The Blood Knight - J. Gregory Keyes [108]
“Maybe we do and maybe we don’t,” one fellow shouted back. He was of medium build, with a hairline crept halfway back to the crown of his skull and startling blue eyes. “Maybe peace with Hansa is all it means.”
“And maybe the crows only perch on the dead to give ’em blessings and pay respects, auy, Lord Kenwulf? I know you’re not so foolish as that, my lord.”
Kenwulf shrugged reluctantly. “Who knows what Robert has planned? The praifec endorses him. It might be we know too little about his designs. Maybe they only seem sinister from afar. And you have to admit—no offense to Archgreffess Anne—that we might ask for a better sovereign than Charles.”
“I think we all understand your point about Charles,” Artwair agreed. “The saints chose to touch him, and I’m sure even his mother would allow that the throne does not suit him. But there is another legitimate heir to the throne, and she sits right here.”
Most of the gazes had gone to Artwair, but now they returned to Anne, sharper and hungrier than ever.
A portly man with shockingly red hair and black eyes heaved himself to his feet.
“May I speak on that, my lord?”
“By all means, Lord Bishop,” Artwair replied.
“King William did manage to persuade the Comven to legislate the article that would allow a woman to take the throne. But this is something that has never actually been done before. It has never been tested. The only reason such a thing was ever considered was, in fact, young Charles’ condition.
“By the older, more established rule, if the son proved unfit to be king, the crown would pass to his son, which, of course, Charles does not have. Failing that, the crown quite legitimately goes to Robert as the only remaining male heir.”
“Yes, yes,” a sallow-faced man interrupted testily. Anne remembered him as the Greft of Dealward. “But Lord Bishop, you leave out the fact that we had our doubts not only about Charles but about Robert, as well. That was why we voted as we did.”
“Yes,” Bishop acknowledged, “but some would argue it were better to have a devil on the throne than an untested girl, especially in times like these.”
“When devils roam freely, you mean?” Artwair asked drily. “You would have evil inside and outside the walls?
The man shrugged. “The rumors about Robert grow darker. I’ve even heard that he doesn’t bleed as other men. But we have heard things about Anne, as well. The praifec himself has condemned her as a shinecrafter, the product of education in a coven turned wholly to evil.
“And the stories we hear of her actions at Dunmrogh are…disturbing,” he added.
Anne felt an odd dislocation then, as if she were watching the proceedings from far, far away. Could they be talking about her? Could things have become so twisted?
Or were they twisted? She’d been to only one coven, the Coven Saint Cer. It was true that her education had been in such subjects as poison and murder. Wasn’t that evil? And the things she could do—had done—wouldn’t they qualify as shinecraft?
What if the praifec was right, and…
No.
“If you wish to accuse me of something, Lord Bishop, please have the decency to address me directly,” Anne heard herself say. She suddenly felt distilled back into her body, and she leaned forward from the makeshift throne.
“Was Virgenya Dare a shinecrafter because she wielded the power of the saints?” she continued. “The man who accuses me, Praifec Hespero—I have evidence, a letter, in fact, that proves he was in league with churchmen who participated in a pagan abomination and performed cruel murder in the process. If you have heard anything of Dunmrogh, you know it was not I who nailed men, women, and children to wooden posts and disemboweled them.
“It was not I who chanted over that innocent blood to awaken some horrible demon. But my companions and I stopped them and their hideous rite. So perhaps, Lord Bishop—and all of you—well, perhaps I