Her body was far away. She loved it, but there was little she could do for it.

She wanted to weep for the pain that hunger and deprivation were causing her baby.

She could smell the cheese. She wanted a moment to eat and drink the clean, cool water.

She did none of these things. Instead, she drank the pure golden light and waited.

And prayed.

On Easter eve, Prince Raymond of Occitan sent a herald to the King of Alba.

The King met the herald in the great chamber. It was hung with garlands—a veteran of the Alban court would have found them thin. The Queen was in prison; her ladies were all exiled, and the female servants of the palace had, in a body, stayed at home. Rumours of rape and assault by the Galles on the maids were rife; no girl wanted to admit to being attacked but mothers, angry or in mourning from the violence in the city, kept their girls home, and in many cases their boys as well.

The King’s eyes wandered over the flowers—too few—and the ribbons, which were sparse and, in at least one case, dirty.

Jean de Vrailly stood by the throne. He, too, saw the frayed and dirty ribbon.

“Your grace, if I may, should never have put himself in a position to be so embarrassed by common people.” He walked across the near-empty hall and pulled down the offending ribbon.

The King had his chin in his hand. He was not well-dressed—in fact, clean against the spirit of the day, he wore black. “What?” he asked.

“In Galle these things are better ordered,” de Vrailly said. “And the lower people would never dare this sullen revolt.”

The King stretched his feet out. “You mean, stay at home. On a feast day.”

De Vrailly looked at the King. “What ill-humour is this, your grace?”

At the far end of the hall, Royal Guards in brilliant scarlet escorted a tall young man whose honey-blond hair and elegant features might have been irkish. Indeed, many troubadours claimed irk blood flowed among the people of Occitan. They spoke a different form of Gallish, and they sang songs from Iberia and Ifriquy’a as well as from Alba and Galle. In the coastal towns, there were even mosques, tolerated by the princes. Occitan was a land of song, and oranges.

And very skilled knights.

The herald wore the full costume of his trade—a tabard of golden silk checked in azure, with the imperial eagle spreading his mighty wings over all, worked in silk couching so accurately that it looked like a real predator ready to leap—very much at odds with the Alban and Gallish heraldry of formalized, ritual beasts and heads.