“You could have lied. No one would know differently, since according to all reports it is certain that the Holy Mother Anne—who claimed to be your mother—is now dead.”

“It isn’t the truth, so it would be wrong to say it was. Anyway, I never desired to be born to such a position.”

“Yet you carry yourself as if it is already understood.” The words were said without rancor. Waltharia was not angry or suspicious, only blunt. “You are a puzzle. And you do gleam a little, in this dim light.”

“Do I?” she asked, genuinely surprised. She looked at her hands but could see nothing unusual.

“Did you not before?”

“I don’t know. No one ever said anything.” No one but Hugh, but that was too intimate a confession to make to a woman she did not know, and one who had been, in times past, her husband’s most famous lover. “Would you marry him, if you could?” Liath asked. “Mother Scholastica suggested it.”

Waltharia shook her head without any sign that the question irritated her. “She’s a canny tactician. She was only saying that to draw out a reaction from the others. She’d no more wish me wed to Sanglant than Gerberga or Theophanu would.”

“But would you?”

She smiled. She was not a beautiful woman, the kind who turns heads, but she was attractive, and strong, and healthy, and her gaze was clean and clear. She had power and knew how to wield it. “No, I would not, although you are right to wonder, because I am powerfully attracted to him. I might have when I was young and my dear father was still alive—years ago—but what I wish for has changed. I am margrave of the Villam lands. There is much to be gained for a family who can hold on in the marchlands. I take the long view. Marriage to Sanglant would not substantially aid my house in any way that my loyalty to the Wendish throne does not already do. And it would restrict my power. No, I have in mind to marry Lord Wichman.”

“Wichman! You can’t be serious! He’s a beast …”

Waltharia was already chuckling.

Liath smiled awkwardly. “Ah. You were only joking.”

“It would be more tempting if he were not quite so coarse. To marry a son of the royal house would bring an important alliance to my family. Still, I have in mind some lord out of Varre, one who will be grateful for a measure of distance between him and his older siblings. Sanglant promises to bring one back for me when the progress returns from Varre.”

“Will he know what you would like?” Liath felt herself bit as she said it, wondering how Sanglant might understand a woman like Waltharia so well that she would trust him to find her a husband.

Waltharia’s mood turned somber with startling ease. Her face remained calm, but her hands twisted up the fabric of her riding skirt. “Druthmar was a good man. My father chose him for me. I mourn him. You know, they never found his body. I must believe he is dead, but it is hard not to hope and pray that he is still alive and may somehow find his way back to me.”