by Kate Elliott
“I have no husband,” said Theophanu, “and Sapientia is lost.”
“Sapientia does have a child,” said Gerberga. “Hippolyta. A girl not more than six or eight years of age now.”
“And related to you as well,” said Waltharia with a sharp smile.
“Hippolyta is unsuitable,” said Mother Scholastica. “She is a bastard, like Sanglant, and born for another purpose. She has been installed in a convent and will remain there. Do not argue this point further, I pray you. As for you, Theophanu, husbands can be found.”
“So they tell me, but I have seen no evidence of it yet.”
“Henry’s children are not the only ones descended from the royal line,” said Liutgard. “I have one daughter left to me. Ermengard is legitimately born.”
Scholastica nodded. “It is something to consider. There is another course. That Sanglant marry a noblewoman whose rank and lineage will bring luster to his court, and support to his kingship. Waltharia of Villam, for instance.”
“Impossible,” said Gerberga. “Such an alliance would give the Villams too much power. However, I have a young sister, still a maiden, who has sufficient rank and lineage on both her mother’s and father’s side to become queen.”
“I might then raise the same objection,” said Waltharia. “But be assured, Gerberga, that I do not wish to marry Sanglant.”
“I would object to either alliance,” said Liutgard.
“I am already married,” said Sanglant, who was growing tired of this maneuvering. They were like dogs circling and growling around a fresh carcass.
“If you must put her aside in order to gain the throne, I’ll gladly take her into my own bed,” said Wichman.
Liath coughed, and someone in the chamber tittered.
“I was just joking,” said Wichman suddenly, sounding strangely nervous.
Waltharia, whose face Sanglant could see, looked ready to laugh.
“I am already married,” he repeated.
His aunt was not done. “Married under the old custom of bedding as a wedding, a union not even blessed by a simple deacon. Married to a woman born into a lineage whose highest aspiration was to install one of its sons in the Dragons. She brings no noble connections, no treasure, no dowry, no lands—”
“She—”
“I am not finished, Nephew! And she is excommunicated. She cannot become queen in this state. If she does, all of Wendar will be placed under anathema.”
Each of the biscops nodded in turn. Scholastica had arrayed her allies carefully.
“Is this what you wish, Sanglant?” asked Henry’s half sister, Biscop Alberada. “That no mass may be sung? That no soul receive burial in holy ground? All for the sake of one woman?”
“Who will enforce this anathema?” he demanded, knowing that his temper was fraying and that he was pressing forward recklessly. “The skopos is dead.”
Scholastica set the owl feather onto the desk and folded her hands to rest on that surface. She had relaxed, he saw, believing the fight won.
“The skopos is never dead. St. Thecla lives in every skopos. God still rules Sanglant, or had you forgotten that? It is true I am abbess here because your grandfather Arnulf the Younger placed me in this position, as befit my birth. These good abbots rule their institutions because of their good names and righteous ways. But each of these holy biscops received her mantle with the blessing of the skopos in Darre. They are her representatives here in the north, and there are others, besides, who have not had time or opportunity to meet with you yet. We—all of us—will enforce the anathema if you disobey us.”
He fumed, but he was outarmed and outnumbered, and while it was all very well to live with Liath and ride with his army and ignore that distant excommunication brought down years ago in Autun, it was quite another thing to condemn the entire realm to spiritual exile.
“The accusation and sentence were unjust,” he said at last. “She is innocent.”
“The excommunication is valid until lifted.”
“Then lift it!”
They watched him. One abbess, four biscops, and three abbots, most considerably older than he was and well versed in the intrigues of courtly power, presented a daunting force. As Mother Scholastica had so kindly pointed out, these were only the ones who had arrived here in time. More would come, and it was likely they would bow to Scholastica’s authority, not his.
“There is a second, and greater, objection,” continued Mother Scholastica, “brought recently to our attention. She is accused of being a heretic as well. It is said that she is concealing secret texts which teach the most wicked heresy of the Sacrifice and Redemption. Even now the church struggles against the Enemy’s minions, whose whispers have infected the countryside and towns with this infection. We have long wondered how the plague of heresy first came into our land. It has been suggested that this woman has possession of a book, a forgery out of the east, that is the source of the disease. As you can imagine, this is a serious charge.”
“Hugh,” muttered Liath. She moved the book, not to hide it, but to fix it more firmly against his back in case anyone tried to pull it out of her arms.
“Who has said these things?” demanded Sanglant. “Let him come forward and speak these accusations in public. The Enemy uses whispers murmured in darkness in order to cast doubt. I believe such matters must be examined in the light.”
That he could damage Hugh’s credibility he did not doubt, but he had already made his biggest mistake. He didn’t realize it until Liath stepped out from behind him and walked right up to Mother Scholastica’s desk without ceremony or any particular respect for the holy abbess’ rank and preeminence.
First, make sure every commander knows their part in the plan.
“Liath,” he said, warning her off, but she set the book on the table and opened it.
“Here,” she said in that infuriating way she had, oblivious to the well gaping open at her feet as she stared up at the heavens. “The very question I meant to ask you, Mother Scholastica. This book I inherited from my father, but I do not read Arethousan. You see how the ancient language of Saïs is glossed in Arethousan by a second hand.”
The biscops and abbots crowded forward. Alberada’s eyes narrowed; Suplicia of Gent’s eyes grew wide. Others grimaced, and one old churchman set his lips together so tightly that the pressure wrinkled his clean-shaven chin.
Scholastica unclenched her hands, which had suddenly and painfully tightened, and touched the ancient parchment as though it were crawling with vermin. “‘Krypte!”’ she said in the voice of a woman condemning souls to the Pit for disobedience. “‘Hide this!”’ She traced her finger along the path of words, translating slowly. Like all church folk of her generation, she had learned Arethousan from Queen Sophia and her foreign retinue. “‘Many around have been fulfilled among us … these miraculous signs and omens, all the things from the heavens. I write for you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, so you may know the truth regarding this thing in which you have been instructed by word of mouth.”’
“Who is Theophilus?” asked Liath.
“Silence!” Scholastica turned the page, searching among the letters, none of which had any meaning to Sanglant. Some she was able to read; others she skipped over. He could not tell the difference. “‘God is born in the flesh …’ This is the heresy of dual nature!” She turned from white to red as she turned another page, and another. No one spoke or moved except Biscop Alberada, who wiped her brow and shuddered. “‘Then came the blessed Daisan before the judgment of the Empress Thaissania, She of the Mask. And when he would not bow before her but spoke the truth of the Mother of Life and the Divine Logos, the Holy Word, then she announced the sentence of death. This he met joyfully, for he embraced the promise of the Chamber of Light. But his disciples with him wept bitterly. So was he taken away and put to the flaying knife and his heart was cut out of his breast …”’
Her voice, ragged and chill, grew several degrees colder on these wo
rds, and her gaze, startlingly hot, lifted to sear Sanglant where he sat rigid, not knowing what to do, entirely at a loss, routed from the field. She was incandescent with anger, but she went on in a tone like a bell tolling for the dead.
“‘And a darkness fell over the whole land …”’
She broke off and rose. Even the church folk shrank back from her righteous wrath. The great princes tensed.
“A darkness, indeed! This is the source of the storm that has afflicted us! This is the heresy of the Redemption, and that of the dual nature! Brought into this realm, we now see, by a renegade monastic who strayed from the church and forgot his vows, and passed the poison on into his daughter.”
The words dropped like iron, more damaging than a spear thrust or a sword’s cut.
Only Liath did not appear to notice. She was too busy gazing in wonder at the open page. “Do you suppose it is a forgery, or the truth? How could one tell? It looks old, but the parchment might have been scraped clean and reused. It could have been discolored to appear old. Or it might be as it seems, centuries old. Is the Arethousan gloss written contemporaneously with the original, or was it glossed later? How can we know the truth of something that happened so long ago? One would have to gather evidence from many sources …”
She looked up expectantly. Only then did she falter, and he saw her bewilderment and the slow dawn of understanding.
As he understood, too late.
Hugh knows her better than I do.
Hugh had guessed she would betray herself, once the book’s existence was revealed, because she could not stop asking questions. Because she wanted to know the truth, whether the Earth rotated or the sun rotated, or if the winds were born in vast bellows or set in motion by the turning spheres, or why and how arrows shot into the heavens returned to a particular spot on the Earth. If an ancient manuscript was truth, or lie. She cared nothing for the politics of the situation or the church’s traditions of orthodoxy.
In that way, of course, she was a heretic, just not in the way they imagined.
“I don’t know where my father came by this text,” she said. “As I already told you, I can’t read it. I only knew a little Arethousan. It was taught to me by Father Hugh.”
“You have already condemned yourself,” said Mother Scholastica. “You admit twice over this is your father’s book.” She turned pages. “Here, a florilegia of sorcery, the arts of the mathematici which were condemned at the Council of Narvone. And here—what language is this?”
“It’s Jinna. This is a copy of the astronomical text On the Configuration of the World—”
“An infidel’s black sorcery!”
“No, it’s just a description of the workings of the heavens, based in part on Ptolomaia’s Tetrabiblos. There’s nothing heretical in that!”
“It must be burned.”
“It will not be burned!” Liath grabbed the book right out of the Mother Scholastica’s grasp, clapped it shut, and hugged it to her chest.
Sanglant shut his eyes momentarily, unable to bear the looks cast his way: some gasped, some gloated, some were genuinely shocked, and Wichman, at least, was enjoying the spectacle as he scratched at his crotch.
Liath tried reason, although she must see by now that reason would fail. “I had hoped, Mother Scholastica, that you and your scholars could examine this text …”
“It must be burned.”
“But don’t you want to know?” She was indignant. “If it’s true, then the church mothers lied to us. If it is a forgery, then the heresy is discredited. It never serves any purpose to burn what you fear.”
How passionately she spoke! Only he, among those in this chamber, understood how literally she meant those words.
Mother Scholastica turned away from her to Sanglant. “You cannot hide, Nephew, from the poison you have brought into the court. Do you see, now, how she seduced you?”
It was true that he could not hide. He opened his eyes to face them, all gazing expectantly at him. Was Theophanu happy to see Liath discredited, or was she merely puzzled? Ekkehard looked bored. The margraves and dukes were waiting, as soldiers in battle, to see what command he would give, by which they would judge his worth. That Scholastica and the church folk held their line was evident to all.
He shifted ground.
“I demand that Hugh of Austra be brought before me. I charge him with Henry’s murder, in collaboration with Adelheid of Aosta. I charge him also with the murder of Helmut Villam.” He gestured toward the door. “I have with me this Eagle, called Hathui, known to many of you as Henry’s loyal servant, a particular favorite of my father’s. She is my witness. She saw both deeds committed with her own eyes and will swear that Hugh is the murderer.”
Gerberga smiled tightly but said nothing, neither to support or to challenge him.
“That is a serious charge,” said Mother Scholastica, “especially since it is known that you bear a long-standing grudge against Hugh of Austra, in part relating to the conduct of this woman.” She indicated Liath without looking at her.
“That is not all.” He was determined to press the attack on the only flank that hadn’t collapsed. “Hugh of Austra was accused and found guilty of sorcery at a trial in Autun. In that same trial, Liathano was excommunicated although she was not present to defend herself nor had she any folk at that assembly to speak in her favor. I demand that those who presided at that council be brought together a second time to reconsider the evidence.”
“How will you manage that, Brother?” asked Theophanu. “Constance has been shut away by Sabella. She is a prisoner in Arconia in a place called Queen’s Grave, so I am given to understand. You would have to invade Arconia to get her back.”
“I am regnant of Wendar and Varre, am I not? I am Henry’s heir. It is no invasion if my king’s progress takes me to Autun to visit my aunt.”
Mother Scholastica looked at each of the biscops in turn, and they nodded one by one. “It is a fair request. The matter of heresy must never be treated lightly, since heresy is punishable by death. But be clear on this. I will not anoint and give the church’s blessing to any soul who is an excommunicate.”
He looked at Liath. She met his gaze, lifting one eyebrow as if his expression surprised or troubled her, and she nodded, just once. The exchange annoyed him. She knew what he had to do, and she didn’t really care. She had never wanted to be his queen; she had only gone along with it for reasons even he did not truly understand. He would never understand her well enough to trap her as Hugh had done so easily.
Well. Liath had given up more than anyone here knew. He trusted her.
“My quarrel is not with God, whose servant I am. Let me be anointed and crowned here in Quedlinhame. After this, the king’s progress will ride to Gent.”
“Why to Gent?” asked Ekkehard. “I don’t want to go to Gent.”
“Gent is the birthplace of the first Henry, Duke of Saony and later king of Wendar. It is well to honor the founder of our royal line. In Gent’s cathedral, Arnulf the Elder married the last of Varre’s royal heirs to his own children. On that day, Varre’s noble house and its right to rule Varre passed into Wendish hands. The holy biscop of Gent can anoint and crown me again in Gent, before the multitudes who live there and in the neighboring counties. Then the king’s progress will ride west through Saony and into Fesse, and from there into Arconia. Into Varre.”
“A wise choice,” said Mother Scholastica. “I approve.”
“And yet another reason,” he added. “Many there will attest to the miracle of St. Kristine, who appeared to a young Eagle on the day that the Eika horde led by Bloodheart attacked the city. That any of Gent’s townsfolk survived the sack of Gent is due to that miracle, and to that Eagle who led some of the population to safety along a secret path revealed to her by the saint. Let the deed be remembered. I know there are witnesses in Gent who will recall that day.”
Mother Scholastica frowned. “I’ve heard such a tale, but I don’t see—” But she did see. S
he almost laughed, her mouth twisted up in an expression that wasn’t a smile. “So be it. God wish justice to be done. Let it not be said that any trial was decided before all the evidence was weighed. Is there more, Sanglant?”
“That is all for now.”
“I am not your enemy, Sanglant.”
“In this matter?” He shrugged. “We are not enemies, Aunt. We both wish what is best for Wendar and our royal lineage. I am my father’s obedient son, and you are God’s obedient servant. So be it.”
“So be it,” she echoed. “Let Hugh of Austra be found. As for the rest, we will make ready. In three days’ time, Prince Sanglant will be crowned and anointed as king.”
4
“HE gave you the book to make you look guilty!” said Sanglant later that day, when they returned to the relative peace of their encampment beyond the town.
She sat on a bench with Da’s book on her legs. It was comforting to stroke the cover, the brass fittings, the cool leather binding that was, in this one corner, flaking from age. It needed to be oiled.
“This book condemns you by its existence. That’s why they want it burned.”
“I will never let them burn this book, or indeed, any book!”
“You’re being stubborn!”
She met his gaze calmly. “I am right.”
He sighed, pacing, rubbing his head. “Maybe you are. I don’t know.”
“But they’re right,” she added, “that another woman, one trained to court, would be a more suitable queen.”
He looked at her with disgust and left the tent. She heard his voice rise outside. “Fulk! Fulk! Is there any news of the fugitive yet?”
Moments of peace were not easily discovered on the king’s progress. For once, remarkably, there was not a single soul in the tent with her. Only a thread of light filtered through the smoke hole at the center of the scaffolding that held up the canvas, but because she had salamander eyes she had light enough to read the beloved words. She knew them all by heart, of course, but it gave her such intense pleasure to touch each letter, each word, and let the meaning flower before her eyes.