In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“Do you have a soul?” the abbess asked kindly.

Half the people in the tent gasped, while the other half, shocked into silence, stared. Sanglant shifted, ready to rise and confront this challenge, but Liath set a hand on his forearm and he quieted, although she could feel the tension in his muscles, a hound barely leashed and poised to lunge.

“Are not all creatures created by God? I am no different than you, Mother Scholastica.”

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth thinned, but it was impossible tell if she were offended or intrigued. “So you say. I understand that you are educated.”

“Yes, I am educated as well as my father was able to teach me. I can read and write in three languages.”

“You were condemned as a maleficus.”

“I am not one. I was educated as a mathematicus.”

“You admit it publicly, knowing that the church condemned such sorcery at the Council of Narvone? That you were excommunicated in absentia by a council at Autun?”

“I am not afraid of the church, Mother Scholastica.” She was surprised, more than anything, at how weary she felt in defending herself, and how peculiar it was to be shed at long last of the fear that had so long hunted her. Da had taught her to fear; it was the only defense he had known. “I believe in God, just as you do. I pray to God, just as you do. I am no heretic or infidel. You cannot harm me if my companions refuse to shun me, and the skopos and her mages are dead.”

o;It is not part of our law for the bastard child to inherit,” said Scholastica, “but I have observed that laws are silent in the presence of arms. That Liutgard and Burchard speak for you gives strength to your case.” She looked at each duke in turn, as if her disapproval could change their minds, but Burchard merely sighed and Liutgard glared back at her. “Let Theophanu and Ekkehard agree, and it will be done.”

“I have already sent Eagles to Osterburg.”

“I sent Eagles and messengers out as well, when I heard rumor of your coming. While you wait for their arrival, you must disperse your army. I cannot feed so many for more than three days. Our stores are already low. The weather bodes ill for the spring.”

“I will keep my army beside me.”

“Will you take by force that which you can only win with God’s favor, and the agreement of your peers?”

His frown was quick but marked. Unlike his father, Sanglant did not rage easily, and a few men muttered to see him brush the edge of anger. “I did not seek this position. I am my father’s obedient son. I have done only what he wished.”

“A man may turn away from a platter of meat when he has just eaten, only to crave it when he hungers. We are not unchanging creatures, Nephew. We wax and wane like the moon, and at times we change our minds about what it is we want. Although, I see, some things have not changed.” She gestured toward Liath. “The last, if not the first, or so your grandmother divined. Your concubine?”

“My wife,” he said, his irritation even more pronounced.

“An Eagle is your wife?” she asked, as if he had claimed to have married a leper.

“Liathano is of noble birth out of Bodfeld.”

“A minor family which can bring no worthwhile alliance to your position. Surely it would be wiser to seek a more advantageous match. Duke Conrad’s daughter, or Margrave Gerberga of Austra’s youngest sister, Theucinda. Margrave Waltharia herself, if it is true that her husband died on your expedition, leaving her free. There was some interest there before, between the two of you, I believe.”

“I have what I need.”

Scholastica turned her gaze and examined Liath with a look meant to intimidate. Strangely, Liath found herself caught between an intense boredom at the prospect of having to endure much more of this sparring and at the same time a feeling of being wrung so tight that like Sanglant she could not sit restfully but kept tapping one foot on the carpet.

“Your mother was a heathen?” asked Scholastica at last.

“No, not really, Holy Mother,” said Liath, aware of how disrespectful she sounded and, for this instant, just not caring.

“A Daisanite woman of black complexion whom your father impregnated?”

“My mother was a daimone of the upper air, imprisoned by the woman who later made herself skopos. My father loved her. I am the result of that passion.”

Was that a smile that shifted the lines in that grim expression, even for an instant? Liath had no idea, but she saw that such a bald statement did not confound the abbess although her three clerics made little noises of astonishment. In some cases, a smile is a sword.

“Do you have a soul?” the abbess asked kindly.

Half the people in the tent gasped, while the other half, shocked into silence, stared. Sanglant shifted, ready to rise and confront this challenge, but Liath set a hand on his forearm and he quieted, although she could feel the tension in his muscles, a hound barely leashed and poised to lunge.

“Are not all creatures created by God? I am no different than you, Mother Scholastica.”