Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7)

Crown of Stars (Crown of Stars #7) Page 50

For once, Liath was paying attention. “Goslar has a small palace.”

“At Goslar. Is there more, Eagle? Sent she a message? What does she intend?”

“Nothing more, Your Majesty. Nothing she told to me, anyway.” He was a good rider with an easy seat, but very serious, pacing alongside the king. If he meant his remark wryly, Sanglant saw no sign of it.

Liath fell out of line to ride with the young man back along the cavalcade to the supply wagons. Sanglant listened as they moved away. It was always easy for him to catch her voice out of the multitude.

“When was it again that you first met Hanna? At Darre? Not earlier, then? You never met her before—did you ride east with Princess Sapientia? Oh, I see.”

Her words faded into the creaks and clops and chatter of the procession.

Liutgard, at his right hand, glanced back, and he did as well. Although scouts, and a vanguard, rode in front, most of the progress rode behind him, a line of four riders abreast twisting back into a landscape of woodland, open ground, and the occasional farmstead. Half of these small estates and humble holdings were recently abandoned. One had been burned and looted. He and Liutgard had ridden somewhat forward of his other companions, who were bogged down by the incessant palaver of Sophie and Imma. The Saony twins always rode more slowly when they started in on one of their long harangues. They were, as always, being egged on by their bored brother. Their voices had a shrill tone that carried easily above the clatter of the army.

“Did you see Gerberga’s face when Sanglant brought Ekkehard back to her? She was red. Red! To think of it!”

“How humiliating to find your husband has run off with your sister.”

“At least,” remarked Wichman, “neither of you need worry about that! No man would possibly run to either of you.”

“How dare you! As if you could hope for better—!”

“You’ll be murdered by the brother or husband of some poor woman you’ve raped, Wichman.”

“Before or after I am installed as margrave of Westfall?”

“An insult to us, Sophie!”

“It is! It is! To offer him a margraviate, and us—nothing! Not even respectable husbands but only second and third sons of minor lords!”

“I had hoped,” Sanglant said to Liutgard in a low voice, “that they would run to Conrad, but I fear they mean to stick.” He grinned.

She did not. “I pray you, Cousin, forgive me for speaking bluntly.”

He sighed.

“Henry was right after all. He intended to marry you to Queen Adelheid. That would have been a good match. All this would have been avoided.”

“Not all of it.” He indicated Rotrudis’ squabbling progeny.

“Well.” She smiled crookedly. “Not all of it.”

“What do you mean to say, Liutgard? You have supported me faithfully. I know your worth.”

“You must marry. Soon.”

He waved away her question.

“Nay, do not dismiss me! You know I am right.”

“I will not yield on this matter. I am already married.”

She had endured much and complained not at all. She had not seen her own lands in more than four years. Her daughters grown apace while she was gone, her stewards in charge of Fesse, all this she had left behind because of her loyalty to Henry. She had lost half her men, and she had not complained. She had lost her heir, and she had not complained.

“There is a line even I will not cross, Sanglant. I have suffered too much to allow my lands to be laid under a ban because you have fixed on such a creature as that one.”

“A creature—do not insult her!”

“Do not misunderstand me. I do not dislike her. But they whisper about her. They fear her.”

“In Gent they placed flowers at her feet.”

“So they did,” she admitted. “Let the biscops and abbesses be content with her. Let the excommunication be lifted and the holy women offer their blessing. Then we shall see.”

“Will you support me, in that case? In Autun, when the ban is lifted from her?”

“We shall see.”

It was all she would promise. Her words worried at him as a dog worries at a much chewed bone.

“What have you heard?” he said at last. “What whispers?”

She was a cool one, educated, strong, fertile, and confident, his peer, equal to him in rank. Legitimately born, she needed no justification to hold her position and title as duchess of Fesse, the last descendant of Queen Conradina through the queen’s younger brother Eberhard, who had been Liutgard’s great grandfather.