“Of course you would be acquainted with my father and family, if you resided there.”
“I have met them,” he said with a hint of condescension—something he normally never showed toward her, the favored cleric among Henry’s intimate advisers, his elder in the church, and a woman.
“Did you bring the two young women to the notice of the King’s Eagles, then? It was a generous act.”
His pleasant expression did not waver—by much—but a certain hard glint came into his eyes. “I did not. I had nothing to do with that.”
Had lightning struck, she could not have been more surprised by revelation. The memory of their visit to Quedlinhame last autumn jolted her so hard she lost her grip on the flowers, and they fell to scatter over her robe, the stones, and the soil.
Ivar, talking to Liath in the dark sanctuary of a back room in the convent library. Liath had said, “I love another man.” And that had made Ivar angry. Whose name had he spoken?
“Hugh.”
Liath had not denied it, only said that he was dead. Now, with Hugh regarding her as innocently as a dove, she was angry with herself for not questioning Ivar closely about the incident.
“I am confused, then, and I beg your pardon, Father Hugh,” she said at last. “I had thought you must have known the young women, as well as my brother, Ivar, when you were in Heart’s Rest. Thus my curiosity about the book, which resembles one I saw Liath carrying.”
He toyed with the book, tucked it more firmly against his thigh, and sighed deeply as at an unpalatable decision. “She stole it from me. But now, as you see, I have gotten it back.”
“Stole it from you!” That she had suspected as much—that Liath had stolen the book from somewhere—did not make the fact any more pleasant to hear. “How did she steal it? Why?”
He closed his eyes a moment. It was difficult for Rosvita to imagine what thoughts might be going through his mind. Like the book, like a veil drawn to hide the chamber behind, he was closed against her. He had completely given up abbot’s robes and now dressed like any fine lord in embroidered tunic, a short cloak with a gold brooch, silver-banded leggings, and a sword; one knew he was a churchman only by his lack of beard and his eloquent speech.
“I do not speak easily of this,” he said finally. “It pains me deeply. The young woman’s father died in severe debt. I paid it off because it was the charitable thing to do, as you can imagine, being a Godly churchwoman yourself, Sister. By that price, she became my slave. She had no kin and thus, really, no prospects, so I kept her by me to protect her.”
“Indeed,” murmured Rosvita, thinking of Ivar’s protestations of love. Of course a count’s son could never marry a kinless girl who was also another man’s slave! He should never even have considered it. “She is a beautiful girl, many have noticed that, and has an awkward smattering of education. Enough to attract the wrong kind of notice.”
“Indeed. That she repaid me in this manner …” Here he broke off.
“How then did she come into the Eagles?”
He hesitated, clearly reluctant to go on.
“Wolfhere,” she said, and knew she had made a hit when his lips tightened perceptibly.
“Wolfhere,” he agreed. “He took what was not his to have.”
“But only free women and men may enter into the Eagles.”
Elegant, confident Hugh looked, for an instant, like a man stricken with a debilitating sorrow. “My hand was forced.”
“Why do you not tell the king? Surely he will listen to your grievance?”
“I will not accuse a man if he is not beside me to answer in his turn,” said Hugh reasonably. “Then I would be taking the same advantage of Wolfhere that he took of me, in a sense, when he claimed the young woman in question for the king’s service without letting the king judge the matter for himself. Nor do I wish to be seen as one who takes unseemly advantage of my—” He smiled with that same shrewd glint. “Let us be blunt, Sister Rosvita. Of my intimate association with Princess Sapientia.”
“No one would fault you if you brought the matter before the king now. It is generally agreed that your wise counsel has improved her disposition.”
But he merely bowed his head modestly. “I would fault myself.”
4
THEY gathered an army and, helpless, he watched them do so. By the angle of light that shone through the cathedral windows and the sullen warmth that crept in through the vast stone walls during the day when the doors were thrown open to admit sunlight, he guessed that spring had come at last. With the spring thaw running low, the winds would give the Eika good sailing out of the north.