Prince of Dogs

The king mounted the steps at the far end of the nave and knelt before the Hearth. Liath knelt with the others, many of whom perforce had to get down on their knees on the stairs in all manner of awkward positions. Her knee captured the trailing end of Hathui’s cloak so that the poor woman could not kneel forward comfortably, but it had become so very quiet in the church that Liath dared not shift even enough to loosen the cloak from her weight.

Mother Scholastica said a prayer over the Hearth to which the assembled nobles murmured rote responses. Liath could not keep her eyes from the Hearth, where a sparkling reliquary cut entirely from rock crystal and formed into the shape of a falcon rested next to Mother Scholastica’s hand. Beside the reliquary stood a book so studded in gems and coated with gold leaf that it seemed of itself to emanate light.

Blessed and sanctified, King Henry rose, shook off his cloak into the hands of a waiting servant, and beckoned to Hathui and his two most trusted advisers: the crippled margrave, Helmut Villam, and the cleric, Rosvita of Korvei. Hathui beckoned to Liath, and the two Eagles hastened to follow these notables as they descended the stairs and exited the church by a smaller door that led into quarters reserved for the mother abbess and her servants.

In an insignificant room just off the abbess’ private cloister, King Henry knelt beside the low bed on which his mother lay. He kissed her hands in greeting, as any son gives his mother the honor due her. “Mother.”

She touched his eyes gently. “You have been weeping, my child. What is this grief for? Do you still mourn the boy?”

He hid his face even from her, but not for long. A mother’s demands must be acknowledged. At last he set his face against the coarse wool blanket—fit for a common nun but surely not for a queen—and wept his sorrow freely while the others turned their gazes away.

They had all knelt in emulation of the king. Liath, at the back, studied their faces. Hathui stared steadily at the rough flagstone floor of the cell, her expression one of mingled pity and respect. The old margrave, Helmut Villam, wiped a tear from his own cheek with his remaining hand. Mother Scholastica frowned at the display—not at the sight of a grown man crying, for of course the ability to express grief easily and compassionately was a kingly virtue, but at the excessive grief Henry still carried with him at the death of a son who was, after all, only a bastard. The cleric had no expression Liath could read on her intelligent face, but she glanced Liath’s way, as if she had felt her gaze upon her, and Liath looked down at once. “Don’t let them notice you,” Da had always said. “Safety lies in staying hidden.”

“Now, child,” the old queen was saying to Henry. Though her body was weak and her voice tremulous, her spirit clearly had not quailed under the burden of her illness. “You will dry these tears. It has been half a year since the boy died—and an honorable death he had, did he not? It is time to let him go. Is this not the eve of hallowing? Let him go so that his spirit may ascend, as it must, through the seven spheres to come to rest at last in the blessed Chamber of Light. You bind his soul to this world with your grief.”

“These are heathen words,” said Mother Scholastica abruptly.

“It is a heathen holy day, is it not, though we have given it a Daisanite name?” retorted the queen. Married young, she had borne at least two of her ten children before she was Liath’s age, or so Liath calculated. She was at most fourteen years older than Henry, who was her eldest child. Her hair, uncoifed in the privacy of her cell, had a few brown strands still woven in among the white. Whatever sickness ravaged her came not only from the assault of time but also from a more physical malady. “We speak of Hallowing Eve still and pray to all the saints on these days when the great tides of the heavens bring the living and the dead close together—bring them so close that we might even touch, if our eyes were open.”

Liath caught in a sob. As she listened to the old queen speak, she recalled Da so vividly that it was almost as if she could see him standing beside her, glimpsed out of the corner of her eye.

“It is a form of respect,” continued the old woman, “that I think God will not begrudge us.”

Mother Scholastica bowed her head obediently, for although she was mistress of Quedlinhame and Mother over all the nuns, including Mathilda, she was at the same time this woman’s daughter. Mathilda had been queen once and was a powerful woman still, queen by title though she no longer sat upon a throne.

“Henry, you must let him go, or he will wander here forever, trapped by your grief.”

“What if he can’t die as we do?” asked Henry in a rasping voice. “What if his mother’s blood forbids him entrance to the Chamber of Light? Is he then doomed to wander as a shade on this earth forever? Are we never to be reunited in the blessed peace of the Light?”