The Widow Queen by Elzbieta Cherezinska

Author:Elzbieta Cherezinska [Cherezinska, Elzbieta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

* * *

The last few years had hardened Bolesław; he’d spent them almost entirely in the saddle, on a never-ending mission of conquest. He had filled out and grown his beard, which he kept neatly trimmed, unlike the chestnut locks which reached his shoulders. Brother and sister embraced.

“How do you make such beautiful children?” she asked, kissing his rough cheek. “And when, since you’re always off fighting?”

“Do you want to send Sigvald for a lesson? Bishop Unger has set up a school by the cathedral, but I don’t know if he’ll reveal the secrets of an bedchamber. How is your husband? Will Jomsborg remain loyal to the dukedom?”

“Give me a personal guard to ensure that the only guarantee of the alliance isn’t killed by bandits,” she said. “The roads from here to Jom are dangerous.”

“They are?” her brother asked, anger in his voice. “The devil take them! I’ll order the castellans be chained up, their bloody job is to ensure the safety of all the travelers.”

“Wait, wait, don’t rush to that end. I have arrived in good health.” She held her arms out as if for proof. “But the roads could be made safer, that’s all I meant. Now tell me, how is Mieszko?”

“Like you said. The Saxon bitch is feeding him something. Poison.” He walked across the chamber with long steps, fuming, the very picture of fury.

“I never said she was poisoning him,” Astrid protested. “I said, she gives him mead mixed with henbane—it alleviates pain, but also grants visions, hallucinations, sometimes mixes up the mind.”

“So, she’s poisoning him.” He heard only what he wanted to hear. “Do you know what I think?” he said, pausing midstride. “Theophanu’s death was the last straw for the Old Hawk. He hated the empress. He allied with her, since he’d decided it was ultimately in his favor to do so, but he hated her, and she him. Father never forgave her that, even though the empress acknowledged our rights to the south and sent us her troops, she kept Bishop Unger under lock and key in Germany, not granting Father his full Christian rights. So, although she upheld the terms of their alliance, she made sure to also bare her claws. It doesn’t matter to you, pagan,” he said, brightening up, “but for the dukedom, the loss of a bishop was grave indeed. Father and Theophanu met at the Hoftag in Quedlinburg last year, and she gave him the title ‘dux Slavonicus’ to anger the Czechs, treating the Old Hawk as the most important of the Slavic leaders. They smiled at each other, drank together, exchanged compliments. But on our way back, he spoke so venomously of her…”

Bolesław began to pace again. His thoughts seemed to come easier when he was moving. Possibly because, since the day Mieszko had granted him his first squad, he had never allowed himself to be still, constantly working to expand the Piast legacy.

“His rivalry with Theophanu gave him strength,” Bolesław continued. “When the news came two months ago that she’d died in Nijmegen, he broke down.

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