A servingwoman bent to whisper in the duchess’ ear and she looked toward the door. “Ah!” she cried with a smile that made Alain want to bolt outside. “Here is Lord Alain.” She rubbed her belly reflexively and then gestured for him to sit between her and Tallia on the couch. Compared to Tallia, she looked vast and ruddy, the kind of woman who would produce many healthy babies and live to see her grandchildren. “Alas that I did not negotiate with your father for your hand before you were stolen away by my dear cousin.”
“My lady,” remonstrated the deacon, “think of your husband, so recently lost to you.”
“Ah, poor Hanfred! I am truly sorry an Eika spear got him through the guts. But you will admit, cousin, that your husband is far more pleasant to look upon than my old Hanfred ever was, may his soul rest in peace in the Chamber of Light.”
“Is he?” asked Tallia, staring at Alain as if she had never seen him before.
“You pray too much, cousin! Come now, sit here beside us.” Alain did not budge from his station by the door. That she was rather free with her hands, knowing him a married man and therefore in her words “ripe for the sampling,” made him even less inclined to sit within her reach.
“I beg your pardon, I must attend my father. I only came to pay my respects. Some portion of the party has ridden on, and I doubt they will return before nightfall.”
“Lord Amalfred among them, I trust?” Yolande had a hearty laugh. The riches heaped on the platter she shared with Tallia would have fed the entire flock of starving souls they had stumbled across earlier. Alain wondered with sudden violent loathing how much of that food would be thrown to the pigs, although certainly the pigs, too, were deserving of food. “I would be sorry to hear he had returned early. He’s hoping I’ll marry him, and I confess that hearing that he shot an arrow at our dear cousin Theophanu thinking she was a deer inclines me to think well of him, but dear God he is such a bore.”
“Why have you come back early?” asked Tallia suddenly, as if accusing Alain of ruining her day by thrusting so indelicately into the pleasant female companionship she was now enjoying.
“Steadfast was injured.”
She lost interest at once. No longer terrified of the hounds still, she did not care for them at all. She dismissed him with a wave of the hand mimicked from Duchess Yolande, and that stung him, to be treated like a servant; but she wore the gold torque of royal kinship and the Lavas counts did not. She might be his wife, but Duchess Yolande had not journeyed this far to see the count of Lavas but rather the woman who was the granddaughter in the direct female line of the last Varren queen.
That was the game being played here today, and he was not part of it. He was a man, and according to Duchess Yolande men were suited for the hunt, not the hall. While men might excel on the field of battle, the true dance of power took place where alliances were sealed, rebels brought to justice, and gifts exchanged.
Upstairs, Lavastine sat on his bed and stroked Steadfast’s head where she lay, breathing heavily, on the coverlet beside him.
“But her father was duke before her,” said Alain, sitting or the other side of Steadfast.
Lavastine glanced up. “You have fled the redoubtable duchess, I see. Well, her mother is of Karronish kin, and it is well known that they do not let men rule there unless no daughter, sister, or niece can be found to take up the staff. Her father Rodulf had the duchy because he had no sisters, and he devoted himself to the battlefield and let his wife administer his holdings as well as her own. She was a difficult woman. No doubt he was happier in the field.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it, that the ancient physicians wrote that male seed was weaker and that females are formed more like to the angels than are males?”
“That is what the learned deacons report. If you and Tallia have a daughter, I will be well pleased.”
“Ai, God,” whispered Alain. Steadfast lay still, eyes open and fixed on Lavastine as he curled his fingers around her ears and stroked them softly. Her right paw was hot and swollen and had an odd, grainy texture rather like stone at the very tip. “Just like Ardent.”
Lavastine grunted. “If it is true that some creature stalks us, then we must post more guards and sentries. But if we do so, then Duchess Yolande may feel we do not trust her, and she may take offense.”
“Why has she come?”
“Her father followed Sabella, and he was not bespelled as I was. Sabella still lives—”
“As a prisoner in the care of Biscop Constance, in Autun.”
