The Burning Stone

Tallia looked up, startled, and then sighed sharply, almost a hiss between her teeth.



“As you wish, my lady duchess,” said Hathumod, but she looked at Tallia. “Your Highness?”



“Yes,” said Tallia in a passionate voice, and her shoulders shook like a woman in the grip of a palsy. “We were speaking of it yesterday.”



“Go on, speak!” insisted Yolande.



“We were discussing the matter of women’s holiness,” said Hathumod. “Why would God choose a man as the vessel of Her holiness here on Earth rather than a woman? Why did She send a son to partake of mortality and not a daughter?”



“I thought we had agreed that She chose St. Thecia to be the Witnesser because a woman’s word is worth more than a man’s.”



Hathumod smiled with the radiance of an honest heart. She opened her arms as if to open herself to the heavens. “Women are already the vessels of God. Are we not made in Her image? God in Her mercy gave Her Son to be sacrificed just as men are more likely to give themselves in battle to protect their kin. But we are reminded of that sacrifice by the blood women shed each month.”



This heretical talk was making Hanna terribly uncomfortable. She slid back to the door, even coughed a little, but when no one paid her any mind nor seemed concerned to send her on her way, she simply eased backward through the door and made her escape.



She found Hathui with the king in the rose garden. The drizzle had stopped although the flagstone walks glistened, slick with water. The whippet puppy had about as much energy as the baby; it leaped and barked as Henry clapped hands at it, racing away and then galloping back when he whistled. Hathui stood beside the king, laughing with him, but when he gathered up the puppy against his chest and sobered suddenly, Hathui quieted as well. He began to pace again, stroking the whippet’s back, while his servants watched from the walkway and Hathui waited on the path nearby.



Would he walk in this fashion all night? Would Hathui watch with him the whole time? A breath of rain spattered on the stones, a gust that passed and quieted. Hanna wiped its drops from her nose. Though it was dark, she could feel the clouds churning and flowing overhead. Out in the unseen grounds beyond the palisade, a dog barked. One of the servingmen sneezed, and a companion murmured a blessing. The king paused beside Hathui to make some comment which she answered in a murmur, then walked again. Hanna wondered at their intimacy, not anything remotely lascivious but rather far more profound, like head and hand.



Hathui saw her and came over. “Is there a message for the king?”



“Nay.” She repeated what she’d heard. “She seemed in a trance. The only time she bestirred herself was when they began to speak of that heresy she’s enthralled by.”



Hathui grunted. “That’s as we’ve come to expect. It’s a strange thing all around, I’d say.”



“It makes my skin crawl,” muttered Hanna.



Hathui glanced up at the tower, where light still gleamed in the upper room. “Go on, then. No need for you to wait up all night.”



“Will you, with the king?”



Hathui shrugged. “He often paces at night, now. As my old grandmother would have said, he needs a bed with something more than feathers to invite him in.”



Hanna chuckled. “He’s nothing like Villam, they say. Not one mistress since the death of Queen Sophia. Do you think it’s true?”



“Hush!” The retort came sharply, surprising Hanna. “None of us have any call to speak disrespectfully of King Henry. Would you like to have to stand judgment every day over cases like this one? He’s got a hard choice before him. Lord Geoffrey’s a good man at heart despite all the anger he showed today, and he has strong kin behind him and the support of the nobles. Yet Count Alain is a better man, and King Henry knows it. But Alain has got no noble kin to support him, not outside his wife. It will all hang on Lady Tallia’s testimony.”



“Thus the rose.”



“Thus the rose,” agreed Hathui. “Now go on. You’ve ridden a long way. You’ve earned some rest.”



She found the barracks where her comrades quartered, unrolled her blanket among the other Eagles, and enjoyed their companionship as she drank ale and ate cheese and bread. They gossiped about where they’d been and what they’d seen, shared tidbits of news and helpful information, what monasteries stocked the best ale and which villages were most welcoming, where bandits stalked and what forest cut-off was bedeviled by an aggressive pack of wild dogs. The others wanted to know about the east and how matters fared there; she told them details of the wedding and made them laugh when she repeated Prince Bayan’s poetry. They speculated in low voices about Prince Sanglant, but no one spoke Liath’s name out loud, as if by leaving the Eagles her name had been obliterated from their memory, as if they feared that the sound of it on their tongue might implicate them in her sorcery or scar their lips forever.