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“I’ll stay with her,” said the nun.

“Thank you, Sister.” She hurried over to Hanna.Advertisement

“You’re more than I can embrace,” said Hanna with a laugh, kissing her.

“Come,” she said to Hanna, taking her arm. “Let me use you as balance going down these steps. I’m afraid I’ll topple forward. Ai, God, it is good to see you. What news?”

Hanna waited to answer until they came out into the garden. Bees buzzed, and a fly pestered her until she swatted it away. “The Council of Autun has voted to recognize the Redemption.”

Liath caught in her breath, but made no comment.

“I’ve brought back your Da’s book, courtesy of the Holy Mother, who had copies made.”

“The Holy Mother?”

“They elected Sister Rosvita. Autun is to be the seat of the skopos. For now. She has lifted the writ of excommunication.”

Liath stroked her pregnant belly. “Thank God, for the child’s sake as well as my own. If there’s more, I pray you, wait until we meet together later, so it can all be said at once. Let my grandmother be awake to hear it.”

“Is she well?”

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“Very old, and very tired, but her mind remains clear. She could die tomorrow, or five years from now. I just don’t know. I pray she stays with us as long as possible.” She paused beside a rosebush to touch a blossom whose petals were saturated with crimson. “Oh, look, another bloom.”

A commotion blew in from the stable yard, a burst of laughter and bodies flooding through the arched gate and out into the garden, foremost among them the prince.

He marked Hanna instantly, and smiled. “What news for my daughter?” It was a shock to hear him speak. The powerful tenor remained, but that familiar hoarseness was utterly gone.

The young hounds galloped to Liath for pats on the head but immediately returned to circle Sanglant, shoving in to get a rub and a scratch on the head.

After a moment, Hanna remembered herself and spotted the princess lingering under the archway in a patch of shade beside Lord Berthold, who had paused there to talk to Captain Fulk. She was quite a tall girl, well filled out.

“Yes, there is news,” said Hanna. “Queen Theophanu sends her affectionate greetings to her dead kinsman. The king is on his way to Alba. He will take Princess Blessing with him on campaign.”

“I want Berthold to come with me,” said Blessing in that bold way she had. Some things hadn’t changed!

Startled, the young man turned around. “To Alba? With the brat?”

“He will be going,” said Hanna, “since a betrothal has been arranged for him with one of the surviving daughters of the Alban royal family.”

Liath looked at Sanglant. The prince shrugged, lifting one eyebrow. Berthold looked toward the Ashioi woman, who rubbed the back of her neck and preened in the manner of a woman who enjoys teasing men. Blessing sucked in a sharp breath.

After a moment, in which the entire garden and all its inhabitants seemed to hold a collective breath, waiting for the explosion, the girl bit her lip and said nothing. She moved forward to shyly kiss her mother, but like the hounds she swung back to her father’s side.

“How soon can we expect Lord Stronghand?” asked Sanglant, resting an arm over his daughter’s shoulders affectionately. She leaned against him.

“He will arrive by the Feast of the King.”

“Captain Fulk, best take her to the armory and see what needs fitting. We haven’t much time.”

“Yes, my lord prince.”

Sanglant nodded, studied Hanna’s state of dress and dust, and called a steward. “See that this Eagle is given whatever she needs, something to drink, and a bath, if she desires it. If you could wait until the count wakes, and give your message then?”

“I’d be glad of it, my lord prince,” she said.

“Oh!” said Liath. “You must be thirsty. Come, I’ll go with you.” She took Hanna’s arm, and then turned to the prince. “And your hunt?”

He shook his head. “Escaped us again. There’s a score of them, we think, under a cunning leader. I have in mind a trap.”

“What is he hunting?” Hanna asked as Liath led her past the barracks to the bathhouse. “Wolves?”

“Outlaws. A pack of them have been preying on the outlying farmsteads to the north. There was so much trouble all last winter along the eastern road that we finally had to bring in the folk who lived there and resettle them in Lavas and Ravnholt. There’s been a great deal of stockade building this spring. Wolves, too, coming out of the south. And a raid hit our southwestern border, up out of Salia.” pqdm.com