.

  Henry presented a sober face to the assembly. Only Rosvita and Villam knew why she had spoken to the old hermit. Only Rosvita knew the content of that interview and Henry’s reaction to it when she had told him the whole.

  He had thought for a long time while she stood, patient and silent, beside him. Although Father Bardo had offered his own study to Henry, to use as bedchamber and receiving room, Henry chose the upstairs room in the chief guest house. The room was spacious but boasted no ornamentation.

  Here, with both shutters open to the spring air, she and King Henry were alone for a brief time.

  Except on formal occasions, Henry always dressed in the style of his people, if more richly than most: knee-length tunic trimmed with gold braid; leggings and; at this time of year, soft leather boots worked with eagles and lions and dragons, the three pillars on which his power was built. The Eagles were his messengers, the Lions his faithful foot soldiers, and the Dragons his heavy cavalry, the pride of his army. But these were only his personal weapons.

  His power as king of all Wendar and Varre rested on the submission of the great princes of the realm to his overlordship.

  His black leather belt was embossed with the sigils of the six dukedoms, painted in gold: a dragon for Saony, a lion for Avaria, an eagle for Fesse, a guivre for Arconia, a stallion for Varingia, where horses were bred, and a hawk for Wayland.

  He wore four gold rings, one for each of the march-lords: Helmut Villam, Judith of Olsatia and Austra, and Werinhar of Westfall. The margrave of Eastfall was dead now and the ring she had received in her turn from Henry lost on the battlefield or stolen away by looters to adorn some Quman lord out on the grasslands.

  A fifth ring, bearing the seal of his sovereignty, he wore on a golden chain around his neck.

  He wore no crown. It traveled, along with his robe of state, his scepter, and the Holy Lance of St. Perpetua, Lady of Battles, in an oak chest carved with griffins and dragons grappling in eternal war.

  He listened to Rosvita’s account of her interview with Brother Fidelis. He considered it while she waited. In his youth he had been more impetuous, blurting out his first thoughts. Now, eighteen years after his election to the throne of Wendar and Varre, he had mastered the skill of sitting still.

  “But Taillefer did not himself designate one of those illegitimate sons as his heir,” he had said finally. “I need only look at my own family. Sabella was found unfit to rule, just as I would have been, had I not proven myself capable. In that case my father would have designated one of my sisters, or my brother Benedict, as heir. But he chose to present me to the dukes and margraves for their affirmation after my heir’s progress. Taillefer did not single out any child, bastard or otherwise. If he had, events might have fallen out differently.”

  Rosvita was left none the wiser, for though she asked circumspectly, he offered no more insight into what he meant to do. His daughters Sapientia and Theophanu sat on either side of him at the great feast that night. His young son Ekkehard was prevailed upon to sing, accompanying himself on the lute; the child truly did have a sweet voice. If Henry chose to put Ekkehard in the church, his would be a fine voice raised in prayer to heaven.

  At midmorning the next day two Eagles rode in, covered with dust, travel-worn and weary. They brought grave n
ews.

  “Gent is besieged,” said the senior of the two women, a grim woman who favored her left leg. She was not reticent in addressing King Henry. “We were five Eagles, riding to Gent to see the truth of these rumors for ourselves. Within sight of the city but outside the walls, we were set upon by Eika. I was wounded in the attack. So my comrade—” Here she indicated the other woman, who was young, perhaps the age of Berthold or Theophanu. “—and I fled west to carry this news to you, Your Majesty. We rode part of the way with a company of Dragons. They escorted a deacon and a holy relic to safety. The rest of the Dragons, including Prince Sanglant, remain besieged within Gent.”

  “You say it is a raiding party?” asked Henry quietly.

  She shook her head. “Not according to the Dragons who escorted us, Your Majesty. At last count there were fifty-two Eika ships.”

  Henry was sitting on a bench in the unicorn courtyard, attended by his companions and courtiers. This information sent up a murmur, quickly stilled when Henry lifted a hand to quiet them. “Do you think they mean to invade?”

  “According to Sturm—he was the commander of the company we rode with—the Eika want the bridges that connect Gent to the east and west shore of the river thrown down. That way they can raid upriver at their leisure.”

  “And this Commander Sturm, where is he now?”

  “He returned to the vicinity of Gent. He and his men hope to harry the Eika outside the walls, to aid their brethren trapped within.”

  Henry glanced to his right, where Helmut Villam stood. “Gent lies within the lands administered by Count Hildegard, does it not?”

  Villam nodded.

  “What of her forces?” the king asked.

  “I do not know,” admitted the Eagle. “They are not within the city. Certainly she must have news of the siege by now.”

  The king gestured, and a servant brought him a cup of wine. He sipped at it thoughtfully. “You said there were five Eagles?”

  The woman nodded. Her companion, already pale, began to look quite white, the look of a person who has spent many sleepless hours in fruitless worrying; she had the light complexion that betrayed northern blood, light blue eyes and coarse wheat-blonde hair twisted into braids. The older woman betrayed neither anger nor grief. “The others rode on. I don’t know if they got into the city safely, but I believe they did.”