Prince of Dogs

“‘Virtues alone make one blessed.’” Monica smiled sweetly on him and began to quote at length from the Commentary on the Dream of Cornelia by Eustacia.

“Good and useful, indeed,” whispered Theophanu suddenly to Rosvita. “I observe that my sister is now pregnant by him, so we must presume he has learned both lessons well enough.”

“Theophanu!” breathed Rosvita, shocked. Belatedly, she added, “Your Highness.”

Theophanu said nothing else.

Monica declaimed at length on the virtues as written in the Commentary. “‘Thus do the virtues come in four types, and these types are distinguished each from the other in regard to the passions. For the passions are these, Fears and Desires, Griefs and Joys, Anger, and Envy. The political virtues of prudence, temperance, courage, and justice mitigate the passions. The cleansing virtues put the passions aside. The purified and serene mind has forgotten the passions, and to the divine Mind whose virtues are exemplary, the passions are anathema.’”

Torches and candles flickered; the hearth fire burned steadily, stoked by servants. King Henry smiled softly on the two debaters, although these past months at odd moments he could be found staring off into nothing, attention lost to the matters at hand. Now he yawned, finally, and signed to his servants that his bed should be made ready. Rosvita, finishing her wine, toyed with the cup. The others made ready for sleep; Theophanu did not move.

“You do not like him,” said Rosvita at last.

“You did not, before he left.”

“I did not,” agreed Rosvita. “But he is much changed.” She watched as Father Hugh retired discreetly to the back of the hall while Sapientia waited for her camp bed to be set up behind a screen next to her father. Hugh’s movements were decorous and graceful, and if it were true that virtue radiated more brightly in beauty of form, then he was virtuous, indeed. “Ai, Lady,” she murmured to herself, catching herself looking at him. She had thought herself long past such half-formed yearnings, but perhaps her mind was not as serene as she hoped.

“He’s very handsome,” said Theophanu suddenly, standing. “Does the Psalm not say, ‘The Lady desireth your beauty’?” Then she walked away to her own camp bed, modestly placed behind a curtain away from her sister.

“This bodes ill, I fear,” said Rosvita to herself as she set down her winecup. She rose. Did clever Theophanu dislike Father Hugh, or was she envious at her sister’s good fortune in finding such a courtier? In finding, to be blunt, such a lover? Indeed, how could Sapientia have resisted him, even though she knew he was a churchman and that it was wrong of her to desire him and wrong of him to accede to such a seduction? She was a royal princess, after all, and it was necessary for her to get with child in order to prove she was worthy of the throne. One might say, as had Theophanu, that he was only doing his duty and being useful.

One by one, torches were extinguished as nobles and servants found sleeping space in the hall of the hunting lodge where they had arrived this afternoon.

Tomorrow, the king would ride out after deer.

Tonight, some slept more restfully than others.

Liath pulled off her gloves and, her fingers clumsy with cold, found the gold feather in her pouch. Instinct had warned her not to pick up the white feather she had found beside Da’s body the night he was murdered. Now she had seen what manner of creature shed such feathers. But this gold feather, plucked from the ashes of a dying fire through which she had seen a vision of the old Aoi sorcerer, had a different texture, one of promise, not pain or fear.

Drawing the feather gently through her fingers, she stared into the fire, thinking of Hanna, forming Hanna’s face and expression in her mind’s eye, the curve of her shoulders, the twist of her braided hair, the seal ring of the Eagles on her right middle finger. On one other occasion this past summer she had formed Hanna so in her mind, and within the gateway made by fire she had seen shadows of a narrow pass winding through mountains whipped by storm, of a landslide that had obliterated a road. Was it only her fear, imagining such a scene, or had she truly visioned Hanna in the mountains, threatened by an unseasonable storm?

Where was Hanna now? As she concentrated, spinning the feather through her fingers, she saw movement within the flames, images seen through a veil of fire.

A standing stone in the midst of a clearing burns with a fire born of no natural kindling, for it burns without fuel and gives off no heat. No one sits on the flat rock where once the old Aoi sorcerer sat and spoke to her. Sinewy plant stalks lie in a heap at the foot of the rock, awaiting his return. A rope the length of her arm lies draped over the rock. Where did he go? When will he return?