Prince of Dogs

by Kate Elliott

  “Let me see.” Hugh tapped fingers together as he considered. Liath kept her gaze fixed on the king’s boots. “You can read Dariyan, can you not, child?” he asked kindly.

  “Y—yes,” she murmured, keeping her eyes lowered.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, Father Hugh.”

  “Do you consider yourself well educated?”

  Now she hesitated.

  “Come now,” said the king. “You need not fear any word you speak plainly and honestly in front of me.”

  “So my da told me,” she said finally, still staring at the king’s boots.

  “Is that a yes?” asked Hugh, evidently puzzled by this answer—or wanting her to state it plainly.

  “Yes.” And though she said it softly, Rosvita detected—perhaps—no small amount of pride.

  “Ah. Well. To what work of the ancients might I be referring? ‘As had been noted, there are roots and shrubs that have many powers affecting not only living bodies but also bodies without life.’”

  Again she hesitated. Courtiers leaned forward. Was there something of reluctance in her expression? Was she afraid to reveal her knowledge? Where had she gotten that book, and what did it contain?

  “You would not wish to lie before the king, I hope,” said Hugh mildly.

  “It is from the Inquiry Into Plants by Theophrastus,” she replied finally, her voice scarcely audible.

  A murmur rose from the crowd, and there passed among them a certain amount of nudging and winking and a few sly glances toward Helmut Villam. Rosvita wondered if it was true that Villam had propositioned the handsome young Eagle. Indeed, the old margrave was gazing with rapt attention at the young woman.

  “From whence does this come? ‘To one desiring to know by what path blessedness is reached the reply is, “Know thyself.”’?”

  Startled, she looked up. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  He nodded, expecting this answer. “So writes Eustacia, repeating the words of the oracle at Talfi: ‘Gnosi seaton.’ But of course you do not know Arethousan, do you?”

  “The one who taught me knows how much Arethousan I know,” she said with such an odd inflection that Rosvita wondered who had taught her Arethousan—and why.

  Hugh lifted a hand in a graceful gesture that suggested there was more like this to come. “You have some knowledge of Dariyan. Does the word ‘Ciconia’ mean anything to you?”

  “It means ‘stork,’” she said instantly as if, bested once, she meant to defeat him now.

  “Nay, child, I refer to Tullia Marcia Ciconia, the great orator of ancient Dariya. Which works of hers have you read?”

  “Which works of hers?”

  “De officiis? De amicitia? Can you speak to me some of the wisdom contained in her words?”

  “I—I don’t know those works. I mean to say, I’ve heard of them, but—” She faltered.

  He nodded gently and glanced toward Sapientia as if to say, ‘Shall we stop this now?’ but he went on. “Surely you have instructed yourself in the writings of the church mothers?”

  “I know the Acts of Saint Thecla,” she said defiantly.

  “That is proper. Your Highness,” he nodded toward Sapientia, “you are familiar with the Acts as well, are you not?”

  “Isn’t every child?” demanded Sapientia, looking affronted.

  “The Acts, like The Shepherd of Hermas, is a work both noble and common folk may hear for their edification. But what of the writings with which the educated cleric instructs herself? Macrina of Nyssa’s The Catechetical Orations and her Life of Gregory? These fine works you have read, of course?”

  She shook her head. A few of the courtfolk whispered among themselves. Some snickered.

  “The City of God by Saint Augustina? Or her De Doctrina Daisanitia? Jerome’s Life of Saint Paulina the Hermit? Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Zurhai the Jinna?”

  Numbly, she shook her head and, just as King Henry raised a hand, growing bored with this display of ignorance, Hugh stood up. His audience quieted expectantly. The poor Eagle ducked her head, as any shamed creature would, to stare at the floor.

  “Is it not said,” Hugh asked of Sapientia and the assembled clerics and layfolk together, as a teacher addresses his students, “that the emperor of all Jinna keeps a bird which he has taught to speak human words? Have you ever seen entertainers make dogs to walk upon two legs? Such learning makes neither bird nor dog educated, however. A child trained early enough can learn the meanings of words written upon a page, and speak them out loud, but that does not mean her understanding is equally trained. I believe we have before us a curiosity.” He smiled wryly but with a touch of gentle amusement such as an adult shows before an incredulous child’s outrageous claims. “Not a prodigy. Is it not so, Your Highness? How do you judge this case?”

  Thus appealed to, Sapientia nodded sternly. “Of course what you say must be true, Father Hugh. It might be a mercy, then, to take this poor creature under my wing.”

  Henry rose, and quickly any seated man or woman rose as well, young Brother Constantine almost spilling his red ink in his haste not to show discourtesy toward the king. “Let that be a lesson, daughter, that we are well served by wise counselors.”

  “And some more than others,” murmured Villam so softly that only Rosvita and the king could hear.

  Henry’s lips quirked, and he signed to his servants. There was a sudden flurry of activity at the other end of the hall. Two servants picked up his chair and carried it over to the central place. “I think we may now sit down to table,” Henry observed. He led the way.

  Rosvita lingered, bitten by curiosity. The young Eagle remained kneeling. A few tears streaked her cheeks, but she made no sound, moved not at all even to wipe them away. She simply stared fixedly at the cold stone floor.

  “Eagle!” called Sapientia from her seat at the central table. “Attend me!”

  She rose and, silent, attended her new mistress.

  X

  A DEER IN THE

  FOREST

  1

  “I still don’t like her,” said Sapientia to her companion, Lady Brigida, whose status as Sapientia’s current favorite gave her the privilege of combing the princess’ hair in the evening before bed. “That skin of hers. It’s so … so …”

  “Dirty? She might wash more.”

  “It isn’t dirt. It doesn’t come off. I rubbed at it yesterday.” The princess giggled. “Perhaps she’s the lost sister of Conrad the Black, or his by-blow.”

  “Hmm. She’s too old to be his by-blow … but perhaps not, if he bedded some girl when he was young Brother Constantine’s age. Perhaps she’s a Jinna slave girl who escaped her master.”

  “Then how would she know how to speak our language?” demanded Sapientia.

  “Duke Conrad’s mother didn’t enter the convent after the elder Conrad died, did she? Perhaps this is her second child by another man.” Lady Brigida had the unfortunate habit of snorting when she giggled, and she giggled a great deal, possessing ample inheritance in lands but little in wit or sense. “You wouldn’t think she would have had to hide the child unless there was something wrong with the lover she had taken.”

  “I believe she lives quite retired. Still, there’s something in what you say, Brigida, that she must have Jinna blood in her, for they’re all brown like that. But I still say she must have some Wendish blood in her, or she’d not be able to speak our language.”

  “Didn’t Father Hugh say any bird can be taught human speech?”

  Liath endured this without flinching. Their idiocy and arrogance bothered her not one whit. At this moment, Hugh was not in the room, and after three days as Sapientia’s Eagle that was the only mercy she lived for.

  “Keep brushing,” said Sapientia. “Whom should I marry, Brigida?”

  “Lord Amalfred,” said Brigida instantly. “He’s very handsome and he killed a bear last week with his own hand, as you saw, as well as a dozen deer or more. I should like a husband like that.
When I inherit from my mother, I’ll expand her lands eastward, and I’ll need a strong fighting man at my side.”

  “He’s only the son of a Salian duchess. I must marry a man with royal connections.”

  “Isn’t King Henry going to send for an Arethousan prince for you to marry, since your mother was an eastern princess?”

  Sapientia sighed sharply and tossed her head, disturbing the smooth flow of black hair that Lady Brigida had been stroking with the comb. “Even my Eagle knows better than that, Brigida. Isn’t that so, Eagle? Why can I not marry an Arethousan prince?”

  In three days Liath had learned that Sapientia liked her to be stupid. “I don’t know, Your Highness.”

  Although, in this case, she did know. But the humiliation at Hugh’s hands still stung bitterly, not least because he had been right as well as wrong. It was true she read well and that Da had taught her a great deal—but when Hugh had paraded her ignorance publicly, to torture her, she had suddenly realized that Da had taught her narrowly. She knew far more than Hugh and probably any person at court of the knowledge hoarded by the mathematici, and yet how could she judge how much Da had truly known?

  She was young, and she had been educated on the run and in the way of arrowshots toward a hidden foe—scattered far and wide and toward no set target. There was so much she did not know that any person educated in the king’s schola or a cathedral school, in the convents and monasteries, would know and would be expected to know in order to be considered educated. Yet, if truth be told, she had no interest in Macrina’s The Catechetical Orations or in the Lives of the early saints. The wisdom of the ancients drew her—as long as it concerned the heavens, sorcery, or natural history and the workings of the physical world. That Da had taught her to construct her city of memory, and thus she had many facts available to her stored away in that city—such as Arethousan inheritance practices—did not mean she was educated as anyone else understood the term.

  “Poor thing,” said the princess. “The Arethousan princes are never allowed to leave the palace, you see, my dear Brigida, because they are such barbarians that only a male can become emperor among them, and only one among the sons and nephews and cousins of the reigning emperor can become emperor after him. So if any of them get away, then they might have a claim to the throne and come back to the palace with their own army and cause a civil war. That is why there are never any civil wars in Arethousa, because once the new emperor is chosen, all of the royal princes of his generation are poisoned by his mother.”

  The temptation washed over Liath to correct Princess Sapientia, for if partly correct her account was so jumbled as to be absurd: The Arethousans did indeed only allow a male to be titled “Emperor,” but it was the infidel Jinna khshāyathiya who had his mother poison all those relatives who might contest his claim to the throne.

  “Is that what you mean to do to Theophanu?” asked Brigida lightly.

  The chill hit Liath’s throat and spine at the same instant, and her hands tightened on her belt. She could not help but look toward the door, which stood half open; smoke leaked in from torches stuck in sconces in the corridor beyond. He came with his attendants. The torchlight made a halo around him, gilding his fine golden hair. He wore long hose, an azure tunic embroidered with sunbursts, and a cloak thrown back over one shoulder, clasped by a handsome gold-and-jeweled brooch in the shape of a panther. He looked like a noble lord just in from the hunt; only by his shaven chin could one tell he was a churchman.

  Both noblewomen and all the other attendants in the chamber looked up at the same instant. Sapientia glowed. Brigida simpered.

  “I beg your pardon,” said Hugh smoothly. “I did not mean to interrupt you.” Sapientia gestured at once and a chair was unfolded for him so he could sit beside her. Servants brought linen and water for him to refresh himself. He did not look at Liath. He didn’t need to.

  “We were speaking of nothing important,” said Sapientia too quickly.

  “No, indeed, Father Hugh,” said Lady Brigida. “I heard that next we go to my uncle Duke Burchard’s palace in Augensburg, and then to the royal palace at Echstatt. There’s lots of good hunting.”

  “And a host of soldiers,” added Sapientia, who always grew excited speaking of battle, “to be gathered for the attack on Gent.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” said Hugh.

  In this way they readied themselves for bed. In this guest room there were four actual beds and four additional camp beds. In every room at this time, Liath knew, an elaborate dance went on, just as it did when it came time to seat for dinner, testing rank against rank, establishing the order for who would sleep where and next to what person, so that all might know who was most privileged and who less so. Sapientia took the bed that held pride of place, centered in the room, and Hugh the one next to her. His proximity to her caused no comment—not anymore. Brigida slept on the other side of Sapientia, lesser ladies by degrees farther away on the other beds and the favored and most noble of the clerics on the remaining camp beds. Liath retreated to the door, hoping for the chance to escape out to sleep in the stables or at least, as she had the last two nights, in the corridor.

  “It is a bitter chill night,” said Hugh, “and some few of my attendants have gone out to help warm the stables. All of your people may sleep herein with us, Your Highness, so that none must suffer the cold.”

  “Of course!” said Sapientia, always wishing to appear magnanimous, and disposition was made.

  “Here, Eagle,” he continued casually, “there is a place here.” Hugh indicated an open space on the floor beside his bed.

  She dared not object. She wrapped herself tightly in her cloak and lay down. Soon the torches were extinguished and in blackness she lay, catching now and again the wink of a gold buckle where belts or ornaments had been hung from the bed frames to wait until morning. She could not sleep, not even after the restless settling down of the twelve or fourteen people in the room had ceased and most every breath gentled into soft snoring or the long cadences of sleep. His presence and the faint murmur of his voice in a prayerlike monotone wore on her as painfully as if she lay on a thousand prickling needles. Her chest felt tight, but she could not resist peeking up at him. The shadow that was his form sat upright in bed, curved over his hands—and threads gleamed between his fingers. He seemed to be weaving.

  As if he sensed her scrutiny, he moved, hiding his hands. “Your Highness,” he whispered. “You are not yet asleep.”

  Sapientia yawned. “There are so many things that trouble my mind, my love. Whom shall I marry? Why can it not be you?”

  “You know that is impossible, though it is my fondest wish. Were I not illegitimate—”

  “Not in my heart!”

  “Hush. Do not wake the others.”

  “What do I care if they hear me? They know my heart as well as you do, and so shall all the court, even my husband, whatever poor sorry fool he may be. I love you more than anyone—”

  “Your Highness.” He broke in gently. “It is your fate as Heir to marry, and mine as bastard and churchman to remain unwed. What God has granted us, we must endure gladly. You shall find affection and good will toward your husband in time—”

  “Never!”

  “—for it is the will of Our Lady and Lord that woman cleave to man, and man to woman, all but those who cleave instead to God and turn away from the vanities and temptations and empty pleasures of the world.”

  “Is that all I am to you—!”

  “Your Highness. I pray you, speak no harsh word to me, for I could not bear it. Now, what else troubles you?”

  Liath dared not move, though a stone pinched her thigh. All the others breathed the even breaths of sweet dreaming.

  “Theophanu.”

  “You need not fear Theophanu.”

  “That is all very well for you to say, but—”

  “Your Highness. You need not fear Theophanu.”

  Something in his tone made Liath shiver, and as if the s
light shift of her wool cloak on the hard stone floor alerted the princess, her voice changed.

  “Are you sure all of them sleep?” she hissed.

  “No one can hear us whom you need fear, Your Highness.” He shifted on the bed, and Liath heard the muffled sighing sound of two people kissing passionately.

  “Ah,” gasped Sapientia at last, “how I long for the day when I am rid of this burden—live and healthy, God grant—so that we may again—”

  “Hush.” He moved away from her and again, hidden from all but Liath, began to wind the gleaming threads, as faint as spider’s silk, between his fingers. “Sleep now, Your Highness.”

  Her breathing gentled and slowed, and she slept. Liath lay as still as stone, but he shifted on the bed, rolling back until he lay above her as a boulder poised on the edge of a cliff shades the delicate plants beneath in its shadow. She held her breath.

  “I know you are not asleep, Liath. Have you forgotten that I had many nights to study you, where you lay beside me, to study your face in repose, or when you were only pretending to sleep? I know when you sleep, and when you do not. And you are not sleeping now, my beauty. All the others sleep, but not you. And not me.”

  He could only speak in this way if he was sure everyone else slept, and how could he know that? Or perhaps he did not care. Why should he? He was the abbot of a large institution, the son of a powerful margrave, an educated churchman out of the king’s schola. She was nothing compared to that, a King’s Eagle, a kinless fugitive whose parents had both been murdered.

  “Tell me, Liath,” he continued in that same soft, persuasive, beautiful voice, “why do you torment me so? It is wrong of you to do so. I cannot understand what power lies in you that eats at me so constantly. You must be doing it on purpose, you must have some scheme, some end, in mind. What is it? Is it this?”

  He shifted. She would have screamed, but she could not, she could only lie in mute dread, and then his fingers brushed her cheek, probing for her lips, explored them softly before tracing down over her chin to her vulnerable throat. Bile rose, burning her tongue.