In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“Brother Zacharias?”

“Yes. He is dead.”

“Ah.” He glanced at Liath. She nodded, and briefly told him the tale. “I am sorry. Brother Zacharias was a troubled man, but a brave one. In his own fashion. This is yet one more crime to add to Hugh of Austra’s list.”

“There is no sign of him, I take it,” said Liath.

“None. I’ve heard more of the tale now. He arrived in Austra out of the east but would not say where he had come from, only that he needed shelter. Gerberga brought him with her when she came west to visit Theophanu in Osterburg. Now Hugh has vanished. He must have plotted it all along. Give you the damning book, and fly away so that the taint could not touch him.”

“Where can he fly?” Liath asked. “His sister’s lands are closed to him. He must guess she has turned against him. Burchard and Liutgard will turn him over to you if they find him in Fesse or Avaria. No one in the North Mark will trust him, if he even wanted to return to such a benighted place. Where can he go? Who will take him in?”

“I’ve sent riders south and west. He might go to Varre, to offer his services to Sabella or Conrad, but Conrad never liked him either and Sabella has nothing to offer him. Where else can he go, then, except back to the poisonous nest where he gained so much power?”

“He’ll elude your searchers,” said Liath, shaking her head.

“So be it. If he flees to Varre, we’ll catch up to him. If he flies to Aosta, then he cannot trouble us here in Wendar, can he?”

“So we can pray,” said Hathui grimly, “for I would like to sleep soundly at night. I have a boon to ask of you, Your Majesty.”

“What is that?”

“If he’s caught, I want recompense for the harm he’s done to me and my kinfolk. A grant of land, perhaps, to add to what they already claim.”

Sanglant smiled. “I so swear, Hathui. You will have satisfaction.”

“Your Majesty,” she said, head bowed, and kissed the royal seal ring on his right hand, the one he had taken off his father’s body.

He stood in unusual stillness for a long time, unwilling to break into her grief, but at last she shook her head and rose.

“There is wine,” he said. “Captain Fulk will see you get anything you wish. We’ll keep a close watch, but I expect Hugh is gone. And that you are safe from him for the time being. Still, we must be cautious.”

“Your Majesty,” she said. She nodded at Liath, and left the tent.

He remained still for a shockingly long time, and she watched him, curious and also not at all recovered from the unexpected memory of the weaving that had risen like a tide to engulf her. It had troubled her. It had roiled the waters.

“What is it?” she asked him finally.

“Did you touch him? In the library?” His voice was hoarse, but then, he always sounded like that.

“Are you jealous of him, Sanglant?”

“Of course I’m jealous of him! I know he—” He faltered, grimacing. “I know he … possessed your body.”

“He took what he wanted. I didn’t go to him willingly.”

“I know! I know! It just … gripes me to think of him touching you. That isn’t all of it. He has all the skills you treasure. He can read and write and puzzle over the mysteries of the heavens, just as you do.” He waved toward the walls, the ceiling, the lantern. “He knows sorcery. He’s more like you than I am.”

“That’s true,” she agreed, smiling as he got to looking more agitated. “It’s a terrible thing to imagine that a man as evil as Hugh can be compared to me in so many ways.”

“That’s not what I meant!” he answered, laughing but still worrying at it. “He’s just so damned beautiful.”

“That’s true,” she agreed.

“How can the outer seeming so ill match the inner heart?”

“I don’t know. Yet in the end even his beauty has failed him. His own half siblings ought to trust and embrace him, but they hate and distrust him instead. He betrayed those who did trust him. He is a fugitive, a man without kinfolk or retinue to aid him. Perhaps God have set him before us as a lesson.”

“What sort of lesson? I am not well versed in these clerical riddles.”