"Monstrous awkward for you!" exclaimed Thorolf.
"Awkward indeed!" Yvette shuddered. "I, a slender lass of scarce sixteen, had to roll that great carcass ... Howsomever, that is the reason I am acting Countess."
"How gat you into Duke Gondomar's bad book?"
"A few years after Volk died in vain pursuit of his youth, my sire, upon his deathbed, promised me to Gondomar. But I, misliking the arrogant brute, threw his marriage contract in his face and refused to wed him. After my father's funeral, Gondomar came back with his army, vowing to bed me with or without the Divine Pair's blessing.
"I let it be known that I'd slay any man who sought to futter me against my will, if it meant stabbing him in his sleep. I beat off his first attempt, and for years I lived behind my castle walls, like a captive or cloistered nun. Last month the Duke returned and this time prevailed."
"Strange that a lady of your qualities and demesne did not find a hundred would-be spouses rattling her castle gates!"
"Oh, I've had offers aplenty, but none that suited," Yvette replied disdainfully. "My next husband must be, imprimus, of noble rank; secundus, a shrewd and mettlesome man of affairs, able at running the county; and tertius, a poet who can ensorcel me with romantical fancies. And, it goes without saying, a strong-loined lover and a man who will heed my advice in county matters."
Thorolf whistled. "Even one of our pagan gods were hard-pressed to meet your requirements! Certes I could not, though I used to compose a few versicles. But one cannot live on poetry in Rhaetia, where merchants and bankers rule."
"You a poet? Ha, can your horse play the lute? 'Twere no more credible. Pray give an ensample!"
"Let me think." While he pondered, the chirp of birds dwindled to silence with the fading of light. A cricket struck up its shrill song, while overhead an early flittermouse whirred. At last Thorolf spoke:
"Ouch!" he exclaimed as Yvette boxed his right ear. "What's that for?"
"Insolent malapert! You, a commoner, jesting that had I the absurdity to offer you my hand, you'd have the effrontery to reject my proposal! Had you voiced such a thought in my demesne—"
"But we are not in your demesne. And if you seek to treat me as one of your serfs, you may wend afoot for all I care."
Yvette subsided, though Thorolf caught a murmur that resembled the expletives of a fishmonger who found he had taken counterfeit coins for his wares. As they rode on in silence, the soldier began to suspect that despite her notable virtues, the Countess was lacking in humor. He wondered what had happened to the knights in the old romances and the ladies fair who decked them with silken scarves and meekly awaited their return from adventures. Meekness was certainly not the style of Yvette of Grintz.
At last she spoke again, in normal tones: "Pray understand, good my soldier, that I could never entertain a proposal of marriage from one of your class. The fact that you have worked for wages debars you forever from alliance with one of noble blood."
Thorolf raised an eyebrow. "What is so demeaning about earning an honest living?"
"That you do so doth you credit; but a noble must devote all his strength to the welfare of those whom the Divine Pair have placed beneath his rule, leaving no time to toil for gain. He must strain at the practice of arms each day, whilst his lady spends her waking hours in the conduct of their establishment. Knowst the tale of Count Helfram of Trongai?"
"What befell him?"
"As a result of untimely misfortunes, he found himself unable to pay his servants to man the castle. Indeed, he could not even buy sufficient food to feed his family. So he donned a bogus beard, went to town, and persuaded the local taverner to hire him as bartender.
"All went well until one day a drunken customer, seeking a quarrel, remarked on the barkeep's piggy eyes and other features that the fellow deemed obnoxious. Count Helfram, unused to insolence, slapped the man's face, whereupon the drunkard seized the false beard and tore it off.
"The other folk recognized their Count and rose as one to hurl the drunkard into the street. But the tale took wings, until the King of Carinthia, hearing the rumor, ruled that Helfram had forfeited his rank, and the king appointed a new Count from another branch of the family. The last I heard, poor Helfram was still tending bar at the tavern, whither people came from afar to gape at a nobleman toiling like a commoner."
"Then," said Thorolf cheerfully, "I count myself lucky to have no noble rank to lose. We must hasten, for the dragon wing of night o'erspreads the earth, as saith the man in Helmanax's play."
He heeled his horse to stir the beast to further effort. After they had ridden in silence for a time, Yvette continued:
"At all events, I would never marry a Rhaetian. You're an unromantic lot, whose only knights are those little tin figurines that pop out of your clocks to mark the hours. None could essay the doughty deeds of romances."
Thorolf laughed. "Suppose a knight engaged in such deeds in this modern world! If he slew a dragon, he'd be arrested by the game warden for hunting out of season, as I believe once truly befell a Locanian knight in Pathenia, not long ago. If he snatched a maiden from an enchanter vile, the mage would hale him to law on charges of abduction. If he even sang a roundelay beneath his true love's casement window, the song's composer would demand a royalty."
"A typical Rhaetian argument," retorted Yvette, "mired in base practicality! A sorry world we live in!" After a pause she asked: "For what goal, pray, do you strive?"
Thorolf frowned thoughtfully. "To settle, once and for all, the authorship of the Tyrrhenian play, Il Bast-mento dai Pazzi, doubtfully attributed to Goldinu."
"You would waste your life in thumbing dusty manuscripts to settle some obscure pedantic dispute?"
Thorolf shrugged. "To me it's more fun than standing daily in the drill yard and bawling at my company: 'About—face! Forward—march! Hartmund, get in step!' "
"Either were better than turning brigand, I ween," she said. "But this merely reinforces my point: that you are a typical stolid, avaricious, unromantic Rhaetian. As a noblewoman's consort, you'd be as out of place as a pig in a horse race."
"Avaricious?" Thorolf gave his most irritating chuckle. "My sire complains that I be not mercenary enough. And whilst we're trading flatteries, as a wife you'd be as useful to a soldier as slippers to a serpent. I fear, my dear Countess, you'll search the wide world over without finding your notion of a suitable spouse."
Yvette sighed. "Whilst I loathe to concede a point, you may be right. Many I've seen with one or another of my qualifications, but never one who met all. Me-thought I'd found my mate in a handsome troubadour who boasted blue blood and showed a promising grasp of county management; but he soon moved on."
"The scurvy lown!" said Thorolf suppressing a grin. He felt he understood the troubadour.
"Pray, treat all I've said as secret. I should not have so confided in a stranger, and a commoner at that; but my sire did ever chide me on my runaway tongue."
"Your secrets are safe with me. And now good news." He pointed ahead. "Yonder lies Vulfilac's smithy, around the bend."
The mare picked up her ears, as if sensing the journey's end, and trotted smartly over the remaining distance. She drew up before a pair of doors that led into the forge.