“God will watch over me.”

Liath remembered that pragmatic voice well enough; she watched from the anonymity of Argent’s shoulder as Mother Scholastica dismounted from a skittish white mule. The torchlight illuminated her. Her stern face had grown lean and lined in the manner of a woman who has had to make many difficult, distressing decisions, but her back was still straight and her stride measured and confident as she approached the tent with her attendants scuttling behind. She did not glance even once at the griffins, although her attendants could not stop looking. The entrance flap swept open and Sanglant emerged to wait for her beneath the awning.

‘Aunt,” he said graciously. “You honor me.”

“Where is Henry?”

He gestured toward the interior of the tent, but certainly he turned and went inside first, and she allowed him to do so, giving him precedence. A trio of clerics scurried in after her. Others waited outside, huddled under the awning as they whispered and, at intervals, cast glances into the night where the griffins waited. After a moment Liath realized that naturally they could see only shadows; she could see them because of the pair of lit lamps hanging from the awning and, of course, because of her salamander eyes.

She gave Argent a last vigorous scratch and went back to the tent. The clerics stared at her, but the guardsmen nodded and made no comment as she slipped past them.

“I bring unwelcome tidings, Liutgard,” Scholastica was saying.

“You bring no tidings at all,” replied Liutgard caustically. “I have already heard the news.”

Even this disrespectful greeting did not jolt Scholastica’s composure. Sanglant indicated that the abbess should sit in the camp chair to his left normally reserved for Liutgard. The stool to his right sat empty. He noted Liath’s entrance with a glance, but otherwise kept his attention on his aunt.

“Where did Henry’s death take place? In what manner did you find him? How can you verify that he was in thrall to this daimone? What of Queen Adelheid? Whose blow killed him? Where is his corpus now?”

“We brought his heart and bones from the south.”

“His remains must be buried at Quedlinhame beside his mother.”

“Naturally. Why else would I have come here, Aunt?”

“To be anointed as regnant. Do not trifle with me, Sanglant. Liutgard and Burchard support you. Yet rumor has it that you abandoned Sapientia in the wilderness.”

“Never did any sour soul deserve that fate more!” laughed Wichman from the corner.

“Silence!”

It was startling to see Wichman cowed as he ducked his head and murmured, “I pray for your pardon, Aunt.”

“Do not mock. I will not tolerate it. What of Sapientia, Sanglant? Are you responsible for her death?”

“We do not know if she lives, or is dead.”

“Among the Quman savages, living is surely like death. We are not like the Salians or the Aostans or the Arethousans. We Wendish do not kill our relatives in our quest for power.”