“How strange,” said Henri. “Still, do you love him? And more importantly, does he love you?”
“Oh, yes, Papa. We are madly in love with one another.”
Papa turned up his hands and shrugged and said, “L’amour est tout.”
“Indeed, Papa, love is all,” replied Camille.
Maman merely muttered under her breath, but what she said, none at the table did hear.
“What was your wedding like, Camille?” asked Felise, glancing at Lisette, whose eyes narrowed.
Nonplused, Camille remained silent.
“Come, come,” demanded Maman.
“We have not yet had a wedding,” Camille admitted.
Again Aigrette dropped her knife. “What? No wedding?”
“No, Maman. No wedding, though we are pledged to one another.”
Aigrette glowered at Henri. “And he has taken you to his bed, this masked prince?”
Camille nodded mutely.
Lisette smiled a wicked smile and raised her chin as if in victory.
“And no banns have been posted, no king notified, no monk, no heirophant has solemnized aught?” asked Aigrette.
“No, Maman,” Camille meekly replied.
“What would Fra Galanni say, Camille? Living as you are without proper sanction.”
“I don’t know, Maman.”
“Aigrette,” said Papa softly. “No banns were posted when you pledged to me, no messages sent, no heirophant sought, no formal wedding at all.”
“ What? ” exclaimed several daughters simultaneously, turning to Maman.
“You and Papa were never properly wedded?” said Gai.
“We are all bastards,” declared Giles, grinning.
“Be quiet, all of you,” barked Maman, glaring in outrage at Papa. “What your pere and I have or have not done is neither here nor there. It is what Camille has not done that is at the crux of the matter.”
“How so?” now challenged Camille, regaining some of her spirit. “We are pledged, and Alain himself has vowed that as soon as he resolves a vexing problem, then we will wed.”
“What is this problem?” asked Lisette, smugly grinning.
“I don’t know, Lisette. Only that it is dire.”
Lisette raised an eyebrow. “Indeed?”
“Indeed,” replied Camille, her ire rising.
Lisette smacked a palm to the table. “Indeed, indeed. Here is a prince who wears a mask he never removes, and there has been no wedding ceremony, for what monk or heirophant would sanctify the wedding of a so-called innocent girl to a man who wears a mask? Why, it is as Maman has said: he may be a well-known pirate or thief or brigand or other kind of foul looter… after all, where does his wealth come from? Perhaps we ought to gather a warband and go after this pirate and haul him to prison.”
Both Camille and Maman gasped in alarm, and Maman said, “Oh, no, Lisette, we cannot do such a thing.”
“Why not, Maman? After all, there may be a reward on his head. Perhaps even dead or alive.”
Even as Camille’s face turned pale, Maman raised an admonishing finger. “No matter what the reward, be he a pirate or no, and no matter the source of his fortune, think on this, Lisette”-she turned to the others-“think on this, all of you: we would be much the poorer should his annual tithe of gold stop. Would you have us lose that ever-running stream of wealth?”
“Maman,” said Giles, “you think only of riches, when you should treasure Camille instead.”
Now Aigrette glowered at Giles. “But it is Camille I am thinking of, and-” Abruptly, she stopped, and a calculating look swept into her eyes. “Camille, you should remove his mask.”
Camille shook her head, remembering what Alain said when she merely ran a finger across his features. “Maman, he said he could not show me his face.”
“Ah, but did he ever say you could not see it?”
Camille cast her mind back to that very first evening in the lanternlight on the bridge:
“Lady Camille, for reasons I cannot explain, I must wear this mask, such that I can never show you my face.”
“No, Maman. Only that he could not show me his face.”
“Well,” crowed Maman, leaping up from her chair and stepping to the mantel and pulling the stub of a fat candle from its holder and picking up a small box of matches as well. “Here, Camille, take this candle with these matches, and when he’s asleep in the bed you share, you can light it and see his face. Thus he will not have revealed his visage to you, for you will have seen his face for yourself without him having had the slightest hand in it. After all, once he sees that you love him in spite of his disfigurement or scar or birthmark, or the fact that he is a notorious pirate or such, he will then discard the mask and a proper wedding can take place, thus assuring that you will inherit his wealth if he should die on you. After all, should he fall dead and you not be married, then you would be left without any claim to his riches-be it pirate gold or not-and then what would happen to us?”
Even as Camille shook her head in refusal, her sisters were stricken pale. Papa’s eyes gazed at the fine things throughout the room, and his lips drew thin. Only Giles seemed unaffected by this potential future, and he looked at Camille and shrugged, saying, “I can live in a cottage again.”
“Oh, Giles,” whispered Camille, “what of your aversion to thatch?”
Once more Giles merely shrugged, but this time he said nought.
Throughout the remainder of the week, Maman never let Camille have respite from the vision of something happening to Alain and she being left without a sou, her family cut off from the annual stipend, and Giles becoming sickly again.
And yet, every evening there was a ball, with Maman quite haughty in her newfound wealth and position, strutting about like a petty lord, showing her bloodstone ring to any and all who would look, telling them that it was but a trifling bauble sent to her by the prince as a minor show of his regard. And every night Aigrette had Pons announce Camille as the Princess of the Summerwood, though she and the entire family knew it was not yet so. Camille grew quite weary of such-her mother’s harangues and of the balls, and the unwanted attentions of many a would-be lover, including the fat old roue Lord Jaufre, who knocked on her door several nights running, asking if she needed company. The only company she desired was that of her Prince Alain, and oh how she longed to return to Summerwood Manor to share quiet evenings with him.
And thus did the seemingly interminable round of exhortations during the day and unwelcome dances at night drag on.
But finally the week of the visit was up, and at the dawning of the following morn, Camille dressed once again in her travelling clothes and made ready to meet the Bear. But even as she slipped down the stairs, Maman stopped her at the door, and she handed Camille the fat candle stub and a full box of matches, saying, “We wouldn’t want the plan to fail should one of the matches not light.”
Sighing, reluctantly Camille tucked the candle and box into her drawstring purse, and then with a cold embrace from Aigrette, across the field she fled. And even before she reached the twilight border, the Bear stepped into view, and Camille ran crying to him and threw her arms about his great neck and sobbed into his fur, “Oh, Bear, I missed you so. Take me back to Summerwood; take me back to my prince.”
“ Whuff. ”
Camille tied on her bundles, and climbed onto the Bear’s broad back, and into Faery they went.
Hindward, in the mansion-“Loose the dogs! Loose the dogs!” cried Lord Jaufre, ponderously thudding along the halls and hammering on bedroom doors.
“What? What is it, Lord Jaufre?” cried Aigrette, running up the stairs and meeting him halfway, the fat old roue puffing down to gather the servants, even as Henri came yawning after to stand at the top of the stairs, his negligee-clad daughters behind, as well as three half-dressed young men, one of them Allard, the husband of Felise, the other two coming after, both having been covertly invited by Joie and Gai to be their overnight guests. Giles was at the top of the stairs as well. Kneeling and peering through the balusters.