The woman had not moved, nor had she uttered any sound since they had brought her in. They might have been dealing with a soulless, mindless body. Perhaps she had been dazed by her close escape from the sea, rendered only half-conscious by some blow from a reef rock. However, none of the men within Verlaine would relax vigilance because their prisoner did not scream, or beg, or struggle uselessly. As the folds of the cloak settled about her head and shoulders Fulk leaned forward in his chair once more and spoke, his words aimed at her rather than the men he seemed to address — hoping to wring some response from her that he might judge her state of awareness.

“Have they not told you either. Lord Commander, how one disarms these witches? It is a very simple — and sometimes enjoyable — process.” Deliberately he went into obscene detail.

Siric laughed, his hands curved to support his jerking paunch. Hunold smiled. “You of Verlaine do indeed have your more subtle pleasures,” he agreed.

Only the Lord Duarte remained quiet, his eyes bent upon the hands resting on his knees as he built and felled towers with his fingers. A slow, red-brown flush spread up his thin cheeks beneath the close-clipped old man’s beard.

There was no movement from the half-shrouded figure, no sound of protest.

“Take her away,” Fulk gave the order, a small test of power. “Give her to the seneschal; he will keep her safe against our further pleasure. For to all pleasures there are a proper season.” He was now all the courteous host, secure in his position. “And now we have before us our Lord Duke’s pleasure — the claiming of his bride.”

Fulk waited. No one could have guessed the tension with which he listened for Hunold’s next words. Until Loyse stood before the altar in the seldom-used chapel, her hands safely on the ax, the right words wheezed out by Siric, Hunold could cry off in his master’s name. But once Loyse was Lady Duchess of Karsten, if only in name, then Fulk was free to move along a path of his own, one carefully foremapped and long anticipated.