Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

“Among the living,” she said curtly. “As are the Lions who protected us. Princess Sapientia was not so fortunate.”

“What can you mean?”

“She, too, is dead. Killed by the sorcery of that witch woman you sheltered.”

This was too much to take in.

“Yet I suppose God’s mercy works in ways beyond our understanding,” continued Scholastica. “Both brother and sister were unfit to rule. Now, they are gone, and we may hope for peace with Conrad and Tallia on the throne.”

Rosvita tried to speak, to voice a thought, a prayer, an objection, but she could not. This she had wrought, and all for nothing.

Mother Scholastica was already moving away to confront the nobles seated on the dais. Her gaze swept them disdainfully. She gestured toward the Eika without looking at him.

“How comes that creature to sit among you as though he were a great prince of the realm?”

Lord Stronghand had a way of baring his teeth that mimicked a human smile without precisely being one. Jewels winked in his teeth, a barbarian’s ornament, but his words were smooth and cool. “Mother Abbess, with all the respect that is due to a WiseMother of your stature and authority, I would suggest that it is the strength of my army that buys me a seat on this council.”

Theophanu’s mouth quirked. She said, “Aunt, have you not yourself observed that laws are silent in the presence of arms?”

“Let your stewards bring me a chair,” said Scholastica, regarding Theophanu with disgust and turning her attention to Liutgard. “If there is to be a council, then I will stand at its head.”

“Yes, Mother Scholastica,” murmured Liutgard, gesturing for a steward, while Conrad sighed heavily and wiped his forehead with the back of a hand.

Stronghand looked with interest at Theophanu, and she met his gaze, although no emotion could be read behind her careful mask. It was no wonder no one quite trusted her even after all these years of faithful service to her father and his capricious wishes.

Seated in back of the others, behind the pallet, Rosvita had planned to observe without being herself noticed, but after all it took all her effort simply to pay attention. A terrible whisper kept clawing in her mind, saying that Mother Scholastica was right, that it was for the best that Sapientia had died. The poor witless creature could not even obey an injunction to hide her eyes, not to look upon that which would destroy her. She was no wiser than a toddling child. How could it be that she would not fall in the end into the hands of those who wished to put her on the throne and rule her through puppet strings?

That she could even think such thoughts horrified her. The dead man, mercifully, made no comment. No doubt he, also, was not free of sin, for he had abandoned Sapientia in the wilderness. So there they were, the two of them, one living and one dead, who had brought Henry’s eldest daughter to an end she did not deserve.

As though the Enemy had heard her thoughts and sent minions to harass her, two huge black hounds padded up to her and sank down on either side. Their tails thumped in a friendly manner, but that did not make her less nervous of those fearsome teeth. A moment later the young man who had once been Count of Lavas came to stand quietly behind her chair. She could not see his face without turning around, but Lord Stronghand nodded at him just as there came a shout of surprise from the doorway.

Conrad leaped to his feet. “Constance!”

Constance, Biscop of Autun and later Duchess of Arconia, was the second youngest of Henry’s siblings, about the same age as Liutgard, but she looked older than Scholastica now. She was being carried in a chair tied to poles. Her bearers, astoundingly, were Eika soldiers. With the greatest delicacy, they placed her chair to the left of Lord Stronghand, whom she acknowledged with a nod.

Already benches were being drawn up. Clerics and nobles crowded onto these seats while captains and lords stood behind them. There was Fortunatus! He made a sign with his hand so she could know all was well, and the look of relief on his face assured her that the rest of her precious schola had indeed survived the onslaught unscathed. Farther back she saw Sergeant Ingo of the Lions standing beside the one-handed Captain Thiadbold, now able to walk on his own.

Yet where was Mother Obligatia? What shelter had they found for her? And what of the shaman? What would happen to her?

What sign she made she did not know, but a hand brushed her shoulder, and that brief touch comforted her.

Last, and only with difficulty pushing their way through the crowd, came two litters. One was borne by a quartet of Arconian captains, and the other by stout clerics, four of Scholastica’s most martial attendants. Behind them limped a white-faced man whose shoulder was wrapped in linen still stained with oozing red blood. Lord Wichman was so weak from loss of blood that he could not stand unaided but must lean on one of his captains. He reeled up the steps, dropped heavily into a chair behind Conrad, and seemed at once to lose consciousness, eyes closing and head thrown back.

The captains set down the body of Sabella, daughter of Arnulf and Berengaria, beside the corpse of her nephew. The clerics lowered the litter bearing Princess Sapientia’s corpse and placed it beside that of her aunt.

Although the smell of sweaty and bloodstained bodies already permeated the hall, at once the stink of death struck Rosvita hard enough that she flinched from it: the strong sour smell of drying blood, the stench of loosened bowels and voided urine, all these indignities suffered by the dead were eye-wateringly apparent emanating from the two dead women, even though Sabella’s body bore only a single wound and Sapientia’s no trace of injury at all. No such stink wafted from the corpse of Sanglant, although he ought to smell worse having suffered such gashing wounds.

Mother Scholastica rose. “So are we all come.”

The crowd in the hall—and those still pushing into crevices and hand’s-width spaces along the back—grew quiet.

“So are we all come. All who are able-bodied and able-minded. For long years we were told that this prince’s mother laid a geas on his flesh, that no creature male or female could kill him. But after all, we see that this was merely a tale told by Henry to aggrandize his favorite child. Sanglant’s run of luck is over. Now he lies before us, who claimed the throne of Wendar and Varre although he had no right to do so.”

“For shame,” said Liutgard. “For shame, Mother Scholastica! Those of us who rode at his side out of Aosta and accepted his elevation will not have our decision so easily dismissed. His was the right. Henry named him with his dying breath.”

ghand looked with interest at Theophanu, and she met his gaze, although no emotion could be read behind her careful mask. It was no wonder no one quite trusted her even after all these years of faithful service to her father and his capricious wishes.

Seated in back of the others, behind the pallet, Rosvita had planned to observe without being herself noticed, but after all it took all her effort simply to pay attention. A terrible whisper kept clawing in her mind, saying that Mother Scholastica was right, that it was for the best that Sapientia had died. The poor witless creature could not even obey an injunction to hide her eyes, not to look upon that which would destroy her. She was no wiser than a toddling child. How could it be that she would not fall in the end into the hands of those who wished to put her on the throne and rule her through puppet strings?