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The comb dropped unheeded to the floor as he clasped her hands tightly. “Come,” he said, and it was possible that his voice was a little unsteady. “Sit beside me.”

This time Adelheid did not hesitate. She sat beside him in a chair only somewhat less finely carved than his own, and Theophanu sat as well, to his left. Seated, Henry saw Rosvita and beckoned her forward.Advertisement

“Sister Rosvita! My most valued adviser!” He clasped her hands as she knelt before him. As always, the sheer force of his approval staggered her. Was it possible that she had subsisted so many months without it? Only now, separated from him for so long, did she truly realize how much she loved him. “I knew that if I entrusted you with this task, you would succeed. You have brought me a great treasure.”

“Your Majesty,” she said, for once at a loss for words. But she had been trained in a hard school, she knew the court, and she knew what traps and pits to avoid. Theophanu sat so still that she might have been posing as the image of the queen in an ancient fresco. Rosvita knew when to be prudent, and when to be frank. She used the business of bending to pick up the comb to give herself a few moments to find the right words. It was, after all, no simple ivory comb but rather one fit for a queen: studded with pearls and tiny opals and carved in the shape of a leopard. When she straightened, comb in hand, she spoke.

“Indeed, Your Majesty, it is your daughter, Princess Theophanu, who should receive all credit for any success this expedition has had.”

“Nay, do not say so!” cried Adelheid. “My cousin Theophanu has been a strong companion to me in this crisis, but Sister Rosvita’s wisdom led us to escape. We are all beholden to her for her steadiness and firm counsel.”

He laughed. “We must celebrate this meeting with a feast,” he said, and as he gestured stewards scurried off to begin preparations.

But Adelheid frowned, ever so slightly, and she leaned toward him so that her shoulder brushed his. She wore a delicate perfume, musk of roses distilled from some sun-drenched Aostan garden. “Why not a wedding feast?” she declared boldly.

At once, whispers swept the hall as her question was relayed to those, in the back, who couldn’t hear. Rosvita could not help herself, it was such a brilliant flanking maneuver that she heard herself chuckle before she knew she meant to do so. Henry rarely looked startled, but he did so now. Yet he did not look displeased.

“I bring news,” said Theophanu, stirring in her seat like a woman who cannot find a comfortable place, “of my brother Sanglant.”

“Ah,” said Henry with a small smile. “Sanglant. He placed a hand over Adelheid’s smaller one. His hand rested on hers lightly, but firmly, and he seemed overtaken by some kind of sea change, a lightening of expression, a shift of perspective. Once, Rosvita had understood the shores of his ambition, but Adelheid had swept in, bearing with her an invisible tide that had altered the landscape. “We have also heard news of Sanglant, and I believe that you have with you in your retinue one who can reveal much more to us.”

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It was Theophanu’s turn to look startled. “So I do, Father,” she said obediently.

“Well,” he said, reading reluctance in her otherwise placid expression, “now is not the time. Still, there remains the matter of Sanglant. Both Villam and Judith have ridden east to rally their marchlanders against the Quman threat. If there is war in the east and war coming in Aosta, then certainly we must hope to convince Sanglant to return to court.” This comment scarcely caused a ripple, given the swells that had passed through the crowd before. Henry turned to regard Rosvita with his most compelling gaze. “But I can make no decision without consulting the best of my counselors. What do you advise, Sister? How am I to respond to Adelheid’s proposal?”

Curiously, it was Hathui, standing behind the king’s chair, who lifted her chin to show support, or to suggest an answer. The hall lay as silent as any hall could be with fully three or four hundred people crammed inside, all sweating and struggling to get close enough to hear what would come next.

In that silence of coughs and shifting feet, a distantly shouted question floating in from outdoors, and the whine of some poor dog crushed in the crowd, Rosvita remembered Theophanu’s words at the convent of St. Ekatarina, the ones the princess had spoken when she thought Rosvita was still asleep: “What good is my high birth if our lord father marries again and sires younger children whom he loves more and sets above me? Why should I serve them, when I came before them? Is that not why the angels rebelled?”

Rosvita was fond of Theophanu, truly. She had sympathy for the difficult position that Theophanu had, all these years, handled with dignity and calm. She even admired Theophanu’s cool loyalty to her elder brother, Sanglant, and the constant, uncomplaining service she had given her father. pqdm.com