“Then it’s true, for surely you have a form most like to the angels.” She bowed her head.

Baldwin looked up at Ivar and mouthed the words, “What’s true?”

Ivar could only shrug.

She raised a hand and by this means brought silence to the assembly crowded around to hear. “A great evil has fallen upon us. Famine, sickness, war, and dissension plague us. God is angry, yet She has not forsaken us as we have feared. Many here have heard the stories of God’s grace.”

“Truth rises with the phoenix!” cried a woman from the back, and other voices echoed her.

“Do not fear the days to come,” said the biscop as folk around her knelt. “Her glory has come down to us out of the heavens and casts its brilliance over the Earth. If we will only believe, then we will be safe. God will answer us in our time of trouble, grant our every desire, fulfill our every plan. She sends us help from her sanctuary.” She raised Baldwin to his feet as he smiled pliantly with that look of beautiful incomprehension that in Quedlinhame had so charmed his praeceptors. “A holy one walks among us.”

Behind Ivar, Hathumod burst into tears.

5

“YOUR Excellency! I pray you, forgive us for disturbing you. Come quickly, Your Excellency!”

The servant’s voice was shrill with a panic that roused Antonia out of a restful sleep. She grunted and slapped a hand over her eyes to shut out the flicker of lamplight as the clumsy servant leaned over her and the sting of oily smoke made her cough.

“Your Excellency!”

“I have woken.”

The fool woman remained poised there, as stupid as a cow. “Come quickly.”

In the adjoining room, little Berengaria began to wail as Mathilda’s shrieks filled the air. The servant groaned and fled, leaving Antonia to rise in her shift and grope her way through the dark room to the opened door that led from one chamber into the other. There was, mercifully, lamplight, and a trio of servants hastily shoving a heavy table out of the way.

Young Mathilda was spinning, arms straight out and rigid, hands in fists. “Get away, you beast! It has red eyes! Why can’t anyone else see them?” She sobbed gustily.

“Your Highness, if you will only sit down—”

“Shan’t! You’re trying to kill me! Just like Mama and Papa! They’re never coming! You did it! You did it!”

She swung wildly, battering her attendants. They skittered back to circle as nervously as a pack of dogs waiting to have a stone thrown at them.

One of the double doors leading out into the courtyard creaked open and Captain Falco slipped in. He was dressed, armed, and alert. He slept athwart the doors on the pavement outside, but despite his constant faithful presence and the quiet surroundings in Novomo where they had bided many weeks now, Mathilda still suffered from night terrors.

“I hate you! I hate you!” she shouted, but it was not clear whom she hated, or what she feared.