“Nay,” said Gerwita faintly, “for the Lavas hounds didn’t come into the possession of the Counts of Lavas until Count Lavastina’s son Charles Lavastine inherited after the death of his mother. Most said it was a curse set on him by the Enemy, that Charles Lavastine killed his own father and mother because he feared they would have a daughter to supplant him.” When everyone looked at her, she clasped her hands tightly before her and seemed eager to shrink into the bedcovers. “The story is well known in northern Varre, Sister. My family comes from that region, near Firsebarg Abbey.”
“Was it never spoken of that the Counts of Varre were therefore related to the Emperor Taillefer?” asked Rosvita.
Gerwita shrugged, looking horrified to be the center of attention of fully four persons. She wrung her hands nervously. “No.”
“That seems unlikely, given that Taillefer had no other known legitimate descendants,” said Fortunatus.
“In Salia, daughters cannot inherit a title, only sons,” said Ruoda, “and in Varre, sons inherit only if there are no daughters.”
“Gundara would have been wise to settle her younger son in a place where he could be easily lost, and easily retrieved should his older brother die without an heir.” Rosvita drew the lamp closer to the old pages of the Annals. Her eyes weren’t as keen as those of her young assistants. She admired the refined minuscule common to annals written during the reign of Taillefer, but the words themselves told her nothing that her clerics had not already mentioned: the boy, Hugo, betrothed at the age of four. No indication of his upbringing or later career graced these pages, intended as they were to vindicate the actions of Skopos Leah as she brought down the power of Taillefer’s most powerful daughter, Biscop Tallia. Perhaps the child was sent to Varre to be raised with his intended bride, hidden in plain sight, the emperor’s grandson who by reason of his birth to one of the emperor’s daughters could never contend for the Salian throne. But his children, should he survive, might still marry back into the royal lineage.
“Was Charles Lavastine the only child of Lavastina and Hugo?” Rosvita asked of Gerwita.
“Nay, Sister. Count Lavastina died in childbed almost twenty years after the birth of Charles Lavastine, giving birth to her second child, another boy, called Geoffrey.”
“Ah, yes.” Rosvita remembered the story now. “He would be the grandfather of the Geoffrey whose daughter became count after Lavastine’s untimely death. There was a trial—”