In the Ruins (35 page)

ADVENTUS

THE adventus of Sanglant, son of Henry, into the ancient citadel of Quedlinhame at the head of his victorious army would be commemorated in poetry and song, Liath supposed, but no doubt the poets would sing of fine silken banners rippling in the breeze and gaily caparisoned horses prancing under the rein of their magnificently-garbed riders, a host splendid and brilliant beyond description, shining in the light of the sun. That’s what poets did. This ragged army and dreary day offered no fodder for song, so song would make of them something they were not.

But march they did along the road, silent, weary, hungry, but not beaten. On this gray, late winter day, the view before them was dominated by the hill and its ancient fortress, now the cloister ruled by Sanglant’s aunt, Mother Scholastica. The fields on one side of the road lay in stubble, and on the other a field of winter wheat had sprouted mostly weeds.

Scouts had ridden ahead to inform the abbess of their arrival, and that wise woman had sent her novices and nuns and monks out to line the road as a way of greeting the man who claimed the regnancy and who possessed, more importantly, the corpus of the dead king. Townspeople
stood back, staring rather than cheering. They looked thin and pale. Like the wheat, they hadn’t had much to subsist on over the winter. As the army trudged between the rows of robed novices and sturdy monks, Liath peered into those faces, although she knew Ivar was long gone from Quedlinhame.

On that other adventus, so well remembered, Henry’s troops and clerics had sung triumphant hymns as a processional. That so many of Sanglant’s still breathed was a testament to his leadership, but certainly their arrival stirred no festive mood and no songs. Not yet. The songs would be written later.

No one in Wendar had heard Henry, with his dying breath, name Sanglant as his heir. In Wendar, Sanglant would have to fight with intrigue, diplomacy, and force of personality. These weapons, which he liked least, he would of necessity wield most.

It was not going to be easy.

That, certainly, became clear as soon as they saw the welcoming party arrayed in the middle of the road: two men and two women in cleric’s robes and a woman wearing the key and chain of the mayor. Liath sorted faces, and turned her attention inward in order to race through her palace of memory, marking names and features.

Sanglant was ahead of her in thought although he rode at her left hand on his gelding, Fest. She heard him mutter under his breath. The words escaped her, but the tone was sour.

“Ha!” said Duchess Liutgard, who rode to his left and was never shy of speaking her mind. “Now the game starts in earnest, Cousin. Where is your aunt? She has snubbed you by not coming out to greet you herself.”

“Is the insult worse to me, or to my father?” asked Sanglant grimly. “He deserves better state than this trifling welcome.”

A monk whose face seemed familiar to Liath came forward from the group and bowed his head. “Your Highness. You are welcome here to Quedlinhame, ancient home of your father’s grandfather’s maternal lineage. I pray you,
Your Highness, let me lead your horse into the town as befits your rank.”

“You are the prior?” asked Sanglant.

“I am.”

Sanglant looked at his cousin Liutgard, and for an instant Liath felt insulted in her turn, that Sanglant shouldn’t look to her first, who came first in his heart. Yet Liutgard’s understanding of court politics so far surpassed Liath’s as Liath’s understanding of sorcery exceeded Liutgard’s knowledge of the magical arts. Sanglant, being a good commander, called for spears when he needed spears and swords when he needed swords.

“Where is Mother Scholastica?” Liutgard asked. “I am surprised she has not come to greet the regnant, as is fitting.”

“Has he been anointed and crowned, my lady?” The prior did not appear cowed by the ranks of soldiers. “What of his siblings, Henry’s other children? What transpires on the field of battle—of which we have not yet heard a full accounting—may be reexamined by clearer heads.”

“As if you can possibly comprehend what we faced!” cried Liutgard, half rising in the saddle. Her horse danced sideways in response to her mood.

“We also suffered many losses in the storm. Your own heir—”

It was a cruel blow. Sanglant caught Liutgard’s horse as her hands went slack on the reins. She was felled, speechless, and he must speak for her.

“What of Duchess Liutgard’s heir?”

“Killed in last autumn’s tempest by a falling branch when she was out riding,” the prior said primly, as if some fault accrued to the girl.

“There is another daughter. Ermengard. Destined for the church, if I recall rightly.”

The prior nodded. “Mother Scholastica did all that was proper. She brought the child to Kassel to take up her sister’s place.”

Liutgard jerked the reins out of Sanglant’s hands and pressed her horse forward until it almost trampled the prior, who took several steps back as his own people
crowded forward to protect him. She was hoarse with fury. “Mother Scholastica could bear these tidings to me herself, as would have been
proper
. Instead she allows me to come to this grief through your careless chatter!”

Sanglant turned to his captain and spoke quietly. “Fulk. We’ll set up camp.”

Fulk gave the order, and one of the sergeants blew the signal that marked the day’s end to the march. Townsfolk scattered out of the way as soldiers rolled out wagons and dismounted from their horses.

A
skree
reverberated from the heavens as the griffins returned. At first glance, they might appear as eagles. Within moments, however, their true nature became apparent, and the townsfolk who had lingered to chat or trade with the soldiers screamed and ran for the safety of the walls. To his credit, the prior stood his ground as the two griffins landed with a whuff of wings and a resounding thump on the ground. The poor mayor, gone corpse white, knotted her hands and began to weep.

Liutgard reined her horse aside, her face white and her hands shaking.

“Prior Methodius, my tent flies the black dragon.” Sanglant gestured casually toward the griffins. “You will also know where I camp by the presence of my attendants.”

“Have we your permission to retreat, Your Highness?” asked Prior Methodius, voice hoarse with fear.

“You may go.”

They retreated slowly, like honey oozing down a slope. They were afraid to run despite wanting badly to do so. Sanglant dismounted on the road, holding himself under a tighter rein than he did his gelding.

“I wish the griffins had torn them to bits!” cried Liutgard. “She is challenging your authority, and mine! That was a good answer to their impertinence.”

He smiled, although not with any pleasure. “I did not call the griffins. They always return about this time of day.”

“It will be taken as a sign. There is no telling what alliances your aunt has formed in the last few years. King Henry was gone from Wendar for too long. Half of the
Wendish folk beg us for aid, and the other half curse at us for abandoning them. We can never trust her now. She scorns us, who served Henry best!”

“What do you say, Burchard?” Sanglant asked, seeing that Liutgard was caught up in a passion.

Duke Burchard rode at Liutgard’s left. His hands shook with a palsy, and he was always exhausted, at the end, so the poets would say, of his rope. He was not a warm man, Liath had discovered, but she respected him.

He turned his weary gaze to Liutgard. The duchess had the stamina to adjust to reversals and hardships. She had lost one husband, and must at this moment be too stunned to really absorb the news the prior had brought her.

“I will see you anointed and recognized, Your Majesty. Then I mean to go home, set my duchy in order, and die. I have seen too much.” One of his stewards helped him down from his horse and led him away to a tent, the first up, where he could lie down.

So they went, some time later, into the royal tent salvaged out of the ruins of Henry’s army. On the center pole, the red silk banner with eagle, dragon, and lion stitched in gold flew above the black dragon.

Inside, Liath sat on a stool as Sanglant paced, while his stewards and captains came and went on errands she could not keep track of. Now and again he glanced at her, as if to mark that she had not escaped him, but he listened, considered, gave orders, and countermanded two of these commands when new information was brought to him. He knew what to do. She was superfluous. Lamps were lit, and when she stepped outside to take in the texture of the chill winter air, she saw that it was almost dark.

On the road, a score of folk carrying torches approached. They halted when Argent coughed a warning cry and raised his crest.

She walked over to him. He bent his head and allowed her to scratch the spot where forearm met shoulder that he had a hard time reaching with beak or claws. His breath was meaty, and his huge eyes blinked once, twice, then cleared as the inner membrane flicked back. She should
fear him; she knew that; but since Anne’s death, her reunion with Sanglant, and the departure of the Horse people, nothing seemed to scare her, not even when it should. She watched, and she listened, but she spoke little and offered less advice.

“In some ways,” she said idly to Argent as he rumbled in his throat, “it’s as if all Da’s training to be invisible has flowered. Do beasts know what their purpose is? Or do they simply exist?”

A voice raised in protest. “I pray you, Holy Mother, do not venture forward. The beasts could tear you to pieces.”

“God will watch over me.”

Liath remembered that pragmatic voice well enough; she watched from the anonymity of Argent’s shoulder as Mother Scholastica dismounted from a skittish white mule. The torchlight illuminated her. Her stern face had grown lean and lined in the manner of a woman who has had to make many difficult, distressing decisions, but her back was still straight and her stride measured and confident as she approached the tent with her attendants scuttling behind. She did not glance even once at the griffins, although her attendants could not stop looking. The entrance flap swept open and Sanglant emerged to wait for her beneath the awning.

“Aunt,” he said graciously. “You honor me.”

“Where is Henry?”

He gestured toward the interior of the tent, but certainly he turned and went inside first, and she allowed him to do so, giving him precedence. A trio of clerics scurried in after her. Others waited outside, huddled under the awning as they whispered and, at intervals, cast glances into the night where the griffins waited. After a moment Liath realized that naturally they could see only shadows; she could see them because of the pair of lit lamps hanging from the awning and, of course, because of her salamander eyes.

She gave Argent a last vigorous scratch and went back to the tent. The clerics stared at her, but the guardsmen nodded and made no comment as she slipped past them.

“I bring unwelcome tidings, Liutgard,” Scholastica was saying.

“You bring no tidings at all,” replied Liutgard caustically. “I have already heard the news.”

Even this disrespectful greeting did not jolt Scholastica’s composure. Sanglant indicated that the abbess should sit in the camp chair to his left normally reserved for Liutgard. The stool to his right sat empty. He noted Liath’s entrance with a glance, but otherwise kept his attention on his aunt.

“Where did Henry’s death take place? In what manner did you find him? How can you verify that he was in thrall to this daimone? What of Queen Adelheid? Whose blow killed him? Where is his corpus now?”

“We brought his heart and bones from the south.”

“His remains must be buried at Quedlinhame beside his mother.”

“Naturally. Why else would I have come here, Aunt?”

“To be anointed as regnant. Do not trifle with me, Sanglant. Liutgard and Burchard support you. Yet rumor has it that you abandoned Sapientia in the wilderness.”

“Never did any sour soul deserve that fate more!” laughed Wichman from the corner.

“Silence!”

It was startling to see Wichman cowed as he ducked his head and murmured, “I pray for your pardon, Aunt.”