Everyone said, “Amen”—almost. Five-year-old Prince Drage did not say it at all, for he always missed the cue, and whenever he hastened to say it before the echoes had quite died, everyone laughed at him.
He also knew that was a tricky word. It came at the end of prayers, but there could be many prayers in a Mass, and almost every time he thought the Mass was over, it was not, except the last time, when it was.
Every time Britamund turned her head to peek at her father, she found him staring at her. Every time, the corners of his mouth lifted the corners of his beard into a sort of smile, but the corners of his eyes remained crinkled.
He seemed sad. He seemed sorry. She wanted to run to him, hook her fingers around the straps of his armor, and scream at him—to remind him that it had been his idea, that this was what he had wanted.
The Abbot had been warned that they were coming, and he or one of the monks had already lit all the torches and lamps in the crypt. But Britamund knew it was not the Abbot or one of the monks who had left the flowers on their mother’s tomb.
Nor was it her father: he would not think to give flowers even to his living wife.
“Miss me?” Catan laughed.
“I always worry about you when you’re away, big sister.”
“Ohhhhh Leilaaaaa…” Conrad called in a coaxing sing-song.
“What is it, Conrad?” she sighed. Philippe was fussy from the heat, and she was feeling rather hot and fussy herself.
The branches of the willow shook before her face and stroked her arms with their fingery leaves. The many branches hung from the canopy like a curtain, but their many hands beckoned her inside.
She dropped first to her knees.
Dunstan sat himself on the edge of the chest and looked around his room. It would still be called his room for a few hours, though he had already slept his last night in it. This night he would pass in prayer in the chapel on the hill, and tomorrow the room would be Cynewulf’s. Ever afterwards, until he came to this castle as lord, he would sleep in one of the guest rooms, like any visiting knight.
When the knock came, he guessed, “Father?” He knew he would be correct—whether it was the Abbot come to hear him confess or merely the Duke come to sniffle over his baby boy one last time.
“Vash! You come again!”
For a moment she was merely a girl, younger than he, shy and delighted to see him. The pink light of her room made her cheeks seem almost alive, almost blushing, and if he did not look at her long ears, her face was very beautiful. Then it soured.
“Excellent,” King Sigefrith said after tasting his wine. “You don’t, ah, know why I’m here, do you?”
Leofric frowned. “No, why?”
Cenwulf had been gone for months, but it was only in the last two weeks that Sigefrith had truly suffered from his absence at his morning meeting. Before they had learned of the Earl’s death, Sigefrith and his men had almost seen it as a vacation from his grave mien and his unwillingness to let them stray with their jokes from the serious business of running a kingdom.
Now it was Sigefrith himself who had to fill that role if they were to get anything accomplished, and it did not suit him. They all left the meetings feeling somewhat befuddled, and he most of all.
“Because having a beautiful elven lady be jealous over you is SO ROMANTIC. Never mind the fact that she can set you on fire.”
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