“So you want my sword. Of course it’s yours!” Alexander spoke with a kind of impatient violence. “But this of the Lady Alice. A marriage arranged for her, spoken of, you say, but never agreed? She said nothing of it, even though – I mean, would she – did she consent?”

“Yes, she consented. She saw it as her duty. But one,” said the duke, smiling, “that she has abandoned without regret. Another marriage has been spoken of, by Alice herself. She tells me that she is going to marry you. With your consent, of course? No, don’t answer, boy. Get your breath back, and have another drink.”

34

They were married two days later in the monastery chapel, on the morning of another lovely summer’s day. Abbot Theodore himself married them. It was the duke’s first excursion from his bedchamber since his seizure, but though slower than before in his movements, he was steady enough, and the relief of the occasion, with the sight of his daughter’s happiness, brought an almost youthful brightness back to his eyes. The couple were attended to the altar by a solemn child in the white robe of a novice, whom Alexander had not met before, but who, he was given to understand, was Chlodovald, the Frankish prince who had come from Tours with the duke’s party, bringing the relic he called the grail for safe keeping here in St Martin’s.

After the ceremony there was a brief service of prayer and thanksgiving, then the young couple broke their fast with the abbot, the duke and Prince Chlodovald in the abbot’s dining-parlour, while outside the duke’s party made ready to leave that day for home. This rather against the hospitaller’s advice, but the duke was anxious now to go, and had agreed to travel in the litter that Alice had used. She in her turn was happy to ride beside her new husband on the all-too-long journey home.

All-too-long, because it had been agreed, almost without saying, that the consummation of the marriage, the bride’s bedding, must wait until they reached Castle Rose. A monastery was hardly the place for a wedding night, and the inns along the road were few and none of them good. The journey, for Ansirus’ sake, would have to be taken slowly, with at least one night’s halt on the way, and it was far from certain how many miles the party would be able to cover before the duke needed to stop and rest. To Alice, moreover, it seemed wholly right that the future lord of Castle Rose should take possession of her, and with her her beloved home, in that home itself.

A message had been sent ahead to the castle to warn of their coming. Nothing more; no word of the marriage; just enough to ensure that all the castle’s retainers, with some of the folk of the estate, would, as they usually did, assemble to welcome their duke home. To them he intended immediately to announce their lady’s marriage, and then publicly present their new lord.