The Burning Stone (Crown of Stars 3)

“Nay, Daughter. You must ride now if you mean to cross the Alfar Mountains before the passes close. Our cause will be lost if we wait too long. You will start south tomorrow.”

“But you know I must testify at Autun at the trial of Father Hugh!”

“I have spoken,” said Henry without raising his voice.

“But if I am not there to testify at Autun—!” Red stained her cheeks and she broke off, glancing toward Judith.

Rosvita recognized the look of a campaigner who knows that both her flanks are protected and that her center will hold: Judith wore it now.

“You will ride to Aosta, Theophanu. It is the place of the biscops to judge one of their own, not yours.”

“But my testimony—!”

“You may dictate what you wish to the clerics. That way your voice will still be heard at the council.”

There was nothing Theophanu could do unless she meant to defy her father—as Sanglant had done. But Theophanu was nothing like Sanglant. She recovered herself, murmured cool words of agreement, and retreated. But the look she shot Rosvita was anything but mild.

“Promise me,” she whispered, stopping beside Rosvita, “that you will yourself read my words aloud at the trial. The biscops will listen to you!”

“Sister Rosvita.” Henry’s mild voice wrenched her attention away from Theophanu. “So that my daughter need not negotiate the treacherous paths in Aosta alone, I would send you along with her to advise and counsel her.”

“Y-your Majesty.” She was too shocked to stammer out more than that.

“Is there something wrong, Sister?” he asked gently.

It took no educated cleric to envision the scene: with both Theophanu and Liath gone, and Rosvita not there to argue their case, the accusations against Father Hugh would carry little weight. Especially not if Judith brought her own witnesses to argue for Hugh’s innocence.

Who suspected her? What did Henry intend by this sudden change of plans?

“I have never seen the holy city of Darre,” Rosvita said, stumbling, all eloquence lost. She could only register Theophanu’s eyes, bright and fevered, and a look on her face that made Rosvita think the princess was about to shriek in frustration.

But there was nothing she could do.

*   *   *

Rosvita took Theophanu’s testimony herself that afternoon, wrote it down in her careful hand, and sealed the parchment. Then she wrote a letter and took Sister Amabilia aside.

“Amabilia, I wish you to personally deliver this letter to Mother Rothgard at St. Valeria Convent. Fortunatus and Constantine will come with me to Aosta, and I regret you will not set foot with us in the skopos’ palace, as you deserve. But you must serve me in this way. If Mother Rothgard will not heed the words I have written, then beg her yourself to come to the council at Autun. She can give testimony of what she observed when Theophanu lay sick at the convent.”

“Surely she will think it strange that Sister Anne has vanished.” Amabilia frowned at the letter. “According to Princess Theophanu, Sister Anne witnessed the whole as well, the fever and the ligatura they found. Where do you suppose Sister Anne could have gone?”

“I do not know,” said Rosvita, but in her heart she feared the worst.

3

THEY came upon the first signs of habitation in midmorning: a hunter’s trap, a lean-to built of branches with a roof woven out of vines, and a ten-day-old campfire. At midday they found the first dead body at the edge of a clearing newly hacked from beech forest. It was a male dressed in Wendish clothing. His head was cut off at the neck.

“Quman raiders.” Zacharias knelt beside the bloody corpse, touched his wooden Circle, and began reflexively to speak the prayer for the dead. But he broke off. They were just words, weren’t they? They didn’t mean anything. “We should bury it,” he added, looking up in time to see his companion pick up the ax that had fallen from the dead man’s hands. She studied it, grunted, and tied it to the horse, then strode on. He scrambled up, grabbed the horse’s reins, and hurried after her. “Shouldn’t we bury it?” he demanded, panting, as he came up beside her.

She shrugged. “His people will find him.”

“But his spirit will roam if we don’t lay it to rest properly. That’s what my grandmother always said.” Yet she had been a pagan, and the church of the Unities had put an end to the old ways.

“Human spirits haven’t the strength to harm me. How can we bury them all?”

“All?”

“Don’t you smell the smoke?” she asked, surprised.