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By now the king had come up to the others, and in their babble of voices Liath heard repeated over and over that all dozen or so there and even in addition the foresters had seen not Theophanu but a deer.
“Witchcraft,” someone said.
“A miracle,” said another.
“Too many damn fool young hotheads hunting for prizes and seeing visions in the mist,” said Villam with disgust.
“This day’s hunt ends now,” said King Henry. A groom helped him dismount. He came up to his daughter and extended a hand. She took it, and he raised her up off the ground. “You are unhurt?” he asked. Villam by now had forced order into the milling mob behind them, pressing them back from the frightened horse. Far away, hounds bayed wildly. Henry released Theophanu’s hand and beckoned a huntsman forward. “Follow the hounds,” he said, “and bring back to the lodge whatever meat you take.”
The man nodded. Soon, foresters and huntsmen went on alone, though some of the young nobles clearly wished to go with them.
“May I have a moment alone to collect my wits, Father,” Theophanu. asked, “before I ride again?”
He gestured to his attendants to back off and himself moved away. Liath began to retreat, but Theophanu signed to her, and Liath hesitated, afraid to be seen with her, afraid not to obey.
“Was it an accident?” the princess repeated, her gaze hard, her mouth a thin line. “Did my sister devise this treachery?”
The thought of Sapientia concocting any kind of intrigue made Liath’s mouth drop open in amazed disbelief. “Your sister? No! But it was not an accident—” Then she broke off. She had revealed too much.
Theophanu said nothing for a long while. Slowly, one scratched and bleeding hand came up to touch the panther brooch that held her cloak closed. “Was it sorcery? And from whose hand?”
“I can prove nothing, Your Highness. I know only what I saw.”
“Or did not see.” She looked up at a sight behind Liath’s back, and away quickly, as if she was ashamed. “Am I any better than those who saw a deer in the forest, which is only what they wished to see?” With a jerk and a sudden grimace, she ripped the panther brooch off her cloak and flung it behind her into the leaves. “I am in your debt, Eagle. What reward can I give you?”
She blurted it out, not meaning to say it, but it was more impassioned for its rash honesty. “Get me away from him, I beg you.”
“‘The meekness of the dove with the cunning of the serpent,’” Theophanu muttered. “But I need proof.” Still pale, she groped through the leaves until she found the brooch again. Gingerly, as though it were poison, she tucked it in between belt and tunic. “I will do what I can. Go now. It is not wise that you be seen with me, if what I suspect is true. Say nothing to anyone until I give you leave.”
4
HENRY was furious. The hunt came clattering back early in an uproar to upset the quiet tenor of a day that Rosvita had hoped would be a productive one for her clerics. But the stories she heard, from so many different sources, were alarming enough that she was relieved when Princess Theophanu rode in unharmed. Strangely, for all that her dress was in disarray, her hair disordered, and her skin scratched and stained with loam and dirt, the princess was herself perfectly composed.
“So eastern,” muttered Brother Fortunatus. “You know these Arethousans are inscrutable.”
“Spare us these false wisdoms,” said Sister Amabilia. “Poor Theophanu! To be mistaken for a deer!”
The king was not to be mollified by the testimony of all who had been present. Everyone, even the foresters and huntsmen who had raced ahead with Sapientia’s party, had seen a deer in place of a princess.
“The rain confused our eyes.” “The mist confused our eyes.” “It was the shape of the branches above her head.” On they went, all of them grievously shocked at the accident.
“Or there was a deer behind her in the woods and in your rashness you shot without looking closely! Lord Amalfred. Lord Grimoald. You are no longer welcome at this court. You will be gone by nightfall. We will all of us leave this ill-omened place tomorrow. One of my children I have already lost. I do not intend to lose any more.”
No protest, even by Sapientia, could mitigate the king’s judgment. The two young lords left the hall in disgrace. Henry spent the rest of the day at Mass led by Father Hugh. In particular, the king prayed and gave thanksgiving to St. Valeria, whose day this was and whose miraculous intervention had spared his daughter worse harm than the fall she had taken. Before the feast he handed out bread with his own hands to the usual supplicants who had gathered outside the palisade. Hearing of the king’s arrival at this southernmost of his royal hunting lodges, they had come from villages at the forest’s edge. Some of them had walked several days on rag-clad feet hoping for food or a blessing.
At the feast, Theophanu begged a boon of her father. “I pray you, Your Majesty, let me undertake a pilgrimage to the Convent of St. Valeria to offer a proper thanksgiving for my deliverance from harm. Surely her hand lay over me this day.”
He was reluctant to let her leave after such an incident, but the miracle had been attested by a dozen or more persons.
“I will take an Eagle,” she said, “and thus any message can be sent quickly from my hand to yours.”
“As a sign of my favor,” he said, “you may take my faithful Hathui, daughter of Elseva, as long as you and she return in one piece to my progress by the end of the year. It should take you no more than two or three months to complete the journey.”
“I would not take such a loyal servant from you, Your Majesty,” she replied, as calm as if no arrows had sped toward her head and breast that morning. “But if I could take another Eagle—” Here her gaze came to rest on the young Eagle who stood several paces behind Sapientia’s chair.
Sapientia leaped to her feet, the gesture of anger made ungainly because of her increasing girth. “You just want what is mine!”
“Sit down,” said the king.
