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The diminutive creature spoke in a soft voice. “I don’t want to enter the church, Gerberga.” The words came out as if she had learned them by rote. She looked at Ekkehard, then blushed.
“I said I’d marry her!” cried Wichman, rallying from his stupor. He scratched his crotch, burped, and stared with incomprehension into his empty cup.
Gerberga snorted. “Let your cousin Sanglant find a suitable husband for you, Theucinda, and you will not have to enter the church. He means to do as much for Waltharia, so why not for you?” She smiled at Sanglant.
A challenge! He lifted a hand off the arm of his chair to acknowledge her request.
Theophanu had, after all, been listening. Her hand, poised to move her Castle, froze in midair as she looked over. How cool her voice was, yet her words scorched. “If there are any suitable men to be found, a circumstance I doubt. Yet I pray you, Theucinda, do not despair. You may not have to wait long. Perhaps an institution could be founded for you, as it was for my dear brother Ekkehard. Then after you have said your vows, you will be sure to be called to marriage.”
“That is the end of it,” continued Gerberga, soundly irritated now. “Theucinda remains with the king’s progress. We leave in the morning, Ekkehard.”
“God, I have to pee,” said Wichman.
Rotrudis’ son had tactical flair. It was just possible that he rose and made a scene of departing in order to break up the gathering, to allow folk to retire to their beds without battle being joined. Or it might be that he simply had to pee after drinking five or ten cups of wine. He staggered out, and in twos and threes they followed him. Sanglant remained seated, waiting, and at last he was alone with Waltharia. She handed her embroidery to a servant and raised an eyebrow, waiting in her turn. Coals were brought. The servingwoman folded up the tunic and stored it in a chest. A man gathered up cups and took them away on a tray.
He found that solitude, with her, made him uncomfortable. Without meaning to, he touched the gold torque at his neck, the one she had persuaded him to wear, and he felt heat burn in his cheeks and knew he was blushing.
She smiled. She knew him that well.
“I know where Liath is,” she said, rising.
“I thought she came up with us,” he complained, “but she has not been here this past hour. How do you know where she is?”
She chuckled. “She asked me about a certain person living in retirement here.”
The words stung him. They had secrets, Waltharia and Liath. They confided in each other. It was disconcerting and, in truth, a little irritating. But he said nothing, only stood and beckoned to Hathui, who was waiting by the door.
They came down the broad stone steps of the tower and passed through the dark hall where so recently the crowd of nobles had feasted. The lamp carried by a steward illuminated alcoves and benches in flashes. Here rumpled shapes slept, crowded together for warmth. A pair of dogs nosed along the floor, seeking scraps lost in the rushes. Sanglant could still smell the tantalizing odor of roasted meat, just as the dogs could. They barked, seeing a rival, but slunk away.
A door led onto the courtyard where the kitchen buildings stood far enough away from the hall to protect it from the ever present danger of fire. Waltharia led them past these to a tiny cottage set back by a well amidst a withered flower garden. She pushed the door open and they went inside. A pool of light created by a single lamp graced the room. Liath sat on a three-legged stool, bent forward to listen to an elderly woman who was propped up on pillows in her bed and dressed in a plain linen shift like an invalid. He recognized her lean, lined features, squared shoulders, and keen gaze at once, but the expression on her face as she spoke with Liath was not hostile, not as it had been when he had first met this old woman years before in Walburg. In those days, her hostility had been directed toward the old Eagle, Wolfhere.
She looked up first. As usual, Liath was so intent on what she was doing that it took her a moment to notice the arrivals. Not so with him; she could not enter any room he was in without him immediately being aware of her presence.
Ah, well.
“Sanglant,” she said, beckoning. She nodded to Waltharia, not needing to greet her. Somehow, it made the relationship between the two women seem more intimate than the one she shared with him.
“Here is Hedwig,” Liath added. “She was an Eagle.”
The old woman stirred, groping for a cane and looking quite startled—but not, he thought, because of his presence.
“I pray you, Eagle,” he said, “no need to rise. I recall your old injuries. I’ll sit here.”
There was a chair. He grabbed its back and swung it over.
“I thank you, Your Majesty,” she said with a hint of sour humor as she cast an accusing glare at Liath. She released the cane to rest against her bedding.
He sat beside Liath, facing the old Eagle. Waltharia remained standing at the foot of the bed. Hathui circled around to warm her hands at the hearth fire. Smoke swirled in the lamplight. A servant hurried forward to place more wood on the fire. It was so cold in the cottage, despite the blaze, that Liath’s breath steamed when she spoke.
“Repeat what you told me, I pray you, Hedwig.”
The old woman frowned, first at Liath and afterward upward at the loft of darkness that hid the ceiling. She was measuring her words in her mind before she spoke them. He almost laughed, because the look of her made him feel so young. She was exactly the kind of old woman who had frightened him most as a boy because this sort were apt to scold a hapless child for stealing tarts from the kitchens when it was only hunger that drove him. This kind was merciless, even in the face of honest need. Even to a royal prince who in other hands might expect a little leniency.
“Wolfhere brought the Eagle’s Sight to our order,” she said.
“Did he?” The statement surprised him.
“I thought this knowledge was handed down from regnant to heir. Before that time, we rode, and we observed, but we could not see or speak through fire.”
