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"Sohad said once, over a year ago, when she had been brought before himent But a child born of Taillefer’s line would surely retain solory, the corona of power that cloaked him at all tigest that the Eagle you ran off with is descended frolant’s ansas pitched not to carry to his father but rather to the entire asse-folk "Who here itness that I e with the woman called Liathano?"

Soldiers stepped forward frohness!" one called, and a second, and a third and fourth, echoed him As their shouts died away, Captain Fulk caained renown for his service to Theophanu on the disastrous expedition to Aosta in the course of which they had, despite everything, rescued Adelheid from the clutches of Lord John Ironhead

"I witness, Your Highness," he cried, "that you freely stated your intention before God and freeborn witnesses to bind yourself in e to the woman Liathano"

"Then there is no ireat granddaughter of Taillefer and Radegundis, born out of legitiitiold torque that I once wore at e and her right to claim descent from Taillefer" He looked neither at his mother or father as he said this, only at the crowd So to see better, and that had caused others at the back to stand on their benches or even on the tables The air in the hall and the very attitude of the crowd snapped with the reverberant energy that precedes a thunderstorained a fixed look, and for an instant she looked really angry

"This is unbelievable," said Henry "Taillefer died without a legitimately born son to succeed him, as was the custom in those days in Salia He has no descendants"

"Queen Radegundis was pregnant when Taillefer died" Sanglant gestured toward the hapless poet who had entertained the feasting multitude with Taillefer’s exploits and noble qualities "Is that not so, poet?" The poor lant threw back into the hall lines that Rosvita had once read froundis, which she had received from the hands of Brother Fidelis "’Still heavy with child, Radegundis clothed herself and her coarb of poor women She chose exile over the tore in the convent at Poiterri What becaundis carried, Your Majesty?"

"No one knows," said Hathui suddenly, speaking for the king "No one knohat became of the child"

"I know" Rosvita stepped forward Was it disloyal to speak? Yet she could not lie or conceal when so much was at stake She owed the truth for the sake of Brother Fidelis’else "I knohat becaundis and Taillefer, for I spoke to him in the hour of his death in the hills above Hersford Monastery He was called Brother Fidelis, and except for a single year when he lapsed fro woman, he spent his life as a monk in the service of God Fidelis wrote these words in his Life of St Rade-gundis: ‘The world divides those whom no space parted once’"

She paused to make sure that every person there had ti in his words "Truly, can it not be said that before a baby is born, it and its le piece? What God divides in childbirth can be split asunder by the world’s intrigues as well"

When theirdied away, she went on "I spoke as well to the woman whom he married and who bore a child conceived with his seed She is an old wo out of fear of those who seek her because of the secret she carries with her I believe that her story is true, that she was briefly undis--and that her union with Fidelis produced a daughter It is possible that the daughter lived, and survived, and in her turn bore a child"

"She lived and she survived," said Sanglant in a griitiraced frater who had studied the lore of the mathematici He named the child Liathano The rest you know"