The Burning Stone

Page 34

“Silence! You are not meant for the church, Tallia. In two days’ time you will be wed to Lord Alain. Do not seek to argue with me. My mind is made up.”
Alain looked up to see Tallia kneeling before the king. Her cheeks were scoured to a dreadful pallor, and she was as thin as a beggar in a year of bad harvests, but she was still beautiful to his eyes. It was more than her beauty that affected him; another inexplicable, unnamable force had taken hold of him and he could only stare, stricken dumb with shame for the desire he felt even as she turned a pleading gaze on him and with tears rolling down her cheeks bent her head as in submission to the terrible fate that had overtaken her.
4
FATHER Hugh never argued. He merely smiled when another disagreed with him, then spoke with such gentle persuasion that his disputants rarely recognized that he almost always got his way. But Hanna had learned to read signs of his agitation. Right now he was wringing the finger of one of his gloves, held lightly in his left hand, twisting it round and round as he listened to his mother’s advice to Princess Sapientia.
“Prince Sanglant is a threat to your position only if you let him become one, Your Highness,” Margrave Judith was saying. Hanna stood behind Sapientia’s chair, the margrave sat like an equal beside the princess in a chair almost as elaborate as the regnant’s throne. All of her other attendants—including her new husband and her bastard son—stood while the two noblewomen conversed. “It is true that your father the king has neglected you because of his affection for the prince. I speak bluntly because it is only the common truth.”
She spoke bluntly because she was powerful enough to do so. A sidewise glance brought Hanna a glimpse of Ivar’s bowed head. He had a flush in his cheeks that bothered Hanna, as if a disease had come to roost within him that he was not yet aware of. Yet in such a situation, she could not hope to speak to him.
“What do you advise?” Too restless to sit still for long, Sapientia jumped up and began to pace. “I do not dislike my brother, although I admit since we rescued him from Gent he behaves strangely, more like a dog than a man.”
“His mother was not even human, which no doubt accounts for it.” Judith lifted a hand and Hugh, obedient son, brought her a cup of wine. He moved so gracefully. Hanna could scarcely believe she had seen this elegant courtier strike Liath with cold fury. He was so different, here at court. Indeed, he was so very different in all ways from the men in Heart’s Rest, the village where she had grown up: his elegant manners; his fine clothes; his beautiful voice; his clean hands. “But women were made by God to administer and create and men to fight and toil,” continued Judith. “Cultivate your brother as a wise farming-woman cultivates her fields, and you will gain a rich harvest for your efforts. He is a notable fighter, and he carries the luck of your family with him on the battlefield. Use his good qualities to support your own position as heir to the regnant. Do not be so foolish as to believe the whispers that Henry wishes to make him Heir. The princes of Wendar and Varre will not let themselves be ruled by a bastard, certainly not a male bastard, and one as well who has only half the blood of humankind in him.”
Sapientia paused by the window. Something she saw outside caused her to turn back and regard Margrave Judith with a half smile. “Count Lavastine’s heir was once named a bastard. And now he is legitimate—and marrying my cousin this very night!”
“Tallia is an embarrassment. Henry did well to give her as a gift to Count Lavastine as reward for Lavastine’s service to him at Gent. It rids Henry of Tallia.”
“And gives Lavastine a bride with royal connections for his heir,” said Sapientia thoughtfully. “I think you did not meet Lord Geoffrey, who is Lavastine’s cousin and was his heir before Lord Alain appeared. He is a nobleman in every respect, certainly worthy of the county and title.”
“Lavastine is cunning. Once Lord Alain and Lady Tallia produce an heir, Henry will be forced to support Alain if Lord Geoffrey contests the succession.”
Hugh spoke suddenly. “What if King Henry decides to marry Prince Sanglant in like manner, to give him legitimacy?”
Startled, Judith glanced at him as if she had forgotten he was there. “Do you actually think Henry so far gone in his affection for Sanglant that he would consider such a thing?”
“Yes,” he said curtly.
“No,” retorted Sapientia. “I am Heir. I have Hippolyte to prove my worthiness. It’s just that you hate Sanglant, Hugh. I see how you detest him. You can’t bear that I might like him, even though we grew up together and he always treated me kindly when we were children. But your mother is right.” Judith nodded in acknowledgment, but Hanna noted how hard her gaze was upon her son, as if she sought to plumb his depths and thereby know his mind. “Sanglant is no threat to my position—unless I let him become one. And by seeming to fear him because my father favors him and shows an old fondness for him, it weakens me—not him.” She spun around to look at Hanna. “Is that not so, Eagle? Is that not exactly what you said to me yesterday?”