“So I resolved to come and see that country first, and to see you in it. Not Luke from beyond the Burning Lands, Luke the Slayer of the Bayemot; but Luke of Winchester and in Winchester. My father promised me to you and he too keeps his promises. But I know you would not yourself hold me to a promise to which my heart gave no assent. So I have come to see, before any irrevocable step is taken, the place where I might live and, I suppose, die at last. And the man with whom that life might be spent.”
She had said this last with a serious face, in no jest but in earnest. I knew she meant it. The awareness struck into me, almost with the cold bite of steel, that I was not sure of her. Her coming here was evidence of that: not reassurance but its opposite.
I suppose my face showed something of my feelings. She said:
“Cheer up, Luke! We are neither of us likely to die just yet. And it gives you the chance to think again as well. I would not hold you to your word, either.”
I said, stammering: “You . . . do not need to.”
“Don’t I?” She looked at me, amused. “You would make a poor courtier, Luke. But being a Prince you have no need to play that role. And I am glad of it. We have glib courtiers enough in Klan Gothlen. You are a warrior. Now, tell me about all your battles and victories.”
• • •
When Edmund joined us he took her hands and kissed her on the cheek as I had done. I was glad to see them so pleased to see each other. They fell to chattering at once, about people we had known at the court of King Cymru. I recalled them well enough myself, but had nothing to say of them.
She had no warning to give to him, of course, so there was no shadow of seriousness and therefore less constraint. In fact his presence made things easier for me as well. I could relax, listening to them talk. I did not have much to contribute, but it was enough to hear them.
Edmund spoke of the banquet which would celebrate her coming. She said eagerly that she loved banquets; she wished it were this evening instead of the next day. Edmund chaffed her, saying it was her vanity that prompted the wish: to sit at the head of the table and see the eyes of all Winchester’s Captains engrossed with her beauty.
She tossed her head. “I am not so vain as to think your Captains must look at me in preference to your own ladies.”
“Perhaps they would not if they had a choice. But since you will be the only lady present, at whom else should they look? At each other?”
“The only lady present?” She looked at me. “Surely not! Your ladies will not refuse to greet me?”
“No,” I said, “but it is not our custom to have ladies at our banquets. That was something we found strange in your city.”
“Can you not change your custom?”
“It would not be easy.”
Edmund laughed and we both looked at him. He said:
“I was thinking of another custom that one would not have thought it easy to change—of the Prince who turned a dwarf into a warrior!”
“What is this?”
He told her the story of Hans. She listened and turned to me.
“There, Luke! If you can break one custom you can break another.”
“It is not the same thing.”
“In what way is it different?”
I tried to explain, but stumbled over my words. One was a question of making good a pledge, of honor. No question of honor was involved in the other. Custom must hold except under a stronger compulsion.
They contested me eagerly, stumbling not over their own words but each other’s in their anxiety to prove me wrong. They were both much readier tongued than I was, and their combined attack, with Edmund reinforcing Blodwen and Blodwen putting Edmund’s argument again but more sharply, overwhelmed me. I did my best, doggedly, to maintain my stand.
Edmund said, laughing: “The one thing he really believes in is the Prince’s will. This Prince’s will, anyway! He will break the customs he wants to break, and nobly uphold the rest.”
“The Prince’s will, indeed!” Blodwen said. “And what of the Princess’s? Does my will count for nothing?”
“Not against this tyrant,” Edmund said. “But if you beg it of him prettily, he may grant it you as a favor. It is worth trying.”
They were both laughing. In mock humility Blodwen dropped to her knees and bowed her head.
“My Lord,” she said, the tone piteous, “will you grant your handmaiden, out of your greatness and nobility, this humble plea?”
I lifted her to her feet, laughing myself. “You will soil your gown.”
“Not in Winchester,” she said. “Your floors may be of plain wood but I notice they are well scrubbed. Well, Luke?”
“You can have your way,” I said, “though Strohan, my butler, will very likely die of shock when he hears. The ladies will be at the banquet.”
“Good!” she said. “I look forward to seeing them. I think a man may be well judged by his lady. I am anxious to see Edmund’s.”
“I have none,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “Not even one in prospect?”
“I have been kept too busy by Luke, what with expeditions into the barbarous north and battles against the city’s enemies.”
“But you must bring someone, now that the great Prince has given way to us!”
“I can bring my sister, I suppose.”
“Then do so! A sister may tell one something about a man as well. Perhaps more than his lady could.”
I watched them and was happy. I did not mind being bested in such a thing as this and by such a pair: my betrothed bride and my best friend.
• • •
She could charm anyone when she set out to. I need not have worried about Strohan; he was already her besotted slave. The banquet was a great success and so were all the other receptions, whether at the palace or in visiting the city’s nobles. People opened to her, like flowers to the visiting sun.
And since she was not one of those who put on a show, of ceremony or graciousness, she was as winning in small intimate gatherings as in more formal ones. She was interested in the diversity of mankind, and loved to hear men talk of their ideas and beliefs. With Blodwen to draw them out, they talked readily enough.
She said one day something about asking someone to join us for supper in her apartments and I nodded absently. My mind at that time was preoccupied with a captaincy that had fallen vacant and the various claims of those who should be considered for the place. She said:
“I must make inquiries in case there are things he cannot eat. In my country the Christians do not eat meat on one day in the week. They may have some such rule here also.”
“Not eat meat? But if they are Christians I suppose it does not matter: they do not have to swing a sword.” I realized, belatedly, what she had said. “But you are not asking Christians to dine here?”
She said, scolding: “You have not been listening to what I said. Not just Christians. Their Bishop.”
“But you cannot do so, Blodwen,” I said. “I know little of the Christians in your country, but here they are despised and rightly. They are a crazed lot, always talking about this dead god of theirs. They were useful to the city once, when Peter led the army through their secret tunnel, but that has been well paid for. Not only in gold, and now in land, but also in boredom during the time my brother was Prince and they had access to the palace.”
“He is not being asked to the palace,” she said, “but to my apartment as my guest.” I shrugged in resignation, realizing that her mind was made up, and she smiled at me. “You will come, won’t you, Luke? I have asked your friend Martin as well, so you can talk to him if the boredom proves too great.”
“Martin! But he is an Acolyte. You cannot ask him to meet a Christian.”
She smiled again, very sweetly. “I have already done so. And he has said yes.”
• • •
I had seen the Bishop once or twice in the city. Even apart from the black gown he wore and the wooden cross he hung around his neck, he was distinctive in appearance. The priest who counseled Ann and consoled Peter after her death had been a small, weak-looking creature with a stoop. The Bishop was big and broad, with powerful arms and hands and a strong wide face. Like the priest his head was shaved except for a thin circle of hair above the ears, but his huge skull had such a polish on it that I doubted if any hair grew there in the first place.