In the Ruins (Crown of Stars 6)

“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.”

He was amused, and no doubt a little relieved, but in her own heart laughter had fled. “‘Chaos in the world is the result of disorder in the human soul.’ I didn’t say it,” she added. “I’m just quoting. I read it in a book.”

“Which doesn’t make it any less true. Did you touch him?”

She thought of Waltharia, a nice enough woman, someone she had liked perfectly well. Someone who had shown her a moment’s surprising, and genuine, compassion.

“Why should I tell you?” she asked him, and when he winced, she was glad of seeing him pained. She hadn’t known she harbored so sharp a sting in her inner heart. Flame trembled. She had learned how to contain it, but maybe she was more like Hugh than she knew, wanting to hurt what she could not control.

“Nay,” he said raggedly, “I have no right to question you on such matters, God know. I trust you. Let’s leave it at that.”

“I would as soon touch Hugh as lie in a bed of maggots,” she said, relenting. “Let’s leave it at that. There’s much to be considered these next two days and not least of them is what royal garments can be found for your investiture. Waltharia has said she will help me in finding suitable clothing.”

“Waltharia?”

“Oh, indeed, we are quite close, she and I.”

She was doubly pleased, and ashamed of the pleasure she took in it, to see him look askance at her, and frown, and scratch one shoulder in a way that showed he was quite discomfited by these tidings, wondering what they meant and what the two women might have said to each other. He took refuge in pacing, and she let him pace as she allowed the turmoil in her heart to simmer in an alarmingly smug manner.

In time, he came to rest beside the bench. He picked up the book, opened it with the exaggerated care of a man who rarely touches such things, and shook his head as he stared at one of the pages. From this angle, she could not see which one.

“I haven’t the patience for this,” he muttered at last as he closed and set it down with proper reverence.

“I haven’t the patience for court life.”

“No,” he agreed. “You will always say the wrong thing at the wrong time.”

“Even if I’m right!”

“Especially if you’re right,” he said, laughing. “But court is a battlefield, nothing different. You must choose not just how you arrange your forces but when and in what order you attack, when to make a strategic retreat, when to make a flanking action, when to stand your ground.”

“Its own form of scholarship.”

“Perhaps. I would not say so.”

“We each received training in our youth. That can’t be changed. I wouldn’t have it otherwise. Because of that, there is much we can learn each from the other. I’ve been thinking about Gent, and strategy, and excommunication.”

“The nobles support me. As long as they support me, the church is limited in how far its influence can reach.”

“That may be, but I do not wish to remain an excommunicate in the eyes or heart of the church. Of course it didn’t affect me at Verna or when I was with the Ashioi because I didn’t even know of it. In the final march against Anne it mattered little. Now it matters a great deal. I know what I must do.”

“What is that?”

“You won’t like it.”

“Is that meant to encourage me to dissuade you?”

“I mean to do it, because I know it’s right.”

“So am I threatened! I pray you, if we are to be allies, we must know what the other intends.”

“Very well,” she said. “You are not the only one who must hold a vigil.”

XI

SHADOWS AND LIGHT