“No doubt he hopes we’re quarreling over it now. Sow discord. Plant doubts. Reap the harvest. I expect he’s grown more subtle.”

The comment made her fall back to earth and actually see him. She leaned against him, ignoring Theophanu and Ekkehard’s stares, and with the book crushed between them she smiled so dazzlingly up at him that he got dizzy all over again. “Just as you have?” she asked him.

He laughed. “So easily I’m disarmed!”

“I pray you, Sanglant,” said Theophanu, “if you will not have people say that she has wrapped you in a spell, then you ought not to act in public like a besotted fool. Even our father once asked this woman to become his mistress.”

Ekkehard was staring with mouth agape and eyes wide. “Ivar of North Mark was in love with her, too,” he murmured. “She was condemned as a sorcerer at Autun, at Hugh of Austra’s trial, don’t you remember? She was named as a maleficus. She was excommunicated by Constance and a council of biscops and presbyters! Henry raised no objection!”

“I wasn’t there,” said Sanglant, “or it wouldn’t have happened.”

Liath pushed away from him, but she left the book in his hands. “It’s true enough, everything they say.”

“Let us not have this argument again, Liath. You are my wife, and will be my queen.”

“I pray you, Your Majesty,” said Hathui. “Listen.”

Footsteps drummed on the church’s porch as with the flowering dawn came the many nuns and monks and clerics to sing the morning service. Mother Scholastica walked at their head, attended by the great nobles of the realm: Duchess Liutgard, Duke Burchard leaning on a staff, Margrave Gerberga, Margrave Waltharia, the children of Duchess Rotrudis, the four biscops, three abbots, and many more. Hugh was not among them.

Yesterday the assembly had sung the mass while, beneath, workers had prepared a place in the crypt beside Queen Mathilda. This morning Henry would be laid to rest, and the world would go on.

“Sanglant,” said his aunt as she halted in front of him. He kissed her ring. She turned to his siblings. “Theophanu. Ekkehard.” They kissed her ring in like manner as the monastics filed forward along the aisles on either side as a stream of bowed heads and folded hands.

“There is much yet to be discussed,” said Mother Scholastica. She looked at Liath but did not, precisely, acknowledge her. “But that must wait. Who will carry Henry’s bones into the crypt?”

“The great princes,” said Sanglant, “as is fitting.”

He stepped aside to allow Mother Scholastica to move forward into the apse and up to the holy altar. Hathui retreated into the shelter granted by Fulk and his soldiers. The great princes crowded up behind Sanglant as he knelt on the lowest step, Theophanu to his right and Ekkehard to his left. They were silent as Mother Scholastica raised both hands and the assembled monastics sang the morning service.

“Let us praise and glorify God, who are Eternal.”