“These false druids are a disaster in themselves, and only something of their own magnitude can defeat them. Have no fear—by the time you come to them, there shall be no one left in the South Saxon Shore but themselves and their most ardent believers.”
“Meaning the ones who have committed themselves so thoroughly that they won’t even think of resigning.” Matt nodded. “Okay. I’ll use it if there’s no other way.”
“There will not be,” the druid replied, “but you are welcome to try to reason with them. A caution, though—do not reason too long, for while you talk, they shall be preparing a doom to fall upon you.”
Matt heard them as soon as he reached the archway into the grove.
“Will you not lie still!” Rosamund scolded. “Must you forever be reaching for me as though I were nothing but your own private cup?”
“No cup could hold wine as sweet as your kisses,” Brion protested. “Have I become as ugly as a bear in only a few minutes?”
Matt stepped in quickly. He saw Brion struggling to rise, reaching out toward Rosamund, who was backing away. “You need rest, my lord, not excitement!
“Nay, forfend! No one owns me save myself!”
“I do not say that I own you,” Brion protested, “only that you have kissed me, and, I thought, with some pleasure!”
Rosamund blushed. “It was a lapse of moments only. Be sure it will not happen again!”
Brion stared at her, realizing that she meant it, at least as a resolution. “Ay di mi!” He sank back into his coffin. “If it shall not, then I have no wish to live!”
“Oh, do not carry on so!” Rosamund fumed. “All the world knows you are a troubadour as well as a knight, but there is no need for you to sing your laments to me!”
Brion’s face darkened and he struggled to rise again.
Matt decided it was time to interfere. He stepped up to the coffin and laid a hand on Brion’s good shoulder. “Gently, gently, my lord. You won’t get better if you don’t try to rest.”
Brion sank back with a groan. “Why should I heal if love is denied me?”
Rosamund rolled her eyes in exasperation and turned away.
“Perhaps for the good of your people,” Matt said quietly. “Nobility imposes obligations, you know.”
Brion lay completely still for several seconds, then looked up at Matt, and the lover had submerged completely under the leader. “You are right. How selfish it was of me to think otherwise!”
Rosamund turned back, staring, uncertain whether or not to feel hurt.
“And it was very wrong of me to pursue my brother’s fiancee,” Brion went on, “even though he is dead—perhaps even more because he is dead.” He forced himself up on one elbow. Matt and Rosamund both sprang to hold him, but he inclined his head in something resembling a bow. “My lady, I beg your pardon. It was dishonorable of me to importune you so.”
“My pardon you may freely have,” she said, “though nothing else of me.” Still, her face could not hide her hurt.
Brion must have seen it, too, for he sank back with a groan. “I had hoped to woo you for my own, now that I am heir apparent—but it is certainly improper to come courting so soon, and my father has doubtless disinherited me. No, I have no right to seek your hand, no matter how much I may desire it.”
Rosamund’s face was a study in consternation, both hurt and flattered. Finally, she resolved it by snapping, “Oh, fie upon your chivalry and your honor!”
“I was near to thinking that myself,” Brion said, subdued. “Even if I were able to win your love, though, we could not become betrothed without the consent of the king.” He was silent for a minute, lost in thought Rosamund stared at him, and one hand began to reach out toward him, then pulled back.
Privately, Matt thought that Brion had come pretty close to the hub of the problem: both of them were feeling guilty about being in love. Their hearts may have been clamoring at them, screaming, “Right!” but all the conventions of their society were howling, “Wrong!” He had to find a way to resolve that dilemma for them.
Brion turned to Matt again, still frowning. “Lord Wizard …” Then he hesitated, which was unusual for him.
“What’s the matter?” Matt asked.
“When first you reached out to heal me, you called me Your Majesty,’ ” Brion said. “That was a mistake, was it not?”
“No mistake.” Matt saw what was coming, and braced himself.
So did Brion. “A prince is addressed as ‘Your Highness,’ my lord.”
“I know.”
The foreboding shadowed Brion’s face. “I cannot be ‘Your Majesty’ unless my father dies.”
Matt gave him a long and level look, then slowly sank to one knee, even though Brion wasn’t his liege lord. “The king is dead. Long live the king!”
Brion buried his face in his hands and burst into tears.
Matt stared at him in amazement.
Rosamund was at his side in an instant, trying to fit an arm around his broad shoulders, gazing down at his face in anxiety. “Weep, my lord, as becomes a noble knight! Weep, for grief must out! Weep, for surely the strong may dare to show their hearts!”
Matt resolved to quote that to her later. For the moment, he waited for the first burst to slacken, then said, “But he was your enemy, Your Majesty! He was a tyrant to his sons and the shame of his wife! You fought against him in your mother’s war! How can you grieve for him?”
“Because he was my father,” Brion gasped. “Because I have boyhood memories of games and riding and early lessons with wooden swords, memories of a kindly though boisterous man! Him I mourn! And most of all, I mourn because he was my father!”
Inside Mart’s head, a voice said heavily, How could I have been so blind as not to see such loyalty as this? How could I have failed to perceive his love, and John’s treachery? A curse upon the pride and anger that ever lost me his affections!
Matt resolved to be the gentlest father he could be, and to discipline with caring.
But Rosamund was cradling Brion’s head to her breast now, murmuring in soothing tones. Time and again she started to kiss his forehead, then caught herself, though the longing was naked in her face.
The next day, when Matt went into the grove, he heard Rosamund crying, “Stop it at once! You cannot be healed so quickly! You shall open the wound and bleed to death!”
“You saw for yourself that it was healed so thoroughly it might have been new flesh!” Brion grunted, whirling his sword and leaping in a practice slash. The sword spun in his hands, sending flashes of sunlight caroming off the leaves, as his feet wove an intricate pattern of advance, feint, and retreat. Suddenly, though, he swung his sword high and jabbed it into the ground, leaning on it and panting, “A pox upon it! I have barely begun, but already am wearied!”
“The amazing thing is that you managed it at all,” Matt said.
Both young people looked up at him, staring.
He came forward and took Brion’s wrist, feeling the pulse slam through it. “Healthy enough, if you don’t overdo it— which you will, if I know you.” He looked up at Rosamund. “Don’t worry, Your Highness—the druids told me that they wove all sorts of healing spells into him. His body has been mending while he slept—the best way to keep him from trying to get up too soon.”
“Truly said.” Rosamund gave Brion a dark look.
“Perhaps not fit enough to fight,” Brion gasped, “but surely fit enough to travel.”
Matt glanced from the new king, fairly glowing with virility, to Rosamund, who seemed to exude an equal or greater feminine glow whenever she looked at him, which might explain why her face so quickly erased the burgeoning euphoria that started every time she looked at him, hiding it under a mask of defiance and anger. Guilt, he decided, could do amazing things—but so could leaving these two alone together. Brion was certainly now strong enough for them to do more than kiss, and Rosamund too filled with desire every time she looked at him, no matter how angry it made her.