“There are some of us who could do with a good deal more!” Petronille said, with another glare.
“I could do rhymes,” John said, pouting, “but nobody ever asks me.”
“There are more important things in this world than verses, madame,” Drustan said in a frosty tone, “as you would know, if you ever left off listening to your troubadours!”
“I govern the Pykta very well, thank you!”
“No,” Drustan said, with a cynical smile, “you send Brion to do it for you.”
“I do not order my children to run errands for me,** Petronille snapped. “Brion goes where he will!”
“As a prince should.” For once, Drustan seemed to agree with her.
“Yes, but Brion does not wed to gain what he lost in battle!”
Drustan reddened. Matt guessed the reference had been to the king’s proposing to Petronille, and her lands, right after he had tried to conquer Erin—the Ireland of his own world— and failed. The king snapped, “No prince weds where he is not welcomed! Perhaps that is why Brion travels so widely!”
“He certainly does.” Gaheris made it an accusation. “Myself, I would rather see to the management of my estates than go gadding about to every tournament or battle that crops up.”
“Yes, because you fear the pain of a wound!” Brion snapped. “You fear even the sound of battle!”
“And you, brother, should beware the knife between your ribs.” Gaheris made it a threat.
“They always go on like this,” John confided to Matt. “It makes dinnertime so nasty.”
“I can see that it would,” Matt said politely. For himself, he was tired of it already.
“The knife between my ribs?” Brion gave his older brother a wolf’s grin. “Who would dare wield it?”
“Anyone,” Gaheris said flatly. “You may have already carved out a name as the perfect chivalrous knight, brother, and the people may love you because of the songs you give the troubadours to sing about you, but anyone who knows you in person finds little to love!”
“When you speak of yourself, brother, don’t attach my name to it,” Brion countered. “Even your fiancée can find nothing to love in you!”
Rosamund looked up in alarm.
Gaheris gave her a shark’s grin and looked her up and down, letting his gaze linger over her contours, where her loose gown hinted at them. “She need not love me, brother. I shall do what loving is needed.”
“None shall be needed!” Drustan barked. “Wait till you are wedded for such talk, boy!”
“Is it not his right?” Petronille challenged. “Or are you so prickly about every slightest comment made about every pretty young thing?”
“Should you not see to the protecting of this child you have reared as your daughter?” Drustan demanded.
“How can I, with you about?”
Rosamund turned on Brion. “See what you have done now! They’re back to their old wrangling because of you!”
Brion bent his brows as he turned to her. “They will wrangle no matter what I say or do not say. Is it I who have sent you to be tossed about like some pawn in a chess match?”
Rosamund flinched as though she’d been slapped. “What parent would not wish his child to be a queen?”
“Your father might have taken the precaution of meeting the groom first.”
“Speak no ill of the dead, boy!” Drustan snapped.
“It is not the dead of whom I speak ill.” Brion regarded his elder brother narrowly. “Even at twelve years, no one could have thought Gaheris a true knight!”
“Oh, aye, chivalry is the only measure of worth for you, isn’t it?” Gaheris sneered. “Never mind the dealing of justice, the prosperity of the people, or the good governance of your own province!”
‘“The people of Yorkshire are quite happy, thank you, and quite prosperous and safe!”
“They are, for you have had the luck to find an excellent seneschal!” Gaheris snapped.
“Whereas you have not bothered to choose one at all, Prince of Wales—and the Welsh toil in misery because of it!”
“Oh, stop it, stop it!” Rosamund clapped her hands over her ears, glaring at Brion. “Can’t you give even a little respect to your future sovereign? Will you scold him so when he is your king?”
Brion reddened with anger and hurt, and Gaheris grinned, crooning, “Do not give a lady a cause for grief, O Chivalrous Knight! Nay, do her bidding and speak with respect to your elders!”
Brion gave him a whetted glare, but said only, “I will do as my future sovereign wishes.”
“Silence is golden,” John sighed. “My future sister-in-law has a knack for making it.”
Only because Brion was willing to listen to her, Matt thought—and for this she snapped at him?
“You speak as a true knight should,” Alisande told Brion, and turned to Petronille and Drustan. “You have cause to be proud of him.”
Petronille fairly glowed at the compliment, turnings doting gaze on her middle son, but Drustan frowned, displeased “Yes,” Gaheris said acidly. “It’s just as well the troubadours don’t know what a bully Brion really is.”
“Why, for interrupting your pleasure when you were whipping that peasant?” But Brion glanced uneasily at Rosamund, and Matt had no doubt as to the peasant’s gender. Rosamund didn’t see it; she had gone back to staring at her trencher.
Gaheris gave him a black glare.
It made sense, Matt supposed—if the second child tends to be a rebel, then in this family, Brion would opt for being noble and upright.
“No one ever talks about me,” John whined to Matt. Matt bit back the temptation to say that he could see why, and started a polite rejoinder, but Gaheris snarled at Brion, “As I recall, you were wearing a mail shirt at the time and had your sword at your belt, while I was unarmed!”
“If you would strengthen your body, you too would be able to wear a mail shirt whenever you go out to—” Brion glanced uneasily at Rosamund, and changed whatever he had been about to say.”—whenever you go out among the people.”
” ‘Go out,’ forsooth!” Drustan chuckled. “That’s as much as to say a rooster ‘goes out’ in a hen house!” But he was watching Rosamund as he said it, and her cheeks burned with embarrassment, which seemed to gratify Drustan.
But if he was watching Rosamund, Petronille was watching him, and her face darkened at his attention to the princess. “So you think the lad should take pride in philandering, husband?”
Drustan turned to her with an easy grin. “Surely it is better that he do so before he marries than after, wife.”
“Yes,” Petronille hissed, and her gaze shot icicles, points first. “It is far better not to stray once one is wedded.”
“More wine,” Alisande said quickly, holding her standing cup toward the steward.
“The butt is out, Your Majesty,” the steward said apologetically. “Shall I draw from a new?”
“No, I think it is time for brandywine.” Alisande rose, and the others perforce rose with her. “Majesties, shall we leave the young folk to their sport and discuss the more sedate topics that accord with age?”
“Well, with rank, at least,” Drustan said. Then, gallantly, “You could scarcely be numbered among those who carry the weight of years.”
Petronille glared more icicles at him—she was considerably older than he.
“You are gracious, Majesty.” Alisande turned to Rosamund. “Shall I bid the fiddlers play for dancing, lady?”
“Not on my account, I pray you, Your Majesty,” Rosamund said quickly. “I find that my head has begun to ache, and think that I shall retire directly.”
Lucky kid, Matt thought. This kind of table talk would have given anyone a headache. He, of course, couldn’t beg off from the rest of the evening even if he’d had a migraine.