“It will be taken as a sign. There is no telling what alliances your aunt has formed in the last few years. King Henry was gone from Wendar for too long. Half of the Wendish folk beg us for aid, and the other half curse at us for abandoning them. We can never trust her now. She scorns us, who served Henry best!”

“What do you say, Burchard?” Sanglant asked, seeing that Liutgard was caught up in a passion.

Duke Burchard rode at Liutgard’s left. His hands shook with a palsy, and he was always exhausted, at the end, so the poets would say, of his rope. He was not a warm man, Liath had discovered, but she respected him.

He turned his weary gaze to Liutgard. The duchess had the stamina to adjust to reversals and hardships. She had lost one husband, and must at this moment be too stunned to really absorb the news the prior had brought her.

“I will see you anointed and recognized, Your Majesty. Then I mean to go home, set my duchy in order, and die. I have seen too much.” One of his stewards helped him down from his horse and led him away to a tent, the first up, where he could lie down.

So they went, some time later, into the royal tent salvaged out of the ruins of Henry’s army. On the center pole, the red silk banner eagle, dragon, and lion stitched in gold flew above the black dragon.

Inside, Liath sat on a stool as Sanglant paced, while his stewards and captains came and went on errands she could not keep track of. Now and again he glanced at her, as if to mark that she had not escaped him, but he listened, considered, gave orders, and countermanded two of these commands when new information was brought to him. He knew what to do. She was superfluous. Lamps were lit, and when she stepped outside to take in the texture of the chill winter air, she saw that it was almost dark.

On the road, a score of folk carrying torches approached. They halted when Argent coughed a warning cry and raised his crest.

She walked over to him. He bent his head and allowed her to scratch the spot where forearm met shoulder that he had a hard time reaching with beak or claws. His breath was meaty, and his huge eyes blinked once, twice, then cleared as the inner membrane flicked back. She should fear him; she knew that; but since Anne’s death, her reunion with Sanglant, and the departure of the Horse people, nothing seemed to scare her, not even when it should. She watched, and she listened, but she spoke little and offered less advice.

“In some ways,” she said idly to Argent as he rumbled in his throat, “it’s as if all Da’s training to be invisible has flowered. Do beasts know what their purpose is? Or do they simply exist?”

A voice raised in protest. “I pray you, Holy Mother, do not venture forward. The beasts could tear you to pieces.”