“Always the worst when it’s the first cleaning,” she said cheerfully as Hanna watched with surprise.

“It seems awfully hot to be thinking of cleaning out these sleeping rooms.” The heat all summer had been like a battering ram. She had never got used to it.

“True enough. But the weather can turn cold suddenly now that the season is turning from summer to autumn, if you call this autumn. We have to start thinking of inhabiting these rooms again. Last year you can’t believe how hot it was, hotter than this, and with unseasonable rains, too, and a terrible hailstorm.”

“I hear the king was taken sorely ill, last year.”

The servant looked up at her, expression hidden except for her eyes. Her gaze had a queer, searching intensity. But as the silence stretched out uncomfortably, she returned to sweeping.

“Last summer, yes, he was taken ill with the shivering fever. He was laid in bed for two months, and the armies fought all summer and autumn without him. They had no victories, nor any defeats. So they say.” Again that searching glance scrutinized Hanna. “That’s if they say what’s true, but how are we simple servants to know what’s truth and what’s not?”

“Eagles know.”

“Where are all the Eagles? Gone with the king, all but that poor redheaded fellow who got so sick.”

“Rufus?”

“That’s right,” she continued amiably, her voice muffled by the cloth. “He came south last year at the command of Biscop Constance in Autun, didn’t he?”

“So he told me.” Carrying a message very like the ones sent by Theophanu, but the king had not heeded him.

“Yes, poor lad. He was so sick even the palace healers thought he would die from the shivering. That’s why he had to be left behind this past spring when the king rode south.”

“Yet all the other Eagles rode south with the king, didn’t they? Why haven’t any of them brought reports back to Darre? Why is it always the queen’s Aostan messengers we see?”

“How can I know the king’s mind? I can only thank the Lord and Lady that his army has won victories over both the infidels and the heretics. And over a few Aostan nobles who would prefer no regnant placed above their heads. So we’re told.”

Her account tallied with the news Rufus had given Hanna. “I’ve heard talk that the king and queen will be crowned with imperial crowns before the end of the year.”

“That talk has been going on as long as I’ve been here, these two and a half years. Maybe it will finally happen.”

With the steady scritch of the broom against wood like an accompaniment to her thoughts, Hanna finally realized what was strangest about this industrious woman. “You’re Wendish.”

“So I am. I’m called Aurea, from the estate of Landelbach in Fesse. You’re that new Eagle what rode in a few months back.”

“Yes. My name is Hanna Birta’s-daughter, from the North Mark. I come from a place called Heart’s Rest.” A low rumble shook through the floor and the entire building swayed.

Hanna shrieked. “What is that?”

The rumbling faded, the building stilled, and Aurea kept sweeping. “Haven’t you felt one yet? An earthquake? We feel them every few months.”

“Nay, no earthquakes. Nor weather anywhere near as hot as what I’ve suffered through here.” She was still trembling.

“True enough. It’s hot here for weeks on end, too, not just for a short spell as it would be up north where I come from. It isn’t natural.”

Hanna exhaled, still trying to steady her nerves. “An old friend of mine would say that Aosta lies nearer to the sun. That’s why it’s hotter here.”

“Is it? That seems a strange story to me. Nearer to the sun!” Aurea hummed under her breath. “But no stranger than many a tale I’ve heard here in Darre. Sister Heriburg says that in the east there’s snakes who suckle milk right from the cow. In the south no plants can grow because the sun shines so hot, and the folk who live there have great, huge ears that they use like tents during the day to protect them from the sun. Even here, there’s stories about godly clerics who abide in the skopos’ dungeons like rats, hidden from the sight of most people, but I don’t suppose those are any more true than that tale my old grandmam told me about a dragon turned into stone in the north country. It lies there still, they say, by the sea, but nothing can bring it back to life.”

She kept her gaze on the warped floorboards where dust collected in cracks. Hanna thought she would choke in air now polluted with a swirling cloud of dust, but she dared not move. She had to think. How strange to speak of clerics hidden away in dungeons.