It was as skilfully done as his homecoming had been. But Alice, receiving the ritual kiss and watching Madoc greet Alexander, felt a tiny thread of fear crawl up her spine, as if the hairs had brushed up like the fur on a wary cat.

Then all was laughter, and calling out, and greeting, and joy. Alice managed, through the kisses and happy tears of her women, to come near enough to her father to urge him to go to his bed and rest, but the duke had one more thing to say, and in time a hush was called and he could say it.

“Thank you, thank you, my friends! I think it’s time, now, for us all to go about our business. Count Madoc, let me bid you once more welcome. If you had hoped for a different outcome to your journey, I am sorry. I hardly expected to find you here before me, I would have written to you with this news, and so spared you some trouble, but now –” a smiling gesture – “I’m afraid that the arrows of love, striking at random as they do, have left us nothing to discuss, and me nothing more to say except to thank you for your care of my people during my absence, and to hope that you and your men will join us in our celebration of this happy homecoming.”

Madoc, pale with anger, but holding himself firmly in, began to say something, but the duke, still smiling, lifted a hand.

“Later, my dear cousin, we’ll talk later, but now, by your leave, I must rest.” He turned back to the throng in the courtyard. “Listen, my friends! When my daughter and Prince Alexander were wedded at the monastery of St Martin they vowed, both of them, that their real wedding must be here at Castle Rose. So tonight, so please you, we will hold the wedding feast, which you will all share, and after that the bride will go to her bedding here in her own home, with God’s blessing and the love of us all.”

At this the noise broke out again, but briefly, as the duke turned to go indoors, and Alice, blushing now and laughing, led Alexander in after him, while cooks and house-servants bethought themselves suddenly of how few hours were left in which to prepare the bridal chamber and a wedding feast that would do honour to their lady and to themselves.

And through it all Count Madoc smiled and smiled and watched with cold eyes, and his men stood like soldiers with no battle to fight, until he spoke with their captain and they withdrew from the cheerful bustle into their own quarters by the tower where they had been lodged.

36

As if nothing of beauty and joy were to be omitted that night, there was a full moon, which rose late, the colour of apricots, into a sky full of bright stars. Nor moon nor stars were even noticed by Alice or Alexander, though their bedchamber window was open to the sky. Not even when, in the dead hours towards dawn when the lovers, like the rest of the castle, slept, a beam, fading to silver, slanted across the bed to touch Alexander’s eyes.