Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars 7)

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.”

“It’s true that my brother Henry showed partiality toward the infant, who was destined for another fate according to the custom of the Wendish people. None among you believe that Henry’s decision was made with his dying breath. The day Sanglant was born, Henry confessed his wish to his father, King Arnulf, that he desired to make this bastard child his heir. I recall it!”

She surveyed the gathering with the pride and arrogance that her long years as abbess of the holy and powerful institution of Quedlinhame had granted her.

“I recall it, for I was already invested in the church and soon to become abbess. I was present in the councils of power, and in those councils held more privately with the king. So I tell you: this request went against all of Wendar’s customs and traditions! The bastard child must be the king’s Dragon, not the king himself. As well, the child was born of a foreign woman, with no maternal kin to support him and besides that an ancient and suspicious tale of old enmity dogging his heels. He could never be trusted.”

“Yet he was best among us,” said Theophanu in her cool voice.

Her flat statement caused Conrad to begin weeping again, for all his gestures were grand ones that every soul could join with. Many wept in the hall, some louder than others.

“Arnulf knew the child could never be trusted,” repeated Scholastica. She swept her hand to include the span of the hall and raised her voice yet more, a strong soprano that carried above the grief and anger of the crowd. “Henry was obsessed with the Aoi woman, but it was obvious to any eye that she did not love him but was at work on some hidden plan. This Arnulf saw. This he strove to prevent.”

“So it comes, that my nephew is dead.”

Wichman roused from his stupor. “His is not the only death today!” Then he laughed like a man driven mad by pain.

“No, indeed, it is not. Here also died Princess Sapientia, killed by sorcery. And Sabella—my elder sister.”

Wichman coughed blood. With the sleeve of his gambeson, Conrad wiped the spume off Wichman’s chin, and called servants forward, but the other man waved away these attendants.

“I will hear all of it. I will hear!” he croaked. “Now that Sanglant is gone, there’s not one of you left who can best me in combat.”

“Let him be,” said Scholastica. Her gaze, bent on him, was not kindly. “Let him hear, if he wishes. All these claims are now thrown over. Their souls have ascended to the Chamber of Light. Let us speak a prayer in their memory.”

Rosvita wiped her brow, and even that slight movement made her shoulder pinch and smart. She murmured the responses as the abbess intoned the prayer, but her heart was numb and her thoughts strayed.

Where had Constance come from? How came it that she was escorted by Eika soldiers? Had Sorgatani survived?

Rosvita had left the field as soldiers struggled to right the wagon, and when she surveyed the assembly now, she saw no sign of Hanna’s white-blonde hair although several times she caught her breath, thinking she had found her, only to realize that the Eika had hair just as bone pale.

Where was Wolfhere? He had spoken puzzling words by the roadside, and she began to think that if she could only recall them exactly that they would answer many questions, but exhaustion muddied her mind. It seemed to her that her eyes watered, that a faint perfume like rosewater drifted off the body of the dead man, a sweet and pleasing smell. She covered her eyes, dizzied.