“No, no, we always leave the capital for the summer,” Meyric replied. “I love my Millefleurs, though it is too cold in the winter months. But you must meet the flowers of my heart, and the sturdy vines of my house.” He turned to sweep an expansive arm in the direction of his offspring, all of whom were converging on the royal pair. “You have already met my eldest, Prince Ryol, at the Hort of Orsal’s investiture,” Meyric said. “His younger brother is Prince Trevor. And permit me also to present my darling daughters: Ursuline, the youngest of my brood; dear Aude . . . and Jehane.”
The boys had offered polite bows to the visiting king. The three girls dropped him graceful curtsies as their names were spoken. Though all three were lovely, and even the younger ones were mature for their ages, it was Jehane whose green gaze immediately locked on Brion’s as she rose from her curtsy.
“My Lord of Gwynedd,” she murmured, as Brion came to clasp her hand and graze its knuckles with his lips.
“Princess,” he managed to whisper.
They moved inside after that, to take refreshment and speak of the plans Meyric had made to entertain his royal visitor. Alaric sensed that his own king was doing his best to be personable and polite to all the Bremagni royals, but it also was clear, at least to Alaric, that the king was totally captivated by the eldest princess, and she by him. King Meyric kept up a lively conversation at first, continuing to extol the beauty and virtues of all three of his daughters, but Brion and Jehane seemed to hear little of it.
Dinner that evening was a relaxed affair, since the visitors had only just arrived, but King Meyric clearly intended to capitalize on Brion’s obvious interest in his eldest daughter. That night, at table, he seated Brion at his right hand and Jehane to Brion’s right, with the two younger daughters directly across from him and the boys to either end. Brion’s four knights were seated across from the family.
The arrangement only enhanced Brion’s first impression of Princess Jehane, and gave ample excuse, when musicians began playing later in the evening, to take the Bremagni king’s eldest daughter onto the floor numerous times for dancing. Jamyl and Llion dutifully partnered the two younger girls, as did Jiri and Tiarnán; Meyric’s queen had passed away several years before. By the time Gwynedd’s king retired to the apartments set aside for his use during his stay, with Alaric and Paget to attend him, he was as flustered as Alaric had ever seen him, though he said not a word regarding his dinner companion.
All of them rode out hunting the next day: a more stylized and formal affair than was the custom in Gwynedd, but it provided ample opportunity for the couple to interact. If anything, Princess Jehane looked even more enchanting than she had the previous evening, in riding clothes of emerald-green that set off her eyes and her auburn hair.
The king clearly was smitten, and even Alaric and Paget found themselves falling under her spell. Jamyl and Llion, both of them very happily married men, thought her utterly charming. Brion hung on her every word, and claimed nearly every dance with her again that evening, though more of the Bremagni court joined them this time. By the time they returned to their apartments the second night, Alaric was fairly certain that the king had made up his mind.
“So, do you think you may have found your queen, Sire?” Alaric asked, as he helped the king peel off a damp linen shirt.
Brion only smiled enigmatically and shrugged, continuing to undress. “It could be, Alaric. It could well be.”
The king’s pattern of activities in the following days became a series of ride-outs, hunting parties, walks in the gardens, and dining in varying degrees of formality, always chaperoned, but always with opportunity for the young couple to interact. After a few days of this, Llion informed Alaric and Paget that the two of them would be joining training sessions with the squires of King Meyric’s court, lest they lose their edge while the king did his courting.
It was a relief to both young men, for idleness was outside their experience since beginning their training. Details of Bremagni drill somewhat differed, but the two quickly found that the basics of combat training were much the same in both kingdoms. Paget, being nearly of an age for knighthood, soon found good sport sparring with some of the young knights of the Bremagni court, and mostly held his own with them. Alaric felt harder pressed, for he was young for a squire; but especially in exercises involving skill or horsemanship rather than sheer strength, he excelled repeatedly—and he seemed to be growing taller.
Joining the Bremagni squires also had side benefits that neither had anticipated. Both of them soon discovered that the afternoon sessions with formation riding and archery, both mounted and afoot, attracted a growing audience of the young ladies of the court, which invariably led to further interactions after practice was done for the day. Both Alaric and Paget were handsome young men, highly accomplished in their martial skills, and exotic for being foreigners. Paget, being older, became the amorous focus for several of the young ladies of similar age, and enjoyed the attentions of more than one of them in the weeks of his residence at the Millefleurs court.
Alaric, too, received his share of feminine attention, and not a few of his admirers did more than merely admire from afar. Bremagni girls, he discovered, were much more forward than their Gwyneddan sisters, and took liberties that were not always easy to ignore. He might have been largely inexperienced in matters of the heart, but his blond good looks and athletic ability, plus impeccable manners and his obvious rank by dint of his service to the King of Gwynedd, made him all but irresistible to the ladies. Much sought after on the dance floor, for he was a graceful partner, he knew better than to seek out inappropriate attentions, but that did not prevent the bolder of his pursuers from teasing.
By early July, the king had approached Jehane’s father to ask for her hand. Though King Meyric heartily approved the match, and the two kings settled down with their advisors to work out the broad terms of the marriage contract, it soon became clear that keener legal minds would be required to finalize the details. Very soon, Jamyl was sent back to Rhemuth on the king’s ship, to fetch suitable negotiators—who returned several weeks later without Jamyl, for the young knight had learned that, in addition to his wife nearing her term, his father was gravely ill, and likely to die.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” the king said to Sir Raedan des Champs, who was one of the newly arrived team, along with two priests from the chancellor’s office, sent to work out the details of the marriage settlement. “I don’t know that I’ve met Jamyl’s father, but I did know his father, Sir Seisyll Arilan. I know that my father relied on him greatly. And it saddens me that Jamyl himself may soon have to deal with his own father’s passing.”
The three newcomers dined with the two kings that night, meeting with King Meyric’s legal team, and settled down the next day to finalize the necessary documents. A particular point of contention was the actual wedding date, along with the wedding venue.
“I am perfectly willing to come to Bremagne for the wedding,” Brion said, “but Twelfth Night is not at all suitable.”
“It is a traditional date for royal ceremonies,” King Meyric insisted.
“As it is in Gwynedd,” Sir Raedan replied. “But it is also the dead of winter: hardly suitable for us to travel to Bremagne, or for His Majesty to bring home a new queen.”
“Could they not travel back to Gwynedd over land in the spring,” one of Meyric’s courtiers suggested, “and make a wedding tour of it?”
Tiarnán shook his head. “My king cannot be away from his kingdom for that long. And an arduous journey over land, through many different kingdoms, strikes me as a needless hardship for all concerned. In late spring or summer, Bremagne lies an easy sail across the Southern Sea from Gwynedd, as Sir Raedan and the two fathers have recently demonstrated.”
“There is an additional advantage to waiting until the spring,” Father Creoda said quietly. “The bride is yet young. It would do no harm to dela
y for a few months.”
“She is of age,” Meyric’s chancellor pointed out hotly.
“Yes, of course, of course,” Creoda replied. “But she is not yet fifteen. Since one of the principal purposes of a royal marriage is ensure the succession, it stands to reason that a young woman of—ah—somewhat more mature years will be better prepared to fulfill that royal duty.”
It was a telling observation, and resonated with most of those present. In the end, a compromise was reached, whereby the wedding would take place at the Bremagni capital on the first of May, after which the King of Gwynedd and his bride would return by ship for a second blessing of the royal couple at Rhemuth cathedral, and the formal crowning of Jehane as queen.
Meanwhile, Alaric continued to expand his experience at the Bremagni court, especially regarding the fair sex. He did not see much of the Princess Jehane in those days counting down to the betrothal, for she was much occupied in the company of Brion or else sequestered with the seamstresses and other artificers who were preparing her trousseau.
The two younger princesses were a different story. Aude and Ursuline, who were thirteen and eleven, had taken an immediate liking to the handsome young squires from Gwynedd, and especially Alaric, who was closest to them in age. They were charmed that he, in turn, was fascinated by their hound puppies, and was willing to spend time chasing and rolling on the grass with them. In addition, he and Paget often found themselves recruited to join the Bremagni squires as an escort for the younger princesses and other young ladies of the court on leisurely midmorning rides in the countryside, before it got too hot.
Afternoons offered more sedentary occupations well suited to the heat: singing and playing at musical instruments, dancing, the reading and composition of poetry, artistic pursuits, sometimes archery, all interspersed with leisurely strolls in the palace gardens. To Alaric’s surprise, it seemed that ladies in Bremagne did not play cardounet or other strategy games.
Fortunately, he and Paget found that gentler occupations held their own allures. In the evenings, once the service of dinner had been accomplished, there were always divers musical activities to wile away the long summer twilight: dancing, listening to singing, and sometimes mummers’ plays. King Meyric was fond of dancing, and encouraged Brion and Jehane to take to the floor often, dancing nearly every dance.
The other gentlemen of Brion’s party likewise were drafted as dancing partners. The handsome young squire from Gwynedd proved intriguing to ladies both young and not so young, and was much in demand as a dance partner and simply as a companion for casual conversation while musicians performed in the background.
But there was an additional dimension to Alaric’s ongoing education that he had not reckoned on, and which he had not experienced in Gwynedd. Sweetly enticed into shadowed stairwells or drawn amid the leafy garden paths, he experienced the first of numerous kisses and caresses, and even more intimate attentions from several of the young ladies of court, who made it their mission to see that the handsome, bright-haired foreigner did not go wanting for feminine companionship. And finally, on one balmy evening late in July, in a fragrant garden bower, he lost his innocence between the thighs of a pretty Fallonese maid of honor whose kisses and caresses momentarily had tantalized him beyond reasoning.
Somewhat sheepishly he mentioned it to Llion the next day, though without revealing the identity of his young enchantrix. Llion only raised an indulgent eyebrow and allowed that the ladies of Bremagne were, indeed, charming—then reminded his young charge that the Bremagni king probably would take it amiss if any of the ladies of his court were to fall pregnant by one of their Gwyneddan guests.
“You’re right,” Alaric said uneasily. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“No, it is not a possibility that comes readily to mind when all sensation is focused in one’s groin,” Llion replied with a droll smile. “Just remember who you are—and I don’t mean that you’re Deryni, though that is a factor. You’re a future duke, which means you are all but a prince.”
“Llion, I won’t even be twelve for another month,” Alaric objected. “And I’m certainly not a prince.”
“No, but a duke is nearly as good a catch. And many a maid, and many a maid’s father, would do whatever they could to entrap such a prize as yourself in marriage. That is why the king himself has been extremely discreet regarding his own romantic dalliances. You may have noticed.”
Alaric ducked his head amid a welter of churning emotions. He had deduced some time ago that affairs of the heart could be complicated—he had understood what he saw, when he came upon Princess Xenia and her now-husband in flagrante—but his own place in such affairs was only now becoming apparent. And it had not occurred to him that the king, too, might be wrestling with carnal complexities.
“I—think I’d best confine myself to less hazardous behavior in the future,” he said contritely.
“A wise decision,” Llion agreed. “You do know that there are other ways to give and receive pleasure . . . ?”
Alaric nodded curtly, for the Bremagni girls had very clever hands and lips, and had taught him a great deal in the friendly twilight of Millefleurs.
“I understand.”
Henceforth, he conducted himself with far more restraint.
Meanwhile, as July wound toward its conclusion, the king’s business moved forward as well. Early August found the two kings’ respective legal teams concluding the final details of the marriage agreement, to the satisfaction of all parties. The wedding itself was set for spring of the new year, on the first day of May, at King Meyric’s winter palace at Rémigny—something of a delay, but a royal wedding of this magnitude would require many preparations.
But meanwhile, the formal betrothal could now proceed, as legally binding as an actual marriage, to be solemnized two days hence at the king’s chapel at Millefleurs.
The summer day dawned bright and sunny, like so many in this part of the world. Alaric and Paget had already helped pack up the king’s belongings, for they would be sailing for Gwynedd on the morrow, but it had fallen to Alaric to lay out the king’s attire for the betrothal ceremony: snug black breeches, low boots, and a new linen shirt sewn by Jehane’s ladies and embellished with blackwork embroidery along the collar and cuffs by Jehane herself.
“It’s their custom here, to dress simply for the betrothal,” Alaric said to Paget, when the latter muttered that the King of Gwynedd should have more lavish attire for this important day. “I’m told we’re to save the state finery for the wedding itself, when it’s cooler. He won’t even wear a crown today.”
“It is warm, I’ll give you that,” Paget conceded. “Still, it seems like there should be something to set him apart.”
“I suppose it’s what comes of marrying in a foreign land,” Alaric replied, as the king came into the room, fresh from the bath. “Different customs. Will you dress now, my lord?”
“Well, I can’t go down to the ceremony wearing only a towel, now can I?” the king replied, with a boyish grin. “I suppose that must wait until the wedding night.”
The two squires chuckled along with the king, who obviously was in high spirits, and helped him don the requisite attire. Brion ran an appreciative finger along the embroidered cuff of one sleeve and smiled, then buckled on his white knight’s belt and sat so that Paget could comb his hair and tie it back with a white silk ribbon. The Eye of Rom gleamed in his right earlobe, and he clasped a silver bracelet to his left wrist before handing the sheathed Haldane sword to Alaric.
“I suppose I’m ready,” he said, giving himself a last look up and down. “Shall we go and meet my bride?”
Very shortly, the two squires were escorting the king down to the palace gardens, and thence to a grassy clearing before a pretty garden chapel. Princess Jehane’s brothers and sisters were already present, supporting the flower-twined poles of a canopy of sky-blue silk that had been erected
before the steps to the little chapel. The king’s knights and a small guard of honor stood to one side, and a like number of Bremagni courtiers opposite. Beyond the canopy, in stark contrast to the other guests, four tight-lipped religious sisters in black habits and veils eyed the assembled company with prim disdain.
A murmur of excitement rippled through the assemblage as the three foreigners approached, Brion in the lead. He nodded to the sisters, to Jehane’s siblings, as he took a place to the right of the canopy, standing with hands clasped behind his back, looking a trifle impatient. His two squires took up positions slightly behind him, Alaric still bearing the sheathed Haldane sword.
Paget suppressed a grimace and glanced at Alaric, raising an eyebrow in question as he slightly jutted his chin in the direction of the sisters.
Alaric averted his eyes and whispered out of the side of his mouth, answering the unasked question.
“From the princesses’ convent school, I think. I wonder if they don’t approve of the marriage.”
“By their faces, I wonder if they much approve of anything,” Paget countered, though he fell silent as a dozen more sisters filed into place opposite the original four, wearing long white linen cloaks over their black habits, softly singing a psalm of praise.
“Jubilate Deo, omnis terra, servite Domino in laetitia. . . .” Sing joyfully to God, all the earth, serve ye the Lord with gladness. . . .
The assembled courtiers opposite the canopy settled and parted before a tall, distinguished-looking man in a white cope over pristine clericals, accompanied by a pair of candle-bearing acolytes and two deacons, one holding the Gospel aloft and the other bearing a portable desk. His handsome silver hair was pulled back in a ribbon, in a style not unlike Brion’s, but he also wore a prelate’s purple skullcap, and an amethyst on his right hand: almost certainly, the Archbishop of Bremagne, Alaric guessed. Looking at him, Alaric suppressed a shiver of antipathy, for he sensed that this man would not take kindly to a Deryni being so close to the man his princess was promising to marry. Instinctively he drew back a little as the king moved forward to shake the archbishop’s hand, also bowing to kiss the prelate’s ring, then moved aside in readiness.
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