All that saved Sanglant from a furious retort was the sight of Heribert, quite pale, brushing a finger along his closed lips as a warning. Instead, he downed a cup of the noxious-tasting liquor and let the burn sear away the edge of his anger. “She is safe. She will remain so. So have I sworn. So, I pray, will you remember.”
“I will remember,” she muttered, flushed, her cheeks sheeny with sweat.
Lady Eudokia smiled unctuously, clearly amused by their unseemly sparring. “It is ever the way with brothers and sisters to quarrel.” She reached over to pat the youth’s flaccid cheek with a pudgy hand. “Alas that I quarreled with my own brother in the past, but now he is dead in battle and his sweet child come to bide with me.”
The boy smiled uncertainly at her, glanced at Sanglant with fear, and spoke, in a whisper, words Sanglant could not understand. At once, servants brought him a tray of sweets and he picked daintily at them as Sapientia brooded and Sanglant fought the urge to jump up and walk anywhere as long as it got him away from that which plagued him, which at this moment was just about everything. He found refuge in a strategic retreat.
“I had hoped to discuss with you what arrangements we may make for our journey east.”
“I am sure you do. But before we do so, I pray you, tell me which synods does the holy church of Wendar recognize? Or perhaps it is too young to recognize any, for truly we have heard no word of it here where we live. As you know, Arethousa is the ancient home of the Witnesser, St. Thecla. We were first to accept the Proclamation of the blessed Daisan.”
“Do you think, Sapientia,” he said hours later as afternoon waned when at last they could break free of the long feast and return on horseback to the fort, “that by belittling me and my daughter in front of our enemy you have made Wendish-folk look like lions or like fools?”
“Who is to say she is our enemy?”
“Can she be otherwise? Did she say anything except words meant to sneer and laugh and gloat? You were just as angry as I at her insults, when we first came into her audience chamber this morning!”
“Maybe I changed my mind while you were gone.” Sapientia’s cheeks were still red. She lifted her chin, but her smile trembled as if it might collapse at any instant. “You have stolen what is mine and you might as well be holding me prisoner just like Bulkezu for all that you listen to me, although you pretend to the others that we command jointly. Don’t think I am too stupid to know what you intend by your daughter! You want her to rule in my place, and if not her, what is to stop you from supporting Queen Adelheid and her infant daughter? You were jealous of Bayan, and now you’re jealous of me. I won’t rest until I have back what is mine by right of birth.”
“I have taken nothing from you! I have never betrayed you.”
Her gaze had an uncanny glamour, and for once he was chastened by her anger. “What do you take me for? A lion? Or a fool?”
3
“YOU sorry fool.”
Out of nowhere, cold water drenched Zacharias’ head and shoulders. Sucking and gasping, he inhaled salt water, nasty and stinging. He gagged but had nothing in his stomach and finally fell back, clutching his belly and moaning.
The dead didn’t suffer like this. Footsteps padded over the planks.
“God Above, but it stinks down here,” said the cultured voice of Brother Marcus. “So. He’s still alive.”
“Were you hoping he would die?”
That voice certainly did belong to Wolfhere, but Zacharias could not recall where he was or why Wolfhere would be talking about him while the floor rocked so nauseatingly up and down.
“It would make my life easier, would it not? We’ll throw him overboard once we’re far enough away from land that there’s no hope he can swim to shore.”
“If he can swim.”
“I’ll take no chances.”
“Will you throw him over yourself or have your servant do the deed?”
“I will do what I must. You know the cause we serve.” The words were spoken so coolly that Zacharias shuddered into full consciousness, his mind awake and his nausea dulled by fear. Bulkezu had at least killed for the joy of being cruel. This man would take no pleasure out of killing, but neither would he shrink from it, if he thought it necessary.
“Monster,” Zacharias croaked, spitting out the dregs of sea-water and bile. He struggled up to sit. His chest hurt. The back of his head throbbed so badly that he might as well have had a cap of iron tightening inexorably around his skull.
“Brother Zacharias.” A hand settled firmly on his shoulder. “Do not move, I pray you. You’ve taken a bad blow to the head.”
“I can swim. I escaped Bulkezu by swimming. It’ll do you no good to throw me overboard.”
“Who is Bulkezu?” asked Marcus.
“A Quman prince,” answered Wolfhere. “Perhaps you have forgotten—or never knew—the devastation the Quman army wrought upon Wendar. King Henry never returned from Aosta to drive them out. It was left to Prince Sanglant to do so.”
“Are you the bastard’s champion? I’m surprised at you, Brother Lupus. What matters it to us what transpires on Earth? A worse cataclysm will come regardless to all of humankind, unless we do our part.”