“Well met, Brother,” said Theophanu, coming forward beside her aunt. She turned to Liutgard and spoke polite words of regret, which Liutgard accepted with a bitter glance for the silent abbess.
“I pray you, Theophanu, Aunt, sit beside me.” He rose and invited them to step in under the awning where two stools had been set up to his right, but Mother Scholastica halted at the edge of the carpet, coming no farther, and Theophanu had perforce to stop beside her.
Silence reigned. Sanglant sat back down while they remained standing.
“Let us dispense with pleasantries,” Mother Scholastica said. “Theophanu has ridden far. Let her speak plainly.”
“So I will,” said Theophanu in her cool way, “for I am weary, having ridden far. You have made a claim for our father’s throne. You have in your possession his corpus, awaiting decent burial. These things I acknowledge. Know this also: I have no army to fight you. I have a century of stout Lions, a hundred cavalry of my own retinue, and what levies we can raise out of Saony. Fesse and Avaria stand with you, I see.”
“We do,” said Liutgard.
“We do,” said Burchard, “and we witnessed Henry’s last words, when he named Prince Sanglant as his heir. We witnessed much else, but it is too much to tell here.” He ran a hand over his hair and staggered. Behind him, a steward steadied the old duke with a hand under the elbow.
“Others mean to stand with you as well,” said Theophanu as one of the noblewomen in her entourage crossed the gap to approach Sanglant.
He stood and extended his hands, and this woman placed her folded hands in his as a sign of allegiance. Liath did not know the woman, but she had heard stories, and there were only so many women who wore the margrave’s key and might exchange a glance as intimate as that with Sanglant.
“You are well come back to Wendar, Sanglant.”
“I pray for your forgiveness, Waltharia. You will have heard the news. I did not even find Druthmar’s body.”
She was serious and sorrowful, wiping away tears, but not angry. She did not take the news too lightly, but she did not beat her breast and moan and wail. “I have wept, and will weep again,” she said gravely. She and Liutgard exchanged a knowing glance. “He knew the risk, and served as he was able.”
“He was a good man,” said Sanglant.
“Yes.” She looked past him to Liath, smiled with a strange expression, and spoke in a tone that balanced amused regret and sincere interest. “This is your bride, the one you spoke of?”
“It is.”