Child of Flame

by Kate Elliott

  Eika raids that same year had devastated Rossalia, and the duc had died defending his lands, leaving Gundara a rich widow overseeing the upbringing of three children. Lothair had himself claimed Gundara, sending his first wife to the convent in order to marry Taillefer’s daughter. In the opinion of Vitalia, he had been cursed by God for this sin of arrogance and greed by having his old age disrupted by various rebellions hatched against him by his sons, all of whom quarreled incessantly.

  “It still says nothing of the fate of Gundara’s other children by the duc de Rossalia,” observed Ruoda. “The eldest boy, Charles, inherited the dukedom when he came of age, married Margaret of Derisa, and had a son to inherit after him. What are you looking for, Sister Rosvita?”

  The crisp writing on the yellowed page gave no hints. It spoke only of words copied by a scribe, events recorded by a hand long dead. “At times I feel as though a mouse is nibbling at the edges of some secret knowledge hidden in my heart. If I only give the mouse a while longer to feast, then it will uncover what I wish to know. If I can only be patient.”

  She glanced, frowning, at Heriburg’s bandaged hand. The girl had burned herself yesterday trying to scratch magical sigils into a tin medallion. The incident had frightened and disturbed them all, and for now Rosvita contented herself with hanging sprigs of fennel and alder branches over the doors and windows to ward off evil spying.

  “My lady.” Aurea appeared in the door. “Brother Petrus has come.”

  It was time to attend the king, although Rosvita thought it strange that a presbyter came to fetch her rather than one of Henry’s own stewards. She took Fortunatus with her and sent the young women to the schola. They joined Henry and the court for midday prayers in the king’s chapel while, as was customary in Aosta, Queen Adelheid and her entourage prayed in the queen’s chapel. A colonnade connected the two buildings, and here Henry brought his retinue after the service of Sext concluded, to the royal garden.

  “Walk with me, Sister Rosvita,” the king said as he strolled out into the garden.

  Statues of every beast known to the huntsman stood alongside gravel paths bordered by dwarf shrubs or hidden beyond the taller ranks of cypress hedges. Stags and wolves, boars and lions and aurochs, guivres and griffins and bears glowered and threatened. Yet their threats weren’t nearly as great, Rosvita thought, as the busy courtiers of Aosta with their bland smiles and charming manners.

  Beyond a square fence lay a captivating floral labyrinth whose twisting paths were delimited by beds of hyssop and chamomile, bee-flowers, a purple cloud of lavender, and the last pale flowers of thyme. Summer had leached away the strong fragrance, but there was still enough lingering that, when Henry opened the gate and beckoned to her to follow him onto the narrow paths, it was like walking into a perfumed sachet.

  She knew the path better than he did and had to guide him past two wrong turns until they reached the bench placed at the center, surrounded by a circle of neatly trimmed rosebushes. From here, they looked back out over the low box shrubs as Adelheid emerged from the queen’s chapel, attended by Hugh and her ladies. Seeing Henry, Adelheid disengaged herself from her courtiers and struck out across the garden toward them.

  “Let me speak quickly, Sister.” The summer’s campaign had tired Henry out. New lines nested at the corners of his eyes and he favored one leg. “It has become known to me that there is serious trouble in Wendar, more serious than anything here in Aosta. Duke Conrad has married against my will. There are rumors he seeks to raise himself up as a prince equal to me, in the west. A Quman army has invaded in the east. Merchants bring stories of an Eika attack on Alba, more like an invasion than a raid, that might disrupt trading for many years. Plague, famine, and drought all trouble my loyal nobles. How can I reign in Aosta if Wendar falls into ruin? In truth, Aosta has suffered for years these manifold trials. Another year of campaigning and I surely can be crowned as emperor without any powerful noble family raising arms against me. But in my heart I know it is the wiser course to return to Wendar now. Yet I would hear your words, Sister, before I make any public pronouncement.”

  “This is a grave charge you set on me, Your Majesty.”

  He nodded. “So it is. Villam has already made his opinion clear. He counsels that we ride north as soon as we can, given the rumors we’ve heard of early snow in the mountains. If we do not make haste, we’ll not be able to cross the passes until next year. I cannot tell what might happen in Wendar over the winter and spring if I am not there to set things right. What do you advise, Sister Rosvita?” His gaze was keen, almost merciless. He wore an ivy-green tunic today, trimmed with pale silk, and the hose and leggings that any nobleman might wear, but no person, seeing him, would mistake him for anyone but the king.

  “I pray you, give me a few moments to think.”

  Adelheid reached the gate, had it opened for her by one of her servingwomen and, with a sweet smile on her pretty face, threaded inward along the intricate paths. She knew this labyrinth well.

  “There are those who advise against returning to Wendar.” He watched his young queen with an odd expression in his eyes, like a man who is pleased and exasperated in equal measure. His gaze flicked outward to where Hugh stood in conversation with Helmut Villam, Duchess Liutgard, and other notables. “I have heard rumors.”

  “So have I, Your Majesty, and I see no reason to believe what gossips will whisper. Speaking evil of others is a sin that hurts not one but three people, the one who is spoken of, the one who speaks the falsehood, and the one who listens to such slander. Queen Adelheid is an honorable woman, and a clever one. I do not believe you have any reason to fear that she has dishonored your marriage.”

  In truth, how could any woman even think to look at another man if she was married to Henry? It beggared the imagination.

  He plucked a beautiful blood-red rose from the nearest bush. “Yet even the freshest bloom has thorns.” He twisted a petal off the stalk and touched it to his lips. “What do you advise, Sister?”

  “If you return to Wendar, you must not let it be said that Aosta defeated you. Yet if you remain here, and your kingdom is weakened because you are not there to steady it, then your position here is lost. Wendar and Varre is the kingdom your father gave into your hands, Your Majesty. Do not forget that you are, first of all, a Wendishman, born out of a long and illustrious lineage to a bold and warlike people.”

  “My queen,” he said, with a genuine smile, as Adelheid came up to them. Henry’s return had lightened the young woman; she laughed delightedly when he offered her the rose, although she was careful to check for thorns before she took it from his hand.

  “Greetings to you this fine day, Sister Rosvita,” she said most cheerfully as she inhaled the fine fragrance of the rose. “I fear that you and the king are plotting, and that all my intrigue is for naught. You have seen the troupe practicing in the arena, have you not? I meant it to be a surprise.”

  In this way, chatting amiably, Adelheid drew them back into the embrace of the court. Feasting followed that day and the next, food and drink like the flow of a river, never ending. Petitioners came and went. A troupe of acrobats entertained with rope tricks and hoops and balls, and poets sang the praises of king and queen.

  Rosvita enjoyed a feast as much as anyone, but nevertheless she was relieved to escape late in the evening on the second day. She had no opportunity to speak privately with the king, or even with Villam, who seemed quite overtaken by admiring women, all of them young and most of them attractive. Even the king’s Eagle, Hathui, remained busy pouring wine, delivering messages, and serving at the king’s side. Tomorrow the feast would continue, but the royal court would cross the courtyard that separated the earthly from the spiritual palace and join the skopos in her great hall for a meal worthy, so it was whispered, of an emperor.

  Fortunatus made small talk as they walked back to her chambers. “Do you suppose the acrobats will perform for the Holy Mother as well? Those girls might as well have been monkeys
. I’ve never seen such tricks on a rope. And that juggling! Did you know that when I was a child, I saw a trained monkey perform? The harvest failed that year—you can imagine I recall that!—and we heard later that the traveling players had been forced to sell everything they owned to get out of Mainni, to escape the famine. The monkey was made into mincemeat, and every person who ate of the sausage made of its flesh sickened and died.”

  “An edifying story, Brother. I do not know whether to feel more sorry for the hungry souls who suffered, or for the poor creature abandoned by its master and then slaughtered.”

  “It bit me,” he added, lips quirking up mischievously. “I only tried to pet it. I couldn’t have been more than six or eight years of age. So I mink maybe the players sold it because it was a nuisance. Or perhaps it was just a story my sisters told me to make me cry, thinking I would be next to die because of the mark it left on my thumb.” He held up a hand and, indeed, a fine white scar cut raggedly across his thumb.

  She laughed. “So it’s true you’ve always been the one getting into trouble, Brother. I thought as much.”

  He had the sweetest grin; it was one of the things she loved him for. “Nay, Sister, I am innocent. It is only that I strive to follow your example in curiosity.”

  Aurea saw them coming and opened the door but did not follow them inside, where Ruoda, Heriburg, and Gerwita waited, standing at the table with a large book open before them. They started guiltily as Rosvita entered, but Heriburg, at least, had the presence of mind to turn one vellum page slowly, as though she were only browsing. Once the door was shut, Heriburg turned the page back.

  “We found it!” cried Ruoda triumphantly. “Or at least,” she added, with a blush, “Gerwita did.”

  “What have you found?”

  Gerwita, too shy to talk, indicated that Heriburg should explain. “These are the Annals of Autun from the years when Biscop Tallia held the biscop’s crosier. They end with the Council of Narvone, when Biscop Tallia lost the biscop’s crosier and the see of Autun by command of the Holy Mother Leah, third of that name. It seems the Holy Mother and her advisers were determined to break the power Taillefer’s daughters held over the Salian church.”

  “A matter of great historical interest,” agreed Rosvita, “but what has that to do with the question we were speaking about two days ago?”

  Ruoda sprang forward and pressed a forefinger onto the page. “We found Lady Gundara’s other children. See, here! A girl, called Thiota, was given to the church but died before she could take her vows. A younger son, called Hugo, betrothed at the age of four to the infant daughter and only child of the Count of Lavas, called Lavastina. So,” she finished triumphantly, “thus the hounds.”

  “Nay,” said Gerwita faintly, “for the Lavas hounds didn’t come into the possession of the Counts of Lavas until Count Lavastina’s son Charles Lavastine inherited after the death of his mother. Most said it was a curse set on him by the Enemy, that Charles Lavastine killed his own father and mother because he feared they would have a daughter to supplant him.” When everyone looked at her, she clasped her hands tightly before her and seemed eager to shrink into the bedcovers. “The story is well known in northern Varre, Sister. My family comes from that region, near Firsebarg Abbey.”

  “Was it never spoken of that the Counts of Varre were therefore related to the Emperor Taillefer?” asked Rosvita.

  Gerwita shrugged, looking horrified to be the center of attention of fully four persons. She wrung her hands nervously. “No.”

  “That seems unlikely, given that Taillefer had no other known legitimate descendants,” said Fortunatus.

  “In Salia, daughters cannot inherit a title, only sons,” said Ruoda, “and in Varre, sons inherit only if there are no daughters.”

  “Gundara would have been wise to settle her younger son in a place where he could be easily lost, and easily retrieved should his older brother die without an heir.” Rosvita drew the lamp closer to the old pages of the Annals. Her eyes weren’t as keen as those of her young assistants. She admired the refined minuscule common to annals written during the reign of Taillefer, but the words themselves told her nothing that her clerics had not already mentioned: the boy, Hugo, betrothed at the age of four. No indication of his upbringing or later career graced these pages, intended as they were to vindicate the actions of Skopos Leah as she brought down the power of Taillefer’s most powerful daughter, Biscop Tallia. Perhaps the child was sent to Varre to be raised with his intended bride, hidden in plain sight, the emperor’s grandson who by reason of his birth to one of the emperor’s daughters could never contend for the Salian throne. But his children, should he survive, might still marry back into the royal lineage.

  “Was Charles Lavastine the only child of Lavastina and Hugo?” Rosvita asked of Gerwita.

  “Nay, Sister. Count Lavastina died in childbed almost twenty years after the birth of Charles Lavastine, giving birth to her second child, another boy, called Geoffrey.”

  “Ah, yes.” Rosvita remembered the story now. “He would be the grandfather of the Geoffrey whose daughter became count after Lavastine’s untimely death. There was a trial—”

  Ruoda, it transpired, had a cousin who had witnessed the trial for the inheritance of Lavas county. She would have spent all night telling the particulars of the strange behavior of Lord Alain and the Lavas hounds and the victory of Geoffrey and his kinsfolk, but it was late, and there was much to do in the morning when, Rosvita supposed, Henry would at long last announce his intention to return to Wendar before snow closed off the mountain passes.

  They made ready for bed, Fortunatus retiring to the adjoining chamber while Aurea laid down pallets for the girls and a straw mattress for herself by the door.

  It seemed to Rosvita that she had scarcely fallen asleep when she was rudely awakened.

  “Sister Rosvita! Wake up!” A single lamp lit the dark chamber, hovering and cutting the air as the person holding it shook her.

  “I pray you!” Rosvita swung her legs out from under the linen sheet, all she needed on a warm night like tonight. Her shift tangled in her legs as she squinted into the darkness. Amazingly, none of the girls had woken. Perhaps that thumping wasn’t a fist pounding on her door but only the hammer of her heart. “What is it?”

  “Come quickly, Sister. A most terrible act—”

  Abruptly, Rosvita recognized the voice, shaken now, warped by horror and tears. “Is that you, Hathui? What trouble has brought you to my chambers this late in the night?”

  “Come quickly, Sister.” It seemed the pragmatic Eagle was so overset that she could only repeat these words.

  Frightened now, Rosvita groped in the chest at the foot of her bed for a long tunic and threw it on over her head. She had only just gotten it on, and it was still twisted awkwardly sideways, when Hathui boldly grabbed her wrist and tugged her urgently.

  Rosvita got hold of a belt and stumbled after her, banging a thigh against the table, stubbing her toe on the open door, and at last hearing the door snick closed behind her. Hathui lifted the lamp as Rosvita hastily straightened her tunic and looped the belt twice around her waist.

  “Do you trust me, Sister?” the Eagle whispered hoarsely. In Hathui’s gaze, Rosvita saw terror and a passionate rage, reined tight. “You must trust me, or you will not credit what I have seen this night. I pray you, Sister, it may already be too late.”

  “The king is not—” She could not say that grim word because once spoken it could not be taken back.

  “Nay, not dead.” Her voice broke. “Not dead.”

  “Sister Rosvita.” Fortunatus appeared at the door. “I heard noises—”

  “Stay here, Brother. Do not sleep until I have returned, but by no means follow me nor let the young ones do anything rash.” He nodded obediently, pale, round face staring after them anxiously as the two women hurried away down the corridor.

  With an effort, Hathui spoke again. It seemed that only the movement of her legs kept the Eagl
e from dissolving into hysterical tears. “Not dead,” she repeated, like a woman checking her larder yet again in a time of famine to be sure that she still has the jars of grain and oil she had set aside for hard times.

  They came to a cross corridor, turned left, and descended stairs and by a route unknown to Rosvita made their way along servants’ paths to the great courtyard that lay between the regnant’s palace and the palace of the skopos.

  “Where are we going?” murmured Rosvita, risking speech.

  “Not dead,” repeated Hathui a final time as she paused behind a pillar that might shield her lamp from prying eyes. Her face, made gray by shadow, loomed unnaturally large in the lamplight as she leaned closer to Rosvita. “Spelled. Bewitched. I saw it happen.”

  She shifted, drawing a leather thong over her head. “I almost forgot this. You must wear it to protect you against the sight.” She pressed an amulet into Rosvita’s hands. The silver medallion stung Rosvita’s palm.

  Did the king protect himself against the sight of his own Eagles, or was he already suspicious of Anne? As Hathui moved out into the courtyard, Rosvita caught her arm and drew her back.

  “Nay, Eagle. You must tell me what you saw before I take one step farther. Here.” She retreated backward into the shelter of an alcove, where travelers could refresh themselves and wash their faces before they entered the regnant’s hall. A fountain trickled softly, but when Hathui held out her lamp, a leering medusa face glared out at them, water dribbling from the mouths of its snake-hair into the basin below. The Eagle gasped out loud and turned her back on the hideous sculpture.

  “What I saw… nay, first put on the amulet, Sister.” Rosvita obeyed, and Hathui went on. “I sleep in an alcove of the king’s chamber. I woke, for I swear to you that an angel woke me, Sister. I woke to see the bed curtains drawn back and Hugh of Austra holding a ribbon above the king’s sleeping form. The ribbon twisted and writhed like a living thing, and in truth, for I can scarcely believe it myself, I saw a creature as pale as glass and as light as mist pour out of that ribbon and into the king’s body. King Henry jerked, once, and opened his eyes, and the voice he spoke with then was not his own.”