Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars #2) 46

“And with Lord Wichman gone now,” continued Mistress Gisela while her pretty niece stood behind her and listened to this rant with the calm face of a woman who has learned to survive by being pliant, “who will protect us against the Eika?”

“I should think,” said Rosvita, “that with two armies sent against the Eika and with Margrave Judith and Duchess Rotrudis likely to arrive at any day now from the southeast, you need not fear the incursions of the Eika, good mistress.”

But the householder only wailed and clutched at her niece’s arm. “Ai, Lord! But the count and his force are days ahead of you, Sister! It takes four days to ride to Gent with the main road so neglected and dangerous. By now the Eika could have slaughtered them all and be eating their bones as their evening’s feast!”

“Then it is one feast you will not have to provide,” said the niece tartly, twisting her arm out of her aunt’s grip.

Sister Amabilia and Brother Fortunatus, hovering at Rosvita’s back, both made sudden piglike noises and Rosvita turned to see them covering their mouths with the sleeves of their robes. Fortunatus began to cough. Amabilia snorted unsuccessfully in an attempt to stop laughing and then, luckily, young Brother Constantine came forward to remonstrate with the young woman for making a joke out of what was no joking matter.

“I beg you, Brother,” interposed Rosvita swiftly, “let us soothe the fears of good Mistress Gisela. We need only a simple supper, I should think, since the good mistress is no noble chatelaine of a large estate to lay a fine table—”

But this was too much for the householder. Goaded into action by this assault on her dignity and wealth, she turned on her niece and ordered fifty cattle slaughtered at once, as well as one hundred chickens and …

Rosvita and her clerics beat a hasty retreat to the table within the hall set aside for their use.

“It sounds as if she means to kill every chicken in the holding,” said Sister Amabilia. “I wonder if there will be any left for the poor souls who bide here.”

“There will be no poor souls left at all,” retorted Brother Fortunatus, “if King Henry does not drive the Eika out of Gent.”

Rosvita left them to their squabbling and walked outside.

There she found Villam sitting on a bench, watching while the inner yard was raked so that the king’s pavilion might be set up where no refuse littered the ground. His hand rested quietly on a thigh. The empty sleeve of his lost arm was pinned up to the shoulder so that it wouldn’t flap. He smiled and indicated the bench beside him. She sat.

“You are serious today, Lord Villam,” she said, noting his frown.

He merely shrugged. “It is hard for a man, even one as old as I, to watch as a battle approaches while knowing he cannot fight in it—and has no son to send out in his place.”

“True enough.” She did not glance at his missing arm, lost in the battle of Kassel, but surely he did not regret the loss of the arm as much as he did the loss of his son, Berthold, all those months ago—more than a year!—in the hills above the monastery at Hersfeld. Then she followed his gaze and could not contain a gasp. “Surely she doesn’t mean to ride into battle so soon after giving birth?”

Under an awning Princess Sapientia sat in a camp chair, attended by Father Hugh, her favorites, her Eagle, and the servants and wet nurse who took care of baby Hippolyte. A vigorous child, the infant was even now wailing heartily as an armorer measured a stiff coat of leather against Sapientia’s frame, stouter now after her pregnancy.

“It has been almost two months since the birth,” said Villam.

“Almost two months!” Rosvita shook dust off the hem of her robes and resettled them. “I do not like it, I admit, although she has gained remarkably in strength.” Since Sapientia had almost nothing to do with the infant, she had adjusted quickly to her new state: that of uncrowned heir.

Villam nodded. “It isn’t enough, truly, that she has proved her worthiness for the throne by right of fertility. She must still show she has the ability to command and to lead, and this is as good a test as any.”

“And easy to hand.” Rosvita smiled wryly.

It was true: Henry had neither crowned nor anointed Sapientia, but she was seen everywhere with him, she rode beside him on their progress, sat beside him at feast and at council, and was given leave to speak when it came time to exhort the ladies and lords of Wendar to spare troops for the assault on Gent. The infant, who was pleasant to look upon as well as strong, was noted and remarked on everywhere they went, and Sapientia kept it by her at all times—except at night—as if to remind everyone of her accomplishment… and of her new position as heir by that same right of fertility.