4

4

Konrad sat back with a sigh, his trencher finally empty. If he had learned one thing this evening, it was that Gerold Ankatel kept a sumptuous table, with an array of surprising and fragrant dishes a million miles away from usual roasted boar’s head and game stews.

Instead, they had started with seasoned minced meats, which had been fried with vegetables and rolled up into balls. These were served with a sticky glaze and sprinkled with some sort of shredded orange spice, the like of which he had never tasted.

This was followed by a dish of capons served in an orange sauce with a crisp, tart salad of leaves, onions, and vinegar. After this had been small pies with many layers of flaked pastry flavored with sage and pepper and stuffed with bacon and pork.

To finish, they had been served with fresh white bread, two wheels of different cheeses, and a large platter of heart shaped tarts filled with a rich cherry sauce.

Konrad told himself the delicate tarts were too sweet, but he found himself eating three of them, one after the other, before he’d even realized it. At least when he was eating, nothing else could be expected of him. Renlow and the younger daughter had kept up a

fairly even flow of conversation while the meal progressed, but it grew a little stilted toward the end of the fourth course when polite topics seemed to have been fully exhausted.

After the meal, they were ushered once more into the sitting room, and Ankatel’s daughters had taken up their instruments to exhibit their talent. Konrad was not surprised to find neither excelled at this. He wasn’t sure how accomplished merchant’s daughters were expected to be in ladylike accomplishments, but their mingled voices were pleasing enough. Rather wisely, they kept their selection to simple country ballads and did not attempt anything sophisticated.

The livelier of the two sisters was a beauty with dark hair, a curvy figure, and dimples that appeared in her rosy cheeks when she smiled, which was often. He watched her a moment as she enthusiastically cranked the handle on her symphonia. Catching her sister’s eye, she gave her a determinedly cheerful smile, from which the other averted her gaze, looking pained.

Obviously, the beauty was intended for Renlow, so he turned his attention instead to the elder and plainer sister. She wasn’t so bad looking in truth, though she did seem a poor, spineless creature with her trembling lips and dull eyes. Her hair was several shades lighter than her sister’s and was a sort of middling brown. Where her sister was bonny, with sparkling eyes and a healthy bloom, this one had barely any color to her face and looked listless and wan.

She’d barely lifted her eyes from her plate at supper, and he’d scarcely heard a murmur fall from her lips despite encouragement from her father and sister to join the conversation. Konrad couldn’t say as he blamed her for being horrified at the prospect of him for a bridegroom, but still, the thought of taking her to his bed was not an enticing one. If the mere prospect of looking at him across a table made her faint at heart, she’d likely pass out with terror when it came to their wedding night. He grimaced at the thought.

She’d make a puling, wretched bedmate. He could not help but think that after six long years of abstinence he deserved something a bit more appetizing. Then again, he reflected, stroking the mangled side of his face, likely she felt the same way. He was no maiden’s dream, and for all he knew, she could have had her heart set on another before her father’s startling rise in fortune. The lower classes tended to marry where their fancy took them. Likely, this development was not one that Mistress Ankatel had foreseen.

“My lord, you will take another drink with me?” Ankatel urged, already refilling his goblet. Konrad accepted the cup and drank deeply. If he wasn’t mistaken, this was where the bartering would start. His lip curled. He certainly wasn’t going to be pleading his cause. He knew well enough what Gerold Ankatel wanted from him.

“I’m a baron,” he stated abruptly. “If your daughter weds me, she will be a baroness, our son the sixth Baron Kentigern. What I want to know is, did that shuffling clerk speak true about your terms?” Out of the corner of his eye, Konrad saw Renlow start violently at his blunt speech, but the appraising look that Ankatel levelled his way gleamed with appreciation.

“There speaks a man after my own heart,” Ankatel said heartily. “I commend you, my lord. I am not ashamed to speak in open and honest terms about the business. That’s how I made my fortune, and it’s clearly husbands I want for both my girls now and to see them settled. Why should I obscure my purpose to you gentlemen? Is it indelicate to speak the truth? Given the choice, I’ll choose good plain speech between men over smooth-faced knavery any day!”

Renlow’s mouth fell open, but Konrad’s brows snapped together. “You speak of honest speech, yet you make no reply to my question.”

The older man was silent a moment, though a smile lurked in his eyes still. “The king’s messenger spoke no word of a lie,” he said after a pause. “I am a very rich man, these days. I can make marriage to my daughters worth your while.” The womenfolk started up another song with a slightly slower tempo. Gerold glanced meaningfully toward them.

“They are good girls both, even if I do say it myself, and this past two year I’ve not stinted on their instruction. I had them put up and squired about by Lady Wycliffe over the spring. They have mixed in some high circles. They know enough not to put their husbands to blush with any missteps.” He sat back in his seat and gazed at them expectantly.

Konrad found himself at a loss how to respond. The only misstep he could think of in a wife was barrenness, and no father, however fond, could guarantee against that.

“I’m sure they are both models of feminine grace and propriety,” Renlow responded hurriedly to fill the awkward silence.

Ankatel beamed on him. “You are a third son, are you not, Sir Renlow?” he said with a faint pucker between his brows. “Did your father never intend you for the holy life?”

Renlow shook his head. “No, for my second brother took up that mantle. It left me free to pursue my own course.”

Ankatel nodded, stroking his neat gray beard. “That is fortunate indeed. A dutiful son is not always free to follow the path he chooses. Of course, a rich wife might make that path smoother,” he reflected, and Konrad almost laughed to see how discomforted poor Renlow looked by such a comment. “Perhaps I should have invited your father to the table, Sir Renlow?” Ankatel pondered seeing how tongue-tied the young knight looked by his frankness.

“He is of age,” Konrad rumbled. “And his own man. Is that not so?” He directed a pointed look at Renlow who cleared his throat.

“It is,” Renlow responded quietly. “I will be fully three and twenty in one month’s time, and it is now two years since I quit my father’s roof.”

Gerold Ankatel nodded and shrugged, seemingly satisfied with this. “And you, my lord,” he said after taking a fortifying swig of his wine. “Might I ask your age? It is hard to determine in a countenance such as yours.” Renlow uttered an exclamation, and when Konrad glanced at him, he saw his young friend had spilled wine down his front.

Konrad gave a grim smile as an attendant darted forward to mop the wine stain from Renlow’s faded tunic. “I am one and thirty years of age,” he answered briefly. Strange to say, Gerold Ankatel’s words did not give him offence. He eyed the merchant speculatively. “And not unwilling to take a wife.”

“I should think not indeed!” Gerold exclaimed in surprise. “It is high time you did so, milord! I quite thought such things were arranged by nobles when their offspring were still babes in their cots.”

Konrad shrugged. “The late war …” he murmured evasively.

“Your father did not see fit to play matchmaker?”

Konrad paused in the act of setting down his empty goblet. “There was once some such arrangement in place,” he admitted, given no other option. “But that lady ended up wedding another.” He looked Ankatel full in the face, daring the old man to ask him why his intended had cried off.

Gerold cleared his throat. “These agreements often fall by the wayside, so I hear,” he said easily enough, though Konrad could see that Renlow’s face was bright red with an embarrassment he felt quite unmoved by.

After the evening had ended, the two prospective suitors walked in a thoughtful silence together back along the side streets towards the center of Caer Lyoness. Renlow, who usually fetched up near the bottom of the lists, was not automatically guaranteed quarters at the palace and usually stayed in the cheapest quarters of town. No matter how rough his surroundings, he always seemed strangely impervious to the dangers around him.

He was a strange lad, but for all that, not unpopular, especially among the squires who would run to help him beat the dents out of his old armor or mend his spears. It was almost like some spirit of future greatness seemed to cling to him. His cheerfulness and gameness won over even the sternest of critics, Konrad concluded.

Not only was Renlow undaunted by his losses, but he would stand up against any opponent with the self-same fearlessness and spirit of fair play. He was unfailingly good-natured and accorded the same respect to both the mightiest competitor and the lowliest pageboy.

Last winter, the talk of the royal tournament had been how Renlow had woken up one morning in a shared room in Aphrany to find its other five inhabitants lying with their throats cut and the sixth man absconded with all their valuables. The only reason he could give for his own uninterrupted sleep was that he had shared his loaf of bread with the murderer the night before and lent him his spare blanket. The same blanket which had been carefully folded and laid next to Renlow’s sleeping head.

That said everything you needed to know about Renlow, or so Roland Vawdrey had said when he retold the tale to the king. “Even murderers like him.” Wymer had roared with laughter and the next day had summoned Renlow to court to make him tell him the tale again before an audience. The queen had called him ‘A fair youth, that even the worst villain could not harden his heart against’.

Konrad wasn’t so sure about that, but he knew Renlow had flashes of undeniable brilliance in the joust. He had even defeated him once. But when it came to the melee and hand-to-hand combat, the boy was hampered by the fact he followed a code of chivalry which no knight in his right mind would ever subscribe to.

Konrad wondered if these same scruples would now prevent him taking one of the wealthy merchant’s daughters to wife. He cleared his throat, and Renlow looked up. “You think you’ll see your way clear to taking one of them?” he asked.

Renlow didn’t answer for a moment. “It’s a better marital prospect than I could ever have hoped for,” he admitted. Considering Renlow’s hand-to-mouth existence, Konrad found he did not doubt it. “What about you?”

“With a face like mine, you have to ask?” Konrad snorted, and when Renlow made as though to speak, he waved his words away. “The old man has made me an offer I can’t refuse, and I’m not talking about his daughter.” He paused heavily. “Ankatel’s offered to buy me back everything I’ve ever lost; my home, my lands, my fortune.” Renlow nodded wordlessly. “So, whatever he’s offered you, I’d ask him to triple it before you take her to wife.” Even though Renlow was getting the beauty, Konrad felt honor-bound to tell the lad just how well he was doing out of the bargain.

Renlow just smiled. “I never had that much in the first place,” he admitted.

“You’d be a fool not to drive up your price. Who’s to say the king won’t bleed him like a leech from now till he drops dead,” Konrad warned him. “You may get nothing more out of the old man, even at his death.”

Renlow frowned. “The greatest treasure he has to bestow is surely his daughter’s hand.”

Konrad shook his head. After all, what could one say to such naivety? “I turn left here.”

“And I right,” Renlow said. “Farewell, Lord Kentigern. I’ll see thee anon.”

Konrad grunted, listening to the light footfalls moving away down the cobbled street. That way led to the narrowest and most squalid of the city’s streets. That boy would sleep tonight surrounded by the worst society Caer Lyoness had to offer, and yet he would sleep the deep sleep of the blameless. He could never decide if Renlow’s biggest character trait was saintliness or foolhardiness.

For a moment, Konrad spared a thought for Gerold Ankatel’s rosy-cheeked daughter. What kind of a husband would Renlow make her when he made so little provision for his own safety? How could someone so wholly unaware of life’s dangers protect another? Hopefully, the vivacious Mistress Ankatel had enough about her to look out for herself. Of her quieter sister, he did not think even once.