The Burning Stone

He had to laugh, too. In his passion, he’d not noticed. “Ai, God,” he said, feeling the dampness seep over his hands. “I suppose it would be wise to remember the old saying: ‘One task at a time.’”



Blessing began to fuss. As he stepped to the door, Liath sat down on the edge of the bed and, stylus pressing into wax, began to make diagrams.



5



THEY met the outriders at midday, a party made up of soldiers and stewards who were riding ahead to the palace of Angenheim to alert its steward to expect the arrival of the king, his retinue, and his army on the morrow. Since Adelheid’s party had just sheltered for three nights in the manifold comforts of Angenheim, Rosvita would happily have turned ’round right then and followed the king’s party back to the palace, to await Henry’s coming.



“If we wait for King Henry at Angenheim, we can make ready for the meeting,” she explained to the queen and the princess. “And he will have word of our presence.”



Adelheid refused to consider this course of action. “We will ride on to meet the king.” Belatedly, she turned to Theophanu. “What do you think, Cousin?”



Theophanu did not glance at Rosvita. Once, before the escape from St. Ekatarina, the princess would have sought Rosvita’s opinion, even acquiesced to her judgment. But no longer. “Let us ride on,” said Theophanu. “I would rather see my father this night than ride back the way we came and not see him until tomorrow.”



Rosvita missed the understanding they had once shared. Now Theophanu was more likely to turn to quiet Brother Heribert, who rode next to her like a favored adviser. After her passionate accusation of Hugh, it was puzzling to see Theophanu develop such a close friendship with a man who had been accused of sorcery and implicated with Biscop Antonia. But Theophanu and Heribert both trusted, and remembered, their link to Prince Sanglant. In a way, Sanglant bound them. It saddened Rosvita to think that because of the choice she had made, because of the trust Theophanu had given into her hands when they were confronted with Hugh at the convent, she had lost Theophanu’s confidence. Indeed, in dark moments, she wondered if Theophanu felt that she had actually in some manner betrayed her.



She wondered if she had betrayed herself and her own principles for the sake of her implacable curiosity, because it was obvious that Theophanu hated not the thought of magic, but the thought of any kind of alliance with Hugh.



“It will be good to ride among the schola again,” said Fortunatus softly as their retinue started forward. Adelheid and Theophanu rode at the forefront, with their noble companions and their clerics around them. The servants and wagons—all of their supplies and many of their horses had been a gift from Lady Lavinia at Novomo—followed, with Captain Fulk and his soldiers bringing up the rear.



“You have missed Amabilia, have you not, Brother?”



“I even miss poor Constantine.” Crossing the Alfar Mountains had restored some of his humor, although he was still slender, a little pinch-faced: He was not a man suited to leanness, and with the weight had gone that seemingly inexhaustible supply of joviality. “I confess to you that I still cannot understand all that lisping and slurring of our Aostan comrades. And while I have scarcely encountered a more polished vessel than Brother Heribert, I am not sure he trusts us, or if we should trust him, knowing what he was once accused of.”



“He speaks of it freely enough,” she said, feeling obliged to come to Heribert’s defense if only because she admired his brilliant command of fully five languages. “But I understand your meaning well enough, Brother. We shall be back among our own soon. I also have missed the schola.” And it was true, she thought, a little surprised: She had missed the genial companionship of other churchwomen and men, the books, the documents, the ink-stained fingers, and, not least, the company of the king himself. She had missed Henry.



Did Henry, too, mistrust her? Was that why he had sent her to Aosta? Or had he sent her away because of her involvement with the accusations against Hugh only because, at that time, he had needed to placate Margrave Judith?



Soon she would find out.



Soon enough they rode over a stout bridge crossing a tributary of the Malnin River. They rode under the canopy of forest for a while before emerging into the cultivated lands that surrounded the city of Wertburg. Summer fields lay rich around them, ripe for harvest. They wound their way up a rise and, before them, saw the king’s banner flying from the biscop’s palace in the city lying to their north.



A flush had come to Adelheid’s cheeks. Theophanu looked pale. Fortunatus sighed deeply in the way of a man who has finally come home.