An honor guard stood at attention in the court, where an empty wagon had been drawn up. These were Sanglant’s remaining guardsmen as well as twoscore Lions, some with heads bowed and others with chins lifted. Many had been weeping; some wore clothing stained with blood from yesterday’s battle. Seeing Alain, a number of the Lions watched him walk past but said nothing.
The main entrance stood around the corner on the narrow front of the hall where it looked down over the city, hidden from his view here by a wing of the old palace. He followed the stream of servants bearing trays of food and drink toward a side door. As they approached this entrance, the hounds whined and sulked. At the threshold, he had to call them twice, thrice, and then four times, and they crawled forward almost on their bellies because they were so reluctant to enter, ears flat and hindquarters tucked tight. Rage growled in an uneasy undertone; Sorrow yawned repeatedly to show his discomfort.
“Come!” he said sternly to the hounds. His pair of escorts stayed by the door, crossing their arms to stand like glowering statues.
God so loved humankind that They had given them ears to hear with, mouths to argue with, and hands and arms for sweeping gestures that punctuated those statements.
At least twoscore clerics populated the hall. It was a surprisingly contentious gathering given the early hour and the presence of a dead king lying in state—and frankly ignored—in the shadows at the back of the hall where light did not quite reach. The bodies of Sabella and Sapientia had already been taken away to be washed and wrapped, but it seemed no person had yet been detailed to care for Sanglant’s corpse.
Most of the conclave clustered on benches at the foot of the dais, although one nervous man paced beside the unlit hearth, pausing to listen carefully only when the conversation got most heated. The rest were grouped in factions, according to the three women seated at the edge of the dais.
The largest group swayed to the words of Mother Scholastica: monks, nuns, noble clerics, and a pair of cowed biscops whom Alain did not recognize. A smaller but equally vociferous number—mostly young and all in monastic or clerical dress—had their sights fixed on Biscop Constance, whose pain-racked face was marked, Alain saw now, with early death. She was not much more than thirty, but he knew she would be dead within the year, and by the vigor of her argument, the fierceness with which she scolded her eminent aunt, he guessed that she knew it, too. Hathumod stood behind her, holding a cup, so intent on Constance that she did not notice Alain.