In the Ruins (40 page)

It was impossible to stop herself from picking up the candle and approaching him, to see that in truth and indeed a book lay on the table. Was it Da’s old, familiar, beloved book? That book was the last thing she had that linked her to Da except his love and his teaching, except
his blood and his crime against the creature that had become her mother, whom he had killed all unwittingly and out of love.

Da’s book.

She halted before she got into sword range. “What do you mean to do?”

“It’s yours. I’m giving it back to you.”

She tried to speak, but only a hoarse “ah” “ah” got out of her throat. She struggled against tears, against anger, against grief, against such a cascade of emotions that he moved before she understood he meant to and glided away through one of the archways and vanished into the shadows, just like that.

She bolted forward, sure that the book would vanish, too, become like mist and evaporate as under the glare of the sun, but when she reached to touch it, it was solid and so very very dear to her. She could still smell Da’s scent on it, even though she knew that fragrance was only a memory in her mind. She grasped it, the heft of it, its weight. Metal clasps held the book together. The leather binding was grayed with age, but it had been oiled and lovingly cared for, and the brass roses adorning the metal clasps had been polished to a fine gleam. She ran her fingers down the spine, reading with her touch the embossed letters:
The Book of Secrets
.

A masking name
, Da had often said,
to hide the true name of the book within
.

She crushed the book against her chest, and wept.

VERY late in the night Ekkehard appeared in the church, looking tousled and sleepy with only a simple linen tunic thrown on over his shift. Yawning, he knelt to Sanglant’s left. A pair of Austran guardsmen loitered a moment at the back, as if checking to make sure he didn’t bolt out a side
door, before retreating onto the church porch to pass the time chatting with Sanglant’s soldiers.

“Where did you come from?” asked Theophanu. “Your wife’s bed?”

Ekkehard had a way of hunching his shoulders to express discomfort that had always annoyed Sanglant. He was the kind of rash personality who either leaped before looking or looked away in order to pretend trouble wasn’t there.

“I pray you, Theo,” Sanglant said, “do not tease him. Let us honor our father’s memory in peace.”

“If only Sapientia were here,” added Theophanu, “we might be in harmony again, just as Father always wished.”

The tart comment surprised a laugh out of Sanglant. “I am not accustomed to this much bitterness from you, Theo.”

“Forgive me, Brother. I forget myself.”

“You sold me to the Austrans,” said Ekkehard suddenly. “Like you’d sell a horse.”

“For stud,” commented Theophanu. “About all you’re worth at this point. You betrayed Wendar by aiding the Quman and showed disrespect to our father’s memory by leaving Gent when you were meant to watch over it as a holy steward. Sanglant was merciful. Toward you, at least. Perhaps not so merciful toward Sapientia.”

“Sapientia sent me to my death,” muttered Ekkehard. “I don’t care if she’s dead. Anyway, Gerberga’s not so bad. She’s not like her mother. Better married to her than trapped as abbot in Gent.”

“I am glad you approve of your marriage,” said Sanglant wryly, “since you had no choice in it. Will Gerberga support me?”

“Yes.” Ekkehard scratched the light beard covering his chin, and yawned again. “That’s what she sent me to tell you.”

“At what price?” asked Theophanu.

“Didn’t she tell you already?” Sanglant asked. “You rode with her from Osterburg, did you not?”

“She is closemouthed, like her mother was, but a better
companion. I like her well enough. She is a good steward for Austra and Olsatia.”

“Why do neither of you ever listen to me?” said Ekkehard. “I have something to say.”

“Why did Gerberga not approach me herself?” Sanglant asked. “Why send you in the middle of the night?”

“Because we can speak privately, and no one will mark it.”

“Everyone marks it,” said Sanglant. “How else did Gerberga know I was here?”

“Yes, but no one is surprised that the children of Henry should pray through the night to mourn him. He did the same for our grandmother.”

“In truth,” said Theophanu, “I’m surprised you did not come sooner, Ekkehard. It is fitting for a child to mourn his beloved father with a vigil.”

Ekkehard had not once looked toward the coffin. He had shed no tears that Sanglant had seen during the lengthy mass and reading of psalms. “Do you want to hear, or not?”

“Go on. What does Gerberga want?”

“The marchlands of Westfall and Eastfall suffer because their margraves are dead in the wars. You must appoint a new margrave for each one, to bring order. She would prefer that you listen to her desires in this matter, as she has suitable candidates in mind, but she will accept any reasonable lord of good family who will act in concert with her and agree to marry Theucinda.”

“Theucinda must be fifteen or eighteen by now.”

“She is only a little younger than I am. Gerberga says this, also: If Bertha lives, then she might become margrave of Eastfall, and you could let Theucinda marry the new margrave of Westfall.”

“Ooof!” exclaimed Theophanu with an ironic smile. “A great deal of territory falls therefore into Austra’s hands and that of her descendants. I would not recommend it. Make Wichman lord of Eastfall and marry poor Theucinda to him! He’ll fight the barbarians and rape the local girls, and be happy, although his wife might not be.”

“That’s not funny,” said Ekkehard savagely. “Wichman is a beast! Theucinda doesn’t deserve to be forced to marry him!”

Ah. For the first time, there was real passion in Ekkehard’s voice.

“How much older is Gerberga than you?” Sanglant asked. “I trust she never leaves you alone with her younger sister.”

“I would never!” he cried in a tone of voice that betrayed he had thought often of just what it was he would never do. “It’s just she’s a third child, like me. She knows what it’s like …” He bit a lip and glanced sideways at his brother and sister, gauging their reaction. Like all of Henry’s children, he was a good-looking young man, although he would have been more attractive had his features not been marred by a perpetual expression of sullen grievance. “… to be a third child.”

“You are fourth,” said Theophanu.

“Third, if one counts only legitimate children!” he retorted.

Even in the dim light, Sanglant could see how his younger brother’s cheeks were flushed. His eyes had narrowed with anger, or resentment; in Ekkehard, it was hard to tell the difference.

“Do not forget,” Sanglant said in his mildest tone, “that you were shown mercy, Ekkehard. You fought and killed your own countrymen.”

“As did you! You rebelled against our father! Some say you killed him yourself and now pretend otherwise.”

The thrust had no force in it, not for Sanglant, so he wasn’t prepared when Theophanu slapped Ekkehard so hard that the blow brought tears to his eyes as he gasped. Leoba choked down an exclamation.

“I will have no fighting here to demean the memory of our father!” said Sanglant.

“Is this some poison Gerberga has been feeding you?” Theophanu demanded. “Who has said it?”

“No one.” He wiped his eyes, trembling. “No one. Gerberga doesn’t believe it. She told him so. She said only a fool would believe you killed Henry, and anyway, Liutgard
and Burchard would never support you if you had, and they were there and they saw it all. It’s true about the daimone, isn’t it? It’s true?”

“It’s true,” he said, glancing toward Hathui, who despite her appearance of contrite prayer was no doubt listening closely. “Being true, as it is, I wonder that the margrave of Austra shelters the man who truly betrayed Henry.”

Ekkehard sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of a hand.

Waiting for his brother to speak, Sanglant realized that he, too, was trembling, that he had in him reserves of hatred he hadn’t known he possessed. Bloodheart was dead, and any power he had left to harm Sanglant resided in Sanglant’s heart and head alone. He had other enemies, of course, some of whom had not yet declared themselves. But he had only one man he truly hated.

“That’s the other thing she wants,” said Ekkehard, his voice shaky. He glared at Theophanu. Her expression was cool and distant, without trace of the anger that had flared.

“That who wants?” asked Sanglant, who had now stuck in his head the image of his enemy, to whom God had given exceptional beauty. Why did the wicked flourish and the innocent suffer? Why did God allow beauty to grow in a vat of poison?

“That Gerberga wants,” said Ekkehard irritably, “in exchange for her support of your claim to the throne and crown of Wendar.”

“Of course. Eastfall and Westfall must have strong margraves in these times. I am agreed to this, and I see no reason not to marry Lady Theucinda to a worthy man, a younger son, perhaps, who has not yet been claimed as another woman’s husband.”

“Or been killed in Henry’s wars!”

“Enough, Theo! What is the second request, Ekkehard?”

He smiled, but it wasn’t a kind smile. “There is something Gerberga wants very much, that she cannot have because of a promise she made to her mother when she was named as Judith’s heir. She can’t go against a promise sworn to her mother, surely you see that.”

“I see that. What is it she wants?”

Through the open doors, the graying of shadows heralded the approaching dawn. Birds cooed sociably. A creature scrabbled in the rafters. Then, once again, it was silent. Even the guards had ceased speaking in that undertone that had drifted at the edge of Sanglant’s hearing all night.

“She wants to be rid of Hugh,” whispered Ekkehard. “She hates him, but she promised her mother never to harm him, no matter what, and to give him shelter when he needed it. Margrave Judith loved him best of all. Just as our father loved you, the bastard, the least deserving.”

An explosion of pigeons burst out of the arcade, fluttering away into the twilight sky. The sound of their passage faded swiftly as they flew over the town and out past the walls. Sanglant’s senses were strung so tautly that he imagined them skimming over the fields. He felt he could actually hear the pressure of wing beats against the air as their flight took them over woodland and farther yet, racing south into the uncut forest lands where beasts roamed and lawless men hid from justice.

Theophanu clutched his hand, pressed tightly. “Beware. Hugh is the most dangerous of all.”

A certain pleasant, malicious warmth suffused Sanglant. “‘Nor will any wound inflicted by any creature male or female cause his death.’ Was I not so cursed? Hugh can’t kill me.”

“Perhaps not,” said Theophanu, “but he can strike at your kinfolk. At your Eagle. At your wife.”

As if her words were an incantation, a shape appeared at the door, limned by the pallor of dawn. Hathui was already on her feet, ready to move.

“Liath!” He started forward to meet her, but he had not gone halfway down the nave when he halted, seeing what she carried.

Memory struck hard.

She thrust the bundle she carried into his arms. “Keep it safe for me, I beg you,” she said to him before she rode away to carry the king’s word to Weraushausen, to Ekkehard and the king’s schola. Years ago
.

The book had been the talisman that had linked him to her in those days when he had thought of nothing except her, because the memory of her had been the only thing that had kept him sane when he suffered as Bloodheart’s prisoner in Gent. The book had brought her back to him. He had kept it safe, and she had married him because she trusted him where she trusted no one else.

She thrust it into his arms.

“See here, Sanglant! Touch it! Look! It’s Da’s book.”

“Where did you get it?” he said hoarsely, and even Theophanu exhaled at the anger that made his voice tight. “
Hugh
had this. Have you seen Hugh?”

Her expression was bemused, not frightened. She should be frightened and angry! “Not really. He saw me. He
gave
the book to me.”

“Did he speak to you?”

She hesitated, seeing Theophanu and Ekkehard recoil at his tone. She saw Hathui but not with any indication that she understood the danger the Eagle was in. “I must speak to your aunt, Sanglant.”

“Did he harm you?”

“Me? He can’t harm me. I would have killed him if he’d tried to touch me.”

Hugh
had
touched her somehow. Her mind was filled with him, or with what he had said to her, words she would not repeat to her own loving husband who thought at this moment that he was likely to batter himself bloody with jealousy.

“If he gave the book back to you, it’s because he has some plot in mind.”

“He might have copied it out. He’s had it long enough. It’s what I would have done.” She spoke the words distractedly. She wasn’t really listening. He knew how she fell away from the world when her mind started churning and turning, caught by the wheel of the heavens and the mysteries of the cosmos.

“He wants something he thinks he can get by disarming you in this way.”

“He didn’t disarm me!” she retorted indignantly, then frowned. “Well. It’s true he took me by surprise.”

“No doubt he hopes we’re quarreling over it now. Sow discord. Plant doubts. Reap the harvest. I expect he’s grown more subtle.”

The comment made her fall back to earth and actually
see
him. She leaned against him, ignoring Theophanu and Ekkehard’s stares, and with the book crushed between them she smiled so dazzlingly up at him that he got dizzy all over again. “Just as you have?” she asked him.

He laughed. “So easily I’m disarmed!”

“I pray you, Sanglant,” said Theophanu, “if you will not have people say that she has wrapped you in a spell, then you ought not to act in public like a besotted fool. Even our father once asked this woman to become his mistress.”

Ekkehard was staring with mouth agape and eyes wide. “Ivar of North Mark was in love with her, too,” he murmured. “She was condemned as a sorcerer at Autun, at Hugh of Austra’s trial, don’t you remember? She was named as a maleficus. She was excommunicated by Constance and a council of biscops and presbyters! Henry raised no objection!”