The formula had a parallel construction to that diploma given to the freeholders in the Bretwald by the younger Henry, although the details differed. The villagers listened as intently as scholars as she read slowly and in a clear voice.
“‘This privilege was confirmed by Henry, by faith and oath approved and accepted by the following persons… in the year 660 since the Proclamation of the Holy Word, on the 11th day of Sormas, on the feast day of the Visitation.’” She looked up in surprise. “That’s today!”
Having no deacon to count the calendar for them, they, too, were shocked and delighted. They set to drinking with a cheer. First the children—who would lay claim to these lands when they inherited—drank. After them, the elders, who had husbanded the land, and last of all the householders who now worked the fields. There was enough for all, a rare enough thing, Liath thought as she sipped at the sour cider, which was starting to go to vinegar but had not quite turned.
On such an auspicious occasion all lingering suspicion vanished. Lions and Eagles were fed, and housed at random, some in the longhouses and some in byres or stock sheds on beds of heaped straw. Liath asked for no place greater for herself than any other, and the captain, seeing this without commenting on it, offered her no primacy. For the first time in many days she slept soundly, half buried in a heap of scratchy straw with only a blanket beneath and one thrown over herself where she had wrapped herself in her wool cloak. In old days, long ago, she had often slept so on the road, traveling with Da and later as an Eagle. Slipping into sleep, she could imagine Da near at hand, murmuring under his breath, talking to himself, as he often did when there was no learned adult with whom to converse. How he loved to chat. For all his lonely isolated ways, Da had loved people and loved talking and discussion and argument for argument’s sake. He had had a restless, roving mind, unsettled, dissatisfied, and most likely unsatisfiable. She tucked her saddlebags against her chest. The book was a comforting presence, for all the trouble it had caused her. It was, in a way, Da’s conversation with himself all those years. She wept a little, thinking of him, and fell asleep, and dreamed of Blessing as a tiny baby sleeping at peace in her arms.
“Liath? Ai, God! It is her!”
That Hanna’s voice should so trouble her dreams did not surprise her, not after marching for two days with the Lions. They were in the dream, too.
“Well, I told you it was her,” said one, sounding aggrieved.
“Since when should anyone believe your wild tales, Folquin?”
“Since I learned better from following your example, Ingo!”
“Liath!”
That a hand should touch her shoulder in such a familiar way, jostling her out of sleep, did surprise her. She opened her eyes.