The other lord swore violently, leaped forward, and grabbed Wichman’s throat in his beefy hands. Prince Bayan turned bright red with anger as he jumped up, but before he could act, Sanglant had cut through the crowd and hauled the first man off Wichman.
“I beg you, Cousin, pray leave off strangling your brother.” His hoarse voice rang out over the rising clamor. “He may well deserve it, but we need him to fight the Quman.”
Laughter coursed through the ranks of the assembled nobles. A good family quarrel broke the tension. Bayan leaned down to whisper in Sapientia’s ear.
Gagging and rubbing his throat, Wichman spat on the ground, careful to aim away from the prince. “Ai, Lord! She was just his concubine, common born. Easy enough to get another one, if she didn’t please him.”
The brother was struggling in Sanglant’s grip, but even a man as stout and broad as he was couldn’t quite get free. “She pleased me well enough, before you spoiled her!”
“Lord’s balls, Zwentibold, that was—what?—two years ago? She’s forgotten you by now—”
“She’s dead. She hanged herself after you raped her.”
The crowd had drawn back away from the brothers, but Zacharias couldn’t tell if the nobles were appalled at the tale or only worried that one of the two men would draw a sword and accidentally injure a bystander.
Unexpectedly, Sapientia rose, signaling to Bayan to sit down again. “I pray you, Sanglant, let go of our cousin Zwentibold.” She took a spear out of the hands of one of the men-at-arms standing below the platform and, from the height, drove the point into the ground between the two men. “Place your right hand on the haft,” she commanded imperiously. Not even Duchess Rotrudis’ sons, who both wore the gold torque that signified their royal birth, dared disobey a public order made by the king’s heir, especially not when so many of her husband’s picked soldiers crowded around, smiling grimly with their spears in hand.
“Now swear by Our Lord and Lady,” she said when both men gripped the haft, glaring at each other with a hatred as palpable as that of the looming thunderstorm. “Swear that until the Quman are vanquished, you will do no harm to the other, for the sake of peace in our ranks and for the sake of the realm itself.”
Put to the test in front of the entire assembly, they had no choice but to swear.
Sapientia’s triumph was easy to see in her expression. At that moment, she looked truly as the heir ought to look: bold, stalwart, and ready to lead. But it was Bayan who stepped up beside her and raised his voice.
“Lord Zwentibold has brought us valuable news: The Quman army withdrew this morning from their siege of Osterburg.” A cheer rose, but it died away when Bayan lifted a hand for silence. “Lord Zwentibold was therefore able to ride out of the city with three full cohorts of mounted men and make his way to us. But if Bulkezu withdrew his soldiers, it was only to prepare to meet us. We have no good count of their numbers, and they are in any case difficult to count because of their habit of ranging wide and moving quickly. Do not believe that they can defeat us, because God are with us.”
This ringing statement produced another cheer, during which Bayan whispered into Sapientia’s ear. When the cheering died down, she grasped hold of the spear’s haft again and called out. “Let every leader swear peace and mutual help to one another. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Angels, when the heavenly host sing of the glories of God. We will fight in the name of Our Lord and Lady, and they will ride with us. Do not doubt that we will defeat the Quman once and for all time.”
5
THAT morning, Antonia rose early, prayed, and paced, knowing it important to keep up her strength. At the appropriate time, she waited by the curtained entrance to the guest quarters, head bent and hands folded in the very picture of perfect repose. But in her heart she fumed over the petty insults and grave wrongs the mother abbess and nuns at the convent of St. Ekatarina had done to her.
For three months she had bided here, as quiet as a mouse, as humble as a sparrow, a most unexceptional guest. And yet Mother Obligatia persisted in treating her as an enemy.
A woman’s voice, raised in prayer, lifted with heartbreaking beauty: “The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.”
As quickly it was lost: a shift of air in the dusty corridors, perhaps, or the singer inadvertently turning her head so that her voice didn’t reach so far. A bell tinkled softly. Antonia suspected there were secret hidey-holes from which they observed her. Of course, growing up as a noble child in a royal house, she was used to constant observation. Years of education in the church and the years she had spent presiding as biscop of Mainni, when she was never alone except for moments spent in the privies, had served to hone her skills, to teach her how to present to the world at all times the smooth mask of humility on her face.
Still Mother Obligatia suspected her.
A scrape of sandal on rock caught her attention.
“Sister Venia?” The raspy voice of the lay sister, Teuda, sounded from beyond the curtain.
“I am ready.”
For three months they had followed this ridiculous routine. Teuda led her along empty corridors hewn out of stone past the chapel to the tiny library where, in the hours between Terce and Nones, she was allowed to read. At midday, Sister Carita, with her unsightly hunchback, escorted her to the service of Sext and then back to the library. After the brief service of Nones, Teuda led her back to the guest quarters, where she languished until Vespers, the only other service she was allowed to attend with the sisters. Even her meals were delivered to her in the guest quarters, where she ate alone.
To treat a sister nun in such a fashion was a mockery of charity! They did not trust her.
Sister Petra was already at work, making a copy of the chronicle of St. Ekatarina’s Convent. She nodded to acknowledge that Antonia entered but did not greet her. In truth, except for Mother Obligatia and the lackwit, Sister Lucida, the other nuns acted around Antonia as though they were under a vow of silence. Only Teuda, as a lay sister, was allowed to speak to her, and she said as little as possible.
From Terce to Sext, Antonia studied several interesting and obscure works on theology and philosophy: the apocryphal Wisdom Book of Queen Salome; a complete copy—very difficult to come by of the Arethousan Biscop Ariana’s heretical and quite scandalous Banquet, regarding the generation of the blessed Daisan out —of the divine substance of God; the Catechetical Orations by Macrina of Nyssa. But once she had returned from the midday service, she took down the final and of course thereby unfinished volume of the convent’s chronicle. She would finish it today, and then there would be no more reason to delay her mission.
The light lancing down through the shafts carved into the rock shifted over the four writing desks as the hours wore on. The silence was broken only by the scrape of Sister Petra’s quill and the occasional crackling of vellum as Antonia turned a page. Otherwise, they might have been entombed, suffering the ecstasy of oblivion.
She caught a whiff of cooking turnips, fleeting, gone.
Strange, she mused, as she read the final entries. In the year 729: The queen took refuge in the arms of St. Ekatarina from those who hunted her, together with certain noble visitors from Wendar. A party of clerics from Wendar stayed one week in the guest hall. A blight struck the wheat crop in the vicinity of Floregia. Jinna bandits killed every member of the house of Harenna, leaving their palace and fortress in ruins and their lands without a regnant. The palace of Thersa, eight stones, and ruins.