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Conrad’s nostrils flared, and his shoulders stiffened. “I didn’t join Sabella!”
“You didn’t join me!”
He regained his composure. “Yet I am here now, cousin.”
“So you are. What am I to make of your appearance? Why did you turn my Eagle back at your border, in the Alfar Mountains? Why have you troubled my brother Benedict and Queen Marozia of Karrone with your disputes? Why did you not support me against the Eika, and against Sabella’s unlawful rebellion against my authority?”
For an instant Rosvita thought Conrad would turn around right then, mount, and ride off in a rage. Unexpectedly, Father Hugh stepped forward from his place in the front ranks, near Sapientia’s chair, and placed himself between the two men.
“Your Majesty,” he began, “let me with these poor words humbly beg you and your noble cousin to feast together, for as the blessed Daisan once said, ‘The measure you give is the measure you will receive.’ Greet your kin with wine and food. It is better to enter into a dispute on a full stomach than an empty one, for a hungry woman will feed on angry words while she who has eaten of the feast provided by God will know how to set aside anger for conciliation.”
He was right, of course. She took a step forward to add her voice to his.
“What better conciliation,” said Conrad suddenly, “than a betrothal feast? Give us only your blessing, cousin, and your daughter Theophanu and I will speak our consent to be wed.”
Henry rose slowly. Rosvita caught in her breath and waited. Rashly suggested! What did Conrad hope to gain from such bluntness?
But Henry said nothing of marriage. He descended the steps with kingly dignity and raised an arm to clasp Conrad’s in cousinly affection. “The news came to us only two days ago, and it was received with many tears. Let us have peace between us, cousin, while we mourn the passing of Lady Eadgifu.”
Conrad wept manfully, and with evident sincerity. “We must put our trust in God, They who rule over all things. She was the best of women.”
Now many sighs and groans arose from the assembly, both from those who had known the Lady Eadgifu and those whose hearts were touched by the sorrow shown by duke and king. Rosvita could not help but shed a few tears, although she had met the Alban princess on only three occasions, and mostly remembered her because her fair hair and ivory-light skin had contrasted handsomely with the black hair and dusky complexion of her husband; on first arriving from Alba, Eadgifu had spoken Wendish poorly and therefore refrained from speaking much except to her Alban retinue.
One woman among the assembly was not weeping: Theophanu. She had lowered her gaze but under those heavy, dark lids—so like Queen Sophia’s—she examined Father Hugh. Her expression had the placid innocence of a holy mosaic, pieced together out of colored stone, and not even Rosvita, who knew her as well as anyone, could tell what she was thinking. Did she want to marry Conrad? Did she still hoard her infatuation for Father Hugh? Did she know the name of the maleficus who had tried to kill her?
Hugh had taken a book of forbidden magic from the young Eagle, Liath. Was it only coincidence that the unnamed magus had attempted to sicken Theophanu through the agency of a ligatura woven into a brooch shaped as a panther?
“Make way! Make way!”
Henry dropped Conrad’s arm as a small procession appeared. Everyone began to talk at once, pointing and whispering. The king stepped back up onto the first of the two steps that mounted the platform, but there he paused, waiting, and Duke Conrad turned and with a surprised expression moved aside to make room.
“Your Majesty.” Prince Sanglant pulled up his horse at a respectful distance from the throne. He looked travel-worn and unkempt with his rich tunic damp from rain and his hair uncombed, but by some indefinable air he wore as always the mantle of authority. But the Eika dogs that trailed at his heels reminded everyone of what he had been—and what he still harbored within himself. He made a sign, and his escort of a dozen soldiers and two servingmen turned aside and dismounted.
There was one other person with them: a dark young woman with a regal air and a look of tense hauteur, held distant from the crowd that surrounded her. It took Rosvita a moment to recognize her, although it should not have. What on God’s earth was the Eagle—as good as banished yesterday together with Wolfhere—doing with him? Or was she still an Eagle? She no longer wore badge or cloak, although she rode a very fine gray gelding.
Prince Sanglant was not a subtle man. Liath glanced toward him, and he reached to touch her on the elbow. The glance, the movement, the touch: these spoke as eloquently as words.
“What means this?” demanded Henry.
But every soul there knew what it meant: Sanglant, the obedient son, had defied his father.
Rosvita knew well the signs of Henry’s wrath; he wore them now: the tic in his upper lip, the stark lightning glare in his eyes, the threatening way he rested his royal staff on his forearm as if in preparation for a sharp blow. She stepped forward in the hope of turning his anger aside, but Hugh had already moved to place himself before the king.
“I beg you, Your Majesty.” His expression was smooth but his hands were trembling. “She no longer wears the Eagle’s badge that marks her as in your service. Therefore, she is now by right—and your judgment—my slave.”
“She is my wife,” said Sanglant suddenly. His hoarse tenor, accustomed to the battlefield, carried easily over the noise of the throng. Everyone burst into exclamations at once, and after a furious but short-lived uproar, the assembly like a huge beast quieted, the better to hear. Even the king’s favorite poet or a juggling troupe from Aosta did not provide as thrilling an entertainment as this.
The prince dismounted and everyone stared as he hammered an iron stake into the ground and staked down the dogs. From their savage presence all shrank back as the prince walked forward to stand before his father. Clouds covered the sun, and rain spattered the crowd, enough to keep the dust down and to wet tongues made dry by anticipation.
“She is my wife,” Sanglant repeated, “by mutual consent, witnessed by these soldiers and a freewoman of Ferse village, and made legal and binding by the act of consummation and by the exchange of morning gifts.”
“‘Let the children be satisfied first,’” said Hugh in a low, furious voice. She had never before seen him lose his composure, but he was shaking visibly now, flushed and agitated. “‘It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’”
“Hugh,” warned his mother from her place near the king.
Abruptly, Liath replied in a bold and angry voice. “‘Even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.’”
Hugh looked as if he had been slapped. He bolted toward her. That fast, and more smoothly than Rosvita believed possible, Sanglant stepped between them, and Hugh actually bumped up against him. But to go around the prince would be to make a fool of himself. Even so he hesitated, as if actually contemplating fighting it out hand to hand, the gracious cleric and the half-wild prince.
