Prince of Dogs

“What happened to your face!” exclaimed Hanna.

“I beg you, Hathui,” pleaded Liath in a whisper, grasping Hathui’s hands. “I beg you, if you have any influence with the king, let me ride with Hanna, get me out of here.”

“I’m sorry, Liath. It’s already been decided.”

“But if you all go today, if you leave me alone—” She was suddenly so nauseated, head pounding, eyesight blurring, that she knew she was going to be sick.

“This way,” said Hathui briskly, and hustled her outside.

She retched, heaving up mostly spume for she had taken nothing to eat or drink since last night’s sparse dinner, and hacked and shuddered until she thought she might as well die now and be rid of this misery.

“Child!” Rosvita appeared out of the mist and touched her gently on the shoulder. “What ails you?”

Hysterical with fear, she no longer cared what she said or did. She could not endure this any longer. She flung herself down and clasped Rosvita’s knees like a supplicant. “I pray you, Sister. You have influence with the king! I beg you, ask him to send me away, anywhere, to take any message, anywhere, only away from here. I beg you, Sister.”

“You are from Heart’s Rest,” said Rosvita suddenly, in a tone of surprise. Liath looked up, but the cleric was examining Hanna, not her.

“I am.”

“And this one, too,” said Rosvita slowly, looking from Hanna to Liath and then back to Hanna. “Is it possible, Eagle, that you also know my brother Ivar?”

Hanna blinked, then dropped like a stone to kneel before the cleric. “My lady! I beg your pardon for not knowing—”

“Never mind it,” said Rosvita. “Answer my question.”

“Ivar is my milk brother. He and I nursed from the same breast—my mother’s. My lady, I beg you.” Coming from Hanna’s lips, the pleading sounded freakish. Hanna never begged. Hanna could always handle any emergency that came her way. Hanna was so calm. “It is presumptuous of me to claim kinship with you, my lady, but I beg you by that bond of kinship I hold with your brother, that if you can help her, please do.”

Liath gulped down a sob, she was so desperate, so hopeful, so stripped of hope.

“But why are you so eager to leave the king?” Clearly Rosvita was groping for answers and having trouble finding any. “You were with Wolfhere in Gent. Has he poisoned your mind somehow against Henry? Any dispute Wolfhere had with Henry was not of Henry’s making.”

“No,” gasped Liath, “it was nothing Wolfhere said. He never said anything against King Henry.”

“True-spoken words,” muttered Hathui.

“It isn’t the king at all.” Ai, Lady, how much could she say? How much dared she say?

“Come, now, daughter, take hold of yourself.” Rosvita set a hand, like a benediction, on Liath’s forehead. “If it is the service of Princess Sapientia you chafe under—”

“Yes!” Liath leaped at this. “Yes. I don’t—I can’t—We don’t suit, I—”

“An Eagle serves where the king commands,” said Rosvita sternly.

Having freed himself from the king, Hugh came out of the tent. Liath began to sob. She had lost.

But Rosvita took her by the hand and lifted her up. “Come, daughter, dry your eyes and sit yourself down here, where there is shelter. It has begun to rain.”

Indeed, it had begun to rain. Liath only noticed it because the sleeting rain slid under the neck of her cloak and straight down her spine.

“I will take her back to Princess Sapientia’s tent,” said Hugh softly. “I fear the fall she took earlier has disordered her mind.”

“Let her rest here a moment,” said Rosvita. For a miracle, Hugh did not press the issue while Rosvita left Liath’s side and went into the king’s tent. Hathui followed the cleric in, leaving Hanna and a confounded Rufus to stand beside her. She swallowed tears and, through the fabric of the tent, heard Rosvita speaking to the king.

“Would it not be wisest, Your Majesty,” she asked, “to send the Eagle who has come from Gent to Count Lavastine, so that he may question her directly?”

“There is wisdom in your words, Sister,” said the king. “But my daughter is fond of the Eagle, and I wish to keep her spirits up.”

“I trust Father Hugh and her other companions can keep her spirits up, Your Majesty. But Count Lavastine will need the best intelligence if he is to have any hope of retaking Gent, surely, and you cannot afford to leave Gent in the hands of the Eika. Not when it comes time for them to raid again, and they have control of the river.”