In the Ruins (55 page)

“To God?”

He shut his eyes.

“To a woman you can never have.”

That fierce gaze startled, when he opened his eyes so abruptly. “I had her once!” He slammed a fist into the bench, then set his jaw and shut his eyes again and took in three trembling breaths before he quieted himself. “I am
faithful to her. To no one but her. And after her, to God. And after God, to Henry.”

“Who is dead.”

“I did my best to save him!”

“I do not doubt it,” she said, to mollify him. “What of Henry’s son? Is she with Prince Sanglant?”

He could not speak. He was shaken, and tired, and so gnawed through with jealousy that he had become fragile with it, ready to fall to pieces but not yet shattered.

“This is too much and too quickly,” she said more gently. “You are only arrived after a long and undoubtedly arduous journey. How came you here?”

“I journeyed by horse southwest from Quedlinhame until I found a crown. With my astrolabe it was a simple enough thing to measure precisely my route to Novomo. This I have taught myself that Anne did not know and had not mastered. I can go anywhere whose destination is known and measured. Two weeks only I lost in the crossing. Soon I shall have it down to a handful of days.”

“And all alone, no retinue at all.”

“None, except the beast, who resides in the lady’s stables now. I have fled those who do not trust me. Even my own kinfolk were turned against me by poisonous words.” Weary, indeed, to admit so much so honestly.

“I do not trust you, Lord Hugh. Why should I?”

“Trust that I have no power save my knowledge of the arts of the mathematici. My mother is dead, and my sisters hate me. Queen Adelheid wishes me gone. That bastard who calls himself king has the power to banish me.”

“And he holds the woman you desire close to his heart.”

“Damn him!”

He wept tears of rage.

The sight so astounded her that she could not move except to wave away the servants who had come into the room, hearing his distress. Her amazement allowed her the patience to wait him out and to explore the lineaments of his anger, shown in the curl of his hands, the stiffness of his jaw, and the way his lower lip trembled like that of a thwarted child. She had never seen him lose control so nakedly.

So might an angel cry, hearing of an insult to God which Their creature was powerless to avenge.

When he had calmed a little, she touched his hand. “I will speak with the queen. You will rest. Later we will speak again. There is a pallet in the outer chamber. No one will disturb you. Ask for food and drink, anything you desire.”

“You cannot give me what I desire,” he said, voice still hoarse with tears.

“You ought to desire God’s favor, Lord Hugh, not a mere woman. Mere flesh.”

“You do not know what she is.”

“But I do know. I saw what she is, and a fearful thing it was to see. You forget I was there at Verna. I think even my galla might not touch one such as she. She is very dangerous, and no doubt that makes her sweeter and brighter in your eyes. I think she is too dangerous to let live.”

“No!”

“Then chained. Dead, or chained.”

He had not dried his eyes, but the tears lingering on his face did not mar his beauty. “I will do anything to get her back.”

“Will you? Will you even marry Adelheid?”

With his chin dipped down, his gaze up at her had an almost flirtatious quality. “How will that aid Adelheid’s cause, or my own? Or yours, Your Holiness?”

“In no possible way, if Adelheid does not forgive you and take you back into her counsel. As for the rest, consider who is Adelheid’s heir—younger by far and easier to steer on a proper course.”

That made him think. He sat in silence, gaze drawn in as at an image she could not touch, although she could guess it: Antonia as skopos and Hugh as the deceased queen’s consort, ruling Mathilda as regents.

“Best to rest, Lord Hugh,” she added kindly, “and see if sleep and food ease this trouble that disturbs your mind.”

“It never will,” he whispered to himself.

She nodded, humoring him, but he was far gone, and indeed when he was taken aside to the waiting pallet, hidden behind a curtain, he slept at once and heavily, dead to the
world, as it was said by the poets, who knew from sordid experience how cravings make a man pregnable who might otherwise be fortified with temperance.

He slept all day and all night while the queen was caught up in her sorrow, seeing her younger daughter wrapped in a shroud and carried in a box to the crypt in Novomo’s fine church, the only suitable place to lay a princess to rest. The bell tolled seven times, to ring the dead child’s soul up through the spheres. A posset laced with valerian helped the queen to sleep as well, that same night.

The next morning dawned peacefully, as Lady Lavinia had cause to remark when Antonia met her by the fountain after Prime.

“I’ve had word that a train of merchants will reach Novomo by midday. They have ridden all the way from the eastern provinces. One is said to have come as far as from Arethousa! The queen, even in her grief, is sensible of their long journey and wishes to see them feasted properly this afternoon.”

“She is wise. If there is no entertainment, then I think a prudent feast cannot be seen as improper despite her sorrow. The child was not yet two, after all. We cannot be surprised when infants die, as so many do. I do not object.”

Lavinia put a hand into the water and, after a while, looked up. “I pray you, Holy Mother. Will the queen forgive him? He was always faithful to her, and most especially to Henry. I never heard an ill word spoken of him, never a whisper.”

“What do you mean, Lady Lavinia?”

“I do not think it right he should be banished, but I cannot go against the queen’s wishes.”

“What if he should marry the queen?”

“He is a holy presbyter! He is wed to God’s service. It would pollute him to marry!” She faltered. Her cheeks were stained red, as if the sun had pinked them, but of course there was no sun, only the monotony of another cloudy day.

“It would be a shame to stain the beauty of a man as beautiful as he is.”

“I do not know if it would be right, Holy Mother.”

“It is not your place to interpret God’s wishes.”

“No, Holy Mother.”

“Still, there is something in what you say. He might not be the right one. Yet the queen must marry again.”

“She mourns her dead husband, Holy Mother.”

“Henry?”

“Indeed, Holy Mother. She held a great affection for the emperor in her heart.”

A strange way Adelheid had taken, thought Antonia, to show her fondness, but perhaps it was true that she had believed, or convinced herself to believe, that she had no other choice. Hugh, naturally, would fall into any scheme that offered him power, but it wasn’t as clear to Antonia what he felt he would gain by wielding such malevolent sorcery.
Possessed by a daimone
! Still, perhaps he, too, had done it only out of loyalty to Henry and Wendar. She doubted it. Henry, through the daimone, would have given him anything he wanted. Anything.

Was it actually possible that a man with as much beauty and intelligence as Hugh was so very …
small
when all else came to be measured? That he was himself chained by being fixed on one thing? Who was slave, and who was master, then? One had escaped while the other still polished his shackles.

“You are a practical woman, Lady Lavinia. Have you a recommendation?”

She sighed and looked toward the fountain. Water wept into the circular pool at the base. “Many nights such thoughts have troubled me, Holy Mother. I am a widow, and have not remarried. I find there is a lack of men whose lineage and temperament please me. In these cruel days, the queen must choose wisely or not at all.”

“Has she spoken to you of such matters?”

Lavinia’s hesitation was her answer.

“What passes in private between you and the queen I will not intrude upon, but remember that God know all your secrets, Lady Lavinia. If you must unburden yourself, do so to me.”

“I am your obedient servant, Holy Mother.”

Perhaps. It was difficult to know whom Lavinia served.
She was an ordinary woman, devoted to her lands, which she administered prudently, and to her children and kinfolk, whom she protected as well as she could. She remained loyal to Adelheid in part, Antonia supposed, because she thought Adelheid’s regnancy would serve her and her estates best compared to that of another overlord. But if her heart stirred, it stirred in defense of Lord Hugh.

Thoughtful, Antonia returned to her chambers only to find that the servants had fed him a hearty portion of cheese and bread when he had woken, and afterward gotten him a cloak.

“Where has he gone?”

“Holy Mother!” They stared at the floor. “Did we do ill, Holy Mother? He went as he wished. It was just after you departed these rooms, Your Holiness, to sing the dawn prayers. Was it meant otherwise? Had it been better had we kept him beside us?”

“No. No. Do not think me angry. Have you any notion of where he meant to go?” For his actions would reveal his thoughts.

Why, to pray, they assured her, and she believed them. That is, she believed that they believed that was where he had gone. Why should he tell them the truth?

She knew where he intended to go. What would attract him first, beyond anything. He must have power to get what he wanted. Antonia had merely shown him the path.

“Come, Felicita. Give me my audience robes … no, not the heavy ones, for I mean to walk some while afterward in them. Send for Brother Petrus. He’s gone? Very well. You will attend me, Sister Mara. No, no hurry. Let me rest my feet a moment. I must see the queen. It is likely she will wake late, out of her grief.”

And, waking late, would leave Hugh waiting in her antechamber to see her and to beg her forgiveness. No need to rush there to interrupt his pleading. He would plead so very beautifully, after all. Not even Adelheid would be able to resist him.

But after all, Adelheid slept in a stupor all morning. There passed an interlude of alarm around midday during which Antonia hurried to the prisoners’ tower to make
sure that the captives had not been disturbed. Yes, the sergeant told her, the holy presbyter had indeed come by, but after hearing that the princess was afflicted with a mild sickness in her stomach, he had ventured only into the dungeon.

It was a chilly, nasty, dirty place. She had to lean on the arm of a guardsman to make sure she did not slip on the steps, which had no railing. The large open chamber had been fitted with three smaller cells built with mortared brick. In the darkest of these, Wolfhere sat on straw with his hands in his lap and his manacles resting along his legs. He blinked as the lamp lit him and regarded her with a bored resignation that irritated her. Despite the burns on his face and neck, he had never told her anything secret, only commonplace tales that helped her not at all. In time he would. It was only a matter of patience. Eventually the solitude and the rats would drive him insane, and he would tell her everything in exchange for a glimpse of sky.

“Your Holiness,” he said in that bland way that made her twitch and wish to hit him.

“What did he want?” she demanded.

“He wanted to know who the father of the esteemed cleric Heribert might be.”

She would have burned him then had she any fiery implements on hand, but she had to content herself with a gentle smile. “A strange question to ask of a lowly Eagle.”

He shrugged. His nails had gotten so long they curved, and his beard was matted and filthy. In fact, he reeked. “Perhaps not so strange a question to ask of a man who knows the Wendish court well.”

Almost, she slapped him, but she tweaked the sleeve of her robe instead, smile fixed. “To what purpose do you seek to annoy me? You have not answered my question.”

“He also asked me how I was come here, and where I had been, so I suppose that means he is himself newly come to Novomo.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing more than I have told you, Your Holiness. I think he came more to gloat at my ill fortune. But you may
ask him yourself. I am sure he will tell you, as he and I are old enemies.”

“Are you so, and on what ground?”

His smile was keen, and it reminded her of how tough a man he was to be able to smile with such strength after so long in captivity. “I had twice the great pleasure of rescuing a young woman from his grasp. I suppose he will never forgive me.”

“Liathano. This is an old story.”

“It is a story that will never get old for Hugh of Austra.”

That flash startled her. “Is it possible you are more clever than you seem, Wolfhere?”

“What answer can I give that will satisfy you? God are my witness, that I am only myself, and nothing more.”

“So you say. I am not done with you, Wolfhere.”

He winced, the first sign of weakness she had surprised from him. “I am the obedient servant of God and regnant, Your Holiness.”

“Servant of Anne.”

“Of God and regnant, Your Holiness. Then, now, and always. Nothing more.” He spoke with such finality that, for an instant, she believed him.

Hugh was discovered walking in Lavinia’s enclosed garden beside the poplars, chatting amiably with Brother Petrus, whom he had known in the skopos’ palace.

“Holy Mother,” he said, bowing in the manner of presbyters as she approached. “I beg your pardon, Your Holiness. I was restless, thinking on those things we spoke of yesterday.”

She was flushed from the annoyance of having wondered where Hugh had gone, and perhaps for this reason, Brother Petrus bowed and retreated hastily, leaving them to their talk.

“I have taken some trouble to find you, Lord Hugh.”

“Gardens give me solace, Your Holiness. Forgive me.”

“Did you not fear that Queen Adelheid would make true her threat to see you executed?”

“I was told that she slept, Your Holiness. Lady Lavinia gave me leave to walk in the garden.”

“And leave to go to the prisoners’ tower, and interview the Eagle?”

“I admit I was greatly surprised to discover Wolfhere in Novomo. What can it mean that he is here?”