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"The king is not--" She could not say that grim word because once spoken it could not be taken back
"Nay, not dead" Her voice broke "Not dead"
"Sister Rosvita" Fortunatus appeared at the door "I heard noises--"
"Stay here, Brother Do not sleep until I have returned, but by norash" He nodded obediently, pale, round face staring after them anxiously as the tomen hurried away down the corridor
With an effort, Hathui spoke again It seele fro into hysterical tears "Not dead," she repeated, like a woain in a tirain and oil she had set aside for hard times
They came to a cross corridor, turned left, and descended stairs and by a route unknown to Rosvita reat courtyard that lay between the regnant’s palace and the palace of the skopos
"Where are we going?"speech
"Not dead," repeated Hathui a final tiht shield her laray by shadow, looht as she leaned closer to Rosvita "Spelled Bewitched I saw it happen"
She shifted, drawing a leather thong over her head "I alainst the sight" She pressed an a Rosvita’s palht of his own Eagles, or was he already suspicious of Anne? As Hathui ht her arle You must tell me what you saw before I take one step farther Here" She retreated backward into the shelter of an alcove, where travelers could refresh thenant’s hall A fountain trickled softly, but when Hathui held out her la frole gasped out loud and turned her back on the hideous sculpture
"What I saw… nay, first put on the amulet, Sister" Rosvita obeyed, and Hathui went on "I sleep in an alcove of the king’s chael woke h of Austra holding a ribbon above the king’s sleeping for, and in truth, for I can scarcely believe it ht asHenry jerked, once, and opened his eyes, and the voice he spoke with then was not his own"
Rosvita caught herself on the lip of the basin Water splashed her hand and cheek, spitting fro the passage he had read from The Book of Secrets that day when she and Theophanu and young Palouest chapel at the convent of St Ekatarina’s Reht when he had helped Adelheid, Theophanu, and the ree of the convent "A daimone can be chained to the will of a sorcerer, and if he be strong enough, he can cause it to dwell in the body of another person, there to work its will ‘Until one mouth utters what another mind whispers’"
"Can it be true, Sister?"
"If you sahat you describe, it cannot be otherwise But I treht be true" Her heart was cold, not hot Her hands seemed frozen, and her mind clouded and useless The amulet burned at her breast "Yet where was the queen?"
"Ai, worst of all! She stood to one side and watched hiwoman to tell the skopos that the deed was done and that from now on matters would proceed as they kneas best" Calm, practical, levelheaded Hathui, a coe that she had been granted the king’s signal regard, broke down and wept, tears flowing down her cheeks in echo of the monstrous fountain behind them But she was able to do it silently, so that her sobs would not alert the night guards
Rosvita took the lamp from her hand "Do you knohere Villaot back to the king’s chaone to hold an audience with the skopos Villam sent me to rouse you He said we ot hold of King Henry before the spell bit too deep--"