“You have changed, Henri,” Alia replied, not with rancor but as a statement of fact. “You have become the ruler I thought you might become in time. I am not sorry that I chose you instead of one of the others.”
He rocked back on his heels as at a blow. Adelheid’s small but firm hand tightened on his. “What do you mean? Chose me instead of one of the others? What others?”
She seemed surprised by his outburst. “Is it not customary among humankind to be making alliances based on lineage, fertility, and possessions? Is this not what you yourself are doing, Henri?” She indicated Adelheid. “When first I am coming back to this world, many of your years ago, I go seeking the one whose name is known even to my people. That is the man you call Emperor Taillefer. But he is dead by the time I am walking on Earth, and he has left no male descendants. I cannot be making an alliance with a dead man. It is to the living I must look. I am walking far in search of the living. Of all the princes in these lands it is in the Wendish lineage I am seeing the most strength. Therefore I am thinking then that your lineage is the one I seek.”
Henry had color in his cheeks, the mark of anger, but his voice betrayed nothing of the irritation that sparked as he narrowed his eyes. “I seem to have misunderstood our liaison. I had thought it was one of mutual passion, and that you were gracious enough to swear that the child you and I got together was of my making as well as yours. So that the child would seal my right to rule as regnant after my father. Do I understand you instead to say that you had another purpose in mind? That you actively sought me or any young prince of a noble line and chose me over the others because of the strength of the kingdom I was meant to rule?”
“Is it different among you, when you contract alliances?” Alia seemed genuinely puzzled. “For an undertaking of great importance, are you not sealing bargains and binding allies who will be bringing the most benefit to your own cause?”
Henry laughed sharply. “Had you some undertaking in mind, Alia, when first you put yourself in my way in Darre? How well I recall that night!”
She gestured toward the garden, dark now except for the light of moon and stars. Inside, the stewards had gotten all the lamps lit. St. Thecla’s many figures on the tapestries shimmered in the golden light; her saint’s crowns had been woven with silver threads, and the lamplight made them glimmer like moonglow.
“What other undertaking than the making of the child? Was this not our understanding?”