“I would object to either alliance,” said Liutgard.

“I am already married,” said Sanglant, who was growing tired of this maneuvering. They were like dogs circling and growling around a fresh carcass.

“If you must put her aside in order to gain the throne, I’ll gladly take her into my own bed,” said Wichman.

Liath coughed, and someone in the chamber tittered.

“I was just joking,” said Wichman suddenly, sounding strangely nervous.

Waltharia, whose face Sanglant could see, looked ready to laugh.

“I am already married,” he repeated.

His aunt was not done. “Married under the old custom of bedding as a wedding, a union not even blessed by a simple deacon. Married to a woman born into a lineage whose highest aspiration was to install one of its sons in the Dragons. She brings no noble connections, no treasure, no dowry, no lands—”

“She—”

“I am not finished, Nephew! And she is excommunicated. She cannot become queen in this state. If she does, all of Wendar will be placed under anathema.”

Each of the biscops nodded in turn. Scholastica had arrayed her allies carefully.

“Is this what you wish, Sanglant?” asked Henry’s half sister, Biscop Alberada. “That no mass may be sung? That no soul receive burial in holy ground? All for the sake of one woman?”

“Who will enforce this anathema?” he demanded, knowing that his temper was fraying and that he was pressing forward recklessly. “The skopos is dead.”

Scholastica set the owl feather onto the desk and folded her hands to rest on that surface. She had relaxed, he saw, believing the fight won.

“The skopos is never dead. St. Thecla lives in every skopos. God still rule, Sanglant, or had you forgotten that? It is true I am abbess here because your grandfather Arnulf the Younger placed me in this position, as befit my birth. These good abbots rule their institutions because of their good names and righteous ways. But each of these holy biscops received her mantle with the blessing of the skopos in Darre. They are her representatives here in the north, and there are others, besides, who have not had time or opportunity to meet with you yet. We—all of us—will enforce the anathema if you disobey us.”

He fumed, but he was outarmed and outnumbered, and while it was all very well to live with Liath and ride with his army and ignore that distant excommunication brought down years ago in Autun, it was quite another thing to condemn the entire realm to spiritual exile.

“The accusation and sentence were unjust,” he said at last. “She is innocent.”

“The excommunication is valid until lifted.”

“Then lift it!”

They watched him. One abbess, four biscops, and three abbots, most considerably older than he was and well versed in the intrigues of courtly power, presented a daunting force. As Mother Scholastica had so kindly pointed out, these were only the ones who had arrived here in time. More would come, and it was likely they would bow to Scholastica’s authority, not his.