Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“True enough,” replied Theophanu to Liutgard. “But he is not so beautiful as Hugh of Austra. Hugh never cared one whit for any woman except his mother, or excepting if a woman could give him something he wanted. But he wanted that one.”

“As for what Hugh wanted, I can’t answer, although it’s true enough that Hugh is quite the most beautiful man I have ever seen. May my poor Frederic rest at peace in the Chamber of Light, for I mean no insult to him. Yet if Hugh of Austra wanted her as well, does it not suggest sorcery to you, Theo?”

“Let her be,” said Theophanu abruptly. “Leave her at peace, I pray you, Liutgard.”

“She has certainly found a champion in you! Is there something you know that I ought to know, to put my mind at ease?”

“I pray you, Liutgard, let it rest.” A shadow of anger darkened Theophanu’s placid face, and she gestured toward the palace and its phalanx of milites dressed in the tabard of the ancient Quedlinhame County: crossed swords on a green field. “What will you do, Sanglant? Set up a siege as you did at Quedlinhame when you first returned to Wendar this spring?”

“If you will be patient, I ask you to await me here. I’ll go in alone, as a humble nephew asking for my holy aunt’s blessing. That may content her.”

He gave Fulk the order to set camp. Dismounting, he offered the reins to Sibold, then sought Liath, but she had wandered off. A few moments searching discovered her: she was chatting amiably and easily with a pride of Lions.

“Who is that?” he said to Hathui, who had come up as soon as Fulk departed.

o;Do you listen to what you do not want to hear?” she asked him. “You ought to.”

2

THE palace at Goslar was one hundred years old, built in the days of the last queen regnant, Conradina. It boasted a sturdy hall, a stable, and a motley collection of outbuildings including a kitchen and a smithy. A shoulder-high palisade surrounded the palace. Beyond it lay gardens, orchards, fields, and the estate whose inhabitants tended the grounds year round. Goslar belonged to the Wendish regnant, but, as Liath recalled, the steward who administered it was appointed by the abbess at nearby Quedlinhame.

Thus they arrived to find Mother Scholastica entrenched with her retinue. Although outriders rode ahead to alert her to the king’s arrival, she did not emerge to offer Sanglant greeting but waited inside to receive him.

“She means me to appear as the supplicant,” he said to Theophanu and Liutgard, who rode on either side.

Liath sat, mounted, away from the rest of the noble companions, examining the scene thoughtfully. She appeared more interested in the layout of the buildings than in the architecture of court politics. For some reason she looked particularly beautiful today with her hair drawn back into a braid, her dusky face filled out and healthy, her blue eyes bright; that uncanny way they had of seeming now and again to spark with laughter or anger still startled him. She was no longer too thin, as she had been before: when he first met her; in their days at Verna; when she had returned to him after the cataclysm. Despite their constant travel and the occasional dearth of food on the trip north, she had gained flesh in all the right places. As he knew, and yet wanted to rediscover again and again and again.

Liutgard tapped his arm. “If you do not stop staring at her like a lackwit, then every soul in this army will continue to believe she has used her sorcerer’s power to bewitch you.”

Her sharp comment caught him off guard. He looked at her, then at Theophanu. Theophanu shrugged.

“Do you believe it?” he demanded.

“I do,” said Liutgard. “It’s said she ensorcelled Henry in the same manner.”

“That wasn’t her fault! Or her intent! She never had any interest in Henry. She’d already chosen me.”

“A wise decision, since Henry would never have married her,” observed Liutgard.

“What do you say, Theophanu?” he said, really irritated now.

She smiled as a cat might be said to smile, having the cream set before it. “I think you are famous for your weakness for women, Brother. It is remarkable that one contents you. Some might call that a form of magic.”

“Do you?”

She raised a tidy eyebrow. “I do not. She is handsome in a way that attracts men. The question might better be, why does she care for you above all other men when, it seems, she might have had any of them?”

Liutgard laughed for the first time in weeks. “Are you become a wit, Theophanu? Look at him! So brawny and handsome as he is. Women fall at his feet, and into his bed.”

“This is not amusing.”

“True enough,” replied Theophanu to Liutgard. “But he is not so beautiful as Hugh of Austra. Hugh never cared one whit for any woman except his mother, or excepting if a woman could give him something he wanted. But he wanted that one.”

“As for what Hugh wanted, I can’t answer, although it’s true enough that Hugh is quite the most beautiful man I have ever seen. May my poor Frederic rest at peace in the Chamber of Light, for I mean no insult to him. Yet if Hugh of Austra wanted her as well, does it not suggest sorcery to you, Theo?”

“Let her be,” said Theophanu abruptly. “Leave her at peace, I pray you, Liutgard.”

“She has certainly found a champion in you! Is there something you know that I ought to know, to put my mind at ease?”