He lifted a hand most elegantly to show that he heard her, and that he was willing to let her proceed.

“What prospects have you, Lord Hugh? Why are you come here, to Aosta, when you were sent north by Anne into the land of your ancestors to work your part in the weaving?”

He smiled, but did not answer.

“Where have you come from?”

“From Wendar. I survived Anne’s sorcery, as you have surely already understood. I set another in my place and in this manner I am living and he is dead.”

“In this manner,” she noted dryly, “did Sister Meriam sacrifice herself in favor of keeping her granddaughter alive.”

“I am not Sister Meriam.”

“Indeed, you are not, Lord Hugh.”

“What do you want of me?”

“Queen Adelheid needs a husband. Why should it not be you?”

He rocked back, almost oversetting the bench, then steadied it. “I am a presbyter, as you see me, Holy Mother. It would be impossible. I cannot marry.”

“If I gave you dispensation to leave the church, you could marry. There was often talk among the servants and the populace about what a handsome couple you and Adelheid made. Henry being older, and you so young and beautiful and beloved by the Aostans of Darre.”

“I am faithful to God, Your Holiness. I do not seek marriage.”

“You lust. Can you say otherwise?”

His lips thinned. His hands curled into fists. His eyes were a cold blue, as brittle as ice. “I am faithful, Your Holiness.”

“To God?”

He shut his eyes.

“To a woman you can never have.”

That fierce gaze startled, when he opened his eyes so abruptly. “I had her once!” He slammed a fist into the bench, then set his jaw and shut his eyes again and took in three trembling breaths before he quieted himself. “I am faithful to her. To no one but her. And after her, to God. And after God, to Henry.”

“Who is dead.”

“I did my best to save him!”

“I do not doubt it,” she said, to mollify him. “What of Henry’s son? Is she with Prince Sanglant?”

He could not speak. He was shaken, and tired, and so gnawed through with jealousy that he had become fragile with it, ready to fall to pieces but not yet shattered.

“This is too much and too quickly,” she said more gently. “You are only arrived after a long and undoubtedly arduous journey. How came you here?”

“I journeyed by horse southwest from Quedlinhame until I found a crown. With my astrolabe it was a simple enough thing to measure precisely my route to Novomo. This I have taught myself that Anne did not know and had not mastered. I can go anywhere whose destination is known and measured. Two weeks only I lost in the crossing. Soon I shall have it down to a handful of days.”

‘And all alone, no retinue at all.”

“None, except the beast, who resides in the lady’s stables now. I have fled those who do not trust me. Even my own kinfolk were turned against me by poisonous words.” Weary, indeed, to admit so much so honestly.