Child of Flame (Crown of Stars #4)

Adelheid glanced at Hugh, as if expecting him to go on, but he kept his gaze lowered modestly, fixed on the parquet floor and its two tones of wood, blond and ebony, spreading out from his feet in a pattern of repeating squares. Like good and evil, the warring inclinations stamped into every human soul.

“The presbyters weave their own intrigues that have nothing to do with the security of Aosta,” continued Adelheid fervently, taking Henry’s hand again. “Many of them do not care to act in favor of restoring the empire. Yet those same clerics will not necessarily move against a strong hand setting the emperor in place.”

“What are you saying?” asked Henry.

But Rosvita already knew, with that sudden, sure instinct that causes dogs to shy and birds to twitter in the hour before an earthquake hits. She had heard Sanglant’s testimony. It did not take any great wisdom to add two to two and count up four. “You are Sister Anne, of St. Valeria’s Convent.”

“Liath’s mother!” murmured Hathui, standing just behind the king. “I see no resemblance.”

Henry was not slow to catch their meaning. “Are you the woman who claims to be the granddaughter of Emperor Taillefer?”

Anne did not rise. She lifted a single hand, like a queen calling for silence. “What need have I to claim such a thing when it is truth? Why else would I wear the gold torque of royal kinship?”

This argument stymied Henry, but Villam could not remain silent. “Any woman or man might put a gold torque around their throat and say what they will. In the marchlands, imposters sometimes ride into villages and claim to be clerics, or lords, or heathen sorcerers with the power to make birds talk and the rivers run with gold. What proof have you?”

Anne was neither amused nor angry. Her calm ran as deep as the ocean. “What proof do you desire? Is it not obvious?” She whistled, an unexpected sound coming from that ageless, composed face. A huge black hound trotted into view, emerging from behind a carved wood screen. Servants shied away, but it approached meekly enough and lay down submissively at Anne’s feet.

“That looks like one of Lavastine’s hounds,” said Henry, examining the hound with the keen interest of a man who keeps a large kennel and knows the names of all his dogs. “I thought they were all dead.”

“I do not know where the beast came from,” said Anne, “only that it did come to me one day to offer its obeisance. I believe this hound is descended from the black hounds who were loyal to Taillefer. They are spoken of in poems, and I have seen them depicted in tapestries.”

“There is one carved in stone in Taillefer’s chapel at Autun, faithful in life as in death,” said Rosvita, and while it was true that one might mark a resemblance, too much time had passed between the reign of Taillefer and this day to know whether this fearsome creature was itself the descendant, many dog generations on, of the emperor’s famous hounds.

“Nay, Your Majesty.” Villam crouched to get a better look, although he did not venture too close. “This is indeed one of Lavastine’s hunting hounds. I recognize the look of it. The ears. The size. The breadth of its chest. It might as well have swallowed a barrel. I respected those hounds too well to forget them now.”

“What do you want?” asked Henry.

“To serve God,” said Anne. “That is all.”

“If queen and king agree, then there can be no impediment to Sister Anne’s crowning as skopos,” said Adelheid.

Anne did not smile. “If I am skopos, then I cannot contend with you for the imperial throne that is rightly mine.”

Henry smiled sharply. He eased his hand out of Adelheid’s grip and gestured to his servants. Two stewards had already hurried in, and they hastily set up his traveling throne, with the dragon arms, the eagle-wing back, and the lion legs and paws to support it. Sitting, he set chin on fist and elbow on knee, regarding Anne more with curiosity than with animosity. “With what army do you mean to contend for the imperial throne?”

“God’s favor and the right of birth ought to be army enough. So have you put forth your own claim, I believe.”

He glanced at Hathui, who fingered her Eagle’s brooch self-consciously, her expression fixed like stone. What was the Eagle thinking? What did Henry mean to do?

Like a good commander, he attempted a flank attack. “Is it true the woman named Liathano is your daughter? Do you know what became of her?”

“No more than I know what became of your bastard, Sanglant.”

“Who does not trust you and spoke most damningly of your powers and your intent. You are a sorcerer, I believe, a mathematicus. There was talk of a cataclysm soon to engulf us. The return of the Lost Ones. A war, perhaps, or some other disaster.”