In the Ruins

As soon as she spoke the words, she knew them ill said. The abbess stiffened and turned deliberately away from her.



“I am not accustomed to being spoken to in this manner, Sanglant,” said Mother Scholastica. “Especially not by one who was excommunicated. I have heard tales of this woman. She is infamous for seducing and discarding men.”



“So you believe,” said Sanglant. “I know otherwise.”



“Even your father was not immune.”



“My father was betrayed by his second wife, a pretty woman of impeccable noble lineage.”



“Will your fate run likewise, Nephew?”



He laughed curtly. “Liathano has already made her choice, and I had no say in it. I will not beg her to stay, nor can I prevent her from leaving.”



“Then why do you stay?” the abbess asked Liath, carefully not using her name, as if she were a creature that could not possess a name and therefore a human existence.



“Because I love him.”



“Love is trifling compared to obligation, faith, and duty. Passion waxes and wanes like the moon of which we have spoken. It is more fragile than a petal torn from a rose. You may even believe that your motives spring from disinterested love, but you have not answered my question. What do you want?”



Liath had no answer.



2



“I pray you, Sanglant, forgive me. I haven’t the patience for court life.”



“No,” he agreed.



She sat on the pallet they shared, watching him where he sat cross-legged at the tent’s entrance. He twitched the flap open and looked away from her to stare out into the camp. The ring of sentry fires burned steadily; a few shapes paced, as he wished he could. In the royal tent he had room to pace, but he had acceded to Liath’s wishes weeks ago and set aside a smaller tent where they could sleep alone.



Even in Gent he hadn’t slept alone but rather with a pack of dogs as his attendants.



She coughed, bent slightly to scratch her thigh. He glanced at her. She had stripped down to a light linen shift so worn it was translucent. A lamp hung from the crossbeam of the tent, and by its flame he admired how the fabric curved and layered around breast and thigh and hip.



“No,” he repeated. “When you were an Eagle, you had no power and had to endure what was cast before you. Now, you have defeated Anne and her Sleepers. Nothing keeps you here except the memory of Blessing—and your love for me. Otherwise, I have nothing you want, as my aunt suspects.”



“Does she?”



“Perhaps not. She is the third child, after Henry and Rotrudis. She was placed in the convent early and invested as abbess by the time she was fourteen. Obligation and duty are the milk she has drunk all her life. She must believe you seek power or advancement. She may not be able to believe otherwise.”



“What do you believe?”



He shrugged. “I have nothing you want, Liath. Therefore, I believe you.”



She smiled, so sweetly that he laughed, although the sight of her pained him now that he was so close to bearing the full weight of the burden his father had thrust on him.



“With Da, I learned to run from place to place. Fugitives only want never to be caught. They never think beyond their next escape route. I set myself against Anne, and I defeated her—if what we have seen these past months can be called a triumph. What is left to me? I have outrun those who sought to capture me. I have lost my daughter.”



“As have Liutgard and Burchard lost theirs.” He sighed. “And I will become regnant, as my father wished. Will you leave me? It is true you haven’t the patience for court life.”



From this angle he could see, also, the hill on which the fortress and convent of Quedlinhame stood, ancient seat of his great great grandmother’s inheritance. Lucienna of Attomar had brought lands and wealth to the first Henry, together with allies enough to assure him of support when he reached for and took the throne of Wendar. Without Lucienna and her kin, the first Henry would not have become regnant. In honor of that connection, the old fortress had been turned into the most favored and wealthiest monastery in the land, shepherded always by a girl born into the royal line. Like young Richardis, his aunt, who had renamed herself Scholastica when she entered the church as a youthful abbess three decades ago. She was accustomed to wielding power, and to passing judgment. Henry had trusted her. But she did not trust Sanglant or his half-human wife.



A torch shone on the distant wall, marking the gate. Otherwise, it was dark. As usual, clouds obscured the sky. He let the canvas fall and turned to look at his wife. She remained outwardly as calm as a pool undisturbed by wind or debris. Like the stars, she was veiled. But he no longer believed she was hiding anything from him. All artifice and concealment had been burned away, first in her journey into the aether and then, finally, in the cataclysm itself.