Prince of Dogs

“Aren’t all the nobles concerned with the intrigues of the court?”

Hathui only grinned. “I haven’t asked them all. Nor would they answer me if I did. Hush now, chatterer. I want to sleep.”

In the morning a messenger arrived from Count Lavastine—a messenger who was not Liath. Sapientia reclined on a couch while her attendants fluttered around her and her new physician—on loan from Margrave Judith and newly arrived—tested her pulse by means of pressing two fingers to her skin just under her jawline. Hanna had observed that the princess liked commotion, as if the amount of talking and movement eddying around her reflected her importance. Behind the couch Hugh paced, more like a caged animal than an amiable and wise courtier. He held Liath’s book tucked under his arm. In the two and a half months since the disaster at Augensburg, Hanna had rarely seen him without the book in his hands; if not there, then he stowed it in a small locked chest which a servant carried.

“Why did she not return?” he demanded of no one in particular. Looking up, he saw Hanna.

Hanna froze. She could not bring herself to move, not knowing whether to bask in his notice or fear it.

Sapientia yawned as she rubbed a hand reflexively over her huge abdomen. “Really, Father Hugh, I prefer my Hanna. Her voice is so very calming. The other one was too skittish. She serves Gent better riding with Count Lavastine than with us.”

Hugh frowned at Hanna a moment longer. Then, with a palpable effort, he turned his attention to the princess. “Wise advice to your own counselor, Your Highness,” he said in an altered tone.

Sapientia smiled, looking pleased. “More fruitful to wonder if we will ride south to Wayland and Duke Conrad, or north to meet Lavastine at Gent. And what is keeping my dear Theophanu? Perhaps she has turned nun at St. Valeria Convent.” Her favorites, surrounding her, giggled. Hugh did not laugh, but when the gossip turned to the latest news—which was none—about Duke Conrad, he joined in with his usual elegance of manner, gently chiding those who were mean-spirited and encouraging those who supposed King Henry would find a peaceful solution to any misunderstanding which might arise.

“It is true,” he remarked, “that force is sometimes necessary to win what is rightfully yours, but God also gave us equal parts of eloquence and cunning which we rightly point to as the mark of the wise counselor. We are better off hoarding our substance in order to fight off the incursions of the Quman and the Eika than wasting it among ourselves.”

With this judgment King Henry evidently agreed. The court did not move south toward Wayland. But as the early spring rains began and the rivers swelled with the thaw, his advisers deemed the journey north toward Gent as yet too difficult to attempt. While they waited for the roads to open, they visited the small royal estates that lay in a wide ring—each about three days’ ride from the last—around Mainni. The court celebrated Mariansmass and the new year at Salfurt, fasted for Holy Week at Alsheim, and moved north to celebrate the feasts of St. Eirik and St. Barbara at Ebshausen. On the road from Ebshausen to the palace at Thersa, Sapientia felt her first birth pangs.

“But Thersa is so comfortable,” she complained, looking both disgruntled and frightened when the king declared that they would go instead to the nearby convent of St. Hippolyte for the lying-in. “I want to go to Thersa!”

“No,” said Henry with that look that any observant soul would know at once meant he could not be swayed. “The prayers of the holy sisters will aid you.”

“But they can pray for me wherever I am!”

Hugh took Sapientia’s hand in his and faced the king. “Your Majesty, it is true that the palace at Thersa is a grander place by far, more fitting for a royal lying-in—”

“No! The matter is settled!”

Sapientia began to snivel, gripping her belly—and the king seemed ready to lose his temper. Hanna moved forward and leaned to whisper in Sapientia’s ear. “Your Highness. What matters it what bed you lie in as long as God favor you? The prayers of the holy nuns will strengthen you, and your obedience now will give you favor in your father’s eyes.”

Sapientia’s sniveling ceased and, once a birth pang had passed, she grasped the king’s hands in her own. “Of course you are right, Father. We will go to St. Hippolyte. With a patron saint like Hippolyte, the child is sure to grow strong and large and of stout courage, suitable for a soldier.”

Henry brightened noticeably and, for the rest of the damp ride to the convent, fussed over his daughter, who put up a brave face as her pains worsened.