“I am so sorry,” Antonia continued, “at this loss of comforts. But you were alone with your servants in the other tent, and now it appears that Duke Conrad’s cousin, the son of his father’s sister, has joined us with twenty mounted men and fifty infantry.’
“And what of Conrad?” asked Constance coolly. “He has not come to join Sabella? Perhaps he has thought better of lending his aid to an unlawful rebellion.” One of her servants brought forward a stool, and she sat. She had not acknowledged Agius’ presence, not even with a glance, nor had he looked up from his prayer. But there was a tautness in the frater’s shoulders, as if his body betrayed what his eyes and lips resisted: any comment on the presence of the woman he had betrayed.
“Duke Conrad has not arrived. It is said his wife Eadgifu is within a sevenday of her time.”
“Their fourth child, this will be,” said Constance. If she was nervous or angry, she only betrayed it by the slow movement of her right hand, stroking the fingers of her left. “But that is only an excuse, Your Grace. Eadgifu has kinswomen with her; there would be no need for her husband to stay with her at such a time. Do not deceive yourself. If Duke Conrad has not come to Sabella’s side yet, then he does not mean to do so.”
“Nor has he gone to Henry’s side.”
Constance smiled faintly. “Conrad is not without ambition on his own behalf. Besides my family, he is the only other surviving descendant of the first Henry. Should the children of Arnulf the Younger waste themselves on a war over their right to the throne, his will become the surviving claim.”
“Do you forget the claim that might be put forward by Duchess Liutgard?”
“It is true she is of royal kin, being the great-grandniece of Queen Conradina. But when her grandfather gave up his claim to the throne and supported Henry instead, he gave up his claim in perpetuity. No. Liutgard’s loyalty is assured.” Here, as if despite herself, she glanced at Agius, and he, looking up briefly, met her gaze and winced away from it.
“Then what is it you counsel?” Antonia asked. She did not use the honorific granted to a biscop—‘your grace’—and the omission was clearly deliberate; Constance was no longer Biscop of Autun as long as Sabella controlled the city.
“I counsel peace,” said Constance. “As ought we all who have given our service to Our Lady and Lord.” Antonia signed to her servants, and they brought pillows and a feather quilt to the pallet. “It is late,” said the biscop. “We march in the morning.”
“Once you cross into Wendar you will have signaled outright your defiance of my brother’s reign,” said Constance, “beyond all else that has occurred in these last months.”
“So will it be,” replied Antonia with one of her kindly smiles, as if patient with a student who is slow to learn. “Henry waits at Kassel, so our scouts inform us. That is where we will meet. Now, let us pray, and then rest.”
She knelt, and her servants and cleric knelt with her. Constance hesitated, but then, proudly and with the noble air of a woman who will not let adversity beat her down, she knelt as well and joined in the prayer.
That night, Alain dreamed.
The pitch of the boat rocks him, but he does not sleep. There are twenty prisoners, taken to be slaves, huddled in the belly of the boat. They weep or moan or sleep the sleep of those who have given up hope. His cousins took only the strong ones, the young ones, who will give service for a hand of years or longer before they succumb to the winter ice or the predations of the dogs. Some might even breed, but the soft ones’ infants are weak and fragile, not suited to survive. How they have grown to spread themselves across the southern lands is a mystery he cannot answer, nor dare he ask the WiseMothers, for they do not care to hear of the fate of infidels. But did Halane Henrisson not speak of a god and of faith? He touches the Circle that hangs at his chest. It is cold.
Waves slap against the hull and oars creak with a steady beat in the oarlocks as the longship pierces forward through the seas. This music he has heard for all of his life and its cadences are like breath to him. It is a good night for travel on the northern sea.
He stands at the prow, watching mist stream off the waters. He studies the stars, the eyes of the most ancient Mothers, those whose bodies were at last worn away by wind and borne up into the vale of black ice, the fjall of the heavens. The moon, the heart of OldMan, spreads light over the waters.
Once he, too, took his place at the oars. But that was before his father stole the secret of the enchanter’s power and, binding that power into his own body, lifted his tribe and his litter of pups out of the endless pack struggles and made them supreme.