He laughed, while his wife bade servants assist him to their bed-chamber. Lucan assured them he could mount the stair himself, though he still took careful, prudent steps, and the servants, marshalled by Turold, hovered close behind.
Gerta ambled forth carrying a warmer shawl for her mistress, and a goblet of mulled wine. “A pretty show, my lamb,” she said, as Trelawna donned the wrap and drank.
Detecting a tone, Trelawna glanced round at her. “Gerta?”
“The Romans are coming and now we are Camelot-bound.”
“Pray, don’t misspeak yourself, Gerta. This is a serious matter.”
“No doubt. In more ways than anyone can know.”
Trelawna handed back the empty goblet, but seized Gerta by the wrist.
“My mother’s maid also had the habit of speaking out of turn,” she said quietly. “One day, when my mother was a child, my grandfather was vexed by some trivial naughtiness… and whipped her little bottom until it bled. Her maid could hold back no longer and scolded him. By the end of that day, she would never scold anyone again because she had no tongue in her head.”
“A harsh lesson,” Gerta acknowledged.
“Which any servant may learn at any time,” Trelawna said, releasing her.
“So please you… if it will make you feel better about what you are planning.”
“I plan nothing except to support my husband in this most urgent matter.”
“As you wish, my dove.”
“I am not your dove!” the countess hissed. “I am your mistress. It’s time you remembered that.”
“Of course, mistress,” Gerta said, curtseying as much as her cynical old bones would allow. “With the marks I still carry on my nipples from your days of greedy suckling, how could I have forgotten?”
Four
“This woman, nephew,” Bishop Malconi said, “the one you think you love…?”
“I know I love her,” Rufio replied, though he had to shout to be heard over the tumultuous acclaim being heaped on the procession as it wound its way between the tall, timber-and-wattle houses of Camelot’s residential district. Some of the thoroughfares were so narrow that they had to move in single-file, though they also crossed open squares and esplanades, lined with fruit trees and hung with banners and bunting, all thronged with onlookers.
“You know you love her?” Bishop Malconi raised an eyebrow. “After one night of passion?”
Rufio smiled to himself. “Sometimes one night is all it takes.”
It was a stately procession. Its mounted vanguard consisted of three clarion-blowing heralds wearing red and green striped hose, red berets with green plumes and red satin tabards slashed with green. Behind them rode three cavalry officers, unarmed but clad in polished breastplates and greaves over red jacks and open-faced sallet helms with sharp steel crests. The rest of the parade was slightly less formaclass="underline" the churchmen, with the exception of Bishop Malconi, rode in gilded carriages, but without their vestments or mitres, preferring daytime robes of velvet and taffeta, with skullcaps and chains of office. Rufio, like the other non-clerics in the embassy, had joyfully surrendered to the new Italian fashions, choosing a tight-fitting burgundy doublet over a collarless linen shirt, canary yellow hose and leather ankle-boots with long, pointed toes, an ensemble which girt his trim, youthful figure well.9
Lines of Arthur’s halberdiers, wearing white tabards embossed with the red dragon, held the excited crowds back. Overhead, folk leaned dangerously from balconies and windows, either to cheer or shower the visitors with spring blossoms. All ranks and classes were present, from ordinary townsfolk — merchants, craftsmen and the like — to scholars from the University, distinctive with their shaven heads and dark robes, novices from the colleges and deaneries attached to the cathedral, and then the lower orders: cottars and free-folk from the towns beyond the city walls, servants, vagrants, and mendicants. To a man and woman, they knew they were supposed to welcome these guests, though the task was made easier when the Romans arrived in the trappings of a nobility the British found familiar rather than behind the standard-bearers in leopardskins of yore, carrying Imperial eagles and purple banners. It also helped that, at the very rear of the procession, three monks in white habits tossed out handfuls of golden coins.
In the midst of this jubilation, it was difficult for Rufio to detect any familiar face in the crowd, though he tried his best, always focusing on the prettier women, of whom there were a great many.
“I understand this special lady is married to one of Arthur’s northern barons?” Bishop Malconi said.
“That’s correct,” Rufio replied.
“In which case she’s unlikely to be here in Camelot, wouldn’t you say?”
“One can but dream.”
“Her husband may be here. Perhaps that’s something for you to think about.”
“Apparently he’s a brutal oppressor of his tenants, not to mention the local plebs.”
“She told you that?”
Rufio smiled. “No. That’s just the way I imagine him. Actually, she speaks highly of him. Says that he’s always been kind to her, but that his manners are those of the military camp. His main flaw, it seems, is that he’s unsophisticated.”
“And you haven’t seen her for…?”
“Six years, eight months, two weeks, four days.”
“Great God in Heaven!” The bishop’s brow furrowed. “You keep an exact account… hardly encouraging. How can you be sure that after so long in the company of this man, she hasn’t become a beldame, a bitter harridan of the north?”
“No-one who wrote such letters could be anything less than a fairy princess.”
“Ah yes, the famous letters. Your mother complained to me that for several years after first bedding this… this married woman, you wrote to each other once a month?”
“Mother was always very observant.”
“You still maintain this degree of correspondence?”
“Not quite. Trelawna feared we’d become reckless and be discovered. Also, her bower-maid, Gerta, who did most of the to-ing and fro-ing for her, came to disapprove.”
“At last, someone in this kingdom with a head on their shoulders.”
“No. Gerta likes us. Her main fear was that we’d never meet again, and that her mistress’s heart would be broken.”
“Hearts break so easily. Especially in times of love and war.”
“We aren’t at war yet, uncle.”
“Aren’t we? Felix, you must brace yourself for the possibility you may never meet your fairy princess again. Even if she’s here, we have more important matters at hand.”
“I don’t understand this concern.” Rufio caught a daffodil and blew a kiss to the young girl who’d thrown it. “Did any Roman embassy ever receive such a welcome?”
“Don’t be fooled. In the old days it was quite common for us to be flattered by those we planned to conquer. It’s a mindset born of fear — they hope to buy us off with friendship. But King Arthur is no fool. He will pay lip-service to our greatness, and he may even discuss terms with us, but in the end, if necessary, he will show his steel. Our role here is purely investigative, but we must keep our wits about us. The less mooning over a woman who can never be yours the better.”
Rufio laughed. “It took New Rome two decades to recapture the old Western Empire’s lost provinces, but only one night for Countess Trelawna to capture my heart. Which of those powers is more deserving of fealty?”
The parade entered the Royal Plaza, a wide, smooth-paved boulevard running like an artery through the very heart of the city, and lined with shops of a more esoteric ilk: booksellers, silversmiths, perfumeries. It terminated in front of the magnificent marble basilica of St. Stephen’s cathedral, behind which loomed the battlemented edifice of Camelot’s palace.