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more formidable a rampart than most of us
employ.”
    Cicely raised her gaze and her eyes widened. “She cannot be regarding me as…
as someone from whom she must conceal feelings of revulsion? Like… like a
leper?”
    “I count it one of the gods’ most compassionate blessings that none of us sees
ourselves as others do.”
    Cicely looked deeply uncomfortable. Truly, the girl should have been left in her
robe at a grove house. Still, no one was immune from the sovereign’s will –
least of all an orphaned ward of the Crown who had inherited an earldom. As
someone who had been given into one marriage with a stranger, then pressured
into a second, Eleanor could sympathise. What baffled her, though, was how
Cicely so lacked the grace to accept what she could not change and the
resilience to make the best of what life served her. Every female child learned
that through watching her mother, sisters, cousins, and aunts.
    Eleanor knew that to get what she wanted a woman must pay for it. She had
remained unmarried for the last three years because of the hundred pounds of
silver she gave yearly to the old king for the privilege. She had no illusions
that the new queen’s sex would render her any more sympathetic or less greedy.
If anything, this queen, new to her throne, had even more pressing needs to buy
the loyalty of her leading barons. Cicely was a case in point.
    Eleanor knew the outcome of her own forthcoming negotiations with the Crown
depended solely on whether the size of the bribe she was willing to surrender
would be able to counterbalance any benefit the queen might gain from using
Eleanor’s lands for political patronage. It was a simple, pragmatic calculation
that Eleanor judged her niece utterly incapable of making. Nor could she see
herself being able to teach her in the next fourteennight. The best she could
hope for was some measure of compliant acceptance.
    Eleanor strode to the door. “You’ll need to wear a cover-chief or veil to shade
you from the sun on horseback unless you wish to burn and peel and be as brown
as a peasant on your wedding day.”
    Cicely offered no demur.
    Eleanor nodded and swept out. She still held Riannon’s glove. There had been
times, yesterday, when she had provoked a fleeting grin from Riannon. How
different she looked when relaxed and amused. Eleanor wondered what Riannon
would look like smiling. Never one to shy from even a stiff challenge, she
determined to find out before the end of this day’s ride.

    Riannon stepped into the chamber and stopped. Aveline stood beside the bed and
had her hand inside the bodice of the robe of a young priestess.
    Riannon heard voices from the corridor behind her and quickly shoved the door
shut. Aveline straightened and turned to look at Riannon. The young priestess
flushed scarlet and made an abortive move to straighten her clothes.
    “You wished me to tell you ere we were ready to depart,” Riannon said.
    Aveline smiled. “My thanks. Run along.”
    The young priestess dropped a deep curtsy to Aveline, sidled warily past
Riannon, and bolted out the door Riannon held open. Her bare feet pattered away
down the corridor. Riannon moved to leave.
    “Not to your taste?” Aveline said. “Too young? Too pale?”
    “Too indiscreet.”
    Aveline laughed. “You have such deadly skill with rebukes. Let us hope, for her
sake, that you feel no need to offer any to your future sister. The poor
creature is like to faint dead away under the burden of your disapproval.”
    Riannon let that pass.
    Aveline strolled past her. “Although, to be fair to you, the insipid creature
looks too fragile to bear the weight of anyone’s frowns. The gods help her when
she meets your dear brother.”
    Riannon’s memories of Henry were scant. He had been a man fullgrown and knighted
the year before her birth. Her impression – which was less than a clear
recollection – was of a younger version of their sire, down to a bristling beard
and a scowl.
    The grove